Sharm Posted March 23, 2006 #1 Share Posted March 23, 2006 (edited) Sorry if this is in wrong section or been posted How Islamic inventors changed the world From coffee to cheques and the three-course meal, the Muslim world has given us many innovations that we take for granted in daily life. As a new exhibition opens, Paul Vallely nominates 20 of the most influential- and identifies the men of genius behind them Published: 11 March 2006 (Independent UK) http://news.independent.co.uk/world/scienc...ticle350594.ece 1 The story goes that an Arab named Khalid was tending his goats in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia, when he noticed his animals became livelier after eating a certain berry. He boiled the berries to make the first coffee. Certainly the first record of the drink is of beans exported from Ethiopia to Yemen where Sufis drank it to stay awake all night to pray on special occasions. By the late 15th century it had arrived in Mecca and Turkey from where it made its way to Venice in 1645. It was brought to England in 1650 by a Turk named Pasqua Rosee who opened the first coffee house in Lombard Street in the City of London. The Arabic qahwa became the Turkish kahve then the Italian caffé and then English coffee. 2 The ancient Greeks thought our eyes emitted rays, like a laser, which enabled us to see. The first person to realise that light enters the eye, rather than leaving it, was the 10th-century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haitham. He invented the first pin-hole camera after noticing the way light came through a hole in window shutters. The smaller the hole, the better the picture, he worked out, and set up the first Camera Obscura (from the Arab word qamara for a dark or private room). He is also credited with being the first man to shift physics from a philosophical activity to an experimental one. 3 A form of chess was played in ancient India but the game was developed into the form we know it today in Persia. From there it spread westward to Europe - where it was introduced by the Moors in Spain in the 10th century - and eastward as far as Japan. The word rook comes from the Persian rukh, which means chariot. 4 A thousand years before the Wright brothers a Muslim poet, astronomer, musician and engineer named Abbas ibn Firnas made several attempts to construct a flying machine. In 852 he jumped from the minaret of the Grand Mosque in Cordoba using a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts. He hoped to glide like a bird. He didn't. But the cloak slowed his fall, creating what is thought to be the first parachute, and leaving him with only minor injuries. In 875, aged 70, having perfected a machine of silk and eagles' feathers he tried again, jumping from a mountain. He flew to a significant height and stayed aloft for ten minutes but crashed on landing - concluding, correctly, that it was because he had not given his device a tail so it would stall on landing. Baghdad international airport and a crater on the Moon are named after him. 5 Washing and bathing are religious requirements for Muslims, which is perhaps why they perfected the recipe for soap which we still use today. The ancient Egyptians had soap of a kind, as did the Romans who used it more as a pomade. But it was the Arabs who combined vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide and aromatics such as thyme oil. One of the Crusaders' most striking characteristics, to Arab nostrils, was that they did not wash. Shampoo was introduced to England by a Muslim who opened Mahomed's Indian Vapour Baths on Brighton seafront in 1759 and was appointed Shampooing Surgeon to Kings George IV and William IV. 6 Distillation, the means of separating liquids through differences in their boiling points, was invented around the year 800 by Islam's foremost scientist, Jabir ibn Hayyan, who transformed alchemy into chemistry, inventing many of the basic processes and apparatus still in use today - liquefaction, crystallisation, distillation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation and filtration. As well as discovering sulphuric and nitric acid, he invented the alembic still, giving the world intense rosewater and other perfumes and alcoholic spirits (although drinking them is haram, or forbidden, in Islam). Ibn Hayyan emphasised systematic experimentation and was the founder of modern chemistry. 7 The crank-shaft is a device which translates rotary into linear motion and is central to much of the machinery in the modern world, not least the internal combustion engine. One of the most important mechanical inventions in the history of humankind, it was created by an ingenious Muslim engineer called al-Jazari to raise water for irrigation. His 1206 Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices shows he also invented or refined the use of valves and pistons, devised some of the first mechanical clocks driven by water and weights, and was the father of robotics. Among his 50 other inventions was the combination lock. 8 Quilting is a method of sewing or tying two layers of cloth with a layer of insulating material in between. It is not clear whether it was invented in the Muslim world or whether it was imported there from India or China. But it certainly came to the West via the Crusaders. They saw it used by Saracen warriors, who wore straw-filled quilted canvas shirts instead of armour. As well as a form of protection, it proved an effective guard against the chafing of the Crusaders' metal armour and was an effective form of insulation - so much so that it became a cottage industry back home in colder climates such as Britain and Holland. 9 The pointed arch so characteristic of Europe's Gothic cathedrals was an invention borrowed from Islamic architecture. It was much stronger than the rounded arch used by the Romans and Normans, thus allowing the building of bigger, higher, more complex and grander buildings. Other borrowings from Muslim genius included ribbed vaulting, rose windows and dome-building techniques. Europe's castles were also adapted to copy the Islamic world's - with arrow slits, battlements, a barbican and parapets. Square towers and keeps gave way to more easily defended round ones. Henry V's castle architect was a Muslim. 10 Many modern surgical instruments are of exactly the same design as those devised in the 10th century by a Muslim surgeon called al-Zahrawi. His scalpels, bone saws, forceps, fine scissors for eye surgery and many of the 200 instruments he devised are recognisable to a modern surgeon. It was he who discovered that catgut used for internal stitches dissolves away naturally (a discovery he made when his monkey ate his lute strings) and that it can be also used to make medicine capsules. In the 13th century, another Muslim medic named Ibn Nafis described the circulation of the blood, 300 years before William Harvey discovered it. Muslims doctors also invented anaesthetics of opium and alcohol mixes and developed hollow needles to suck cataracts from eyes in a technique still used today. 11 The windmill was invented in 634 for a Persian caliph and was used to grind corn and draw up water for irrigation. In the vast deserts of Arabia, when the seasonal streams ran dry, the only source of power was the wind which blew steadily from one direction for months. Mills had six or 12 sails covered in fabric or palm leaves. It was 500 years before the first windmill was seen in Europe. 12 The technique of inoculation was not invented by Jenner and Pasteur but was devised in the Muslim world and brought to Europe from Turkey by the wife of the English ambassador to Istanbul in 1724. Children in Turkey were vaccinated with cowpox to fight the deadly smallpox at least 50 years before the West discovered it. 13 The fountain pen was invented for the Sultan of Egypt in 953 after he demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes. It held ink in a reservoir and, as with modern pens, fed ink to the nib by a combination of gravity and capillary action. 14 The system of numbering in use all round the world is probably Indian in origin but the style of the numerals is Arabic and first appears in print in the work of the Muslim mathematicians al-Khwarizmi and al-Kindi around 825. Algebra was named after al-Khwarizmi's book, Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah, much of whose contents are still in use. The work of Muslim maths scholars was imported into Europe 300 years later by the Italian mathematician Fibonacci. Algorithms and much of the theory of trigonometry came from the Muslim world. And Al-Kindi's discovery of frequency analysis rendered all the codes of the ancient world soluble and created the basis of modern cryptology. 15 Ali ibn Nafi, known by his nickname of Ziryab (Blackbird) came from Iraq to Cordoba in the 9th century and brought with him the concept of the three-course meal - soup, followed by fish or meat, then fruit and nuts. He also introduced crystal glasses (which had been invented after experiments with rock crystal by Abbas ibn Firnas - see No 4). 16 Carpets were regarded as part of Paradise by medieval Muslims, thanks to their advanced weaving techniques, new tinctures from Islamic chemistry and highly developed sense of pattern and arabesque which were the basis of Islam's non-representational art. In contrast, Europe's floors were distinctly earthly, not to say earthy, until Arabian and Persian carpets were introduced. In England, as Erasmus recorded, floors were "covered in rushes, occasionally renewed, but so imperfectly that the bottom layer is left undisturbed, sometimes for 20 years, harbouring expectoration, vomiting, the leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings, scraps of fish, and other abominations not fit to be mentioned". Carpets, unsurprisingly, caught on quickly. 17 The modern cheque comes from the Arabic saqq, a written vow to pay for goods when they were delivered, to avoid money having to be transported across dangerous terrain. In the 9th century, a Muslim businessman could cash a cheque in China drawn on his bank in Baghdad. 18 By the 9th century, many Muslim scholars took it for granted that the Earth was a sphere. The proof, said astronomer Ibn Hazm, "is that the Sun is always vertical to a particular spot on Earth". It was 500 years before that realisation dawned on Galileo. The calculations of Muslim astronomers were so accurate that in the 9th century they reckoned the Earth's circumference to be 40,253.4km - less than 200km out. The scholar al-Idrisi took a globe depicting the world to the court of King Roger of Sicily in 1139. 19 Though the Chinese invented saltpetre gunpowder, and used it in their fireworks, it was the Arabs who worked out that it could be purified using potassium nitrate for military use. Muslim incendiary devices terrified the Crusaders. By the 15th century they had invented both a rocket, which they called a "self-moving and combusting egg", and a torpedo - a self-propelled pear-shaped bomb with a spear at the front which impaled itself in enemy ships and then blew up. 20 Medieval Europe had kitchen and herb gardens, but it was the Arabs who developed the idea of the garden as a place of beauty and meditation. The first royal pleasure gardens in Europe were opened in 11th-century Muslim Spain. Flowers which originated in Muslim gardens include the carnation and the tulip. "1001 Inventions: Discover the Muslim Heritage in Our World" is a new exhibition which began a nationwide tour this week. It is currently at the Science Museum in Manchester. For more information, go to www.1001inventions.com Edit- article pasted twice, deleted second. Edited March 25, 2006 by UniversalAbsurdity Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldvariant42 Posted March 23, 2006 #2 Share Posted March 23, 2006 Very Right Sharm. Please Take care of Posting in right area Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
00000000000000000000000000 Posted March 23, 2006 #3 Share Posted March 23, 2006 Nice find. The Muslims of the Middle Ages were extremely advanced for their time. However, I think that list/article is biased, i.e. wrtten by a Muslim. I sincerely doubt that any man could stay aloft for 10 minutes with a glider made from silk and eagle feathers. Even the Wright brothers, who were geniuses in their own right, only stayed in flight for around 30 seconds on their first flight, and they had motors to help them. Since that part of the article is flawed, I quesiton the validity of the rest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pax Unum Posted March 23, 2006 #4 Share Posted March 23, 2006 (edited) 1 The story goes that an Arab named Khalid was tending his goats in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia, when he noticed his animals became livelier after eating a certain berry. He boiled the berries to make the first coffee. Certainly the first record of the drink is of beans exported from Ethiopia to Yemen where Sufis drank it to stay awake all night to pray on special occasions. By the late 15th century it had arrived in Mecca and Turkey from where it made its way to Venice in 1645. It was brought to England in 1650 by a Turk named Pasqua Rosee who opened the first coffee house in Lombard Street in the City of London. The Arabic qahwa became the Turkish kahve then the Italian caffé and then English coffee. Coffee was first discovered in Eastern Africa in an area we know today as Ethiopia. A popular legend refers to a goat herder by the name of Kaldi, who observed his goats acting unusually frisky after eating berries from a bush. Curious about this phenomena, Kaldi tried eating the berries himself. He found that these berries gave him a renewed energy. The news of this energy laden fruit quickly spread throughout the region. Monks hearing about this amazing fruit, dried the berries so that they could be transported to distant monasteries.They reconstituted these berries in water, ate the fruit, and drank the liquid to provide stimulation for a more awakened time for prayer. Coffee berries were transported from Ethiopia to the Arabian peninsula, and were first cultivated in what today is the country of Yemen. History of Coffee Ethiopians invented coffee... I have doubt's about the camera obscura as well.... The Camera Obscura is a device that is used to project an image without the aid of a lens. The idea of the Camera Obscura is said to date back to Aristotle though the camera was not invented until 1267 AD. A tinker named Bacon was the first to bring to life Aristoles ideas. The Camera Obscura Edited March 23, 2006 by Pax Unum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldvariant42 Posted March 24, 2006 #5 Share Posted March 24, 2006 Ok Wait. Camera Obscura a.k.a Pinhole Camera was invented by Abu Ali Hassan Ibn-al-Haitham (965-1039 A.D) He Worked Mostly in Optics and wrote a book called "Kitab-ul-Manazir" (Book of Vision).He Figured out the Phenomenon of Sun Ecilipse. Another Scientist called Al-Beruni (973 A.D) worked in Mathematics, Cosmology,Geography,History,Culture, Civilizations,Achaeology,Comparative Religions,Geology , Chemistry and Biology.He Worked in finding out Densities of Metals. Dr. Abdus Salam (Pakistani Scientist) (1926) He was one of the Greatest Scientists of Pakistan. He Presented Grand Unification Theoryand won a Noble Prize for it is 1979. Claws and Peace..... Zeeshan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raducu Posted April 7, 2008 #6 Share Posted April 7, 2008 I wonder how coffee can be assimilated with a scientific invention!?! The most important “invention” of Arabic culture was the 0 to 9 numbers. The math was infernal in the times of Roman numbering. drug and alcoholic treatment center Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Revolvr Posted April 8, 2008 #7 Share Posted April 8, 2008 The claim of inventing Chess is interesting. Chess is Haraam in Islam - forbidden. Chess destroys the mind; intelligence suffers derangement with this game. It creates hatred among people. Backgammon is also Haraam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Incorrigible1 Posted April 8, 2008 #8 Share Posted April 8, 2008 Explosives belts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Condescending Posted April 8, 2008 #9 Share Posted April 8, 2008 LOL! Yeah I guess this proves lying is not a sin in islam atleast Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Revolvr Posted April 10, 2008 #10 Share Posted April 10, 2008 I believe about 160 Nobel Prizes in science have been given to Jews. Two have been given to Muslims. (Not sure about Christians). It's NOT that Muslims are dumb. And of course Islam is not a race anyway. So why would so few Muslims be involved in science? It has to do with the Islamic worldview. Muslims are taught that anything that happens is Allah's will. Don't understand it? Allah did it. This philosophy tends to depress scientific thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1.618 Posted April 10, 2008 #11 Share Posted April 10, 2008 A lot of the OP's post doesn't ring true. For anyone who can be arsed to search, there was a similar thread several months ago which was thoroughly enjoyable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mademoiselle Posted April 11, 2008 #12 Share Posted April 11, 2008 Some people should really do some research before they attack an OP . Just the word "muslim" ...just this word .. turns on the attack mode . Pathetic . Interesting post . Thanx Sharm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisfreak Posted April 11, 2008 #13 Share Posted April 11, 2008 I wipe my bum with water, and I believe it came from Arab tradition. I think it is mentioned the Al Quran as well. I prefer this method than others Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cristian Posted April 11, 2008 #14 Share Posted April 11, 2008 Guess who invented the drug rehab.... I don't want to spoil the mistery and I will let you find out... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1.618 Posted April 11, 2008 #15 Share Posted April 11, 2008 Some people should really do some research before they attack an OP . Just the word "muslim" ...just this word .. turns on the attack mode . Pathetic . Interesting post . Thanx Sharm. Sama, the word muslim does not affect what i have said. My previous post still stands. As salaam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ships-cat Posted April 11, 2008 #16 Share Posted April 11, 2008 (edited) The OPA is an old one, and includes half-truths, guesses, and outright deception. (although some of them MAY have a basis in fact). There was an Islamic tradition of scholarship, but the Caliphate mainly focused on codifying and exploiting the "inventions" of the nations that it conquered. The Caliphates great triumph was that - as it expanded - it acted to disseminate ideas and inventions. This was either through trade, direct invasion, or by causing populations to flee from the advancing armies into new territories, taking their idea's and customs with them. (as happened in the case of Constantinople). It is worth noting that the most recent 'innovation' listed was the introduction of shampoo into Britain in 1759. This begs the question; what have the Islamic nations been doing in the 250 years since that ? Of the 779-odd Nobel Prize winners (as of 2007), only 11 came from "Islamic" countries, and of these, only 2 where for science; the rest where for "peace". Egypt accounted for 5 of these prizes, the others where Pakistan, Turkey, Bangladesh, Algeria, Albania, and "Palestine" (Yasser Arrafat). Belgium has had as many Laureates as the entire Islamic World. Even Israel, with a population of only 7 million, managed 8. (source = Wikipedia ) Meow Purr. Edited April 11, 2008 by ships-cat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starfish89 Posted October 1, 2008 #17 Share Posted October 1, 2008 I believe about 160 Nobel Prizes in science have been given to Jews. Two have been given to Muslims. (Not sure about Christians). It's NOT that Muslims are dumb. And of course Islam is not a race anyway. So why would so few Muslims be involved in science? It has to do with the Islamic worldview. Muslims are taught that anything that happens is Allah's will. Don't understand it? Allah did it. This philosophy tends to depress scientific thought. MANY muslims are involved in science. It is not an Islamic belief or custom to disregard science. In fact, Islam is one of the only religions that perfectly COINCIDES with science. Learning about the world is encouraged in Islam and is considered a very important quality. You've touched upon the point though, not as many have been given to muslims, because well, you just said it, they're devout, they have beards, they believe in Allah. So why would the west even consider it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hetrodoxly Posted October 3, 2008 #18 Share Posted October 3, 2008 People post these lists from time to time and most are just lies, crankshaft and flying can be dismissed without even checking. Muslims didn't invent anything, persians, iranians, etc. might have, the real question is why did it stop? i'll answer that, the spread of Islam it stifled progress and as kept these countries in the middle-ages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MID Posted October 5, 2008 #19 Share Posted October 5, 2008 MANY muslims are involved in science. It is not an Islamic belief or custom to disregard science. In fact, Islam is one of the only religions that perfectly COINCIDES with science. Learning about the world is encouraged in Islam and is considered a very important quality. You've touched upon the point though, not as many have been given to muslims, because well, you just said it, they're devout, they have beards, they believe in Allah. So why would the west even consider it? Perfectly, huh? What religion, no matter what, "perfectly" coincides with science? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Splodgenessabounds Posted October 6, 2008 #20 Share Posted October 6, 2008 I think there are some people here who arn't giving Islam enough credit. We wouldn't have rock 'n' roll as we know it today without Muslim culture. Elvis, The Beatles, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, none of them would have existed if it hadn't been for the Moors bringing the oud with them in the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the 8th century. The oud gave way for the lute and latin guitar and the latin guitar over time turned into the guitars (qitar in Arabic) we know today. That for me (sadly enough) is more important than anything anyone has done in history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
little_dreamer Posted October 7, 2008 #21 Share Posted October 7, 2008 The Muslim world was more advanced than Europe in the Dark Ages, but Islamic inventors have been resting on their laurels for a few hundred years. Other than the United Arab Emirates, there aren't too many centers of innovation in the Muslim world lately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MID Posted October 7, 2008 #22 Share Posted October 7, 2008 I think there are some people here who arn't giving Islam enough credit. We wouldn't have rock 'n' roll as we know it today without Muslim culture. Elvis, The Beatles, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, none of them would have existed if it hadn't been for the Moors bringing the oud with them in the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the 8th century. The oud gave way for the lute and latin guitar and the latin guitar over time turned into the guitars (qitar in Arabic) we know today. You have got to be kidding... What an incredible association! The oud ? It was a step along the way of the modern guitar's many hundreds of years of evolution, which can be traced back into Asia and India millenia ago. The oud is a step along the path of that evolution, occurring with other innovations in different areas at the same time. Comparing the oud to a modern Martin is like comnparing a rhesus monkey with a human being. Declaring that rock and roll wouldn't have existed without Islamic oud influence is nonsense. Rock and Roll had nothing to do with ouds... It had to do with Rickenbacher and Fender...a couple electric 6 string guitars, a boogie woogie blues rhythm, and a heavy backbeat on snare drum. Elvis, the Doors, the Beatles, and Led Zepplin had no relation, nor inheritance from ouds... The Beatles (George Harrison, specifically) of course picked up on the sitar, which is a much more direct anscestor of the modern guitar... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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