How Islam Inspired Science

I'll begin with the story. And the story is of a person, that person and their accomplishment really summarizes and actually encapsulates all this for this topic is meant to represent, which is how Islam and the texts of Islam, the Quran, and the Sunnah and the necessity to practice Islam, how that inspired a scientific movement. And that was that movement was the dominant movement for many centuries in the world, until it was overtaken by the Europeans, okay. And also, importantly, that this movement was not a was not in confrontation with the religious tradition,

you will not find a smaller of math or a scientist being condemned by you know, their,

their religious counterparts, you will not find that, in fact, you will find the exact opposite, you will find people who are scholars of the Arabic language, scholars of some discipline in Islamic sciences, like fifth perhaps for hobbies, while also being mathematicians, but also being scientists, you find both of those going hand in hand. And what you will also find is a lot of the movements to study the world came because of the practice of STEM and was funded by the the Islamic government, the caliphate itself. So I'll start with the story of Al biruni. Okay, Al biruni.

What, let me go to him here. Yes.

Rudy was his name was Mohammed Ahmed Al biruni. And he

was born in 973, and died in about 1048. Okay, so he was in the middle part, or the, you would say he's in the first five centuries of Islamic tradition, right? So it's right in the middle of it. He

was a person who he was Persian by ethnicity, but obviously a Muslim. And he is one of the greatest scientists of our tradition. What happened is biruni was given the project by the Caliph, moon, the ambassador, Khalaf, Moon gave him the very important project of calculating the size of the Earth.

This was a state funded project, calculate for me the size of the Earth. And why is this man calculating the size of the Earth? He's calculating the size of the Earth because they want to know how big the earth is. They want to draw a map of the earth, but also as the Empire is expanding the ruler or the brother, the Muslims that are you know, on the outskirts of the Muslim Empire. Now want to know, where do we face too far Salah? Where's the Tiddler? Even today, Mashallah, we have all these, like, similar words, right? Oh, my app sings over here. No, my office thing is this way, right? We're always having these issues.

This was a problem for people back in the day to once you are in the outskirts of Africa, right? Or you are in the parts of Spain, or you are in the parts of, you know, close to India and Afghanistan? Where is the Qibla? Exactly? And how do we determine that, that was the problem the moon wanted to solve.

But before he could solve that, he wanted to know how big the earth was, and that directly affected the, the similar calculation, because what is the new the size of the Earth, the curvature of the earth, then they could estimate where Makkah was much better and more precisely.

Now, very interesting is this man was given this project and how he went about it is absolutely amazing. And the way he went about it is, you know, a, as you see, a lot of the times when our Muslim scientists would do things, that became the precursor or that became the first step to something that is today, part and parcel of science. Okay. So, today, what we do is if you are studying physics, correct anybody who study physics

Oh, one person

may be more efficient study physics.

Okay, so but you not as a major with taking a physics course how many people think in a physics course there? My question was worded wrong. All right. I was gonna say, wow, what is happening to the oma nobody's taking physics. Where are the engineers gonna be at

anyway

Now, the interesting thing is that when you study physics, what's a very important part of physics? How do you do? How do you find out anything? You need? The math correct? Yes or no? You need to know calculus, you have, you know, a lot of applied calculus is actually physics. Right? So this thing is something we take for granted, that math is to be applied. And that explains how if I, you know, drop something, what speed is dropping at how long it took for it to hit the floor, etc. So we just take that for granted, because it's common sense. But at the time of Alberoni, about 1080, this was not taken for granted. In fact, before this, excuse me, before this, people didn't think about this,

they would think math is a stunning study of shapes. And, you know, ideas that are theoretical, and the world is another thing. They had the two things separated very, very clearly. Okay. albinoni was one of the first people that brought the two together, brought the ideas of math, geometry, and algebra, and had an actual real world application to it solving a real world problem, resulting in numerous applications. Okay, what did they really do? And they Rooney used the,

you know, the hypotenuse, right? The hypotenuse theorem, basically, a very simplified version of it. And what he did is that he first calculated the distance, or he stood at a point, and he,

first he found a mountain, right, the mountain from which he could overlook a flat horizon, right? What's a flat horizon? Do you know what a flat horizon is? Like, I know what a flat bread is, right? What is the flat horizon?

Generally speaking,

say, Man, I'm not gonna like, embarrass you.

Oh, great. So where would you see that? Fantastic point, if you weren't, if I was, if I wanted to see that today. Where would I generally go? Like, what type of land would I go to?

flatland? Okay.

The answer is you would go to like a body of water. Okay, like a beach? Because when you go to a beach, What's there? It's a flat horizon, right? Because all you have is water. Right? Anybody been to the beach here? You guys get out of house, right? Besides University. Right now? It's like, No, we only come to university and then, you know, that's it. That's all our lives are.

So if you go to the beach, for example, you would find particularly if it's a nice beach, that's very, you have a flat horizon. So firstly, he found a flat horizon. Okay. Which is a beach, then he found on that beach, a mountain. Okay. So now, if he climbs the top of the mountain, he could see, you know, the horizon, as well, as you can see the horizon from the bottom of the mountain because the following the

bottom of the mountain, top of the mountain, what's going on here? Okay. So what's interesting is,

again,

what am I,

your professor doesn't draw anything. Okay.

But what if I, if I had imagined use your imagination, my words, inspire your minds, right? So think about this.

He, he measured the distance he met, he stood at the bottom of the mountain, and calculated the angle of,

you know, how the angle at which he has to look at to see the top of the mountain, okay. And he had a very specific instrument to do that. It's like a big protector for an astronaut. Then he went to a second point, did the same calculation there. From that he figured out using trigonometry, right? If you make it into a triangle, he figured out the height of the mountain. Okay, then he climbed the height of the mountain, the top of the mountain, and figured out what is the curvature of the earth? What angle is it right because if you look at from the top of the bottom of the mountain, you can subtract that from the top of the mountain and you get like a very small amount, right? If you go to

a top of the mountain today at a beach, we actually see the curvature of the earth a little bit. It's about like point five degrees or something like that. Okay. With all of that information, he has basically built a triangle, right the right angle, triangle and using that he found that

The diameter of the earth. And from that, he calculated the world,

the circumference of the Earth, the size of the Earth. And you know how close he got.

He got to within 200 miles, the correct calculation in 1200 months, but it has less than 1%. Because I think it's about 25,000 miles or something, that's the circumference of the earth. So he got to, you know, within 1% of area, that's amazing. If you think about it for somebody at that time. So alibi Rooney took these, these foundings and went to a moon, moon, pay them handsomely for that. Okay, this was for the sisters, the, you know, this example, demonstrates for you what Islamic science meant, inspired by the need to practice Islam, okay, we need to find where the tip lies, we need to find how far apart our lands are, okay. So we can calculate different things. Then, from

that emerges the need to do some calculations, and then taking existing knowledge, right geometry was something that was even discussed by the Greeks, the Indians had geometry to write the Muslims did not invent geometry. Okay. algebra, which is, as we'll talk we'll talk about a Horace me as well a little bit was something that existed in a lot of different places, as far as me combined them and brought them together in one place, and codified it and gave it structure and gave it a manual. You know, when you study algebra, you have this like this, your mind is already trained to follow step after step a process, right? That is what basically

made it into a step by step process, hence the name algorithm. That's where it comes from. Right is actual labor for this reason. latinised name is actually

let me read it to you. It's actually

algorithm service.

Right? He is, that's his latinized name. So he took all these concepts from different civilizations from the Greek civilization from Indian civilization, his own findings, his own research, and made it into a manual codified it, right, this is the movement of, of math, then you have marrying that to a practical application, not just keeping that confined to equations and numbers or shapes that are perfect, but actually taking that into the real world and applying it and solving a real world problem. That today is something we take for granted. That's something that nutrient, by the way, was most famous for right is Principia. Mathematica is actually famous for that, taking calculus,

and using it in real world applications, figuring out the orbits of the planets, etc, etc. So that, you know, that mountaintop if you want to call it that nutrient rich, that base of it was set by albedo at the base of that came from people and scientists like Alberoni, who took the existing math and married it to observations to solve the problem. And the problem they were solving was not just some abstract problem, the problem that we're solving was real world impacts, how is it that the figure out the Qibla when do we pray one of the timings in different places all of those problems, this was a very beautiful movement and a very important part of our legacy as Muslims that we have

to not only feel proud of, but also inspired to, to be inspired towards and try to

you know, try to revive as well, you know, the,

there was

the scientific method is obviously the standard practice today, but that scientific method where you have a theory, okay. And then you take that theory and you experiment, test those things, and that based on what you experiment, you modify your theory based on data, you modify your, your hypothesis, you then document more and more data, people replicate your experiments in other places, and they document their findings. This whole movement.

It has its roots, it starts in Islamic civilization.

Did you know for example, right did you know alkaline you know the word alkaline alkaline

All right. So chemical grid, as you know, it comes from the Arabic word, I'll call it, I'll call it is how you would have ashes, right? And they would manufacture alkaline by turning into ashes, certain types of plants.

Now, how did they arrive at this, this was actually not a practice, this is not how it was done, this was a brand new thing. This was, you know, a process that was refined, you know, they would have a hypothesis, we want to turn, we want to make soap to make soap, we need this ingredient.

To have this ingredient, we need these kind of properties in it. And then they would test different things. And then check it out, does it work, it doesn't work, let's go back. And, you know, check out our hypothesis. And that is how these people, the medieval Muslim scientists took, what today we take for granted the scientific method, right. And without codifying it, and writing it the way we know it, brought it together into place, and then use it for things that were good.

Making products that were beneficial, like soap, like perfumes, like glass, and tile, these were things that were highly sophisticated, if hadn't have you seen like if you go to like Egypt, if you go to, you know, like an old city, or a place, even Turkey, Turkey has lots of Museum, for example. But I just be from Egypt, because I went to Egypt, you go to Egypt, and you go to the old masters, cave, and you go to the museums, and you will find these artifacts, these tiles that are over 1000 years old.

And they have these beautiful prints and these sophisticated dyers, although those were applications of much process, much, you know, research that went before

the same thing that happens today, right, you have a scientist who's doing something because he wants to then turn it into a product and sell right or turn, turn it into a drug and help people get some cure. The same thing happened at that time, too. And that led to amazing products that were created by the Muslim Muslims. And some of those were actually unknown in the world. The soap, for example, that the Muslims were manufactured, it didn't make its way into Europe until the 13th century. So panela, right. That's why one of the things was the the Crusaders are one of the Muslim generals who was pushing back the Crusaders, and they went all the way to France. And he's like, the

people stink.

Because they don't take bats with soap, they were not used to the idea that this whole people don't use soap. Whereas Muslims were very particular about the cleanliness, because the Prophet tells us what it tells us about every single week at least bring it we have to do whistle, if we've had intimate relations we make will do all the time. Yes, so all of these and the profits of the whole shuttle event half of our religion is purity and purification. Right. So all those sentiments drove the need for cleaning products. And then the cleaning products came out of experiments and hypotheses that were then taken, tested, turned into products and then produced production brought

those into reality that is so popular, the amazing, amazing legacy of the medieval Muslim scientists, who did a lot and had these, these these amazing achievements. And like I said, the the the first steps of the modern scientific method, the first steps of what today we take for granted, are filed in the way it is today in the world of medieval Muslim scientists. Now what's interesting is version sisters that you look at.

You look at the Muslim world and say 750 ad, right 750 ad or 800 ad when the Abbasid Caliphate is ruling, okay and the Muslim Empire is at is basically added one of the strongest positions that could be

you would find cities such as bustling,

bustling with scholarship, it is fashionable to be a scholar, imbecile, you will find places like that where people from all over the world would come right and you will have this place called down

the house of wisdom

Where people from all over the world, from Europe, from Asia, from everywhere, people will come to that place. To what? To learn more, to see what is the latest research to read the latest books that will be published. That was the place that was placed upon a lot of love for us, unfortunately, ruins but 880 980, but that was the city, it was the New York. Right? It was the place to be. So Subhanallah

you look at these cities, and if you were to travel back in time, or let your imagination travel back in time, you would find that in these cities, you would have great polymaths, you know, or a polymath is upon him as somebody who's great at a number of things, a number of subjects, okay. polymaths such as a latonya. They have a Bonnie was a person who studied Islam, right. He lived, by the way in Raqqa, Syria, and he's, you know, he studied Islam, he, you know, knew the sciences. But then also he was one of the greatest astronomers of all time.

And botany, Albert Tawny was the person who

his observations of the stars, and the measurements that he made of the sky of this location of the stars, is so legendary, that if today, you go and read Copernicus, right? Copernicus was the first one who published the work that said, the sun is at the center of the, of the solar system, and every other planet goes around the sun, okay? Copernicus was the first one who published that, if you go look up the, the manuscript of Copernicus, you will find in the Madison, Madison co conspirators area, big data tables, those EBITDA tables were the foundation from which Copernicus made his conclusions. And those Arabic data tables were populated by Alberto. He spent his life

making those tables, making those observations, and he had his theories. Now, his theories were a little off, sometimes, sometimes they were right. But his work laid the foundation for something like someone like Copernicus to come later on, and make the conclusion and do his work. To make the breakthrough of the way the solar system is, this is Subhanallah,

you would find if you were to travel, the Muslim world, at that time, you will find people like obatala, everywhere, people who were, you know, studying Islam, people who were studying the religion, and also studying

the world, and how, you know, that not just for the sake of studying, but this was something that they did to fulfill a religious obligation to solve a problem to help become better Muslims. That was, by and large, the driving force. And what's interesting is, for example, if you look at

people like Alberta, you look at people,

like a forest, right? People such as, you know, sarabi, right? As Robbie was a great linguist, and also a great scholar of philosophy, okay. All of these people, they

were dedicated, they were focused on their studies, in their focus, that was the fashionable thing to do.

This is the legacy that you know, we inherit, that's where we came from. That's who we are. We are literally, you know, in the, the descendants of people who would be studying and observing the world trying to solve problems. And it's not a stretch to say that, because the dominant time of the Muslim Empire, that is what it was spent at the Basset Caliphate, for example, funded cities to be built just for this purpose. You know, there's a great facility that Razi, right, Rosie, the city was actually constructed, constructed in English is called re right the city now is like just an ancient city. Its ruins. Right? It's outside of Iran today. But that city was constructed to be

essential of knowledge. It's like a University's University City today, right? You have a university that's built in the city at that university expands and expands and the city expands with it. That was the idea back in the day to even though they didn't

Have the title of a university. But that was the concept. That's where the city came from. And then from that Cambridge scholars like Dr. generosity, the great professors of great we lived in that city, also key scholars, such as

a loser Korea,

his biography here for you.

So it is a courier, Razi great. And

even Zakaria, Raji, for example, he was a chemist, this chemistry was driven largely by productions, people wanted nicer titles in the muscles, okay. The merchants wanted nicer fragrances to sell to people, people wanted better soaps, people wanted better products. So, a Razzie who was a great

a great chemist, one of his contributions was that he organized the different materials, the different materials that are used into categories, okay. So, in the periodic table of elements, right, it is organized largely by, by properties, right? So you have the inert gases in one place, like in one column, and then the volatile ones in one column to chemistry last time in grade 12. So that might be it. All? Right, we will also forgive me for that, okay.

But that's obviously like the pinnacle of classification, right? Because this is very, very well classified.

He did something that's obviously not as sophisticated, but it was the first step towards okay. So he would say okay, these are flammable materials, okay, this is the category of all flammable, flammable materials, these are metals that are, you know, melt and like they are malleable. These, this is borax. This is you know, that this is that he would classify materials and this and he would have these little categories that had multiple, you know, properties and multiple elements in a first step in classification. And it was very important because that allowed the Muslims For example, to make coins, you know, currency, one of the first

one of the first civilizations to adapt currency, as, you know, like a universal currency was the Muslims in the Vasa time, right, in the acid Caliphate, because they realized that trading in commodities, like wheat, trading a commodities like gold, and dates, is actually a barrier to more trade, you can make more money if you have something easier to give, right? It's hard for me to give you a kilo of, you know, dates, it's much easier for me to give you a coin. Right. So the sleeve It was a word which was that, that that made the movement to make currency coins. But it was based on it was driven by a Korea of Russia. And it wasn't as simple as making gold coins buy them because

gold is too soft. But if you make a coin, the way you find gold today, the way we have gold today is a very nice process. But if you were to try to make good points will be too soft, and not good enough. So the the ratio of how much gold to other materials that should be in that particular coin was determined by it was a courier

and it was to be strong enough to be a coin a malleable enough so that we can make it into that shape and have some inscription on it.

It's an amazing achievement, considering that it happened the first time on such a scale in human history. Right? Your the Romans had coins, everybody had coins, but at that skill that nobody had at that skill with that much precision. Nobody had the damage precision. So these were all real problems. You look at math, right math is a big thing. The Muslims were obsessed with it. Like what

I bought obsessed with it.

So

the idea was that it was something it's the basic the first beat to get obsessed with that. You know why? why it happened?

It happened because the Muslims started to calculate inheritance based on the idea of inheritance in the Quran in surah. Nisa

describes fractions right?

In Canada, a tiny following with furutani Matata to get two thirds. But what happens to the one third? Well, that one third is split in this manner, right? And the two third goes to now one person and a category of people. So how much does each individual person get? Right? There's five people getting two thirds, there's three people getting, you know, one, eight, and there's five people getting the rest. That's not it's a lot of the, the Islamic inheritance. That's how the problem is. Okay, now calculate how much does each person get?

What does that require a few to do?

It requires you to be very good at algebra, right? I remember when I was taking

inheritance in university of Medina University menu, I did the course with my teacher. And then it was really fun, because I was like, This is going back to my, like, algebra roots. I'm doing fractions here, right? And then I would just, you know, and I'm doing this, and then he Iraq, because he would tell me Give me a problem. He's like, a family has, you know, the man passed away, he has one wife, he has three daughters and two sons, who gets what, okay? And then you have to, like, do the fractions and say, okay, the wife gets this much, the husband or the being the son gets this much, the second son get this much, etc, etc, right? I'm doing my fractions, like the way I

learned, right? So he's like, you know, that's a good way of doing it. But you know, the scholars of Islam had a different method, a faster way of doing fractions to solve this problem.

And I didn't know that system, right, because we learn fractions in different ways, right, but they had a completely different way. Same thing, fractions, but a different way of achieving the results in a faster manner. It's a beautiful thing. Again, the idea that you have a religious instruction that spawns you know, that sparks rather, a whole branch of studies. That is what you find in Islam.

You have the calculation of zakat. Great, you want to calculate how much the cat is to be calculated. And not just like individually miser cat is very simple, very simple. But on a state level, right? The key lifts wants to know how much you know, taxes should be okay. And particularly, how much should the owners of farms? How much should they be taxed? Because for them, there's a different calculation. So they would figure that out, by measuring, for example, the Nile, they literally made what today you will call the manometer, right? To measure the level of the Nile to the inch, so halala, and they will record it every single day. Keep track of it historically. And

based on historical records, the Khalifa would say this year, it looks like you know, it's going to be a low tide. So the tax that we will levy on the farmers and the people of Cairo would be this much.

The need, you know, is religious, and then from that religious need, sparks out this whole study.

This is what you find again and again in the Muslim civilization. I'll

conclude with one beautiful passage from Allah forgives me right. And what is me, Rahim Allah is.

Allah Juarez me he is his full name is.

Horace means Abu Abdullah Mohammed bin Musa al for me in Latin, Albert Camus. He is a magician, an astronomer, a geographer, right? And also a student of Islamic sciences. And one of the greatest scientists of the medieval world. He is credited to be the father of algebra, right? We're like, wait, we don't want that for us. That's a tough distinction to be proud of. You should be proud of it. And he wrote the book, double jump. Right. I will jump. Get it. I'll jump. Does that sound like algebra? Right? algebra is opening the demo. The introduction to the book. He says that the fondness for science by which God has distinguished that the man moon, the Commander of the Faithful who's

this guy,

right, I mean, right.

He says has encouraged me to complete

A short work on calculating by the rules of completion and reduction.

In jumper, one, tardy, and this is where the name of the book comes from. That's where the name of a subject comes from. It's a very beautiful way that he introduces

his his, his work, and

whose book I've been referencing, I'll tell you what he says. He says that, and here lies part of the real value of his work for what

he did was to bring together obscure mathematical rules, known only to the few, and turn them into an instruction manual for solving mathematical problems that crop up in a wide range of everyday situations. So this is, you know, a very nice way of summarizing.

It's something that was funded by the kill the kill a family make any money from this guy writing this book of algebra, but the key lives wants the knowledge to be propagated. And then this person writes this book, not just because it's a fun thing to do, but this is going to solve actual problems down the road, like a couple 100 years later, or 100 years later, the the size of the Earth is calculated based on the methods of ministry by another Muslim scientists, right, so this is a very beautiful way. In the Quran, Allah says in Surah, Baqarah was adamant.

He taught Adam all the names, okay. And what's interesting is, the scholars comment on this. And then they say that

the idea that Alaska would teach others all the names is that this is all type of knowledge, all type of knowledge that you can benefit and put into use, not just something that benefits your spirituality, not just something that benefits your like day to day religion, like salah and fasting, but it's all types of it. And other was taught that, and that is what made Adam better than the angels tomorrow who

brought those objects in front of the angels, the angels did not know them. But Adam and Islam knew them. And that is what gave him the upper hand. And that's why they were told, was put another melodica tissue to the other facility.

An angel told to make sense to Adam, so are, you know, the what makes us human? What makes us even Adam literally, like the sons and daughters of Adam, literally is that our ability to learn and learn everything.

And this is something that in Islam was never a distinction. But you have clowns today, like Dawkins, for example, saying that, oh, I have a book on science and this Muslim parent stopping his him from reading this book on science, see how religion is backwards. Like, say, cloud, there has been no Muslim who has ever had a problem in science.

There's no Muslim in like the history of like our, our scholarship, our scientists, who was at odds with the al Qaeda of Islam, or the practice of Islam, while being scientists, there is not exist any person like that.

And all of you can kind of relate to this, you know, you're studying science, have never felt like threatened by like, Oh, this is gonna threaten my Islam or something. I'm learning algebra, right? Or I'm learning logic, that kind of that dichotomy, that false paradox that's created, particularly by the modern day, atheists never existed in the past, and has never been part of our tradition. Because for us, the art of the Quran tells us why number are the most popular of all the names, all types of knowledge, right? We are learning everything. That's what makes us human. That's what makes us amazing. And our history speaks of that, that the achievements of our civilization, were born out

of what out of the need to become better Muslims. That's what caused all of this logic, all the science and all the achievements and all the advancements to come. That's what started. So there was never any conflict about that. That's a very beautiful part of our of our tradition. I hope that you got a glimpse of it and fell out today. Right? And there's lots of names, of course to remember or maybe not even remember. But what I want you to take away is that if you are studying something that seems like what's the point of this, right? You shouldn't feel that way.

If you're studying something, you study it, you do well in it, the loss of the profit. Some said that in the law that in the law, Santa Konishi law has been that you do everything really well. Every single

Even if you are slaughtering an animal by the Leviathan for us, you know, even something as mundane as that, you should do it as well. And as much excellence as you can.

You see, so every single thing of knowledge and of learning is valuable. And as Muslims, we should not try to be on the average that the bell curve kind of like resistance.

Right? They'll be like, after the exam, when you fail, you have the bell curve, right? No one should be like, hamdulillah. That was awesome. I did great. Right? That's how it should be. And I hope that you get a glimpse of that from our tradition. And if you want to learn more about it, hey, there's a lot more to learn about it. Far more than I can, you know, summarize in about half hour. But this is a very good book that I recommend is called the house of wisdom.

The House of wisdom, literally named after Darryl Hickman, that existed in Baghdad. And this is by Professor Jim LED. Timothy Leary is not a Muslim if you're thinking by his name, but he is Arab. Like he's part of his heritage. And he's a professor of physics in Surrey, and whatnot, a really interesting guy, by the way, and he not only has this fantastic book, but also he has a three part documentary series

of Islam and science, if you search that assignment science, you will find either you will find it is very, very good series. And it talks about the unique aspects of the achievements of Muslim scholars. They weren't just people who took the stuff from the Greeks and gave it over to the Europeans. They were original contributions, they changed the way science had looked how science and math are looked at, they change the way disciplines came together. They had their own ideas, they added their own theories, they brought in the foundations the first steps to many things later on the Europeans bastard. Right. And he makes us very, very compelling arguments also talks about why

the downfall key because this is the question, how did we go from being like number one, to like, at the very bottom of the of the ladder? He also talks about that, that's a very interesting book of the series. Also very interesting. I encourage that you go through it, these are things that we should know because of our history. We should know this stuff, right? We shouldn't just be watching like, you know, season segment of something.

Right? She wasn't the good sometimes to on, on YouTube, inshallah. So that will conclude

with any questions or comments, we can take