Muslim science and scientific achievements in Islamic history

Islam and Science

Islam and its Scientific Legacy

Many people are surprised when they learn of the tremendous debt modern science holds to Islam and the Arab world. Indeed, although most imagine the origins of science to be a Western phenomenon, arguably the greatest influences upon modern science today actually stem from the Islamic World.

During the height of the Middle Ages, the Islamic world was enjoying a tremendous high point of scientific, social, and academic learning. Great cities including Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo and Moorish Cordoba were the epicenters of "civilization" as we now know it. Take, for example the great academic center that was Cordoba, the capital of then, Muslim Spain. Not only was it one of the first of the world's "universities," drawing students from around the globe, but it also was the home of the largest library in all of Europe. Moreover, the fact that the Cordoba "university" was descended from Muslim colleges that had been developed in as early as the late 600's, while the University of Paris and Oxford were only to be founded in the thirtieth century (founded by trusts that can be traced back to models of the early Islamic legal system), demonstrates the great debt modern academics have to the Islamic model.

In mathematics, Muslims are directly responsible for the development of the concept of zero, as well as the decimal system.

Additionally, the West also took its numeral system from the Arabic, the concept of the algorism, as well as astronomical tables. Additionally, Muslims laid the groundwork for algebra (an Arabic term), square roots and complex fractions. Further, in other sciences, Muslims developed the magnifying lens, physical sciences, optics, the pendulum (the basis for keeping time), chemistry, "alchemy," (which contributed to the understanding of the nature of matter), as well as the scientific method.

Finally, the scientific field of medicine was also highly developed by Muslims, with the development of a thorough hospital system divided into separate wards, the discovery of the concept of immunity (resulting from smallpox), as well as the nature of contagions.