Flying Machine by Abbas ibn Firnas

While some Muslims may be associated with negative developments, Islam has history of great inventors, scientists, philosophers, astronomers and other great men and women who influenced the cause of history. It was the period of Islamic Golden Age of Science and Technology over a thousand year ago.

Some early inventions towards discovery of aircraft, surgery, calculation, university education, toothbrush among others were influenced by Muslim scholars and scientists. This forms part of knowledge sharing from an email I received from a friend.

The report which was first published on CNN.com, provides insight into golden age of Islamic civilisation at the period of Dark Ages of western civilisation.

The report was compiled by Professor Salim Al-Hassani Salim T S Al-Hassani an Emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering and an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Manchester. He is Chairman of the Foundation of Science, Technology and Civilization (FSTC), founder of the academic portal www.MuslimHeritage.com.

Enjoy the Al-Hassani’s Top 10 Outstanding Muslim Inventions

Yushau A. Shuaib
Excerpt from Al-Hassani’s top 10 outstanding Muslim inventions:
1. Surgery
Around the year 1,000, the celebrated doctor Al Zahrawi published a 1,500 page illustrated encyclopedia of surgery that was used in Europe as a medical reference for the next 500 years. Among his many inventions, Zahrawi discovered the use of dissolving cat gut to stitch wounds — beforehand a second surgery had to be performed to remove sutures. He also reportedly performed the first caesarean operation and created the first pair of forceps.

2. Coffee
Now the Western world’s drink du jour, coffee was first brewed in Yemen around the 9th century. In its earliest days, coffee helped Sufis stay up during late nights of devotion. Later brought to Cairo by a group of students, the coffee buzz soon caught on around the empire. By the 13th century it reached Turkey, but not until the 16th century did the beans start boiling in Europe, brought to Italy by a Venetian trader.

3. Flying machine
“Abbas ibn Firnas was the first person to make a real attempt to construct a flying machine and fly,” said Hassani. In the 9th century he designed a winged apparatus, roughly resembling a bird costume. In his most famous trial near Cordoba in Spain, Firnas flew upward for a few moments, before falling to the ground and partially breaking his back. His designs would undoubtedly have been an inspiration for famed Italian artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci’s hundreds of years later, said Hassani.

4. University
In 859 a young princess named Fatima al-Firhi founded the first degree-granting university in Fez, Morocco. Her sister Miriam founded an adjacent mosque and together the complex became the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque and University. Still operating almost 1,200 years later, Hassani says he hopes the center will remind people that learning is at the core of the Islamic tradition and that the story of the al-Firhi sisters will inspire young Muslim women around the world today.

5. Algebra
The word algebra comes from the title of a Persian mathematician’s famous 9th century treatise “Kitab al-Jabr Wa l-Mugabala” which translates roughly as “The Book of Reasoning and Balancing.” Built on the roots of Greek and Hindu systems, the new algebraic order was a unifying system for rational numbers, irrational numbers and geometrical magnitudes. The same mathematician, Al-Khwarizmi, was also the first to introduce the concept of raising a number to a power.

Al-Qarawiyyin University, First Islamic University

6. Optics
“Many of the most important advances in the study of optics come from the Muslim world,” says Hassani. Around the year 1000 Ibn al-Haitham proved that humans see objects by light reflecting off of them and entering the eye, dismissing Euclid and Ptolemy’s theories that light was emitted from the eye itself. This great Muslim physicist also discovered the camera obscura phenomenon, which explains how the eye sees images upright due to the connection between the optic nerve and the brain.

7. Music
Muslim musicians have had a profound impact on Europe, dating back to Charlemagne tried to compete with the music of Baghdad and Cordoba, according to Hassani. Among many instruments that arrived in Europe through the Middle East are the lute and the rahab, an ancestor of the violin. Modern musical scales are also said to derive from the Arabic alphabet.

8. Toothbrush
According to Hassani, the Prophet Mohammed popularized the use of the first toothbrush in around 600. Using a twig from the Meswak tree, he cleaned his teeth and freshened his breath. Substances similar to Meswak are used in modern toothpaste.

9. The crank
Many of the basics of modern automatics were first put to use in the Muslim world, including the revolutionary crank-connecting rod system. By converting rotary motion to linear motion, the crank enables the lifting of heavy objects with relative ease. This technology, discovered by Al-Jazari in the 12th century, exploded across the globe, leading to everything from the bicycle to the internal combustion engine.

10. Hospitals
“Hospitals as we know them today, with wards and teaching centers, come from 9th century Egypt,” explained Hassani. The first such medical center was the Ahmad ibn Tulun Hospital, founded in 872 in Cairo. Tulun hospital provided free care for anyone who needed it — a policy based on the Muslim tradition of caring for all who are sick. From Cairo, such hospitals spread around the Muslim world.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/01/29/muslim.inventions/

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What is more alarming is when religious leaders join the bandwagon in fanning the ember of hatred and enmity through provocative pronouncements and combatant posture against programmes and policies that might have good intentions.

The recent brouhaha over the non-interest banking grossly associated and referred to as Islamic banking system is one debate that has created divisions in the polity. Interestingly the Islamic banking principle was mooted long time before the appointment of the current governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as attested to by principal insiders in the apex monetary institution. In an interaction in CBN, Pastor Tunde Lemo, the Deputy Governor of Central Bank in charge of Operations disclosed that: “Islamic banking is a programme that started several years before the appointment of the current Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.” He added that the first application for license was about ten years ago. He went on to mention that more than three years ago he led a team to Malaysia to develop the framework for Non-Interest Banking, part of which, of course is Islamic Banking.

Also at the floor of the National Assembly when he was summoned by federal legislators, the Governor of the Central Bank, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi expressed dismay over the unfortunate tendency of treating every single national matter on ethnic and religious basis. While denying suggestions that the new banking policy has religious motives, he said most of the key decisions preparing Nigeria for an Islamic banking were taken under his predecessor, Professor Charles Soludo who is a staunch catholic and that communications detailing the guidelines for the transactions were signed by deputy governor of the bank, Tunde Lemo, a Christian cleric.

Sanusi also disclosed that Professor Soludo approved Nigeria’s fulltime membership of the International Islamic Banking Council, while the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo approved Nigeria’s full membership of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB). Meanwhile many Nigerian banks, including Bank PHB, Intercontinental Bank, and the United Bank of Africa (UBA), have long sought windows to operate Islamic banking in the country. Bank PHB has operated the banking system in minimal measures since 1999, the CBN boss added. In addition, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Nigerian Depositors Insurance Corporation (NDIC) have long issued guidelines for Islamic funds and Islamic insurance respectively.

Before this disclosure, the current President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), a Niger-Deltan, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor has been the arrowhead of Christian critics against the non-interest banking. He uses harshest words of condemnation over the issue. Meanwhile other respected Christian leaders deliberately refuse to engage in provocative statements but rather take diplomatic steps towards resolving the misconceptions.

There are various ways religious leaders could promote their faiths without resorting to provocative and intimidating statements in an effort to prove there are strong leaders. We have seen how other peace-loving religious leaders provide scholarships, establishing institutions of learning and investing in ventures that could be inspirational for evangelism and at the same time promote religious tolerance and peaceful coexistence among people from diverse backgrounds.

Some Christian leaders like Bishop David Oyedepo, Pastor E.A. Adeboye, and even Prophet T. B. Joshua among others have received endorsement of government to establish Christian universities and broadcast stations that were neither objected to nor criticised by Muslims and their groups. Those institutions established by them are also patronized by non-Christians. Today, for instance, more than eighty percent of faith-based universities in Nigeria are owned by Christians. Since such educational ventures are positive steps towards economic growth, there was never any objection or campaign of calumny from Muslims to associate such ventures as attempt for “Christianisation of Nigeria.”

Unlike his predecessor, Archbishop John Onaiyekan who established and maintained cordial and mutual relationship with Muslims and Islamic groups in Nigeria towards a united and prosperous country based on better understanding, Pastor Oritsejafor is always engaging in political activism and actions that are mostly against anything Islamic and the sections that are presumed as predominantly Muslims. Rather than engaging in unnecessary outbursts, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor and his co-travellers clamouring against the introduction of Islamic banking should be advised to channel their energies towards ensuring realisation of Christian banking in Nigeria that could be fashioned in line with biblical injunctions.

Though Islamic banking system is globally recognised as financial model for investment alternatives, the prohibition of usury or charging interest on loans as well as investment in prohibited goods and products are not only abhorred in the Quran but also have references from verses in the Bible. Some sections in the bible that prohibits usury for instance in the King James version of Bible include: Exodus 22:25-27, Leviticus 25:36-37, Psalm 15:1-5, Deuteronomy 23:19-20, Jeremiah 15:10 , Ezekiel 18:7-9, 17 and Matthew 25:27 just to mention a few.

Though literatures on Islamic banking and finance are in their thousands, getting similar publications from the Christian perspectives should not be difficult to obtain. In fact the many Christian universities in Nigeria are not established to churn out graduates but to provide scholarly materials in various subjects. Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor should exploit those potentials and also engage scholars and intellectuals to work out the frameworks for Christian Banking in Nigeria.  The Nigerian Muslim will surely not object or condemn the initiative just like similar programmes and policies initiated and formulated by Christians.

Since Christian professionals in the financial worlds including our Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Segun Aganga among others have spoken to express supports for the Islamic banking, including the recent endorsement by the National Assembly, agitators against the system should either give peace a chance by the development or go to the Court, the last resort.

It is dangerous to use religion for selfish political power and economic gains when it should be the weapon to uplift our spirituality and enhance moral standards in whatever we do.  No one should be against Christian banking in Nigeria even if operated side by side with Islamic banking.

This article by Yushau A. Shuaib has appeared is some online media as well as national newspapers including People’s Daily July 25, New Nigerian July 25, Daily Independent July 28, Leadership July 28, Vanguard July 29, Thisday July 31,  and Economic Confidential August 1, 2011

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