Jak islámští vynálezci nezměnili svět: Difference between revisions

Paul Vallely boldly began with the following statement: "''From coffee to cheques and the three-course meal, the Muslim world has given us many innovations that we take for granted in daily life. As a new exhibition opens, Paul Vallely nominates 20 of the most influential- and identifies the men of genius behind them.''"<ref name="Paul Vallely">Paul Vallely, "[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-islamic-inventors-changed-the-world-469452.html How Islamic inventors changed the world]", The Independent, March 11, 2006</ref> This article lists and examines all twenty of these “Islamic inventions that changed the world”, and in doing so, it will reveal their actual inventors and the true role of Islam/Muslims, if any, behind the inventions.

{{Quote||The story goes that an Arab named Khalid was tending his goats in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia, when he noticed his animals became livelier after eating a certain berry. He boiled the berries to make the first coffee. Certainly the first record of the drink is of beans exported from Ethiopia to Yemen where Sufis drank it to stay awake all night to pray on special occasions. By the late 15th century it had arrived in Mecca and Turkey from where it made its way to Venice in 1645. It was brought to England in 1650 by a Turk named Pasqua Rosee who opened the first coffee house in Lombard Street in the City of London. The Arabic qahwa became the Turkish kahve then the Italian caffé and then English coffee.<ref name="Paul Vallely"></ref>}}

[[File:Christian monks in Ethiopia.jpg|thumb|left|Christian monks at the monastery on the island of Daga Estephanos, Ethiopia, still produce and market coffee today under the "Lake Tana Monastery Island Coffee" brand.]]  

Also, the discovery of coffee, according to the maronite monk ''Antonius Faustus Naironus'' (1635–1707 AD), differs somewhat from the above tale. In "De saluberrima potione Cahue, seu Cafe nuncupata discursus" (1671) he writes, that a herdsman complained to the Prior of a nearby monastery in Abyssinia, that his animals could not sleep. Two monks, together with the herdsman, were sent by their superior to investigate what it was the animals were eating. They discovered coffee plants which they took back to the monastery, where they brewed a beverage from its fruits. They passed the whole night in pleasant conversation, without any fatigue.<ref>[{{Reference archive|1=http://www.seaislandcoffee.com/lake-tana-monastery-island-coffee-ethiopia.html|2=2011-02-07}} Lake Tana Monastery Island Coffee - Ethiopia], Sea Island Coffee</ref>

{{Quote||The ancient Greeks thought our eyes emitted rays, like a laser, which enabled us to see. The first person to realise that light enters the eye, rather than leaving it, was the 10th-century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haitham. He invented the first pin-hole camera after noticing the way light came through a hole in window shutters. The smaller the hole, the better the picture, he worked out, and set up the first Camera Obscura (from the Arab word qamara for a dark or private room). He is also credited with being the first man to shift physics from a philosophical activity to an experimental one.<ref name="Paul Vallely"></ref>}}

[[File:De Radio Astronomica et Geometrica.jpg|thumb|right|The first picture of a pin-hole camera; an illustration from De Radio Astronomica et Geometrica (1545).]]

While both the Latin and Arabic languages have borrowed from each other, the Latin language actually pre-dates classic Arabic (the precursor to modern Arabic) by at least 1,600 years. The term “camera” was not derived from the Arabic word “qamara”. “Camera” is a Latin word meaning a vaulted or arched space, derived from the Greek καμαρα, which refers to anything with an arched cover. The Italian word "camera", the French word "chambre", and the English word "chamber" all share the same Latin root. "Camera obscura" literally meaning a “dark room”.<ref>Michael Quinion, [{{Reference archive|1=http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-cam1.htm|2=2011-02-07}} CAMERA/ˈkæmərə], World Wide Words, November 15, 1997</ref><ref>Lynn H. Nelson, [{{Reference archive|1=http://www.the-orb.net/latwords.html|2=2011-02-07}} Latin Word List], University of Kansas, June 18, 1997</ref> The term “camera”, as applied today, was first coined by Johannes Kepler (1571–1630). The Arabic word “qamara” has almost certainly been borrowed from the Latin word "camera", and at best the similarity between the two words is a coincidence.<ref name="Pinhole Photography">Jon Grepstad, [http://web.archive.org/web/20080801053633/http://photo.net/learn/pinhole/pinhole Pinhole Photography], Photo.net, first published 1996, last updated December 18, 2003</ref>

{{Quote||A form of chess was played in ancient India but the game was developed into the form we know it today in Persia. From there it spread westward to Europe - where it was introduced by the Moors in Spain in the 10th century - and eastward as far as Japan. The word rook comes from the Persian rukh, which means chariot.<ref name="Paul Vallely"></ref>}}

[[File:Albanian chesspiece.jpg|thumb|100px|left| The 6th Century chess piece found in Butrint, Albania.]]

''Yahya said that he heard Malik say, "There is no good in chess, and he disapproved of it." Yahya said, "I heard him disapprove of playing it and other worthless games. He recited this ayat, 'What is there after the truth except going the wrong way.' " (Sura l0 ayat 32).''" -{{Muwatta|52|2|7|}}</ref> So in reality, Paul Vallely and Muslims themselves claiming Islam was the cause of the spread of chess to Europe is an offence to the pious, and would no doubt have Muhammad rolling in his grave.  

    

{{Quote||A thousand years before the Wright brothers a Muslim poet, astronomer, musician and engineer named Abbas ibn Firnas made several attempts to construct a flying machine. In 852 he jumped from the minaret of the Grand Mosque in Cordoba using a loose cloak stiffened with wooden

struts. He hoped to glide like a bird. He didn't. But the cloak slowed his fall, creating what is thought to be the first parachute, and leaving him with only minor injuries. In 875, aged 70, having perfected a machine of silk and eagles' feathers he tried again, jumping from a mountain. He flew to a significant height and stayed aloft for ten minutes but crashed on landing - concluding, correctly, that it was because he had not given his device a tail so it would stall on landing. Baghdad international airport and a crater on the Moon are named after him.<ref name="Paul Vallely"></ref>}}

Given all of the above information, how can anyone possibly accredit the invention of flight to a 9^th century Muslim jumping off a mosque in Spain?  

{{Quote||Washing and bathing are religious requirements for Muslims, which is perhaps why they perfected the recipe for soap which we still use today. The ancient Egyptians had soap of a kind, as did the Romans who used it more as a pomade. But it was the Arabs who combined vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide and aromatics such as thyme oil. One of the Crusaders' most striking characteristics, to Arab nostrils, was that they did not wash. Shampoo was introduced to England by a Muslim who opened Mahomed's Indian Vapour Baths on Brighton seafront in 1759 and was appointed Shampooing Surgeon to Kings George IV and William IV.<ref name="Paul Vallely"></ref>}}

boiled with ashes, which is a method of making soap, but do not refer to the purpose of the "soap." Such materials were later used as hair styling aids. Like the ancient Egyptians before them, daily bathing was an important event in the ancient Roman world<ref>Barbara F. McManus, [{{Reference archive|1=http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/baths.html|2=2011-02-07}} Roman Baths and Bathing], The College of New Rochelle, revised July 2003</ref> and a common custom in Japan during the Middle Ages. And in Iceland, pools warmed with water from hot springs were popular gathering places on Saturday evenings. Soapmaking was an established craft in Europe by the 7^th century. Soapmaker guilds guarded their trade secrets closely. Vegetable and animal oils were used with ashes of plants, along with fragrance. Gradually more varieties of soap became available for shaving and shampooing, as well as bathing and laundering. The English began making soap during the 12^th century. The soap business was so good that in 1622, King James I granted a monopoly to a soapmaker for $100,000 a year. Well into the 19^th century, soap was heavily taxed as a luxury item in several countries. When the high tax was removed, soap became available to ordinary people, and cleanliness standards improved. Commercial soapmaking in the American colonies began in 1608 with the arrival of several soapmakers on the second ship from England to reach Jamestown, VA. The science of modern soapmaking was bom in the 1820's with the discovery by French chemist Michel Eugene Chevreul, of the chemical nature and relationship of fats, glycerine and fatty acids. His studies established the basis for both fat and soap chemistry.<ref>[{{Reference archive|1=http://www.cleaninginstitute.org/clean_living/soaps__detergent_history_3.aspx|2=2011-02-07}} Soaps & Detergent: History], The American Cleaning Institute, Washington, DC</ref>  

{{Quote||The means of separating liquids through differences in their boiling points, was invented around the year 800 by Islam's foremost scientist, Jabir ibn Hayyan, who transformed alchemy into chemistry, inventing many of the basic processes and apparatus still in use today - liquefaction, crystallisation, distillation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation and filtration. As well as discovering sulphuric and nitric acid, he invented the alembic still, giving the world intense rosewater and other perfumes and alcoholic spirits (although drinking them is haram, or forbidden, in Islam). Ibn Hayyan emphasised systematic experimentation and was the founder of modern chemistry.<ref name="Paul Vallely"></ref>}}

[[File:Distillation apparatus.jpg|thumb|right| Distillation apparatus from the Chinese Han dynasty, dated around the first century AD.<ref>R. Talon, ''La Science antique et medievale'', Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1957, plate 16. Photo: Sir J. Needham.</ref>]]

It is interesting that the author states himself that it is "not clear whether it was invented in the Muslim world", yet still chose to include quilting as an Islamic invention. However, the evidence against quilting being a Muslim invention is very clear, though it may have come to Europe through the middle East. The actual origins of quilting remains unknown, but its history can so far be traced to ancient China and Egypt as long ago as 3400 BC<ref>Averil Colby, ''[http://www.amazon.com/Quilting-Averie-Colby/dp/0684160587/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_2 Quilting]'', Macmillan Pub Co, 1979, ISBN 9780684160580</ref> with the discovery of a quilted mantle on a carved ivory figure of a Pharaoh of the Egyptian First Dynasty. Moreover, in 1924 archaeologists discovered a quilted floor covering in Mongolia.<ref name="Julie Johnson's History of Quilting"></ref> The estimated age somewhere between the 1^st century BC to the 2^nd century AD. There are also numerous references to quilts in literature and inventories of estates,<ref name="Julie Johnson's History of Quilting">Julie Johnson, [{{Reference archive|1=http://www.emporia.edu/cgps/tales/quilte~1.htm|2=2011-02-08}} History of Quilting], Emporia State University</ref> and more recently in September 2007 an ancient male mummy was discovered in Xinjiang, China, wrapped in a cotton quilt.<ref>Chen Lin, [{{Reference archive|1=http://china.org.cn/english/culture/225190.htm|2=2011-02-08}} Male mummy found in Xinjiang], china.org.cn, September 20, 2007</ref>

{{Quote||The pointed arch so characteristic of Europe's Gothic cathedrals was an invention borrowed from Islamic architecture. It was much stronger than the rounded arch used by the Romans and Normans, thus allowing the building of bigger, higher, more complex and grander buildings. Other borrowings from Muslim genius included ribbed vaulting, rose windows and domebuilding techniques. Europe's castles were also adapted to copy the Islamic world's - with arrow slits, battlements, a barbican and parapets. Square towers and keeps gave way to more easily defended round ones. Henry V's castle architect was a Muslim.<ref name="Paul Vallely"></ref>}}

With all these facts considered, we think it's safe to assume that architectural development in Europe and the rest of the non-Islamic world would and indeed did move along fine without the so-called 'Muslim genius'.

{{Quote||Many modern surgical instruments are of exactly the same design as those devised in the 10th century by a Muslim surgeon called al-Zahrawi. His scalpels, bone saws, forceps, fine scissors for eye surgery and many of the 200 instruments he devised are recognisable to a modern surgeon. It was he who discovered that catgut used for internal stitches dissolves away naturally (a discovery he made when his monkey ate his lute strings) and that it can be also used to make medicine capsules. In the 13th century, another Muslim medic named Ibn Nafis described the circulation of the blood, 300 years before William Harvey discovered it. Muslims doctors also invented anaesthetics of opium and alcohol mixes and developed hollow needles to suck cataracts from eyes in a technique still used today.<ref name="Paul Vallely"></ref>}}

[[File:Ancient scalpels.jpg|thumb|right|Ancient pre-Islamic scalpels had almost the same form and function as their modern-day counterparts. These are dated to 79 AD, found in Pompeii, Italy.]]

The article also alleges that Muslim doctors first developed hollow needles to suck cataracts from the eye, and anaesthetics of opium and alcohol mixes. This is not so. Cataract surgery has been performed for many centuries. The earliest reference to cataract surgery was written by the Hindu surgeon Susruta in manuscripts dating from the 5^th century BC. In Rome, archaeologists found surgical instruments used to treat cataract dating back to the 1^st and 2^nd century AD. Hollow needles were used to break up the cataract and remove it with suction.<ref>[{{Reference archive|1=http://www.lasersurgeryforeyes.com/cataracthistory.html|2=2011-02-08}} The History of Cataract Surgery], LaserSurgeryForEyes</ref> Anaesthetics of opium and alcohol mixes were used both by the ancient Chinese and Romans. Greek physician, pharmacologist, and botanist Pedanius Dioscorides (40–90 AD) in his work ''Materia Medica'' (one of the most influential herbal books in history) referred to the taking of an alcoholic extract before an operation. This would suggest that it was typical for the surgeons of ancient Rome to decrease pain of an operation by giving their patients sedative drugs.<ref>[{{Reference archive|1=http://www.wordsources.info/words-mod-anesthesiaPt1.html|2=2011-02-08}} Facts about Anesthesia’s Past and Present], Word Sources</ref>

{{Quote||Invented in 634 for a Persian caliph and was used to grind corn and draw up water for irrigation. In the vast deserts of Arabia, when the seasonal streams ran dry, the only source of power was the wind which blew steadily from one direction for months. Mills had six or 12 sails covered in fabric or palm leaves. It was 500 years before the first windmill was seen in Europe.<ref name="Paul Vallely"></ref>}}

Paper is thought to have been invented in China 1^st century BC. It was kept as a secret for five centuries and went to Japan in AD 610. It was not used only for writing and books (The Chinese are also responsible for the invention of printing, possibly between the 4^th and 7^th century AD.) but also for making umbrellas, flags, house holds, toilet paper, and even armour so strong as to resist arrows. More to the point of cheques, they used it for the first promissory note, the first paper money. The invention was necessitated by the highway men who became so numerous that the merchants were not able to pay their taxes to the state. The state machinery was vital to the Chinese Empire to survive for so many thousand years. The civil servants brought the idea of notes marked with certain value that can be exchanged to gold at the end of the journey. Thus was developed the first cheques in history.<ref name="The Genius of China"></ref><ref>The British Library</ref><ref>The Silk Road Foundation Website</ref><ref>The Franklin Institute Online</ref>

{{Quote||By the 9th century, many Muslim scholars took it for granted that the Earth was a sphere. The proof, said astronomer Ibn Hazm, “is that the Sun is always vertical to a particular spot on Earth”. It was 500 years before that realisation dawned on Galileo. The calculations of Muslim astronomers were so accurate that in the 9th century they reckoned the Earth’s circumference to be 40,253.4km –less than 200 km out. The scholar al-Idrisi took a globe depicting the world to the court of King Roger of Sicily in 1139.<ref name="Paul Vallely"></ref>}}

[[File:Byzantine Coin.jpg|thumb|right|A pre-Islamic Byzantine coin struck 607–609 AD. It features the depiction of a crowned emperor Focas holding a globus cruciger (an orb representing the spherical Earth) more than 400 years before the realisation dawned on Ibn Hazm and 532 years before al-Idrisi took a globe to the court of King Roger.]]

In conclusion; everything that has been attributed to Muslim Arabs by Paul Vallely, had already  been discovered by not only the pre-Islamic East, but also by the preChristian Greeks. The Islamic faith stifles scientific progress and nothing demonstrates this as well as the modern-day belief that the Earth is flat. As recently as 1993 the supreme religious authority of Saudi Arabia ''Sheik Abdul-Aziz Ibn Baaz'' declared "The earth is flat. Whoever claims it is round is an atheist deserving of punishment."<ref>Youssef M. Ibrahim, "[{{Reference archive|1=http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/12/world/muslim-edicts-take-on-new-force.html|2=2011-02-10}} Muslim Edicts Take on New Force]", New York Times, February 12, 1995</ref> and in October 2007 on Al-Fayhaa TV in Iraq, a Muslim scientist also declared that the Earth is flat as evidenced by Qur'anic verses and that the Sun is much smaller than the Earth and revolves around it.<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPrEaFmtZww Iraqi Researcher Defies Scientific Axioms: The Earth Is Flat and Much Larger than the Sun (Which Is Also Flat)], MEMRI TV, Video No. 1684, Al-Fayhaa TV (Iraq), October 31, 2007</ref>

{{Quote||Though the Chinese invented saltpetre gunpowder, and used it in their fireworks, it was the Arabs who worked out that it could be purified using potassium nitrate for military use. Muslim incendiary devices terrified the Crusaders. By the 15th century they had invented both a rocket, which they called a "self-moving and combusting egg", and a torpedo - a self-propelled pearshaped bomb with a spear at the front which impaled itself in enemy ships and then blew up.<ref name="Paul Vallely"></ref>}}

At the same time gunpowder propelled fire arrows were blazing in battle, scientific papers on the subject of the preparation of gunpowder and its application in weaponry were being published in Europe. Notable works were prepared by Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, and Marchus Graecus before the close of the 13^th Century. In 1379, an Italian named Muratori used the word "rochetta" when he described types of gunpowder propelled fire arrows used in medieval times. This is believed to be the first use of the word later translated in English as "rocket".<ref>Cliff Lethbridge, [{{Reference archive|1=http://www.spaceline.org/history/1.html|2=2011-02-10}} History of Rocketry: Ancient Times Through the 17th Century], Spaceline</ref>

{{Quote||Medieval Europe had kitchen and herb gardens, but it was the Arabs who developed the idea of the garden as a place of beauty and meditation. The first royal pleasure gardens in Europe were opened in 11th-century Muslim Spain. Flowers which originated in Muslim gardens include the carnation and the tulip.<ref name="Paul Vallely"></ref>}}

[[File:Egyptian tomb painting.jpg|thumb|right|A painting of a garden. Taken from the Egyptian tomb chapel of Nebamun, an accountant at the Temple of Amun at Karnak, who died around 1350 BC—almost two thousand years before Muhammad's first alleged 'revelation'.]]

Gardens were an Arab tradition long before Islam, so for Islam to claim this as an invention ignores thousands of years of pre-Islamic Arab culture, not to mention the legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon which were built by the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar II around 600 BC to please his sick wife, Amytis of Media.<ref>Karen Polinger Foster, [{{Reference archive|1=http://environment.research.yale.edu/documents/downloads/0-9/103foster.pdf|2=2011-02-10}} Gardens of Eden: Exotic Flora and Fauna in the Ancient Near East], Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Yale University</ref> It also ignores the Roman tradition of gardens and fountains used for meditation and the beautifully artistic Chinese Suzhou gardens (770–476 BC) which were designed specifically for relaxation.<ref>[{{Reference archive|1=http://www.china.org.cn/english/e-sz/jtnr.htm?infoid=95977|2=2011-02-10}} Suzhou gardens], China Internet Information Center, May 19, 2004</ref> The oldest pictorial records of gardens are from Ancient Egyptian tomb paintings. Much like modern gardens, they came complete with shelters, pools, shady walks, pergolas, and plants growing in terracotta pots. In ancient times, temples contained what would be recognised as gardens. When they were closed to the public they became compounds for priests. Planting positions have been located in the Egyptian Temples of Hatshseput and Mentuhotep, and the Greek Temple of Hephaistos.<ref>[{{Reference archive|1=http://www.gardenvisit.com/history_theory/garden_landscape_design_articles/garden_types/domestic_garden|2=2011-02-10}} Domestic garden], GardenVisit</ref> Also one of the centerpieces of a Roman period home was the ''oeci'' or (peristyle) garden. Sometimes the center included a fish pond or swimming pool instead of a garden. Depending on the size of the home, the floorplan could continue indefinitely, with gardens leading to rooms leading to other gardens.<ref name="The Roman House"></ref>  

The article written by Paul Vallely is fundamentally misleading. It omits, distorts, and makes blunders concerning the most basic of historical facts to give the reader a false impression. It leaves you wondering what could have possibly motivated him into writing such a deceptive piece of journalism? This exhibition claimed to have shown 1001 Islamic inventions. If the best twenty are proven false, what of the other 981? Should not the Museum of Science and Industry and the University of Manchester search out and preserve history accurately rather than help sites like ''MuslimHeritage.com'' perpetuate historical inaccuracies and rob other civilizations such as ancient China, ancient Rome, India and pre-Islamic Egypt of the recognition they rightfully deserve?  

{{Core Propaganda}}

{{Hub4|Refutations|Refutations}}

{{Hub4|Golden Age|the "Golden Age"}}

*[http://islam-watch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=214&Itemid=60 Islam’s Gifts to the World] - ''A pictorial presentation of some of Islam's great contributions to the world. (satire)''

*[http://www.paulvallely.com/ paulvallely.com] - ''Paul Vallely's official site''

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