Revisiting Islam’s influence

Having formed associations with Muslim groups, I’ve been boning up on where the Muslims have proven their superior capabilities, and one of these "eye openers" is an article written by Ingmar Karlsson, Sweden’s consul general in Istanbul. The piece appears in Yallah!, a book that has been printed in 250,000 copies, translated into English and Arabic, and distributed among students in first and second years at upper secondary schools in Sweden. A copy of the book was sent me by Swedish ambassador to the Philippines Ulf Hakansson, with a note saying that the project, which is being undertaken by the government of Sweden, seeks to "address discrimination and growing xenophobia among young people, especially that directed towards those of Muslim origin".

As a starter to my reviewing of the book, I’m devoting a column to Karlsson’s piece entitled Islam Is Not As Alien As We Think, which sheds light on the superior mind of Muslims through the centuries. The article rebuts what Karlsson describes as "surely a record in ignorance and historical illiteracy" Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi’s statement made after September 11 last year "about the inherent superiority of Western civilization to the Muslim world".

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Nothing could be further from the truth, writes Karlsson. Islamic culture, he says, "is by no means as alien to us as our prejudices and cliches would suggest." He notes that in 732 A.D., Frankish ruler Karl Martell claimed that he saved the western world from destruction through his victory at Poitiers. The "Saracen" invaders were beaten back across the Pyrenees and returned to southern Spain, where a Muslim state was set up that lasted for almost 800 years. This Islamic presence on the European continent did not, however, lead to the destruction of the West but "to a unique and profitable symbiosis between Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and to unprecedented advances in the fields of science, philosophy, culture and art."

Karlsson relates that during the Arabs’ explosive spread across four continents from Central Asia to the Atlantic, they had gathered cultural impressions and ideas from all the peoples they conquered – not just Christians and Jews but also Indians, Persians and Hellenic Egyptians. Greek antiquity dated back to the reign of Alexander the Great in the Orient, and Greek science was kept alive by the Muslims of southern Spain and amalgamated with Persian and Indian science. This was due to extensive translations of works by Aristotle, Euclides, Hippocrates and ancient Greek classics into Arabic from Greek, Hebrew and Syrian.

Thus, writes Karlsson, "the Arabians became the bona fide inheritors of the Greek culture that we so revere today. It was the Arabs in particular who rescued, preserved and updated this cultural legacy, and they became the midwives of western humanism by making the classics of scientific history known to Christian Europe. This is true or instance of the mathematical works of Euclides, Appolonius and Archimedes, the astronomy of the Egyptian Ptolemy and the medical doctrines of Hippocrates and Galeno.

"The Arab contribution to European medicine is one of the most significant transfers of expertise in human history. The philosopher Ibn Sina/Avicenna (d 1037), who was also a physician, compiled a medical encyclopaedia that was still in use at European universities well into the 19th century. Arab astronomers made great progress in determining the orbits of the moon and other planets. Early scientific works were also written on tidal ebb and flow, rainbows, the lunar halo and the aurora. As far back as the 11th century, Arab astronomers were proceeding from the theory that the earth was spherical, and the works of Copernicus and Kepler would scarcely have been possible without this basic research.

"Not least, the Arabs liberated Europe from what one monk called ‘the tyranny of whole numbers’ by introducing us to Arabic numerals, in particular to zero. The Swedish word for numeral, siffra, comes from the Arabic sifr, meaning empty or zero. The decimal system revolutionized calculation. With the new figures at their disposal, people could solve mathematical problems much more easily than with Roman numerals."

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The rapid spread of Islam, writes Karlsson, also boosted people’s geographical knowledge. The "atlas" is an Arabic word, and Vasco da Gama knew what he was doing when he employed an Arab pilot, Ibn Madjid, to guide him on the journey that led to the opening of the sea route from Europe to India.

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Karlsson writes that he simply offered the few examples "to show how modern Europe is much more rooted in Islam than we usually imagine. Islam is not as alien as we tend to think. Rather, Islam and Christianity might be regarded as companion religions, sharing the same Jewish, Hellenic and Oriental legacy. We are all children of Abraham."

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ON ANOTHER FRONT. Zonta Club of Makati & Environs Foundation, Inc. is holding "Charity Bazaar 2002" at the Santuario de San Antonio Parish Center, Makati, on Sunday, Nov. 10, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. For sale will be imported novelty items, name brand garments, beautiful bags, shoes, Christmas ornaments and food items.One hundred free mammogram certificates will be given to women aged 40 years and above in this year’s free consultation and screening with the country’s top breast surgical oncologist, Dr. Diana Cua. This will be part of Zonta Club’s commitment to uplift the status of women worldwide. Cooperating in the bazaar is Rustan’s, and sponsors are Unilever Philippines, Tape Inc., PLDT, Land Mark Management and Services, Bantez Development Corp., and Zuellig Foundation, Philippines.

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My e-mail: [email protected]