Islam’s Contribution to Science – Responding to Pakistani Atheist

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Bismillah R Rahman Rahim. I'm a non Rashid brothers and sisters I am in quarantine self isolating, and I will continue with my responses to some of the misconceptions spread by people around the world. You just watched a clip from Pakistan, whereby a pseudo intellectual called hood boy made a statement, what have the Muslims done in the last 1000 years? This is a very radical extreme statement why you will see why in due course, who boy is a liberal secularist, who is an activist in Pakistan promoting secularism, liberalism and atheism. I don't know whether he is an atheist or not, but he seems to be promoting atheism. Right? And how does he do that by attacking Islam and the

Muslim civilization, deliberately spreading misconceptions, or he is completely ignorant. He's a physicist, he has a degree in physics. And he keeps talking about history. For some reason, history is my field. I'm a student of history. So I will be talking about the history of Muslim civilization to show who would boy and his followers as to what Muslims have done in the last 1000 years. The reason why he keeps mentioning the year 1000, or the number 1000, is because of Allah ghazali. He believes that razali simply kill science by criticizing Aristotelian logic in his books. So therefore ghazali is the murderer of science, this is what he believes. And because because it

killed science, all the Muslims who came after us It also killed science following on from what ghazali had taught, but this is a gross misconception. This is a gross misrepresentation of the history of ghazali as well as the most digitalization if everyone was listened to ghazali. Then what was the Ottomans doing? dealing with signs? What were the Mughals doing? Because in the last 1000 years to talk about few major civilizations, if we put aside all the Mongol invasions, all the setbacks, Muslims faced, in the form of destructions of the libraries, destruction of the city's entire civilizations are just decimated. For example, the Mongols invaded the Muslim lands in the

early 13th century 1219 to be precise, when Ganga Ganga Khan came out with his army attacking Muslim lands, and he decimated the entire civilization of Islam from Central Asia all the way up to Syria, him and his children. They did that. For almost 100 years, the Mongols went on destroying almost 10 million Muslims are killed, the library of the largest library on the planet was completely destroyed in 1258. And that happened within the last 1000 years right. I think you would think so 1258 what we have lost in that library only Allah knows we do not have any idea as to how many books and what was the nature of those books. There are many books on science, we know that because they

have been mentioned by later work that these books did exist, but now they cannot be found many books on philosophy, science, poetry, astronomy, okay. And not to me. Medicine, for example. Okay. There were books on

pharmacology. There were books on all sorts of all sorts of subjects with theology are these Koran tafsir biblical literature, other literature for that matter. Millions of books were dumped into the river Euphrates by the Mongols. Likewise, in 1492, when the Catholic Monarchs took Granada almost two centuries later,

what happened? Millions of books are burned by the Catholics is a bill.

Isabella and Ferdinand both of them, they joined hands through marriage, and they are attacked the only remaining stronghold of the Muslims in Granada and they burnt down the library. We cannot imagine what was lost there. All the contribution Muslim scientists, thinkers, philosophers, poets had made for all that time was completely lost, unfortunately. Now, where does this claim come from people like Hoodbhoy and other extremists, whoever they may be wherever they are. They make these claims that what other Muslims done in the last 1000 years. This claim is peddled again and again and again repeatedly on mainstream channels, through these people through these mouthpieces, and we

don't clearly know who the workforce but they are very either they're very ignorant or very malicious, because there are books written on that very topic as to how Muslims contributed for the last 1000 years. Some of them actually claimed that Muslims whatever the date on science was simply copying from the Greeks and others, right, Muslims did not write any original works. This lie is an orientalist lie which has been peddled to this day. A lot of these islamophobes and people who hate Islam and Muslims.

What they do is they take orientalist works from the 19th century, from German, from Dutch, from French and from English historians who were writing hostile works criticizing Islam because they're because most of them are Christian, unfortunately, and they didn't like

Islam due to colonialism as well because India was colonized much of the Muslim world was colonized at the time, a lot of the orientalist were writing hostile works to belittle the Muslim civilization and the contribution of the Muslim civilization. Right. And they wanted to inflate the image of the colonial colonial colonial powers, they want you to show the colonial powers as the civilizing of mankind in order to do that, they had to belittle what happened before right. So they painted the tarnished the Muslim civilization in the history of Islam, not only in India, but elsewhere, okay. And then later on some orientalist realized Hold on, hold on hold on, this is going too far. And

they started to write books about Muslim civilization praising it hold on, it is not like that. There is a lot of Muslims did and people like john William Draper, who wrote history of the intellectual development of Europe. In that book, he pays lavish tributes to the Muslim civilization, like George sarton in the early 20th century, has written or had written

a book titled an introduction to the history of science and this introduction 70% of his full of Muslim contribution throughout the last 1000 years, okay. So here in this book, a very, very important book, which is titled The hidden debt to Muslim to the Muslim civilization, okay. It is authored by Al Jazeera ESE Al Jazeera at hidden debt to Muslim civilization. This is an encyclopedia of information. It contains information and detailed on how Muslims studied the Greek science and other trends, and how they developed it. And then came up with the original works, criticizing correcting wherever necessary. So it has chapters on that topic. And people like good boy and his

followers, they keep peddling this idea that the Muslims are simply copies. They were plagiarizes, who simply copied the Greek signs into the Arabic language and then the Europeans came on later on. And then they translated these Arabic words into Latin. And lo and behold, the European Renaissance. Now, that is not the case. In fact, I will invite you to read another book, titled The origins of the the Arabic origins of the European Renaissance by George Saliba, okay published by the Columbia University Press, the Arabic origins of the European Renaissance. In that book, he argues that the science of astronomy

came entirely from the Muslim world, in its original form, in its original form, not simply a copied form of the Greek science. So this book, is an encyclopedia of information, it will blow your minds around this topic as to the Muslim contribution to

science and other things. Not that the Muslims

claim superiority over other civilization. No, it's not like that. In fact, science was a global pursuit. It was a human pursuit. Romans did it. Greeks did it. Indians are doing it. The Persians did it. The Babylonians are doing it in all in their own way, the Egyptian civilization, 3000 years history of it, okay, and then the Muslims came along, and they took all these works, and they put them together, and they translated them into the Arabic language and produced their original researchers and then put them forward to the rest of the rest of humanity for 1000 years, Muslims dominated this field. So people like good boy, they exaggerate. And they simply take ideas from 19th

century orientalist, which have been debunked, I strongly recommend another book by Edward Saeed

whereby he discusses the orientalist attitude towards the Muslim world or the Arabs in general. And that book is titled Orientalism. Okay. Now, coming to the last 1000 years, I mean, I don't have time to address all Muslim contributions and Muslim works and Muslim History of Science in the last 1000 years. I can quickly talk about the Ottomans and the Mughals, who were two

major powerful dynasties in the last 1000 years, Ottomans came to power, let's say 1299 to 1924, that's almost 600 years, Ottomans dominated not only the Mediterranean, they're dominated much of Europe, as well as the Middle East and North Africa. And they produced immense works on science. In fact, there are books you can find online. If you were to Google, Mr. hautboy. And your followers if you were to Google signs and Ottomans you will get so much literature that you'll be blown away. Another book I would like to mention very quickly is

is titled intellectual curiosity and the scientific revolution, right? It is by Toby huff published by Cambridge University Press, he has a chapter okay on the moguls how moguls studied science and developed it. That chapter is titled The discovery machine goes to the Muslim world. Here it is. And the first heading here is the Mughal India. Mughal India he starts talking about how science was studied during the reigns of Akbar, Jang Yi, Sha, Johanna and orange zip, right. If you picked up any books like that, Mr. Hoodbhoy and your followers, you would know that Muslims have done a lot in the last 1000 years and immense contribution made to science and the development of the world. What

changed all that is another question which I will quickly address in due course. Another book I recommend from you. Renaissance is by Jacques goodey, published by Cambridge University Press renaissances here is talking about that the current study of history is entirely Eurocentric, just like it was in the 19th century the orientalist were Eurocentric thinkers, they were simply thinking, or they were simply conveying the idea that civilization only exists in Europe, or the white man only is civilized, not the rest of the world. Hey, jack Goody argues that Renaissance is we're taking place elsewhere to for example, China and India. During the Mughal period there was a

renewed Renaissance there so they renamed some of them not, not not it was not only a European pursuit, rather, it was happening elsewhere. It's just we don't study it, we don't see it with the same lens. So, basically, we need to go back and study some of these words and see what Muslims have done very quickly. I want to mention passingly another figure who is very easily forgotten keepers Hold on. Okay, if you wanted to study what Muslims have done in science and technology in the last 1000 years, I can give you I have already given some examples, I can give you many more examples, but because the video needs to be short, I'll give you one precise example of people's hooked on an

immense figure in Indian history. A man who was struggling against the colonial rule of East India Company and he has reached the heights of technological advancement, okay, if you study the history of dubizzle towns technology, his production of weapons for example, he out did the French and the British and weapons production in cylinder petrol right. His

innovations in silk farming, okay, or the finding of silk silkworms, for example, producing cloth agriculture, right? And other pursuits when it comes to science. You will be shocked to read his history. He was a pioneer of rocket rocket Okay, he used military technology which shocked his opponents. And this is happening in between 717 80 to 1799. Right 18th century so what went wrong? What happened very quickly, colonialism, Mongol invasions, crusades, all of this put Muslims behind

decades, Muslims are making very good progress. Okay. In fact, the Mongols when they came into Muslim lands, they were shocked looking at the technology and the advancement, the Muslims had achieved. Likewise, the Catholic Monarchs when they came to power in Granada, when they looked at the library, they were completely blown away when they saw the Alhambra palace which is geometrical, okay, that happened within the last 1000 years, they were completely blown away by the technology and and the imagination of the Muslim artists, okay. So, all of this, you cannot forget it. In particular study people's autonomous technology, you will be blown away completely you will be blown

away, colonialism and these invasions and all these disturbances, they put them, in fact, colonial power systematically worked in putting, putting Muslims behind in technology. William Dalrymple talks about that in his book, and Aki, his new book innocua he talks about how East India Company worked hard in stopping the progress of the Muslims power in particular in India, so that they cannot rise as opponents against the colonial ambitions of the East India Company in India. All of these things need to be consideration and only a historian can do that not a physicist. So, Mr. Hoodbhoy yourself. I advise you to come back to sanity to come back to objectivity to be an

objective academic and not be a hater, an extremist, hating Islam so much that you start to distort history. So this is an advice. This is a humble piece of advice to you, boy and your followers to study Islam objectively, do not hate us so much that you start to distort history and start to remove it from your minds. And these are some of the books I have recommended. Thank you so much for listening with Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah and more will be coming soon after