Arab heritage lost?

Why is the Arab/Muslim heritage being lost? They had great contributions in the past in such areas as mathematics, astronomy, geography, etc. Nowadays they're presently at what appears to be a dead end.

Why do you think this is happens and do you think they could go back and become contributors to science and human knowledge again?

 

They experienced what happened in Europe ( a medieval age ). When the fear and fanatism takes as hostage to the knowledge. Just to clarify, I'm not stating that Islam is a fanatic or backward religion. Just that certain individuals decided not to progress motivated for their greed to keep the population under control and not to progress on the social or cientific aspects.

Regards

I am Arab (Algerian/Lebanese) and the Arab heritage is lost. Look at the Arab states and compare there with the rest of the world. We are more backward than anyone else but subSaharan Africa. We are asleep, that doesn't mean we're not in the process of awakening however. I was visiting relatives in Lebanon (the most forward of the Arab states) and things are being shaken up and LEbanon has a virus now, it's called liberation. Soon it will spread to Egypt, Algeria and the other states.

Originally posted by azimuth Originally posted by Emile Boutros I am Arab (Algerian/Lebanese) and the Arab heritage is lost. Look at the Arab states and compare there with the rest of the world. We are more backward than anyone else but subSaharan Africa. We are asleep, that doesn't mean we're not in the process of awakening however. I was visiting relatives in Lebanon (the most forward of the Arab states) and things are being shaken up and LEbanon has a virus now, it's called liberation. Soon it will spread to Egypt, Algeria and the other states. well they are sleep because of the Ignorance and the lak of knowledge and education i say it was not lost, others used it and developed it while we are sleeping, it was and still ignored by us, i see alot people of my generation is looking toward the west as 100% good in every way, which i disagree 200% anyway education is the best solution , the good and up to date education   and by the way Lebanon is not the most forward Arab state, it was maybe 20 years ago i would say UAE where i live as the most forward Arab state in many feilds such as Education and life style

 

I agree 100% that education is the way out. However, I disagree that UAE is the most forward. It is up there and I would say from my visits there that it is highly advanced especially socially when compared to its neighbors but I still believe Lebanon is socially, politically and culturally more forward than the others. 20 years ago, Lebanon was falling apart. It is the most open and even under occupation, free Arab society when it comes to most measures. UAE is probably the smartest, as in using its funds properly and managing itself but I think Lebanon is very mature and has the mechanisms to establish a fair democracy and be an example. Not that UAE is not but I think Lebanon's are more used and on the whole its one of the best the Arab world has to offer. The Universities there are some of the best in the region and Lebanese are some of the most industrious and well learned of us. I think that there are a few exceptions to the Arab slumber. Lebanon, UAE and maybe, maybe Algeria. Algeria has lots of problems butits come a long way in just the past few years (more time on education and economic growth, less on military etc). But I agree that looking to the west is not the solution. They have good idea but, ultimately it is going to bring troubles and many of these solutions may not work in our culture/climate. I think 2 thigns are the main problem: lack of education and not enough religious education. ONly teaching one belief system (or one interpretation of one belief system) is going to make trouble. Also I should add to that mismanagement of funds and people. Saudi Arabia has a lot of idol young men with lots of money but no jobs. There are a lot of guys liek that in ALgeria too, just sitting around all day waiting for some recruiter from GIA or al Qaeda to pick them up.

Originally posted by Infidel Why is the Arab/Muslim heritage being lost? They had great contributions in the past in such areas as mathematics, astronomy, geography, etc. Nowadays they're presently at what appears to be a dead end.

<>Sorry to take the critical view but if your talking about the advancements in science and human knowledge during the Abbasid period. Most the top scientist may or may not have been  Muslim but  they were not Arab.

Originally posted by Infidel Why do you think this is happens and do you think they could go back and become contributors to science and human knowledge again?

If Arabs conquer Japan ( or any other country you consider to currently be ahead) now and force them to write their scientific books in Arabic maybe it happens again.

22 Arab countries and not one of them is even moderately successful, let alone ruled by a legitimate government. Now what does this tell you about the Arab people?

The Prophet tried to abolish what you call Arab "heritage" for a reason.

I have a question, I don't know anything about Arabic science and scientists. Is it possible to name some of them for me plz?

Originally posted by Emile Boutros Originally posted by Atourian ... I believe heritage is lost due to Arabization. I do not follow....

So you say you are half Lebanese?

I'll give you an example of what i am trying to say:
Emile Boutros is an Arabized 1/2 Phoenician.

Am I the only one experiencing lag when posting?

Originally posted by ramin I have a question, I don't know anything about Arabic science and scientists. Is it possible to name some of them for me plz?

iam sure you will find some of them in the net

 

BTW scientists who came from the Islamic world are Not all Persians, Although many scientists who were born in Persia did their most important works in Arabic.

 

Originally posted by ramin Originally posted by azimuth iam sure you will find some of them in the net. How can I find them, when I don't know their name? would u name some or at least give a point to start with.

you dont need to know their names just write "history Arab Scientists" and you will find some sites which you will get what you are looking for there.

anyway it took me 30 sec to find this site , http://www.issiraq.org/History.htm i know its about Iraq and some of the scientists mention their were born in Persia or that region but there are some Arabs mentioned there too . so enjoy.

also this one http://www.islamonline.com/cgi-bin/news_service/profiles.asp

just search between them and you will find Arab Scientists

and here some bio i found in the web.

Ibn Nafis (1210-1288) was the first person to accurately describe the process of blood circulation in the human body (in 1242). Contemporary drawings of this process have survived. In particular, he is the first known person to have documented the pulmonary circuit. His work was largely unnoticed until found in Berlin in 1924, and as a result, credit for the modern concept of the blood circulation is generally given to William Harvey.

Al Battani (ca. 850-923) was an arab astronomer (also spelled Al Batani, Latinized Albategnius, Albategni, Albatenius; full name Abū ʿAbdullāh Muḥammad ibn Jābir ibn Sinān ar-Raqqī al-Ḥarrani aṣ-Ṣabiʾ al-Battānī), born in Harran near Urfa. His epithet as-Sabi suggests that among his ancestry were members of the Sabian sect who worshiped the stars, however, his full name affirms that he was Muslim.

Al Battani worked in Syria, at ar-Raqqah and at Damascus, where he died. He was able to correct some of Ptolemy's results and compiled new tables of the Sun and Moon, long accepted as authoritative, discovered the movement of the Sun's apogee, treats the division of the celestial sphere, and introduces, probably independently of the 5th century indian astronomer Aryabhatta, the use of sines in calculation, and partially that of tangents, forming the basis of modern trigonometry. He also calculated the values for the precession of the equinoxes (54.5" per year) and the inclination of Earth's axis (23� 35').

His most important work is the Kitāb az-Zīj ('the book of tables') with 57 chapters, which by way of Latin translation as De Motu Stellarum by Plato Tiburensis in 1116 (printed 1537 by Melanchthon, annotated by Regiomontanus), had great influence on European astronomy. A reprint appeared at Bologna in 1645. Plato's original manuscript is preserved at the Vatican; and the Escorial Library possesses in manuscript a treatise by Al Battani on astronomical chronology.

Ibn Khaldun, full name Abu Zayd Abd-Ar-Rahman Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), the greatest of the medieval Islamic historians.

Born on May 27, 1332, in Tunis (now in Tunisia), of a Spanish-Arab family, Ibn Khaldun held court positions in what are today Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, and in Granada in Spain, and was twice imprisoned. In 1375 he went into seclusion near modern Frenda, Algeria, taking four years to compose his monumental Muqaddamah, the introductory volume to his Kitab al-Ibar (Universal History). In 1382, on pilgrimage to Mecca, he was offered a chair at the famous Islamic university of El-Azhar by the sultan of Cairo, who also appointed him judge (qadi) of the Maliki rite of Islam. In 1400 he accompanied the sultan's successor to Damascus in an expedition to resist the invasion of the Tatar ruler Tamerlane. Left behind in besieged Damascus, he was lowered over the walls by ropes to meet Tamerlane. Ibn Khaldun spent several weeks as Tamerlane's honoured guest before returning to Cairo, where he died on March 17, 1406.

The Kitab al-Ibar is a valuable guide to the history of Muslim North Africa and the Berbers. Its six historical volumes, however, are overshadowed by the immense significance of the Muqaddamah. In it, Ibn Khaldun outlined a philosophy of history and theory of society that are unprecedented in ancient and medieval writing and that are closely reflected in modern sociology. Societies, he believed, are held together by the power of social cohesiveness, which can be augmented by the unifying force of religion. Social change and the rise and fall of societies follow laws that can be empirically discovered and that reflect climate and economic activity as well as other realities.

Averro�s (1126-1198), known in Arabic as Ibn Rushd, a medieval Muslim Arab philosopher, physician, maliki jurist, and ashari theologian, born in C�rdoba, Spain. Averro�s's father, a judge in C�rdoba, instructed him in Muslim jurisprudence. In his native city he also studied theology, philosophy, and mathematics under the Arab philosopher Ibn Tufayl and medicine under the Arab physician Avenzoar. Averro�s was appointed judge in Seville in 1169 and in C�rdoba in 1171; in 1182 he became chief physician to Abu Yaqub Yusuf, the Almohad caliph of Morocco and Muslim Spain. Averro�s's view that reason takes precedence over religion led to his being exiled in 1195 by Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur; he was restored to favour shortly before his death.

Averro�s held that metaphysical truths can be expressed in two ways: through philosophy (as represented by the views of the ancient Greek Aristotle and the late antiquity Neoplatonists) and through religion (as represented in the simplified, allegorical form of books of revelation). Although Averro�s did not actually propound the existence of two kinds of truth, philosophical and religious, his views were interpreted in that way by Christian thinkers, who called it the theory of �double truth�. He rejected the concept of a creation of the world in time; the world, he maintained, has no beginning. God is the �prime mover�, the self-moved force that stimulates all motion, who transforms the potential into the actual. The individual human soul emanates from the unified universal soul. Averro�s's extensive commentaries on the works of Aristotle were translated into Latin and Hebrew and greatly influenced both Christian scholasticism and philosophy (in medieval Europe) and the Jewish philosophers of the Middle Ages. His main independent work was Tahafut al-Tahafut (Arabic, �Incoherence of the Incoherence�), a refutation of a work by the Islamic theologian al-Ghazali on philosophy. Averro�s also wrote books on medicine, astronomy, law, and grammar.

Alhazen (965-c.1040), Arab scientist and natural philosopher, who made important contributions in optics, astronomy, and mathematics. His Arab name is Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham. His major work, Optics, included valuable analyses and explanations of light and vision.

Alhazen was born in Basra, in what is now Iraq. He was invited to Cairo by the Muslim ruler al-Hakim. After failing in an attempt to regulate the flow of the Nile, Alhazen feared that al-Hakim would punish him. To avoid punishment, he pretended to be insane until al-Hakim's death. He devoted the rest of his life to scientific study.

Alhazen's most important and original contributions were in optics. He developed a broad theory that explained vision, using geometry and anatomy. According to this theory, each point on a lighted area or object radiates light rays in every direction, but only one ray from each point, which strikes the eye perpendicularly, can be seen. The other rays strike at different angles and are not seen.

In astronomy, Alhazen added to the theories of the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy. He also summarized or explained some of the difficult mathematical theorems of the Greek mathematician Euclid. 

Kindi, al-, (c. 801-c. 873), first major Islamic philosopher, born in Al Kūfah and educated at Basra and Baghdad (all in Iraq). He was one of the earliest Muslim students of ancient Greek philosophers and one of the first translators of the works of Aristotle into Arabic. Called the philosopher of the Arabs because he was descended from Arab nobility, he is the author of more than 270 works, most of which are short tracts covering a wide range of topics, including philosophy, medicine, mathematics, optics, and astrology. Some of his works were translated into Latin during the Middle Ages and influenced Christian scholars in Europe.

Al-Kindi's philosophy was strongly influenced by Neoplatonism and medieval Aristotelianism. He attempted to provide a philosophical basis for the speculative theology of the Mutazilis, later adopted by the Imams (Twlevers) of the Shiites. Although he claimed the essential conclusions of philosophy and religion to be harmonious, he nevertheless placed revelation above philosophy and prophetic insights above reason. Al-Kindi's influence on Muslim thinkers continued for about a century after his death.

 

and all this took me around 8 minutes