Ibn al-Haytham – The First Scientist

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When learning about the Muslim scholars of the past, it is easy to be amazed by their brilliance, accomplishments, and contributions to the modern world. Each provided a lasting legacy that changed the world in their time and today. One scientist in particular stands far above the rest. He is Ibn al-Haytham, the great polymath who lived from 965 to 1040.

He was born in the Iraqi city of Basra during the Abbasid Caliphate. He came about 100 years after the establishment of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. Undoubtedly  the culture of learning and advancement present in the Muslim world at that time had a great impact on him from an early age. He studied Islamic sciences and soon became a mayor of the city of Basra. During this time, he continued to study, focusing on sciences and other empirical subjects. His big break, however, would come in another part of the Muslim world.

Ibn al-Haytham in Egypt

During his time as mayor of Basra, the Fatimid rival caliph in Egypt al-Hakim (the Fatimids were Ismaili Shias who rejected the caliphate of the Sunni Abbasids in Iraq) heard of an idea that Ibn al-Haytham had to dam the Nile. Al-Hakim was a man of contradictions. Although he was the leader of the heretical Ismaili branch of Shiism  that most scholars of the day completely rejected, he opened up his domain to anyone who could benefit it. Al-Hakim invited Ibn al-Haytham to come to Egypt to attempt his radical idea to dam the Nile. After travelling down the Nile to see where a potential dam could be built, he realized his plan could not go into effect with the technology of the day. There happened to be one problem: al-Hakim was known to be act irrationally ruthless, and acted quite insane on occasion.  In order to escape some kind of punishment, Ibn al-Haytham pretended to be even more insane than al-Hakim himself! This daring idea saved him from excecution, but placed him under house arrest in Cairo for the remainder of al-Hakim’s life – 10 years.

Those 10 years didn’t even seem as punishment to the brilliant scientist. During this time, he got the peace and quiet he wanted to pursue his research. During this time, he dived into the study of light. He wanted to understand what light is, how it works, and how humans see objects. Although what he studied and discovered was truly revolutionary, the way he researched was one of his biggest contributions.

The Scientific Method

Today, it is understood to students of science that everything must be proven. You cannot make claims about scientific theories based on assumption without experimentation. Before Ibn al-Haytham, that was not the case. The ancient Greek philosophies of science still held weight. The Greeks believed that scientific fact can be discovered through reason, or simply attributed to the actions of the gods. Ibn al-Haytham knew better. He was the first scientist in history to insist that everything be proven through a given method for discovering new information – the scientific method.

Western textbooks today usually give little information about the history of the scientific method. Usually the ancient Greek philosophies are mentioned, followed by the “revolutionary” work of Roger Bacon, Galileo Galilei, and Isaac Newton. The truth that is forgotten is that those European scholars stood on the shoulders of Ibn al-Haytham (and other Muslim scientists). Without his ideas about proving scientific theories, we may still be living in a time when speculation, superstition, and unproven myths are the basis of science.

The Book of Optics

Using his revolutionary scientific method, Ibn al-Haytham takes leaps and bounds into the field of optics. In his book, The Book of Optics, he was the first to disprove the ancient Greek idea that light comes out of the eye, bounces off objects, and comes back to the eye. He delved further into the way the eye itself works. Using dissections and the knowledge of previous scholars, he was able to begin to explain how light enters the eye, is focused, and is projected to the back of the eye.

The basic way a pinhole camera works

In a similar way, he is the first to study the phenomenon of the pinhole camera. The concept of a pinhole camera is simple: a box with a tiny hole on one side is able to project an image of whatever is outside onto a side of the box on the inside. Those familiar with the way modern cameras work will notice that that is how cameras work in general, but today with the addition of lenses. Ibn al-Haytham was able to build these pinhole cameras hundreds of years before the modern development of photography as we know it.

He also studied the way light is affected when moving through a medium such as water or gasses. From this, he was able to explain why the sky changes color at twilight (the sun’s rays hit the atmosphere at an angle, causing refraction). From this, he was able to calculate the depth of the earth’s atmosphere, 1000 years before it would be proven by spaceflight.

The translation of The Book of Optics had a huge impact on Europe. From it, later European scholars were able to build the same devices as he did, and understand the way light works. From this, such important things as eyeglasses, magnifying glasses, telescopes, and cameras were developed.

Beyond Light

As if revolutionizing the way humanity understands light and leading to the development of things we can’t live without in the 2000s wasn’t enough, Ibn al-Haytham also pioneered in other fields.

In 1020s and 1030s, he wrote numerous books on astronomy. He wrote about the mistakes of the Ptolemaic model of how the stars and planets move and provided a more realistic view of the way the universe works (although he knew the earth to be a sphere, he stuck to the ancient Greek idea that the earth was the center of the universe).

He completely refuted astrology as a scientific subject. Continuing with his firm belief scientific ideas needing to be proven, he came to the conclusion that the ideas of astrology were not rooted in any type of science, but in the thoughts and feelings of astrologers. He also noted that astrology directly contradicts one of the main ideas of Islam – that God is the cause of all things, not astronomical bodies.

He had a great influence on Isaac Newton, who was aware of Ibn al-Haytham’s works. He studied the basis of calculus, which would later lead to the engineering formulas and methods used today. He also wrote about the laws governing the movement of bodies (later known as Newton’s 3 laws of motion) and the attraction between two bodies – gravity. It was not, in fact, the apple that fell from the tree that told Newton about gravity, but the books of Ibn al-Haytham.

Newton directly built upon the ideas of Ibn al-Haytham

Since he was also trained in the traditional Islamic sciences, he also wrote on how to use empirical methods to disprove a false prophet, and how to use math to calculate the prayer direction towards Makkah.

In a precursor to modern psychology, he researched the effect music therapy can have on humans and animals.

Legacy

The list of accomplishments and contributions of Ibn al-Haytham goes on and on. The truly amazing thing is that he wrote over 200 books, but only around 50 have survived till today. What he discovered that we do not even know about probably far outshines even the amazing works that have made it to the present day.

Unfortunately, his contributions have been overlooked since his death. While he was never someone who cared for the fame and prestige that came with being a great scholar, the unawareness today’s world has about his contributions is unsettling. When his books were translated into Latin as the Spanish conquered Muslim lands in the Iberian Peninsula, he was not referred to by his name, but rather as “Alhazen”. The practice of changing the names of great Muslim scholars to more European sounding names was common in the European Renaissance, as a means to discredit Muslims and erase their contributions to Christian Europe.

Regardless, his brilliant mind inspired countless others who stood on his shoulders. It is not a stretch to say that without his research, the modern world of science that we know today would not exist.

Sources:

Morgan, M. (2007). Lost History. Washington D.C. : National Geographic Society.

Masood, E. (2006). Science and Islam. Icon Books.

“Ibn al-Haytham.” The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2012. Retrieved October 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com:http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-IbnalHay.html

Steffens, B. (2007). Ibn al-Haytham : first scientist. Greensboro, N.C. : Morgan Reynolds Pub.––

Lost Islamic History

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Islamophobia nurtures Hate Crime in UK

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Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Senior Minister of State for
Faith and Communities in Britain.

An increase in Islamophobia has caused Muslims to become victims of hate crimes more than any other time in the British history, according to a British minister.

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Senior Minister of State for Faith and Communities, quoted figures from the Association of Chief Police Officers showing that more than 60 per cent of all religious hate crimes reported to police in Britain are now perpetrated against Muslims, and called for it to be dealt with effectively.

In an interview with Geo News, Warsi appealed to more than 1,500 mosques in Britain to report anti-Muslim hate crimes to the police and a special project funded by the government called Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks (Tell MAMA) project - a one-stop shop that works with agencies, like Victim Support and Neighbourhood Watch, to encourage reporting, support victims and record incidents.

She said more mosques need to take the issue of reporting hate crimes seriously and work with the relevant agencies so that the real depth of the problem could be assessed.

“Muslim women often complain of bad behaviour they face in the town centers. Objectionable material is sent to mosques and Islamic centres and Muslims are targeted in specific due to their appearance and for various other reasons. The problem is really alarming but the real problem is lack of reporting. There should be a register in every mosque to register any incident. Some mosques are already doing but more needs to be done. Our community faces major challenges, we don’t want our children to grow up in an environment where they are hated, viewed with suspicion and treated differently. That’s why I am asking the community to come forward and fulfill their responsibility”, Warsai said.

Last year there were 13,277 prosecutions for racially and religiously motivated hate crimes, 83% of which were successful. But this does not reflect the full picture because there is a shortage of statistical information on hate crime and it is known that Muslims, of all the religious groups, are less inclined to report hate crimes to the police and as a result suffer the most.

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Al-Zahrawi – The Pioneer of Modern Surgery

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It has often been stated that the Muslim period of Spain’s history (also known as al-Andalus) was a Golden Age of Islamic civilization and society. Almost utopian harmony between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism prevailed, great advancements were made in the sciences, and wealth and stability were the rule rather than the exception.

One of the great figures of Muslim Spain was Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, Islam’s greatest medieval surgeon. He revolutionized how surgery was performed by inventing new methods and tools to help heal patients. His thirty-volume encyclopedia of medicine was used as a standard text for medicine throughout Europe for centuries. The impact he had on how medicine was practiced was truly revolutionary.

Background

Al-Zahrawi lived during most powerful period of the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba. He was born in 936 and died in 1013, and served the Umayyad Caliph al-Hakam II and the military ruler, al-Mansur. Throughout his life, al-Zahrawi was a court physician, having been patronized by the rulers of al-Andalus and recognized for his medical genius. He served in such a capacity as a doctor for over 50 years.

Unlike many doctors and hospitals in the “modern” world today, al-Zahrawi insisted on seeing patients regardless of their financial status. By seeing a wide variety of patients every day and recording his treatment of them, he left behind a very valuable text of medical knowledge that he called al-Tasrif.

Al-Tasrif

A page from the original al-Tasrif written by al-Zahrawi in the 900s

His encyclopedia of medicine is divided into 30 volumes. Each one of which dealt with a different aspect of medicine. He discussed how to diagnose diseases in one of the early volumes. He noted that a good doctor should always rely on his own observation of the patient and his/her symptoms instead of simply accepting what the patient says – a practice still employed by doctors today.

Al-Zahrawi takes a holistic approach to medicine. Not only does he discuss how to treat diseases, he describes how to prevent them. He dedicates parts of his books to discussing what foods should be avoided, how to maintain a healthy diet, and how to use food as part of a treatment plan. He particularly notes the effects of alcohol on the body. He states:

“[Alcohol causes] general weakness of most of the nerves of the body, difficulties in articulation, weakness of voluntary movements, arthralgias, gout, etc.. disturbances of the liver which causes tumors and obstructions which is a definite cause of ascites and general ill health”1

Surgery

His most influential volume of al-Tasrif is the 30th, the one dedicated to surgery. In it, he explains in detail how to perform certain surgeries to cure certain ailments. He insists in it that all surgeons must first be very well versed in general medicine, anatomy, and even the writings of philosophers who studied medicine.

Al-Zahrawi pioneered many of the procedures and materials still used in operating rooms today. He was the first to use catgut as the thread for internal stitches. Catgut is a thread made from the lining of the intestines of animals. It is the only material that can be used for stitches and still be absorbed by the body, preventing the need for a second surgery to remove internal stitches. He invented many tools necessary for modern surgery. He was the first to use forceps in childbirth, greatly decreasing the mortality rate of babies and mothers. He performed tonsillectomies with the same tongue depressors, hooks, and scissors used today. He used concealed knifes to cut into patients without making them apprehensive He used both local and oral anaesthesia in order to reduce the pain patients experienced during surgery. He performed mastectomies removing a woman’s breast if she had breast cancer, a procedure still done today. He described how to set bone fractures, amputate limbs, and even how to crush bladder stones. To describe all his “firsts” in medicine would take a book of its own.

Despite his immense knowledge and ability, he always refused to do risky or unknown surgeries that would be stressful physically and emotionally for the patient. He believed in the importance of human life and sought to extend it as long as possible. His precedent was a prime example for effective bedside manner that all doctors should exhibit.

Legacy

An early inhaler invented by al-Zahrawi. At the top is the original Arabic while the Latin translation is at the bottom

Al-Tasrif made its way from al-Andalus throughout the Muslim and Christian worlds. Over the course of centuries, it was translated into Latin and other European languages. Thus, many of the procedures he pioneered were given names that do not indicate that he originated them. For example, the “Walcher position” of childbirth and the “Kocher method” for fixing dislocated shoulders were invented by al-Zahrawi but credited to later European physicians.

Regardless of credit, al-Zahrawi’s contributions to medicine and particularly surgery were revolutionary for his time. Without the procedures and tools that he pioneered, surgery today may still be a barbaric guessing game. His abilities and his consistent recording of procedures helped advance medicine for centuries, and we are still in debt to his genius.

Footnotes:

1 - Awadain, M. Reda. “A Recent Look and Study of Some Papers of al-Zahrawi’s Book “al-Tasrif”.” IslamSet. N.p.. Web. 16 Dec 2012.

Bibliography:

al-Hassani, Salim. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization. Washington D.C. : National Geographic Society, 2012. Print.

Awadain, M. Reda. “A Recent Look and Study of Some Papers of al-Zahrawi’s Book “al-Tasrif”.” IslamSet. N.p.. Web. 16 Dec 2012.

Morgan, M. (2007). Lost History. Washington D.C. : National Geographic Society.

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America Pushes for Islamic NATO in attempt to hijack upcoming Khilafah

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The Obama administration is pushing to leave more troops in the Persian Gulf and to create a regional equivalent of NATO in the Arabic Middle East, according to the New York Times. "After unsuccessfully pressing both the Obama administration and the Iraqi government to permit as many as 20,000 American troops to remain in Iraq beyond 2011, the Pentagon is now drawing up an alternative", the New York Times reported October 30. Part of that plan may be to leave additional troops in Kuwait, for years a staging area for the Iraq war, or simply to float a larger naval fleet in the Persian Gulf.

But the Zionist Obama administration has another alternative they are floating to create "security" in the Islamic world, the New York Times reported: "The administration and the military are trying to foster a new 'security architecture' for the Persian Gulf that would integrate air and naval patrols and missile defense." That "security architecture" may include boosting existing security alliances in the Arab world, especially the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a 30-year-old group of six Persian Gulf dictatorships led by Saudi Arabia.

The GCC is both a NATO and European Common Market-style organization with a customs union agreement that was inked in 2003. The GCC comprises six nations on the Arabian peninsula that together have $1 trillion in GDP, and the GCC is considering membership requests from Jordan and Morocco. "Another part of the administration’s post-Iraq planning involves the Gulf Cooperation Council, dominated by Saudi Arabia", the New York Times reported. "It has increasingly sought to exert its diplomatic and military influence in the region and beyond. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, for example, sent combat aircraft to the Mediterranean as part of the NATO-led intervention in Libya, while Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates each have forces in Afghanistan."

Obama administration officials advocating the strengthening of the GCC's security authority should be concerned by the fact that Saudi and United Arab Emirates military forces were used earlier this year to crack down on Arab Spring demonstrators criticizing Bahrain's royal family. Indeed, it is USZ support for past dictators across the Islamic world for the past two generations that has led to widespread dislike of the United States of Zionism in the Islamic world. One-time CIA ally Osama bin Ladin was built up in part because of USZ policy to oppose the Soviets in Afghanistan, but he turned on his USZ ally after the war when the USZ government left bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait after the first Iraqi war.

“It’s not going to be a NATO tomorrow”, the New York Times quoted an unnamed "senior administration official" who indicated that diplomatic negotiations are already under way, “but the idea is to move to a more integrated effort." But even if one takes the simplistic and ignorant view that suppression of the Arab Spring protests in favor of Arabian peninsula dictatorships prevents formation of "radical Islamist" regimes, and that Islam is inherently anti-democratic (as Catholicism was once alleged to be), it still leaves the question: Is it a good idea to be uniting the Islamic world into a single military force? Either interpretation seems to indicate that the Obama administration is secretly trying to recreate American foreign policy errors — but this time on a dramatic scale. Our analysis, however says that this is a heinous attempt to hijack the upcoming global Khilafah which will fail.

( Written by Thomas R. Eddlem )

Edited by Enticing Fury

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Muslim Unity - Rise for Khilafah!

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Stop calling yourself as Shia, Sunni, Wahabi, Brelvi, Deobandi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, Saraiki, Kashmiri, Muhajir, Kurd, etc etc etc. Be ashamed of your ethnic, sectarian and racial conflicts and return to Islam!

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

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Famous Nepali actress "Pooja Lama" embraces Islam

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Nepal's famous actress, model and singer "Pooja Lama" has embraced Islam five months ago at the age of 28 leaving the Buddhist society astonished. Pooja Lama, who was brought up  in a Buddhist family, embraced Islam in Kathmandu after returning from Dubai-Qatar's brief trip. In an interview Pooja Lama, who has now been named "Aamna Farooqi" after converting to Islam said, "Islam is the world's sole religion of humanity based solution that offers all the problems. Islam's beauty show me the right way, otherwise I would have kept wandering in the darkness, I want to tell the world that Islam is a religion of peace only."

Pooja Lama, now named as Aamna Farooqi

Pooja Lama now named Aamna Farooqi has also urged not to call her by her previous name 'Pooja' saying that it was her past. In the present and future she would be known by her new and decisive identity "Aamna Farooqi", she added.

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Argentina introduces hijab-friendly law

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Argentina has introduced new legislation giving more freedom to its Muslim population to practice their faith without the fear of persecution. The administration of Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez pushed for the legislation, which allows Muslim women to wear hijab in public places. According to the new law, Argentinean Muslim women can use photographs wearing headscarves for their national ID cards.

A mosque in Buenos Aires

It is said that the law can help promote freedom of religion and expression in the Latin American country and will help the Muslim community to better integrate into the Argentinean society. Fernandez said, “Our message to everybody, and all the countries of the world, is that we can resolve our differences for better causes.” She added, “Different views — particularly about religion — should never be forced onto others.”

The director of the Islamic Center of Argentina, Samir Salech, has welcomed the news, saying that the law enables Muslim women to have ID cards without having to remove their hijab, which undercuts their belief in Islam. The government says it will enforce the law to the best of its ability and in collaboration with police forces, the judiciary, and the business community.

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