Boosting Quality Of Life

Published 2002

Boosting the economy and raising living standards is yet another Islamic catalyst that motivated Muslims to excel and prosper. In the Holy Qur’an, for example, we see chapters named after what constituted the nerves of Arabia’s economy at that time, such as cattle and ore industries. For example, Chapter 3 is entitled “The Cattle,” or, as the Grand Mufti of Syria, Shaykh Ahmad Kuftaro, stated, “The Cattle Industry,” and Chapter 80 is entitled “The Steel,” or “Ore and Mining.” Islam fostered principles of building a better economy and stood firm in discouraging idleness and poverty.

Advising his followers to improve their standards of living and businesses, Prophet Muhammad said: “Poverty is as bad as disbelieving in God.” This philosophy encouraged Muslims to pursue and invent ways to raise their standards of living. Free trade, competition in quality, urban development, and the utilization of unused land were only a few of the pursuits that Muslims put into practice.
Muslims pioneered science and art during medieval times and formed the necessary link between the ancient and the modern. Their light of learning dispelled the gloom that had enveloped Europe. Moorish Spain was the main source through which Muslims transmitted their scientific knowledge and great achievements to France, Germany, and England.

The Spanish universities of Cordoba, Seville, and Granada drew Christian and Jewish students who learned science from Muslim scientists and then popularized it in their native lands.

Another source for the transmission of Muslim scientific knowledge was Sicily, where during the reign of Muslim kings and even afterward, many scientific works were translated from Arabic into Latin.
The most prominent translators who translated Muslim works from Arabic into European languages were Gerard of Cremona, Adelard of Bath, Roger Bacon, and Robert Chester.
Writing in his celebrated work, Moors in Spain, Stanley Lane Poole says, “For nearly eight centuries under the Mohammadan rulers, Spain set out to all Europe a shining example of a civilized and enlightened State—arts, literature, and science prospered as they prospered nowhere in Europe. Students flocked from France, Germany, and England to drink from the fountain of learning that flowed down in Moorish cities.

The surgeons and doctors of Andalusia led science; women were encouraged to study seriously, and the lady doctor was not always unknown among Cordova people.

In Spain alone, mathematics, astronomy and botany, history, philosophy, and jurisprudence were to be mastered.
The Spanish Moors brought to perfection the practical work of the field; the scientific methods of irrigation; the arts of fortification and shipbuilding; and the highest and most elaborate products of the loom, the gravel and the hammer, the potter’s wheel, and the mason’s trowel. Whatever makes a kingdom great and prosperous, whatever tends to refinement and civilization, was found in Muslim Spain.” Students flocked to Spanish cities from all parts of Europe to be infused with the light of learning that lit Moorish Spain.

Another western historian writes, “The light of these universities shone far beyond the Muslim world, and drew students to them from east and west. At Cordoba, in particular, several Christian students studied, and the influence of Arab philosophy, coming through Spain, on the universities of Paris, Oxford, and Northern Italy, and on Western European thought generally, was considerable indeed.

The book copying industry flourished at Alexandria, Damascus, Cairo, and Baghdad, and about the year 970, there were 27 free schools open in Cordoba for the education of the poor.” Such were the great achievements of Muslims in science, which paved the way for the growth of modern sciences. These trends started from the time of Prophet Muhammad and continued into the 17th century.