LegendaryLife Blog

I find this entire series very fascinating… it has helped me greatly in better understanding the times and events that Al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham lived through which helps tremendously in developing his LegendaryLife Profile. I don’t know how long this series ran but will keep putting the video and important summaries as this is knowledge that should be lost again! I have included my final thoughts regarding this series… everybody should know about how vitally important the Islamic Empire was to our modern way of life.

BBC’s Science and Islam 3: The Power of Doubt Part 1

• astronomy is one of the oldest streams of science, as stated by Professor Jim Al-Khalili of the University of Surrey
• Islamic scientists were among the first to shake the Greek view that the Earth was in the center of the solar system with the Sun going around it
• Nicolai Copernicus (Copernicito)’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) was released in 1539 and it argued  for the first time, the planets all go around the Sun
• this book started the European scientific revolution leading to modern Physics
• Nicolai Copernicus references, in his own book, the observations made by a 9th century Muslim astronomers including calculations devised by Ibn al-Shatir, a 14th century Islamic astronomer

BBC’s Science and Islam 3: The Power of Doubt Part 2

• Ibn al-Shatir created a very precise Sun dial in Syria which was heavily referenced by Nicolai Copernicus but has since been taken out but a backup was recently discovered which kept accurate time no matter the day in the year (some days are longer, others shorter)
• Muslims need to pray five times a day at precise times, so they required not only a way to tell time but as they pray towards Mecca, precise navigational tools as well
• Dawn, Noon, Afternoon, Sunset, Nightfall is when prayers must be done
• the discovery of the Equinox lead to that of how long, precisely, a year is by an Islamic astronomer who put both Greek texts that where 700 years old and his own observations over 40 years, together (within 2 minutes error)
• the Earth’s tilt was also discovered within half a degree, variations in the diameter of the Sun and celestial distances were also worked-out… all without the use of a telescope
• the Greek astronomer, Ptolemy, devised a theory that stood for 700 years in which the Earth was surrounded by perfect circles where the other planets and Sun rotated around

BBC’s Science and Islam 3: The Power of Doubt Part 3

• the cosmic foundations of Greek astronomy were found to not match Islamic astronomers findings, as a result, they began to question the entire philosophies that the Greek held, doubt was created as a result which was a revolutionary ideas at the time
• Al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham is referenced as one of the biggest and most influential doubters of Greek astronomy, he argued that ideas must be backed-up by mathematics and in the 11th century he wrote that even Ptolemy knew he was wrong and now it’s his job to fix this Greek trajedy
• Al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham challenged people to come-up with an alternative theory that matched true observational data with mathematical equations
• the birth of the modern scientific age began with the complete rejection of Greek celestial theories and was figured-out by an Islamic scholar out of Iran, Nasir al-Din Tosi in the 12th century
• the Mongols changed Nasir al-Din Tosi life forever, they came into Iran and by 1255, they reached the foothills of his mountaintop home

BBC’s Science and Islam 3: The Power of Doubt Part 4

• Nasir al-Din Tosi met with the Mongul Emperor who was very superstitious and convinced him that he could tell the future placement of celestial bodies but needed the proper equipment, which he got and was made the head scientist with the world’s largest observatory in the world at the time
• other astronomers from around the known world came to work at this world’s first, they overthrew the Greek view of the solar system as a result with incredibly complicated mathematics except for one small detail, they still had the Earth in the middle of the solar system
• based off the work of Muslim scholars, the final rejection of the Earth centris solar system was rejected in Italy during the early beginnings of the European Renaissance
• Nicolai Copernicus was like Al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham, they both hated the entire concept behind Ptolemy’s interpretation of our solar system
• It wasn’t before Isaac Newton that Al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham dream of finally rejecting completely Ptolemy’s interpretation using vigorous mathematical equations took place
• why was the work began by Islamic astronomers completed in Europe and not the Middle East? How did Islamic knowledge get to Europe in the first place?
• answers to both questions lay in the city of Venice, Italy
• merchants of Venice had deep trading relationships with the Islamic Empire, as a result, it became a very afluent city
• Arabic coffee culture became poppular in Venice as did their architectural style and even measurement units developed in the Middle East

BBC’s Science and Islam 3: The Power of Doubt Part 5

• with Arabic trade came Arabic books which began to flood the European marketplace
• for instance, the 9th century book about Algebra by Al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham appeared in Latin in the 12th century and in the 15th century, the Cannon of Medicine was first published in the West
• the shift of knowledge from the Islamic Empire to Europe is was lead to the European Renaissance
• the very first print of the Koran was discovered in Venice, Italy among many other books that were also centuries old, oddly enough, it was first printed in Venice and not from the Islamic world by people who didn’t speak Arabic fluently as it was full of mistakes due to the use of printing press
• the first Koran printed by a press wasn’t accepted by Muslims for centuries, they preferred the hand-scribed versions of their Holy book
• the Arabic language is incredibly precise, as a result, they needed to follow this steam of precision in every other aspect of their lives, including mathematics, astronomy and even chemistry to name but a few
• due to all the extra symbols, Arabic was far harder to type than Latin so this failure lead to huge advances in Europe that didn’t translate well into the Middle East who relied on hand-made copies as a way to distribute knowledge
• the rejection of the printing press by the Islamic Empire caused a huge shift from the East to the West regarding scientific advances, causing Eastern sciences to fall behind that of the West for the first time
• in the mid 12th century, the Islamic Empire begins to falter because it was under attack from all sides; East was the Mongols who, in 1258, arrived into Baghdad and destroyed everything, West was the Christians from the North on their re-conquest and in 1492, took over Spain and destroyed anything with a hint of Arabic
• Christians were intent on reclaiming their Holy Land from the Islamic Empire, this was the time of the Crusades and they wanted Jerusalem!
• as the Islamic Empire was being attacked from all sides, it broke apart into warring thiefdoms
• the death of Islamic influence happened in 1492 when Christopher Columbus discovered America, the geography of the entire world changed overnight

BBC’s Science and Islam 3: The Power of Doubt Part 6

• the New World lead to an incredible amount of wealth being accumulated by European powers, vaster than anything that the Islamic Empire could ever have dreamed
• science followed the money and Britain became the world’s first true superpower as a result with colonies around the world
• by the 17th century, Britain was at the center of the Atlantic trade route and funded science at an incredible pace in order to maintain its superiority
• Isaac Newton required vast amounts of data from all over the world, the Islamic Empire provided him with accurate mathematics and observational data that he needed to release his first book that finally put an end to the Greek view of the world
• as the Middle East lost it’s power and influence through wars and discoveries by rivals, its science declined
• English and French, as they colonized the world, put others at a lower tier in order to more easily subjicate them and make them believe they were “helping” instead of “destroying” other cultures
• the spreading of colonial power around the world was justified by helping empires that were now in decay
• Europeans thought up till the 17th century that their superiority was due to their religion but after this time, it was in their science
• the Islamic Empire and achievements were acknowledged but as being “old” and “ancient”, none of which happened recently, thus minimizing their influence on European culture
• even to this day, the Middle Eastern achievements are not well known as they were destroyed, intentionally, by the colonial powers
• scientific achievements over the past 4 centuries have happened in the West
• now in the 21st century, the Middle East is starting to redevelop its scientific influence and knowledge
• for instance, in Iran, a deeply religious state, they are pushing the envelopes of cloning and genetic manipulation!
• science is the universal and common language of the human race
• nature’s laws are true for all of us

Some Final Thoughts

What started as work to write a biography about Al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham for LegendaryLife.com has lead me down a path that really changed the entire way I am viewing the world now. I had thought of the Middle East as a backward place with very little achievement to show for itself due to my Western education that neglected to tell me about how important and truly influential this place really was! Think of it this way, if it wasn’t for the Islamic Empire, we most likely would NOT have cars, airplanes, computers and so on right now but all living in wood or mud huts. Seriously… the spread of the Islamic Empire is something that should be imprinted in the minds of ALL people around the world, they are not a decayed people (European view) but actually a very vibrant one that had it’s tree of knowledge almost completely killed by the European’s and their superiority complex. There is nobody to blame for the past events that our ancestors played a role in but I find it very sad that for the past 32 years of my life, this knowledge wasn’t even told to me. This makes me wonder about how much more there is to discover from the vast empires of Africa, again, another people who were colonized, subjicated and whose history was destroyed in order to make our ancestors feel superior in order to justify slavery.

What about today?

With this new knowledge, I now understand why the West looks at the Middle East as I once did, as a people with little scientific value than what they can ship in oil tankers. I now understand a little more as to why the United-States are so fervent on their support of Israel and more importantly, why they continue to hold back, even now, the advancement of the Middle East by allowing dictators to squander their wealth which could be used for scientific knowledge and the acquisition by Iran of nuclear research. We are still, even today, in a world where the West sees itself as the “masters of knowledge” and fear the Middle East or even Asia of ever becoming as formidable as the Islamic Empire once was. We, collectively in the West, are not being told the truth in order to maintain a lie, that of superiority.

This series has been an incredible revelation to me!

The Bottom Line

The truth is out there… but difficult to find unless you are given a hint as to its existence.

• LegendaryLife Profile: Al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham
• BBC’s Science and Islam: The Language of Science (Episode 1)
• BBC’s Science and Islam: The Empire of Reason (Episode 2)
• BBC’s Science and Islam: The Power of Doubt (Episode 3)
• The roots of Modern Science come from Islam!