1001 Inventions: Muslim
Heritage in Our World
Chief editor Professor Salim T.S. AlHassani
Plan
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Background to the book
Factual highlights – interesting tidbits
30 mins talk
Q+A
Spiritual dimension
Personal conclusions
Feedback
• Science Museum
Exhibition 2010
• Accompanying guide
book
• High profile launch
• Tony Blair holding book
in 2006
Realms of discovery
• Home – cleanliness, fine dining, three course
menu, fashion and style
• School – Schools, libraries, Chemistry, Word
power, translating knowledge
• Market – Farming manuals and ecological
balance, raising water, commercial chemistry,
Paper
• Hospital – Teaching Hospitals, blood
circulation, Vaccination, Pharmacy
Realms of discovery
• Town – Arches, Vaults, Bookshops, Public
Baths, Gardens
• World – Maps, Castles and keeps, Social
science and Economy, Post and Mail
• Universe – Astronomy, Observatories
Cleanliness
• ‘Allah is beautiful
and he loves
beauty’ Prophet
Mohammad –
Muslim
• Soap made - mixing olive oil
and al-qali, boiling and leaving
to harden – used in hammams
• 13th Century manuscripts
confirm multiple recipes
• Al-Zahrawi’s Al-Tasrif – chapter
devoted to cosmetics – care
and beautification of hair,
teeth bleached, mouthwashes,
incense to perfume clothes,
hair removing creams,
straightening lotions, suntan
lotions
Cleanliness
• Al-Kindi – Book of the Chemistry of Perfume and
Distillation - >100 recipes for oils/perfumed
waters
• Processes and Ideas filtered into Europe – Haute
Provence France where climate enabled
establishment of perfume industry
• Henna as per the eg of the Prophet – modern
science found it to be anti-bacterial, anti-fungal
and anti-haemmorhagic
• Miswak – teeth – Swiss Pharmaceutical Pharba
Basle – anti-bacterial/anti-inflammatory
Fine Dining
• Ziryab – 9th Century – Musician and Fashion
designer – Iraq to Cordoba – trendsetter and
celebrity of his time
• Melodious voice and dark complexion
• Brought in tablecloths, drinking crystal, 3
course meals, summer and winter
wardrobes/fashion industry, toothpaste,
deodorant, short hair for men, chess and polo
House of Wisdom
• Baghdad 1200 years ago – thriving capital of
Islamic world – cream of intellectuals, richest city
in the world 2nd only to Constantinople
• House of Wisdom – Dar al-Hikmah hub of books
and scholars of the sciences and arts
• Muslims first translated international works e.g.
Aristotle, Plato, Hippocrates etc into Arabic – at a
time when unknown to the West then built on it,
conveying all eventually to the West
House of Wisdom
• Medieval brains of met daily to translate, debate
and discuss – Arabic, lingua franca, Farsi, Hebrew,
Aramaic, Greek, Latin and Sanskrit all spoken
• Al-Kindi, Yuhanna ibn al-Bitriq al-Turjuman
• Lead by Caliph al Ma’mun – who facilitated
discussion, wrote to other world leaders
requesting their libraries etc – ‘Master of Arab
Civilisation’
• Lead 332 higher institutions of learning!
Schools
• Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) made the mosque
the main place of learning
• First school appeared in Saudi Arabia – 653CE –
idea spread like wildfire then on
• By late 9th Century every mosque had an
elementary school for boys and girls
• Little distinction between religion and learning –
science and religion sat comfortably side by side
• 4 categories of school devpd – regular schools,
‘high schools’, houses of Hadiths and medical
schools
Schools
• Education free – Charitable donations - Waqf
• Regular schools – commonest - corner of every
village i.e. Primary schools from 6-11
• High schools – houses of readers – Taught Arabic
and Qur’an recital – trained Imams and Muezzins
• Houses of hadith – gave degrees to work as
Friday lecturers/Khatibs
• Medical schools – 1st established 1231 Damascus
(prior to this had been hospital apprenticeships)
‘It was this great liberality which they (the Muslims) displayed in
educating their people in the schools which was one of the most potent
factors in the brilliant and rapid growth of their civilisation. Education
was so universally diffused that it was said to be difficult to find a Muslim
who could not read and write’
Educationalist EH Wilds
Libraries
• Muslims produced books
from 8th Century – made
paper
• Caliph al Ma’mun paid
translators weight in gold of
all translated Greek texts
• 36 libraries and >100 book
dealers before Mongols
decimated Baghdad 1258
• >100,000 volumes in the
library on left at one point
Libraries
• Cataloguing systems
• Reading rooms, lighting, seating and
mattresses
• Borrowing allowed
• Position of librarian reserved only for most
learned
Chemistry
• Word chemistry derives from Arabic – kimia. Alkimia= Alchemy
• Jabir ibn Hayyan, Mohammad ibn Zakariya alRazi, al-Kindi
• Jabir=Geber – founder of Chemistry, lived in Kufa,
Iraq – devised and perfected Sublimation,
Distillation, Crystallisation, Purification,
Evaporation, Oxidation, Filtration etc
• Jabir – discovered sulphuric acid, nitric acid
• Weighing scales, dyes, ink etc
‘The first essential in Chemistry is that you should perform practical work
and conduct experiments, for he who performs not practical work nor
makes experiments will never attain to the least degree of mastery’ Jabir ibn Hayyan, Muslim Chemist (722-815 CE)
Chemistry
• Al-Razi/Rhazes – classified substances into
animal, vegetable, mineral
• Wrote ‘Secret of the secrets’
• Laid foundations of modern chemistry- set up
a lab with >20 instruments still in modern use
e.g. Crucible, curcubit for distillation
• Al-Kindi – Book of the Chemistry of Perfume
and distillations
Water management
• Muslims inherited ideas from previous
civilisations and honed them further – system of
qanats – underground water conduits from the
Persians
• Water waste banned in Spain – strict rules, any
disputes handled by special courts at the mosque
every Thursday – ‘the tribunal of the waters’
• Pioneered running water – al Jazari 12th and 13th
Centuries designed 5 water raising machines
which pumped water
Al Jazari’s reciprocating pump
Paper
• 751CE Muslims acquired knowledge of paper
making from Chinese
• Spread to Damascus – major suppliers to Europe
• Originally hemp – better for the environment and
cheaper to produce
• 800CE – Paper reached Egypt
• 10th Century – earliest copy Qur’an on paper
• 1309CE – first use of paper in England
• Led to expansion of dye industry/calligraphy
Teaching Hospitals
• ‘Whosoever treats
people without
knowledge of Medicine
becomes liable’ Prophet
Mohammad – AlBukhari and Muslim
• Muslims had University
Hospitals 800 years ago
with lectures and
bedside teaching e.g. Al
Nuri Hospital Damascus
founded in 12th Century
Surgery
• Al-Zahrawi – introduced new procedures and
instruments many of which are still in use today
• Introduced catgut for stitching – only natural
substance capable of being dissolved by body
• Tracheotomy, plaster casts, management of renal
calculi, cosmetic surgery for sagging breasts
• Awareness of patient sensitivities – avoided
putting patient through painful procedures,
concealed knife to open abscesses
Other Underrated discoveries
• Blood circulation
• Ibn Nafis – 13th Century understood this far
ahead of William Harvey to whom it is attributed
– 17th Century
• Vaccination
• 1716-1718 Lady Montagu argues for vaccination
after hearing of Turkish methods of vaccine with
cowpox
• 1796 – Edward Jenner hears of vaccination ultimately given credit for the eventual
eradication of Smallpox
Pharmacy
• 9th century – many existed as independent
businesses in Baghdad
• 12th and 13th Centuries – pharmacies
inspected periodically by government officials
• Al-Biruni wrote Book of Pharmcology
• Al-Zahrawi used catgut to cover pills – 1st ever
capsules
Spiritual reflections
• Is there something intrinsic to Islam that
encouraged such great discovery – the drive
for knowledge, qur’anic challenges to man,
hadith?
• Necessity the mother of invention
• Setting the pleasure of Allah as your goal
• How did the Muslims achieve such stability for
such a length of time?
Other reflections
• Immense level of civilisation totally unknown
about in the West
• Inspiring period of history – can we derive
lessons for our lives e.g. Sustainability,
environment, simplicity