“The part played by Muslims in the development of the social sciences has been very important. A remarkable characteristic of Muslim science is the rapidity of its development. The Qur’an was the first book ever written in the Arabic language. Scarcely two hundred years later, this language of the illiterate Bedouins developed into one of the richest in the world, later to become not only the richest of all languages of the time, but also an international language for all sorts of sciences.”
“The first Muslims were almost all Arabs, yet with the exception of their language, which was the repository of the Word of Allah and of His Prophet, they effaced their own personality, under the influence of Islam, in order to receive in Islam all races on the basis of absolute equality. Therefore it is that all races have participated in the progress of the “Islamic” sciences: Arabs, Iranians, Greeks, Turks, Abyssinians, Berbers, Indians, and others, who have embraced Islam. Their religious tolerance was so great, and the patronage of learning so perfect, that Christians, Jews, Magians, Buddhists and others collaborated with a view to enrich the Muslim sciences, not only in the domain of their respective religious literature, but also in other branches of learning. Arabic had spread more widely than any other language of the world, since it was the official language of the Muslim State whose territory extended from China to Spain.”
As man progressed through time He began to notice aspects about creation which caused him to investigate them further, in the current time we live in, an age where everything is investigated for the sake of exploitation the wonderment that existed in previous ages has ceased to be, and the age in which man needed guidance on what part of creation to study, has since passed, the major discoveries regarding the old beliefs of the world have already been made. So the verses of the Quran encouraging man to investigate the world, should be understood in that light, they were a cause for initially directing man to what he should investigate in creation. The world was seen in a general sense before the revelation of the Qur’an, a tree was a tree and water was water, but these verses made specific mention of dimensions not commonly considered before and the impact on society this had would be world changing.
How these great minds of the Islamic Ummah contemplated Allah’s signs in creation, an old manner of seeing the science behind the Universe can’t be illustrated better than in the works of Imam al Ghazali (died 1111) who combined many fields of knowledge to understand Allah and His creation.
Imam al Ghazali wrote about the possibility of an afterlife using Fluid Dynamics, he said, “It is not necessary that every preceding revolution of the heavenly bodies should resemble the one following it…If we throw a stone in water, a circular wave is produced, if we throw another stone immediately after the first one, it is not necessary that the same form of the wave would follow, since we threw the first stone in the standing water, and the second in the moving water. Decidedly the second form (the way the water now looks) would be different from the first. In this case, the cause is the same (a thrown stone), but the effect is different, because some of the properties of the standing water mixed with those of the moving water.
Therefore, it can be safely inferred that a time may come which is different from all other times which have passed. So we can easily comprehend what Resurrection really means. Religion teaches us to believe in it which will be accompanied by the resurrection of life. You should, therefore, believe in the resurrection of the dead and the Day of Judgment, both of which have been mentioned in the traditions. They are real and belief in them is obligatory, because, according to reason, they are possible. They signify restoration to life after death, which, like the first act of creation, is within the power of Allah.” (Taken from Mysteries of the Human Soul).
The Imam illustrated that it isn’t necessary that creation has no end since change is always occurring and the consequences of similar actions will result in different effects because the environment they occur in is always changing.
Because the Qur’an caused Muslim Scholars to contemplate these signs and all the Phenomena of nature, sciences like astronomy and mathematics became important throughout the Islamic World in a manner never seen before on Earth. The Qur’an made a connection between Mathematics and astronomy about which Allah revealed;
“We made the night and the day as two signs, then darkened the night and made the daylight for seeing, for you to seek your Lord’s bounty and to know how to count the years and calculate. We have explained everything in detail.” (Al Qur’an 17:12)
“He is the Rabb (Lord) of Ash-Shera (the mighty star, Sirius)”,53:49.
“The sun and the moon run their courses according to a fixed reckoning and calculation.” (Al Qur’an 55:6)
The Arabic word used in this verse is “Bi Hisabun” the word for mathematics in Arabic has the same root as this word.
Islamic scholars took ideas from the Qur’an and investigated them, they then developed and discovered areas of knowledge never considered before.
An example of scientific development under Islam can be seen from the life of Muhammad Ibn Al Khwarzimi (d.840) one of Islam’s and the Worlds Greatest Mathematicians and Scientist, He was the founder of several branches and basic concepts of mathematics, he is also famous as an astronomer and geographer, He developed Algebra (derived from the word al Jabr) in his book Hisab al-jabr w’al-muqabala to solve problems posed by the Islamic laws of Inheritance. Al-Khwarizmi influenced mathematical thought around the world to a greater extent than any other medieval writer. He is recognized as the founder of Algebra, as he not only initiated the subject in a systematic form but also developed it to the extent of giving analytical solutions of linear and quadratic equations.
Algebra is one of the foundations of Modern Mathematics which almost all calculations use in order to develop and design anything from Computers and software to Buildings, Planes and Cars it is used extensively in all fields of Engineering whose role in the modern world is to invent, design and create most things we use. He developed in detail trigonometric tables containing the sine functions, which were later extrapolated to tangent functions. Al-Khwarizmi also developed the calculus of two errors, which led him to the concept of differentiation, and He also refined the geometric representation of conic sections.
The influence of Al-Khwarizmi on the growth of mathematics, astronomy and geography is well established in history as his work was widely adopted throughout the world. His approach was systematic and logical, and not only did he bring together the then prevailing knowledge on various branches of science but also enriched it through his original contributions. He adopted the use of zero, a numeral of fundamental importance, leading up to the so-called arithmetic of positions and the decimal system, prior to this Zero was not known around the world and decimal numbers did not exist limiting mans understanding of what Mathematics can do.
His pioneering work on the system of numerals is well known as “Algorithm,” or “Algorizm.” In addition to introducing the Arabic numerals, he developed several arithmetical procedures, including operations on fractions.
The foundation of modern computers is software which uses computer language to instruct the computer on how the software should behave, people who write this software use a method for this known as algorithms without which no complex software in the world toady can exist, Al-Khwarizmi wrote a treatise on Hindu-Arabic numerals, the Arabic text is lost but a Latin translation, Algoritmi de numero Indorum (in English Al-Khwarizmi on the Hindu Art of Reckoning) gave rise to the word algorithm derived from his name.
“In addition to an important treatise on Astronomy, Al-Khwarizmi wrote a book on astronomical tables. Several of his books were translated into Latin in the early l2th century. The treatises on Arithmetic, Kitab al-Jam’a wal-Tafreeq bil Hisab al-Hindi, and the one on Algebra, Al-Maqala fi Hisab-al Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah, are known only from Latin translations. It was this later translation which introduced the new science to the West “unknown till then” and who were stuck with roman numerals for a long time, which hindered even basic accounting. This book was used until the sixteenth century as the principal mathematical text book of European universities. His astronomical tables were also translated into European languages and, later, into Chinese.”
“The contribution of Al-Khwarizmi to geography is also outstanding. He not only revised Ptolemy’s views on geography, but also corrected them in detail. Seventy geographers worked under Khwarizmi’s leadership and they produced the first map of the globe (known world) in 830 C.E. He is also reported to have collaborated in the degree measurements, ordered by the Khalif Mamun al-Rashid, they were aimed at measuring the volume and circumference of the earth. His geography book entitled “Kitab Surat-al-Ard,” including maps, was also translated into other languages around the world from which many latter maps of the world would rely on.