An Account of Muslim Intellectual Feats and Contributions in the Fields of Sciences
Nasir Muhammad Abdulhameed
ABSTRACT
The acquisition of knowledge encouraged by Islam is not only meant for mundane benefits but the discovery of truth about the doctrine of belief in God. The primary sources of Islam motivated the classical Muslims to acquire and master various branches sciences. Thus, the spread of Islam beyond Arabia brought the Muslims into direct contacts with the cultures and traditions of Persians, Greek, Byzantine, Syrians, Egyptians and Indians. These contacts resulted in the acquisition of new ideas, knowledge, and more awareness about the practices of those communities. Muslims acquired the scientific ideas of those communities and synthesized them with what they had in the tradition of Islam. They refined the scientific ideas and developed new principles in various fields of sciences. This paper applies theoretical method in presenting a brief account of the contributions of Muslims scientists in the fields of astrology, astronomy, medicine, mathematics physics and chemistry. The aim is find out how the Muslims in the classical period learned the works of past scientists, clarified them and developed new scientific principles. However, Muslims did not only acquire knowledge from the Persians, Greek, Byzantine, Syrians, Egyptians and Indians, they combined such knowledge with what obtained in the tradition of Islam. They improved the existing scientific principles, developed new ones, and wrote original works. Such works became leading materials in sciences in the institutions of learning throughout the world. The translation of the work into Latin helped modern Europe to become acquainted with scientific principles developed by early scientists. Thus, the advancement recorded in modern sciences owes a lot to the efforts of Muslims in the preservation past works, systematizing of scientific principles and invention of new methods of tests and experiments.
