Setting the Record Straight

Setting the Record Straight

Published: 2002

“Setting the Record Straight,” Appendix B of the book, “The Miracle of Islamic Science.” In this appendix, Dr. K. Ajram relates a list of hundreds of scientific and intellectual discoveries and achievements made by Muslims. Still, neither Muslims nor Arabs were acknowledged for them. We posted “Appendix B,” as a whole, for our reader’s convenience.

Appendix B

The concept that the sciences are exclusively the products of Western minds remains unquestioned by most individuals. A review of any of the standard texts or encyclopedias regarding science’s history would support this view. As these books are perused, it becomes evident that the only contributors given significant mention are Europeans and/or Americans. It is hardly necessary to repeat the oft-mentioned names: Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon, Newton, Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, etc.

The unavoidable conclusion is that major contributions to the modern sciences’ development by other cultures are minimal. Most texts give little or no mention of the advancements made by ancient Indian, Chinese, or particularly, Muslim scholars.

Western civilization has made invaluable contributions to the development of the sciences. However, so have numerous other cultures.

Unfortunately, Westerners have long been credited with discoveries made many centuries before by Islamic scholars. Thus, many of the basic sciences were invented by non-Europeans. For instance, George Sarton states that modern Western medicine did not originate from Europe and that it actually arose from the (Islamic) orient.

The data in this section concerning dates, names, and topics of Western advances has been derived from three main sources: World Book Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, and Isaac Asimov’s 700-page book, Chronology of Science and Discovery. Supportive data for Islamic scholars’ accomplishments are derived from the miscellaneous references listed in this book’s bibliography.

What is Taught:

The first mention of the man in flight was by Roger Bacon, who drew a flying apparatus. Leonardo da Vinci also conceived of airborne transport and drew several prototypes.

What Should be Taught:

Ibn Firnas of Islamic Spain invented, constructed, and tested the flying machine in the 800’s A.D. Roger Bacon learned of flying machines from Arabic references to Ibn Firnas’ machine. The latter’s invention antedates Bacon by 500 years and Da Vinci by some 700 years.

What is Taught:

Glass mirrors were first produced in 1291 in Venice.

What Should be Taught:

Glass mirrors were in use in Islamic Spain as early as the 11th century. The Venetians learned of fine glass production from Syrian artisans during the 9th and 10th centuries.

What is Taught:

Until the 14th century, the only type of clock available was the water clock. In 1335, a large mechanical clock was erected in Milan, Italy. This was possibly the first weight-driven clock.

What Should be Taught:

A variety of mechanical clocks were produced by Spanish Muslim engineers, both large and small, and this knowledge was transmitted to Europe through Latin translations of Islamic books on mechanics. These clocks were weight-driven. Designs and illustrations of epi-cyclic and segmental gears were provided. One such clock included a mercury escapement. Europeans directly copied the latter type during the 15th century. Besides, during the 9th century, Ibn Firnas of Islamic Spain, according to Will Durant, invented a watch-like device that kept accurate time. The Muslims also constructed a variety of highly accurate astronomical clocks for use in their observatories.

What is Taught:

In the 17th century, the pendulum was developed by Galileo during his teenage years. He noticed a chandelier swaying as the wind was blowing it. As a result, he went home and invented the pendulum.

What Should be Taught:

Ibn Yunus al-Masri discovered the pendulum during the 10th century, who was the first to study and document its oscillatory motion. Muslim physicists introduced its value for use in clocks during the 15th century.

What is Taught:

Movable type and the printing press was invented in the West by Johannes Gutenberg of Germany during the 15th century.

What Should be Taught:

In 1454, Gutenberg developed the most sophisticated printing press of the Middle Ages. However, the movable brass type was in use in Islamic Spain 100 years prior, and that is where the West’s first printing devices were made.

What is Taught:

Isaac Newton’s 17th-century study of lenses, light, and prisms forms the foundation of optics’ modern science.

What Should be Taught:

In the 1lth century, al-Haytham determined virtually everything that Newton advanced regarding optics centuries prior and is regarded by numerous authorities as to the “founder of optics. ” There is little doubt that he influenced Newton. Al-Haytham was the most quoted physicist of the Middle Ages. His works were utilized and quoted by many European scholars during the 16th and 17th centuries than those of Newton and Galileo combined.

What is Taught:

During the 17th century, Isaac Newton discovered that white light consists of various rays of colored light.
What Should be Taught: This discovery was made in its entirety by al-Haytham (11th century) and Kamal ad-Din (14th century). Newton did make original discoveries, but this was not one of them.

What is Taught:

Antione Lavoisier first introduced the concept of the finite nature of matter during the 18th century. He discovered that, although matter may change its form or shape, its mass always remains the same. Thus, if the water is heated to steam, if salt is dissolved in water, or a piece of wood is burned to ashes, the total mass remains unchanged.

What Should be Taught:

This discovery’s principles were elaborated centuries before by Islamic Persia’s great scholar, al-Biruni (d. 1050). Lavoisier was a disciple of the Muslim chemists and physicists and referred to their books frequently.

What is Taught:

The Greeks were the developers of trigonometry.

What Should be Taught:

Trigonometry remained largely a theoretical science among the Greeks. It was developed to a level of modern perfection by Muslim scholars, although the credit must be given to al-Battani. The words describing this science’s basic functions, sine, cosine, and tangent, are all derived from Arabic terms. Thus, original contributions by the Greeks in trigonometry were minimal.

What is Taught:

Decimal fractions in mathematics were first developed by a Dutchman, Simon Stevin, in 1589. He helped advance the mathematical sciences by replacing the cumbersome fractions, for instance, 1/2, with decimal fractions, for example, 0.5.

What Should be Taught:

Muslim mathematicians were the first to utilize decimals instead of fractions on a large scale. Al-Kashi’s book, Key to Arithmetic, was written at the beginning of the 15th century and was the stimulus for decimals’ systematic application to whole numbers and fractions thereof. Stevin probably imported the idea to Europe from al-Kashi’s work.

What is Taught:

The first man to utilize algebraic symbols was the French mathematician Francois Vieta. In 1591, he wrote an algebra book describing equations with letters such as the now familiar x and y’s. Asimov says that this discovery had an impact similar to the progression from Roman numerals to Arabic numbers.

What Should be Taught:

Muslim mathematicians, the inventors of algebra, introduced using letters for unknown variables in equations as early as the 9th century A.D. Through this system, they solved a variety of complex equations, including quadratic and cubic equations. They used symbols to develop and perfect the binomial theorem.

What is Taught:

The difficult cubic equations (x to the third power) remained unsolved until the 16th century when Niccolo Tartaglia, an Italian mathematician, solved them.

What Should be Taught:

Cubic equations and numerous equations of even higher degrees were solved with ease by Muslim mathematicians as early as the 10th century.

What is Taught:

The concept that numbers could be less than zero, that is, negative numbers, was unknown until 1545 when Geronimo Cardano introduced it.

What Should be Taught:

Muslim mathematicians introduced negative numbers for use in various arithmetic functions at least 400 years before Cardano.

What is Taught:

In 1614, John Napier invented logarithms and logarithmic tables.

What Should be Taught:

Muslim mathematicians invented logarithms and produced logarithmic tables several centuries prior. Such tables were common in the Islamic world as early as the 13th century.

What is Taught:

During the 17th century, Rene Descartes discovered that algebra could be used to solve geometrical problems. By this, he greatly advanced the science of geometry.

What Should be Taught:

Mathematicians of the Islamic Empire accomplished precisely this as early as the 9th century A.D. Thabit bin Qurrah was the first to do so. He was followed by Abu’l Wafa, whose 10th-century book utilized algebra to advance geometry into an exact and simplified science.

What is Taught:

During the 17th century, Isaac Newton developed the binomial theorem, which is a crucial component for the study of algebra.

What Should be Taught:

Hundreds of Muslim mathematicians utilized and perfected the binomial theorem. They initiated its use for the systematic solution of algebraic problems during the 10th century (or prior).

What is Taught:

No improvement had been made in the ancients’ astronomy during the Middle Ages regarding the motion of planets until the 13th century. Then Alphonso the Wise of Castile (Middle Spain) invented the Alphonsine Tables, which were more accurate than Ptolemy’s.

What Should be Taught:

Muslim astronomers made numerous improvements upon Ptolemy’s findings as early as the 9th century. They were the first astronomers to dispute his archaic ideas. In their critic of the Greeks, they synthesized proof that the sun is the center of the solar system and that the orbits of the earth and other planets might be elliptical. They produced hundreds of highly accurate astronomical tables and star charts. Many of their calculations are so precise that they are regarded as contemporary. The Alphonsine Tables are little more than copies of works on astronomy transmitted to Europe via Islamic Spain, i.e., the Toledo Tables.

What is Taught:

The English scholar Roger Bacon (d. 1292) first mentioned glass lenses for improving vision. At nearly the same time, eyeglasses could be found in use both in China and Europe.

What Should be Taught:

Ibn Firnas of Islamic Spain invented eyeglasses during the 9th century, and they were manufactured and sold throughout Spain for over two centuries. Any mention of eyeglasses by Roger Bacon was simply a regurgitation of the work of al-Haytham (d. 1039), whose research Bacon frequently referred to.

What is Taught:

Gunpowder was developed in the Western world as a result of Roger Bacon’s work in 1242. The first usage of gunpowder in weapons was when the Chinese fired it from bamboo shoots to frighten Mongol conquerors. They produced it by adding sulfur and charcoal to the saltpeter.

What Should be Taught:

The Chinese developed saltpeter for use in fireworks and knew of no tactical military use for gunpowder, nor did they invent its formula. Research by Reinuad and Fave has clearly shown that Muslim chemists initially formulated gunpowder. Further, these historians claim that the Muslims developed the first fire-arms. Notably, Muslim armies used grenades and other weapons in their defense of Algericus against the Franks during the 14th century. Jean Mathes indicates that the Muslim rulers had stock-piles of grenades, rifles, crude cannons, incendiary devices, sulfur bombs, and pistols decades before such devices were used in Europe. The first mention of a cannon was in an Arabic text around 1300 A.D. Roger Bacon learned of the formula for gunpowder from Latin translations of Arabic books. He brought forth nothing original in this regard.

What is Taught:

The Chinese invented the compass, which may have been the first to use it for navigational purposes sometime between 1000 and 1100 A.D. The earliest reference to its navigation was by the Englishman, Alexander Neckam (1157-1217).

What Should be Taught:

Muslim geographers and navigators learned of the magnetic needle, possibly from the Chinese, and were the first to use magnetic needles in navigation. They invented the compass and passed the knowledge of its use in navigation to the West. European navigators relied on Muslim pilots and their instruments when exploring unknown territories. Gustav Le Bon claims that the Muslims entirely invented the magnetic needle and the compass and that the Chinese had little to do with it. Neckam, as well as the Chinese, probably learned of it from Muslim traders. It is noteworthy that the Chinese improved their navigational expertise after interacting with the Muslims during the 8th century.

What is Taught:

The first man to classify the races was the German Johann F. Blumenbach, who divided humanity into white, yellow, brown, black, and red peoples.

What Should be Taught:

Muslim scholars of the 9th through 14th centuries invented the science of ethnography. Several Muslim geographers classified the races, writing detailed explanations of their unique cultural habits and physical appearances. They wrote thousands of pages on this subject. Blumenbach’s works were insignificant in comparison.

What is Taught:

The science of geography was revived during the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries when Ptolemy’s ancient works were discovered. The Crusades and the Portuguese/Spanish expeditions also contributed to this reawakening. The first scientifically-based treatise on geography was produced during this period by Europe’s scholars.

What Should be Taught:

Muslim geographers produced untold volumes of books on the geography of Africa, Asia, India, China, and the Indies during the 8th through 15th centuries. These writings included the world’s first geographical encyclopedias, almanacs, and road maps. Ibn Battutah’s 14th-century masterpieces provide a detailed view of the geography of the ancient world. The Muslim geographers of the 10th through 15th centuries far exceeded the Europeans’ output regarding the geography of these regions well into the 18th century. The Crusades led to the destruction of educational institutions, their scholars, and books. They brought nothing substantive regarding geography to the Western world.

What is Taught:

Robert Boyle, in the 17th century, originated the science of chemistry.

What Should be Taught:

Many Muslim chemists, including ar-Razi, al-Jabr, al-Biruni, and al-Kindi, performed scientific experiments in chemistry some 700 years before Boyle. Durant writes that the Muslims introduced the experimental method to this science. Humboldt regards the Muslims as the founders of chemistry.

What is Taught:

Leonardo da Vinci (16th century) fathered the geology science when he noted that fossils found on mountains indicated a watery origin of the earth.

What Should be Taught:

Al-Biruni (1lth century) made precisely this observation and added much to it, including a huge book on geology, hundreds of years before Da Vinci was born. Ibn Sina noted this as well (see pages 100-101). it is probable that Da Vinci first learned of this concept from Latin translations of Islamic books. He added nothing original to their findings.

What is Taught:

The first mention of valleys’ geological formation was in 1756 when Nicolas Desmarest proposed that they were formed over a long period of time by streams.

What Should be Taught:

Ibn Sina and al-Biruni made precisely this discovery during the 11th century, fully 700 years before Desmarest.

What is Taught:

Galileo (17th century) was the world’s first great experimenter.

What Should be Taught:

Al-Biruni (d. 1050) was the world’s first great experimenter. He wrote over 200 books, many of which discuss his precise experiments. His literary output in the sciences amounts to some 13,000 pages, far exceeding that written by Galileo or, for that matter, Galileo and Newton combined.

What is Taught:

The Italian Giovanni Morgagni is regarded as the father of pathology because he was the first to describe the disease’s nature correctly.

What Should be Taught:

Islam’s surgeons were the first pathologists. They fully realized the nature of the disease and described a variety of diseases in modern detail. Ibn Zuhr correctly described the nature of pleurisy, tuberculosis, and pericarditis. Az-Zahrawi accurately documented the pathology of hydrocephalus (water on the brain) and other congenital diseases. Ibn al-Quff and Ibn an-Nafs gave perfect descriptions of the diseases of circulation. Other Muslim surgeons gave the first accurate descriptions of certain malignancies, including cancer of the stomach, bowel, and esophagus. These surgeons were the originators of pathology, not Giovanni Morgagni.

What is Taught:

Paul Ehrlich (19th century) is the originator of the drug chemotherapy, which uses specific drugs to kill microbes.

What Should be Taught:

Muslim physicians used a variety of specific substances to destroy microbes. They applied sulfur topically specifically to kill the scabies mite. Ar-Razi (10th century) used mercurial compounds as topical antiseptics.

What is Taught:

Purified alcohol, made through distillation, was first produced by Arnau de Villanova, a Spanish alchemist, in 1300 A.D.

What Should be Taught:

Numerous Muslim chemists produced medicinal-grade alcohol through distillation as early as the 10th century and manufactured the first distillation devices for use in chemistry on a large scale. They used alcohol as a solvent and antiseptic.

What is Taught:

The first surgery performed under inhalation anesthesia was conducted by C.W. Long, an American, in 1845.

What Should be Taught:

Six hundred years before Long, Islamic Spain’s Az-Zahrawi and Ibn Zuhr, among other Muslim surgeons, performed hundreds of surgeries under inhalation anesthesia using narcotic-soaked sponges were placed over the face.

What is Taught:

During the 16th century, Paracelsus invented the use of opium extracts for anesthesia.

What Should be Taught:

Muslim physicians introduced the anesthetic value of opium derivatives during the Middle Ages. Opium was originally used as an anesthetic agent by the Greeks. Paracelus was a student of Ibn Sina’s works from which it is almost assured that he derived this idea.

What is Taught:

Modern anesthesia was invented in the 19th century by Humphrey Davy and Horace Wells.

What Should be Taught:

Modern anesthesia was discovered, mastered, and perfected by Muslim anesthetists 900 years before Davy and Wells’s advent. They utilized oral as well as inhalant anesthetics.

What is Taught:

The concept of quarantine was first developed in 1403. In Venice, a law was passed preventing strangers from entering the city until a certain waiting period had passed. If by then, no sign of illness could be found, they were allowed in.

What Should be Taught:

The quarantine concept was first introduced in the 7th century A.D. by the prophet Muhammad, who wisely warned against entering or leaving a region suffering from the plague. As early as the 10th century, Muslim physicians innovated isolation wards for individuals suffering from communicable diseases.

What is Taught:

The scientific use of antiseptics in surgery was discovered by the British surgeon Joseph Lister in 1865.

What Should be Taught:

As early as the 10th century, Muslim physicians and surgeons applied purified alcohol to wounds as an antiseptic agent. Surgeons in Islamic Spain utilized special methods for maintaining antisepsis before and during surgery. They also originated specific protocols for maintaining hygiene during the post-operative period. Their success rate was so high that dignitaries throughout Europe came to Cordova, Spain, to be treated the “Mayo Clinic” of the Middle Ages comparably.

What is Taught:

In 1545, the scientific use of surgery was advanced by the French surgeon Ambroise Pare. Before him, surgeons attempted to stop bleeding through the gruesome procedure of searing the wound with boiling oil. Pare stopped the use of boiling oils and began ligating arteries. He is considered the “father of rational surgery.” Pare was also one of the first Europeans to condemn such grotesque “surgical” procedures as trepanning (see reference #6, pg. 110).

What Should be Taught:

Islamic Spain’s illustrious surgeon, az-Zahrawi (d. 1013), began ligating arteries with fine sutures over 500 years before Pare. He perfected the use of Catgut, which is a suture made from animal intestines. Additionally, he instituted the use of cotton plus wax to plug bleeding wounds.

The full details of his works were made available to Europeans through Latin translations. Despite this, barbers and herdsmen continued to be the primary individuals practicing the “art” of surgery for nearly six centuries after az-Zahrawi’s death. Pare himself was a barber, albeit more skilled and conscientious than the average ones. Included in az-Zahrawi’s legacy are dozens of books.

His most famous work is a 30 volume treatise on medicine and surgery. His books contain sections on preventive medicine, nutrition, cosmetics, drug therapy, surgical technique, anesthesia, pre, and post-operative care, and drawings of some 200 surgical devices, many of which he invented. The refined and scholarly az-Zahrawi must be regarded as the father and founder of rational surgery, not the uneducated Pare.

What is Taught:

William Harvey, during the early 17th century, discovered that blood circulates. He was the first to correctly describe the function of the heart, arteries, and veins. Rome’s Galen had presented erroneous ideas regarding the circulatory system, and Harvey was the first to determine that blood is pumped throughout the body via the heart’s action and the venous valves. Therefore, he is regarded as the founder of human physiology.

What Should be Taught:

In the 10th century, Islam’s ar-Razi wrote an in-depth treatise on the venous system, accurately describing the veins’ function and their valves. Ibn an-Nafs and Ibn al-Quff (13th century) provided full documentation that the blood circulates and correctly described the heart’s physiology and the function of its valves 300 years before Harvey. William Harvey was a graduate of Italy’s famous Padua University when the majority of its curriculum was based upon Ibn Sina’s and ar-Razi’s textbooks.

What is Taught

A German scholar published the first pharmacopeia (book of medicines) in 1542. According to World Book Encyclopedia, the science of pharmacology was begun in the 1900s as an off-shoot of chemistry due to the analysis of crude plant materials. Chemists, after isolating the active ingredients from plants, realized their medicinal value.

What Should be Taught:

According to the eminent scholar of Arab history, Phillip Hitti, the Muslims, not the Greeks or Europeans, wrote the first “modern” pharmacopeia. Muslim physicians originated the science of pharmacology during the 9th century. They developed it into a highly refined and exact science. Muslim chemists, pharmacists, and physicians produced thousands of drugs and/or crude herbal extracts one thousand years before the supposed birth of pharmacology. During the 14th century, Ibn Baytar wrote a monumental pharmacopeia listing some 1400 different drugs. Hundreds of other pharmacopeias were published during the Islamic Era. The German work is likely an offshoot of that by Ibn Baytar, which was widely circulated in Europe.

What is Taught:

The discovery of the scientific use of drugs in treating specific diseases was made by Paracelsus, the Swiss-born physician, during the 16th century. He is also credited with being the first to use practical experience as a determining factor in the treatment of patients rather than relying exclusively on the ancients’ works.

What Should be Taught:

Ar-Razi, Ibn Sina, al-Kindi, Ibn Rushd, az-Zahrawi, Ibn Zuhr, Ibn Baytar, Ibn al-Jazzar, Ibn Juljul, Ibn al-Quff, Ibn an-Nafs, al-Biruni, Ibn Sahl, and hundreds of other Muslim physicians mastered the science of drug therapy for the treatment of specific symptoms and diseases. In fact, this concept was entirely their invention. The word “drug” is derived from Arabic. Their use of practical experience and careful observation was extensive. Muslim physicians were the first to criticize ancient medical theories and practices. Ar-Razi devoted an entire book as a critique of Galen’s anatomy. The works of Paracelsus are insignificant compared to the vast volumes of medical writings and original findings accomplished by the medical giants of Islam.

What is Taught:

The first sound approach to the treatment of disease was made by a German, Johann Weger, in the 1500s.

What Should be Taught:

Harvard’s George Sarton says that modern medicine is entirely an Islamic development and that the Muslim physicians of the 9th through 12th centuries were precise, scientific, rational, and sound in their approach. Johann Weger was among thousands of European physicians during the 15th through 17th centuries who were taught ar-Razi and Ibn Sina’s medicine. He contributed nothing original.

What is Taught:

Medical treatment for the insane was modernized by Philippe Pinel when in 1793, he operated France’s first insane asylum.

What Should be Taught:

As early as the 1lth century, Islamic hospitals maintained special wards for the insane. They treated them kindly and presumed their disease was real at a time when the insane were routinely burned alive in Europe as witches and sorcerers. A curative approach was taken for mental illness, and, for the first time in history, the mentally ill were treated with supportive care, drugs, and psychotherapy. Every major Islamic city maintained an insane asylum where patients were treated at no charge. In fact, the Islamic system for the treatment of the insane excels compared to the current model, as it was more humane and highly effective.

What is Taught: Kerosene was first produced by the Englishman Abraham Gesner in 1853. He distilled it from asphalt.
What Should be Taught: Muslim chemists produced kerosene as a distillate from petroleum products over 1,000 years before Gesner (see Encyclopaedia Britannica under the heading, Petroleum).