Why Muslims are backward? Learning from History

Lets learn about some Facts & Reports:

− Nearly 40% of Muslim world’s population unable to read or write: IINA Report

− There are 1.6 billion Muslims with 57 member-countries of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), and all of them put together have only around 500 universities; one university for every three million Muslims.

− In many Muslim countries, the percentage of illiteracy is 20 % to 30%. Scientific research and education get a small portion of the yearly budgets in many Muslim Countries.

−      In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an 'Academic Ranking of World Universities', and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in the top-500.

−      However, this was not the case during the long history of the Muslim world. Muslim countries were once the most advanced countries on earth. The Islamic civilization was the greatest civilization in the whole world in the Middle Ages and is considered one of the main bases of the modern civilization.

DECLINE OF MUSLIM UMMAH

 It is also very obvious that the decline of the Ummah is a direct result of our failure to fulfill our Islamic duty to pursue science, knowledge and progress. All the calamities that our Ummah suffers from illegal invasions, occupation, poverty, terrorism, civil war could have been prevented if we, as Muslims, did everything we possibly could to improve our output as an Ummah in scientific research, entrepreneurship, industry and intellect.

Not only is it our duty to pursue science and knowledge as Muslims, it is     also our duty to excel in everything we do as the Islamic core value of Ihsan (excellence) dictates.

FIRST VERSE OF QURAN:

Allah Al-‘Aleem (All-Knowing) chose an unlettered man who grew up as an orphan, to receive the first revelation: “اقْرَأْ”, “Read!” (96:1). The first command by Allah to the last messenger of God, to the last era of humanity was “Read!” Talk about the start of a ‘knowledge-based’ era. This theme of “اقْرَأْ” was the foundation to the birth of our civilization, from the ascent of Islam to the rise of innovation in Islamic Andalus (Europe). Our rise and fall as a nation was correlated to our commitment to “اقْرَأْ.”

 

Just as when European aristocrats sent the best of their society to learn from Muslim academics in Andalus at a time when Europe was plunged in dark ages; when Muslim cities were geographies of learning and the pursuit of curiosity; the world sought knowledge through the vessel of Islamic scholarship, now, it’s our responsibility to continue this tradition of learning and curiosity as a continuation of the theme of  “اقْرَأْ.”

ISLAM URGES TO SEEK KNOWLEDGE:

“Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave.”

Seek knowledge "even though it be in China."

“Whoever follows a path in the pursuit of knowledge, Allaah will make a path to Paradise easy for him.” (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, Kitaab al-‘Ilm, 10) '

Knowledge and fear of Allah may be attained by knowing His signs and creation. The knowledgeable are those who know that, hence Allah praises them by saying (interpretation of the meaning): 

“It is only those who have knowledge among His slaves that fear Allah”

The acquisition of knowledge is compulsory for every Muslim, whether male or female."

Allah praises the scholars, as He says (interpretation of the meaning): “Say: ‘Are those who know equal to those who know not?’ It is only men of understanding who will remember (i.e. get a lesson from Allah’s Signs and Verses)”-[al-Zumar 39:9] 

When someone tries to learn while it is hard for him/her, they will surely receive the double reward from Allah Almighty because they put a lot effort into seeking it. 

The Prophet (PBUH) said: “Whoever reads the Quran and stutters while reading, due to its difficulty, will receive a double reward.” (Sahih Muslim)

WORLDS FIRST UNIVERSITY:

Guinness Book of World Records recognizes the University of Al Karaouine in Fez, Morocco as the oldest degree-granting university in the world with its founding in 859 CE. Al-Azhar University, founded in Cairo, Egypt in the 975 CE, offered a variety of academic degrees, including postgraduate degrees, and is often considered the first full-fledged university

By the 10th century, Cordoba had 70 libraries, the largest of which had 600,000 books, while as many as 60,000 treatises, poems, polemics and compilations were published each year in Al-Andalus (Dato, 2005). The library of Cairo had more than 100,000 books, while they library of Tripoli is said to have had as many as three million books, before it was burnt during the crusades (Draper, 1878). The number of important and original Arabic works on science that have survived is much larger than the combined total of Greek and Latin works on science (Swerdlow, 1993).

Here, teachers and students worked together to translate Greek, Persian, Syriac and Indian manuscripts. They studied the works of Aristotle, Plato, Hippocrates, Euclid, Ptolemy, Pythagoras, Brahmagupta and many others. Then, they began building on and testing the knowledge of the greatest ancient scholars, resulting in the development of the scientific method of observation and experimentation.

There were a couple of technical reasons why House of Wisdom was in Baghdad. For starter, it was the then capital of Islamic empire and secondly it was in Baghdad where, during this era, world's very first recorded paper mill was established which made it possible for widespread literacy in that region and by 10th century paper replaced the usage of parchment and papyrus in the Arab world. And that era was glory times for Baghdad, which was known as the world's richest city housing over a million people, not by the might of oil by the way, and a true centre for the intellectual development of that time, a great accomplishment that many modern day Arab states failed to achieve even at this day 

By AD 900 there were hundreds of shops employing scribes and binders for books in Baghdad and public libraries began to become established. From here paper-making spread west to Morocco and then to Spain and from there to Europe in the 13th century.

Some Notable Personalities from History:

IBN SINA-PRINCE OF PHYSICIAN

Ibn Sina, known by many as the “Prince of Physicians” also known by his Latinized name in Europe as Avicenna, was a Persian philosopher and polymath, born in 980 CE..
His works, the Canon of Medicine and the Book of Healing are considered his greatest achievements.

Ibn Sina wrote extensively on philosophy of ethics and metaphysics, medicine, astronomy, alchemy, geology psychology and Islamic theology. He was also a logician, mathematician and a poet.
At an early age, his family moved to Bukhara where he studied Hanafi jurisprudence with Isma‘il Zahid and at about 13 years of age he studied medicine with a number of teachers. At the age of 16, he established himself as a respected physician. Besides studying medicine, he also dedicated much of his time to the study of physics, natural sciences and metaphysics.

He wrote prolifically on a wide range of subjects. He is thought to have created over 400 works on various topics but only about half have made it though time. Forty of his medical texts have survived, including one of the most significant books in the history of medicine called "Canon of Medicine". It was printed in Europe at least 60 times between 1516 and 1574. The Canon remained a major authority for medical students in both the Islamic world and Europe until well into the 1700s
The Canon contained all sorts of information about diet, discussions on various diseases such as rabies, breast cancer, meningitis, etc. The work also contained a description of 760 medicinal plants and various drugs that can be obtained from them

Al-Khwārizmī-FATHER OF ALGEBRA:

Al-Khwarizmi’s algebra is regarded as the foundation and cornerstone of the sciences. To al-Khwarizmi we owe the world “algebra,” from the title of his greatest mathematical work, Hisab al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabala. The book, which was twice translated into Latin, by both Gerard of Cremona and Robert of Chester in the 12th century, works out several hundred simple quadratic equations by analysis as well as by geometrical example. It also has substantial sections on methods of dividing up inheritances and surveying plots of land. It is largely concerned with methods for solving practical computational problems rather than algebra as the term is now understood.

Al-Khwarizmi confined his discussion to equations of the first and second degrees. He also wrote an important work on astronomy, covering calendars, calculating true positions of the sun, moon and planets, tables of sines and tangents, spherical astronomy, astrological tables, parallax and eclipse calculations, and visibility of the moon. His astronomical work, Zij al-sindhind, is also based on the work of other scientists. As with the Algebra, its chief interest is as the earliest Arab work still in existence in Arabic.

His most recognized work as mentioned above and one that is so named after him is the mathematical concept Algorithm. The modern meaning of the word relates to a specific practice for solving a particular problem. Today, people use algorithms to do addition and long division, principles that are found in Al-Khwarizmi’s text written about 1200 years ago. Al-Khwarizmi was also responsible for introducing the Arabic numbers to the West, setting in motion a process that led to the use of the nine Arabic numerals, together with the zero sign.

Abbas ibn Firnas:

The Wright brothers may have invented the first motorised aircraft, but the 9th century engineer Abbas Ibn Firnas is considered to be the first human to fly with the help of a pair of wings built by silk, wood and real feathers. 

According to historians, when Ibn Firnas was between the age of 65 and 70, he jumped off a cliff from Yemen's Jabal Al-Arus mountain and glided in the air, staying in flight for at least '10 minutes’. The short flight left him both injured and disappointed. He realised that because he had neglected the mechanics of landing, he couldn't balance his flight in the air and ended up crash landing.  

Ibn Firnas lived for another 12 years. He realised that slow landing is achieved via the collaborative work between tail and wings, a conclusion he reached after decades of studies of bird flight and their landings. It is Firnas who could successfully claim to be behind the theory that went on to create the ornithopter, an aircraft that mimics birds and flies by flapping its wings. His flying machine diagrams went on to become the cornerstones of aviation engineering in the late 20th century.  but it led to a firm conviction that the method could work.

Firnas flew upward for a few moments, before plummiting to the ground and partially breaking his back. His designs would have undoubtedly been an inspiration for the famous Italian artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci some six hundred years later

Al-Zahrawi: Father of Modern Surgery

Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi (936-1013 CE), also known in the West as Albucasis, was an Andalusian physician. He is considered as the greatest surgeon in the Islamic medical tradition. His comprehensive medical texts, combining Middle Eastern and Greco-Roman classical teachings, shaped European surgical procedures up until the Renaissance. His greatest contribution to history is Kitab al-Tasrif, a thirty-volume collection of medical practice, of which large portions were translated into Latin and in other European languages.

Al-Tasrif: An Encyclopedia of Medicine

The Al-Tasrif may be considered as a very important piece of work in the history of medicine, as it became the standard reference in Islamic and European medicine for over half a century. This encyclopedia of medicine was completed around the year 1000 AD, and is divided into 30 volumes. Each volume deals with a different aspect of medicine, and descriptions of over 300 diseases as well as their treatments can be found within them.