Cicin’s Weblog

For the last two centuries the world has witnessed unprecedented leaps in science and technology, the development of railways, aeroplanes, nuclear technology, the internet, IVF, genetically modified food, penicillin, cloning and the development of nanotechnology. Such developments have taken place in parallel to the development of the West, reaching levels unheralded in history. The West today has monopolised technological and scientific progress and consider the adoption of liberal values a pre-requisite for development.
Most thinkers, scientists and philosophers claim Islam has no place in the world today, a view which itself is built upon the premise that none of the Muslim countries have produced anything in terms of scientific research or technological advancement. The West claims that progress in science and technology occurred when the West rid itself of the authority of the church and separated religion from life. For them the church stifled the development of science and reason, as religion is inherently built upon faith and superstition and, only with its removal from the public sphere, did the West manage to launch an industrial revolution and then flourish in Science. Today’s liberals claim it is they who invented science as we know it, laid its foundations and created its numerous branches.
Such a narrative omits a number of historical developments that are not Western and shows how the West continued to view its history as the history of the world. Such a narrative also conveniently omits what the West took from previous civilisations and especially the Islamic civilisation. Historically all civilisations have been characterised with some form of technological and scientific development, the West has documented the contributions the Romans made to science and medicine, whilst the Islamic world in the 8th – 10th century translated the works of the Greeks in the area.
Science in essence is the study, research, and experimentation into the observable parts of the universe. The development of automobiles was due primarily to the development of the combustion engine; this is where the burning of fuel in an engine acts on the pistons causing the movement of the solid parts, eventually moving the automobile. This was possible due to the British Empire which originally used steam and then coal to drive pistons and then eventually to generate rotary (motion) to move machines. Such developments where based upon Al-Jazari’s work in the 12th century where he invented the crankshaft, and created rotary motion through the use of rods and cylinders. He was the first to incorporate it into a machine.
The above example and a number of other examples show that no civilisation can lay claim to science belonging inherently to them but rather they made a contribution to this universal area. The fact atoms and molecules are subjected to the rules of the universe, which can be manipulated will not change if one is a Muslim, Christian or a liberal; this is something that is universal and not affected by ones belief. The real debate is therefore which civilisation made significant contributions to science and what exactly drove them to excel in the field.
The Islamic golden age, which is considered to be between the 8th and the 13th century, saw the Muslims rapidly progress in many fields. During this period, engineers, scholars and traders in the Islamic world contributed to the arts, agriculture, economics, industry, law, literature, navigation, philosophy, sciences, and technology, both by preserving and building upon earlier traditions and by adding to them. Howard Turner, an expert on medieval history mentioned in his book ‘Science in Medieval Islam,’ “Muslim artists and scientists, princes and laborers together created a unique culture that has directly and indirectly influenced societies on every continent.” There were a number of specific elements within Islam that motivated Muslims to excel in scientific and technological advancement.
The worship of Allah (swt) was one such factor that lead to a number of inventions, the times of the five daily prayers, the direction for qiblah (the direction Muslims face when praying) and the beginning and ending of Ramadan required accurate readings of the positions of the stars and the moon. It was due to this that Muslims began to invent observational and navigational instruments, this is why most navigational stars today have Arabic names, e.g. Acamar, Aldebaran, Altair, Baham, Baten Kaitos, Caph, Dabih, Edasich, Furud, Gienah, Hadar, Izar, Jabbah, Keid, Lesath, Mirak, Nashira, Okda, Phad, Rigel, Sadr, Tarf, and Vega. Muslims made a number of contributions to Astronomy and eventually to the development of the astronomical clock. A mechanical lunisolar calendar with gear train and gear-wheels was invented by Abu Rayhan al-Biruni in the 10th century. Based on such designs Taqi al-din invented the mechanical clock in the 15th century. The need to ascertain the Qibla, lead to the development of the compass, which itself was based upon the findings Muslim astronomers had collated. Muslims developed the compass which displayed the orientation of the cardinal directions, north, south, east and west on a map and nautical chart. Allah (swt) said in the Qur’an
“and it is He who ordained the stars for you that you may be guided thereby in the darkness of the land and the sea” (6:97).

This motivated Muslims to begin to find better observational and navigational instruments, thus most navigational stars today have Arabic names. Such instruments were used to explore the world, which many Muslim geographers collated into manuals. They were driven by the ayah in the Qur’an where Allah (swt) said

“and we have placed in the earth firm hills lest it quake with them and we have placed therein ravines as roads that happily they may find their way” (21:31).
Early Muslims understood that Islam views all the material matters, which include the sciences, technology and industry, as merely the study of the reality and a study of how matter can be manipulated to improve the condition and living standards of humanity. As many lands came under the folds of the Islamic civilisation, urbanisation led to a number of developments. Muslim engineers were able to overcome the scant water supplies of the Arabian Desert by developing canals from the Euphrates and Tigris. They also managed to drain the swamps around Baghdad and free the city of Malaria. Muslim engineers perfected the water-wheel and constructed elaborate underground water channels called qanats. This led to the development of advanced domestic water systems with sewers, public baths, drinking fountains, piped drinking water supplies and widespread private and public toilet and bathing facilities.
Muslims thinkers, scientists, engineers and experts made significant contributions to science as well as many other disciplines. Many of these contributions were later used by the West who made further contributions to the field. The nature of science as a universal subject means no single civilisation can lay claim to inventing it, but rather most civilisations have documented their contributions throughout history, which acted as previous information when experimentation was carried out by later civilisations. Prior to the emergence of Islam in the Middle East the host population made no contribution to science. When the very same people accepted Islam they made contributions which later generations utilised to invent new items, which today still remain with us. Islam rather then being an obstacle to scientific advancement was the trajectory that drove Muslim contribution to science.
Jared Diamond, a physiologist who won the Pulitzer Prize for his book: “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” said: “Medieval Islam was technologically advanced and open to innovation. It achieved far higher literacy rates than in contemporary Europe; it assimilated the legacy of classical Greek civilization to such a degree that many classical books are now known to us only through Arabic copies. It invented windmills, trigonometry, lateen sails and made major advances in metallurgy, mechanical and chemical engineering and irrigation methods. In the middle-ages the flow of technology was overwhelmingly from Islam to Europe rather than from Europe to Islam. Only after the 1500′s did the net direction of flow begin to reverse.”

The spate of food riots seen across the developing world in recent months lays bare the fragility of globalisation and is an indictment on the World Bank and IMF and their dogmatic free market liberalisation agenda.

Several near term factors have combined to propel the price of grains including increasing food demand in industrialising China and Indian, droughts in Australia and Central Europe and perhaps more insidiously greedy market speculation as traders shift into food commodities and away from beleaguered equities due to the effects of the credit crunch in the West. The increasing use of ever greater amounts of vital land to grow bio-fuels to power apparently more environmentally friendly cars in the West has also contributed to tightening supplies.

World Bank and the IMF chiefs have been quick to absolve responsibility citing many of the above issues as the causes for the food crises. The doubling in grain prices has made vital staple foods inaccessible for the billions living in poverty in the developing world. Furthermore it has plunged millions more into poverty – living on less than a dollar a day, as defined by international economists.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF managing director, and Robert Zoellick, World Bank president, conveniently did not attribute blame for the troubles on the policies of their corruption ridden and failing institutions, however. The World Bank and the IMF have presided over the development agenda of developing countries for decades yet poverty levels in most “Third World” countries have worsened appreciatively.

This is evidenced by rising numbers in poverty in Africa, South Asia, Middle East and Latin America as recorded in the recently published World Development Report, 2008. Given the food crisis it is apt that the 2008 report focused on using agriculture to aid economic development. However, the report peddled the time-old agenda the World Bank and IMF have pushed for decades: poor economies need to reduce tariffs and taxes on agricultural imports and exports and to liberalise domestic markets. It did not matter to World Bank and IMF economists that these same policies have been unsuccessfully pursued by developing countries as part of structural adjustment programmes for decades. It did not matter to them that past crises in developing countries have resulted from over exposure to global commodities price crashes. It did not matter that rich North America and Western Europe heavily protect their agricultural sectors (note the recent rise in US farm subsides and the EU’s continued support for its farmers using the Common Agricultural Policy). It also did not matter that the main direct beneficiaries of liberalisation will be net exporters of grain in the US (which accounts for up to 30% of world wheat exports) and Europe and the western multinational agrochemical corporations like Monsanto and Dupont.

Egypt, where people have been killed in several riots, has pursued the World Bank and IMF agenda in detail and has consequently increased dependency on wheat imports from 44% of total consumption in the 1960s to over 50% according to recently available estimates. Self-sufficiency in food supplies has been spurned even though Egypt has one of the highest per capita wheat consumption levels in the world and the majority of its poor households spend between 70-80% of income on food.

Egyptian economists bred of a diet of IMF and World Bank policies have argued that self-sufficiency is unimportant since access to imports will ensure supplies. However, access is meaningless if the price of vital food supplies is beyond the means of ordinary citizens. What responsible government would leave the feeding its people to be met by imports where false incentives can divert production to bio fuels or to feeding cattle or to price speculation from decedent traders siting in western capitals that see food commodity price inflation as a ‘nice earner’. Food supplies, where self-sufficiency is vital, are not like video recorders or cars where demand if not met by imports will cause a national emergency.

The roots of the current food crisis lie with the failed policies of the World Bank and IMF. Policies designed in Washington and London yet not implemented in the US or Europe – both of whom pursue a policy of food security, and therefore need open overseas markets to sell their overproduction. These policies bring the misery of harsh capitalism to the world’s most vulnerable who have no welfare state to fall back on.

The ultimate blame though lies with traitorous degenerate rulers in the Muslim world, like Mubarak, who implement these policies wholesale and oblivious to the harm and despair that is being inflected on the weakest in society – those that a responsible state should be most concerned about. These rulers are the key instruments of the Western governments to guarantee their interests through liberalisation of markets and the suppression of the desire for the end of Western dominance and the reimplementation of Islam. The Islamic Economic system implemented by the Khilafah (Caliphate), with Egypt as a potential province (wilayah), has a number of economic Shariah instruments to address the current crisis. It could use land reforms, in the shape of redistribution of unutilised land, to create a vibrant and competitive domestic agricultural sector with investment from the state in developing and upgrading agricultural infrastructure including research and development in new seed technologies. Egyptian wheat consumption levels justify production at twice current levels. It is interesting to note that in the 1950s Korea and Taiwan (two thriving former ‘tiger’ economies) built their growth paths on land reforms and rural investment that created an improvement income distribution from agricultural growth.

(an article)