The Renaissance

Published: 2002

Islam’s influence on Europe drove its rapid advancement during the Dark Ages. Briffault, in the book “The Making of Humanity,” states: “It was not science only which brought Europe back to life.
Other, manifold influences from the Islamic civilization gave European life its first glow. Our science owes the Arabs not startling discoveries or revolutionary theories; it owes much more to Arab culture; it owes its existence.

The ancient world was, as we saw, pre-scientific. Greek astronomy and mathematics were a foreign importation, never fully acclimatized in Greek culture. The Greeks systematized, generalized, and theorized. Still, the patient ways of investigation—the accumulation of positive knowledge, the minute methods of science, detailed and prolonged observation, and experimental inquiry — were altogether alien to the Greek temperament. Only in Hellenistic Alexandria did anyone conduct scientific work in the ancient classical world. That spirit and those methods were introduced into the European world by the Arabs.”

The Greeks were primarily theorizers and contemplators. Plato juxtaposed the macro-world to the micro-world of the human body. Aristotle classified the world we live in into four groups: fire, air, water, and earth. According to Durant, these “elaborations of ‘vague theories’ was the extent of the Grecian contribution.” Dr. K. Ajram, in his book, “The Miracle of Islamic Science,” says,

Greek interpretations failed to signify science because they did not take action to confirm their theories. Hippocrates is known as the father of modern medicine, but most of his medical theories were considered erroneous. These achievements were tremendous for their age, but the Renaissance’s main influence didn’t come solely from the Greeks.

Arabs (Muslims, Christians, and Jews) introduced in-depth observation and experimentation to Europe. The Greek’s accomplishments in the field of Reason, Philosophy and Art were vast, but the precise sciences; Physics, Medicine, Geology, Geography, Botany, and others all came with the rise of Islam.”

In Europe’s “Dark Ages,” the bond between faith and reason weakened, and a deep gulf developed between them. During the “Golden Age,” Muslims helped bridge this gap.
Many questions raised by the Christian gospel awaited rational interpretation. Did God create the universe out of nothing, or had that universe existed eternally? Answers appeared in Arab and Islamic literature. In 8th through 13th-century Spain under the Moors, some of Islam’s greatest thinkers revolutionized Christian scholasticism.

Some of those are al Farabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Hazm (994-1064), and Ibn Rushd. Ibn Rushd (1126-1196) was known in Latin as Averroes. Ibn Rushd was a philosopher, an Aristotelian, and an author of some of the most influential medical works. He provided Europe with integral commentaries on understanding Aristotle. He significantly influenced Western scientific development.

Christian thinkers relied more on Ibn Rushd (Averroism) than on Aristotle in scientific research. Among Ibn Rushd’s followers were the Jewish thinkers who called him “the soul and intelligence of Aristotle.” In fact, Jewish philosophers such as Ibn Maymun, known as Maimonides (d. 1204), Yahuda ben Solomon Cohen, and Aveicebron, who were the main glory of intellect, were students of Ibn Rushd and Arabic philosophy. Islamic philosophy floats high above all racism, giving freedom and protection to minorities and the Jews who translated the Arabic works into Hebrew (12th to 14th century).

Rom Landau stated in his book,
“The Arab Heritage of Western Civilization” that

“Averroism became the chief doctrine of the philosophical schools of Paris, Padua, and Bologna. It helped lay the foundation for the Renaissance.”

Another branch of Arab learning was medicine. Arab doctors founded one of Europe’s best medical schools in France.

Around 1150 AD, Europe learned Arabic numerals and the science of Algebra, invented by the Arabs. The Italian Leonardo Fibonacci laid the foundations of Western mathematics, building on the Arabs’ work.

It is clear that “what the Arabs transmitted to the West went far beyond the Greek legacy. The Arabs also taught Europe that there is no exclusiveness in man’s quest for truth and that truth itself knows no frontiers of race or religion. In fact, these were the principles that were to guide the Renaissance and make Western progress and Western civilization possible,’’ says Rom Landau, author of “The Arab Heritage of Western Civilization.”