Date Posted: Wednesday, March 10, 2004

HOW IS NATURE TO BE USED?

Islam's answer was direct and unequivocal. "It is God Who created heaven and earth…that you may distinguish yourselves by your better deeds" (Qur'an 11:7). In another passage, the Qur'an asserted: "God created life and death that you may prove your moral worth in your good deeds" (67:2). All Muslims therefore agree that nature was meant to be used for a moral end. It was not created in vain or sport (21:16) but as the theater and means for moral striving. In itself it is neither good nor beautiful; but it was made by God both good and beautiful to the end of serving man and enabling him to do the good deeds.  Its goodness is derived from that of the divine purpose. For the Muslim, nature is a ni'mah, a blessed gift of God's bounty, granted to man to use and to enjoy, to transform in any way with the aim of achieving ethical value. Nature is not man's to possess or to destroy, or to use in any way detrimental to himself and to humanity, or to itself as God's creation. Since nature is God's work, His ayah or sign, and the instrument of His purpose, which is the absolute good, nature enjoys in the Muslim's eye a tremendous dignity. The Muslim treats nature with respect and deep gratitude to its beneficial Creator and Bestower. Any transformation of it must have a purpose clearly beneficial to all before it can be declared legitimate.

Thus Muslims suffer from no hang-ups or complexes regarding their use of nature. God has ordained it for their use, which they exercise innocently without any feeling of guilt. Nor do they see nature as an evil spirit, fallen god, or enemy worthy of defiance, capture, and subjugation. It is not a demonic force. Nor do Muslims see nature as an embodiment of a god or a good spirit, as anything numinous, which they should fear, love, or adore. The Qur'an's statement that any thing of nature is an ayah does not mean that there is any ontological relation between Creator and creature. The creature is in no sense the Creator; but, because it is a creature, it points to a Creator that caused it to be and sustained it in space-time. Between man and nature, there is in Islam neither enmity and war nor adoration; indeed, there is no personal relation whatever. As the work of God, nature commands respect and awe. Its complexity and regularity, its design and organic character, its malleability and subservience to man are cause for man to wonder, to appreciate God's creation, and to turn to Him in praise and obedience.

THE MUSLIMS' ACHIEVEMENTS IN HISTORY

The achievements we are to survey in this section may well be termed "Arab" despite the fact that a fair number of them were brought about by men who were not Arab. The reason is twofold. First, even non-Arabs wrote in the Arabic language, which they regarded as their own and of which they were extremely proud. Second, nobody – except Westerners and those Muslims who were indoctrinated by them –defined Arabness in terms of ethnicity. For all of them, as for the Arabs of the Peninsula through the ages, Arabness was always and invariably a matter of language.

The same achievements may well be termed Muslim or Islamic despite the fact that some were the achievements of Sabaeans, Jews, and Christians. There are again two reasons. First, the works of non-Muslims constitute a very small portion of the whole and belong either to the preparatory period or that of collection and systematization, but not to that of creative flowering. Second, the non-Muslim contributors were in the service of Muslims as their employees, directed to produce what Muslims desired to see produced. Their non-Islamic religions had nothing to do with their works, these being totally determined by the Islamic categories and values of their employers, colleagues, and the milieu in which they lived. Their works were part of an Islamic culture, determined by an Islamic worldview, ordered by Islamic categories. Hence the two appellations – Arab and Islamic – are justified; and the latter is preferable because it is more general and more inclusive and has the prior connotation of first principles and values, the culture as a whole, rather than merely its linguistic medium.

Medicine and Public Health

In Islam, the human body, its faculties and functions, and its consequent health and welfare, were object of wonder and appreciation. The Qur'an referred to them on many occasions and declared them areas where the patterns of God obtain (23:14). The Prophet, in pursuit of that spirit, affirmed: "Do take medicines for your ills. God created no ailment but established for it an antidote except old age. When the antidote is applied, the patient will recover with God's permission." These directives provided the positive impetus necessary for the development of a science of medicine built upon empirical laws tested in everyday experience. The condemnation by the Qur'an and the hadith of magic and its practices alienated the Muslims against those pursuits, and oriented them toward that every disease has its antidote urged the Muslims to scan the world of minerals, plants, and animals in search of an antidote, to develop a sophisticated science of pharmacology. This was an occasion in which religion became allied to an exact and empirical science of the body, encouraged its development, and condemned all previous practices that were not scientific.

The general pursuit of scientific knowledge which Islam highly recommended found in medicine an extremely attractive field, partly because of the immediate benefits of which it was capable, and partly on account of the veneration with which the medical knowledge and profession had been held in the past. In a number of centers such as Ruha, al Hirah, Jundishapur, and Harran, Christian and Sabaean doctors, many of whom had run away from Church persecution and found refuge in the buffer states between Persia and Byzantium, had built a viable tradition of medical knowledge. The Muslims employed them, sat at their feet to learn from them, and commissioned them to translate their books and records into Arabic. Jurji bin Bakhtishu' (d. 215/830) was employed by al Mansur as court physician. Taught by their father, Bakhtishu’s sons continued in the same employment. Yuhanna ibn Masawayh (d. 243/857) was asked to teach his profession to Muslims. Hunayn ibn Ishaq (d. 260/873) was appointed by al Ma’mun as head of Dar al Hikmah (The House of Wisdom), and was commissioned with his colleagues and pupils to procure and translate the whole legacy of medical and scientific knowledge into Arabic.

Thus Islamic medicine was born and began to grow rapidly. Its first achievement was the general assessment and review of the legacy of classical antiquity, and of Persian and Hindu scientific writings. This legacy was researched and proofed, systematized and translated, and given new categories agreeing with the general principles of Islamic religion and culture. Among its earliest Muslim masters were 'Abdullah ibn Sahl Rabban al Tabari (d. 241/855), author of Firdaws al Hikmah, and Ya'qub al Kindi, the founder of Muslim Hellenized philosophy (d. 260/873). Medicine found its honorable place as the queen of the sciences of nature.  Knowledge of nature and knowledge of religion were inseparable twins, complementing and supporting each other. That is why a fair number of the treatises on the sciences of nature were included under the general rubric of tawhid. Enriched by scores of new words and concepts that the translators devised in order to give a precise rendering to the new sciences, the Arabic languages provided the medium for communicating as well as developing the new knowledge. So ample were its resources that soon medical treatises, like those of grammar a century earlier, began to be composed in poetry. The science of medicine prompted the development of pharmacology, and this, of botany and chemistry, of physiology and surgery. Baghdad counted 869 physicians who presented themselves to the licensing examination set up by the government of Caliph al Muqtadir in 319/931. From that date on, genuine medicine and public health care. The faith physicians, pharmacists, and hospitals were supervised by the muhtasib, the officer in charge of the hisbah.

The art of diagnosis consisted of three parts: history of the case, which included the health situation of the household and all its members; investigation of the patient's urine (al tafsirah), body temperature, smell, and other apparent conditions; examination of the pulse.

The city of Baghdad had already built its medical schools and attached to them hospitals and outpatient clinics in which the students practiced, and the teachers taught and did research. The first hospital was built by Walid ibn 'Abdul Malik, the Umawi caliph, in 88/706, according to al Maqrizi. Later, Muslim hospitals divided into those dealing with either mental or physical diseases, the latter being divided between contagious and non-contagious diseases. The Muslims also invented the ambulant hospital: a hospital carried on camelback in caravan style complete with beds, food, water, medicines, operating and isolation rooms, and a crew of doctors, nurses, attendants, officers, and servants. The ambulant hospital traveled from city to city or village to village, to attend to epidemics and the victims of natural catastrophes.  Muslim hospitals were also equipped with recreational materials and some employed musicians.  The ambulant hospital had the privilege to set up camp within the prisons as well, in order to attend to prisoners and guards.  Whenever it came to a town that did not have a permanent hospital, the poor, the handicapped, the wayfarer, the miserable, and the outcast all enjoyed its benefits. There were hospitals for men and hospitals for women. Every hospital had its own pharmacy, kitchen, clothes-making factory, and library. As in modern times, Muslim physicians taught in their colleges and hospitals in the morning, and attended to their private practices in the afternoon.

Hospitals were built, maintained, and operated either at the expense of government or of perpetual endowments (waqf, pl. awqaf) by individual donors. Their services were always free. The resident physicians and their students were regarded, like all other college professors and students, as public servants dedicating their time and energy to the pursuit of knowledge in fulfillment of a major commandment of God.

One of the most famous hospitals was built by Ahmad ibn Tulun in Cairo in 259/872. It opened its doors to all patients whatever the ailments afflicting them. The patient was divested of clothing, jewelry, and any personal possessions carried on the body; and these were kept for him in the hospital safe until departure from the hospital. Dar al Shifa' Hospital, built in Cairo in 683/1284 by Qalawun, remained in operation up to the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt in 1213/1798, when it was turned into a psychiatric hospital exclusively.  It is still in existence today. Al Muqtadir built a new hospital in Baghdad in 303/915, which became famous because of the medical expertise of its director, Sinan ibn Thabit. Later in the same century, Baghdad saw the construction of another great hospital, Al 'Adudi, which had twenty-four resident physicians, a huge medical library, lecture halls, and hundreds of students from all corners of the Muslim world. It was Ibn Abu Usaybi'ah (668/1269) who preserved this and much more information about Islamic medicine, hospitals, and physicians in his Tabaqat al A tibba, a history of medicine and a Who's Who of its great men.

Islamic medicine was divided into two main parts: theory and practice. Under the former, knowledge was divided into five disciplines. Under physiology seven constituents of the human body were recognized, each of which became the subject of a specialized discipline. The practice part was divided into therapeutics or the science of curing disease, and hygiene or preventive medicine. The former was divided into surgery, drug therapy, and dietary therapy and regimental therapy, which included such measures as cauterization, diaphoresis, vomiting, leeching, massage, physical exercise, fomentation, purging, venesection, cupping, etc. To these, the Muslims added in the following century the specializations of dentistry, obstetrics and gynecology, ophthalmology, pediatrics, and psychiatry. Their practice was governed by an expanded Hippocratic oath that combined medical service with devotion to God.

Prevention of ill health was regarded as requiring balance and harmony between six pairs of opposites: Excretion and retention, psychic movement and rest, bodily movement and rest, sleep and wakefulness, too much and too little food and drink, and too much or too little air. The Muslims devoted a great deal of their medical talent to preventive medicine, in the faith that it was more important than the science of therapeutics. The physician 'Ali ibn 'Abbas devoted thirty-one chapters of his book Al Sina'ah al Tibbiyyah (The Medical Profession) to the prevention of disease and maintenance of good health.

In order to teach anatomy to their students, the Muslim colleges of medicine resorted to dissection of dead bodies, as a number of reports have affirmed. For example, in his book Al Ifadah wal I’tibar, 'Abdul Latif al Baghdadi reports that he had access to a large pile of human skeletons and corpses from which he learned truths contrary to what he read in the works of Galen and others. The claim that the Shari’ah had prohibited dissection to Muslims is not true; for the shari'ah permits the prohibited if it leads to the good of the people. Later Muslims in their decay stopped practicing dissection and justified their action by claiming Shari’ah prohibition. Thanks to the understanding of the earlier generations, dissection was practiced, anatomy learned, and surgery developed. Khalaf Abul Qasim al Zahrawi (d. 414/1013) was the greatest surgeon of his century. He wrote Al Tasrif Liman 'Ajiza 'an al Ta’lif and devoted a great portion of it to surgery and its tools and practices. He was the inventor of methods to break up and extract stones in kidney or bladder.

The Muslims were the first to discover that epidemics arise from contagion through touch and air.  Touching the clothing of the patient also led to contagion. They were the first to use anesthesia in surgery, which they called al murqid (that which puts to sleep), by placing a sponge soaked with the liquid on the patient's nose and mouth. They were also the first to cauterize wounds in surgery, and to stop bleeding by applying ice or cold water.

Some of the greatest physicians the Muslim world has produced were the following:

Abu Bakr Muhammad al Razi (d. 311/932) was undoubtedly the greatest physician of the world in the Middle Ages. He began his career as a musician (a lutanist), then switched to the study of philosophy under Abu Zayd al Balkhi and finally to medicine at the Baghdad hospital. There, he wrote his book Al Mujarrabat.  In 290/902, at the call of Mansur ibn Ishaq, he moved to Al Rayy to head its hospital. There, he wrote most of his medical books and dedicated them to his patron, entitling one of them Al Tibb al Mansuri in his honor. He also wrote a book on psychiatry, which he entitled Al Tibb al Ruhani.  He was the first to insist that his students continue with postgraduate studies in medicine in order to enrich the discipline. His crowning work was Al Hawi fi al Tibb, an encyclopedia of all the medical knowledge of his age.  It was translated into Latin by Faraj ibn Salim and printed in 1486 C.E., the first medical book ever printed in Europe. He was the first to make use of music to heal his patients. He arranged his students in concentric circles around patients so all could participate and to enable the newer students (outer circle) to learn from the older (inner circles). For the first time in human history, he distinguished between smallpox and measles. He established pediatrics as an autonomous discipline and wrote a textbook on the subject. He discovered the relation of sunstroke to the circulation of the blood, and produced several works on the chemical properties of elements-mineral, animal, and vegetal-and on their powers to cure certain diseases.

Abu 'Ali Husayn Ibn Sina (d. 428/1037) was famed both as physician and as philosopher. His work Al Qanun fi al Tibb was the largest ever written. It remained the ultimate reference in medicine for centuries and did not cede its place of superiority until the nineteenth century, being the standard textbook of medicine the world over for over 700 years. Wherever he traveled, Ibn Sina conducted experiments and examined medical records and live cases to confirm his older findings. He conducted surgical operations for the treatment of cancerous tissue, and established the effect of music on the patient's recovery. The princely court of Hamadan at Aleppo extended its patronage to him, but his metaphysical thoughts and personal arrogance did not contribute to any political success. Often, he had to flee and suffer his philosophical works to be destroyed. Ibn Sina discovered that stomach ulcers may be formed by either of two causes: a psychic cause such as worry or depression, and a material or organic cause acting on the stomach itself. He diagnosed cancer and urged an early treatment through surgical removal.

Khalaf ibn 'Abbas al Zahrawi (d. 414/1013) was born, raised, and educated at Qurtubah (Cordoba). He was called to al Zahra', the new royal city built by Al Nasir, grandson of 'Abdul Rahman, founder of the Umawi dynasty in Spain. There, al Zahrawi lived and worked till he died. Only one of his works has survived. In his Al Tasrif Liman 'Ajiza An al Ta’lif, he included a treatise on surgery, the first independent treatment of the subject. He included in it more than 200 drawings of surgical instruments and of surgical operations he had conducted. He was extensively quoted by European surgeons down to the end of the sixteenth century.

Abul Warid Muhammad Ibn Rushd (d. 595/1198) was a physician, philosopher, and judge. Ibn Rushd divided medical knowledge into seven branches: anatomy; health and its conditions; disease and its varieties; symptoms of illness and health; the instruments of health such as foodstuffs and medicines; methods of health preservation; and methods for illness removal. He was the first to discover and appreciate the role of physical exercise in the preservation of health.

Pharmacology and Chemistry

Under the patronage of Islam, pharmacology was separated from medicine and achieved independent status as a discipline and profession. This growth process started in the first century A.H., when the Umawi Khalid ibn Yazid learned and adopted the medicinal preparations of the Greek School of Alexandria.  Ja'far al Sadiq (d. 140/757) learned this Greek tradition from Khalid. Jabir ibn Hayyan, al Kindi, and al Razi all contributed significantly to the discipline, which was perfected and established as an autonomous science by al Biruni (d. 443/1051), who defined the discipline, established its methods and principles, and wrote the most complete text for it. Until then, Muslim pharmacists depended upon two pharmacopoeiae by the same title, Al Aqrabadhin, written by Sabur ibn Sahl (d. 255/868) and Ibn al Tilmidh (d. 560/1164). The Muslims prepared nitric acid, sulfuric acid, nitro-hydrochloric acid; they discovered potassium and prepared its nitrate, as well as that of silver. They also prepared mercury chloride and oxide, as well as iron sulfate, boric acid, and a large number of new chemical products.

As far as vegetal pharmacology is concerned, Muslim pharmacists began with the Materia Medica of Dioscorides and soon absorbed the knowledge of India, Persia, and the Mediterranean world. They gave Arabic names to those plants or medicines that they came to know for the first time, and many are still known by their Arabic names. The work of Dioscorides, supplemented by the additions of Muslim researchers, remained unchallenged in its authority until Ibn al Baytar of Malaga, who lived in the middle of the seventh/thirteenth century. After completing his own researches, which included visits to Byzantium, Greece and Italy, and other European regions, Ibn al Baytar produced his Al Mughni fi al Adwiyah, which he presented to King Salih al Ayyubi in Cairo. He followed this book with two other works - Jami' Mufradat al Adwiyah wal Aghdhiyah and Mizan al Tabib. 

Another great Muslim pharmacologist, who was a contemporary of Ibn al Baytar, was Rashid al Din Ibn al Suri (d. 639/1241), who lived in the eastern provinces. He was so meticulous in his research that he took with him an experienced painter and went to the fields and mountains recording every important species of medicinal plant by having the painter paint it for inclusion in his book.

Some other great pharmacologist and chemists of the Muslim world were the following:

Jabir Ibn Hayyan (d. 193/808) led the life of an ascetic Sufi and spent most of it at his home in Damascus, where he also had his laboratory. He contributed so much to chemistry that the discipline was itself nicknamed "the craft of Jabir." He wrote more than 200 books of which eighty were in chemistry; of these only a few are extant. Al Khawass al Kabir (The Great Book of Chemical Properties), Al Ahjar (The Minerals), Al Sirr al Maknun (The Secrets of the Elements), Al Mawzazin (Weights and Measures), Al Mizaj (Chemical Combination), Al Khama’ir (Fermentation), Al Asbagh (The Dyes), and numerous others he published by the score. He built a precise weighing scale that was capable of weighing items 6,480 times smaller than the ratl (which is approximately one kilogram). He defined chemical combination as union of the elements together in small particles too small for the naked eye to see without loss of their character, as John Dalton was to discover ten centuries later. He thus refuted the older notion that combination destroys the combined elements and creates a new element. He correctly defined combustion as the process in which the latent energy in the burning element is released, leaving behind the incombustible remainder. In response to Ja'far al Sadiq's wishes, he invented a kind of paper that resisted fire, and an ink that could be read at night. He invented an additive which, when applied to an iron surface, inhibited rust and when applied to a textile, would make it water repellent. He was concerned with the production of steel, and with protecting humans from toxic elements – vegetal, animal, and mineral – and wrote books about both, reporting about his experiments and describing their results in clear, precise terms for the benefit of the people. He counseled that chemical laboratories should be located far away from populated places.

'Izz al Din al Jaldaki (d. 762/1360) was responsible for several significant contributions: that dangerous gases arising out of chemical reactions should be protected against by application of masks; that clothing could be protected against caustic soda present in soap by mixing an additive to the soda before it was used for soap-making; and that silver was separable from gold by dissolving it in nitric acid which does not affect the gold. He insisted on purifying suspected water by means of evaporation and condensation, not mere filtration, because, he discovered, the latter process removed only the larger, more visible impurities. Among his numerous books were two volumes of over 1,000 pages each, entitled Nihayah al Talab (?) and Al Taqrib fi Asrar al Tarkib.

Physics

Muslim philosophers divided philosophical knowledge into two main groups: Al Ilahiyyat (literally, divinity), which included tawhid, God's attributes and existence, and al Tabi'iyyat (studies of nature), which included the material bodies and their movement or change and its causes. Heat, light, sound, magnetism and, mechanics fell into the latter division and were given as much importance as the divinity studies.

Muslim scientists invented instruments for the measurement of specific weights and gravities of elements. Some gold coins struck by Muslims a thousand years ago have been found to have a weight variance of three-thousandths of a gram – a fact that betrays a very high level of precision in weighing. Muslims also invented the clock pendulum and the magnetic compass and the astrolabe.

Ibn al Haytham (d. 431/1039) was invited by al Hakim to visit Egypt after a wish he once expressed to increase the benefit derivable from the Nile River. After examining the river in its long course, Ibn al Haytham suggested the construction of a mountain at Aswan that would dam the waters and raise their level to increase the area under irrigation. Al Hakim, however, could not rise to such level of imagination, and the project was not seriously considered. Ibn al Haytham was also responsible for determining the effects of atmospheric pressure and the earth's magnetic force on weight. He wrote some 200 books, 47 of which were in mathematics, 58 in engineering. His most famous achievements were in the realm of optics, where his studies began with the refutation of the view that vision is caused by a ray that issues from the eye, hits the object, and returns to the eye. He studied the phenomenon of light and was the first to explain refraction and reflection and lay down their laws. Certainly he was the founder of the science of optics, combining mathematical methods and physics principles. His book Al Manazir (The Visual World) laid down a new theory of visual perception, based on the eye's absorption of light rays issuing from the object, passing through the pupil, and reaching the brain through vision or eye nerves. Ibn al Haytham laid down the basis of explanation of the rainbow and of the camera obscura, elaborated later by Kamaluddin al Farisi, by observing the behavior of light passing through spheres of glass, of the light of an eclipsed sun and of a crescent, and light through a small aperture of a dark room. Explanation through observation and experimentation and the crystallization of results through mathematical formulae made his work the best prototype of the Islamic scientific method.

Mathematics and Astronomy

Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of the Muslims' contribution to the exact sciences was their vision of correspondence between mathematics, geometry, and astronomy. This vision was imparted to them by the Qur'an, which affirmed, "We shall show mankind Our signs/patterns in the horizons/universe as well as in themselves until they become convinced that this revelation is the truth" (Qur'an 41:53). The heavens and the earth were ordered rightly, and were made subservient to man, including the sun, the moon, the stars, and day and night. Every heavenly body moves in an orbit assigned to it by God and never digresses, making the universe an orderly cosmos whose life and existence, diminution and expansion, are totally determined by the Creator (Qur'an 30:22). Upon this vision as base, Muslim astronomers built their view of the skies. It was the criterion by which they sifted the knowledge they had gathered from the pre-Islamic world, especially from Mesopotamia where astronomy was quite advanced. Pre-Islamic astronomy was a field in which mythology was pervasive, and the Muslims had to purge it clean of myth. Islam launched a fierce battle against astrology. Astrologers practice a profession built on falsehood. Hence, they are false even when their predictions come true, the Prophet said. The Qur'anic faith of Muslim astronomers was their prime motivation and guide. Ascribing all causation and all movement to God, and perceiving His dominion as patterned and immutable, the conditions necessary for a scientific astronomy were realized and the skies could become the object of objective examination. The Muslims applied the knowledge they inherited from classical antiquity, Persia, and India; and they expanded and transformed that inheritance with their own creations.

As far as theory of numbers is concerned, Thabit bin Qurrah departed from the Euclidean legacy by proposing a theory of infinite numbers being part of another infinite series of numbers. 'Umar Khayyam (d. 525/1130) and Nasir al Din al Tusi (d. 645/1247) succeeded in constructing formulations in which magnitudes were expressed in numbers.  In the field of arithmetic, Muslims made a unique contribution. India possessed a number of forms for expressing numbers that the Muslims acquired. They combined some, and reorganized them into two series, naming one series "Indian" and the other "Ghubari." They used both. The latter was adopted by the West on account of its wide usage in Spain and North Africa and was called by Westerners "Arabic numerals." More important was the Muslims' invention of a symbol for zero (the Indians used to leave the place blank!), and gave it the name sifr (cipher, zero). They then organized the numbers into the decimal system where digital location acquired a numerical value beside the intrinsic value of its own. This development was of crucial importance to the progress of all sciences of nature. Before it, numbers were expressed in words with recourse to the fingers to complete an operation. Muhammad ibn Musa al Khawarizmi (d. 236/850) was the mathematician who introduced the system of symbols representing the nine numbers and the inventor of sifr or zero to represent the absence of any. He was also the first to express numerical value by digital position. The two systems, the one expressing number by a symbol rather than a word and the other expressing value by digital position, were continued in the work of Ibrahim al Uqlidisi, and were popularized by Ghiyath al Din Jamshid al Kashi. It then spread to Europe. It was al Khawarizmi who invented al jabr or algebra. He called the new discipline al Jabr wal Muqabalah ("linkage and juxtaposition") to describe what happens in an algebraic calculation. Muslims also invented the symbol to express any unknown quantity, namely x (or s, standing for the Arabic shay'), which was adopted by Europe from the Spanish who had simply transliterated it from the Arabic.

In astronomy, the Muslims not only cleansed the field of myths. They also denied that the observations and calculations of the Greeks were final. Declaring them all tentative and probable, they opened the gates for their revision. One of their most significant achievements was reached by Fakhr al Din al Razi (d. 606/1209) who questioned Aristotle's claim that stars were immobile and equidistant from the earth, as well as the claim that the movements of other heavenly bodies were all alike and similar. In his commentary on the Qur'anic passage 2:258, al Razi affirmed that there is no evidence that the contrary may not be the case, that the real movement of the heavenly bodies may be different from what is observable by the unaided senses. The classical statement, however, belongs to al Biruni "In these and similar matters [of astronomy] one must resort to experimentation, and rely only on close examination of the data or results."

A Greek book on astronomy attributed to Hermes Trismegistus was the first to be translated into Arabic in 125/742. Al Mansur, the second 'Abbasi caliph, regarded astronomy with such approval as to ask the Persian astronomer Nawbakht to be his constant companion; and when the latter died, to appoint his son in his place, along with Ibrahim al Fazari, his son Muhammad, 'Ali Ibn 'Isa al Astrolabi, and others. In 156/772, the caliph commissioned Abu Yahya al Batriq to translate into Arabic the works of Ptolemy and other Greek sources that he had requested from the Byzantine emperor, and Muhammad al Fazari to translate the Sind-Hind book that contained the knowledge of India in the same field. These translations were used by al Khawarizmi to produce his famous zij or Table of Calculations Indexing the Positions of the Heavenly Bodies. From then on began a wide scramble for the legacy of all previous learning, which the Muslims digested and corrected. These works placed the Muslims on the frontier of astronomy, as in the other sciences; and they began the creative task of transforming them into the modern sciences we know today. The Muslims took to observation, testing, and measurement. They were the first to draw and measure areas on the surface of a sphere, which they took the earth to be, of measuring the length of a longitudinal and latitudinal degree, of representing the motion of the planets in relation to the sun. Abu al Wafa' al Buzajani (d. 338/998) first discovered the shortcoming in the movement of the moon, and al Battani calculated the length of the solar year and missed it by two minutes and twenty-two seconds. Some building of observatories took place under the Umawis; al Ma'mun completed one on Mount Qaysun near Damascus, and another at al Shammasiyyah in Baghdad. Later, Muslim observatories proliferated throughout the provinces and were responsible for a number of significant discoveries and measurements. The greatest observatory in the then known world was built at Maraghah in 657/1258, under the direction of Nasir al Din al Tusi, who equipped it with a number of astronomical instruments built for him by a team of the best astronomers whom he had assembled from all corners of the Muslim world. Other observatories that distinguished themselves by their discoveries and/or the precision of their calculations were those of Ibn al Shatir and al Battani in Damascus, al Dinawari in Isfahan, al Biruni at Ghaznah, and Ulug Beg at Samarqand. In short, it can be said without hesitation that the world is obliged to the Muslims for their preservation of the knowledge of the ancients, for their significant corrections, for their new inventions and discoveries, for their establishment of astronomy as an empirical science, and for their cleansing of the discipline from magic and myth.

Geography

The Qur'an commanded the Muslims to cross the earth in search of God's patterns in nature and in the affairs of men and women. Islamic law prescribed that each Muslim should find the qiblah (orientation toward Makkah) for the performance of rituals, which necessitates some knowledge of geography. It also prescribed travel to Makkah for the pilgrimage, which, before the age of the train and plane, necessitated geographical knowledge of the areas to be crossed. This geographical knowledge was popularized because of the repetition of these rituals and their performance by the powerful and rich as well as by the lowly and poor. The Muslims were avid traders and travelers, undaunted by the usual perils and risks of long trips. They were encouraged by the worldwide spread of Islam, of the Arabic language as medium of communication, and of the Islamic ethic, which placed great premium on hospitality and the welfare of the wayfarer.  Indeed, Islam relieved the traveler of a number of religious duties, such as fasting or the performance of salat on time. Al Maqdisi wrote that geography is an absolute prerequisite for the merchant, the traveler, the sultan, the judge, and the faqih (jurist). As in the case of astronomy, it was the Muslims who liberated geography from myth and gossip and raised it to the status of an empirical science. In the preface to his Muruj al Dhahab wa Ma`adin al Jawhar, al Mas’udi (d. 346/957) wrote: "Every country has secrets which only its own people know. The reports of those who have not visited it and are satisfied to believe what has been said about it by others cannot be the equals of the empirical studies of those who did travel thereto, who witnessed and extracted every fact and ascertained every datum." He castigated Abu Yazid al Balkhi for "reporting about countries he never visited, data he never beheld." The Qur'anic commands prepared the Muslims for exploring the earth and for ascertaining geographical realities for the benefit of mankind. Their trade in pre-Islamic times had already prepared them for the task. They were experts in desert crossing; they plied the seas between Arabia, East Africa, India, and Southeast Asia, and learned the arts of navigation by day and night.

It is no wonder, therefore, that the Muslims produced a rich legacy of geographical knowledge. Their descriptions of lands and people came in maps as well as texts. Their texts were the result of first-hand observation and on-the-scene confirmation. Their mapmaking developed as their knowledge of the earth grew. Al Khawarizmi (236/850) was the first to produce a global geography; and Abu al Qasim 'Abdullah Ibn Khurdadhbih (d. 300/912) gave a full map and description of the main trade routes of the Muslim world in his Al Masalik wal Mamalik. Later, the Muslims began to produce atlases of their countries for popular and professional use. Such were the works of Ishaq al Istarfi (d. 322/934), Ahmad al Balkhi (d. 322/934), Muhammad Ibn Hawqal, and Muhammad al Maqdisi (d. 493/1101). Al Maqdisi was the first to produce maps in natural colors in order to bring geographical knowledge closer to human understanding' The crowning of Muslim achievements in geography came in the sixth/twelfth century following their discovery of ways to bring about exact measurements of the earth's surface. At this time they began to produce maps of the whole known world. This period found its apogee in the work of al Sharif al Idrisi (d. 562/1166) who was invited by Roger II, the Norman king of Sicily, to produce an up-to-date world map. Al Idrisi asked for a ball of silver 400 rotols in weight (approximately 400 kilograms) and drew on it the seven continents, their lakes and rivers, cities, routes, mountains and plains, and trade routes, and noted on each the distance, height, or length as measured. Al Idrisi wrote a book, Nuzhat al Mushtaq fi Ikhtiraq al Afaq, to accompany the first globe ever built. The same period witnessed a surge of great travelers who left a rich legacy of geographical descriptions of the countries they visited and of anthropological descriptions of their peoples. Among them were Ibn Jubayr (d. 614/1217), Yaqut al Hamawi  (d. 626/1229), 'Abdul Latif al Baghdadi (d. 629/1231), al Qazwini (d. 682/1283), Abu al Fida' (d. 732/1331), and Ibn Batutah (d. 779/1377).