ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Islamic Contributions To the West V. Conclusion The notion of “the miracle of Arabic science” circulated most unfortunately by Sarton, the Historian of medieval science, is false.

The explanation of the “phenomenon” of the sudden birth of Islamic science lays down in the living Islamic ethos of those times; its dogmas and its gamut of culture; the all- pervading Islamic law which forged strong bonds of social co-operation among the Muslims, and between the Muslims and non-Muslims, citizens and resident aliens of the vast Islamic society of bewildering religious, ideological, national, racial and linguistic diversity.

This Islamic ethos in action rekindled the dying embers of the pre-Quranic ancient sciences and world-wide civilization. The Muslims absorbed the best in the existing sciences and civilizations consistent with Islam and developed them, thanks to the intensely developed Islamic consciousness and conditioning, based on a remarkable Islamic system of education. There was great flexibility in horizontal and vertical mobility of people as nationalistic and hedonistic evils were held in check.

Prerequisites for science and civilization were there: invention and innovation based on original thought; social mindedness and utilitarianism of individual efforts as well as in the organization of state and its educational and other programs; political stability, the rule of law and constitutionalism. All these mechanisms and conditions are necessary for the genesis, development, diffusion and application of science and technology.

These mechanisms operate only in a cultural and political milieu of propitious dogmas, laws, values, cosmological doctrines, attitudes and efforts, all of which existed in the progressive period of medieval Islamic civilization. I would like to emphasize the Islamic origins of modern science and civilization, and the ascendancy of Islamic science and learning in the world for more than 600 years (eighth to thirteenth centuries AD/second to seventh AH at least).

The West has generally maintained a conspiracy of silence regarding its medieval rejuvenation through Islamicization (the imitative-innovative assimilation of Islamic culture by non-Muslims - Islamization being the adoption of ideal Islamic culture and religion in the behavioral culture).