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contributions to the sciences. The vast contributions, scholarly achievements and innovations of
the Arab/Muslim era to world civilization encompassed much of the previous knowledge of the
ancient civilizations of the Middle East such as Mesopotamia, Syria, the Greeks, and that of
India, China and Persia. Arab and Muslim scholars would come to nourish that which existed,
comment on it and then add and create fields within science that eventually would be transferred
to Europe and to the rest of the world.
The common factor in all of this scientific research activity was the Arabic language, which
became the universal language of science. Then during the 12th and 13th centuries these Arabic
studies began to be translated into Latin. Western scholars such as Adelard of Bath, Daniel of
Morley, Gerard of Cremona, Johannes Campanus, Michael Scott, Philip of Tripoli, Robert of
Chester, Stephenson of Saragossa and William of Lunis were responsible for translating many of
the Arab works. These were, in later centuries, to form the foundation of our modern civilization.
There was hardly a single aspect of scientific knowledge in the Middle Ages that did not have an
Arab connection. And the fields were vast. The study of the heavens by Arab and Muslim
medieval astronomers led to great advancements in this field. Basing their assumption on an
ancient Middle Eastern hypothesis that the earth was round, astronomers calculated the
circumference of the earth to be 32,844 km (20,400 mi) and its diameter 10,465 km (6,500 mi) –
almost coinciding with our modern measurement. This at a time when Europeans believed that
ships sailing too far into the ocean would fall off the edge of the flat earth into the sea of
darkness.
Arab scientists, working in search of a formula, which would convert baser metal into gold,
evolved alchemy into what later became known as chemistry. Abu Musa Jabir Ibn Hayyan,
known as Geber in the West, was the most famous scientist in early chemical research and was
labelled as the ‘Father of Chemistry’. Ibn Hayyan was one of chemistry’s greatest geniuses
famous for writing more than 100 monumental treatises, of which 22 deal with chemistry and
alchemy.
Abu Musa Jabir Ibn Hayyan
He introduced experimental investigation into alchemy (from the Arabic al-kimiya’), creating the
momentum for modern chemistry. Ibn Hayyan did much work with metals and salts and is
credited with the invention of the alembic and the discovery of antimony, aqua regia, corrosive
sublimate, sodium hydroxide; and hydrochloric, citric, tartaric, nitric and sulphuric acids.
Between the 8th and 16th centuries Arab/Islamic mechanics and engineering technology
flourished in the Muslim world. In their works, the 9th century Banu Musa (three sons of Musa
ibn Shakir) described a hundred technical constructions, revealed originality and far transcended
all which had been previously written on the subject.
The 13th century Badi’ al-Zaman ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari in one of his books Al Jami’ Bain
al-‘Ilm wal ‘Amal al-Nafi fi Sina at al-Hiyal (A Compendium on the Theory and Practice of
Mechanical Arts), an unsurpassed work on Arab mechanical engineering and the climax of ideas
on medieval machines and their construction, gives a true insight into Arab mechanical
technology.
Even more than mechanics and engineering, breakthroughs in mathematics were one of the main
Arab contributions to Western civilization. The Arabs developed the concept of irrational
numbers, founded analytical geometry and established algebra and trigonometry as exact
sciences. Their development of computational mathematics surpassed all the achievements of the
past. Without the simplicity and flexibility of the Arabic numerals and the decimal system, along
with the concept of the zero, Western science would have been almost impossible.
It was under the patronage of Arab caliphs that hospitals as we know them today were first
established in the 8th century. From that era, they continued to improve upon the healing arts of
the ancient world. They added true hospitals with codified administration and wards, establishing
these in ideal locations throughout the Islamic world. Added to these institutions were medical
schools, medical libraries, apothecary shops, and pharmacies.
One of the two giants in Arab medicine is Abu Bakr Muhammad bin Zakariya al-Razi (865-925),
a medical encyclopedist, who was a great authority on infections. Known in medieval Europe as
Rhazes, he was a prolific author who wrote more than 100 books on medicine, astronomy, logic,
philosophy and the physical sciences. Considered as one of the outstanding authorities in medical
history, al-Razi has been described as the ‘unchallenged chief physician of the Muslims’, ‘the
greatest clinician of the Middle Ages’, and as ‘the Arab Galen’.