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Averroes Islamic Philosopher

‘Historical Amnesia’ has led to forgotten achievements of Muslim culture

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In an article authored by Craig Considine, reference has been made to the extreme historical amnesia that has taken place with regards to the achievements and contributions of the Muslim culture to education, philosophy, health care and science.

Contributions to education

Perhaps it may come as a surprise to some that the first university in the world was established by two Muslim women, Fatima and Miriam al-Firhi, who set up Al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco in 859 AD. Students were schooled here in a plethora of secular and religious subjects, and at the end of their education, teachers evaluated students and awarded degrees based on good performance. The concept of awarding degrees later spread to Andalucía, Spain, and later to the Universities of Bologna in Italy and Oxford in England, among others.

Spanish Muslims of Andalucía were strong advocates of education and between the 8th and 15th centuries, was one of the world's epicentres for education and knowledge. Students from many denominations learned science from Muslims in an educational environment that emphasised the importance of tolerance.

Contributions to philosophy

One of the greatest Muslim contributions to civilization began in the 8th century when Muslim scholars translated the wisdom found in ancient Greek philosophical texts, creating one of the biggest transmissions of knowledge in world history. Muslim scholars brought the ideas of the great Greek writers such as Socrates, Aristotle and Plato into Europe, where their philosophy was translated into other European languages. The Muslims resurrected Greek philosophy and gave new life into a European continent that was bogged down with religious dogma and bloody internal conflicts.

Averroes, a Muslim philosopher and founder of Averroism, a philsophical movement that become popular in medieval Europe. Photo source: Wikipedia

Contributions to health care

In 872 in Cairo, Egypt, the Ahmad ibn Tulun hospital was created and equipped with an elaborate institution and a range of functions: a center of medical treatment, a convalescent home for those recovering from illness or accidents, and a retirement home giving basic maintenance needs for the aged and infirm who lacked a family to care for them. It was also the first hospital to give care to the mentally ill.  Like other Islamic hospitals that soon followed, Tulun was a secular institution which felt it had a moral imperative to treat any person: man or woman, adult or child, rich or poor, as well as Muslims and non-Muslims.

One hundred years after the founding of Tulun, a surgeon named Al-Zahrawi wrote an illustrated encyclopaedia that would ultimately be used as a guide to European surgeons for the next five hundred years. His surgical instruments, such as scalpels, bone saws, and forceps are still used by modern surgeons today and he is reportedly the first surgeon to perform a caesarean operation.

A man receiving treatment in an Islamic hospital. Photo source.

Contributions to science

Muslims have also made significant contributions to science and between the 7 th and 16 th centuries, known as the Islamic Golden Age, and were said to have practiced and advanced science on a scale unprecedented in earlier human history.

Muslim scientists invented many of the basic processes and apparatuses used by modern-day chemists, and are credited with transforming alchemy into chemistry through distillation during the 8th and 9th centuries.

In medieval Islam, the sciences were viewed holistically. The individual scientific disciplines were approached in terms of their relationships to each other and the whole, as if they were branches of a tree. The most important scientists were skilled in the practice of medicine as well as astronomy and mathematics. These multi-talented sages, the central figures in Islamic science, elaborated and personified the unity of the sciences. They orchestrated scientific development through their insights, and excelled in their explorations as well.

Muslims have made enormous contributions to civilization.  According to Consodine, people around the world should be taught about these contributions to dispel misperceptions so major trends or events in world history are no longer forgotten or blatantly ignored in a case of “historical amnesia.”

Featured image: Averroes, the great Muslim polymath, master of Aristotelian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, logic, psychology, politics, the sciences of medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and celestial mechanics. Photo source: Wikipedia

By April Holloway

 

Comments

Muslims have made enormous contributions to civilization. According to Consodine, people around the world should be taught about these contributions to dispel misperceptions so major trends or events in world history are no longer forgotten or blatantly ignored in a case of “historical amnesia.”

Greek was the language used by the Byzantine Empire. Greece was part of the Byzantine Empire until taken by the Moslems.
The Moslems did not destroy the Byzantine Empire until 1453 and before that happened, the Byzantines sent much of their culture out of Constantinople.
These glittering generalities presented above do not indicate any cultural achievements.

Sadly, Islamic culture is now know for its astounding levels of violence towards their fellow man. If Albert Einstein was machine gunning restaurant patrons and concert goers aand flying planes into buildings we'd probably quickly forget all the brilliant ideas he came up with as well.

A bit of a selective presentation, since it doesn't mention that Muslim superstitions censored out all illustrations representing living things, so it made no sense to preserve the text of a Greek biology text if you couldn't illustrate the flora and fauna, which the Greeks drew well and with perspective, leaving people to guess at the meaning. Only abstract diagrams such as in geometry were preserved.

It also really depends on how you define a university. Charlemagne beat the Muslim world by 12 years.

Nalanda wasn't a degree granting institution. It taught very basic subjects and other civilizations did not copy it nor set it as a standard for higher learning for their own institutions. It was only given the title of "University" after Sept. 11th 2001 by revisionist historians.

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April Holloway is a Co-Owner, Editor and Writer of Ancient Origins. For privacy reasons, she has previously written on Ancient Origins under the pen name April Holloway, but is now choosing to use her real name, Joanna Gillan.

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