Question

4. Briefly discuss three areas in which Islamic Civilization had an impact on the world.

Answer 1

Since Islam arose and evolved in an Arab culture, the Arab traditions continued to dominate other cultures that adopted Islam. Thus Arab Muslim societies and other Muslims have cultural affinities, although each culture has maintained its distinctive features. Islamic culture inherited a basic but by no way simplistic Arab culture raised in the desert. It has an oral history, focused on cultural transmission through poetry and narration. It was therefore the written record that had the biggest effect on humanity. The culture of Islam is based on the importance of education, emphasized by both the Quran and the Prophet.

Number theory, developed and extended from the original Indian contribution, led to the "Arabic numbers" 1 through 9. Islamic scholars have used the notion of zero, a Hindu term. Without the void, there would have been neither mathematics, geometry, nor cybernetics. The Arab Muslims primarily developed algebra; the very term derives from the Arabic al-jabr.

Throughout the study of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Razzi, and Husayn bin Ishak al-Ibadi, who translated Hippocrates and other Greeks, the medical sciences were developed in large part. It is recorded that Razi (860-940) wrote 200 books on medicine, one of them on medical ethics, and the Hawi, a 25 volume practical encyclopaedia. Ibn Sina (980-1037) was a popular 18-year-old physician who wrote 16 books and the Canoun, an encyclopedia on all the world's known diseases. It has been translated into a great many languages.

But most important of all, it was the attitude which formed within the Islamic State towards the Greeks' suspect writings. Unlike the late antiquity Christian societies whose attitudes toward the pagan philosophers were influenced by the experience of Roman persecution, Muslims did not endure the dispute between faith and reason — or at least to the same degree—. The Qur'an, on the contrary, enjoined Muslims to pursue information all their lives, regardless of the source or where it may lead.