Great essay Mr. Spencer,I am going to get your book.

Arguing, and warring, over what Gods view is, I say, is utterly ridiculous.

That what manifests outward manifests inward

That what manifests inward manifests outward.

( >< )

Many of the ideas of Aquinas, at the time he was writing, were either explicitly or implicitly condemned, primarily because he was seen as an Aristotelian (and because his ideas were misunderstood, because they were improperly explicated by his students/followers).  One can’t forget that Aristotle, for all the overlap with Christianity in the Ethics, also proved a completely different world in his Physics that contradicted the Christian world, adding to the long-standing Christian opposition to philosophy.  The Condemnation of 1277 at the University of Paris was a rollcall of anti-Aquinanism (if that’s a word).  It wasn’t until later, when the problems of the nominalists’ (like Scotus, mentioned disapprovingly in Benedict’s Regensburg address) fideism became clear that Christianity became comfortable with a god “subject” to natural laws.  For a long time, however, Christianity had been much more similar to Islam in that respect.  We often forget today, where Aquinas is seen as the quintessential medieval Christian theologian, that most of the Christian hierarchy, including in the universities, thought he taught heresy.

By the way, since this was a popular topic on the site not long ago, if anyone wants to be flabbergasted by utter intellectual dishonesty, read Christopher Hitchens’ attack on the Regensburg address over at Slate.

The timing of your work is simply marvelous.  There was a muslim philosopher, I think twelveth century, who summed up muslim endeavors thus: “Everything we touch turns to sand.” If the founding premise of any endeavor is chaos, the consequences are logical. Do you know who was it?

This is an incredibly inaccurate article. For example:

“But in almost every case, the Islamic scholars were building on what had established by Jews, Christians, or others.”

Islamic scholars were building on work conducted by “pagan” Greeks and some others. Jews and Christians hardly contributed a thing before the 13th century. There are some notable exceptions like John Philoponus.

“science was able to flourish in Christian Europe during the same period because Christian scientists were working from assumptions derived from the Bible, which were very different from those of the Qur’an”

Laughable claim. Science was able to flourish because of the Socratic method and innovations on this method. Christianity was mostly resistance to science and most of all philosophy.

The problem with this argument begins (but certainly doesn’t end) with the foundational premise that Christians do not believe God (or should I use the Arabic word) is G_d, that is, that He is limited by anything or that the world as we know it is anything but God’s imagination at work. Has Mr. Spencer, for instance, read the creation story of Genesis?

Mr. Spencer, this is comical! You base all your prejudices on the falsehood that Islam somehow rejects the Bible and the Torah.
Islam not only accepts the Bible and the Torah as its own, but states that Islam is nothing more than a REAFFIRMATION

Islam is nothing more than a reaffirmation of the message of Jesus Christ and Moses and Abraham.
The concept of God in Islam is the same as in Judaism and Christianity.
As far as the pursuit of scientific knowledge is concerned the Prophet repeatedly exhorted muslims to “seek knowledge, even if you have to go to China to find it”
If you look at what Al Gore is saying today it may dawn on you that western civilization is very far from God, Christ and Moses, and very close to the Devil, who inspires pens such as yours!
You belittle the great achievements of the muslim world and gloat in its failings. What could be further from Christ?

Al-Tawhid

The Islamic Concept of Knowledge

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Dr. Sayyid Wahid Akhtar
Vol XII No. 3
While it is an open question whether an explicit and systematically worked out Islamic epistemology exists, it is undeniable that various epistemological issues have been discussed in Muslim philosophy with an orientation different from that of Western epistemology. Today attempts are being made to understand the basic epistemological issues in terms of that orientation. This is a valuable effort that deserves our interest and encouragement. However, it can be fruitful only if the practice of rigorous analysis is kept up, with close attention to the precise definitions of the various concepts involved. 

With this view, an attempt is made in this paper to delineate the different shades and connotations of the term ‘ilm, i.e., knowledge, in the Islamic context. It is hoped that this brief attempt will serve as a step for future groundwork for the construction of a framework for an Islamic theory of knowledge. 

In the Islamic theory of knowledge, the term used for knowledge in Arabic is ‘ilm, which, as Rosenthal has justifiably pointed out, has a much wider connotation than its synonyms in English and other Western languages. ‘Knowledge’ falls short of expressing all the aspects of ‘ilm. Knowledge in the Western world means information about something, divine or corporeal, while ‘ilm is an all-embracing term covering theory, action and education. Rosenthal, highlighting the importance of this term in Muslim civilization and Islam, says that it gives them a distinctive shape. 

In fact there is no concept that has been operative as a determinant of the Muslim civilization in all its aspects to the same extent as ‘ilm. This holds good even for the most powerful among the terms of Muslim religious life such as, for instance, tawhid “recognition of the oneness of God,” ad-din, “the true religion,” and many others that are used constantly and emphatically. None of them equals ilm in depth of meaning and wide incidence of use. There is no branch of Muslim intellectual life, of Muslim religious and political life, and of the daily life of the average Muslim that remains untouched by the all pervasive attitude toward “knowledge” as something of supreme value for Muslim being. ‘ilm is Islam, even if the theologians have been hesitant to accept the technical correctness of this equation. The very fact of their passionate discussion of the concept attests to its fundamental importance for Islam. 

It may be said that Islam is the path of “knowledge.” No other religion or ideology has so much emphasized the importance of ‘ilm. In the Qur’an the word ‘alim has occurred in 140 places, while al-’ilm in 27. In all, the total number of verses in which ‘ilm or its derivatives and associated words are used is 704. The aids of knowledge such as book, pen, ink etc. amount to almost the same number. Qalam occurs in two places, al-kitab in 230 verses, among which al-kitab for al-Qur’an occurs in 81 verses. Other words associated with writing occur in 319 verses. It is important to note that pen and book are essential to the acquisition of knowledge. The Islamic revelation started with the word iqra’ (’read!’ or ‘recite!’). 

According to the Qur’an, the first teaching class for Adam started soon after his creation and Adam was taught ‘all the Names’. 

Allah is the first teacher and the absolute guide of humanity. This knowledge was not imparted to even the Angels. In Usul al-Kafi there is a tradition narrated by Imam Musa al-Kazim (’a) that ‘ilm is of three types: ayatun muhkamah (irrefutable signs of God), faridatun ‘adilah (just obligations) and sunnat al-qa’imah (established traditions of the Prophet [s]). This implies that ‘ilm, attainment of which is obligatory upon all Muslims covers the sciences of theology, philosophy, law, ethics, politics and the wisdom imparted to the Ummah by the Prophet (S). Al-Ghazali has unjustifiably differentiated between useful and useless types of knowledge. Islam actually does not consider any type of knowledge as harmful to human beings. However, what has been called in the Qur’an as useless or rather harmful knowledge, consists of pseudo sciences or the lores prevalent in the Jahiliyyah. 

‘Ilm is of three types: information (as opposed to ignorance), natural laws, and knowledge by conjecture. The first and second types of knowledge are considered useful and their acquisition is made obligatory. As for the third type, which refers to what is known through guesswork and conjecture, or is accompanied with doubt, we shall take that into consideration later, since conjecture or doubt are sometimes essential for knowledge as a means, but not as an end. 

Beside various Qur’anic verses emphasizing the importance of knowledge, there are hundreds of Prophetic traditions that encourage Muslims to acquire all types of knowledge from any corner of the world. Muslims, during their periods of stagnation and decline, confined themselves to theology as the only obligatory knowledge, an attitude which is generally but wrongly attributed to al-Ghazali’s destruction of philosophy and sciences in the Muslim world. Al-Ghazali, of course, passed through a turbulent period of skepticism, but he was really in search of certainty, which he found not in discursive knowledge but in mystic experience. In his favour it must be said that he paved the way for liberating the believer from blind imitation and helping him approach the goal of certain knowledge. 

In the Islamic world, gnosis (ma’rifah) is differentiated from knowledge in the sense of acquisition of information through a logical processes. In the non-Islamic world dominated by the Greek tradition, hikmah (wisdom) is considered higher than knowledge. But in Islam ‘ilm is not mere knowledge. It is synonymous with gnosis (ma’rifah). Knowledge is considered to be derived from two sources: ‘aql and ‘ilm huduri (in the sense of unmediated and direct knowledge acquired through mystic experience). 

It is important to note that there is much emphasis on the exercise of the intellect in the Qur’an and the traditions, particularly in the matter of ijtihad. In the Sunni world qiyas (the method of analogical deduction as propounded by Imam Abu Hanifah) is accepted as an instrument of ijtihad, but his teacher and spiritual guide, Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq (’a), gave pre-eminence to ‘aql in this matter. In the entire Shi’i literature of fiqh and usul al-fiqh, ‘aql is much more emphasized, because qiyas is only a form of quasi-logical argument, while ‘aql embraces all rational faculties of human beings. Even intuition or mystic experience are regarded as a higher stage of ‘aql. In Shi’i literature in particular, and Sunni literature in general, ‘aql is considered to be a prerequisite for knowledge. Starting from Usul al-Kafi, all Shi’i compendia of hadith devote their first chapter to the merits of ‘aql and the virtues of ‘ilm. In Sunni compendia of hadith, including al-Sihah al-sittah and up to al-Ghazali’s Ihya, a chapter is devoted to this issue, though it is not given a first priority. This shows that there is a consensus among the Muslims on the importance of ‘aql which is denoted by such words as ta’aqqul, tafaqquh and tadabbur in the Qur’an. 

Exercise of the intellect (’aql) is of significance in the entire Islamic literature which played an important role in the development of all kinds of knowledge, scientific or otherwise, in the Muslim world. In the twentieth century, the Indian Muslim thinker, Iqbal in his Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, pointed out that ijtihad was a dynamic principle in the body of Islam. He claims that much before Francis Bacon the principles of scientific induction were emphasized by the Qur’an, which highlights the importance of observation and experimentation in arriving at certain conclusions. It may also be pointed out that Muslim fuqaha and mufassirun made use of the method of linguistic analysis in interpreting the Quranic injunctions and the sunnah of the Prophet (S). Al-Ghazalis Tahatut al-falasifah is probably the first philosophical treatise that made use of the linguistic analytical method to clarify certain philosophical issues. I personally feel that he is rather maligned than properly understood by both the orthodox and liberal Muslim interpreters of his philosophy. His method of doubt paved the way for a healthy intellectual activity in the Muslim world, but because of historical and social circumstances, it culminated in the stagnation of philosophical and scientific thinking, which later made him a target of criticism by philosophers. 

There was made a distinction between wisdom (hikmah) and knowledge in the pre-Islamic philosophy developed under the influence of Greek thought. In Islam there is no such distinction. Those who made such a distinction led Muslim thought towards un-Islamic thinking. The philosophers such as al-Kindi, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina are considered to be hakims (philosophers) and in this capacity superior to ‘ulama’, and fuqaha This misconception resulted in al-Ghazali’s attack on the philosophers. Islam is a religion that invites its followers to exercise their intellect and make use of their knowledge to attain the ultimate truth (haqq). Muslim thinkers adopted different paths to attain this goal. Those who are called philosophers devoted themselves to logic and scientific method and they were derogated by the Sufis, though some of them, such as Ibn Sina, al-Farabi and al-Ghazali took recourse to the mystic path in their quest of the truth at some stage. As I said earlier, ‘ilm may not be translated as mere knowledge; it should be emphasized that it is also gnosis or ma’rifah. One may find elements of mystic experience in the writings of Muslim philosophers. In Kashf al-mahjub of al-Hujwiri a distinction is made between khabar (information) and nazar (analytic thought). This applies not only to Muslim Sufis but also to most of the Muslim philosophers who sought to attain the ultimate knowledge which could embrace all things, corporeal or divine. In the Western philosophical tradition there is a distinction between the knowledge of the Divine Being and knowledge pertaining to the physical world. But in Islam there is no such distinction. Ma’rifah is ultimate knowledge and it springs from the knowledge of the self (Man ‘arafa nafsahu fa qad ‘arafa Rabbbahu, ‘One who realizes one’s own self realizes his Lord’). This process also includes the knowledge of the phenomenal world. Therefore, wisdom and knowledge which are regarded as two different things in the non-Muslim world are one and the same in the Islamic perspective. 

In the discussion of knowledge, an important question arises as to how one can overcome his doubts regarding certain doctrines about God, the universe, and man. It is generally believed that in Islam, as far as belief is concerned, there is no place for doubting and questioning the existence of God, the prophethood of Hadrat Muhammad (S) and the Divine injunctions, that Islam requires unequivocal submission to its dictates. This general belief is a misconception in the light of Islam’s emphasis on ‘aql. In the matter of the fundamentals of faith (usu-l al-Din), the believer is obliged to accept tawhid, nubuwwah and ma’d (in the Shi’i faith, ‘adl, i.e. Divine Justice, and imamah are also fundamentals of faith) on rational grounds or on the basis of one’s existential experience. This ensures that there is room for doubt and skepticism in Islam before reaching certainty in Iman. The sufis have described iman as consisting of three stages: ‘ilm al-yaqin (certain knowledge),’ayn al-yaqin (knowledge by sight) and haqq al-yaqin (knowledge by the unity of subject and object). The last stage is attainable by an elect few. 

‘Ilm is referred to in many Quranic verses as ‘light’ (nur), and Allah is also described as the ultimate nur. it means that ‘ilm in the general sense is synonymous with the ‘light’ of Allah. This light does not shine for ever for all the believers. If is hidden sometimes by the clouds of doubt arising from the human mind. Doubt is sometimes interpreted in the Quran as darkness, and ignorance also is depicted as darkness in a number of its verses. Allah is depicted as nur, and knowledge is also symbolized as nur. Ignorance is darkness and ma’rifah is light. In the ayat al-kursi Allah says: (Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth ... Allah is the Master of the believers and He guides them out of the darkness into light). Usually darkness is interpreted as unbelief and light as faith in God. There are so many verses in the Quran as well as the traditions of the Prophet (S) that emphasize that light may be attained by those who struggle against darkness. 

Among Muslim philosophers, particularly some Mu’tazilites, like Nazzam, al-Jahiz, Aba Hashim al-Jubbai and others, adopted the path of skepticism. Al-Ghazali was the most eminent among Muslim philosophers who, in his spiritual auto-biography, al-Munqidh min al-dalal, elaborated the path of skepticism which he travelled to attain the ultimate truth. There have been some Muslim thinkers, like Abu Hashim al-Jubba’i, al-Baqillanis al-Nazzam and others, who advocated skepticism in order to arrive at certain religious faith. Skepticism is a philosophy that has three different meanings: denial of all knowledge, agnosticism, and a method to approach certainty. Most of the Muslims philosophers sought the goal of certainty. Skepticism in the general sense of the impossibility of knowledge is not compatible with Islamic teachings. It is acceptable only when it leads from uncertainty to certainty. The skeptical method has two aspects, rejection of all absolute knowledge, and acceptance of the path to overcome uncertainty. Muslim philosophers have followed the second path, because there has been an emphasis on rejecting blind faith. Shaykh al-Mufid (an eminent Shi’i faqih) said that there was a very narrow margin between faith and disbelief in so far as the believer imitated certain theologians. In his view, an imitator is on the verse of unbelief (kufr). 

In Islam ‘ilm is not confined to the acquisition of knowledge only, but also embraces socio-political and moral aspects. Knowledge is not mere information; it requires the believers to act upon their beliefs and commit themselves to the goals which Islam aims at attaining. In brief, I would like to say that the theory of knowledge in the Islamic perspective is not just a theory of epistemology. It combines knowledge, insight, and social action as its ingredients. I would like to cite here a tradition of the Prophet (S) narrated by Amir al-Mu’minin ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib: Once Gabriel came to Adam. He brought with him faith, morality (haya’) and ‘aql (reason) and asked him to choose one of the three. When he chose ‘aql, the others were told by Gabriel to return to heaven, They said that they were ordered by Allah to accompany ‘aql wherever it remained. This indicates how comprehensive are the notions of intellect and knowledge in Islam, and how deeply related they are to faith and the moral faculty.

Continued......

The all-round development of various branches of knowledge pertaining to physical and social phenomena, as well as the process of logical argumentation for justification of Islamic doctrine and deduction of Islamic laws (ahkam) with reference to Qur’anic injunctions and the Prophetic tradition, is indebted to Islam’s notion of ‘ilm. Scientific knowledge, comprising natural and physical sciences, was sought and developed by Muslim scientists and mathematicians vigorously from the beginning of the last decades of the first century of Hijrah. The scientific endeavour found its flowering period with the establishment of the Bayt al-Hikmah in the reign of al-Ma’mun. Undoubtedly the major contributions in philosophy and sciences were made by Iranians, but the myth created by the orientalists that the fundamental sources of Islam, viz. the Qur’an and Sunnah, did not contain scientific and philosophical ideas is totally false. As said earlier, not only the Qur’an and hadith encouraged Muslims or rather made it obligatory for them to pursue truth freely from all possible sources, but also contained certain guiding principles that could provide a secure foundation for the development of religious and secular sciences. Some Prophetic traditions even give priority to learning over performing supererogatory rites of worship. There are several traditions that indicate that a scholar’s sleep is more valuable than an ignorant believer’s journey for pilgrimage (hajj) and participation in holy war, and that the drops of a scholar’s ink are more sacred than the blood of a martyr. Amir al-Mu’minin ‘Ali (’a) said that the reward for piety in the other world would be bestowed upon a believer in proportion to the degree of his intellectual development and his knowledge. 

Islam never maintained that only theology was useful and the empirical sciences useless or harmful. This concept was made common by semi-literate clerics or by the time servers among them who wanted to keep common Muslims in the darkness of ignorance and blind faith so that they would not be able to oppose unjust rulers and resist clerics attached to the courts of tyrants. This attitude resulted in the condemnation of not only empirical science but also ‘ilm al-kalam and metaphysics, which resulted in the decline of Muslims in politics and economy. Even today large segments of Muslim society, both the common man and many clerics suffer from this malady. This unhealthy and anti-knowledge attitude gave birth to some movements which considered elementary books of theology as sufficient for a Muslim, and discouraged the assimilation or dissemination of empirical knowledge as leading to the weakening of faith. 

Apart from Shaykh al-Mufid and other Shi’i scholars, a number of classical Sunni fuqaha and ‘ulama,’ even those considered to be conservative, like Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, regarded emulation or imitation (taqlid) as religiously unauthorized and harmful. Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti held that taqlid was forbidden by both the salaf and the khalaf (early and later generations of scholars). He cited al-Shafi’i’s opposition to taqlid. Ibn Hazm followed the same line. These and many other fuqaha’ and theologians emphasized the exercise of ‘aql and ijtihad as obligatory for the believers. Imam ‘Ali (’a) gave a place of pride to reason even in the matters of religion. Abu ‘Ala’ al-Ma’arri believed that there was no imam except reason. Thus it is obvious that the Shi’ah and Sunnis, not withstanding their differences on several issues, agreed on the role of reason and the necessity of ijtihad. It is unfortunate that some recent movements of Islamic resurgence in the Sunni world, e.g. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Algeria, Sudan etc., are opposed to reason and preach emulation, distorting the role of ijtihad and disregarding even major Salafi theologians. This attitude, they do not realize, is self-contradictory and self defeating for their own cause. It is a good sign that apart from the rejection of ‘aql in recent times by some Sunni quarters, attempts have been made and are still being made to revive the practice of ijtihad and combining social, scientific and secular knowledge with the teaching of theology, fiqh, usul al-fiqh, hadith, ‘ilm al-rijal, kalam and tafsir, whose acquisition is essential for ijtihad in the matters pertaining to the faith and its practice. 

Another myth propagated by the orientalists, that the Arab mind was not akin to philosophizing and that it was the Aryan mind, i.e. of the Iranians, which introduced philosophy in the Muslim world, is equally unfounded and a conspiracy against the history of Muslim philosophy and its significant contribution to the development of sciences which not only benefited Muslim world but also contributed to the enrichment of human learning, culture and civilization. Ironically, despite the claim that the Aryan mind introduced philosophical and scientific thinking and research, Muslim philosophy is called ‘Arab philosophy’ by the orientalists, implying a contradiction inherent in their prejudice against the Semites. In Islam-of course, after the Qur’an and the Prophet’s hadith-’Ali’s sermons and letters, later collected under the title of Nahj al-halaghah, contained the seeds of philosophical and scientific inquiry, and he was an Arab. Similarly, the Mu’tazilah, known as the first rationalists among Muslims, consisted of Arabs. Even the officially recognized first Muslim philosopher, al-Kindi, was an Arab. 

After the decline of philosophical and scientific inquiry in the Muslim east, philosophy and sciences flourished in the Muslim west due to endeavours of the thinkers of Arab origin like Ibn Rushd, Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Bajah, and Ibn Khaldun, the father of sociology and philosophy of history. Ibn Khaldun’s philosophy of history and society is the flowering of early work by Muslim thinkers in the spheres of ethics and political science such as those of Miskawayh, al-Dawwani, and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. The credit for giving serious attention to socio-political philosophy goes to al-Farabi, who wrote books on these issues under the titles of Madinat al-fadilah, Ara’ ahl al-madinat al-fadilah, al-Millah al-fadilah, Fusul al-madang, Sirah Fadilah, K. al-Siyasah al-madaniyyah, etc. 

Muslims never ignored socio-political economic and other problems pertaining to the physical as well as social reality. They contributed richly to human civilization and thought by their bold and free inquiry in various areas of knowledge even at the risk of being condemned as heretics or rather unbelievers. True and firm believers in Islamic creed, like al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Bajah, al-Haytham, Ibn ‘Arabi and Mulla Sadra, and in recent times Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Iqbal and al-Mawdudi were not spared fatwas of kufr by the partisans of blind imitation who were hostile to the principle of ijtihad, research and critical thought. 

Along with the Muslim astronomers, mathematicians, natural scientists and physicians like Ibn Sina, Zakariyya al-Razi, and others who were instrumental in the development of human knowledge and civilization, it would be unjust not to mention the significant contribution of Ikhwan al-Safa (The Brethren Purity) a group of Shi’i-Ismaili scholars and thinkers who wrote original treatises on various philosophical and scientific subjects, an effort which signifies the first attempt to compile an encyclopedia in the civilized world. 

In brief, it may be justifiably claimed that the Islamic theory of knowledge was responsible for blossoming of a culture of free inquiry and rational scientific thinking that also encompassed the spheres of both theory and practice. 

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Index of articles from Al-Tawhid

As I think CS Lewis pointed out in his book “Miracles”, The whole point of a Miracle is that it DOES violate natural laws.  Laws which we are bound but we pray that God will make an exception.

Or as Chesterton pointed out: “It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait”.

We can see God’s rationality and perfection as the just judge, but we sometimes miss that he is a caring and merciful Father.

And that difference - that Fathers don’t act with reason but with love toward their children - is a far larger difference between Christianity and Islam.

In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Islam and Knowledge

Incorporated from the Magazine “Islam: A Global Civilization”, prepared by Islamic Affairs Department, The Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Washington, D.C.
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“He has taught you that which [heretofore] you knew not.”
(Qur’an 2:239)

The Attitude of the Quran and the Prophet toward Knowledge

Islam is a religion based upon knowledge for it is ultimately knowledge of the Oneness of God combined with faith and total commitment to Him that saves man. The text of the Quran is replete with verses inviting man to use his intellect, to ponder, to think and to know, for the goal of human life is to discover the Truth which is none other than worshipping God in His Oneness. The Hadith literature is also full of references to the importance of knowledge. Such sayings of the Prophet as “Seek knowledge even in China”, “Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave”, and “Verily the men of knowledge are the inheritors of the prophets”, have echoed throughout the history of Islam and incited Muslims to seek knowledge wherever it might be found. During most of its history, Islamic civilization has been witness to a veritable celebration of knowledge. That is why every traditional Islamic city possessed public and private libraries and some cities like Cordoba and Baghdad boasted of libraries with over 400,000 books. Such cities also had bookstores, some of which sold a large number of titles. That is also why the scholar has always been held in the highest esteem in Islamic society.

The Integration of the Pre-Islamic Sciences

As Islam spread northward into Syria, Egypt, and the Persian empire, it came face to face with the sciences of antiquity whose heritage had been preserved in centers which now became a part of the Islamic world. Alexandria had been a major center of sciences and learning for centuries. The Greek learning cultivated in Alexandria was opposed by the Byzantine who had burned its library long before the advent of Islam. The tradition of Alexandrian learning did not die, however. It was transferred to Antioch and from there farther east to such cities as Edessa by eastern Christians who stood in sharp opposition to Byzantine and wished to have their own independent centers of learning. Moreover, the Persian king, Shapur I had established Jundishapur in Persia as a second great center of learning matching Antioch. He even invited Indian physicians and mathematicians to teach in this major seat of learning, in addition to the Christian scholars who taught in Syriac as well as the Persians whose medium of instruction was Pahlavi.

Once Muslims established the new Islamic order during the Umayyad period, they turned their attention to these centers of learning which had been preserved and sought to acquaint themselves with the knowledge taught and cultivated in them. They therefore set about with a concerted effort to translate the philosophical and scientific works which were available to them from not only Greek and Syriac (which was the language of eastern Christian scholars) but also from Pahlavi, the scholarly language of pre-Islamic Persia, and even from Sanskrit. Many of the accomplished translators were Christian Arabs such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq’ who was also an outstanding physician, and others Persians such as Ibn Muqaffa’, who played a major role in the creation of the new Arabic prose style conducive to the expression of philosophical and scientific writings. The great movement of translation lasted from the beginning of the 8th to the end of the 9th century, reaching its peak with the establishment of the House of Wisdom (Bayt al hiLmah) by the caliph al-Matmun at the beginning of the 9th century.

The result of this extensive effort of the Islamic community to confront the challenge of the presence of the various philosophies and sciences of antiquity and to understand and digest them in its own terms and according to its own world view was the translation of a vast corpus of writings into Arabic. Most of the important philosophical and scientific works of Aristotle and his school, much of Plato and the Pythagorean school, and the major works of Greek astronomy, mathematics and medicine such as the Almagest of Ptolemy, the Elements of Euclid, and the works of Hippocrates and Galen, were all rendered into Arabic. Further more, important works of astronomy, mathematics and medicine were translated from Pahlavi and Sanskrit. As a result, Arabic became the most important scientific language of the world for many centuries and the depository of much of the wisdom and the sciences of antiquity

The Muslims did not translate the scientific and philosophical works of other civilizations out of fear of political or economic domination but because the structure of Islam itself is based upon the primacy of knowledge. Nor did they consider these forms of knowing as “un-Islamic” as long as they confirmed the doctrine of God’s Oneness which Islam considers to have been at the heart of every authentic revelation from God. Once these sciences and philosophies confirmed the principle of Oneness, the Muslims considered them as their own. They made them part of their world view and began to cultivate the Islamic sciences based on what they had translated, analyzed, criticized, and assimilated, rejecting what was not in conformity with the Islamic perspective.

The Mathematical Sciences and Physics

The Muslim mind has always been attracted to the mathematical sciences in accordance with the “abstract” character of the doctrine of Oneness which lies at the heart of Islam. The mathematical sciences have traditionally included astronomy, mathematics itself and much of what is called physics today. In astronomy the Muslims integrated the astronomical traditions of the Indians, Persians, the ancient Near East and especially the Greeks into a synthesis which began to chart a new chapter in the history of astronomy from the 8th century onward. The Almagest of Ptolemy, whose very name in English reveals the Arabic origin of its Latin translation, was thoroughly studied and its planetary theory criticized by several astronomers of both the eastern and western lands of Islam leading to the major critique of the theory by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and his students, especially Qutb al Din al-Shirazi, in the 13th century.

The Muslims also observed the heavens carefully and discovered many new stars. The book on stars of ‘Abdal-Rahman al-Sufi was in fact translated into Spanish by Alfonso X el Sabio and had a deep influence upon stellar toponymy in European languages. Many star names in English such as Aldabaran still recall their Arabic origin. The Muslims carried out many fresh observations which were contained in astronomical tables called zij. One of the acutest of these observers was al-Battani whose work was followed by numerous others. The zij of al-Ma’mun observed in Baghdad, the Hakimite zij of Cairo, the Toledan Tables of al Zarqali and his associates, the Il-Khanid zij of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi observed in Maraghah, and the zij of Ulugh-Beg from Samarqand are among the most famous Islamic astronomical tables. They wielded a great deal of influence upon Western astronomy up to the time of Tycho Brahe. The Muslims were in fact the first to create an astronomical observatory as a scientific institution, this being the observatory of Maraghah in Persia established by al-Tusi. This was indirectly the model for the later European observatories. Many astronomical instruments were developed by Muslims to carry out observation, the most famous being the astrolabe. There existed even mechanical astrolabes perfected by Ibn Samh which must be considered as the ancestor of the mechanical clock.

Astronomical observations also had practical applications including not only finding the direction of Makkah for prayers, but also devising almanacs (the word itself being of Arabic origin). The Muslims also applied their astronomical knowledge to questions of time keeping and the calendar. The most exact solar calendar existing to this day is the Jalali calendar devised under the direction of ‘Umar Khayyam in the 12th century and still in use in Persia and Afghanistan.

As for mathematics proper, like astronomy, it received its direct impetus from the Quran not only because of the mathematical structure related to the text of the Sacred Book, but also because the laws of inheritance delineated in the Quran require rather complicated mathematical solutions. Here again Muslims began by integrating Greek and Indian mathematics. The first great Muslim mathematician, al-Khwarazmi, who lived in the 9th century, wrote a treatise on arithmetic whose Latin translation brought what is known as Arabic numerals to the West. To this day guarismo, derived from his name, means figure or digit in Spanish while algorithm is still used in English. Al-Khwarazmi is also the author of the first book on algebra. This science was developed by Muslims on the basis of earlier Greek and Indian works of a rudimentary nature. The very name algebra comes from the first part of the name of the book of al-Khwarazmi, entitled Kitab al-jabr wa’l-muqabalah. Abu Kamil al-Shuja’ discussed algebraic equations with five unknowns. The science was further developed by such figures as al-Karaji until it reached its peak with Khayyam who classified by kind and class algebraic equations up to the third degree.

The Muslims also excelled in geometry as reflected in their art. The brothers Banu Musa who lived in the 9th century may be said to be the first outstanding Muslim geometers while their contemporary Thabit ibn Qurrah used the method of exhaustion, giving a glimpse of what was to become integral calculus. Many Muslim mathematicians such as Khayyam and al-Tusi also dealt with the fifth postulate of Euclid and the problems which follow if one tries to prove this postulate within the confines of Eucledian geometry.

Another branch of mathematics developed by Muslims is trigonometry which was established as a distinct branch of mathematics by al-Biruni. The Muslim mathematicians, especially al-Battani, Abu’l-Wafa’, Ibn Yunus and Ibn al-Haytham, also developed spherical astronomy and applied it to the solution of astronomical problems.

The love for the study of magic squares and amicable numbers led Muslims to develop the theory of numbers. Al-Khujandi discovered a particular case of Fermat’s theorem that “the sum of two cubes cannot be another cube”, while al Karaji analyzed arithmetic and geometric progressions such as:

1**3+2**3+3**3+...+n**3=(1+2+3+...+n)** 2

Al-Biruni also dealt with progressions while Ghiyath al-Din Jamshid al-Kashani brought the study of number theory among Muslims to its peak.

In the field of physics the Muslims made contributions in especially three domains. The first was the measurement of specific weights of objects and the study of the balance following upon the work of Archimedes. In this domain the writings of al-Biruni and al-Khazini stand out. Secondly they criticized the Aristotelian theory of projectile motion and tried to quantify this type of motion. The critique of Ibn Sina, Abu’l-Barakat al-Baghdad), Ibn Bajjah and others led to the development of the idea of impetus and momentum and played an important role in the criticism of Aristotelian physics in the West up to the early writings of Galileo. Thirdly there is the field of optics in which the Islamic sciences produced in Ibn al-Haytham (the Latin Alhazen) who lived in the 11th century, the greatest student of optics between Ptolemy and Witelo. Ibn al-Haytham’s main work on optics, the Kitab al-manazir, was also well known in the West as Thesaurus opticus. Ibn al-Haytham solved many optical problems, one of which is named after him, studied the property of lenses, discovered the camera obscura, explained correctly the process of vision, studied the structure of the eye, and explained for the first time why the sun and the moon appear larger on the horizon. His interest in optics was carried out two centuries later by Qutb al-Din al Shirazi and Kamal al-Din al-Farisi. It was Qutb al Din who gave the first correct explanation of the formation of the rainbow.

It is important to recall that in physics as in many other fields of science the Muslims observed, measured and carried out experiments. They must be credited with having developed what came to be known later as the experimental method.

Muslim Achievements in Science

Muslim mathematicians devised and developed algebra
Al-Khawarazmi used Arabic numerals which came to the west through his work-9th century.
Al-Razi described amd treated smallbox-10th century
Ibn Sina diagnosed and treated meningities-11th century
Ibn al-Haytham discovered the camera obscura- 11th century
Al-Birini described the Ganges Valley as a sedimentary basin-11th century
Muslims built the first observartory as a scientific institution-13th century
Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi explained the cause of the rainbow- 13th century
Ibn al-Nafis described the minor ciculation of the blood- 14th century.
Al-Kashani invented a computer machine- 15th century

The Medical Sciences

The hadiths of the Prophet contain many instructions concerning health including dietary habits; these sayings became the foundation of what came to be known later as “Prophetic medicine” (al-tibb al-nabawi ). Because of the great attention paid in Islam to the need to take care of the body and to hygiene, early in Islamic history Muslims began to cultivate the field of medicine turning once again to all the knowledge that was available to them from Greek, Persian and Indian sources. At first I the great physicians among Muslims were mostly | Christian but by the 9th century Islamic medicine, I properly speaking, was born with the appearance of the major compendium, The Paradise of Wisdom (Firdaws al-hilmah ) by ‘All ibn Rabban al Tabari, who synthesized the Hippocratic and Galenic traditions of medicine with those of India and Persia. His student, Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al-Razi (the Latin Rhazes), was one of the greatest of physicians who emphasized clinical medicine and observation. He was a master of prognosis and psychosomatic medicine and also of anatomy. He was the first to identify and treat smallpox, to use alcohol as an antiseptic and make medical use of mercury as a purgative. His Kitab al-hawi (Continens) is the longest work ever written in Islamic medicine and he was recognized as a medical authority in the West up to the 18th century.

The greatest of all Muslim physicians, how ever, was Ibn Sina who was called “the prince of physicians” in the West. He synthesized Islamic medicine in his major masterpiece, al-Qanun fi’l tibb (The Canon of Medicine), which is the most famous of all medical books in history. It was the final authority in medical matters in Europe for nearly six centuries and is still taught wherever Islamic medicine has survived to this day in such lands as Pakistan and India. Ibn Sina discovered many drugs and identified and treated several ailments such as meningitis but his greatest contribution was in the philosophy of medicine. He created a system of medicine within which medical practice could be carried out and in which physical and psychological factors; drugs and diet are combined.

After Ibn Sina, Islamic medicine divided into several branches. In the Arab world Egypt remained a major center for the study of medicine, especially ophthalmology which reached its peak at the court of al-Hakim. Cairo possessed excellent hospitals which also drew physicians from other lands including Ibn Butlan, author of the famous Calendar of Health, and Ibn Nafis who discovered the lesser or pulmonary circulation of the blood long before Michael Servetus, who is usually credited with the discovery.

As for the western lands of Islam including Spain, this area was likewise witness to the appearance of outstanding physicians such as Sa’d al Katib of Cordoba who composed a treatise on gynecology, and the greatest Muslim figure in surgery, the 12th century Abu’l-Qasim al-Zahrawi (the Latin Albucasis) whose medical masterpiece Kitab al-tasrif was well known in the West as Concessio. One must also mention the Ibn Zuhr family which produced several outstanding physicians and Abu Marwan ‘Abd al-Malik who was the Maghrib’s most outstanding clinical physician. The well known Spanish philosophers, Ibn Tufayl and Ibn Rushd, were also outstanding physicians.

Islamic medicine continued in Persia and the other eastern lands of the Islamic world under the influence of Ibn Sina with the appearance of major Persian medical compendia such as the Treasury of Sharaf al-Din al-Jurjani and the commentaries upon the Canon by Fakhr al-Din al-Razi and Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi. Even after the Mongol invasion, medical studies continued as can be seen in the work of Rashid al-Din Fadlallah, and for the first time there appeared translations of Chinese medicine and interest in acupuncture among Muslims. The Islamic medical tradition was revived in the Safavid period when several diseases such as whooping cough were diagnosed and treated for the first time and much attention was paid to pharmacology. Many Persian doctors such as ‘Ayn al-Murk of Shiraz also traveled to India at this time to usher in the golden age of Islamic medicine in the subcontinent and to plant the seed of the Islamic medical tradition which continues to flourish to this day in the soil of that land.

The Ottoman world was also an arena of great medical activity derived from the heritage of Ibn Sina. The Ottoman Turks were especially known for the creation of major hospitals and medical centers. These included not only units for the care of the physically ill, but also wards for patients with psychological ailments. The Ottomans were also the first to receive the influence of modern European medicine in both medicine and pharmacology.

In mentioning Islamic hospitals it is necessary to mention that all major Islamic cities had hospitals; some like those of Baghdad were teaching hospitals while some like the Nasiri hospital of Cairo had thousands of beds for patients with almost any type of illness. Hygiene in these hospitals was greatly emphasized and al-Razi had even written a treatise on hygiene in hospitals. Some hospitals also specialized in particular diseases including psychological ones. Cairo even had a hospital which specialized in patients having insomnia.

Islamic medical authorities were also always concerned with the significance of pharmacology and many important works such as the Canon have whole books devoted to the subject. The Muslims became heir not only to the pharmacological knowledge of the Greeks as contained in the works of Dioscorides, but also the vast herbal pharmacopias of the Persians and Indians. They also studied the

Medical effects of many drug, especially herbs, themselves. The greatest contributions in this field came from Maghribi scientists such as Ibn Juljul, Ibn al-Salt and the most original of Muslim pharmacologists, the 12th century scientist, al Ghafiqi, whose Book of Simple Drugs provides the best descriptions of the medical properties of plants known to Muslims. Islamic medicine combined the use of drugs for medical purposes with dietary considerations and a whole lifestyle derived from the teachings of Islam to create a synthesis which has not died out to this day despite the introduction of modern medicine into most of the Islamic world.

Natural History and Geography
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IslamiCity

Natural History and Geography

The vast expanse of the Islamic world enabled the Muslims to develop natural history based not only on the Mediterranean world, as was the case of the Greek natural historians, but also on most of the Eurasian and even African land masses. Knowledge of minerals, plants and animals was assembled from areas as far away as the Malay world and synthesized for the first time by Ibn Sina in his Kitab al-Shifa’(The Book of Healing). Such major natural historians as al-Mas’udi inter twined natural and human history. Al-Biruni likewise in his study of India turned to the natural history and even geology of the region, describing correctly the sedimentary nature of the Ganges basin. He also wrote the most outstanding Muslim work on mineralogy.

As for botany, the most important treatises were composed in the 12th century in Spain with the appearance of the work of al-Ghafiqi. This is also the period when the best known Arabic work on agriculture, the Kitab al-falahah, was written. The Muslims also showed much interest in zoology especially in horses as witnessed by the classical text of al-Jawaliqi, and in falcons and other hunting birds. The works of al-Jahiz and al Damiri are especially famous in the field of zoology and deal with the literary, moral and even theological dimensions of the study of animals as well as the purely zoological aspects of the subject. This is also true of a whole class of writings on the “wonders of creation” of which the book of Abu Yabya al-Qazwini, the ‘Aja’ib al-makhluqat (The Wonders of Creation) is perhaps the most famous.

Likewise in geography, Muslims were able to extend their horizons far beyond the world of Ptolemy. As a result of travel over land and by sea and the facile exchange of ideas made possible by the unified structure of the Islamic world and the hajj which enables pilgrims from all over the Islamic world to gather and exchange ideas in addition to visiting the House of God, a vast amount of knowledge of areas from the Pacific to the Atlantic was assembled. The Muslim geographers starting with al-Khwarazmi, who laid the foundation of this science among Muslims in the 9th century, began to study the geography of practically the whole globe minus the Americas, dividing the earth into the traditional seven climes each of which they studied carefully from both a geographical and climactic point of view. They also began to draw maps some of which reveal with remarkable accuracy many features such as the origin of the Nile, not discovered in the West until much later. The foremost among Muslim geographers was Abu ‘Abdallah al-Idrisi, who worked at the court of Roger II in Sicily and who dedicated his famous book, Kitab al-rujari (The Book of Roger) to him. His maps are among the great achievements of Islamic science. It was in fact with the help of Muslim geographers and navigators that Magellan crossed the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean. Even Columnbus made use of their knowledge in his discovery of America.

Chemistry

The very name alchemy as well as its derivative chemistry comes from the Arabic al-kimiya’. ‘The Muslims mastered Alexandrian and even certain elements of Chinese alchemy and very early in their history, produced their greatest alchemist, Jabir ibn Hayyan (the Latin Geber) who lived in the 8th century. Putting the cosmological and symbolic aspects of alchemy aside, one can assert that this art led to much experimentation with various materials and in the hands of Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al-Razi was converted into the science of chemistry. To this day certain chemical instruments such as the alembic (al-’anbiq) still bear the original Arabic names and the mercury-sulphur theory of Islamic alchemy remains as the foundation of the acid-base theory of chemistry. A1-Razi division of materials into animal, vegetable and mineral is still prevalent and a vast body of knowledge of materials accumulated by Islamic alch- mists and chemists has survived over the century’ in both East and West. For example the use of dyes in objects of Islamic art ranging from carpets to miniatures or the making of glass have much to do with this branch of learning which the West learn completely from Islamic sources since alchem was not studied and practiced in the West before the translation of Arabic texts into Latin in the 11th century.

Technology

Islam inherited the millennial experience in various forms of technology from the peoples who entered the fold of Islam and the nations which became part of Dar al-islam. A wide range of technological knowledge, from the building of water wheels by the Romans to the underground water system by the Persians, became part and parcel of the technology of the newly founded order. Muslims also imported

China and whose technology they later transmitted to the West. They also developed many forms of technology on the basis of earlier existing knowledge such as the certain kinds of technology from the Far East such as paper which they brought from metallurgical art of making the famous Damascene swords, an art which goes back to the making of steel several thousand years before on the Iranian Plateau. Likewise Muslims developed new architectural techniques of vaulting, methods of ventilation, preparations of dyes, techniques of weaving, technologies related to irrigation and numerous other forms of technology, some of which survive to this day.

In general Islamic civilization emphasized the harmony between man and nature as seen in the traditional design of Islamic cities. Maximum use was made of natural elements and forces, and men built in harmony with, not in opposition to nature. Some of the Muslim technological feats such as dams which have survived for over a millenium, domes which can withstand earthquakes, and steel which reveals incredible metallurgical know-how, attest to the exceptional attainment of Muslims in many fields of technology. In fact it was a vastly superior technology that first impressed the Crusaders in their unsuccessful attempt to capture the Holy Land and much of this technology was brought back by the Crusaders to the rest of Europe.

Architecture

One of the major achievements of Islamic civilization is architecture which combines technology and art. The great masterpieces of Islamic architecture from the Cordoba Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem to the Taj Mahal in India display this perfect wedding between the artistic principles of Islam and remarkable technological know-how. Much of the outstanding medieval architecture of the West is in fact indebted to the techniques of Islamic architecture. When one views the Notre Dame in Paris or some other Gothic cathedral, one is reminded of the building techniques which traveled from Muslim Cordoba northward. Gothic arches as well as interior courtyards’ of so many medieval and Renaissance European structures remind the viewer of the Islamic architectural examples from which they originally drew. In fact the great medieval European architectural tradition is one of the elements of Western civilization most directly linked with the Islamic world, while the presence of Islamic architecture can also be directly experienced in the Moorish style found not only in Spain and Latin America, but in the southwestern United States as well.

Left: One of the most important scientific instruments developed by Muslims was the astrolab which was also used widely in the west until modern time.

Right: This Turkish miniature depicts a group of Muslim astronomers, who were the first astronomers in history to work in group

The Influence of Islamic Science and Learning Upon the West

The oldest university in the world which is still functioning is the eleven hundred-year-old Islamic university of Fez, Morocco, known as the Qarawiyyin. This old tradition of Islamic learning influenced the West greatly through Spain. In this land where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived for the most part peacefully for many centuries, translations began to be made in the 11Ith century mostly in Toledo of Islamic works into Latin often through the intermediary of Jewish scholars most of whom knew Arabic and often wrote in Arabic. As a result of these translations, Islamic thought and through it much of Greek thought became known to the West and Western schools of learning began to flourish. Even the Islamic educational system was emulated in Europe and to this day the term chair in a university reflects the Arabic kursi (literally seat) upon which a teacher would sit to teach his students in the madrasah (school of higher learning). As European civilization grew and reached the high Middle Ages, there was hardly a field of learning or form of art, whether it was literature or architecture, where there was not some influence of Islam present. Islamic learning became in this way part and parcel of Western civilization even if with the advent of the Renaissance, the West not only turned against its own medieval past but also sought to forget the long relation it had had with the Islamic world, one which was based on intellectual respect despite religious opposition.

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Credits
Incorporated from the Magazine “Islam: A Global Civilization”, prepared by Islamic Affairs Department, The Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Washington, D.C.

Right Ali from Saudi Arabia one of the most backward places on earth untill millions of westerners were imported to modernize the place with oil money.Muslim Spain was a backwater until it expelled or converted its Muslims and Jews.Whatever Islam made intellectually was on the base of pagan, Jewish and Christian thought and scholarship The Islamic countries untill recently had large Christian and Jewish populations which did the heavy commercial and intelletual lifting for Islamic countries.This is still true today,as the the Christian and Jewish populations decreased Islam stayed centuries behind the west.Most Islamic countries are stll third world backwaters which send their students west for training and depend on other counties both western and eastern for workers and technology.

Salaams Ali. May Allah (swt) bless you for your effort in defending the one true religion.

For all other people of the darkness, take heed or there will soon come a time in your miserable transgressing lives when your ‘brilliant’ accomplishments will not save you from the fire. Then we’ll see who has the last laugh. Cheers.

Personally, I don’t get too worked up about the Mohammedans.  There are two rather large oceans seperating my “homeland” from theirs…

HOWEVER, I do have to worry about the continued Yankee Puritan influence in my “homeland”, eg no alcohol sales on Sundays here in Calhoun County, Alabama.

So, Mohammedans destroyed two ugly buildings in New York City six years ago...And that should concern me how?  Death and destruction are evils, but why should I be so focused on those evils when they have no real effect on my “homeland"/community.  It is common knowledge that Mohammedans operate with an entirely different set of moral standards than those of us in the [formally] Christian “West”; this knowledge has been common since the first raids on Christian communities of the Near East some 1,400 years ago.  I’m confident the navy could sink the boats these bastards would be on if they ever decided to invade, meanwhile fighting them “over there” makes less sence than even volunteering to be the visiting in some sporting event.

On this Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I leave you with:

VIVA LA VIRGEN!!!

VIVA LA IGLESIA!!!

It is a wonderful thing that we can have this spirited discussion of who is a better scientist in this land of the Nuclear Bomb, particularly when nyookyoularism is such a hot topic in the Muslim lands as well.

I think I’d rather spend my time roasting in Hell pondering the artistic accomplishments of both cultures, a venue which saw much cross-fertilization to good effect.

But , to be sure, the most profound summation of this Alice in Wonderland Endeavor can be found in the victorious court of Christian Spain, when Columbus blundered on all that cash in the Americas only to se the Great Christian King boot the Jews and Moors from the premises, setting that nation back a tad. Then, just to contribute some more good sense to one’s self-destruction, after adding the trade largesse of the Low Countries to their coffers, cornering the market on both East and West Indies, we find the Loyal Christian Monarch going to war with his Protestant Enemies, thus setting the Nation back even more.

This splitting of hairs over who has the bigger God finds it’s highest expression in the splitting of atoms and one hopes that some form of Pagan thought will remain for rediscovery out of the rubble all you proud theological warriors are adept at creating. With you folks, one does not need any notions of hell because you are so good at creating it right here on earth. Too bad Anti-Wankerism aint a religion. That is a scorched earth crusade I could get wholly behind.

No wonder Spinoza was a mite gloomy.

This is one of the most ignorant essays I’ve read on Taki’s Top Drawer. First off, I just want to say that I am not anti-religion—I am in fact a Quaker, who regularly attends meeting house. So my comments about Christian traditions are not out of any atheistic persuasion or from the perspective of trying to defend non-Christian religions.

As many have pointed out, Catholic authorities opposed, through persecution and law, scientific investigation throughout Europe well into the seventeenth century. This is just common knowledge, of course, so that whereas for example the Greek’s were dissecting the human body before Christ, early modern anatomists such as the Italian Vesalius had to dig up corpses illegally from graveyards just to do their work.

The silliest thing about the article, which appallingly is part of a published book (!), is the discussion of natural law. The pope’s criticism of Islam is identical to the Catholic critique of almost all Protestant sects, with the exception of Anglicanism. The Pope, an accomplished theologian, is doubtless aware of this. Alas, Robert Spencer, who seems to be a Catholic, albeit incredibly uninformed, is obviously not aware of this fact.

I should have stopped reading after about the third paragraph when he wrote that Muslims don’t believe that God is bound by reason and natural law. Catholicism has had its own well known adherents to this position—called by theologians voluntarism—such as Duns Scotus. But voluntarism really gets going with the Calvinists and Puritans, who believed that it was heresy to think that God’s will could ever be restricted by reason or natural law. For them, it was like saying that nature itself was more powerful than God. What was important was God’s will, which was all powerful and could alter natural laws at command. Now note that the Protestants started saying this at precisely the time that modern empirical science is beginning in the Protestant kingdoms in the Low Countries and Germany and in England and Scotland. For your information, the Protestants, not the Catholics, contributed much more to the beginning stages of early modern scientific discourse—both in natural philosophy and political philosophy. In other words, modern science has been very compatible with Protestant voluntarism, which is indistinguishable from what you describe in Islam. Thus you’ll just have to look at some other reason why the Muslims supposedly did so poorly at science. It has nothing to do with religious believe per se.

(one other question that’s been on my mind: if half of humanity is someday wiped out by scientific and technological advance (nuclear bombs, carbon emissions, genetically engineered pathogens) for example, and you happen to survive, would you be willing to re-evaluate your idea that scientific discoveries are the sign of the superior civilization?)

<<First off, I just want to say that I am not anti-religion—I am in fact a Quaker>>

I literally burst out in laughter when I read that line!!!

I haven’t read anything that funny since Peter Ramus’ last post…

Andrew Capp:

Thanks for engaging with the substance of my post. Nice to know that religious bigotry is not only directed at non-Christians. Oh that’s right, you presumably wouldn’t consider any of the peace churches to be Christians, so fair enough.

Justin Raimondo invited people over to this web-page a while back, and while I enjoy Paul Gottfried’s essays, stuff like this piece by Robert Spenser is little better than what’s published on NRO or the Weekly Standard. Misinformed and ingnorant.

@Madrid

I’m not the one that started off a post with the ridiculous claim of not being “anti-religion” by admitting to being a Quaker!

Everything after that can be dismissed as someone that is not serious about the Truth.

Would you take me seriously if I started off a post with the line “I’m not anti-Protestant Reformation, in fact I attend the Tridentine Mass every Sunday and on other Holy Days of Obligation”?

But, I am not here to debate Quakerism, so I will
leave it at that.

Andrew Capp:

You really are ridiculous—as if it was some dishonor to “admit” to being a Quaker.  My point was that I am not approaching such issues either from the perspective of an atheist (who tends to see all religions as evil) or a Muslim (who would have an obvious stake in refuting Spencer’s bigotry). As for your own bigotry, something tells me you are an American Catholic, that peculiar strain of Catholicism that, in contrast to other Catholics around the world, has continually to prove to his skeptical fellow (Protestant) citizens that he is just as loyal to the state and as chauvinistic as they are. Meanwhile, he has had to go into denial about exactly how suspicious Protestant America still is of his religion, how people from certain sections of the country would sooner spit on a Catholic than look at him, how the founding fathers harbored a deep and abiding hatred his religion, how they imbibed from their mother’s milk a firm belief in the evils of papistry and the anti-Christ of that Romish religion.

Funny enough, I am actually employed, in some sense, by the Catholic Church. I teach at a Catholic university, and I have an enormous respect for the Catholic intellectual tradition, which I am willing to wager I know as much about as you do.
with atheistic re

Robert Spencer stated:

“ but it is nevertheless a historical fact that modern science took its presuppositions from Christianity, and that Islam gave modern science no impetus at all.”

I’ve scarcely ever read a more full of rubbish statement as that.  Modern science as we know it is reputed to have started with the ancient Greeks; but then, there were the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians and other cultures of antiquity that we don’t know much about given that we have a Anglo-centric view of history that is Helleno-centric to the exclusion of the ancient accomplishments of the peoples that inhabited the lands that are now China and India.  And, I might add, the Moslem world, during the Dark and Middle Ages, was the repository of that Greek learning and they, the Moslems, also advanced medicine, mathematics and other arts while “Christian” Europe wallowed in fear, superstition and backwardness.

It wasn’t until the Reformation, rejection of the established religious hierarchy in Rome, a major impediment if there ever was one to scientific thought, that the “Enlightenment” happened or could have happened; that is the repudiation of the oppression, care for an auto de fe, and outright ongoing criminal activity of the Catholic Church.  Care to “buy” and indulgence?  How about the Borgia Popes and numerous murderous others???

To be more precise and succinct, my definition of Christianity: An ethical philosophy corrupted by the Church.  Oh, and another question: “What’s the definition of a religious cult? Everybody’s religion except mine.” Please read major sarcasm and irony into that question’s answer.

Here’s an interesting course syllabus on the origins of science.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/gregory/msc/handouts/HO01-Ori.doc

Your above listed statement makes all that follows suspect, not a good way to start an essay.  Remember, saying “it is a historical fact” doesn’t make it so.

<<you are an American Catholic, that peculiar strain of Catholicism that, in contrast to other Catholics around the world, has continually to prove to his skeptical fellow (Protestant) citizens that he is just as loyal to the state and as chauvinistic as they are. Meanwhile, he has had to go into denial about exactly how suspicious Protestant America still is of his religion, how people from certain sections of the country would sooner spit on a Catholic than look at him, how the founding fathers harbored a deep and abiding hatred his religion, how they imbibed from their mother’s milk a firm belief in the evils of papistry and the anti-Christ of that Romish religion.>>

You could not have been more wrong about me.

I am an Appalachian Catholic.

I am not loyal to the government of the United States of America.

I am quite aware as to how suspicious the “Quaqueros” (as the Spanish called all Protestants) are of the One True [Catholic] Faith.  Here in the predominantly Protestant South, I have seen Catholic churches vandalized, the Faith preached against in public schools, my mother even has memories of having rather powerful firecrackers thrown at her and the family on their way to Mass on occasion.

Also, I have no love for the “Founding Fathers” of America - the USofA is Revolution, a revolt against the Kingship of Christ, no better than Revoultionary France.

As for your teaching at a “Catholic” University, I am not surprised…

<<Remember, saying “it is a historical fact” doesn’t make it so.>>

You should heed your own advice.

“You should heed your own advice.

Posted by Andrew Capp on Dec 12, 2007.”

Pray tell what did I say that was a historical fact that you disagree with???

<

To quote:

<<Modern science as we know it is reputed to have
started with the ancient Greeks>>

<<the established religious hierarchy in Rome, a major impediment if there ever was one to scientific thought>>

<<the Moslem world, during the Dark and Middle Ages, was the repository of that Greek learning and they, the Moslems, also advanced medicine, mathematics and other arts while “Christian” Europe wallowed in fear, superstition and backwardness.>>

To all the ignorant anticatholic bigots may I suggest Dr. Thomas Woods book How The Catholic Church Invented Western Civilization.Mr. Spencer hits a home run with this esay by the way.

I’m delighted that most of the writebackers so far fault sharply Spencer for his foolish piece of bigotry.  Because the supposed bovine stupidity of Turks is singled out, Mr. Spencer needs to tell us if he’s in the pay of The Black Hand. 

1. The Theological Issue: The Christian-Jewish God is also unfettered.  He could do as he would.  It is more correct to say that in His essence, existence, and nature, He is pure caritas.  For Him to oppose caritas would be for him to oppose His very being, which includes His intellect and will.  In Him “can” is subordinate to “ought” and proceeds out of “ought”.

The absolute sovereignty of God, in the sense Spencer means it, is also hyper-Calvinist (look up that term!).

2. Now the dubious and the erroneous:

More than two hundred years after the construction of the famed Blue Mosque, W. Eton, for many years a resident in Turkey and Russia, found that Turkish architects still could not calculate the lateral pressures of curves. Nor could they understand why the catenary curve, so useful in building ships, could also be useful in drawing blueprints for cupolas. Very dubious.  Just who in hell is W. Eton, and where did he say this?  Did the people that built the Taj Mahal learn how to do it from the back of a Cracker Jacks box?  Point of fact, they mastered the art of the dome, an art lost to the West until Filippo Brunelleschi.  True, those “backward” Musselmen might have learned it from the Byzantines, who might learned it from the pagan Romans.  But that to date wants proof.

For the record, Mathematics isn’t a science; it’s a humanity.  And medicine and technology are arts, not natural sciences. Ever since the first humanoid looked at a rock and imagined a scraper, the arts and humanities have obliged imagination, not just rationality.

Mr. Spencer and his fellow denigrators of Islam are obliged to tell us one single original technological achievement or mathematical advance made before Commodore Perry and 1850 by the Japanese or Koreans.  Are we to regard them as “backward”?  Culture, be it a humanity or a natural science, can be shared.  And those with whom it is shared often can do better than the originators.  Look up the history, Mr. Spencer, of videotape, the camera, the compact disc, the DVD, and an number of other electronic toys, and then remember who made them affordable.  Ditto the fuel efficient car.

The upshot of Spencer’s bigotry is that nothing much good can be said about Islam – which means, among other considerations, that either he’s never been to the Alhambra, or doesn’t want us to know about it. ( And nothing there is derivative from the West.)

It is a non sequitur to argue that because Allah can do anything, Muslims can do nothing. 

Hermes has done the rest in exposing the errors.

3. Now for the odiously immoral:

The reign of Suleiman the Magnificent may be memorable for its wealth of gorgeously illustrated manuscripts and princely paraphernalia, but for no items worth mentioning from the viewpoint of [natural] science and technology.
We Westerners are not the people to judge the wonder workings of natural science and technology.  This matter should be submitted to a jury of 12— 6 from Hiroshima, 6 from Nagasaki, and maybe 3 alternates from Dresden, just to make it “multicultural”.

Mr. Spencer fancies himself an expert on Islam.  Would he care to tell us the Islamic view on killing children (aka “abortion") and homosexuality?  Would he care to tell us the only countries, other than Latin American, which support the Holy See at UN conferences on the family?

4. Now the practical. 

What does Mr. Spencer suggest we do about Islam?  Because his analysis is so close the the Reichspropagandaministerium’s analysis of Poles and Russians, I suspect a road that leads to Auschwitz and Srebrenica.  Mr. Spencer should be frank about what his proposal is.  When I lived in Germany, many veterans told me, “Hitler told us Operation Barbarossa would be a piece of cake [heard that before?], because the Russians were subhumans [and thus run with their tail between their legs at Nazi “shock and awe”].  We found out that these ‘subhumans’ could shoot pretty well.” The French in Algeria found out that the supposedly backward Muslims could shoot pretty well too.  Ditto the Israelis in Lebanon and the Gringos in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Seems like this “backward” bunch has mastered the art of 4th Generation War.  We better open our Van Creveld and William Lind and master it too.  And technology is no advantage in 4GW.  It took only box-cutters on Sept 11. And don’t forget that people denigrated as “gooks” defeated a very advanced techological civilization led by a Ford Motor company’s former CED and his “wizkids”.

Why is Taki dot Com presenting a view of Islam that is identitcal to the Neoconservatives’?

Islam feeds off decadent societies.  The West should get rid of its decadence.  Before we take the splinter out of Islam’s eye, let’s take the log out of the West’s.

And dealing with Islam is Europe’s problem and Europe’s business, and maybe the Philippines and India’s.  It ain’t the US of A’s.  To coin a phrase, reverse Jihad isn’t worth an American life or an American dollar.

Andrew Capp,
<<Modern science as we know it is reputed to have started with the ancient Greeks>>
I did not make an absolute statement of historical fact, I was merely repeating what is a commonly held understanding about the Greeks’ contributions to modern scientific thought.  Did you happen notice the word “reputed” in my statement???  Guys like you are blinded by your faith; that which you accept without question.  How people like you can accept ancient tribal beliefs and gods is beyond my comprehension.  This is the 21st century you know. Those that can believe such absurdities are quite capable of committing atrocities as a wise old wag once said.
<<the established religious hierarchy in Rome, a major impediment if there ever was one to scientific thought>>
How many great thinkers in the scientific bent were persecuted by the Catholic Church?  Give me a break Andy.
<<the Moslem world, during the Dark and Middle Ages, was the repository of that Greek learning and they, the Moslems, also advanced medicine, mathematics and other arts while “Christian” Europe wallowed in fear, superstition and backwardness.>>
That has been accepted by historians that specialize in that segment of human recorded history.  Once again your religo-centric, bigoted view of the world precedes you.  Yes, people like you are bigoted, narrow minded.  Religious fanatics often are, or maybe there is no difference.
Jack,
“ignorant anticatholic bigots”, you sir remind me of the Zionist that scream anti-Semitism every time Israel is called for their duplicitous behavior.  An honest telling of the history of the Catholic Church is not a pretty picture.  Sure, there are and were great thinkers that are/were part of the Catholic hierarchy, but let us be honest and not full of self-righteousness, sel- serving hypocrisy.

Mr.DeMan with all due respect you are a anticatholic bigot.Islam is a mishmash of early Christian heresey, Jewish tradition and Arabic paganism.The so called golden age of Islam waas one of slavery and the oppression of Christians who were used as slaves, dimmini for taxes and women for the harem.These countries were heavily Christian with a large Jewish minority as well.Mr. Spencer proves the large part that Christians and Jews played in any muslim advancement, as well earlier pagan culture.
Modern Islam without Christians and Jews is still a scientific and intellectual backwater.All it can do is surpress freedom of thought and use suicide bombers to kill people.The Pope at Regensberg was calling for honest dicussion and freedom of religion which Islam seems intent on surpressing forever.

<<you sir remind me of the Zionist that scream anti-Semitism every time Israel is called for their duplicitous behavior.>>

You make an error.

When one criticizes an Israeli government policy, they are not being “anti-Semitic”, but “anti-specific Israeli government policy”.  If one is against the government of Israel in general, that person is “anti-Israeli government”.  If one is against the concept of the State of Israel, you could say that person is “anti-Israel”.  Only if one were to criticize the Semitic race could you cry “anti-Semitism”.  On the other hand, when someone attacks the Catholic Church, that is, indeed, “anti-Catholicism”.  The absurdity of a Zionist crying out “anti-Semitism” when one criticizes Israel would be matched by a Catholic that would cry out “anti-Semitism” when the Catholic Church is attacked.  In both cases the direct Head is “Semitic” (Christ the King), but His Semiticism is not what’s being criticized, but policy of either the modern state we call Israel, or the Holy Catholic Church.

I don’t understand what the argument is about:
1. In western “civilization” they have long abandoned christ and christian principles, and preferred anything else, be it communism, trotskyism, fascism, atheism, militarism, and zionist neofascism aka neocons.
2. In the zionist regime they have abandoned Jewish teachings like the 10 commandments and created a fascist sate that Hitler would be proud of.
3. Muslim societies are only beginning to wake up from centuries of decline due to the stiffling influence of religious authorities that saw progress as a threat to the status quo that was so comfortable for the ruling feudals.
The world has real problems:
The one western leader that approaches anything like statemanship Al Gore is warning that the divorce of science from reason, social responsibility, and morality as developed by the west has brought the world to the brink of destruction, yet we spend what little time is left constructing false effigies and caricatures of the achievements of others and tearing them down even as the $ collapses and we are hurtling towards a great depression that will make the other great depression look like a tea party, that is if Global Heat and carbon dioxide have not made life impossible.
Mr Spencer has already reserved a place in Hell for himself and his Neocon masters.

<<The one western leader that approaches anything like statemanship Al Gore>>

It’s a veritable LAUGH-FEST here today!!!

First we get a real-to-life Quaker that claims not to be “anti-religion”, then someone that claims the closest we get to statesmanship in the world today is Algore!!!

What’s next?

I know what we’re missing!  Some of the good ole “Stormfronters” that sometimes frequent this website with a good dose of “Peter Ramus” and we’re set!

Islam is the greates heresy of them all.

Matter provides the building blocks of God’s creations.  We often credit the Ashkenazy or false Jews (Khazars) for developing the physics that led to the atom bomb.  Why would God reveal the secret of the destruction of His building blocks to man?  He would not, but Satan would.  It is of note that the atom spies who passed this secret to atheist Russia were Ashkenazy Jews and one Quaker.

Although for different reasons, I can agree with Andew Capp that this comment section is a laugh riot-- the last post takes the cake, attributing the atomic bomb to Satan.

Also, by the Quaker, who supposedly sold out the bomb to the Russians , Iam assuming that he is referring to Klaus Fuchs, who was actually a Lutheran. But who cares about history when we are busy attacking each others’ religions like thre is no tomorrow?

Is this web-site really worthy of your intellect, Mr. Raimondo?

<<attributing the atomic bomb to Satan>>

Who do YOU then attribute it to?

Jesus Christ?

As for the Quaker Mr Maruska was eluding to, I was guessing Whittaker Chambers, although I don’t believe he was ever involved in divulging secrets to the Soviet Union regarding the atom bomb, but I could be wrong…

Not only is my hand unfettered, but my fetters are unhanded.

What you are experiencing here, Madrid, is a clash of forces that have been aligned by our mutual opposition to Statism, eg the various wars, formation of a police state, “big government” in general.

You come into this “alliance” as what would be called, in Old World terms, a “liberal”.  I am what would be called, in Old World terms, a “conservative”.  We are both opposed to the Jacobins, but opposed to one another as well; politics do indeed make strange bed-fellows…

Andrew:

I am probably much less “liberal” than you think.
I can’t, for example, think of anything that Ron Paul has
said recently that I don’t agree with wholeheartedly.

I do think that in the fight against the Neo-cons, religious persuasions must be put to the side, and to the extent that books like this draw attention to religious difference in a negative way, they are counterproductive.

I could care less about a person’s religion as long as they believe in the basic values of the constitution, which are basic enough that
different ethnicities usually have no problem with them-- as long as American Muslims
support them, I have no problem with what they believe.

I also have problems with Spencer’s account of theology
and history, both of which are deeply flawed. As I said
before, I have a deep respect for the Catholic intellectual
tradition. I only wish that more of my students (and
American Catholics) had a deeper engagement with that
tradition.

Andrew Capp:

“Who do YOU then attribute it to?

Jesus Christ?”

Since we are discussing magical explanations, don’t overlook the possibility that
Ares was behind it.  Or perhaps Hades.  Pluto and Mars are persons of interest as well.

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

A Common Word between Us and You

(Summary and Abridgement)

Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world’s population. Without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace in the world. The future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians.

The basis for this peace and understanding already exists. It is part of the very foundational principles of both faiths: love of the One God, and love of the neighbour. These principles are found over and over again in the sacred texts of Islam and Christianity. The Unity of God, the necessity of love for Him, and the necessity of love of the neighbour is thus the common ground between Islam and Christianity. The following are only a few examples:

Of God’s Unity, God says in the Holy Qur’an: Say: He is God, the One! / God, the Self-Sufficient Besought of all! (Al-Ikhlas, 112:1-2). Of the necessity of love for God, God says in the Holy Qur’an: So invoke the Name of thy Lord and devote thyself to Him with a complete devotion (Al-Muzzammil, 73:8). Of the necessity of love for the neighbour, the Prophet Muhammad r said: “None of you has faith until you love for your neighbour what you love for yourself.”

In the New Testament, Jesus Christ u said: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. / And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. / And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)

e f

In the Holy Qur’an, God Most High enjoins Muslims to issue the following call to Christians (and Jews—the People of the Scripture):

Say: O People of the Scripture! Come to a common word between us and you: that we shall worship none but God, and that we shall ascribe no partner unto Him, and that none of us shall take others for lords beside God. And if they turn away, then say: Bear witness that we are they who have surrendered (unto Him). (Aal ‘Imran 3:64)

The words: we shall ascribe no partner unto Him relate to the Unity of God, and the words: worship none but God, relate to being totally devoted to God.  Hence they all relate to the First and Greatest Commandment. According to one of the oldest and most authoritative commentaries on the Holy Qur’an the words: that none of us shall take others for lords beside God, mean ‘that none of us should obey the other in disobedience to what God has commanded’. This relates to the Second Commandment because justice and freedom of religion are a crucial part of love of the neighbour.

Thus in obedience to the Holy Qur’an, we as Muslims invite Christians to come together with us on the basis of what is common to us, which is also what is most essential to our faith and practice: the Two Commandments of love.

e f

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,

And may peace and blessings be upon the Prophet Muhammad

A COMMON WORD BETWEEN US AND YOU

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,

Call unto the way of thy Lord with wisdom and fair exhortation, and contend with them in the fairest way. Lo! thy Lord is Best Aware of him who strayeth from His way, and He is Best Aware of those who go aright.

(The Holy Qur’an, Al-Nahl, 16:125)

(I) LOVE OF GOD

LOVE OF GOD IN ISLAM

The Testimonies of Faith

The central creed of Islam consists of the two testimonies of faith or Shahadahsi, which state that: There is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God. These Two Testimonies are the sine qua non of Islam. He or she who testifies to them is a Muslim; he or she who denies them is not a Muslim. Moreover, the Prophet Muhammad r said: The best remembrance is: ‘There is no god but God’….ii

The Best that All the Prophets have Said

Expanding on the best remembrance, the Prophet Muhammad r also said: The best that I have said—myself, and the prophets that came before me—is: ‘There is no god but God, He Alone, He hath no associate, His is the sovereignty and His is the praise and He hath power over all things’iii. The phrases which follow the First Testimony of faith are all from the Holy Qur’an; each describe a mode of love of God, and devotion to Him.

The words: He Alone, remind Muslims that their heartsiv must be devoted to God Alone, since God says in the Holy Qur’an: God hath not assigned unto any man two hearts within his body (Al-Ahzab, 33:4). God is Absolute and therefore devotion to Him must be totally sincere.

The words: He hath no associate, remind Muslims that they must love God uniquely, without rivals within their souls, since God says in the Holy Qur’an: Yet there are men who take rivals unto God: they love them as they should love God. But those of faith are more intense in their love for God …. (Al-Baqarah, 2:165). Indeed, [T]heir flesh and their hearts soften unto the remembrance of God …. (Al-Zumar, 39:23).

The words: His is the sovereignty, remind Muslims that their minds or their understandings must be totally devoted to God, for the sovereignty is precisely everything in creation or existence and everything that the mind can know. And all is in God’s Hand, since God says in the Holy Qur’an: Blessed is He in Whose Hand is the sovereignty, and, He is Able to do all things (Al-Mulk, 67:1).

The words: His is the praise remind Muslims that they must be grateful to God and trust Him with all their sentiments and emotions. God says in the Holy Qur’an:

And if thou wert to ask them: Who created the heavens and the earth, and constrained the sun and the moon (to their appointed work)? they would say: God. How then are they turned away ? / God maketh the provision wide for whom He will of His servants, and straiteneth it for whom (He will). Lo! God is Aware of all things. / And if thou wert to ask them: Who causeth water to come down from the sky, and therewith reviveth the earth after its death ? they verily would say: God. Say: Praise be to God! But most of them have no sense. (Al-‘Ankabut, 29:61-63)v

For all these bounties and more, human beings must always be truly grateful:

God is He Who created the heavens and the earth, and causeth water to descend from the sky, thereby producing fruits as food for you, and maketh the ships to be of service unto you, that they may run upon the sea at His command, and hath made of service unto you the rivers; / And maketh the sun and the moon, constant in their courses, to be of service unto you, and hath made of service unto you the night and the day./ And He giveth you of all ye ask of Him, and if ye would count the graces of God ye cannot reckon them. Lo! man is verily a wrong-doer, an ingrate. (Ibrahim, 14:32-34)vi

Indeed, the Fatihah—which is the greatest chapter in the Holy Qur’anvii—starts with praise to God:

In the Name of God, the Infinitely Good, the All-Merciful. /

Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds. /

The Infinitely Good, the All-Merciful. /

Owner of the Day of Judgement. /

Thee we worship, and Thee we ask for help. /

Guide us upon the straight path. /

The path of those on whom is Thy Grace, not those who deserve anger nor those who are astray.  (Al-Fatihah, 1:1-7)

The Fatihah, recited at least seventeen times daily by Muslims in the canonical prayers, reminds us of the praise and gratitude due to God for His Attributes of Infinite Goodness and All-Mercifulness, not merely for His Goodness and Mercy to us in this life but ultimately, on the Day of Judgementviii when it matters the most and when we hope to be forgiven for our sins. It thus ends with prayers for grace and guidance, so that we might attain—through what begins with praise and gratitude— salvation and love, for God says in the Holy Qur’an: Lo! those who believe and do good works, the Infinitely Good will appoint for them love. (Maryam, 19:96)

The words: and He hath power over all things, remind Muslims that they must be mindful of God’s Omnipotence and thus fear Godix. God says in the Holy Qur’an:

… [A]nd fear God, and know that God is with the God-fearing. / Spend your wealth for the cause of God, and be not cast by your own hands to ruin; and do good. Lo! God loveth the virtuous. / …. (Al-Baqarah, 2:194-5)…

[A]nd fear God, and know that God is severe in punishment. (Al-Baqarah, 2:196)

Through fear of God, the actions, might and strength of Muslims should be totally devoted to God. God says in the Holy Qur’an:

…[A]nd know that God is with those who fear Him.