Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2030271 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 528 pages

Synopsis
A review of the influence of Islamic civilisation in the emergence of European civilisation that focusses on ways in which this has been hidden by Western historians.

From the Inside Flap
"If there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilisation owe to the Islamic world. It is a failure, which stems, I think, from the straight-jacket of history, which we have inherited. The medieval Islamic world, from central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society, and system of belief, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history."
Prince Charles, Oxford University Speech 1993

The Hidden Debt to Islamic Civilisation is a thorough study of that relevance and how it has been hidden from Western consciousness. Al-Djazairi puts his many years of expert work as an historian into this book.

From street lighting to soap, from trigonometry to algebra, from windmills to universities, from nutrition to surgery of the eye, from the paper industry to mass literacy, from the banker’s cheque to religious freedom, Western civilisation owes its emergence to its encounter with the Islamic world.

Yet few people are aware of this debt. Political efforts at overpowering the Muslim world have had no small part to play in this concealment, just as they had no small part to play in the decline of Islamic Civilisation. Recognising and understanding this debt is a vital part of bringing about a more just world where Islam can again inspire great achievements to benefit humanity.

Excerpted from The Hidden Debt to Islamic Civilisation by S. E. Zaimeche. Copyright © 2005. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Western historians, in general, have removed the Islamic source with regard to every single change that affected science and civilisation at the origin of Western civilisation, and modern civilisation, and then, each and everyone has substituted a number of explanations for such changes within their field of study. This systematic suppression of the Islamic source of modern science and civilisation has been, however, noted by individual historians who have re-considered the history of their subject. Thus, in his `History of Dams,’ Norman Smith, began his chapter devoted to Islamic dams, by noting how historians of civil engineering have ignored the Muslim period, and have claimed that nothing was done by the Muslims, even worse, they have blamed the Muslims for the decline of irrigation and other engineering activities, and their eventual extinction, which is `both unjust and untrue.’
Winder, too, observes, that even in one of the standard works dealing with the legacy of Islamic civilisation, Islamic mechanical engineering is completely set aside.
A similar point is raised by Pacey, who points to the same generalised opinion that hydraulic engineering made little progress under the Muslims, whilst in truth, Muslims extended the application of mechanical and hydraulic technology enormously.
…
This systematic suppression of the Islamic role in the rise of modern science and civilisation, through its impact on the West, has led to conclusions that hostility to Islam was the principal reason for it. Watt, thus, observes:
`When one keeps hold of all the facets of the medieval confrontation of Christianity and Islam, it is clear that the influence of Islam on Western Christendom is greater than is usually realised…. But, Because Europe was reacting against Islam, it belittled the influence of the Saracens and exaggerated its dependence on its Greek and Roman heritage.’
The same enmity towards Islam is seen by Glubb as the reason why `the indebtedness of Western Christendom to Arab civilisation was systematically played down, if not completely denied.’
Draper, equally, talks of the systematic manner in which the literature of Europe has contrived to put out of sight our scientific obligations to the Muslims; injustice founded on religious rancour.
…

Although the systematic suppression of the Islamic role from mainstream Western history has been noted, hardly anything has been said how this is done. This is the object of this work. This author seeks to answer the matter by addressing deficient historical writing where it is at its most vulnerable: its incapacity to rest on anything substantial when the issue is addressed from as wide a spectrum as possible. Indeed, Western `historians’ dispose of enough expertise to build whole theories around the changes that affected their science or subject, and it is easy for them to fabricate whole histories, just as Hartner puts it, by `twisting and suppressing facts at the author's pleasure.’By using their expertise in their specific subject, adding all the nitty gritty of academia, referencing, statements backed by other statements from similarly minded historians, they can convince whomsoever fails to see the wider picture, or is not knowledgeable enough to challenge them. However, by addressing as wide spectrum as possible of changes that took place in the medieval period, this author was able to see a number of patterns. First, all new medieval scientific developments and changes in aspects of civilisation, anywhere, any time, took place as soon as contact was made with an Islamic source. Second, major changes show the same timing (12th century principally), when contact was made with Islamic culture, or when the first crusaders began returning from the East. Third, all changes took place in contact with the same geographical sources (Spain, Sicily, Southern Italy, the East during the Crusades) (all under Islamic control, or direct influence). Fourth, all regions within Western Christendom, which experienced the first revolutions in science and aspects of civilisation (Lorraine, Salerno, Montpellier, Catalonia, etc,) were the nearest to Islamic sources of influence, or did so soon after the entry of Islamic learning into such places. Fifth, each!
of these regions showed forms and manners of change in precisely the very aspect of science and civilisation they borrowed from Islam. Sixth, all changes bear the same substance of content (Islamic content). Seventh, all changes have the same agents of transmission (Muslim masons and scholars, Christians residing amongst Muslims..). Eighth, all early Western Christian scholars were either Arabic minded scholars (Adelard of Bath, Gerbert of Aurillac, Daniel of Morley…), or scholars who travelled to the Muslim world (Leonardo Fibonacci..). Ninth, any changes that took place prior to the 12th-13th century also show the same patterns of influence. And so on and so forth.
All these points, which are easy to conceal if one change is dealt with on its-own become impossible to conceal if tens of changes are considered together, as the same patterns repeat themselves. More importantly, if each historian can give diverse causes and explanations for changes which affected his or her science or subject, which seem plausible if any such change or science is looked at individually, when all such subjects are put together, however, one is faced with literally tens of causes, all very different, often conflicting, and yet, suddenly, spontaneously, producing the same impact, and at the same time, and in the same places. Which, of course, is basically unscientific, for, it is impossible for diverging causes to produce the same effects, in the same place, at the same time, in the same pattern, and with the same substance.

This work seeks to dismantle the established Western version of history, which does away with the Islamic influence on the West, and on modern science and civilisation.