Islam is one of the most renowned religion in current era. According to sources there are approximately 1.9 billion Muslims on earth which is almost 24.9 percent of total population and it is growing very rapidly and one of the major reasons is that it has very close relation with Science and current situations going on in the world. Allah chose Holy prophet (S.A.W) to spread teachings of Islam, all Muslims have a strong believe that Allah is our creator and Holy Prophet (S.A.W) is the last messenger and Holy Quran is the last holy book. Islam came to existence more than 1400 years ago but it contains knowledge regarding modern science and technology.
Modern scientists use high tech equipment to study nature and other hidden secrets of world which are already mentioned in Quran. Few examples are like reproduction ( Then He made [ man’s ] offspring out of the essence of a humble fluid. Quran, 32:8 ), Astronomy ( He shaped the earth as an egg… Quran 79:30, Blessed be the One Who placed constellations in the sky and Who placed therein a lamp and a lighted moon.) .
There are similarities in Islam and science. Science is running after the unknown and Islam also encourages to seeking knowledge. The Prophet Muhammad said to seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave. The very first verse came down: ‘Read.’ Muslim scientists took inspiration from Quran and work really hard in field of science. Major topics in which Muslim scientists worked are Astronomy, Math, psychology, physics, medicine.
I would like to narrate some achievements of Muslim scientist in Astronomy .The Islamic empire stretching from Moorish Spain, to Egypt and even China, entered their “Golden Age” and astronomy was of particular interest to Islamic scholars in Iran and Iraq and until this time around 800 AD, when Muslim scholars translated the only astronomical textbook that was Ptolemy’s Almagest, written around 100 AD in Greece.
Ibn Yunus – an astronomer from Egypt found errors in Ptolemy’s calculations about movements of planets and their eccentricities as Polemy was trying to find an explanation for how these bodies orbited in the sky, including movement of Earth within these parameters. Later on, Ibn Yunus found more mistakes, that in fact it was 1 degree every 70 years. However, they didn’t know that it was the Earth’s wobble causing this change because in the 10th century it was still believed that Earth was at the center of the universe. This discovery by Ibn Yunus and astronomers like Ibn al-Shatir changed the landscape of astronomy forever.
In 16th century Copernicus built the heliocentric model on this body of work.
In the 8th century under Caliph al-Mamun al-Rashid, the first observatory was built in Baghdad and subsequent observatories were built around Iraq and Iran. These tools, some as large as 40 meters, were critical to the learning of the angle of the sun, movement of the stars, and the understanding of the orbiting planets.
In 964 AD, astronomers Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi from Iran, published The Book of Fixed Stars, one of the most comprehensive texts on constellations in the sky. He was also the first astronomer to detect the Andromeda galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud. These observations would have been made with the naked eye since telescope hadn’t yet been created. He stated it as a “cloud” in his notes as he didn’t know it was a galaxy at the time.
Later in 13th century, scientist and philosopher Nasir al-Din al-Tusi created the famous Tusi Couple. The purpose of this couple was to explain the apparent linear motion of certain heavenly bodies on the basis of circular motion. Ptolemy had trouble explaining this phenomenon so the Tusi couple was able to demonstrate linear motion out of the opposing directions by placing a smaller circle within a larger one. The Tusi Couple would later become critical to Copernicus’ understanding of these motions during his work in the Renaissance.
Work by astronomers Ibn al-Haytham, known as “the father of optics” helped developed the camera obscura and eventually aided in the development of the telescope.
In 859 AD the first university was built in Fez, Morocco. It was started by Fatima al-Fihri. Scholars of all religions from all over the world traveled there to study astronomy, math and philosophy.
An astronomical tool called Astrolabe was created by the Greek thinker Hipparcus but was perfected by islamic scientists. Mariam al-Astrulabi was a Syrian female astrolab maker from the 10th century, best known for perfecting the art of making these instruments which calculated the altitude of celestial bodies in the sky.
Still study of astronomy in Islamic countries is by no means over. Recently scientists in Qatar at the Qatar Exoplanet Survey announced their discovery of three new exoplanets orbiting around other stars.
About 200 stars bear names of Arabic astronomers who made significant contributions to astronomy. There are twenty four craters on moon’s surface named after the Muslim astronomers who’ve paved the way for the modern science and astronomy.
There are many verses related to astronomy in Quran, some are following:
“Do they not look at the sky above them, how We have built it and adorned it, and there are no rifts in it.” –sura 50, verse 6
“God is the One Who raised the heavens without any pillars that you can see, then He firmly established Himself on the throne and He subjected the sun and moon . . .” -sura 13, verse 2
“For you (God) subjected the sun and the moon, both diligently pursuing their courses. And for you He subjected the night and the day.” -sura 14, verse 33
Studying the cosmos is something more ingrained in the international culture than meets the eye. If you’ve ever stared at the belt of Orion or Alcor and Mizar, the binary stars in the Big Dipper, then you’ve gotten a small glimpse into the legacy created by Muslim scientists around the world.
Books written by some Muslim scientist:
Al-Battani wrote Kitāb az-Zīj ( Book of Astronomical Tables )
Al-Farghani wrote Kitāb fī Jawāmi ( Compendium of the Science of the Stars )
Thābit translated from Greek into Arabic works by Apollonius of Perga, Archimedes, Euclid and Ptolemy. He revised the translation of Euclid‘s Elements of Hunayn ibn Ishaq. He also rewrote Hunayn’s translation of Ptolemy’s Almagest and translated Ptolemy‘s Geography. Thābit’s translation of a work by Archimedes which gave a construction of a regular heptagon was discovered in the 20th century, the original having been lost.
There are many contradictions too in between Islam and science. One of the major conflicts is because of faith as Muslims believe in only Allah and science oppose that. Muslims believe that every thing is created by Allah but science says there is no one behind this. Islam has some ethics but science doesn’t have that. Science believe only on Facts and it doesn’t care about anything else, but Islam take different things into consideration like environment. According to Islam humans have value more than any thing but for science facts are above all even humans too.
In conclusion we can say there are many similarities in Islam and science because most of the theories science is proving in current era is already present in Islamic teachings and that also motivates Islamic scientists to put effort in this field and improve the standard of living and knowledge. On the other hand, there are conflicts too like in Faith, ethics, values etc.
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