Posted by axxxr
A lot of people in the west (specially you know where) think that the muslims are all backward and are camel jockeys and in general have stereotypical views,The fact is in some cases muslim scientists invented many of the worlds major inventions hundreds of years before european inventors took credit for.here is an Interesting article in the independent on Muslim Inventors and they're innovations we could'nt live without today.
The Muslim world has given us many innovations that we simply take for granted in our daily life.
1.The story goes that an Arab named Khalid was tending his goats in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia, when he noticed his animals became livelier after eating a certain berry. He boiled the berries to make the first coffee. Certainly the first record of the drink is of beans exported from Ethiopia to Yemen where Sufis drank it to stay awake all night to pray on special occasions. By the late 15th century it had arrived in Mecca and Turkey from where it made its way to Venice in 1645. It was brought to England in 1650 by a Turk named Pasqua Rosee who opened the first coffee house in Lombard Street in the City of London. The Arabic qahwa became the Turkish kahve then the Italian caffé and then English coffee.
2.The ancient Greeks thought our eyes emitted rays, like a laser, which enabled us to see. The first person to realise that light enters the eye, rather than leaving it, was the 10th-century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haitham. He invented the first pin-hole camera after noticing the way light came through a hole in window shutters. The smaller the hole, the better the picture, he worked out, and set up the first Camera Obscura (from the Arab word qamara for a dark or private room). He is also credited with being the first man to shift physics from a philosophical activity to an experimental one.
3.A form of chess was played in ancient India but the game was developed into the form we know it today in Persia. From there it spread westward to Europe - where it was introduced by the Moors in Spain in the 10th century - and eastward as far as Japan. The word rook comes from the Persian rukh, which means chariot.
4.A thousand years before the Wright brothers a Muslim poet, astronomer, musician and engineer named Abbas ibn Firnas made several attempts to construct a flying machine. In 852 he jumped from the minaret of the Grand Mosque in Cordoba using a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts. He hoped to glide like a bird. He didn't. But the cloak slowed his fall, creating what is thought to be the first parachute, and leaving him with only minor injuries. In 875, aged 70, having perfected a machine of silk and eagles' feathers he tried again, jumping from a mountain. He flew to a significant height and stayed aloft for ten minutes but crashed on landing - concluding, correctly, that it was because he had not given his device a tail so it would stall on landing. Baghdad international airport and a crater on the Moon are named after him.
5.Washing and bathing are religious requirements for Muslims, which is perhaps why they perfected the recipe for soap which we still use today. The ancient Egyptians had soap of a kind, as did the Romans who used it more as a pomade. But it was the Arabs who combined vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide and aromatics such as thyme oil. One of the Crusaders' most striking characteristics, to Arab nostrils, was that they did not wash. Shampoo was introduced to England by a Muslim who opened Mahomed's Indian Vapour Baths on Brighton seafront in 1759 and was appointed Shampooing Surgeon to Kings George IV and William IV.
6.Distillation, the means of separating liquids through differences in their boiling points, was invented around the year 800 by Islam's foremost scientist, Jabir ibn Hayyan, who transformed alchemy into chemistry, inventing many of the basic processes and apparatus still in use today - liquefaction, crystallisation, distillation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation and filtration. As well as discovering sulphuric and nitric acid, he invented the alembic still, giving the world intense rosewater and other perfumes and alcoholic spirits (although drinking them is haram, or forbidden, in Islam). Ibn Hayyan emphasised systematic experimentation and was the founder of modern chemistry.
7.The crank-shaft is a device which translates rotary into linear motion and is central to much of the machinery in the modern world, not least the internal combustion engine. One of the most important mechanical inventions in the history of humankind, it was created by an ingenious Muslim engineer called al-Jazari to raise water for irrigation. His 1206 Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices shows he also invented or refined the use of valves and pistons, devised some of the first mechanical clocks driven by water and weights, and was the father of robotics. Among his 50 other inventions was the combination lock.
8.Quilting is a method of sewing or tying two layers of cloth with a layer of insulating material in between. It is not clear whether it was invented in the Muslim world or whether it was imported there from India or China. But it certainly came to the West via the Crusaders. They saw it used by Saracen warriors, who wore straw-filled quilted canvas shirts instead of armour. As well as a form of protection, it proved an effective guard against the chafing of the Crusaders' metal armour and was an effective form of insulation - so much so that it became a cottage industry back home in colder climates such as Britain and Holland.
9.The pointed arch so characteristic of Europe's Gothic cathedrals was an invention borrowed from Islamic architecture. It was much stronger than the rounded arch used by the Romans and Normans, thus allowing the building of bigger, higher, more complex and grander buildings. Other borrowings from Muslim genius included ribbed vaulting, rose windows and dome-building techniques. Europe's castles were also adapted to copy the Islamic world's - with arrow slits, battlements, a barbican and parapets. Square towers and keeps gave way to more easily defended round ones. Henry V's castle architect was a Muslim.
10.Many modern surgical instruments are of exactly the same design as those devised in the 10th century by a Muslim surgeon called al-Zahrawi. His scalpels, bone saws, forceps, fine scissors for eye surgery and many of the 200 instruments he devised are recognisable to a modern surgeon. It was he who discovered that catgut used for internal stitches dissolves away naturally (a discovery he made when his monkey ate his lute strings) and that it can be also used to make medicine capsules. In the 13th century, another Muslim medic named Ibn Nafis described the circulation of the blood, 300 years before William Harvey discovered it. Muslims doctors also invented anaesthetics of opium and alcohol mixes and developed hollow needles to suck cataracts from eyes in a technique still used today.
11.The windmill was invented in 634 for a Persian caliph and was used to grind corn and draw up water for irrigation. In the vast deserts of Arabia, when the seasonal streams ran dry, the only source of power was the wind which blew steadily from one direction for months. Mills had six or 12 sails covered in fabric or palm leaves. It was 500 years before the first windmill was seen in Europe.
12.The technique of inoculation was not invented by Jenner and Pasteur but was devised in the Muslim world and brought to Europe from Turkey by the wife of the English ambassador to Istanbul in 1724. Children in Turkey were vaccinated with cowpox to fight the deadly smallpox at least 50 years before the West discovered it.
13.The fountain pen was invented for the Sultan of Egypt in 953 after he demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes. It held ink in a reservoir and, as with modern pens, fed ink to the nib by a combination of gravity and capillary action.
14.The system of numbering in use all round the world is probably Indian in origin but the style of the numerals is Arabic and first appears in print in the work of the Muslim mathematicians al-Khwarizmi and al-Kindi around 825. Algebra was named after al-Khwarizmi's book, Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah, much of whose contents are still in use. The work of Muslim maths scholars was imported into Europe 300 years later by the Italian mathematician Fibonacci. Algorithms and much of the theory of trigonometry came from the Muslim world. And Al-Kindi's discovery of frequency analysis rendered all the codes of the ancient world soluble and created the basis of modern cryptology.
15.Ali ibn Nafi, known by his nickname of Ziryab (Blackbird) came from Iraq to Cordoba in the 9th century and brought with him the concept of the three-course meal - soup, followed by fish or meat, then fruit and nuts. He also introduced crystal glasses (which had been invented after experiments with rock crystal by Abbas ibn Firnas - see No 4).
16.Carpets were regarded as part of Paradise by medieval Muslims, thanks to their advanced weaving techniques, new tinctures from Islamic chemistry and highly developed sense of pattern and arabesque which were the basis of Islam's non-representational art. In contrast, Europe's floors were distinctly earthly, not to say earthy, until Arabian and Persian carpets were introduced. In England, as Erasmus recorded, floors were "covered in rushes, occasionally renewed, but so imperfectly that the bottom layer is left undisturbed, sometimes for 20 years, harbouring expectoration, vomiting, the leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings, scraps of fish, and other abominations not fit to be mentioned". Carpets, unsurprisingly, caught on quickly.
17.The modern cheque comes from the Arabic saqq, a written vow to pay for goods when they were delivered, to avoid money having to be transported across dangerous terrain. In the 9th century, a Muslim businessman could cash a cheque in China drawn on his bank in Baghdad.
18.By the 9th century, many Muslim scholars took it for granted that the Earth was a sphere. The proof, said astronomer Ibn Hazm, "is that the Sun is always vertical to a particular spot on Earth". It was 500 years before that realisation dawned on Galileo. The calculations of Muslim astronomers were so accurate that in the 9th century they reckoned the Earth's circumference to be 40,253.4km - less than 200km out. The scholar al-Idrisi took a globe depicting the world to the court of King Roger of Sicily in 1139.
19.Though the Chinese invented saltpetre gunpowder, and used it in their fireworks, it was the Arabs who worked out that it could be purified using potassium nitrate for military use. Muslim incendiary devices terrified the Crusaders. By the 15th century they had invented both a rocket, which they called a "self-moving and combusting egg", and a torpedo - a self-propelled pear-shaped bomb with a spear at the front which impaled itself in enemy ships and then blew up.
20.Medieval Europe had kitchen and herb gardens, but it was the Arabs who developed the idea of the garden as a place of beauty and meditation. The first royal pleasure gardens in Europe were opened in 11th-century Muslim Spain. Flowers which originated in Muslim gardens include the carnation and the tulip.
"1001 Inventions: Discover the Muslim Heritage in Our World" is a new exhibition which began a nationwide tour this week. It is currently at the Science Museum in Manchester. For more information, go to www.1001inventions.com
Posted by maruf
Interesting ! You may find this link usefull ? www.1001inventions.com ;-)
Posted by axxxr
yes thanks but i have already provided that link in the main post....but indeed the link is very good and provides a lot of usefull information!
Posted by amnesia
this is very interesting.
It's good to show that we're much more than what the media shows.
Posted by axxxr
The Media is controled by people like Rupert Murdoch who are not exactly keen on the idea of showing muslims in a positive light.
Posted by PeterKay
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Totally agree with that 100%.
Posted by Bambino
hmmm... what is haram?
Posted by amnesia
something that is not allowed.
Posted by axxxr
The main meaning of Haram is \"Forbidden\" ...so something or anything which is not acceptable according to the rules described in the Quran is Haram.
Posted by Sammy_boy
I think you've touched on this in that article, but didn't muslims either invent or at least utilise astronomy many years before the west adopted it? And a lot of mathematical theory?
Posted by axxxr
indeed yes..astronomy and many instruments of astronomy such as a telescope type device were invented by muslim scientists,although galileo took credit for it much later.
Mathematics and Algebra was a muslim invention aswell.
Posted by whizkidd
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Mathematics and algebra was a muslim invention as well |
Posted by amnesia
alright, if you want to be so technically correct.
the concept of Allegebra and the subject itself was created by the Arabs.
Posted by blu_6779
ibn sina, father of modern medicine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Sina
Posted by Pradhika
Inventors change the world.
Posted by upper
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Posted by upper
Very nice post axxxr, and may i add as well that it was the Muslims that also invented the english numerals too, imagine where the west will be without numbers
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Please correct me if im wrong but i was told by a brother who is very knowledgeable about ISLAM that the Muslims invented many more things and the bycicle is just one of them, many things that we see today was already been talked about at that time, but the reason they didnt go ahead with there inventions because the Muslim leader at that time decided not to go ahead with the ideas because it may take them away from there religion. Which i though personaly is very true.
Posted by scotsboyuk
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That is incorrect. Algebraic methods were employed in ancient Egypt and Babylon as well as being used in 1st century B.C. China and India. The word 'algebra' is a derivation of methods used in the 9th century treatise 'Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah', who's author, Al-Khwarizmi, is regarded as the father of modern algebra. As whizkidd pointed out, algebra (and indeed mathematics as a whole) has been developed by various different people(s) throughout history.
More information on algebra can be found in this Wiki article.
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indeed yes..astronomy and many instruments of astronomy such as a telescope type device were invented by muslim scientists,although galileo took credit for it much later. |
Astronomy was not invented by Muslim scientists. The ancient Greeks had an understanding of astronomy, for example, defining the magnitude system. The Rigveda, which dates from the Bronze Age, mentions 27 constellations related to the motion of the sun as well as listing the twelve zodiac signs used to divide the sky. Hence one can see that the ancient Indians also had an understanding of, and used, astronomy. Important contributions to observational astronomy were made in the 9th and 10th centuries by Persian astronomers e.g. calculating the obliquity of the ecliptic.
On the subject of the telescope; Galileo did not invent it, but he did make improvements to it. Magnifying devices were known to Arabs and arguably the Vikings in the 10th century. There is also evidence to suggest that lenses were used by the Assyrians.
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Hardly since both existed before Islam. For instance, the concept of zero was developed by the Mayans or possibly the Olmecs independently of Europe and at least approximately three centuries before the founding of Islam. Mathematics was employed by several pre-Islamic civilisations including the ancient Egyptians, ancient Greeks, ancient Chinese and pre-Columbian American civilisations.
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"I may be drunk my dear woman, but in the morning I will be sober, and you will still be ugly." WSC
[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2006-03-13 06:34 ]
Posted by axxxr
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scotsboyuk nitpicking again,actually your incorrect ,the father of Algebra was and is Al-Khwarizmi He composed the oldest works on arithmetic and algebra. They were the principal source of mathematical knowledge for centuries to come in the East and the West. The word algebra is actually derived from the title of one of his books 'Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah'. Algebra was indeed further developed by throughout history much later but the foundations were laid by Al-Khwarizmi.
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Yes of course other civilisation did have some understanding of Astronomy by it was the muslim scientists who really understood it better than anyone else and made amazing advancements. Did you know that historians of astronomy often refer to the time from the 8th through the 14th centuries as the Islamic period? As that was when most study of the stars took place in the Muslim world.
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Yes what i said that galileo is always associated with the telescope,all he did was take work others had done and make improvements to it.Even the worlds first plantarium was invented by muslim scientist
headshift.com/muslimheritage/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewBlogEntry&intMTEntryID=2734]Ibn Firnas[/url] [/i]It was made out of glass showing the sky at it was then,very much resembling today lanetariums, adding to it artificial thunder noise and lightening. Ibn Firnas, who lived in the 9th century, eventually died after attempting to demonstrate human flight, but crashed and was critically injured.[/i]
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Actually your wrong yet again,the concept of ZERO was invented by Al'Khwarizm Al'Khwarizmi wrote on Hindu-Arabic numerals and was the first to use zero as a place holder in positional base notation. The word algorithm derives from his name.
Posted by 02
well all science and maths can be found in the Quran... next thing u know top researchers are using the Quran for guidence..
Posted by amnesia
oh crap, another huge scotsboy post
.
If people can understand and assume what's the fuss?
It's not like so many people acknowledge the good side of Muslims.
And it's not like we have so much to be proud of.
Posted by joebmc
Origin of # zero
It is important to realize that there are many types, levels, methods, etc, of mathmatics, and there is not one, but many origins of mathmatics.
Zero was independently invented three times. The first zero is attributed to the Babylonians(Iraq) in the 3rd century BC.
The Mayans, halfway around the world in Central America, independently invented zero in the fourth century.
In India around the middle of the fifth century, once again the zero is born. It spread to Cambodia around the end of the 7th century. From India it moved into China and then to the Islamic countries. Zero finally reached western Europe in the 12th century.
The Babylonians used a sexigesimal number system, they counted in 60s. They scratched wedges and crescents in different patterns on damp clay tablets to make numbers from 1 to 59. A placeholder was required and originally a blank space was used, but this lead to problems and then a sideways double wedge was used.
The zero as we know it was still not in existence though as they only used it for a placeholder. There still was no "zero". For example, in recording inventory, they would write"15 minus 15" to represent nothing, or simply write "the goods are exhausted".
Islam was founded around 600AD by the prophet Muhammed, this placeholder was invented in the 3rd century BC, therefore the zero placeholder was invented by arabs, not muslims.
The zero as is commonly used as a number and placeholder in calculations and formulas in the world today, was developed by the mathmaticians of India in the fifth century.
The first writings and algebraic formulas were devised by Diophantus of Alexandria(Egypt) in the 3rd century AD.
Religion in Egypt at this time was a strange combination of ancient Egyptian mythology (ie. Ra sun-god), worship of deities in animal form (ie. cats, hawks, bulls), and greek, Jewish, and christian concepts. A lot of influence was due to the fact that Egypt was a roman province at this time.
Again though, islam was not founded yet for a few hundred years, so algebra is an arab invention, not a muslim invention. Perhaps some credit could go to egyptian mythology(joking).
Algebra was brought from ancient Babylon, Egypt and India to Europe via Italy by the Arabs.
Posted by JK
So where they jewish/christian Arabs?
Posted by joebmc
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Posted by JK
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So all Arabs are from Egypt?
Posted by upper
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i mean thier are soo many miracles in the Qur'aan, that the scientists have just recently discovered by using modern technology, one of them that states in the Qur'aan when it talks about Water that do not mix with other water, and the 2nd where it says pregnany is in three stages, the 2 i just mentioned was only discovered recently by western scientists where we knew it 1400 yrs ago
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[ This Message was edited by: upper on 2006-03-13 16:42 ]
Posted by scotsboyuk
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Seeing that you had posted I could hear a factual accuracy alarm bell ringing in my head.
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Algebraic methods were in fact being used in ancient Egypt, Babylon, India and China and algebra has actually been in dvelopment for thousands of years. The name 'algebra' may not have arisen until relatively recently, but the actual methods and concepts have been in use far longer. For instance, algebraic equations are used in the 1st century B.C. text 'Jiuzhang suanshu' and the Bakhshali Manuscript contains solutions to linear equations using algebra and also dates from the 1st century B.C.
Can I ask why you are repeating what I have already said in my last post e.g. that Al-Khwarizmi is regarded as the father of algebra?
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First of all what you are talking about is a progression of knowledge, not the 'invention of astronomy' as you earlier claimed. Astronomy was inherited by Muslim scientists and they made advancements in that field, just as modern scientists have. Neither can claim to have invented it.
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I think what you actually said was that he took credit for it.
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Technicaly speaking, Archimedes had a primitive planaterium.
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Oh dear, I see you are incorrect again, this seems to be a habit with you. It really would serve you well to simply read people's posts properly. You will note that I said the Mayans or Olmecs developed zero independently, that is they developed it with no aid from anyone else. That does not invalidate anyone else from have developed a zero concept independently from the Mayans and Olmecs. Incidentally Al'Khwarizm lived several centuries after the Mayans/Olmecs had developed zero.
Posted by upper
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Posted by slattery69
@upper
whilst i dont completely disagree with what your saying, the other prophets messages in islams view were distorted and in fact thats why so many prophets came as there msg was distorted. so really the 1st true prophet of islam was muhammdad as the rest failed in there task as the words were distorted into christianity juadism etc. this is my understanding.
so islam in reality islam started with muhammad. prior to muhammad there was no islam just attempts if you accept the quran
Posted by upper
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[ This Message was edited by: upper on 2006-03-13 17:00 ]
Posted by joebmc
To claim that Adam was a Muslim would be seen as a ridicules statement to any Christian or Jew, just as if Mohammad was claimed as Jewish or Christian.
So what slattery said is pretty true (imo)
(I can’t help but wonder if there is some hidden Islam v’s the West agenda in this post
)
Posted by amnesia
@slattery, Islam's key point is that whatever messages by God and the prophets are unchanged.
I have to correct you that it's not the view of the prophets in Islam that (which to you) seems distorted, but the way that people understand a reference to be.
For example, a quote could be "love thy neighbour" it could be understood as, make love to thy neighbour, take care of your neighbour, respect your neighbour and so on.
@scots, just because somebody doesn't want to indulge you in an arguement, it doesn't mean that they are wrong or that one side has won.
I for one don't reply to many posts depending on the person and I also know in my heart what is right and what is wrong.
Posted by upper
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So the other teachings from the previous prophets example Moses and Jesus are canceld and will not be valid. If Jesus was on this earth now today he would also have to follow the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) as he will not be on this earth as a Prophet (HENCE THAT PROPHET MUHAMMAD SAW IS THE LAST PROPHET) But as a leader to Lead the Muslims to Victory.
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[ This Message was edited by: upper on 2006-03-13 17:19 ]
Posted by slattery69
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yes sorry when i said distorted i did nt mean by the prohphet but by the people he delivered it to. yes islams msg is the same to all prohets but you can t claim islam started with adam as it did nt start till muhammad delivered it and it was left unaltered that been the point of my post.
it would be like me claiming id been in business ten years were as it was just 5 mins and i d spent ten years trying to set it up by failing to do so by forces out of my control, then when i fianlly succeded claiming it had been in existance for ten years
Posted by whizkidd
Ok My turn!
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Technically speaking, by using your very own logic, isnt't this what Al'Khwarizmi too did?
He just improvised and spruced up a "technology" or "knowledge" to a better level.
The important thing to note is; he might have not had the chance to do so, had the Indians and the Babylonians not discovered "zero" at all! Is there any algebra without zero?
Coming to Algebra, this is waht Wiki has to say..
The origins of algebra can be traced to the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians, who used an early type of algebra to solve linear, quadratic, and indeterminate equations more than 3,000 years ago. By contrast, most Indian and Greek mathematicians in the 1st millennium BC usually solved such equations by geometric methods, such as are described in Euclid's Elements.
The Greeks and Indians proceeded to write several treatises on algebraic means of solving equations during the 1st millennium AD. Three particularly well-known works on algebra from this general era include that of Hero of Alexandria, the Arithmetica of Diophantus, and the writings of the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta.
The word "algebra" is named after Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah meaning The book of summary concerning calculating by transposition and reduction, an 820 book by Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi. The word al-jabr means "reunion". Al-Khwarizmi is often considered as the "father of modern algebra" (though that title is also given to Diophantus), as much of his works on reduction are still in use today.
So there you go!
Al'Khwarizmi no doubt, is a great Mathematician, but the argument that he alone was the inventor of algebra stands on loose soil.
I'd agree if you mention he's the father of Modern Algebra. (But an equal status could be bestowed on Diophantus too!)
It is like playing down the invention of wheel and saying "The Wheel had to wait thousands of years until the engineers at Ferrari used the concept to tranform the world by creating Enzo".
You make Galileo look like a copy cat who just took credit for others' work.
The fact is, Galileo was the first person (in recorded history) to use the telescope as a telescope. True, the Arabs and the persians had "discovered" the technology as early as 10th century , but it was only during the time of galileo that the telescope was actaully used for astronomical purposes.
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On the contrary, it's you who is mistaken. Your statement in itself is a double edged sword. "Al'Khwarizmi was the first to use ZERO as a place holder in a positional based notation".....which actually means the concept of Zero was already known during his time!
Al Khwarizimi was the first person to use it on a positional based notation.
So I would agree if you say AlKhwarizimi is the father of "positional based notational system"
Posted by Xugaa
this seems quite interesting:
http://www.16pi2.com/ancient_technology_speculations.htm
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"The only reliable thing about the future is uncertainty" [ This Message was edited by: Xugaa on 2006-03-13 18:34 ]
Posted by solidsingh
im not having a dig or anything but does the religion of the inventor have any relevance at all to how amazing their inventions are?
Lets just be thankful that we've had all these amazing inventions by these intelligent people and lets not quibble about who invented what
Posted by Sammy_boy
very well said solid! i have to say all these religious type threada are getting a bit tedious, even for me!
and is threatening to drive a wedge between people with a common interest - mobile phones and se!