Islam and Christianity

first experience with figures was in the ninth century, when the
Muslims taught them numbers, beginning with zero. In actual fact,
Indians were the explorers of zero. It was the Muslims, however,
who transmitted it to Europeans. Likewise, the Muslims were the
earliest tutors who taught trigonometry to Europeans. The Muslim
teachers in Muslim universities taught sine, cosine and, some time
later, trigonometry to their European pupils. Whatsoever progress
was made in the name of knowledge in the world between the
ninth and twelfth centuries originated from one source of
knowledge: Muslim universities.
[The number of the men of knowledge and science educated in
the Ottoman Empire defies computation. The great services that
those people rendered to today’s civilization are reflected in their
books. One of those great people is Mustafâ bin Alî Efendi
‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’, the muwaqqit (timekeeper) of the
mosque of Yavuz Sultân Selîm ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’, [d. 926
(1520 C.E.)] in Istanbul, and the Reîs-ul-munajjimîn (Chief
Astrologer of the Sultân). He passed away in 979 [1571 C.E.]. His
geography book I’lâm-ul-ibâd and his books of astronomy, Teshîl-ul-mîqât
fî-’ilm-il-awqât, Teysîr-il-kawâkib and Kifâyat-ulwaqt
fî rub’-i-dâira, contain astounding information. Also, the
book Kifâyat-ul-waqt li-ma’rifat-i-dâir, by Abd-ul-’Azîz Wafâî
‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’ [d. 874 (1469 C.E.)], provides modern
astronomical information.]
“Because books of medicine written by the ancient Greeks
were burned by the ignorant Christians of the Middle Ages, we do
not have their original copies today. A few pieces of those original
texts were forgotten here and there and thereby survived the
barbarous destructions. Those pieces were translated into Arabic
by Huseyn ibni Johag of Baghdâd. That great celebrity translated
also the works of Plato and Aristotle into Arabic.
“Muhammad bin Mûsâ Harazmî, one of the three brothers
educated as scholars of arithmetics, geometry and astronomy in
Baghdâd during the caliphate of Ma’mûn, [1] calculated the altitude
of the sun and the length of the equator, and made the
instruments called usturlâb (astrolabe) [rub’i-dâira] and used to
determine the prayer times. His book entitled Jebr (Algebra) was
[1] The seventh Abbâsid Khalîfa. A son of Hârûn-ur-reshîd, the fifth
Khalîfa. He was born in the vicinity of Baghdâd in 786, and passed away
in 833. He was buried in Tarsus.
– 253 –