Contributions of Muslim Intellectuals in Scientific Progress

Abstract

The excellent achievements in science and technology are due to the nature of ideas. Quality achievements in civilization are always determined by the quality of ideas. Creative ideas usually inspired by the Divine Wisdom, therefore the holy Qur' an initiated its great mission to the mankind by reconstruction of the world view, which based on pure Tawhid. The per-lslamic Arab community was named by the Qur'an as Jahilyyah, not only for their way of behavior and their brutal actions, but mainly because of their false believes and misleading ideas. Similarly, when the medieval Church adopted geocentric model of the world, which falsely puts the Earth in centre of the universe, created unnecessary clashes between science and religion and led modern science to secularism. However, belief in Tawhid established the true scientific vision and created new enthusiastic spirit on Muslims and motivated them for scientific progress and development. This emphasizes the fact that the creative thinking was the main source of Islamic civilization. Motivated by the Qur'anic revelation and guided by the tawhidio word view, the Muslim intellectuals engaged in various disciplines of higher learning. By the turn of eighth century, the foundation of Islamic sciences was established with brilliant scholars who excelled in different branches of scientific knowledge. The great contributions of Muslim intellectuals in scientific progress can be seen from various dimensions.