The
Renaissance
The
influence of Islam on Europe is responsible for
the rapid advancement of Europe in the Dark Ages.
Briffault
in the "The Making of Humanity"
book states: "It was
not science only which brought Europe back to
life. Other and manifold influences from the civilization
of Islam communicated its first glow to European
life.
The
debt of our science to that of the Arabs does
not consist in startling discoveries or revolutionary
theories; science owes a great deal more to Arab
culture, it owes its existence. The ancient world
was, as we saw, pre-scientific.
The
astronomy and mathematics of Greeks were a foreign
importation never thoroughly acclimatized in Greek
culture.
The
Greeks systematized, generalized and theorized,
but the patient ways of investigations, the accumulation
of positive knowledge, the minute methods of science,
detailed and prolonged observation and experimental
enquiry were altogether alien to the Greek temperament.
Only in Hellenistic Alexandria was any approach
to scientific work conducted in the ancient classical
world. That spirit and those methods were introduced
into the European world by the Arabs."
The Greeks were primarily theorizers and contemplators.
Plato
juxtaposed the macro-world to the micro-world
of the human body.
Aristotle
classified the world we live in into four groups:
fire, air, water and earth.
According
to Durant these "elaborations
of 'vague theories' was the extent of the Grecian
contribution."
Dr.
K Ajram in his book, "The Miracle of
Islamic Science" says, "Greek
interpretations failed to signify science because
they did not take actions to confirm their theories."
Hippocrates
is known as the father of modern medicine but
the majority of his medical theories were considered
erroneous.
These
achievements during their age were tremendous
but the main influence of the Renaissance didn't
come solely from the Greeks. In-depth observation
and experiments were introduced to Europe by the
Arabs (Muslims, Christians and Jews).
The
Greek's accomplishments in the field of reason,
philosophy and art were vast but the precise sciences--physics,
medicine, geology, geography, botany, and others
all came the rise of Islam."
In
Europe's "Dark Ages," the bond between
faith and reason was weak and there developed
a deep gulf between them. It was the Muslims who
at the peak of their "Golden Age" came
to the assistance and bridged this gap.
Many
questions raised by the Christian gospel were
awaiting rational interpretations. Did God create
the universe out of nothing or had that universe
existed eternally?
The
answers were found in the writings of the Arab
and Islamic literature. In the 8th through 13th
centuries in Spain under the Moors, some of Islam's
greatest thinkers, revolutionized Christian scholasticism.
Some
of those are al Farabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn
Hazm (994-1064) and Ibn Rushd. Ibn Rushd (1126-1196),
known by the Latin as Averroes.
Ibn
Rushd was a philosopher, an Aristotelian and an
author of some of the most influential medical
works. He provided Europe with integral commentaries
on understanding Aristotle, who was a significant
influence in Western scientific development.
Christian thinkers relied more on Ibn Rushd (Averroism)
than on Aristotle in researching in the world
of science.
Among
Ibn Rushd's followers were the Jewish thinkers
who called him "the soul and intelligence
of Aristotle.
In
fact, Jewish philosophers such as Ibn Maymun,
known as Maimonides (d. 1204), Yahuda ben Solomo
Cohen and Aveicebron who were the main glory of
intellect were students of Ibn Rushd and Arabic
philosophy.
It
is the Islamic philosophy that floats high above
all racism that gave freedom and protection to
minority and the Jews who translated the Arabic
works into Hebrew (12th to 14th century).
Rom
Landau stated in his book,
"The Arab Heritage of Western Civilization"
that "averroism became the chief doctrine
of the philosophical schools of Paris, Padua and
Bologna. It helped lay the foundation for the
Renaissance"
Another branch of Arab learning was medicine.
One of Europe's best medical schools in France
was founded by Arab doctors.
Around
1150 AD Europe learned the Arabic numerals, and
the science of algebra - a science invented by
the Arabs. The Italian, Leonardo Fibonacci, laid
the foundations of Western mathematics basing
his approach on that of the Arabs.
It
is clear that "what the
Arabs transmitted to the West went far beyond
the Greek legacy. For it was the Arabs from whom
Europe also learned that there can be no exclusiveness
in man's quest for truth, and that truth itself
knows no frontiers of race or religion. These
were in fact the principles that were to guide
the Renaissance and make Western progress and
Western civilization possible," Says
Rom Landau, author of "The Arab Heritage
of Western Civilization."
Print Page 
Email to a Friend
