12. Elevation through Knowledge - Science & Technology:
These are the believers with knowledge, who are elevated to higher positions through knowledge. Al-Quran states:
“ …Allah will elevate to higher positions those of you who believe
those who have been granted knowledge…” (58:11) [See also 39:9]
The earlier Muslims were superior in the world because of educational and scientific achievements. It may be noted that about 1/8th of the Holy Quran is science. It was because of the teachings of the Holy Quran that the Muslims led the whole world in science & technology.
H. G. Wells writes in his Book ‘The Outline of History’:
“ From a new angle and with a fresh vigor, it (the Arab mind) took up
that systematic development of positive knowledge which the
Greeks had begun and relinquished.. If the Greek was the
father, then the Arab was the foster – father of the scientific
method of dealing with reality…Through the Arabs it was,
and not by Latin route, that the modern world received that
gift of light and power.”
[The Outline of History, London, 1920 – Encyclopedia of Seerah, Vol.I]
The Muslims established their superiority in the world through science & engineering at a time, when the West was dumped in ignorance. Henry Truce writes in his Book ‘ The Crusades’ about the Educational & Scientific achievements of the Muslims of Medieval ages:
1. There were efficient Universities at Cordoba, Basra, Baghdad and Cairo, where the students were admitted from all parts of the world, and scholarships granted irrespective of their nationality.
2. Ibn-e-Seena lectured on medicine so expertly that he won the title of ‘ The Prince of Physicians’ from the Europeans.
3. They determined the direction of Qibla with the use of geometry.
4. They invented Zero and the decimal notation.
5. They created Algebra (during the period of Caliph Al-Mamun and solved quadratic equations.
6. They developed trigonometry by introducing the concepts of sine, tangent and cotangent.
7. They invented telescope and used it in their observations for astronomical studies.
8. At a period when to most Europeans, the heavens were a numbo - Jumbo of goats, bull and fish, the Muslims calculated the angle of eclipse and predetermined the exact time of solar and lunar eclipses.
9. They invented canon.
10. They were ahead of English scientists like Isaac Newton and developed many ideas through experimental methods such as hydraulic laws, gravity, density, reflection and refraction of light and developed parabolic and spherical mirrors.
11. They calculated the speed of sound and light.
12. In iron, steel and copper, they led the whole world.
13. They had earlier understood the use of fertilizers and had made a careful study of soil. The practice of crop rotation, a necessity in their easily exhausted soil, was not to occur European thought for another seven hundred years etc., etc.
[The Crusades by Henry Truce. Random House, New York, 1963]
The Muslims can still establish their supremacy provided they unite and derive strength from one another and from Islam rather than depending on others.
