Book & Author
Professor Salim Al-Hassani et al.: 1001 Inventions — Muslim Heritage in Our World
By Dr Ahmed S. Khan
Chicago, IL
During the Golden age of Islam (600 – 1600 CE) the Muslim intellectual capital — scientists, philosophers, poets, artists and rulers — devised a culture of unique achievements that impacted societies globally. The book 1001 Inventions — Muslim Heritage in Our World (2E) shines light on that unique culture of achievement.
The book edited by Salim T S Al-Hassani, and co-edited by Elizbeth Woodcock and Rabah Saoud, narrates the story of the golden age of civilization (600 - 1600 CE) when medieval Muslims were trailblazers in domains of medicine and mechanics, cartography and chemistry, education and engineering, architecture and astronomy. Salim T S Al-Hassani is President of the Foundation of Science, Technology and Civilization (FSTC), a UK-based educational entity formed in 1999 to popularize, spread and promote an accurate account of Muslim Heritage and its contribution to present-day science, technology and civilization. The book is published by FSTC. Editor Salim is also an Emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Manchester and a fellow in humanities at the University.
In the introduction, reflecting on the development of the book, Professor Salim observes: “In 1975, Lord B V Bowden, the Principal at the time of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), became fascinated by the manner in which the Muslims managed a domain that stretched from China across to, and including, Spain for so many centuries. Of particular interest was how they introduced the concept of ‘indexation’ in combating inflation, which was rampant in the Roman Empire. He announced in the House of Lords that in order to guide the UK's economy, then riddled with inflation, we should learn from the Muslims' experience and consider the economic principles laid down some one thousand four hundred years ago in the Qur’an. He set up an Institute for the History of Muslim Science, Technology and Commerce, recruiting myself and a few professors from UMIST and the Victoria University of Manchester, and we were augmented by dignitaries. Although this initiative did not thrive for long, it gave me the opportunity to encounter historians and scholars outside my engineering discipline and, more significantly, it revealed to me the frightening level of their ignorance of the traditions and beliefs of other cultures.”
Professor Salim further states: “Bowden subsequently passed away in 1989, and with him went that Institute. It was not until 1993 when Professor Donald Cardwell, Head of the Department of History of Science and Technology, and the Founder of the Museum of Science and Technology in Manchester, presented me with a challenge. Much in the spirit of Lord Bowden he said: 'Salim, [my first name] you should by now know there are a thousand years missing from the history of engineering, a period we call the Dark Ages. Most of the missing knowledge is contained in Arabic manuscripts filling the cellars of many famous libraries. You are a distinguished Professor of Engineering at a prestigious university, and you know the Arabic language. Therefore, you are best suited to do something about filling this gap.' That wake-up call propelled me to follow a line of inquiry that eventually changed my life. That was when the story of this book began.”
Commenting on the gap in the history of science, Professor Salim, notes: “Book after book, journal after journal, all pointed to this incredible gap. Take, for instance, this typical popular book at the time: The People Who Made Technology From Earliest Times to Present Day by Anthony Feldman and Peter Ford, published by Aldus Books Ltd in London 1979. The authors explain that the book gives, in chronological order, humanity's scientific and technological progress from invention of movable type to the discovery of penicillin. The names of the great inventors, to whom they devote short chapters, follow in chronological order like this: Empedocles (c.490-430 BCE), Democritus (460-370 BCE), Hippocrates (460-377 BCE), Aristotle (383-322 BCE), Archimedes (287-212 BCE), Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1468 CE) followed by others like Da Vinci, etc. The remarkable jump of one thousand six hundred years from the time of Archimedes to Johannes Gutenberg was amazing but troubling. Further reading of other books revealed that the whole period, 450-1492 CE, is in fact passed over as ‘The Dark Ages.’”
Professor Salim recalls attending an inspiring lecture, on the 27 October 1993, by HRH Prince Charles titled ‘Islam and the West,’ in which the Prince observes: ‘If there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilization owe to the Islamic world. It is a failure, which stems, I think, from the straight-jacket of history, which we have inherited. The medieval Islamic world, from central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society, and system of belief, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history.’”
Reflecting on the bias shown by the Europeans in covering Islam’s Golden age, Professor Salim observes: “All students are trained to think critically; yet when faced with the darkness of ten centuries in Europe, they are told things appeared, as if by miracle, all at once during the Renaissance. This defies logic. Things, such as discoveries, inventions and further developments that alter the course of humanity, as any scientist knows, do not appear by chance!”
Continuing with the evolution of the book, Professor Salim states: “…with the support of like-minded academics and professionals, saw the emergence of the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilization. The would-be book instead began to take shape in the form of a website, www. MuslimHeritage.com, which attracted excellent peer reviewed papers from renowned writers and searchers.”
In the Introduction of the book, Professor Salim cites observations of Ms Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP) Corporation. On September 26, 2001, at the meeting of HP global managers, Ms Fiorina observed: “There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world. It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean and from northern climes to tropics and deserts. Within its dominion lived hundreds of millions of people, of different creeds and ethnic origins. One of its languages became the universal language of much of the world, the bridge between the peoples of a hundred lands…The reach of this civilization's commerce extended from Latin America to China, and everywhere in between. And this civilization was driven more than anything, by invention. Its architects designed buildings that defied gravity. Its mathematicians created the algebra and algorithms that would enable the building of computers, and the creation of encryption. Its doctors examined the human body and found new cures for disease. Its astronomers looked into the heavens, named the stars, and paved the way for space travel and exploration. Its writers created thousands of stories. Stories of courage, romance and magic. Its poets wrote of love, when others before them were too steeped in fear to think of such things. When other nations were afraid of ideas, this civilization thrived on them, and kept them alive. When censors threatened to wipe out knowledge from past civilizations, this civilization kept the knowledge alive, and passed it on to others. While modern Western civilization shares many of these traits, the civilization I'm talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600, which included the Ottoman Empire and the courts of Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, and enlightened rulers like Sulayman the Magnificent. Although we are often unaware of our indebtedness to this other civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage. The technology industry would not exist without the contributions of Arab mathematicians.”
Reflecting on the main objectives of the book, Professor Salim, notes: “We hope to…[a] Raise awareness of the thousand years (7th-17th century) of Muslim heritage. [b] Generate understanding and appreciation of Muslim contributions towards the development of contemporary science and technology worldwide. [c] Inspire young people from both Muslim and non-Muslim backgrounds to find career role models in science and engineering. [d] Promote the concept of scientific and technological innovation as a positive and constructive channel of personal expression of beliefs, as an alternative to religious isolationism and extremism. [e] Bridge themes in the history of science, industry and arts with contemporary developments.”
The book is divided into seven chapters which mirror the seven zones of the 1001 Inventions exhibition: Home, school, hospital, market, town, world and universe. Each zone represents a sphere of our modern day lives that has benefited from Muslim inventions. Home: explores themes of the origins of coffee, deodorants, clocks, medieval home entertainment, three course meals, and music. School: presents the foundations of universities and details of the intellectual powerhouse of Baghdad. Hospital: covers surgical practices and instruments a millennium ago. Market: presents traits of the booming international trade based on renewable energy sources and advanced agricultural and farming techniques of medieval Muslims. Town: presents details of thousand-year-old Muslim towns with their lit and paved streets. World: explores who explained rainbows and tides, studied minerals, oceans and mountains, and travelled vast distances with state-of-the-art maps and navigational devices, and invented decryption, torpedoes and the postal system. And Universe: presents details of a twelve-hundred-year-old successful manned flight, and precise mapping of the heavens with sophisticated astronomical instruments in state-of-the-art observatories a thousand years ago.
The book also presents profiles of personalities from Past — Who's Who — of prominent names from a thousand years ago: Abbas ibn Firnas (flying machine, crystal and a planetarium), Al-Jazari (the Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices), Al-Kindi (the Book of the Chemistry of Perfume and Distillations), Al-Zahrawi (30 volume book, al-Tasrif , gave detailed accounts of dental, pharmaceutical, and surgical practices), Fatima al-Fihri (founder of University mosque complex of al-Qarawiyin in Fez, Morocco), Maryam, Fatima's sister (constructed al-Andalus Mosque in the vicinity of al-Qurrawiyyin), Ibn al-Haitham (Kitab al-Manazir or Book of Optics), Ibn Battuta (the Rihla/travel book), Ijliya al-Astrulabi (assisted her father’s work of making astrolabes), Sinan (designed and built over 477 buildings and mosques), Jabir ibn Hayyan (father of Chemistry devised and perfected processes of sublimation, liquefaction, crystallization, distillation, purification, amalgamation, oxidation, evaporation, and filtration); and Zheng He (admiral of Chinese fleet visited thirty-seven countries covering more than 50,000 km for trade and diplomacy. His first fleet had 317 ships with 27,870 men).
The book also mentions Europe's leading minds remembered for their outstanding contributions to modern science and discovery: Roger Bacon (originator of experimental method in Europe), Leonardo da Vinci (sculptor, mathematician, engineer, architect, and scientist), Nicolas Copernicus (founder of modern astronomy), Tyco Brahe (Renaissance astronomer credited with production of quadrant and one of Europe’s leading observatories), and Johannes Kepler (credited with discovering laws of planetary motion).
1001 Inventions — Muslim Heritage in Our World is an excellent book for raising awareness of the contributions Muslims have made to civilization. Professor Salim and his co-editors, Elizbeth Woodcock and Rabah Saoud, have done an outstanding job of filling a thousand-year gap in the history of science. The book — a must read for all quizzical minds and students of history, science, technology— builds bridges across cultures to promote harmony, respect, tolerance, and coexistence.
The editors have also established two companion websites: www.1001inventions.com and www.MuslimHeritage.com which could be used by educators for designing and implementing curricula in the domains of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).
(Dr Ahmed S. Khan - dr.a.s.khan@ieee.org - is a Fulbright Specialist Scholar, 2017-2022).
