FIMA Year Book 2009 - Federation of Islamic Medical Associations

Muslim Contributionsand inventions. Very unlike theEuropean Renaissance researchers whopursued knowledge with vigor to provethat God (aka the Church) was wrong,the Muslim scientists and researchersdrew closer to the Creator the more theydiscovered. Indeed Allah made it clearin the Qur’an that those believers withknowledge are not the same as thosewithout it (20) . Establishing harmonybetween the human reasoning and theverses of the Glorious Qur’an was oneof the mostimportant catalysts for theinsatiable thirst for knowledge at thattime. Muslim scholars studied varioustypes of sciences from various sourcesto identify the relation between theuniverse and humans on one handand the Creator on the other. Texts ofancient Greek, Persians and Indianswere translated by Muslim scholars andfrom this healthy cross fertilization theydeveloped their own philosophy andextended the frontiers of knowledge.The Muslims’ earlier contributions thushelped create the foundation for thephilosophical basis of the EuropeanRenaissance which was to follow 21 . TheEuropeans took inspiration from theIslamic philosophy which constantlyencouraged scientific inquisitivenessand eventually paved the way fora large number of discoveries madeby the Muslims. The Europeanstook inspiration from the IslamicRenaissance a few centuries earlier.This made it possible for the Europeansto present new, radical ideas withoutconsulting religious fundamentalistsand potential opponents, the RomanCatholic Church, at that time. Howeverdespite its remarkable emergence andcontributions, several factors andevents culminated in the fall of Islamiccivilization and contributions of theMuslims to the development of scienceand technology (22) .Lack of promotion of science in anunstable political stateState policies to promotecommunications, trade and economicprosperity pursued during the earlycenturies of Islam, helped in promotingthe demand for science and technology.The Islamic caliphate of the Umayyadfrom the 7 th Century C.E. showed aninterest in science. It translated thescientific tradition of late antiquitybut went further by elaborating andexpanding on it. The consequencewas while Europe was still in the DarkAges, Muslim scholars were already atthe age of philosophical and scientificdevelopment. Khalid bin Yazid (oneof the early Umayyad princes at theend of the 7th century) encouragedMuslim scholars to study medicineand chemistry by donating his treasurefor the cause. He also encouragedtranslation of several Greek and Copticmedical books into Arabic.The Abbasid Caliphs (8th century)followed the traditions and encouragedthe translation of Persian medicalknowledge into Arabic. New ideaswere also brought from India andChina not only in medicine butalso in mathematics, chemistry andFIMA YearBook 2009108