TOWARDS A CLTURE OF PROGRESS. (REFLECTIONS ON THE SCIENTIFIC ARREST OF THE ARAB MUSLIM & BYZANTINE EAST AND ON THE SCIENTIFIC TRIUMPH OF THE WEST); Amin Ebeid; Cairo 2008 The implicit reason to have undergone this study was to explore the reasons why it is that despite the fact that several great cultures, from China, to India, to Greece and Byzantium, all the way to the Arab-Islamic World; appear to have produced a higher level learning and cultural development than that of medieval Europe; “Yet it was Christianised Western Europe, and not the more advanced cultures, that gave birth to modern science as a systematic, self correcting discipline”.
In order to understand the above apparent paradox, a review of selected great cultures was undertaken. This was studied in three parts. It started (in part I) by examining the input of Pharaonic Egypt, followed by the contributions of Greece, then Alexandria, followed in turn by those of India and China. Then after reviewing the importance of the tans-civilisational transmitters of knowledge, part II of the review examined the golden age of the Arab Muslim civilization which was studied in some more details in order to understand not only the reasons of its brilliance, but also the factors that led to its intellectual arrest. A similar study of Byzantium revealed remarkable parallels. Finally, explored at some length (in part III of the study) was a response to the following question: “why did Western Christianity form the matrix within which, this novel approach, to the natural world develop?” [1] All of that needed to include special references to historical events and an adequate review of the philosophical and theological factors that influenced the development of modern science which were included throughout the pages of the book. Also included were short biographical sketches of the philosophers, theologians and scientists who were responsible for the great advances that benefited humanity. I also found it necessary to explain with adequate footnotes philosophical and theological concepts and terminology that the average reader, like myself, would not be familiar with.
By following the above plan it was then possible to identify the success factors that the West possessed but which the Near Eastern civilizations[2] in which I was born and to which I belong, lacked.
As expected; the provenance of the intellectual and scientific ascent of Western Europe was multifactorial and included factors such as economic prosperity, political stability, and a general level of education. But these were not lacking in the Byzantine realms, or in the Arab Muslim world or for that matter in China. Moreover even when the Arab Muslim world experienced its economic and military decline; non-Arab Muslim Persia and the Ottoman empires were very powerful and prosperous; yet both failed to generate a scientific revolution and neither of them participated in the development of modern science and technology.
This generated questions that call for answers, namely:
Could it then be that the Europeans benefited from a favourable geographic location?
Yes, but so did all the others.
Were the Europeans bright?
Yes, but certainly not more than the Arabs, such as was observed during the time of the Crusades; when the Arabs discovered that they were brighter and more educated than their invaders.
Was it then because the Europeans took advantage of Greek knowledge and philosophy?
Definitely so! But it was the Byzantines and the Arabs who transmitted knowledge, science and philosophy to Western Europe, yet both failed to make full use of them.
Because of all those considerations it behoves us to consider the mindset that encouraged the birth of modern science in Western Christendom, and contrast it to the intellectual framework that was responsible for the arrest of greater civilizations.
This study attempted to do just that.
But it will be difficult to summarize all the factors that permitted the evolution of modern science and the creation of the discipline that would permit the establishment of a self sustaining science that could be utilized by all modern civilizations.
The most important factors that led to the development of modern, self sustaining science have been included in what is often known as the Duhem-Jaki thesis. This thesis claims to delineate the necessary principles and the intellectual climate believed to be necessary for an advanced level of science to develop. It will help to recall those principles, modified as they are, as part of this summary:-
1. A belief in a linear quantifiable perception of time.
2. The avoidance of a-priori pseudo-scientific explanations such as provided by astrology. This also include the need to displace myth (Which can be religious), by objectivity.
3. The rejection of the organismic view of nature.
4. The need to recognize the reality, and goodness,[3] of the material world.
5. The importance to reject the divinity of the heavenly bodies.
6. The need to achieve a healthy balance between reason and faith. (This could be made to go all the way to the concept proposed by Steven J. Gould, of non overlapping Magisterium (NOMA)[4], which calls for the co-existence of science and religion as two fundamentally distinct human experiences).
7. In the Judeo Christian understanding, the human person is believed to have been endowed by his Creator with a special dignity. This God-given singular distinction made him a participant in creation. Man was thus asked by his Creator to name the animals, as is chronicled in the Book of Genesis[5]. In this way; ‘man’ seems to be under an obligation to explore the universe, understand its laws and improve and protect the land of which he has been made a steward.
The seven principles addressed above were developed throughout this study. Eric Snow, who summarized them, noted that some civilizations like that of India,[6] failed to satisfy most of the factors mentioned, other civilizations such as that of China failed to satisfy only a few of them, whereas Islam seems to have satisfied the quasi totality of criteria, with one or possibly two exceptions. But it seems that the differences between the Islamic and Christian understanding, as found in principles 7, may be one of degree only.
Thus in factor 7, it was God, as portrayed in the Bible, who asked man to name the animals that have been presented to Adam. Whereas, it is God Himself who names the animals that are presented to Adam in the Muslim Holy Book. This may be a form of pedagogy that teaches absolute submission in Islam, rather than the form of submission that is associated with participatory freedom in the Judeo-Christian understanding.
As regards the 6th principle, which demands a separation of the secular from the sacred, it may help to recall the remarks made by Renan; namely that: “Galileo has not been better treated by ‘Catholicism’, than Averroes by ‘Islam’.”[7] Both suffered intrusion by religious authorities in matters that do not really concern them.
What Renan failed to mention is that the Galileo affair did not arrest the scientific revolution[8] although it did inhibit temporarily Catholic philosophic speculations. On the other hand; even though Averroes suffered only a brief period of persecution in 1195, and despite the fact that he was reinstated, and remained highly respected until his death in 1198[9], yet the ongoing development of both Islamic philosophy and science did not survive his death.[10] That is why Renan, whose anti religious views are well known, commented that: “Islam has persecuted freedom of thinking, not more violently than other religious systems, but more efficiently”.[11] Could this difference in outcome have been the result of an intrusion of the sacred in secular concerns that was achieved despite scriptural prohibition in Christianity, as opposed to the apparent scriptural permission found in Islam; meaning that it would be that much harder to emancipate science from religious tutelage in the Muslim world, than in the Christian one?
Unfortunately the above summary does not give justice to the complex factors that led to the emergence of modern science, and the equally complex reasons that led to its arrest. Those have been addressed at some length in the body of this study.. (Please review the following summaries that are found in the book under review:- The presumed causes of the cultural and scientific arrest of the Arab Muslim civilization & also:- The factors that permitted the scientific mindset to take root in Western Christendom rather than in the East.)
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[1] – Which was the question posed by Pearcey and Thaxton (p.21)
[2] -The Eastern civilizations that are meant here; are those of Byzantium/Eastern Christianity and the Arab /Islamic civilizations.
[3] -See Pearcey & Thaxton pp.22-23. A prayer by Kepler summarises the belief in the created goodness of the universe: “I give you thanks, Creator and God, that you have given me this joy in thy creation, and I rejoice in the work of thy hands. See I have completed the work to which I was called.”
[4] -Gould, S.J.: “Rocks of ages Science and Religion in the Fullness of life” Ballantine Books. 1999
[5] -John Paul II, Pope.: pp.19-20 Crossing the Threshold of Hope. Random House . NY. 1994: “Creation was given and entrusted to human kind as a duty, representing not a source of suffering but the foundation of creative existence in the world. A person who believes in the essential goodness of all creation is capable of discovering all the secrets of creation, in order to perfect continually the work assigned to him by God. It must be clear for those who accept revelation, and in particular the Gospel, that it is better to exist than not to exist. And because of this there is no space for any nirvana, apathy or resignation. Instead there is a great challenge to perfect creation—be it oneself, be it the world”. The Pope then added a religious dimension; “This essential joy of creation is, in turn, completed by the joy of salvation, the joy of redemption”.
[6] -One must reaffirm here that the cultural disability of India (and to a lesser degree China), was restricted to the participation in the scientific revolution and in the creation of modern science, but certainly not in participating in the modern world of science, since its methodology is now universally accepted.
[7] -Renan p.64
[8] -See the related passages and footnotes, in this study, on the Catholic contributions to the scientific revolution.
[9] -See entry in Cantor’s Encyclopedia.
[10] -See entry in Bor et al. who mentioned that, in the Muslim world, only Ibn Khaldun, who wrote a philosophic analysis of History, is worth mentioning after Averroes.
[11] -Renan p.40