Since I started the Rightardia blog I have read a lot of foreign news looking for interesting stories that are not featured in US media. I find a lot of stories on the Ria Novosti news service and China News Daily (xinhua). I also use the Al Jazeera web site. It does a great job on international sports and I have followed soccer (international football) for years. The Russian web sites are interesting because they are always talking about their new weapons systems. Pravda which used to be an official organ of the old Soviet Union is more like the National Enquirer. It has stories of an alien that fisherman caught in the Caspian who looked like a sturgeon and was very tasty. I also has interesting stories about Russian religions and relationships.
The China News Service is very polished and wonderful stories about Chinese culture and animals. Both the Russians and Chinese have science sections. You will often find articles in Chinese news about new dinosaur discoveries or Chinese archaeology. Some of the ancient artifacts the Chinese discovered are 4,000 years old have amazing craftsmanship. The Chinese culture was clearly one of the most advanced ancient cultures in the world.
Al Jazeera is a professional news site. But one thing that struck me about was that it doesn't have a science section. The Islamic World has more than a billion people in it. Why isn't science being discussed?
Some important achievements that came from Islam were medicine, the paper mill, and a unified language.
During the Golden Age period also, a paper mill was built in Baghdad. Paper was first invented in China. Soon paper replaced parchment, which is skin of animals and papyrus, which is a plant made from ancient Egypt. This made advances in education for making books.
The development of Arabic into a language of international scholars. Scholars could communicate with one another and ideas were translated. This could be read and discussed by scholars from all over the Islamic
Astronomy was important to Muslims because of their religion. They needed to know the start of the month Ramadan, the hours of prayer and the direction of Mecca. They would observe the position of the sun and moon, so they would know the direction of Mecca.
Agricultural advances were also made in the Islamic world. Many new plants were introduced into all parts of Islam from Africa, Europe, India and China. Muslims advanced in grafting, which is cutting off a branch from a plant and placing it onto another. Also fertilizers were used by Muslims to increase agricultural production.
Many other accomplishments were made in math and other areas in the Middle East, but many of these accomplishments in Iraq, Egypt and other countries that are Islamic today occurred before Mohamed unified the Arab world.
There are only two Islamic Noble laureates in science: Ahmed Zewail won a Noble for chemistry in 1999 and Abdus Salam won a Nobel for physics in 1979. That's it.
An article by Pervez Hoodbhoy is chair and professor in the department of physics at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan, provided some answers. He indicates the rise of secularism in the Arab world started to reverse some of the anti-science Islamic trends. But the West interfered and created a worse situation:
In the mid-1950s all Muslim leaders were secular, and secularism in Islam was growing. What changed? Here the West must accept its share of responsibility for reversing the trend. Iran under Mohammed Mossadeq, Indonesia under Ahmed Sukarno, and Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser are examples of secular but nationalist governments that wanted to protect their national wealth.
Western imperial greed, however, subverted and overthrew them. At the same time, conservative oil-rich Arab states—such as Saudi Arabia—that exported extreme versions of Islam were US clients. The fundamentalist Hamas organization was helped by Israel in its fight against the secular Palestine Liberation Organization as part of a deliberate Israeli strategy in the 1980s.
Perhaps most important, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the US Central Intelligence Agency armed the fiercest and most ideologically charged Islamic fighters and brought them from distant Muslim countries into Afghanistan, thus helping to create an extensive globalized jihad network.
Hoodbhoy also notes that Islam has to be reconciled with science with religious demands made on a fully observant Muslim's time, energy, and mental concentration. “The faithful must participate in five daily congregational prayers, endure a month of fasting that taxes the body, recite daily from the Qur'an, and more. Although such duties orient believers admirably well toward success in the life hereafter, they make worldly success less likely. A more balanced approach will be needed. “
Hoodbhoy states that science can prosper among Muslims once again, but only with a willingness to accept certain basic philosophical and attitudinal changes—a Weltanschauung that shrugs off the dead hand of tradition, rejects fatalism and absolute belief in authority, accepts the legitimacy of temporal laws, values intellectual rigor and scientific honesty, and respects cultural and personal freedoms. “The struggle to usher in science will have to go side-by-side with a much wider campaign to elbow out rigid orthodoxy and bring in modern thought, arts, philosophy, democracy, and pluralism, said Hoodbhoy.
Perhaps a science column in al Jazeera would help. Islamic people need to become creators of science, not just users.
Sources:
wiki.answers.com/Q/The_most_important_Islamic_achievements
ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_60/iss_8/49_1.shtml
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