Islamic Civilization

Modern Science and Methodology

  Modern science is based, other than on knowledge, on basic principles, which include mainly:

Experimentation  and observation.

Use of instruments.

Organisation/classification of learning and knowledge.

Intellectual freedom.

Little would it occur to most people to doubt that these principles date with the `Renaissance ’ of the modern times (16<sup>th</sup>–17<sup>th</sup> century). Crombie , however, did `demonstrate’ that Grosseteste  pioneered one such fundamental, experimentation, much earlier in the 13^th century.[1] More focused or attentive research could have, however, revealed that it was, instead, during the Islamic scientific pre-dominance (7^th-13^th) that most such fundamentals, if not all of them, were set in motion, and impacted decisively on the subsequent scientific advances.

Very early, as noted by  Briffault, in astronomy, the Muslims compiled new sets of planetary tables, and obtained more accurate values for the obliquity of the ecliptic and procession of equinoxes, that were checked by two independent measurements.[2] One stresses here `the reliance upon two independent measurements.’ Hence, in contrast with their Greek  predecessors, whilst Ptolemy made his astronomical calculations no other Greek scholar came to check them, whilst there are literally tens of Muslim astronomers who revised each other’s tables. Al-Faruqi explain how the search for knowledge in Islam is done through istidlal (calling for evidence).[3] Istidlal implies `observation of the data and their examination through experimentation, measurement and more observation.'[4] In optics, for instance, Hill  observes, that the principal reason that delayed progress in optics under the Greeks was their incapacity, unlike their Muslim successors, to carry experiment.[5] The Greek (Ptolemy) did carry experiment in fact but only to support already held views; experiment succeeding the findings, rather than the other way round, preceding them.[6] Ibn al-Haytham's conclusions, on the other hand, only reflected the evidence, and he was quite prepared to modify or even reject a hypothesis if it conflicted with experimental results.[7] Thabit ibn Qurra in On the Kariston (a Balance with unequal arms) had an approach that was clearer and more sure than that of his Aristotelian predecessor, and unlike Archimedes, who `just assumed in his proof of the law of the lever,' Thabit, first proved that law.[8] Al-Biruni  travelled forty years to collect mineralogical specimen and Ibn Al-Baitar collected botanical specimen from the whole Muslim world and compared them with those of Greece  and Spain.[9]

Algebra  and the new mathematics also emerged with the Muslims’ resolve to obtain precision and accuracy in every calculation. Accuracy in Islam is a crucial element for the observation and application of the faith itself, whether in inheritance matters, or in the direction of prayers, or the timing of fasting and breaking the fast, etc. No surprise, thus, in the development of the astrolabe under Islam, and its uses on land and sea to perform the most minutely precise calculations.[10]To ascertain findings scientifically, prolonged and continuous observation of the planets and stars also became established in Islam, lasting over twelve years at the observatories of Baghdad , Cairo , and Damascus .[11] And in order to reach such an aim, larger and more accurate instruments were built and put into application, and as early as the 11^th century under Seljuk rule.[12]

Having pioneered in experimentation, search for precision, and use of instruments, Islamic civilisation  impacted on the subsequent Western experience accordingly.  Islamic science  and techniques in their practice, Garaudy notes, being the major sources of the revival in the West.[13] It is remarkable, he observes, that the precursor of the methods of observation and experimentation in the West was Roger Bacon  (1214-1294), who had studied Arabic, and who had written that the knowledge of Islamic science was for his contemporaries, the only means of access to true knowledge.[14] Roger Bacon  was a pupil of Adam Marsh (d.1259), and from his experimental works, he derived a great deal from Islamic sources, and also indirectly from the Arabist Roger Grosseteste , in particular.[15]

Many specific examples of Islamic impact on Western experimenters in chemistry are highlighted by one of the current web-sites.[16]In the following, is examined laboratory experiment and the pioneering role of al-Razi in it. His laboratory includes many items still in use today: Crucible; Decensory; Cucurbit or retort for distillation  (qar) and the head of a still with a delivery tube (ambiq, Latin  alembic); various types of furnace or stove etc.[17]In his Secret of secrets, he makes the earliest known suggestions for furnishing a chemical laboratory,[18] which foreshadows a laboratory manual, besides dealing with substances, equipment and processes.[19] Al-Razi  divides the equipment into a) apparatus for melting metal; b) instruments for manipulating substances. In the list are included blacksmith’s hearth, bellows, crucible, refractory stills, ladles, tongs, shears, pestle and mortar, moulds, curcubites, alembics, receiving flasks, aludels, beakers, glass cups, iron pans, sieves, flasks, phials, cauldrons, sand-baths, water baths, ovens, hair cloth, linen filters, stoves, a kiln, funnels and dishes.[20] A laboratory stocked in the manner of his (Al-Razi), according to Singer: `cannot have looked very much different from that of an English laboratory of a thousand years later. It was certainly not one of those witches’ kitchens usually portrayed as abodes of alchemists.’[21]Al-Razi 's lead in careful experimentation and observations also left a steadily increasing body of reliable chemical knowledge upon which built succeeding generations.[22]And, when it is written in certain books, Le Bon says, that chemistry was created by Lavoisier, it is forgotten, that no science was ever created in all its entirety, and that without the Muslim laboratories of a thousand of years ago, Lavoisier and his accomplishments would have been impossible.[23]

In the use of instruments, the Islamic dependence on well made apparatuses did not just mean, as Stock explains, that theory and practice were brought closer together, but also that scientists such as al-Battani, who were also expert makers of instruments, enhanced their powers of observation and calculation.[24]Al-Zahrawi  devised and made his own instruments for surgery,[25] whilst Al-Khazini  built his Balance of Wisdom to measure densities and weights.[26] Ibn al-Haytham, too, Hill  explains, took utmost care in the construction and assembly of equipment for his experiments. He made `the radical innovation' of including dimensions as an integral part of his specifications, which was crucial to serious experiment, and which led to major improvements in instrument design.[27] The list of instruments devised by the Muslims in nautical sciences, as will be considered further on, is plentiful. In surveying, Muslim scientists and craftsmen excelled at the design and utilisation of measuring instruments,[28]and it was their efforts that resulted in the astrolabe becoming a valued instrument in land surveying.[29] The astrolabe was also used by the Muslims to perform a considerable number of other operations, from calculating heights of mountains, to depths of wells, widths of rivers, etc.[30] And, of course, the astrolabe could also be used for telling the time and often had an alidade and scale for that purpose on the back.[31] In their observation of the planets, Muslim astronomers devised tables and calculations using sophisticated apparatuses and instruments for such operations.[32] At The Maragha observatory, alongside astronomers were also instrument makers, one of them Mu'ayyad al'din al'Urdi al-Dimishqi, was the constructor of the `splendid collection of instruments' there.[33] Sighting tubes were also employed by Muslim astronomers; al-Battani (858-929) used them in his Raqqa observatory, just as Al-Tusi did, attaching one to a sextant at his Maragha observatory in 1259 to study the sun.[34]The Islamic collection of instruments in their observatories was not just impressive, but even exceeded in accuracy those developed in Germany in the 15^th century.[35]

Western Christianity recuperated many astronomical instruments conceived and made by Islamic artisans, and used them for centuries adapting them to various usages; or by constructing similar instruments based on the same principles.[36] Gerbert  (d. 1003) was the first to introduce into the schools instruments as an assistance to the study of arithmetic, astronomy, and geometry, in arithmetic, for instance, introducing the abacus.[37]He provides another link with the Muslim science  of Spain by the introduction of the astrolabe as the principal new timekeeping device.[38] The astrolabe, by far the earliest most sophisticated instrument, must have reached Ripoll  in Catalonia  as early as the 10^th century, and from there travelled north of the Pyrenees, the astrolabe soon making its way into the curriculum and cathedral schools.[39] A recently discovered manuscript fragment from the vicinity of the monastery of Reichenau includes several chapters, one of them numbered forty eighth, of an extended treatise on the astrolabe.[40]The surviving chapters are excerpts from earlier astrolabe treatises and concern the stars of the astrolabe and how to observe the sun and those stars to determine the time of day or night; a text, which has been dated on palaeographical grounds to around the year 1000, reflecting the incorporation of the astrolabe into the study of astronomy at Reichenau.[41]Treatises on the astrolabe commonly ascribed to Gerbert and Hermanus Contractus (of Reichenau) and containing numerous Arabic words,[42]highlight that acquaintance with this instrument, which had passed into Western Christendom  in the course of the 11^th century.[43]Walcher of Malvern, unsurprisingly from Loraine (the first place to discover Islamic astronomy north of the Pyrenees), was the first to use the astrolabe in the Latin  West. In 1092, he observed the eclipse of the moon and fixed it accurately by means of the astrolabe, using it in its Muslim form as devised in Toledo , and named after al-Zarqali.[44] In the excited accounts of his new experiment Walcher mentions three of the instrument’s points by their Arabic names, Almagrip, Almeri, and Almucantaraz,[45] which in Chaucer, explaining to Little Lewis three hundred years later, appear as `aziumtz, almury and almycanteras.’[46] Walcher’s tables in the first treatise are worked out by the clumsy methods of Roman fractions, but in the second, written in 1120, he uses degrees, minutes, and seconds, and the more exact observations, which he had learned in England  from Petrus Alphonsi .[47]

Translations from Arabic played a major role for such acquisition and dissemination of instrument use, particularly the use of the astrolabe. These include treatises on the astrolabe by Maslama al-Majriti and Ibn Saffar translated by John of Seville  and Plato of Tivoli; Al-Zarqali ’s treatise on Safiha az-Zarqalia translated many times by Don Abraham in Hebrew, and a Spanish  version by Ferrando.[48] A whole literature has in fact been derived from al-Zarqali’s treatise on the Safiha. In addition to the translations into Hebrew, such as that of 1263 in Montpellier , King Alfonso of Castile made two translations of it into Spanish; a further Spanish edition added by Rico Y Sinobas in the third volume of Libros del Saber.[49] A Florentine, Gueruccio, who was passing by Seville, translated the work into Italian, and in France, Master Jean de Ligneres, in the first half of the 14^th century, wrote in imitation of Al-Zarqali’s saphea, or description of the universal astrolabe.[50] The famed Regiomontanus, in the 15^th century, composed problems based on the Saphea, which were published in Nuremberg: `problemata XXIX Saphaea Nobilis instrumenti astronomici 1534.’[51] Chaucer, for his part, in 1380 used Masha'Allah's theories in his European introduction of the astrolabe as a scientific instrument.[52] Such translations and adaptations helped the Latin  in using the instrument in systematically every branch demanding measurement and calculation just as the Muslims did before them.[53]

     An Englishman, Robert (the Englishman,) who flourished in France, at Montpellier  (c. 1271), wrote a treatise on the quadrant before 1276. The treatises describes an astronomical instrument by means of which angular altitudes could be measured; e.g., the altitude of the sun (hence, with the help of solar tables, its place in the ecliptic), and also the hours of the day (again with the help of tables).[54] So popular was the treatise, it could be found in a considerable number of manuscripts and translations into Greek , Hebrew and German, plagiarized even in the Margarita philosophica of Gregory Reish.[55] The quadrant described as an invention of the second half of the 12^th century, was `hardly more than the adaptation of an Arabic instrument to Christian and Western needs,’ Sarton  points out.[56]Mc Cluskey, too, insists, that the quadrant was an Islamic invention, described in a group of treatises on the Qadrant vetus which entered the corpus astronomicuym; the most commonly used text being that written, of course, by John or Robert the Englishman.[57]

Other instruments and instrument uses include Campanus’ instructions for making and using the equatorium, which he, too, knew from an unknown Islamic source.[58] The equatorium is designed as a mechanical computer for converting the mean motions of a planet found in the tables to the planet's true position without extensive computations.[59]

As for armillary spheres, taken from Islamic sources, they were used in Western Europe for the teaching of astronomy until well into the 18^th century.[60]

By far, the greatest impact Islam exerted on the Christian West  is in relation to the appreciation, or the adoption of science itself. In the preceding chapter was seen how the necessity to catch up with Islam has opened the way to the 12^th century translations. The most decisive impact of Islam, though, is summed up by Durant who says that medieval Church power derived principally from the fact that men suspected that no one could answer their questions; `it was prudent, they felt, to take on faith the replies given with such quieting authoritativeness by the Church; they would have lost confidence in her had she ever admitted her fallibility. Perhaps they distrusted knowledge as the bitter fruit of a wisely forbidden tree, a mirage that would lure man from the Eden of simplicity and an undoubting life….’[61]`You cannot perish,' said Philip Augustus to his sailors in a midnight storm, `for at this moment thousands of monks are rising from their beds, and will soon be praying for us.’[62]

Muslims, although very devout, knew how to separate science and reason from superstition and folklore. Thus, Draper notes how whilst: `the Christian peasant fever stricken or overtaken by accident, tried to the nearest saint shrine and expected a miracle; the Spanish  Moor relied on the prescription or lancet of his physician, or the bandage and knife of his surgeon.'[63]

Conder insists that the influence of Eastern philosophy was fatal to the superstition of Europe.[64]And one of the major effects of the 12^th century translations, Dawson notes, is in producing a mass of new learning, which on the Western mind could have nothing, but `startling effects.’ [65] It raised the whole question of the relations between religion and science, and between reason and faith, in a very sharp and accentuated way.[66]  The material conveyed to the Latin  West through the medium of the translators, Campbell observes, `caused a reawakening in the intellectual outlook’.[67] Among the bishops, sovereigns, and even popes, there were many men of elevated views, Draper notes, who saw distinctly the position of Europe, and understood thoroughly the difficulties of the Church.[68] It had already become obvious to them that it would be impossible to restrain `the impulse arising from the vigorous movements of the Saracens, and that it was absolutely necessary so to order things that the actual condition of faith in Europe might be accommodated to or even harmonised with these philosophical conceptions, which it was quite clear would, soon or late, pervade the whole continent.’[69]Thus, Durant concludes, the very seeds of the Renaissance  and the Enlightenment were partly the unwitting revenge of Islam. Invaded in Palestine, and driven from nearly all of Spain, the Muslims transmitted their science and philosophy to Western Europe, and it proved to be a force that `infected Christianity with the germs of rationalism.’[70]

The earliest scholar, championing Muslim rationalism is Adelard of Bath . In his wide travels[71] and in his translations from Arabic, he exemplifies another phase of the awakening intellectual life of the age, a turning to Muslim literature for new sources of information and inspiration beyond the standard and easily available collections of classical, Scriptural, and patristic authorities.[72]The Quaestiones fights the claim of authority in defence of the `moderns'. Adelard attributes to his Islamic teachers a new attitude of mind:

   `I with reason for my guide have learned one thing from my Arab teachers- you something different-dazzled by the outward show of authority you wear a headstall, for what else would we call authority but a headstall? just as brute animals are led by headstalls where one pleases so many of you are led into danger by the authority of writers...’[73]

Such eagerness and faith in human reason found fitting expression in his words: `If reason be not the universal arbiter, it is given to each of us in vain.'[74] In Adelard’s mind, in contrast to the use of reason in the Arab world and professionalism, France seemed to him, not only ignorant, but amateur.[75]It is not possible to define exactly what the `opinions of the Arabs ’ meant to Adelard, but it is at least clear that he felt he was bringing something new and important to Europe, and that he was impatient, even contemptuous, of the purely indigenous developments of the north, literary, humanistic, theological.[76]In the Quaestiones Naturales which he composed in praise of Islamic learning, he expresses his excitement at the new scientific outlook of the `Arabs which had left the Latin  schools far behind.’[77]

 On Adelard’s overall contribution, Stock observes:

`what we must be grateful for is that among a number of scholars who brought scientific information to the attention of the Latin  West Adelard took the initiative not only in translating Arabic works but in recording their usefulness and developing the reasoning on which they were based.’[78]

Another Islamic legacy is, according to Daniel, the fact that Europe in the 12^th century needed scientific knowledge and method, and was desperate for new material and new methods, and found them in Arabic.[79] Scientific methodology was largely inherited from Al-Farabi, who in his Ihsa al-Ulum `Catalogue of the sciences' enumerates the sciences; setting down the paradigms upon which, and around which scientific knowledge could be both organised and built. This book had two Latin  translations, which are known, one was by Dominicus Gundisalvus, and the other by Gerard of Cremona .[80]The work was widely distributed, and on Al-Farabi’s methodology was built subsequent classification of sciences. Gundisalvus in his Division of the sciences completely shatters the old Western framework.[81] He opens with the familiar three theoretical sciences; then come the Seven Arts , with medicine inserted between the Trivium and Quadrivium (in this he follows Adelard of Bath ), but he includes between geometry and astronomy several sciences, which have been developed by the Muslims.[82]

 Another aspect of Islamic methodology is the work of Al-Razi  who systematised his medical writing, and classified his chemical substances (in his Secret secretum). Following suite, in medicine, Arnauld of Villanova proceeded by the same manner of Al-Razi, so much so, that Daniel sees in him a sort of lesser European Al-Razi.[83] And in chemistry, European scientists of the Renaissance  followed the Muslims' classification of substances (primarily al-Razi’s), gradually developing more complex and accurate classifications; and still using the same system as Muslims did centuries before them.[84]

The Islamic state, at its earliest stages, institutionalised strict rules and regulations. This was in obedience of fundamental requirements of the faith, which demands precise calculation of inheritance shares, financial contributions as part of alms giving, etc. Regulations, which spread to all sorts of activities; dispensaries of urban hospitals, for instance, being obliged to prescribe accurate amounts of drugs of controlled composition.[85]To insure that every type of rule and regulation was observed, state inspection was set up under the Muhtasib (the state inspector). He made sure that merchants and druggists did not use false weights and measures, that adulterated medicines were not sold, that animals did not carry more than a certain weight, that boats did not go out on the sea under certain conditions, etc.[86]Also in the days of al-Mamun and Al-Mutassim, pharmacists were obliged to pass examinations to become licensed professionals, and they were pledged to follow the prescriptions of the physicians.[87] So much interest was attached to accuracy that the records of early Islamic scientists that were of particular interest were signed on oath in legal form.[88]

The same measures were adopted by the Islamic leaning Sicilian rulers: Roger and Frederick of Sicily .  Frederick, for instance, passed the edict concerning the medical profession, which amongst others, obliged every physician exerting in his kingdom to obtain a licence from Salerno .[89] He determined the length of medical studies to five years, plus one year for practice under the guidance of an experienced physician, and one more year for surgeons.[90] He also passed regulations in the preparation of drugs as well as the relations between doctors and apothecaries.[91] Frederick’s measures, according to Sarton , witnessed the transformation of a profession organised on a purely individualistic basis, mainly controlled by the rules and ideals of its own brotherhood, into one consecrated and protected by academic and governmental regulations and privileges.[92] Other rulers of Western Christendom followed in the same steps.[93]

Islamic rigour in no manner restricted scientific query, though. Multhauf, for instance, points out that `while all learning, sacred and profane, long remained an ecclesiastical monopoly in Europe, alchemy, and science in general, was a secular pursuit in Islam.'[94] Until the 13<sup>th</sup> century in the Latin  West, and with few exceptions, learning was only available in monastic and cathedral schools. The great medieval universities that emerged in the 12<sup>th</sup>-13<sup>th</sup> centuries (and the 14<sup>th</sup>) were under the control of the Church and had mostly ecclesiastics on their teaching staff.[95]It took gradual developments in the Christian West  to advance along Islamic lines, and it is the adoption of the value system of Islam, which opened doors for advancement.[96] It is in Islam, Makdisi observes, where was found the model of academic freedom, amongst both professors and students.[97]One of the principal tenets of Islam, Scott says, was toleration, and the rapid and `almost miraculous development of the human mind’ during the 13^th century was the inevitable consequence of a policy based upon those principles whose application had promoted the wonderful progress of every nation ruled by `the enlightened’ followers of Islam .[98]A point adhered to by Owen who maintains that in the leaders of Islam, as in the Prophet  himself, are examples of men who are eminent for enlightenment, liberality, and toleration; and the history of Islam, taken as a whole, must be regarded as `a powerful propaganda of free thought and liberal culture, which is all the more striking when contrasted with the barbarism by which it was surrounded.’[99]

Finally, here, are two other crucial elements of Islamic influence upon Western learning. The First is related to the use of paper in Islam, and its eventual transfer to the West.  Pedersen insists that in diffusing paper production and use, the Muslims accomplished a feat of crucial significance not only to the history of the Islamic books but to the whole world of books.[100] Which, of course, led to the second development, printing, whose impact on modern science and civilisation does not need to be told here.