Decline of Islamic Science

[RiazHaq]

Haq's Musings: Rise and Fall of Islamic Civilization: Why Do Stars Have Arabic Names?

Where did star names like Ain ( عين), Betelgeuse (إبط الجوزاء ) and Cursa ( الكرسي) come from? Who named Californium and Berkelium elements of the periodic table? Famous American scientist Dr.Neil deGrasse Tyson answered these and other questions in some recent video presentations.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator, according to Wikipedia. Since 1996, he has been the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City.

What Dr. Tyson describes as "naming rights" simply means that those who discover new things get to name them. Californians got the naming rights to some of the elements of the periodic table while the Arabs got to name vast majority of the stars in the Cosmos. In modern western astronomy, most of the accepted star names are Arabic, a few are Greek and some are of unknown origin.


Alhazen 965-1040 AD
Continuing on the naming rights theme, Dr. Tyson also describes the Islamic origins of Arabic numerals, Algebra and algorithm as products of the Islamic Golden Age of Science in 800 to 1100 AD.


The lesson Dr. Tyson draws from the rise and fall of of Muslims is as follows: Islamic civilization remained dominant in sciences and mathematics as long as Muslims practiced Ijtihad to ask questions and find answers to questions. What led to theirdecline was Taqlid, the unquestioning faith in Revelation.

Dr. Tyson credits the great Muslim philosopher Alhazen (Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham 965-1040 AD) with inventing the modern scientific method. Alhazen questioned everything, especially the things everyone took for granted, says Dr. Tyson. Alhazen's work was lavishly funded by the Muslim Caliphs. All of it changed when Imam Al Ghazali, or Algazel, a highly influential Islamic scholar of his time, succeeded in persuading Muslims to accept Taqlid that triggered rapid decline of the Islamic world.

Dr. Tyson has used the example of the great Islamic Civilization's decline to warn Americans against repeating it. He has particularly targeted those in America who denounce Darwin's theory of evolution or reject the validity of climate science.

Here are three important video presentations made by Dr. Tyson on the subject:

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Muslims Have Few Nobel Prizes

Obama Speaks to the Muslim World
http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/06/obama-speaks-to-muslim-world.html
Lost Discoveries by Dick Teresi
http://books.google.com/books?id=ph...a=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA5,M1
Physics of Christianity by Frank Tipler
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/350876/the_physics_of_christianity_by_frank.html?cat=38
What is Not Taught in School

How Islamic Inventors Changed the World

Jinnah's Pakistan Booms Amidst Doom and Gloom


Haq's Musings: Rise and Fall of Islamic Civilization: Why Do Stars Have Arabic Names?

 

[C130]

Christian World went in the opposite direction

Age of Enlightenment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Ryuzaki]

Hindu-Arabic numerals are still in use

 

[Srinivas]

Hindu-Arabic numerals are still in use

They are Indian Numericals, west got them from Arabs.

 

[Ryuzaki]

They are Indian Numericals, west got them from Arabs.

some credit must be given to Arab traders for spreading them

 

[ayesha.a]

He is right, but there was one more factor, a final blow - the Mongol invasions, and the complete destruction of Baghdad. Science, arts, literature, almost every constructive human activity declined due to that.

And yet the supposedly 'inventors' of the numerical were screwed up for 900+ years by the foreign invaders. I wonder what they did after inventing the numerical? Put those numerical in the ancient donkey urine -fueled flying objects and shot them in the space?

Is there any relation whatsoever between a numeral system and resisting an invasion? Don't be so facile.

Christian World went in the opposite direction

Age of Enlightenment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Much later, but yes.

 

[Sine Nomine]

Hindu-Arabic numerals are still in use

not to mention zero,chess etc...

 

[FaujHistorian]

Haq's Musings: Rise and Fall of Islamic Civilization: Why Do Stars Have Arabic Names?

Where did star names like Ain ( عين), Betelgeuse (إبط الجوزاء ) and Cursa ( الكرسي) come from? Who named Californium and Berkelium elements of the periodic table? Famous American scientist Dr.Neil deGrasse Tyson answered these and other questions in some recent video presentations.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator, according to Wikipedia. Since 1996, he has been the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City.

What Dr. Tyson describes as "naming rights" simply means that those who discover new things get to name them. Californians got the naming rights to some of the elements of the periodic table while the Arabs got to name vast majority of the stars in the Cosmos. In modern western astronomy, most of the accepted star names are Arabic, a few are Greek and some are of unknown origin.


Alhazen 965-1040 AD
Continuing on the naming rights theme, Dr. Tyson also describes the Islamic origins of Arabic numerals, Algebra and algorithm as products of the Islamic Golden Age of Science in 800 to 1100 AD.


The lesson Dr. Tyson draws from the rise and fall of of Muslims is as follows: Islamic civilization remained dominant in sciences and mathematics as long as Muslims practiced Ijtihad to ask questions and find answers to questions. What led to theirdecline was Taqlid, the unquestioning faith in Revelation.

Dr. Tyson credits the great Muslim philosopher Alhazen (Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham 965-1040 AD) with inventing the modern scientific method. Alhazen questioned everything, especially the things everyone took for granted, says Dr. Tyson. Alhazen's work was lavishly funded by the Muslim Caliphs. All of it changed when Imam Al Ghazali, or Algazel, a highly influential Islamic scholar of his time, succeeded in persuading Muslims to accept Taqlid that triggered rapid decline of the Islamic world.

Dr. Tyson has used the example of the great Islamic Civilization's decline to warn Americans against repeating it. He has particularly targeted those in America who denounce Darwin's theory of evolution or reject the validity of climate science.

Here are three important video presentations made by Dr. Tyson on the subject:

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Muslims Have Few Nobel Prizes

Obama Speaks to the Muslim World
http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/06/obama-speaks-to-muslim-world.html
Lost Discoveries by Dick Teresi
http://books.google.com/books?id=ph...a=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA5,M1
Physics of Christianity by Frank Tipler
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/350876/the_physics_of_christianity_by_frank.html?cat=38
What is Not Taught in School

How Islamic Inventors Changed the World

Jinnah's Pakistan Booms Amidst Doom and Gloom


Haq's Musings: Rise and Fall of Islamic Civilization: Why Do Stars Have Arabic Names?

haq Sahib

How many of these stars were named by Muslim PEEEEEEEEEEPAL living in the then Lahore, Karachi,, dilli and Lucknow?


And how long ago was these things done?

100s and 100s of years ago.

Time to move to 2015 please.


you think most of the Pakitanis are following Alhazen or Alghazali.

And why?

.......


Much later, but yes.

Oh Baba sahib

Muslims got the books from Christian libraries especially from Constantinople.

Europe had few centuries of dark period (some due to nature and some due to man)

and then they came back with "vengeance".

 

[Audio]

.....Ijtihad .......Taqlid.....

You need to read about communication between Baghdad court and Mongol's court and what was happening with envoys and messengers on that route. And the whole dynamic of the Mongol horde at that time.
Perhaps words with religious conotation like "Ijtihad and Taqlid" will become less important and be substituted with more down to earth hubris, complacency, overestimating of ones self, wrongly predicting the actions of the other and alike.....

 

[ayesha.a]

Oh Baba sahib

Muslims got the books from Christian libraries especially from Constantinople.

Europe had few centuries of dark period (some due to nature and some due to man)

and then they came back with "vengeance".

It's not knowledge that Mr Tyson is talking about - it is the method of obtaining knowledge, through the scientific method itself, the spirit of enquiry. The age of reason started in Europe in about the 15th or 16th century, and since then there has been no turning back. What Mr Tyson is stating is that that same spirit of enquiry as a method to gain knowledge existed in islamic countries upto the 12th or so century, but then that was replaced by rigid faith and dogma.

 

[FaujHistorian]

It's not knowledge that Mr Tyson is talking about - it is the method of obtaining knowledge, through the scientific method itself, the spirit of enquiry. The age of reason started in Europe in about the 15th or 16th century, and since then there has been no turning back. What Mr Tyson is stating is that that same spirit of enquiry as a method to gain knowledge existed in islamic countries upto the 12th or so century, but then that was replaced by rigid faith and dogma.

Muslims took this method from Romans and Romans took these from Greeks.

Age of reasons has its origins all the way back to Socrates.

 

[ayesha.a]

Muslims took this method from Romans and Romans took these from Greeks.

Age of reasons has its origins all the way back to Socrates.

Yes, methods of discovery have existed at various times and places - otherwise nothing would ever have been discovered. India too had many periods during which skeptical thinking thrived, and unsurprisingly, those times contributed most to the progress of civilization.

But you can't call it "this method", that's too blanket a term. The scientific method as practiced today is quite different from the methods of the ancient greeks or Indians, although they share many similarities. For the ancient Greeks, pure thought is all that mattered - logic alone was their means to gain knowledge. But the scientific method as practiced since the 16th century, also has observation, experimentation etc as major components. The method itself is constantly revised and refined.

 

[gslv]

And yet the supposedly 'inventors' of the numerical were screwed up for 900+ years by the foreign invaders. I wonder what they did after inventing the numerical? Put those numerical in the ancient donkey urine -fueled flying objects and shot them into the space?

@doppelganger, look at the quality of the post. @Irfan Baloch, doesn't this post warrant an infarction.

 

[RiazHaq]

Muslims took this method from Romans and Romans took these from Greeks.

Age of reasons has its origins all the way back to Socrates.

Scientific method didn't exist before the Islamic Civilization. Greeks and Romans took too many things for granted without question...like rays of light coming out of people's eyes until Muslims like Alhazen questioned it and found a better explanation of how we see....this idea then helped discover most of the named stars today...from Acamar to Zubeneshamali.

List of Arabic star names - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[RiazHaq]

In addition to physical sciences, Muslims also made a huge contribution to social sciences.

Ibn Khaldun is considered the father of modern social sciences. Let's heed his advice

Haq's Musings: Can the Taliban Defeat and Destroy Pakistan?

Beyond the stars in the Cosmos, Muslims also discovered Alchemy, Alcohol, Algebra, Arabic numerals, Algorithms, etc.

From Ijtihad to Taqlid: Decline of Islamic Science - PakAlumni Worldwide: The Global Social Network