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2014 Webcasting on the world’s first real-time Islamic service at www.virtualmosque.co.uk Editors: Lord Shahid Aziz Mr Mustaq Ali M.Sc Contents: The Call of the Messiah
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Muhammad (s) II By Prof K. S. Ramakrishna Rao
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Family Day by Dr Zahid Aziz
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ن ْحالرَّ ْ ی م حم ْ ْس م ْ ٰ ِباہللْالرَّ م The Call of the Messiah by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Promised Messiah and Mahdi The Afghans In short, it is very strange that just as a Messiah i.e. the restorer of religion merely by means of spiritual power, and the propagator of faith and belief merely with the help of the Holy Spirit, came at the close of the Mosaic dispensation, another one, and after the expiry of a similar period of time, came at the close of the order of Khilafat of the like of Moses. It has been proved conclusively that our Master, the holy Prophet Muhammad (peace and the blessings of God be upon him) is the like of Moses. Just as Moses had delivered the Jews from the hands of Pharaoh, and not only delivered them, but the Jews, as an ultimate result of their belief, also got Kingdom and rulership, in the same way,
our Holy Prophet (peace and the blessings of God be upon him) came at such a time when the Jews had been wallowing in dishonour and disgrace. The Holy Prophet opened on them the doors of freedom and deliverance, and raised them to the position of authority and rule, just as he had opened the doors of freedom and deliverance on other believers, and delivered them from the tyranny and oppression of the unbelievers, and lifted them at last to the dignity of Khilafat and Kingship, so that the Jews, after only a few centuries, became the rulers of the world. (continued from Ayyam I Sulah - The Age of Reconciliation)
Muhammad (pbuh) Part II Prof. K. S. Ramakrishna Rao, (Head of the Dept. of Philosophy, Govt. College for Women. University of Mysore, Mandya571401, Karnatika, India). Re-printed from “Islam and Modern age”, Hydrabad, March 1978. (continued from The Light September 2014) The theory of Islam and Sword for instance is not heard now frequently in any quarter worth the name. The principle of Islam that there is no compulsion in religion is well known. Gibbon, a historian of world repute says, “A pernicious tenet has been imputed to Mohammadans, the duty of extirpating all the religions by sword.” This charge based on ignorance and bigotry, says the eminent historian, is refuted by Quran, by history of Musalman conquerors and by their public and legal toleration of Christian worship. The great success of Mohammad’s life had been effected by sheer moral force, without a stroke of sword.
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2 But in pure self-defence, after repeated efuge in a place more than 200 miles away, that forts of conciliation had utterly failed, circumcity now lay at his feet. By the laws of war he stances dragged him into the battlefield. But the could have justly avenged all the cruelties inprophet of Islam changed the whole strategy of flicted on him and his people. But what treatthe battlefield. The total number of casualties in ment did he accord to them? Mohammad’s heart all the wars that took place during his lifetime flowed with affection and he declared, “This day, when the whole Arabian Peninsula came under there is no reproof against you and you are all his banner, does not exceed a few hundreds in free.” “This day” he proclaimed, “I trample under all. But even on the battlefield he taught the Army feet all distinctions between man and man, ab barbarians to pray, to pray not individually, all hatred between man and man.” but in congregation to God the Almighty. During This was one of the chief objects why he the dust and storm of warfare whenever the permitted war in self-defence, that is to unite time for prayer came, and it comes five times a human beings. And when once this object was every day, the congregation prayer had not to be achieved, even his worst enemies were parpostponed even on the battlefield. A party had doned. Even those who killed his beloved uncle, to be engaged in bowing their heads before God Hamazah, mangled his body, ripped it open, while other was engaged with the enemy. After even chewed a piece of his liver. finishing the prayers, the two parties had to exThe principles of universal brotherhood and change their positions. To the Arabs, who would doctrine of the equality of mankind which he fight for forty years on the slight provocation proclaimed represents one very great contributhat a camel belonging to the guest of one tribe tion of Mohammad to the social uplift of humanhad strayed into the grazing land belonging to ity. All great religions have preached the same other tribe and both sides had fought till they doctrine but the prophet of Islam had put this lost 70,000 lives in all; threatening the extinctheory into actual practice and its value will be tion of both the tribes, to such furious Arabs the fully recognized, perhaps centuries hence, when Prophet of Islam taught self-control and disciinternational consciousness being awakened, pline to the extent of praying even on the battleracial prejudices may disappear and greater field. In an age of barbarism, the Battlefield itbrotherhood of humanity come into existence. self was humanized and strict instructions were issued not to cheat, not to break trust, not to Miss Sarojini Naidu speaking about this asmutilate, not to kill a child or woman or an old pect of Islam says, “It was the first religion that man, not to hew down date palm nor burn it, preached and practiced democracy; for in the not to cut a fruit tree, not to molest any person mosque, when the minaret is sounded and the engaged in worship. His own treatment with his worshipers are gathered together, the democrabitterest enecy of Islam is emmies is the nobodied five times a blest example day when the peasfor his followant and the king ers. At the conkneel side by side quest of Mecca, and proclaim, God he stood at the alone is great.” The zenith of his great poetess of power. The city India continues, “I which had rehave been struck fused to listen over and over again to his mission, by this indivisible which had torunity of Islam that tured him and makes a man inhis followers, stinctively a brothwhich had er. When you meet Fairy Meadow, Nanga Parbat, Pakistan driven him and an Egyptian, an Alhis people into gerian and Indian and a Turk in London, it matexile and which had unrelentingly persecuted ters not that Egypt is the motherland of one and and boycotted him even when he had taken refIndia is the motherland of another.” Mahatma Gandhi, in his inimitable style,
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3 says “Some one has said that Europeans in South Africa dread the advent Islam — Islam that civilized Spain, Islam that took the torch light to Morocco and preached to the world the Gospel of brotherhood. The Europeans of South Africa dread the Advent of Islam. They may claim equality with the white races. They may well dread it, if brotherhood is a sin. If it is equality of colored races then their dread is well founded.” Every year, during the Haj, the world witnesses the wonderful spectacle of this international Exhibition of Islam in leveling all distinctions of race, color and rank. Not only the Europeans, the African, the Arabian, the Persian, the Indians, the Chinese all meet together in Medina as members of one divine family, but they are clad in one dress every person in two simple pieces of white seamless cloth, one piece round the loin the other piece over the shoulders, bare head without pomp or ceremony, repeating “Here am I O God; at thy command; thou art one and alone; Here am I.” Thus there remains nothing to differentiate the high from the low and every pilgrim carries home the impression of the international significance of Islam. In the opinion of Prof. Hurgronje “the league of nations founded by prophet of Islam put the principle of international unity of human brotherhood on such Universal foundations as to show candle to other nations.” In the words of same Professor “the fact is that no nation of the world can show a parallel to what Islam has - done the realization of the idea of the League of Nations.” The prophet of Islam brought the reign of democracy in its best form. The Caliph Ali cousin and the son in-law of the prophet, the Caliph Mansur, Abbas, the son of Caliph Mamun and many other caliphs and kings had to appear before the judge as ordinary men in Islamic courts. Even today we all know how the black Negroes were treated by the civilized white races. Consider the state of Bilal, a Negro Slave, in the days of the prophet of Islam nearly 14 centuries ago. The office of calling Muslims to prayer was considered to be of status in the early days of Islam and it was offered to this Negro slave. After the conquest of Mecca, the Prophet ordered him to call for prayer and the Negro slave, with his black colour and his thick lips, stood over the roof of the holy mosque at Mecca called the Ka’ba the most historic and the holiest mosque in the Islamic world, when some proud Arabs painfully cried loud, “Oh, this black Negro Slave, woe be to him. He stands on the roof of holy Ka’ba to call for prayer.” At that moment, the prophet an-
nounced to the world, this verse of the holy Quran for the first time. “O mankind, surely we have created you, families and tribes, so you may know one another. Surely, the most honourable of you with God is Most righteous among you. Surely, God is Knowing, Aware.” And these words of the holy Quran created such a mighty transformation that the Caliph of Islam, the purest of Arabs by birth, offered their daughter in marriage to this Negro Slave, and whenever, the second Caliph of Islam, known to history as Umar the great, the commander of faithful, saw this Negro slave, he immediately stood in reverence and welcomed him by “Here comes our master; here comes our lord.” What a tremendous change was brought by Quran in the Arabs, the proudest people at that time on the earth. This is the reason why Goethe, the greatest of German poets, speaking about the Holy Quran declared that, “This book will go on exercising through all ages a most potent influence.” This is also the reason why George Bernard Shaw says, “If any religion has a chance of ruling over Europe, say, England, within the next 100 years, it is Islam”. It is this same democratic spirit of Islam that emancipated women from the bondage of man. Sir Charles Edward Archibald Hamilton says “Islam teaches the inherent sinlessness of man. It teaches that man and woman have come from the same essence, posses the same soul and have been equipped with equal capabilities for intellectual, spiritual and moral attainments.”
Family Day Talk (Darus Salaam, Wembley, UK, 3rd August 2014)
by Dr Zahid Aziz The Holy Quran says: “And when We made a covenant with the Children of Israel: You shall serve none but Allah. And do good to (your) parents, and to the near of kin and to orphans and the needy, and speak good (words) to (all) people, and keep up prayer and give the due charity.” (2:83) “… righteous is the one who believes in Allah, and the Last Day, and the angels and the Book and the prophets, and gives away wealth out of love for Him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the traveller and to those who ask and to set slaves free and keeps up prayer and gives the due charity…” (2:177) “And serve Allah, and do not set up any partner with Him, and be good to the parents and to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the
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4 neighbour of (your) kin and the alien neighbour, … …” (4:36) In these verses, it has been made one of the fundamentals of Islam to do good to “the near of kin” (zil qurba), and parents have been specially mentioned. It has been mentioned along with worshipping only Allah, keeping up prayer, and paying the zakat. But it will be noticed that, in all cases, needy persons and neighbours are also mentioned. Therefore Islam has kept a balance by mentioning our duty to non-relatives at the same time. Otherwise, nepotism would be practised in society, where people favour only their own relatives, even at the expense of those who are not their relatives. In the well-known verse of the Holy Quran recited at the marriage ceremony, it is said: “O people, keep your duty to your Lord, Who created you from a single being and created its mate of the same (kind), and spread from these two many men and women. And keep your duty to Allah, by Whom you demand one of another (your rights), and (to) the ties of relationship. Surely Allah is ever a Watcher over you.” (4:1)
others, bear in mind your own duty to Allah. In other words, demand only your just and fair rights, and make sure you are giving them their rights. This verse mentions “men and women” being spread from one pair of parents. Whatever it may mean scientifically, what it is pointing out is that you have ties of relationship to the whole of humanity. Of course, our ties are closer with those who are nearer to us than those who are further away. This nearness would be in terms of family relationship, or in terms of belonging to the same community, or the same religion, or the same country. Naturally, we spend more time with those who are near to us in any respect than those who are further away, and our rights and obligations in regard to them are greater. But it must never be forgotten that we have ties of relationship to the whole of humanity. Once Hazrat Maulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi had to make a statement in a dispute between a relative of his and one who was not a relative, whom he did not even know and had never met. He said: As a Muslim I have to regard the other party as my relatives as well; if I wrongfully favour my relative, I am still harming my relatives, who are the other party.
Marriage is the institution Moraine Lake, Canadian Rockies whereby ties of relationship are The Quran says: “O you who believe, be created, i.e. the couple have children, they bemaintainers of justice, bearers of witness for come brothers and sisters, they have parents Allah, even if it is against your own selves or and grand-parents, uncles and aunts, etc. Here (your) parents or near relatives — whether he is Muslims are instructed to keep their duty to Alrich or poor, Allah has a better right over them lah as well as their duty to the ties of relationboth.” (4:135) ship (arham). A person’s ties of relationship reSo, while the Quran prescribes the doing of quire from him duties towards relatives in the the utmost good to relatives, yet we are forbidmaterial, emotional, moral and spiritual sides of den to depart in the least from truth and justice. life. The closer they are related, the greater is a person’s duty. Of course, these duties are mutual Prophets and their relatives and reciprocal. A person has duties towards There are examples in the Quran of how others, and others owe him duties towards him. prophets and other righteous people dealt with This is what binds them together. their relatives. Abraham prayed: This verse also indicates that each person “My Lord, make me keep up prayer and has rights. What is one person’s duty towards (those) from my offspring (too), our Lord, and another, it is the other’s right from him. People accept my prayer. Our Lord, grant me protection do demand their rights from relations. Principaland my parents and the believers on the day ly this happens between husband and wife, and when the reckoning comes to pass.” (14:40–41) between parents and their offspring. The Quran The first part of his supplication shows that here teaches that when you demand rights from when we wish our offspring to follow Islamic
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5 teachings, such as keeping up the salaat, we must start by setting an example of doing the same ourselves: “make me keep up prayer and those from my offspring”. The second part of the supplication, for the forgiveness of (deceased) parents, again shows that we must start by asking forgiveness for our own selves: “grant me protection and my parents”. We are alive and have the opportunity to make ourselves deserving of Allah’s forgiveness through our deeds. The deceased ones can only benefit from our prayers; they cannot change their deeds. We plead for them before Allah that He may look at their good deeds and ignore their shortcomings. If we, in practice, emulate their good deeds, then it increases the worth and reward of these deeds for them with Allah. The Quran contains an example of a father preaching goodness to his son, but also of a son preaching to his father. The first example is that of Luqman who starts by saying: “My son, set up no partner with Allah. Surely setting up partners (with Him) is a grievous wrong.” (31:13) and he goes on to give his son the most beautiful moral instructions including: • “bear patiently whatever befalls you” • “do not turn your face away from people in contempt, nor go about in the land exultingly. Surely Allah does not love any selfconceited boaster” • “lower your voice (when talking to people). Surely the most hateful of voices is braying of donkeys”. In the story of the sacrifice of Ismail, we read that Abraham said to his son: “My son, I have seen in a dream that I should sacrifice you: so consider what you think.” (37:102) Abraham asked for his son’s opinion. He didn’t say: God has commanded me to sacrifice you, so I am going to do it. The son replied: “My father, do as you are commanded; if Allah please, you will find me patient.” (37:102) So the attempted sacrifice was with the willing consent of the son. Abraham is said to have preached to his father as follows: “why do you worship something which does not hear, nor see, nor can it avail you at all? To me indeed has come the knowledge which has not come to you; so follow me, I will
guide you on a right path. Do not serve the devil. Surely the devil is disobedient to the Beneficent.” (19:42–44) This shows that a son may preach the true religion to his father.
Story of Joseph This story, related in chapter 12 of the Quran, is one of jealousy within a family followed by forgiveness. Ten of the twelve brothers were jealous of the other two, Joseph and Benjamin. They left the boy Joseph in a well in a wilderness to his fate, and told the father Jacob that he had been eaten by a wolf. Jacob said: I will exercise patience because I don’t believe you. It so happened that Joseph was picked up by some passing travellers and sold in Egypt. There, after suffering many difficulties and imprisonment on a false charge, eventually his righteousness and ability were recognised by the king who made him minister in charge of finance. Many years later, there was a drought and food shortage. Food was rationed by the government. Joseph’s bad brothers came to get corn, and he recognized them but they did not. Without disclosing his identity, he still helped them. He could have extracted his revenge. I will skip over the other details of the story, and just say that later on when the brothers were reduced to begging him for help, he revealed to them who he was. They then admitted to him: “Allah has indeed chosen you over us, and we were certainly sinners.” (12:91) Joseph said to them: “There is no rebuke or blame against you this day. Allah may forgive you, and He is the most Merciful of those who show mercy” (12:92). Incidentally, it was in these same words that the Holy Prophet Muhammad forgave his enemies, the leaders of the Quraish, when they were presented before him for meting out judgment at the conquest of Makkah. Later, when the ten brothers of Joseph asked their father Jacob to pray to God to forgive them, he said: “I shall ask forgiveness for you of my Lord. Surely He is the Forgiving, the Merciful” (12:98). Without harming the ten brothers, Joseph made them conscious of their wrong-
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6 doing by his good actions and noble behaviour towards them.
Leadership can only pass to sons if they are worthy It says in the Quran: “And when his Lord tried Abraham with certain commands he fulfilled them. He said: Surely I will make you a leader of people. (Abraham) said: And of my offspring? My covenant does not include the wrongdoers, said He.” (2:124) Abraham was made a “leader” of people because he fulfilled Allah’s commands when he was tested by Him. Since Abraham was given the mission to preach Allah’s commands to people, he was appointed to this position after he had proved that he himself obeyed those commands fully and in the most perfect way. This shows that in Islam a leader must first of all himself observe those laws which he commands his followers to obey. Then Abraham asked Allah if the leadership bestowed upon him would be inherited by his sons and progeny after him. Allah replied that His promise will not cover such of his offspring as are wrongdoers. Therefore, it is a principle in Islam that someone’s sons or progeny cannot inherit his high spiritual rank, or the blessings bestowed upon him by Allah, merely by their descent and birth unless they are worthy of it in their own right. The Quran goes on to say: “And who forsakes the religion of Abraham but he who makes a fool of himself. And certainly We made him pure in this world, and in the Hereafter he is surely among the righteous. When his Lord said to him, Submit, he said: I submit myself to the Lord of the worlds. And the same did Abraham command his sons, and (so did) Jacob: My sons, surely Allah has chosen for you (this) religion, so do not die except as submitting ones. Or were you witnesses when death visited Jacob, when he said to his sons: What will you serve after me? They said: We shall serve your God and the God of your fathers, Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac, one God only, and to Him do we submit.” (2: 130–133) Fathers are mentioned here, i.e. Abraham and Jacob, as exhorting their sons to submit to Allah. The sons affirmed that they would do so. Thus they became spiritual sons, as well as being physical ones. May Allah enable us to pass on our heritage of the service of Islam to our progeny, and may He enable them to accept this responsibility, ameen.
Muslim Contribution to Civilisation Paul Vallely Source: Independent UK Originally published in March, 2006 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. 1 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 caffe and then English coffee. 2 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 alHaitham. 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. 3 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. 4 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
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7 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. 5 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. 6 Distillation, 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. 7 The crank-shaft is a device which translates rotary into linear motion and is central to much of the machinery in the modern world, not least the internal combustion engine. One of the most important mechanical inventions in the history of humankind, it was created by an ingenious Muslim engineer called al-Jazari to raise water for irrigation. His 1206 Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices shows he also invented or refined the use of valves and pistons, devised some of the first mechanical clocks driven by water and weights, and was the father of robotics. Among his 50 other inventions was the combination lock. 8 Quilting is a method of sewing or tying
two layers of cloth with a layer of insulating material in between. It is not clear whether it was invented in the Muslim world or whether it was imported there from India or China. But it certainly came to the West via the Crusaders. They saw it used by Saracen warriors, who wore straw-filled quilted canvas shirts instead of armour. As well as a form of protection, it proved an effective guard against the chafing of the Crusaders’ metal armour and was an effective form of insulation – so much so that it became a cottage industry back home in colder climates such as Britain and Holland. 9 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 dome-building 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. 10 Many modern surgical instruments are of exactly the same design as those devised in the 10th century by a Muslim surgeon called alZahrawi. 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. 11 The windmill was 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.
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8 12 The technique of inoculation was not invented by Jenner and Pasteur but was devised in the Muslim world and brought to Europe from Turkey by the wife of the English ambassador to Istanbul in 1724. Children in Turkey were vaccinated with cowpox to fight the deadly smallpox at least 50 years before the West discovered it. 13 The fountain pen was invented for the Sultan of Egypt in 953 after he demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes. It held ink in a reservoir and, as with modern pens, fed ink to the nib by a combination of gravity and capillary action. 14 The system of numbering in use all round the world is probably Indian in origin but the style of the numerals is Arabic and first appears in print in the work of the Muslim mathematicians al-Khwarizmi and al-Kindi around 825. Algebra was named after al-Khwarizmi’s book, Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah, much of whose contents are still in use. The work of Muslim maths scholars was imported into Europe 300 years later by the Italian mathematician Fibonacci. Algorithms and much of the theory of trigonometry came from the Muslim world. And AlKindi’s discovery of frequency analysis rendered all the codes of the ancient world soluble and created the basis of modern cryptology. 15 Ali ibn Nafi, known by his nickname of Ziryab (Blackbird) came from Iraq to Cordoba in the 9th century and brought with him the concept of the three-course meal – soup, followed by fish or meat, then fruit and nuts. He also introduced crystal glasses (which had been invented after experiments with rock crystal by Abbas ibn Firnas – see No 4). 16 Carpets were regarded as part of Paradise by medieval Muslims, thanks to their advanced weaving techniques, new tinctures from Islamic chemistry and highly developed sense of pattern and arabesque which were the basis of Islam’s non-representational art. In contrast, Europe’s floors were distinctly earthly, not to say earthy, until Arabian and Persian carpets
were introduced. In England, as Erasmus recorded, floors were “covered in rushes, occasionally renewed, but so imperfectly that the bottom layer is left undisturbed, sometimes for 20 years, harbouring expectoration, vomiting, the leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings, scraps of fish, and other abominations not fit to be mentioned”. Carpets, unsurprisingly, caught on quickly. 17 The modern cheque comes from the Arabic saqq, a written vow to pay for goods when they were delivered, to avoid money having to be transported across dangerous terrain. In the 9th century, a Muslim businessman could cash a cheque in China drawn on his bank in Baghdad. 18 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 200km out. The scholar al-Idrisi took a globe depicting the world to the court of King Roger of Sicily in 1139. 19 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 selfpropelled pear-shaped bomb with a spear at the front which impaled itself in enemy ships and then blew up. 20 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.
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