The history of Islamic civilisation after the 13th century has gone through many political
failures. This can be attributed to the lack of material success and peace in the Muslim world.
The first four or five centuries of Islam were the golden years. Many scholars, scientists and philosophers had access to the Greek and other civilisations where logic and reasoning were the approach used to seek knowledge.
Scholars living in Baghdad translated Greek texts and made scientific discoveries through
scientific thinking – which is why this era, from the 7th to 13th centuries CE, is
named the Golden Age of Islam, when scientific developments were at their peak.
Between the 1200s and 1700s were the middle ages for human civilisation. During this period, Islamic civilisation reached rock bottom. The scorn for science and philosophical thinking by Muslim dogmatists was one of the reasons for this weakening. The Islamic world slowed down and could not find the answers for its needs, while the West started to rise intellectually, economically and politically.
Centuries later, the scenario has not changed and Western and Eastern civilisations
developed and progressed, while the Islamic civilisation remain divided and underdeveloped.
Many Muslims in the last few centuries have lived a life of despair and bleakness pushing
them into a psychological complex. They seem to have lost their enthusiasm for anything. Their focus has drifted more into the world of the hereafter as a form of escapism.
A copious of scientific discoveries
Islam had always been dominant at one time. Muslims were using logic and reasoning to solve human problems and to cater to their needs. Islamic scientists of eight or nine centuries before could produce many works and inventions which were acceptable and recognised even centuries later.
The Muslim empire once covered Spain and Portugal, southern Italy and stretched as far as parts of China – to present day civilisation. They produced luminaries in the field of science and inventions.
In the 9th century, Fatima al-Firhi founded the first degree-granting university in Fez,
Morocco – a testimony that seeking knowledge was an integral part of the religion.
Hospitals with wards and teaching centres come from 9th century Egypt. The first such medical centre was the Ahmad ibn Tulun Hospital, founded in 872 in Cairo.
The word “algebra” comes from the title of a Persian mathematician’s famous 9th century
treatise “Kitab al-Jabr Wa l-Mugabala” (The Book of Reasoning and Balancing). Built on the roots of Greek and Hindu systems, the new algebraic order was a unifying system for
rational numbers, irrational numbers and geometrical magnitudes.
It was around the 10th century that Al Zahrawi published a 1,500-page illustrated encyclopaedia of surgery that was used in Europe as a medical reference for the next 500 years.
In the 10th century, Ibn al-Haitham discovered that humans see objects by light reflecting off of them and entering the eye, negating Euclid and Ptolemy’s theories that light was emitted from the eye itself. This physicist also discovered the camera obscura phenomenon, which explains how the eye sees images upright due to the connection between the optic nerve and the brain.
Many of the basics of modern automatics were first put to use in the Muslim world,
including the revolutionary crank-connecting rod system. This technology, discovered by Al-Jazari in the 12th century, had led to everything from the bicycle to the internal combustion engine
Contrary to what some Muslim preachers of today are beckoning, music is actually a part of Islamic civilisation that had a profound impact on Europe.
There are a copious of scientific discoveries to quote during the Golden Age of Islam.
Dominated by the clergy or religious leaders
In this century of knowledge, science and technology, people are more aware of the things
around them. They consider the source of knowledge and its truthfulness. They need clear
and logical explanations for their material and spiritual needs. However, current technology, science and physiology cannot respond to the needs of many close-minded religious figures of authority.
To be creative, the life of Muslims cannot be dominated by the clergy or religious leaders,
and to obey or follow them blindly. Muslims have to be exposed to the idea of freedom of
thought and expression and the desire to search for the truth to cure all their obstacles to progress.
Again, after the foundation of the Islamic states in the 19th century, despotism has become an obstacle for many Islamic states. They just cannot understand what democracy is all about. Authoritarianism, corruption and oppression have become the way of life with despotic leaders holding on to power without remorse.
The developments and uprisings against dictators and tyrants in the Middle Eastern Islamic
states are the signs of this despotic era. This does not seem to have abated.
Some Muslims perceive that certain matters of modern science are contrary to Islam.
This has prevented Muslims from exploring and competing with Western or Eastern civilisations.
Their interpretation of the Quran goes back to how society has lived in the past in the
early era of Islam. Some opinionated religious figures are earnestly pulling Muslims into
the past era and compelling their followers to submit to it.
Thus, Muslims have not found the wisdom in their understanding of what is beyond their
cloistered world, always imagining that others are a constant threat to their religion. After the 13th century, the domination of Islam began to be based on strict adherence to what the clerics decide for them. This has festered the Muslim minds.
The teachings of religion in schools and madrasahs
Today, and in the future through the advent of science and technology that is coxswaining
the world into modernity, the virtues of scientific inquiry has to prevail for a society to
succeed. The teachings of religion in schools and madrasahs regrettably has not put Islam
in order of reasoning and inquiry.
Students are not furnished with logical thinking for their true awakening like how modern
progressive education advocates. The whole process is a closed system devoid of teaching students the eagerness to associate, be tolerant, to live and compete with the other successful communities.
They are never seriously taught to shatter the ideas of despotism, corruption, rivalry and
vouch for universal peace. Universal peace has to be safeguarded not only for the Muslim
but also the non-Muslim world. Violence and oppression to achieve religious goals are not
the answer to attain peace as this will only escalate the same.
Today, the Muslim world cannot survive in a shell of their own like in the past. They have to depend on the non-Muslim world to give them worldly comforts. The non-Muslim world is
advancing so fast and it’s time for the Muslim world to catch up with them in embracing
knowledge beyond the rigid doctrines of religion to keep up with the developed nations.
They were mainly the Persian scholars who explored beyond their land to adopt the Greek’s inquisitive and logical approach in seeking knowledge that later brought the spillover of knowledge to the Muslim world in the past. However, it came to an abrupt decline when fixed-minded clerics started to censure philosophical thinking, branding these scientists as agnostics. Many were killed or ostracised from society and soon after this drew the Muslims to approach life and faith with a conformist approach to it.
This started to stagnate the Muslim minds. If the Persians during the Golden Age of
Islam could learn from the Greeks and other civilisations, why can’t the Muslims of today learn from the West or East? For Muslims to achieve success they should seek both spiritual happiness and material growth. Always blaming the West or East for their misfortunes is not the remedy.
Dr Moaz Nair is an FMT reader.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.