I was talking to someone today and they said Muslims had made no contributions to the US or the world.
I am sure they contributed a number of things, but I don’t really know what specifically. So I would like to know what Muslims have contributed to the US and the world.
I would like to keep this form a debate, so I hope we can stick to the fact.
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Just off the top of my head: try a Google on Avicenna, Omar Khayyam, and Al Khorezmi.
Well, during Europe’s so-called Dark Ages (a serious misstatement of reality, but let that go for now), Arab scholars were making vital contributions to mathematicians (algebra is an Arabic word, you know) and philosophy. When Plato and Aristotle were all but forgotten in Europe, it was Arabs who kept their works alive… which in turn helped make Europe’s Renaissance possible.
I think a more accurate way of putting it would be that the number of contributions from Arabs in modern history is pretty small. They made many useful contributions to society, but that was quite awhile ago. Their growth as a society seems to have stagnated, and they’re having to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world.
Jeff
Islam had it’s time in the sun many hundred of years ago, having contributed:
Algebra (not just the word, but the math)
Zero (no pun-- the idea of the number zero in writing numbers)
Preservation of many of the ancient Greek texts
the Compass (IIRC, but maybe transfered from China to the west thru the Islamic world)
To name just a few. These are the ones you’d probably find in any school history text.
Also, don’t confuse Islam with Arab. One of the greatest Islamic empires, the Ottoman Turks, were not Arabs.
A few of many examples from here:
I seem to recall some Discovery/TLC program which credited the ancient Islam world with inventing electroplating, or at least bringing it into common use (ostensibly to make fake jewelry, proving that the Muslims are no less capitalistic than us greedy Christians.) However, I couldn’t find many supporting cites in a Google search, with most cites crediting early European Renaissance scientists, so the idea must not be widely accepted as fact.
This site does make mention of electroplating being used as far back as the 11th century to decorate palaces & the like, plus it gives other interesting information about the Islamic world.
I’m not sure where I learned this, but didn’t Arabs create alcohol? I think even the name has Islamic roots. I think that’s at least equal to the previous achievements listed. At least, alcohol is important to me.
Umm, alcohol goes back to at least the time of Christ (that whole water-into-wine thing, you know) and probably many centuries before. Plus, doesn’t the Koran forbid drinking alcohol?
“Alcohol” does have Arabic roots in the word, but that has nothing to do with them inventing it. Every culture has invented their own fermented drinks.
As noted previously, the arabs invented the process of distillation. Prior to the advent to distillation, it was not possible to make alcohol with significant concentrations.
Now, as to whether or not it’s a great contribution to be able to make 80 proof vodka, I leave that to you. I myself quite enjoy the higher proofs.
Ironically enough, for scientific purposes only, since as Muslims they would have been forbidden to drink it.
Hmm, now I’m curious. I have no information as to exactly why they invented it (since there are other applications for distillation besides concentrating alcohol). Anybody know?
Distillation, in addition for use in making al-qohol can also be used in the art of al-qhimie…
How can you be forbidden something that doesn’t exist yet? I don’t know for certain but it would seem to me you’d need to invent alcohol first, then allow some time to pass for people to get a sense of what it does before someone bans the stuff.
You’ve heard of wine? Muslims are prohibited from drinking alcoholic beverages, distilled or not. Wine’s been around for a long time. Its effects were well known.
An old Scientific American article detailed how Arab engineers were some of the first to build the arch (layered, not keystone style). They are also responsible for a host of mechanical devices, especially force translating and reversing mechanisms.
Actions where pushing creates a pulling force and other reciprocal devices were their specialty. Another field was where small forces were translated into much larger impetus. The article went on to say that a majority of common mechanisms can be traced to these Middle Eastern designers. One look at the Alhambra tells me all I need to know about the excellence of such ancient builders.
As noted above, during the so-called Dark Ages the Arab world made outstanding advances in the fields of mathematics and chemistry. One legacy of this is the variety of words in English with begin with “al”, that being Arabic for “the”: algebra, alcohol, aluminum, alkali, etc. There is also alchemy, which translates roughly as “the Egyptian stuff”.