Gasparetto (not his real name)[1] was a young Turkish medical student when he was arrested and imprisoned for eight months by Turkey’s government, merely for his connection to the Hizmet, a social movement inspired by Fethullah Gülen and Sufi thought, which Turkey’s President Erdoğan blamed for the July 15, 2016 coup attempt. While incarcerated, Gasparetto experienced a range of feelings—heightened spirituality and camaraderie with others, but also devastating emotional torture at the hands of prison guards. In prison, they had crammed 57 people into a room meant for 12, and so the inmates took turns sleeping and sharing beds. He was only given permission to leave his cell on four occasions over an eight-month period. He asked his family to bring National Geographic magazines to him so that he could see color photographs of the outside world. The worst part was that his mother, who suffers from bipolar disorder, was unable to manage her own medications at home because of the stress, and rapidly deteriorated during his absence. Sadly, as soon as Gasparetto was released, he knew he would soon likely be rearrested, and so he planned his escape from Turkey via the dangerous Evros River, known as the “refugee cemetery.”[2] Crossing the river on a flimsy inflatable boat, he was terrified he would drown in the rushing currents, as far too many had before him, or be thrown back into prison again by Turkish soldiers, before his boat reached Greece.

I met him in Greece during the summer of 2018, where I had travelled to interview other refugees of Erdoğan’s ongoing purge. According to Mehmet, a Hizmet representative there, approximately 800 Turkish refugee families are temporarily residing in Greece (the number fluctuates), hoping to gain asylum somewhere, anywhere, in Europe. At least 41,500 Turks have already reached Europe to seek refuge after the attempted coup, and many more are still desperately trying to reach safety and gain asylum there.[3]

Firdevs, a former teacher who crossed the river with her three children, told me that after arriving in Greece, she kissed the first tree she saw. She felt her burdens lifting, and that at that moment she could breathe for the first time in two years. “All Turkish refugees are thankful to the people of Greece,” Mehmet explained to me.

Due to its strategic location and (relative) hospitality as of June 2018, Greece houses approximately 60,000 refugees.[4] From January to September 2018 alone, over 23,000 refugees, most of them (72%) from Syria, Iraq (including Syrian and Iraqi Yazidis and Kurds), and Afghanistan, came to Greece by sea.[5] Others risked the treacherous Evros River—from January to May, 2018, 7,200 refugees survived the crossing to Greece.[6] When asylum seekers arrive, often exhausted, hungry, and thirsty, unfortunately many find conditions in the refugee camps less than ideal. Crowded, squalid, and dirty, the camps nonetheless offer refuge for those awaiting their asylum decisions. Residents have complained that living in the camps can be dangerous: there have been reports of physical and sexual assault, threats of violence, and a rise in mental health problems.[7]

One of the worst examples is the Moria Camp, on the island of Lesbos. It is supposed to house 2,000 refugees, but as of August, 2018, it houses four times that many, and sexual harassment and assault are commonplace.[8] It also reeks—there is one toilet for every seventy people. Some have lived there for over two years. Many, including children, are suicidal.[9] The same camp recently witnessed violence against Kurdish refugees by Arabs, in which over seventy Kurds were injured, at least ten left in critical condition, mirroring sectarian violence against Kurds in Syria and Iraq, at the hands of religious extremists.[10]

My 9-day trip was marred by several tragedies. The day before I arrived, fires in the region of East Attica, near Rafina, horrifyingly killed 99 people,[11] with 200 more being injured.[12] In two separate incidents around the duration of my stay seven Turkish refugees, including children, lost their lives drowning in the Evros trying to reach safety in Greece. For days one Turkish father, Murat Akcabay,[13] who had survived the trip while the rest of his family fell into the water after the boat hit a rock, prayed that one of his three sons, five year-old Mesut, who had been wearing a life vest when he fell off the boat, would still be alive. The bodies of his wife and two sons had already been recovered.[14] Sadly, during my trip, Mesut’s body was also found.

Despite the problems faced by the Turkish refugee community in Greece, which include trauma, financial difficulties, displacement, grief, depression, and an uncertain future, those I spoke with were deeply concerned with how to best help the Greek fire survivors and their families, in their new host country.

On a more positive note, six other Turkish refugees, one a 5-months pregnant woman, were rescued and brought to Greece after being stranded for four days without food or water on a tiny island between Turkey and Greece. Their boat sank and they made it to the island, where they slept on the muddy ground and survived by drinking river water. Another success story involved a young Turkish refugee who arrived on a boat, but his boat was pushed back towards Turkey by Greek officials (which happens on occasion). In an act of sheer desperation, he leapt off that boat into Greek waters, and to the cheers of spectators he too was rescued and brought into Greece by representatives of the UN High Committee for Refugees.

Despite the problems faced by the Turkish refugee community in Greece, which include trauma, financial difficulties, displacement, grief, depression, and an uncertain future, those I spoke with were deeply concerned with how to best help the Greek fire survivors and their families, in their new host country. They, along with the world, mourned with Greece. Another refugee, and former government official from Ankara, Çetin, explained: “The pain doesn’t differ. Language, ethnicity, religion, none of these are different. We suffered the same. When we see the pictures of the Greek babies [fire victims], we suffer just as we do when we see Turkish babies who sank in the Evros River.”

Humanitarian groups quickly began to raise funds for the survivors of the devastating fire. Help also came from an unlikely source: the Turkish refugee community. Historically, Greece and Turkey have been at odds. This has been fueled, in part, by Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1832, a series of military conflicts including the Greco-Turkish war of 1912-1922, the Cyprus issue, and the current tensions between Turkey and Greece. Turkish jets have invaded Greek airspace on dozens of occasions this year alone, and the Turkish government has implied it might seek jurisdiction over islands in the Aegean occupied by Greeks.[15]

Despite that history, those refugees I interviewed were deeply grateful for the friendly welcome they received in Greece which, combined with Erdoğan’s brutal two-year purge, completely quashed any previously held feelings of Turkish superiority and/or xenophobia. Firdevs, a former teacher who crossed the river with her three children, told me that after arriving in Greece, she kissed the first tree she saw. She felt her burdens lifting, and that at that moment she could breathe for the first time in two years. “All Turkish refugees are thankful to the people of Greece,” Mehmet explained to me.

Zeynep, a divorced mother and former cook, confirmed that her refugee experience created greater empathy for others outside of those groups of people with whom she used to most identify. She said, “Before this [purge in Turkey], when we heard a refugee ship had sunk in the Aegean Sea, of course we were sorry. But we never thought that each person died had a family, children; we never humanized them, one by one. We used to just think about Turkey, what we could do for Turkey, but after this experience, we see what we can do for humanity.”

My 9-day trip was marred by several tragedies. The day before I arrived, fires in the region of East Attica, near Rafina, horrifyingly killed 99 people, with 200 more being injured. Seven Turkish refugees, including children, lost their lives drowning in the Evros trying to reach safety in Greece.

Similarly, Yesma, a former teacher, argued that being a refugee also made her more empathetic towards other refugees. She stated, “In our country we had Syrian refugees and we should have done more for them. We didn’t help them enough.” She also crossed the Evros with her family, and told me that eerily, she was able to feel the spirits of those who had drowned in it, but were never found.

Accompanying Mehmet, Gasparetto, and several other refugees with medical backgrounds, I toured the neighborhoods affected by the fire. They wanted to offer aid through their Hizmet-affiliated organization, Time to Help. In one of over at least 1,000 homes gutted by the fire, a burnt television sat askance on the living room floor, surrounded by charred furniture and debris. A brass teapot sat unscathed on a charred, round antique table. I was told that thankfully, the elderly resident of that home survived, carried out by her son.

Mehmet, who had organized the small group composed of two refugee doctors and one nurse, purchased water and paper goods to donate to Rafina’s city hall. We met with Ms. Vasiliki Beka, the Mayor’s Advisor, and Mehmet began by telling her that they were there simply to help, and that on behalf of Time to Help they could bring more doctors or whatever else was needed. He offered to organize a blood drive, paint homes, bring medicines, or provide victims’ families with financial aid. Ms. Beka graciously responded that they did not need more basic items such as clothes, food, or medicine, but rather volunteers to help clear the area of burnt wood, and of course, funds. Seemingly touched by the offers of assistance, she said that receiving global offers of support restored her faith in humanity. Exhausted, but smiling, she added: “There is more that brings us together than that which separates us.” Afterwards, the group visited a young woman in the hospital, who was badly burned on her arms and legs, and gave her mother funds to help her daughter with her medical bills.

Refugees commonly suffer from feelings of humiliation and societal uselessness because of their dependence on aid organizations, especially when they are unemployed.[16] I noticed that being able to provide help to fire victims raised the spirits of the Turkish refugees I met in Greece; indeed, Mehmet much preferred to think about ways to help the Greek victims rather than about his own refugee status, or the fact that the rest of his family still remained in Turkey. Thankfully, Gasparetto was able to reach Germany, where he hopes to continue his medical studies after learning German. While he still struggles with depression and his traumatic memories, he is one of the more fortunate. While those that fled the brutal purge in Turkey have a long road in front of them, their horrible experiences have not yet caused them to lose their humanity. In fact, being able to perform even small acts of kindness helps them move forward.

The pain doesn’t differ. Language, ethnicity, religion, none of these are different. We suffered the same. When we see the pictures of the Greek babies [fire victims], we suffer just as we do when we see Turkish babies who sank in the Evros River.

Let’s conclude this story with the words of a refugee. Ahsen, a 33-year-old psychological consultant and mother of two, listened to the stories of purge victims in Turkey before becoming a refugee herself. Her hair turned white from the stress of listening to the painful stories of others. Her Kurdish husband, a psychiatrist, cried when I interviewed him, telling me he heard stories that were so terrible he couldn’t tell them to anyone. Before fleeing Turkey via the Evros, Ahsen told her seven-year-old daughter that they were playing a game of “Survivor.” Surprised with her daughter’s adult-like demeanor during the voyage, Ahsen recalled that after reaching Greece the girl calmly asked her who had won the game. Ahsen conveyed what she had learned from the harrowing ordeal: “Passing through the Evros taught us about other people. We had heard about the refugee experiences from Afghans and Syrians, but we hadn’t experienced it [ourselves]. Also, when we came here we found that Greek people are very kind, polite, believe in humanity, and offer us respect and understanding. They also help us, which is very important. [If granted asylum], we will go and carry out more service (Hizmet) in the countries we visit. I’m sorry I left my friends in Turkey, but I learned there is a great need here as well. A new life is beginning for all of us.”

[1] All names of Turkish refugees have been changed, for their safety.

[2] Deniz Zengin, “Turkish Refugees Crossing Evros River,” Politurco, August 2, 2018.

[3] Ibid.

[4] “Greece,” UNHCR, June, 2018.

[5] “Sea Arrivals Dashboard: Greece,” UNHCR, September, 2018.

[6] Leo Dobbs, “Fewer refugees arriving in Greece’s Evros region, but problems remain,” UNHCR, June 12, 2018.

[7] “UNHCR urges action to ease conditions on Greek islands,” UNHCR, September 8, 2017.

[8] Catrin Nye and Leo Sands, “UN urges Greece to act as Moria refugee camp reaches ‘boiling point,’” BBC Victoria Derbyshire Program, August 31, 2018.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Helbast Shekhani, “Ten Syrian Kurds in critical condition after attack at refugee camp in Greece,” Kurdistan 24, May 26, 2018.

[11] “Attica’s Devastating Wildfire Death Toll Rises to 99,” Greek News, September 12, 2018.

[12] Bill Hutchinson, “Death toll from fires in Greece climbs to 91 as investigation points toward arson,” ABC News, July 29, 2018.

[13] His real name.

[14] Tasos Kokkinidis, “Turkish Father Makes Emotional Plea for Family Missing in Greek River,” Greek Reporter, July 20, 2018.

[15] Yannis Babaoulias, “Greece and Turkey Are Inching Toward War,” Foreign Policy, April 18, 2018.

[16] Constanze Quosh, Liyam Eloul, and Rawan Ajlani, “Mental health of refugees and displaced persons in Syria and surrounding countries: a systematic review,” Intervention Volume 11 (3) (November 2013).

I contend that Money has acquired a character, a personality, if you like. So there you are, you have Mr. and Mrs. Average on the street, and then there is Money. It is best to keep Money otherwise anonymous, for it has become uppity enough. In the old days, people would say that “money talks” and that inference has been made fact. Nowadays, Money makes a dialogue to fit its own ends and Money knows where it is going, with whom it is having dinner tonight, whom it is going to embarrass due to its immediate absence, and the person or company it is going to ruin in the morning.

Money, you might say, has got Greece on the skids. It is not really the fault of Greece or Grecians in general, because, you see, Money has become sly, altogether its own boss.

Nevertheless, despite the awful Cloud of Unknowing hovering over Athens, the Greeks of our acquaintance have been generous to a fault. We have been offered many a meze (a small plate of olives, feta, sausage, etc.), coffee or glass of ouzo free of charge. There has been a bon vivant air to our relationships, but we are convinced that due to the rather cavalier handling of their monetary means, these jolly persons do not wish to have a mainland psyche.

Who was it who said that “only a millionaire can afford to be a communist”? Never mind, the notion is perfectly applicable to Greece and its very nice people. It could mean that either they are all transcended souls and have seen something that we have not, or simply don’t give two figs for the idea of poverty. This is true on the islands, that is! Athens is another matter altogether.

In much the same way that there are countries in which poverty means a less strenuous existence than in some others. (Being poor in Austria, for example, is bearable. Poverty in some other countries, which we do not name, would be quite horrid.) Life for the Greek islanders is obviously less affected than life for those living in Athens. In the islands in other words, Money has none of the packed dependents that a metropolis offers to exert its lack of presence. Athens may well be the seat of government, but the islands seem to require little governing. One can’t shake off the feeling that Money has made itself essential to the running of a financial capital and nowhere else, because that is what financial capitals are for. See? The capital cities of this world are all a home-from-home for Money. We shudder at the thought of Brussels, which obviously needs paying for, going the same way.

My wife and I have decided to have no truck with money (we have de-capitalised it for a start). Should money stray our way, we will toss it into a corner and let it sulk for a bit; we may send it to a Third World country, which is where it belongs, but we will NOT go out and spend it. Moreover, we will excommunicate it from our feelings; we will not thrill at the thought of it; we will not indulge in sprees, thereby refusing to have a good time on the strength of money. Above all, we will resist the attraction of what money can buy. (There is a lovely little chrome-vanadium ratchet-spanner set that keeps beckoning to me when I pass its shop window.) We have pierced this monetary fog of collusion with the searchlight of our mind. We may want something but we rarely need it. That may sound like a pretty ordinary thought process, but one does require a certain resolve to carry the cross. Thus, down with glitter, down with sell, and back to the village life that serves us well.

The lady (one’s financially bemused wife) is a bit unsure of all this, despite the fact that she can circulate through a supermarket (“they always give me a headache”) and emerge with a full trolley in ten minutes flat, while one is still wrestling with the urge to buy a needless gadget.

The answer is obvious! We must drop out! We may be in the world but we will not be of it! We will say “get thee behind me – thou shalt follow and not lead.”

But can one avoid money? The machine one writes on was purchased with money. We may feel smug and contend that it is paid for and that’s that! But money has induced some manufacturers to produce goods that are set to implode within three years. Thus, money needs to circulate to feel OK, to do the rounds, check out the joints and the venues, get fluttered every so often, muscle in on things and throw its weight about, get turned into cheques and then get cashed, get wired somewhere, get bought and sold. My goodness, can one really buy and sell money? If so, what does one use in the process of buying and selling? A popular brand of beer sold in Greece is called Mythos. Go figure!

Lawrence Brazier is a writer living with his wife in rural Austria. His main interest is mystical experience.

At the onset of the twenty-first century, a new relationship is being forged between my own Greek Orthodox Christian community and the Turkish Muslim community of the United States. That such a dialogue occurs at all surprises some within and beyond these communities, not understanding that such a dialogue has a long and complicated history in Turkey itself. Still, the stereotyped, traditional conflict between the Greeks and Turks has always been more complicated than what is portrayed outside of Greece and Turkey. The fact that the nascent American version of this dialogue between two communities has developed largely following the events of September 11, 2001, is therefore somewhat coincidental; that it has evolved in a society coming to terms with cultural and religious realities largely ignored by the majority prior to those events has only created an atmosphere where our work is increasingly perceived as necessary within both communities.

When coming “face to face” in dialogue, it is always an honor to be with so many people of like mind, who, for the sake of peace and justice and the higher ideals of their individual professions of faith and spiritual law, seek what St. Paul calls “a more excellent way.” Surely we “religious types” and others whose intellectual currency is the exchange of ideas between cultures, are in our day and age (a tense time of fear and resentment) unique stewards of a special and exceptional place in history. As representatives of our respective cultures and faiths, as representatives of what our individual culture’s legacy has shaped each of us to be, we are the inheritors of a vast wealth of knowledge, beauty, and pain. Surely, even though we are inheritors of history’s conflicts-which admittedly, sometimes color our more noble attempts to turn mere tolerance into understanding-we should be able to find some purpose and encouragement in that same history. This is not an easy thing in our time, in this age of constant media noise and lack of historical context.

The Greek Orthodox Christian and Turkish Muslim communities share a unique past; hence, our dialogue emerges from a complex, and, at times, painful history that Orthodox Christianity and Islam, Greece and Turkey have suffered and shared.

Yet we have come a long way. We have traveled a difficult road filled with many obstacles, physical violence, and the metaphorical obstacles of our intellectual insecurities that have perhaps hampered our higher aspirations even more than the former darkness of our historical conflicts. The influential and intellectually challenging Muslim thinker Fethullah Gülen puts it in another way, in broader terms, when he writes:

Negative feelings and attributes often defeat people, pulling them under their domination to such an extent that even the religions that guide people to goodness and kindness are abused, as well as the feelings and attributes that are sources of absolute good.

How truly these words reflect the experience for so many of us and for our ancestors. And struggling with religion’s truths-perhaps too weighty for us to comprehend fully and therefore abused by all of us, each of us misapplying our own ideals to baser human endeavors-we have suffered. What we did not understand was that we were suffering together. In retrospect, our shared history contains hope for our shared destiny.

Allow me to depict an image from our shared past, to recount an event shared by Greek Orthodox Christians and Turkish Muslims that is often overlooked. However, it has silently brought a message to us through the ages. In Istanbul, there are two images in the Patriarchate at the Phanar, two mosaics. They grace the foyer at the entrance of the main office building. On the one side is a depiction of St. Andrew, the First Called of Jesus’ Apostles and the first Bishop of Byzantium. With him is Stachys, Andrew’s successor (from 38-54 CE) in a long line of bishops who have made Byzantium, Constantinople, and Istanbul their home to the present. On the other side of that foyer at the Phanar is a mosaic that depicts the Patriarch Gennadios. He stands with his hand open, receiving a document being handed to him by Sultan Mehmet II in 1453. It is the Firman, the legal document guaranteeing that the Orthodox Church would continue its traditions and mission among its people during Muslim Ottoman rule.

The first image depicts the beginning of one of our peoples’ faith traditions. The next image depicts the inherent understanding of tradition that the progenitors of the Turkish nation had and would continue to keep. Our shared history is, obviously, something less than perfect. It is a human story about human people. Nevertheless, time and the tides of numerous historical fortunes have brought us to this moment in the United States. And we are together at this moment, in yet another time, in ways that could have only occurred because of this culture’s strengths. Imagine what this dialogue might mean to our ancestors if they were to see us now-Turks and Greeks together, sharing freedom, sharing meals at banquets, working together in a common cause and, most importantly, hoping for a still better future.

I, a Greek Orthodox bishop, one born in the United States, whose spiritual ties are to that great city on the shores of the Bosphorus, have stood before Turkish audiences and the people of America’s multi-cultural, multi-ethnic faith traditions, as an honored guest. We have been together at a table laden with the true food of human being-of human existence: understanding, mutual respect and hope.

Our future is contingent upon our acknowledgment of the past. History is always the greatest teacher. And after the long, difficult history of our interactions, we have something else that can and must help us become even greater witnesses: each of our own cultures and of the shared experiences we still remember. It is perhaps a difficult truth to embrace, but those who have been enemies quite often understand each other better than those who have never been part of their conflict. In the film, The Matrix Reloaded, one character says to another, whom he has just fought: “You never really know who someone is until you fight him.”

At this point in our history, when the need to fight has long passed, we have an opportunity to look at each other in a unique and intense way, and seeing one another in truth and love, we may yet see ourselves in the other. And this then may become the key to our common future and works of righteousness done in shared hope for a better world.

So, perhaps we have even managed to give goodness to the world together, to save what was the best of our respective histories, and allow the future to be a mirror, worthy of the deepest truths of our faiths, in which to see the truest reflection of our humanity. Turan Oflazoðlu says, “What we need is to enrich ourselves with those aspects of foreign culture which are not congenial to our nature.” We must seek the “other” amongst us and invite them into our lives. We must share our hopes our fears, our joys, and our sorrows. We must find ways of transcending our conflicts, both historical and intellectual, and create a new future together. My reflection on this dialogue is that, “We are the world in small.” May we may now truly praise the Creator’s gift of life in all its diversity, and walk together into the future in a new way. I hope that we will take the second step with the same sense of warmth and respect that we have experienced the first step. To quote the late, great prophet of reconciliation, Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras- ἐλάτε νά κοιτταχOούμε – “come, let us look into one another’s eyes.”

The Example of Greek-Turkish Dialogue in Post-9/11 America
Bishop Demetrios of Mokissos
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America,
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople

There are seven chapters in the book. The first chapter summarizes the basic tenets of the classical narrative, then criticizes it listing many questions which the classical narrative cannot satisfactorily answer. Islamic civilization’s contribution to the development of modern science is so immense that it is impossible to completely ignore this part of the history in any serious discussion of the general history of science or civilization. The problem arises in assessing the importance and the nature of Islamic science. Generally accepted views of the classical narrative go something along these lines: Islamic civilization was a desert civilization and began to develop scientific thought only when it came in contact with more advanced civilizations (Persian, Indian and Greek and most importantly Greek). A vital component of the rise of science in Islamic civilization was the remarkable translation movement that took place during the early period of Abbasid times (750–900 CE), in which many important scientific books of other civilizations, particularly those of ancient Greeks, were translated into Arabic. The classical narrative says by learning Greek science through this translation activity, Islamic science reached its golden age while Greek science was neglected under Byzantine rule. Adherents of the classical narrative generally assume that Islamic civilization did not go much beyond translation, did not make original contributions to scientific knowledge or produced any new science of its own. They also assume this period of the golden age did not last long and came to an end with Ghazali’s “attack” on philosophers in his major work Tahafut al-Falasifa (The Incoherence of Philosophers). They assume that Islamic science began to decline with Ghazali while there was an awaking in Europe, sometimes called the Renaissance of the twelfth century, when Europeans began to translate major Arabic philosophical and scientific texts into Latin. Some of these texts had already been translated from much earlier Greek and Sanskrit texts into Arabic. So, they reconnected with their Greco-Roman legacy. The classical narrative says from that point on Europe had no need for Islamic science, hence the role of Islamic civilization was to simply translate and preserve the ancient Greek science and make it available to Europeans later. Thus, according to this view all the roots of modern science were European. The classical theory also attempts to explain the process by which the acquisition of Greek science by the Muslim world occurred. There are a few versions of this proposal which are called “contact theory,” “pocket transmission theory,” and “translation through Syriac medium first.”

In this first chapter of the book, Saliba argues that the classical narrative is an oversimplification of what actually happened in reality and fails to answer many fundamental questions. The first problem is about origins. He argues none of the proposed methods of translation is convincing to explain the reasons why, how, and when Muslims acquired Greek science. In terms of the nature and quality of translations, Saliba gives examples of sophistication and maturity exhibited by the Muslim scientists that is well beyond what would be expected from an early generation of translators who are struggling to understand a foreign science. Moreover, already in the early period of the translation movement Muslim scientists produced original new science such as algebra by al-Khwarizmi (830 CE), remarkable advances by Habash a-Hasib (850 CE) in the field of trigonometry and mathematical projections that go far beyond what was known from Indian and Greek sources, and developed decimal fractions. He argues such advances could not happen suddenly. There must be a longer tradition of scientific activity in the Islamic world and real motivations for the rise of science which cannot be explained by the classical narrative.

Not only does the classical narrative fail to explain beginnings but also more recent developments as well. Saliba gives many examples from various scientific disciplines to show that the Islamic science did not decline after Ghazali. Astronomy is a perfect counterexample to this thesis of the classical narrative, and it is not the only one. In fact, there were so many advances in astronomy in the Islamic world after Ghazali that Saliba calls the post-Ghazali period as the golden age of Islamic astronomy. Recent research in the second half of the twentieth century shows that astronomy has particularly interesting connections to the European Renaissance. Saliba comments that post-Ghazali works by the Muslim scientists were not sufficiently considered by the adherents of the classical narrative because of their pre-supposition that no significant science of any interest could have been produced in this period. This caused unfortunate damage in terms of understanding the post-Ghazali period in the Islamic world as well as the European Renaissance itself.

In the second chapter, Saliba proposes an alternative thesis/narrative to the classical narrative in terms of the beginnings of the rise of scientific activities in the Islamic world. His thesis is based on the writings of Al-Nadim (full name Abu al-Faraj Muhammad b. Abi Ya’qub Ishaq al-Nadim) who wrote about intellectual history of the early Islamic period. Saliba also supports his thesis with well known historical facts. In summary, the alternative narrative proposes that there was already a significant amount of interest and activity in the nascent Islamic civilization before the translation movement began. Rather than learning science from others (Greeks) just because they came into contact with them, the Islamic world actively sought those sciences because of a keen interest to advance their own scientific knowledge. Unlike the classical narrative, the alternative thesis argues that Muslim scientists already had a high level of knowledge and maturity when the translation activities began. This is evidenced by the high quality of translations of highly technical materials, and corrections of errors in the original sources. The main societal factors for the rise of science in the new civilization are listed as a) the need for people (bureaucrats) with a high level of scientific knowledge in administrations, and b) competition between those people to acquire higher levels of scientific knowledge to be able to advance in the ranks of governments.

In the next chapter, Saliba gives detailed examples, mostly from astronomy, to show how critically Muslim scientists received and reacted to the Greek science. They noticed observational errors and internal inconsistencies in Greek texts. They also pointed out more philosophical and foundational errors and contradictions. Muslim scientists showed a high level of sophistication, maturity and critical spirit. They had a comprehensive look at the Greek texts they translated and studied them in relation to one another. Saliba argues that it is not possible to explain these phenomena with the classical narrative. Moreover, Muslim scholars went beyond just criticizing these errors and made many novel contributions to exact sciences. In the process, they realized the proper place of mathematics in the natural sciences. Saliba also comments that Muslim scientists continued to make original contributions to astronomy and other mathematical sciences long after Ghazali, when the classical narrative would preach the death of Islamic science.

In chapter four, Saliba gives examples of critical innovations by Muslim astronomers. He remarks that the interest of the Islamic society in astronomy was very strong due to many religious requirements that need to be answered by astronomy, such as visibility of the moon, daily prayer times, and qibla (direction of worship) etc. Such problems were not considered by Greeks before. Muslim astronomers could not ignore absurdities in Ptolemaic astronomy where mathematical models in Almagest violated the fundamental cosmological assumptions in Planetary Hypotheses. Although Ptolemy’s mathematical models usually made good predictions computationally, it was not satisfactory for the scientists in the new civilization to allow those models to violate the physical properties of the celestial bodies. They took it upon themselves to propose alternative mathematical models that satisfied both requirements. They were highly successful in that quest. The solution of this problem required some new mathematical theorems. Two of the most important of such theorems were Urdi’s Lemma and Tusi couple invented by Urdi and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi in the thirteenth century. Both of these were fecund and fundamental theorems that were used repeatedly by many astronomers who followed them for a long time. Renaissance astronomer Copernicus was among those who made use of these theorems. Also noted in this chapter is Shams al-Din al-Khafri’s understanding of the role of mathematics in describing the physical phenomena.

The title of chapter five is “Science between Philosophy and Religion: the Case of Astronomy,” wherein Saliba considers the relationship between the religion of Islam and scientific developments in astronomy. He explains that religious motivations led to the creation of new disciplines such as ilm al-hay’a (science of configuration) and advances in trigonometry. He states that astronomy and trigonometry are the best examples which demonstrate the intersecting interest between the practice of a religion and scientific thinking that need to be developed as a result of that practice. Many important scientists in medieval Islam were at the same time religious authorities. A few examples among such scholars are Ibn al-Nafis, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi and Ibn al-Shatir. Saliba also notes that the European paradigm of conflict between science and religion does not exist in the Islamic world.

“Islamic Science and Renaissance Europe: The Copernican Connections” is the title of chapter six. Researchers in the second half of twentieth century first realized that many of the astronomical models of Copernicus were identical to that of Ibn al-Shatir from three centuries earlier. This surprising discovery, which contradicted the view that Renaissance science was a European self-contained creation, opened the door for further investigations which revealed more surprising outcomes. The mathematical theorem called the Tusi couple that is mentioned above plays an important role in Copernicus’s model. Copernicus stated the theorem and proved it in 1543 without mentioning that he invented a new theorem or saw it in any other source. The theorem was first invented and proved by Tusi in the middle of the thirteenth century. By comparing the two proofs, W. Hartner noticed in 1973 that Copernicus’s proof was identical to Tusi’s. He even used the same letters for essential geometric points. That is where Tusi used the Arabic letters “alif,” “ba” etc. Copernicus used the corresponding Latin letters “A,” “B” etc. This discovery makes it pretty certain that Copernicus knew about Tusi’s work.

Saliba shows Copernicus’s case is not an isolated instance and gives more evidence in this chapter of the phenomenon that “there are much too many coincidences of ideas appearing first in Arabic texts usually written between the 12th and 15th centuries, which reappear, without much explanation, in Latin sources of the 16th and 17th centuries.” Saliba’s explanation of this phenomenon is that by the Renaissance time men of science themselves learned Arabic and no longer needed translations. There are many examples that show European reliance on Arabic sciences in the post-Copernicus period when the whole worldview was supposed to have been changed by him. Renaissance men of science had a high regard for the Islamic sciences and were looking to the Islamic world for the latest in scientific activities rather than the classical Greek sources.

In the last chapter Saliba discusses the age of decline in Islamic science. He starts by rejecting the two main reasons proposed by the advocates of the classical narrative and argues that it did not start after Ghazali (eleventh century) or the destruction of Baghdad by Mongols in 1258. Saliba says that those who believe the first reason look at the Islamic civilization as a source of religious thought only and operate under the assumption that the European paradigm of conflict between religion and science applies to Islamic world as well. Saliba argues that this assumption is not true for the Islamic world and that scientific activities did not decline after Ghazali. Those who think the main reason was the destruction of Baghdad by Mongols saw the Islamic civilization mostly in political terms and paid little attention to its intellectual history. Saliba gives many examples of high quality and sophisticated scientific production in the Islamic world, mostly in astronomy but in other areas as well, well after both of these events. He says those examples were ignored or not properly read by the adherents of the classical view who did not expect to find any important scientific production in the Islamic world after the thirteenth century.

There still remains the problem and timing of decline of science in the Islamic world. When did it happen? Saliba notes that decline is a relative concept. What actually happened was the European science advanced more rapidly than the rest of the world after the sixteenth century. Hence it looked like science declined elsewhere, including the Islamic world. According to Saliba the main reason for these rapid developments in science in Europe was related to the discovery of the “new world.” He argues that the wealth and resources obtained by Europeans as a result of discovery of new lands helped them fund scientific activities. Europe witnessed the rise of royal and scientific academies where most educated men of the time were assembled and engaged in scientific research without having to worry about financial needs. Healthy competition among these institutions led to new scientific discoveries. Western superiority in science continues to this day and the constant brain drain that feeds the West at the expense of the developing and third worlds does not help to change the balance.

In summary, this book presents fundamental challenges to many of the commonly held views about the intellectual and scientific history of the Islamic world and proposes alternative explanations. The science of astronomy is used as a template to test and justify these claims. The author invites researchers to subject his proposals to the test of historical data in other disciplines as well. This book is highly recommended to all interested in the general history of science, and that of the Islamic world and the Renaissance period in particular.

Nuh Aydin is an associate professor of Mathematics at Kenyon College, Ohio, USA.

The debt that Briffault speaks of is often referred to as though it should be taken for granted: The Arabs only transmitted Greek science and made no contribution to the overall history of Western science. Fortunately, many historians of science no longer hold this view. The Arabs “ under an Islamic hegemony “ acquired the scientific heritage of earlier civilizations, including classical Greece and Rome, and translated, preserved, and transformed much of it. Their scientific experience profoundly impacted the late medieval world of western Europe, where Muslim scientific achievements were important to the evolving Renaissance and the grand narrative of the history of science.

Until recently, these historic achievements were unknown. Gradually, more evidence showing the magnificent work in Islamic science has come to light. Modern history of science studies show that the productive, original scientific research of Muslim scientists persisted into the sixteenth century. Yet, histories of Islamic science consistently claim that such science declined after the eleventh century due to the opposition of religious authorities (e.g., Imam al-Ghazali), Islamic law, and the absence of a capitalistic economy,(2) to name just a few.

But this theory, in addition to its palpable counter-intuitiveness, fails to explain the growing body of evidence for the rise of science in the Islamic world after the eleventh century. This article will discuss just a part of the accomplishment, importance and originality of Islamic science between the ninth and sixteenth centuries.

Islamic science defined

The more historians deconstruct the grand narrative of their discipline’s history, the harder it becomes to assign linguistic, civilizational, and cultural adjectives to science.(3) Using such adjectives as Greek, Arabic, Chinese, Indian, Islamic, and more pertinently, western, in this context is quickly becoming obsolete, due to the newly-emerging understanding of the essentially hegemonic meanings such adjectives have always harboured.(4) These terms were often used as analytical categories that imparted some significance at the time when languages, cultures and civilizations used to embody individual characteristics that could distinguish them from one another.(5)

Now, however, such terms no longer serve the same functions, for the new scrutiny now being applied to such grand narratives of the history of science is making it quite obvious that these terms can no longer yield the same analytical results they used to yield.(6) In addition, such terms as culture, civilization, language, and science are no longer the same stable, commonly accepted terms of reference they once were,(7) since they embody ambiguities of their own and embody hegemonic theoretical structures that prohibit their modification with the old adjectives as was once done.(8) Furthermore, the intimate interconnectedness between scientific traditions makes it almost meaningless to speak of a Greek, Arabic or European science as if each had a character of its own.(9)

In light of the above, Islamic science (10) perhaps should mean science conducted mainly in Arabic and within the context of Islamic civilization, for many individuals from different ethnic and religious backgrounds were actively engaged in this undertaking: Christians (e.g., Hunayn ibn Ishaq), Persians (e.g., Ibn Nawbakht), Sabians (e.g., Thabit ibn Qurrah), and Jews (e.g., Masha’allah). Arabic was the main scientific, but not necessarily the native, language of these scientists. While the terms Islamic science and Arabic science are modern historical terms for the science conducted within the context of Islamic civilization, this science is Islamic in the sense that it suited the new and growing needs of Islamic civilization; was available entirely in Arabic, which had replaced Syriac; and was familiar to an increasing number of Muslim translators, students, and scientists./(11) It is in this context that Islamic science will be used in this article.

Of equal importance is the realization that Islamic science, in this context, does not imply religious sciences (e.g., jurisprudence) but rather the natural sciences (e.g., mathematics, astronomy, and physics). Nor does it imply the type of science that states that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, can be found in the Qur’an.(12) This view examines the Qur’an’s scientific content and claims that, from relativity, quantum mechanics, big bang theory to the entire field of embryology and much of modern geology has been ˜discovered’ in the Qur’an.(13) Its adherents claim that scientific experiments have been devised to discover what is mentioned in the Qur’an but not known to science. Although this view is now the most popular version of Islamic science, it is not the one implied in this article.

Nor does it imply the mystical perspective that equates Islamic science with studying the nature of things in an ontological sense. In this viewpoint, the material universe is studied as an integral and subordinate part of the higher levels of existence, consciousness and modes of knowing.(14) Given such a context, science is not a problem solving enterprise and socially objective inquiry but more a mystical quest for understanding the Absolute.(15) This view also advocates the idea that in this universe, conjecture and hypothesis have no real place; all inquiry must be subordinate to the mystical experience.(16) Thus, its advocates view all science in Islamic civilization as sacred science, a product of a particular mystical tradition that traces its roots to the Greek neo-Platonists. This view, however, has been strongly refuted by Muslim historians of science (e.g., Ahmad al-Hassan) and Western historians (e.g., David King and Donald Hill).

Having said that, in this article Islamic science means any natural science that depends upon observation and experimentation, as well as rational thought in a critical way, that was studied by scientists of various religious and ethnic backgrounds who operated under an Islamic hegemony.

Islamic science remains largely unappreciated

With the exception of a few scholars, the contributions of Muslims scientists have been “ and remain “ poorly understood in the West. Western literature on Muslims presents them as mere torch-bearers of Greek science. This view is a product of Orientalism, which treats the Orient and Orientals as an ˜object’ of study inscribed by Otherness.(17) This typology is based on a real specificity but detached from history, and thus conceived as intangible and essential,(18) which, according to Ziauddin Sardar, the European man, from Greek antiquity onwards, becomes the measure of all men everywhere.(19) Accordingly, Muslim contributions to science were deliberately ignored or suppressed, and the view that Muslim scientists produced nothing original remained the orthodox belief until the mid-twentieth century.

In astronomy, for example, Kevin Krisciunas states that it is a common misconception that astronomical research fell into a dazed slumber following Ptolemy [the Greek scientist who lived during the second century], not to reawaken until the time of Copernicus.(20) Accordingly, Western historians of astronomy, like Neugebauer and Delamere, find nothing to report about Islamic astronomy.(21) The distinguished physicist-philosopher-historian Pierre Duhem (1861-1916), on the other hand, believed that: The revelations of Greek thought on the nature of the exterior world ended with the Almagest, (by Ptolemy) which appeared about A.D. 145, and then began the decline of ancient learning. Those of its works that escaped the fires kindled by Mohammedan warriors were subjected to the barren interpretations of Mussulman [Muslim] commentors and, like parched seed, awaited the time when Latin Christianity would furnish a favourable soil in which they could once more flourish and bring forth fruit.(22)

In other words, Muslims were fanatic, rampaging hordes, burners of Greek science, and also pale imitators, copiers of the Greeks.(23) Duhem also believed that: There is no Arabian science. The wise men of Mohammedanism were always the more or less faithful disciples of the Greeks, but were themselves destitute of all originality.(24) Ernest Renan (1823-92), the influential French philologist, believed that Islamic science could only flourish in association with heresy, and that science in Islam was merely parasitic on Greek culture and that Islam was simply a vehicle transmitting Greek philosophy to the Renaissance in Europe.(25) Other historians repeated the view that Muslim scientists acted as unproductive transmitters of Greek science. Von Grunebaum suggested that Islamic science was a mimic of Greek science, and asserted that Islam failed to put natural resources to such use as would insure progressive control of the physical conditions of life. Inventions, discoveries, and improvements might be accepted but hardly ever were searched for.”(26)

Prominent historians of Islamic science, however, explain that modern research in Islamic science poses a challenge to what is at best a caricature of history, one that portrays the ˜torch’ of science and knowledge as something that was handed down from the ancient Greeks to medieval Europe by way of Islamic scholars.(27) The danger of this representation is that it miscasts the role of the Islamic civilisation in the scientific revolution and undermines the often deep relation between cultures and intellectual movements.(28) Furthermore, it allows historians of classical science to conclude, science as theory is Greek and as experimental method it was born in the seventeenth century,29 thereby neglecting the contributions of Muslim scholars in between.

According to the torch theory, therefore, Islamic science constituted an excavation site, in which the historian is the archaeologist on the track of Hellenism.30 This approach, explains Rashed, has frequently ended up misrepresenting the results of Greek science as well as those of the seventeenth century, a necessary distortion if one wishes to link the two ends of the chain in a continuous history; on the other hand, and not without coincidence, it has led to some famous blunders affecting not only interpretation but comprehension too.(31)

Recent scholarship, however, confirms that Muslim scientists were more than just torch-bearers of Greek science, and that, in fact, they influenced the Renaissance. For example, in his The Middle East, Bernard Lewis explains that Greek science, on the whole rather tended to be theoretical. Medieval Middle Eastern [Islamic] science was much more practical, and in such fields as medicine, chemistry, astronomy and agronomy, the classical heritage was clarified and supplemented by the experiments and observations of the medieval Middle East.(32)

Today there is sufficient information about the quality and staggering quantity of Islamic science. Muslim scientists were active in many fields, from astronomy to zoology, and made original contributions. For example, recent research in astronomy shows that the mathematical models of Ibn Shatir, a fourteenth-century scientist, and the work of astronomers at the famous observatory in Maragha, laid the foundation for the Copernican revolution.(33)

Thus the novelty of Islamic science was that it was not the fruits of chance meetings, but the deliberate results of a massive movement of scientific and philosophical translation, undertaken by professionals “ sometimes rivals “ supported by power and stimulated by the research itself.(34) This movement resulted in the creation of a library on the scale of the world of its time.(35) Hence, for the first time scientific traditions from different backgrounds and languages became elements of one science, whose language was Arabic, and found ways of reacting together to engender new methods and sometimes even new disciplines, such as trigonometry, algorithms, and algebra.

Nevertheless, most people remain unaware of the importance of Islamic science. For example, most Westerners know that the Muslims invented algebra, Arabic numerals, and possibly the zero, but not that Islamic science is a possible concept.(36) Thus the most widely used American university textbook for the history of science (37) shows no interest in Islamic science per se and ignores most of the research on Islamic science conducted during the past 50 years.(38) Europe has no such textbook at all, and the less said about modern Arabic books on Islamic science the better.

Only recently has the Western scholarly community produced a substantial amount of reliable literature on the subject, some even for the general reader. For example, the Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1970-80) contains a series of articles on the major Muslim scientists, as does the Encyclopaedia of the History of Arabic Science (1996).

The contributions of Muslim scientists are even less well understood in the Islamic world itself, let alone elsewhere in the world. No serious modern work of a general nature on Islamic science is available in Arabic, except George Saliba’s The Origin and Development of Arabic Scientific Thought (1998). Also, very little of the research of the past 50 years is available or even known in the Muslim world.

According to King, the surviving written works and artefacts relating to the achievements of Muslim scientists are some 10,000 manuscripts preserved in libraries around the world, and some 1,000 instruments preserved in museums and private collections. (39) This is an insignificant number when compared to some of the libraries that existed during Islamic civilization’s golden age, when there were about 500,000 such manuscripts on their shelves. Few of the surviving major scientific works have been translated, and modern scholars have never read thousands of these manuscripts. Simply put, the history of Islamic science as a field remains virgin territory. Nevertheless, as little as we know about Islamic science, scholars affirm that every single specialised science in the West owes its origins to the Islamic impulse “ or at least its direction from that time on.(40)

Original contributions and their impact on modern science

Islamic science made many important contributions to the history of European scientific thought. Its importance can be deduced from its original contributions and impact. Islamic science influenced the sciences of the West, and thus had a direct influence on the Renaissance and the scientific revolution.

In the twelfth century, the West discovered, via a translated catalogue of sciences (map of knowledge) by al-Farabi, the existence of a considerable body of Antiquity’s scientific work. The West started examining these sciences, including astronomy, biology, botany, mathematics, and medicine. In addition, the medieval European university became the institutional manifestation of al-Farabi’s map of knowledge. In fact, the translated work of Islamic knowledge formed the basis and the scientific foundation of the university in its living reality “ the reality of its syllabus, the content of its teaching.(41)

The originality of Islamic science and its significant innovation is clear in several fields, including mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. Due to this topic’s vastness, this article shall confine itself to these three fields.

Originality in mathematics

Recent research proves that many of the ideas that once were thought to belong to European mathematicians of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries were in fact originated by Islamic mathematicians. In many respects, the mathematics studied today is far closer in style to that of the Muslims than of the Greeks.(42)

In the case of mathematics, Muslims initially were transmitters of almost all the important mathematical ideas of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, India, Persia, and the Hellenistic world. But they also made original contributions that directly influenced arithmetic, geometry, algebra, and algorithms. Before learning of Indian numerals and the dust-board system early in the eighth century from Indian and Persian sources, the Muslims used finger computation, also called the arithmetic of the scribes or secretaries because it was used by government bureaucrats. This Indian system could express any number by using only 10 figures, including an empty place for zero, and the results were written out in words. (43) Though this system was far easier than, and superior to, the Babylonian sexagesimal system (in which letters replaced numbers), the latter system was still being used especially by astronomers. While the Babylonian system was developed for practical business needs, the Indian system was inspired by the Hindus’ inherent philosophical bent.

The Muslims recognized the importance of the Indian system and thus transformed it into the well-known Arabic numerals. This system, still used today in the West, enabled the West to achieve great breakthrough in mathematics. Arabic numerals became an intensely workable code, one so simple that literally any child can handle it, so flexible that in the hands of the mathematicians it became a vocabulary by which the most complex relations between the most astronomical quantities can be expressed. It was a revolution on a par with the invention of the computer; one was able to reduce the cosmos to a system of ten elementary symbols, from zero to nine. (44)

Arabic numerals were first transmitted and used in the West during the latter half of the twelfth century through the translation of the first part of al-Khawarizmi’s The Book of Addition and Subtraction in Indian Arithmetic, which survives as a translation only. By this time, many other important works in Arabic were well ahead of the West, including the work of al-Karaji (c.1000), ˜Umar al-Khayyam (d. 1130), as-Samaw’al (d. c. 1175), and Ibn al-Haytham (d. c. 1040).

Muslims also developed Greek geometry and then used it in surveying, in designing wheels of all kinds, including waterwheels and other systems for drawing water, in improving farming equipment, and, inevitably, in devising engines and devices of war, such as catapults and crossbows.(45) In the ninth century, Thabit ibn Qurra wrote on cubatures and quadratures, and used the method of exhaustions in a manner that anticipated the development of integral calculus; advanced the study of parabolas; and used integral sums to find the area of a parabola’s segment. He also translated Appollonius’ Conics, several of Archimedes’ treatises, and Nicomachus’ Introduction to Arithmetic, in addition to calculating the volume of the parabolic and giving a geometrical solution to some third degree figures.(46)

In geometry, Umar al-Khayyam and al-Tusi re-examined the fifth postulate of Euclid concerning the parallel line theorem, which concerns the very foundation of Euclidean geometry.47 Though they did not claim to challenge Euclid’s postulates, however, their work eventually led to G. Saccheri’s first attempt to formulate a non-Euclidean geometry (1733).

While the Greeks had calculated a table of chords, trigonometry was invented by the Arabs. (48) Muslim scientists were the first to formulate explicit trigonometric functions. The first scientist to use tangents (zill) was the astronomer Habash al-Hasib, who also knew of the sine, cosine, and cotangent functions. More influential was Abu al-Wafa al-Buzanji, the first person to demonstrate the sine theorem for a general spherical triangle and to invent the secant (qutr al-zill). The latter discovery is usually attributed to Copernicus. Al-Biruni wrote the first independent work on spherical trigonometry, calculated the approximate value of a diagonal of one degree, and was the first to demonstrate that for a plane triangle ( a/sinA = b/sinB = c/sinC ).(49)

Muslim mathematicians also invented algebra. Al-Khawarizmi (780-850), the greatest Muslim mathematician and the first to establish algebra, is known for being instrumental in converting Babylonian and Hindu numerals into a simple and workable system that almost everyone could use.(50) He is also best known for originating the mathematical terms and concepts of algebra and the algorithm (which is derived from his name al-Khawarizmi). He composed many astronomical tables, worked on arithmetic and algebra, and is recognized as the founder of algebra, for he initiated the subject in a systematic form and developed it to the extent of giving analytical solutions of linear and quadratic equations.

His book The Book of Summary concerning the Process of Calculating Compulsion and Equation was used until the sixteenth century as the principle textbook of European universities. And it is from its title that the term algebra (al-Jabr: restoration and amplification of something incomplete; muqabala: the balance of the two sides of an equation) was derived. The Toledan translation of his book, Algorismi de numero indorum, had a profound impact upon the West and gave English such words as algorithm and cipher (Arabic for zero) and Spanish the word guarismo.

One of the many other mathematicians, the Persian Ghiyath al-Din Jamshid al-Kashani, devised a theory of numbers and techniques of computation that remained unmatched until recently. He also rediscovered the decimal fraction, discovered initially by al-Uqlidisi and then forgotten for centuries, made a remarkably accurate calculation of , is considered the inventor of the first calculating machine,(51) and is the first person to solve the Newton binomial theorem.

Originality in astronomy

George Saliba, a prominent historian of Islamic science, has greatly advanced our understanding of the importance of Islamic astronomy. He explains that medieval Islamic astronomers were not mere translators but also may have played a key role in the Copernican revolution, which ultimately influenced the Renaissance. The contribution of Islamic science was fundamental to the birth and subsequent development of astronomy in the West, for before this contribution the West had no advanced astronomy. The knowledge developed by Muslim astronomers produced changes in the West as regards the development of trigonometry, instruments, and the local star catalogues, and also affected the growth and development of astronomical theory proper.(52)

Astronomy was a practical science for the Muslims, because they used the stars as guides during their travel. Thus, astronomy became one of their greatest achievements. Its practical importance was also emphasized by the need to determine the prayer direction (qibla) and time regardless of one’s location.

Islamic astronomers surpassed the Greek mathematical methods, and developed trigonometry, which eventually provided the essential tools necessary for the astronomy that developed during the Renaissance. Medieval Muslim astronomers felt themselves challenged to find a simpler trigonometric method than that postulated by such earlier astronomers as Ptolemy. The study of astronomy was influenced by ancient sources, and Muslims were acquainted with Indian and Persian sources before Greek ones. The Persian Sassanids’ astronomical treatises were translated into Arabic during the eighth century. Ptolemy’s work was introduced in the ninth century. Around that time, such scholars as Thabit ibn Qurra and Hunayn ibn Ishaq translated Ptolemy’s major work Megalé syntax mathematiké (Almagest in Arabic). By the end of the ninth century, the Arabs had thoroughly studied and were acquainted with the work of Antiquity.

Before the spread of Islam, there was only one observatory in Alexandria; Muslims built observatories all over the Islamic world. The first one, al-Shammasiyah, was built in Baghdad built by al-Ma’mun in 828. Al-Battani built one at Raqqa (Iraq), Abdul Rahman al-Sufi built one at Shiraz (Persia), and in 1023 the Persian prince Ala al-Daula built one for Ibn Sina at Hamadan. Scientists at the famous al-Maragha observatory in western Iran greatly influenced Copernican astronomy, for their work led to the development of a planetary system that was mathematically equivalent to that of Copernicus. Such closeness caused Noel Swerdlow to ask, not whether, but when, where, and in what form Copernicus learned of those scientists.(53)

Advances in planetary theories were primarily the result of criticizing Ptolemy’s work, which had dominated the field since the time of al-Battani. While refining and improving the work’s details, rising dissatisfaction with many of its aspects led such scholars as Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, and Ibn al-Shatir to criticize the Polemic (geocentric) system in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This criticism was, to some extent, very important in the later attacks made against him during the Renaissance. The work of astronomers like Ibn al-Shatir allows modern scholars like Saliba to conclude that at some level the Renaissance “ which was at least partly inspired by the Copernican revolution “ was not a purely European creation.(54) According to him, the role of Arabic astronomy was not to preserve Greek astronomy, but to correct its flaws and finally to seek alternatives to it.(55)

Thousands of Arabic manuscripts in major libraries remain unknown to scholars. However, eminent scholars like George Saliba and David King have advanced our understanding of Islamic astronomy’s originality and influence. Unlike the traditional view that Muslim astronomers accepted the Greek work as unalloyed truth, they in fact rejected much of it and forged a new astronomy that, later on, enabled Copernicus to lay the foundation of modern astronomy. Consequently, the original contributions made by Muslims astronomers challenge the idea that Muslim scientists only transmitted ancient Greek science and knowledge to medieval Europe without adding anything.

Originality in medicine

Muslims also excelled in and made original contributions to medicine. Islamic medicine was built on tradition, mainly the theoretical and practical knowledge developed in Greece and Rome. For Muslim scholars, Galen and Hippocrates were the pre-eminent authorities, followed by the Hellenic scholars in Alexandria. Muslim and non-Muslim scholars translated the voluminous writings from Greek (e.g., Hippocrates, Dioscorides, and Galen) into Arabic, thus providing virtually all of Islam’s early medical students with their basic reference texts. Then, basing themselves upon these texts, they produced new medical knowledge. In order to make ancient medical works more accessible, understandable, and teachable, Muslim scholars ordered and systematized the vast and sometimes inconsistent Greco-Roman medical knowledge by writing encyclopedias and summaries.

The influence of Islamic medicine in the West was critical, due to the mass of information it conveyed to the West, because it helped establish medicine as a science, and because translated Arabic medical manuscripts gave a decisive direction to the teaching of medicine in the West.(56) Islamic medical knowledge built upon the achievements of classical Greece and Rome as well as that learned from Syriac, Persian, and Indian sources. After the relatively quick assimilation of this knowledge, Islamic medical writings became more systematic and synthetic, with an evident urge to produce the most comprehensive and complete medical reference work yet written.(57) A primary concern of Islamic medical scholars was the organisation of the vast body of knowledge into a logical and accessible format.(58) They also expanded theoretical discourses on causes and symptoms, and frequently introduced examples and procedures of an applied character. It was in this historical background that Islamic medicine developed and advanced, and at its zenith produced such towering physicians like Ibn Sina and al-Razi.

Al-Razi (Rhazes: 865-925) is the keenest original thinker and greatest clinician not only of Islam but of the Middle Ages,(59) and was the Islamic world’s greatest original clinical and observational physician. Along with Ibn Sina, they are considered to be among the greatest physicians ever known. In selecting a new site for the great hospital in Baghdad, al-Razi hung up shreds of meat and then chose the spot where they showed the least sign of putrefaction.

Al-Razi applied chemistry and physics to medicine, and wrote a medical encyclopedia and a treatise on smallpox and measles that was the earliest of its kind and considered a masterpiece of Arabic medical literature. He was a pioneer in pediatrics, obstetrics, and ophthalmology. In fact, his The Diseases of Children has led some historians to regard him as the father of pediatrics. He is also considered the inventor of the seton in surgery, and the first to relate hay fever to a rose’s scent,(60) isolate and use alcohol (al-kuhul) as an antiseptic, use mercury as a purgative (known in the Middle Ages as Album Rhasis), explain how to remove a cataract, and discuss the papillary reaction or widening and narrowing of an eye’s pupil. Furthermore, he mastered the way of treating by psychological shock and of using psychosomatic medicine and psychology. In its English translation, al-Razi’s Spiritual Physic devotes 20 chapters to various ailments that upset the soul and the body.

Al-Razi wrote many books on medicine, the major ones being Al-Hawi fi al-Tibb, (The Comprehensive Book), an encyclopedic composition of Greek, Persian, and early Arabic medical knowledge in their entirety, whose modern version is incomplete at 23 volumes.(61) The Sicilian Jewish physician Faraj (Farragut) ibn Salim was the first to translate Al-Hawi into Latin in 1279. Under the title Continens, it was repeatedly printed from 1486 onwards; a fifth edition appeared in Venice in 1542. Prior to the nineteenth century, Al-Hawi can be considered one of the most extensive medical texts ever written by a doctor.

His 10-volume Kitab al-Mansuri (Liber medicinalis ad Almansori), was translated in 1480 by Milan, and also into French and German. Gerard of Cremona translated the ninth volume, under the title Nonus al-Manuri, which remained popular in Europe until the sixteenth century. Here, he developed the science of anatomy by discussing such features as veins, arteries, dispositions of the heart, and so on.

His famous book on smallpox and the measles, Kitab fi al-Jadari wa al-Hasbah (Liber de Pestilentia), was very influential in Europe. It was first translated into Latin in 1565, and then into many other European languages. In fact, 40 editions were printed between 1498 and 1866. In 1848, William A. Greenhill translated it into English. Through this treatise, he became the first to draw clear comparison between smallpox and chickenpox. This treatise demonstrates quite well his concern for therapy, and its thoroughness stands in sharp contrast to the silence regarding the topic in the Hellenistic and Byzantine literature preserved today.(62)

Another great figure, Ibn Sina (Avicenna: 1126-98), was the most renowned physician, philosopher, encyclopedist, mathematician, and astronomer of his time. According to George Sarton, Ibn Sina’s thought represents the climax of medieval philosophy.(63)

One of his major contributions to medicine was his famous Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb (The Canon of Medicine), an immense encyclopedia of medicine that contains some of the most illuminating thoughts on the distinction of mediastinitis from pleurisy; contagious nature of phthisis; distribution of diseases by water and soil; careful description of skin troubles; of sexual diseases, and perversions; of nervous ailments (including love sickness); many psychological and pathological facts clearly analysed.(64) In it, Ibn Sina deals with the general principles of medicine, simple and compound drugs containing 760 types of drugs, disorders of each internal and external organ of the body, and diseases effecting all of the body, especially pathology and pharmacopoeia.

The Canon influenced Europe’s medical schools for the next 600 years and was probably the most used of all medieval medical references.(65) Gerard of Cremona translated it in the twelfth century. During the last 30 years of the fifteenth century, 15 Latin editions and one Hebrew edition were published. During the sixteenth century, it was reissued more than 20 times. From the twelfth to the seventeenth century, it was the West’s chief medical book and fulfilled that function longer than any other medical work.

Ibn Sina was the first to describe meningitis and differentiate it from meningismus of other acute diseases and to suggest treatment for lachrymal fistula, the first to describe the manner of spread of epidemics and the contagious nature of tuberculosis. He described many details of the eye, such as conjunctive sclera, the cornea, choroids, the iris, the retina, the layer lens, the aqueous humour, the optic nerve, and the optic chiasm.

Other important medical figures were Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar, d.1161) for his work on diet, Ibn Rushd (Averroes, 1121-98) for his work on general principles, and the Syrian Ibn al-Nafis (d.1288) for his discovery of the minor circulation of the blood.

Conclusion

The contribution of Muslims to science dispels the common beliefs that they only preserved and transmitted Greek knowledge to the West. Recent studies by competent historians has led to a qualitative shift in our understanding of their contributions. Such historians adduce that Muslim scientists both influenced almost every branch of science and were instrumental in influencing the Renaissance.

Today, however, the Muslim world produces a disproportionately small amount of scientific output, and much of it is of relatively low quality. In numerical terms, 41 predominantly Muslim countries, having about 20% of the world’s population, generate less than 5% of its science. Given Muslims past contributions to science, this situation raises several questions: Is there a dichotomy between Islam and modern science? If not, how does one explain the huge gap in scientific output between the Muslim world and the West or East Asia? And what must change so that science can flourish in Muslim countries?

The past achievements of Muslim scientists clearly show that Islam is not the key problem facing scientific achievement in the Muslim world of today. The theory that implies a dichotomy between Islam and science is part of a larger conflict in post-Enlightenment historiography that opposes science and religion in general in post-medieval civilizations. Rather, the problem is a result of cumulative “ as opposed to one dominant “ factors.

Footnotes 

1. Robert Briffault, The Making of Humanity, (London, 1938), p.200.
2. Among those who suggest this are T. E. Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); P. Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality (Pakistan: Zed Books, 1992); J. J. Saunders, Muslims and Mongols: Essays on Medieval Asia (University of Canterbury: Whitcoulls Ltd., 1977).
3. George Saliba, Whose Science is Arabic Science in Renaissance Europe, Columbia University http://www.columbia.edu/~gas1/project/visions/case1/sci.1.html.
4. Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid.
5. George Saliba, Greek Astronomy and the Medieval Arabic Tradition, in American Scientist 90 (July-August 2002): 367.
6. We define science as systemized knowledge derived from observation, study, and experimentation carried on in order to determine the nature or principle of what is being studied. This definition specifically excludes such applied fields as technology and engineering.
7. G. M. Wickens The Middle East as a World Centre of Science and Medicine, in Introduction to Islamic Civilisation, ed. R. M. Savory, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 113.
8. Ziauddin Sardar, Islamic Science, www.islamonline.net/english/Contemporary/ 2002/05/Article21.shtml (2/6/2002).
9. Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid.
10. Abdel-Malek (1981) quoted in Ziauddin Sardar, Orientalism (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999), 59.
11. Ibid. 19 Ibid.
12. Kevin Krisciunas, Astronomical Centres of the World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 23.
13. Salah Zaimeche, A Review on Muslim Contribution to Astronomy, (Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation, 2002). Online at: www.muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=233.
14. Ibid. 23 Ibid.
15. Quoted in David C. Lindberg, The Beginning of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450 (Chicago: The University Chicago Press, 1992), 175.
16. Ernest Renan (ed.), Islamism and Science, in Poetry of the Celtic Race and Other Studies (London: W. Scott., 1896), 85. Quoted in Bryan S. Turner, Orientalism, Postmodernism & Globalism (New York: Routledge, 1994), 31.
17. Von Grunebaum, as cited in Ibid., 71.
18. Saliba, Greek Astronomy, 360.
19. Ibid.
20. Roshdi Rashed, Preface, in Roshdi Rashed (ed.), Encyclopaedia of the History of Arabic Sciences (London: Routledge, 1996), 1:x.
21. Ibid. 31 Ibid.
22. Bernard Lewis, The Middle East (New York: Touchstone Books 1998), 266.
23. Ibid.
24. Ahmed Djebbar, Une Histoire de la science arabe, entretiens avec Jean Rosmorduc (A History of Arab Science — Conversations with Jean Rosmorduc), (Paris: Seuil, 2001), in David Tresilian, Greeker than the Greeks, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 10-16 Jan. 2002, no.568. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/568/bo5.htm, p. xi.
25. Ibid.
26. David A. King, Proposal for an exhibition on Islamic science and technology, www.unesco.org/science/pao/exhib/islam2.htm#1.
27. David Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1992.
28. King, Proposal. 39 Ibid.
29. Goldstein, T., Dawn of Modern Science (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1980), 99.
30. Alain de Libera in Sabbaghi, R., The Arab Forebears of the European Renaissance (interview with French historian and philosopher Alain de Libera), UNESCO Courier (Feb. 1997) 2(6).
31. J. J. O’Connor and E. F. Robertson, Arabic Mathematics: Forgotten Brilliance? Online at:www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Arabic_mathematics.html.
32. Turner, H. R., Science in Medieval Islam: An Illustrated Introduction (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 45.
33. Goldstein, The Dawn of Modern Science, 121.
34. Turner, Science in Medieval Islam, 47.
35. Nasr, S. H., Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study (Westerham: Westerham Press, 1976), 82 and Science and Civilisation in Islam (New York: Plume Books, 1968), 149.
36. Nasr, Islamic Science, 82.
37. Huff, T. E., The Rise of Early Modern Science. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 50. According to Baron Carra de Vaux, the Arabs founded plane and spherical trigonometry (Astronomy and Mathematics, in The Legacy of Islam, 1st ed., 276). Likewise, E. S. Kennedy agrees that Arab scientists created trigonometry, the study of the plane and spherical triangle (˜The Arabic Heritage in the Exact Sciences,’ Al-Abhath 23 (1970): 337. Also see his The History of Trigonometry: An Overview, in Studies in the Islamic Exact Sciences, ed. E. S. Kennedy et al. (Beirut : American University of Beirut, 1983).
38. Nasr, Islamic Science, 84.
39. Turner, Science in Medieval Islam, p.47.
40. See E. S. Kennedy, A Fifteenth-century Planetary Computer: al-Kashi’s Tabaq al-Aanateq’, Isis 41 (1950): 180-83 and 43 (1952): 42-50.
41. Henri Hugonnard-Roche, The Influence of Arabic Astronomy in the Medieval West, in Roshdi Rashed (ed.), Encyclopaedia,1:284.
42. Swerdlow, N., and Neugebauer, O., (1984), Mathematical Astronomy in Copernicus’s De revolutioibus (New York: Springer Verlag, 1984). Cited in Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science, 54.
43. Saliba, Greek Astronomy, 360.
44. In In defence of Copernicus. (Letters to the Editors), American Scientist 90, no. 6 (Nov.-Dec. 2002): 492 (1).
45. Danielle Jacquart, The Influence of Arabic Medicine in the Medieval West, in Roshdi Rashed (ed.), Encyclopaedia, 3:963.
46. Savage-Smith, Emilie, Medicine, in Ibid., 3:913.
47. Ibid. 59 Ibid.
48. Savage-Smith, Emilie, Gleanings from an Arabist’s Workshop: Current Trends in the Study of Medieval Islamic Science and Medicine, Isis 79 (1988): 246-72.
49. Ibid.
50. Savage-Smith, Medicine, 914.
51. George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science (New York: Robert Krieger, 1975), 1:709.
52. Ibid.
53. Turner, Science in Medieval Islam,136.

I, hereby declare and record this decree for my followers. Regarding the Christians, known or unknown, in East or West, far or near. The ones who do not follow this decree, and follow my commands, will actually be opposing the God’s will, whether he is sultan or an ordinary Muslim, deserves to be cursed. If priests or monks find shelter in a mountain, or a cave; or if they reside in the plain, desert, city, village or a church, personally I am backing them with my armies and followers and defend them against their enemies. Those priests are my people (tabaa). I refrain from giving any harm to them. It is prohibited to expel a bishop from his duty, a priest from his church, a hermit from his shelter. A Muslim is not allowed to hinder a Christian woman, whom he has married, from worshipping in her church and obeying the scriptures of her religion. Anyone who opposes these will be considered as Allah’s and his Messenger’s enemy. Muslims are obliged to follow these commands till the end of the world”
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD (Peace and blessings be upon him)

Sultan Mehmed II1 reorganized Greek Orthodoxy when he conquered Istanbul (then known as Constantinople). Even though he could have stunted and stifled Eastern Orthodoxy (from this point on just referred as Orthodoxy), he supported it and assigned Georgios Skelarios, a Greek cleric, as the patriarch with the title ‘Gennadios.’

As the Turkish political presence in Anatolia (Asia Minor) rose in prominence, the Byzantine church was already experiencing a severe decline. The leadership of the Balkans broke its ties with the Byzantine Church due to the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore, while the Greek Orthodox Church was collapsing, the Ottoman government saved it from demise.

GREEK MINORITY IN ISTANBUL

After his conquest of Istanbul, Sultan Mehmed Khan said the following words to a crowd gathered in front of the mosque of Hagia Sophia2: “I am telling you all, that as my subjects do not fear for either your lives or for your freedom, you are safe from my wrath.” The Sultan then declared that people who had left the city out of fear, could return to their homes to continue their lives in accordance with their own traditions and customs among the Turks. In addition, he settled some of the captives to homes near Halic (The Golden Horn).3 In an effort to establish a sense of normalcy, the Ottoman State, repaired damaged houses, and provided public stability by establishing new courts. In order to revive the city, many Greeks were brought from the east and west of the country. Greeks, who were new to Istanbul were exempt from some taxes, and were granted new houses or land if they did not own either one. In addition, landowners were furnished with animals in order to cultivate their lands. The Greeks who emigrated from Epin to Galata brought many talents with them and were encouraged to utilize them. Many emigrants either chose to settle in coastal areas or at the center of a thriving city. The Greeks who came to Istanbul in the following centuries settled in their original places of origin often within close proximity of established churches.

SULTAN MEMMED II REVITALIZED THE ORTHODOXY

When Mehmed II became aware of the installation of the new patriarch to his position of Gennadios, the Sultan invited him to a banquet. In order to show his respect for both the ceremony and the patriarch’s position, Sultan Mehmed II, along with his elder vezirs4 personally welcomed the patriarch. The Sultan, who was often the recipient of a good deal of pomp and circumstance, welcomed the patriarch by shaking his hand and by offering him a seat near him. Sultan Mehmed, who made the patriarch the “head of the Greek nation,” presented the patriarch a white horse and the ‘stick of Moses’-as the Byzantine emperors had done for centuries. This formality legitimized the patriarch’s position in the eyes of both the Ottomans and the Byzantines. Since Sultan Mehmed spoke five languages, one of which was Greek, he assured the patriarch of his position by stating in Greek: “In safety and comfort, and as a government official, now and later, know that you have my support and the patriarchal office.”

ISLAM AND THE NON-MUSLIM MINORITY

The tolerance and the leniency of Sultan Mehmed II showed toward all none-Muslim minorities was a manifestation of his inner Islamic beliefs that had been established by the Muhammad (Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him). According to a strong hadith-an account of the actions or words of the Prophet Muhammad-The Messenger prohibited even a minute disturbance, offense or harm against non-Muslims, “A person, who torments a Jew or a Christian, will find me as a plaintiff against him in the Day of Judgment.” In another account, he states: “If anybody torments and offends the non-Muslim subjects in an unjustifiable manner, I am an adversary of him, and I’ll become his enemy in the Day of Judgment.”

CONQUEST BY KINDNESS AND NOT BY THE SWORD

The armies of Islam, conquered the hearts of many non-Muslims by allowing them the opportunity to practice their own religion without fear of undue influence. By demonstrating tolerance and forbearance toward Christians, Sultan Mehmed II was following the example of many of his Muslim predecessors. The first caliph Hazrat5 Ebubekir (the first Islamic spiritual leader after the passing of the Prophet Muhammad), ordered the military and civilian rulers to refrain from tormenting clergy members or ruin churches and monasteries because they were serving God. In keeping with this tradition, Hz. Omar could have used his position of caliphate to torment non-Muslims; however, he did not. When the clergy of the conquered lands presented the cities to him voluntarily, the patriarch invited Hz.Omar to perform prayers (salah) in the main Church of Jerusalem. He refused the offer by saying, “The church in which I perform prayer, becomes a masjid (a place where Muslims perform prayer) for Muslims. I don’t want to deprive Christians from this Cathedral by praying here.” 

Thus, Sultan Mehmed II, like other Islamic leaders, followed and remained steadfast to the doctrine of Islam. Consequently, he defended those who considered him an enemy. In the days when oppression ran rampant, Sultan Mehmed II showed that conquership and maintance of the dignity and respect could coexist in the same sphere.

ENDNOTES

1. Sultan Mehmed II, is more widely known as Fatih Sultan Mehmed. Fatih literally means ‘the opener’, but generally it is translated as ‘conqueror’. This name is given due to his conquest of Constantinople, then known as the former capital of Byzantium.
2. Hagia Sophia: A place of worship that was transformed from a church to o mosque. Currently, it is a museum.
3. The Golden Horn: A waterway that was of strategic importance to the Byzantines.
4. Vezir: An advisor to the Sultan.
5. Hazrat: A person with highly spiritual convictions.