The Islamic origins of Modern Science Part V

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

~Albert Einstein ~

The Theist Origins of Western Science

Medieval Europe was ruled by the dogmatic regime of the Catholic Church. The Church opposed freedom of thought and pressured scientists. People could be punished by the Inquisition simply for holding different beliefs or ideas. Their books were burned and they themselves were executed. The pressure on research in the Middle Ages is often referred to in history books, but some interpret the situation wrongly and claim that the scientists who clashed with the Church were against religion.

The truth is the exact opposite-the scientists who opposed the bigotry of the church were religious believers. They were not against religion, but against the harsh clericalism of the time.

For example, the famous astronomer Galileo, whom the Church wanted to punish because he stated that the world rotated, said, "I render infinite thanks to God for being so kind as to make me alone the first observer of marvels kept hidden in obscurity for all previous centuries." 7

The other scientists who established modern science were all religious.

Kepler, regarded as the founder of modern astronomy, told those who asked him why he busied himself with science, "I had the intention of becoming a theologian... but now I see how God is, by my endeavors, also glorified in astronomy, for 'heavens declare the glory of God'". 8

As for Newton, one of the greatest scientists in history, he explained the reason underlying his zeal for scientific endeavor by saying:

"...He (God) is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from eternity to eternity; his presence from infinity to infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. …We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things... [W]e revere and adore him as his servants…" 9

The great genius Pascal, the father of modern mathematics, said that: "But by faith we know His (God's) existence; in glory we shall know His nature." 10

Many other founders of modern Western science were also strong believers. For example:

• " Von Helmont, one of the leading figures in modern chemistry and the inventor of the thermometer, declared that science was a part of faith.

• " George Cuvier, the founder of modern paleontology, regarded fossils as surviving proofs of the Creation and taught that living species had been created by God.

• " Carl Linnaeus, who first systematized scientific classification, believed in the Creation and stated that the natural order was a significant proof of God's existence.

• " Gregor Mendel, the founder of genetics, and also a monk, believed in Creation and opposed the evolutionary theories of his time, such as Darwinism and Lamarckism.

• " Louis Pasteur, the greatest name in the history of microbiology, proved that life could not be created in inert matter and taught that life was a miracle of God.

• " The famous German physicist Max Planck said that the Creator of the universe was God and stressed that faith was a necessary quality of scientists.

• " Albert Einstein, regarded as the most important scientist of the twentieth century, believed that science could not be godless and said, "science without religion is lame."

A large number of other scientists who guided modern scientific progress were religious people who believed in God. These scientists served science with the intention of discovering the universe that God had created - a paradigm that was first developed and implemented in the Islamic world and then incorporated into the West.

All these theist scientists thought about the creation of the heavens and the earth and investigated in the awareness of God - as God decreed in the Qur'an and the Bible. The birth of science and its development were the result of this awareness.

During the nineteenth century, however, this awareness was replaced by a misconception called materialism.

References:

Harun Yahya

(7) Galileo Galilei, quoted in: Mike Wilson, "The Foolishness of the Cross," Focus Magazine)

(8) Johannes Kepler, quoted in: J.H. Tiner, Johannes Kepler-Giant of Faith and Science (Milford, Michigan: Mott Media, 1977), p. 197

(9) Sir Isaac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Translated by Andrew Motte, Revised by Florian Cajore, Great Books of the Western World 34, Robert Maynard Hutchins, Editor in chief, William Benton, Chicago, 1952:273-74

(10) Blaise Pascal, Pensees, No. 233

KEAJAIBAN HUJAN Part I

Hujan merupakan salah satu perkara terpenting bagi kehidupan di muka bumi. Ia merupakan sebuah prasyarat bagi kelanjutan aktivitas di suatu tempat. Hujan–yang memiliki peranan penting bagi semua makhluk hidup, termasuk manusia–disebutkan pada beberapa ayat dalam Al-Qur’an mengenai informasi penting tentang hujan, kadar dan pengaruh-pengaruhnya.

Informasi ini, yang tidak mungkin diketahui manusia di zamannya, menunjukkan kepada kita bahwa Al-Qur’an merupaka kalam Allah. Sekarang, mari kita kaji informasi-informasi tentang hujan yang termaktub di dalam Al-Qur’an.

Kadar Hujan

Di dalam ayat kesebelas Surat Az-Zukhruf, hujan dinyatakan sebagai air yang diturunkan dalam “ukuran tertentu”. Sebagaimana ayat di bawah ini:

“Dan yang menurunkan air dari langit menurut kadar (yang diperlukan) lalu kami hidupkan dengan air itu negeri yang mati, seperti itulah kamu akan dikeluarkan (dari dalam kubur).” (QS. Az-Zukhruf, (43):11)

“Kadar” yang disebutkan dalam ayat ini merupakan salah satu karakteristik hujan. Secara umum, jumlah hujan yang turun ke bumi selalu sama. Diperkirakan sebanyak 16 ton air di bumi menguap setiap detiknya.

Jumlah ini sama dengan jumlah air yang turun ke bumi setiap detiknya. Hal ini menunjukkan bahwa hujan secara terus-menerus bersirkulasi dalam sebuah siklus seimbang menurut “ukuran” tertentu.

Pengukuran lain yang berkaitan dengan hujan adalah mengenai kecepatan turunya hujan.

Ketinggian minimum awan adalah sekitar 12.000 meter. Ketika turun dari ketinggian ini, sebuah benda yang yang memiliki berat dan ukuran sebesar tetesan hujan akan terus melaju dan jatuh menimpa tanah dengan kecepatan 558km/jam.

Tentunya, objek apapun yang jatuh dengan kecepatan tersebut akan mengakibatkan kerusakan.

Dan apabila hujan turun dengan cara demikian, maka seluruh lahan tanaman akan hancur, pemukiman, perumahan, kendaraan akan mengalami kerusakan, dan orang-orang pun tidak dapat pergi keluar tanpa mengenakan alat perlindungan ekstra.

Terlebih lagi, perhitungan ini dibuat untuk ketinggian 12.000 meter, faktanya terdapat awan yang memiliki ketinggian hanya sekitar 10.000 meter. Sebuah tetesan hujan yang jatuh pada ketinggian ini tentu saja akan jatuh pada kecepatan yang mampu merusak apa saja.

Namun tidak demikian terjadinya, dari ketinggian berapapun hujan itu turun, kecepatan rata-ratanya hanya sekitar 8-10 km/jam ketika mencapai tanah. Hal ini disebabkan karena bentuk tetesan hujan yang sangat istimewa. Keistimewaan bentuk tetesan hujan ini meningkatkan efek gesekan atmosfer dan mempertahankan kelajuan tetesan-tetesan hujan krtika mencapai “batas” kecepatan tertentu.

(Saat ini, parasut dirancang dengan menggunakan teknik ini).

Tak sebatas itu saja “pengukuran” tentang hujan. Contoh lain misalnya, pada lapisan atmosferis tempat terjadinya hujan, temperatur bisa saja turun hingga 400oC di bawah nol. Meskipun demikian, tetesan-tetesan hujan tidak berubah menjadi partikel es.

(Hal ini tentunya merupakan ancaman mematikan bagi semua makhluk hidup di muka bumi.)

Alasan tidak membekunya tetesan-tetesan hujan tersebut adalah karena air yang terkandung dalam atmosfer merupakan air murni. Sebagaimana kita ketahui, bahwa air murni hampir tidak membeku pada temperatur yang sangat rendah sekalipun.

To Be Continued

Sumber: Harun Yahya

The Islamic origins of Modern Science Part IV

The Open-Mindedness of Islam

"If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent."

~Isaac Newton~

What allowed Muslims to create such an advanced scientific culture was derived from the faculties of the Islamic understanding. One of them was, as we have noted, the motive to learn about the universe and nature according to the Qur'anic principles.

Another one was open-mindedness. Both the Qur'anic wisdom and the Prophetic teaching gave Muslims a global outlook to the world, overcoming all cultural barriers. In the Qur'an, God states:

Mankind! We created you from a male and female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you might come to know each other..."

(Qur'an, 49:13)

This verse clearly encourages cultural relationships between different nations and communities. In another verse of the Qur'an is it stated that "Both East and West belong to Allah" (2:115), thus Muslims should see the world in a universalist and cosmopolitan vision.

The hadiths, or sayings, of the Prophet also encourage this vision. In a popular hadith, the Prophet tells Muslims that "wisdom is the lost property of the Muslims; he takes it from wherever he finds". This means that Muslims should be very pragmatic and broadminded in adapting and using the cultural and scientific achievements of non-Muslims; those non-Muslims are also creatures and servants of God, even they might not recognize so. The "People of The Book", i.e. Christians and Jews, are even much more compatible, since they believe in God and stick to moral code He revealed to man.

In the rise of Islamic science, the role of this open-mindedness is very clear to see. John Esposito of the Georgetown University, one of the most prominent Western experts on Islam, makes the following comment:

The genesis of Islamic civilization was indeed a collaborative effort, incorporating the learning and wisdom of many cultures and languages. As in government administration, Christians and Jews, who had been the intellectual and bureaucratic backbone of the Persian and Byzantine empires, participated in the process as well as Muslims. This "ecumenical" effort was evident at the Caliph al-Mamun's (reigned 813-33) House of Wisdom and at the translation center headed by the renowned scholar Hunayn ibn Isaq, a Nestorian Christian.

This period of translation and assimilation was followed by one of Muslim intellectual and artistic creativity. Muslims ceased to be disciples and became masters, in process producing Islamic civilization, dominated by the Arabic language and Islam's view of life... Major contributions were made in many fields: literature and philosophy, algebra and geometry, science and medicine, art and architecture... Great urban cultural centers in Cordoba, Baghdad, Cairo, Nishapur, and Palermo emerged and eclipsed Christian Europe, mired in Dark Ages. 3

According to one of the great Muslim scholars of our time, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic science was "the first science of a truly international nature in human history". 4

Yet Muslims did not only incorporate other cultures, but developed their own. Some commentators neglect this and try to link the Islamic scientific development solely to the influence of the Ancient Greece or Far East. But the real source of Islamic science was the experimentation and observations of Muslim scientists. In his book The Middle East, Professor Bernard Lewis, an undoubted expert in Middle Eastern history, explains it as follows:

The achievement of medieval Islamic science is not limited to the preservation of Greek learning, nor to the incorporation in the corpus of elements from the more ancient and more distant East. This heritage which medieval Islamic scientists handed on to the modern world was immensely enriched by their own efforts and contributions. Greek science, on the whole rather tended to be theoretical. Medieval Middle Eastern science was much more practical, and in such fields as medicine, chemistry, astronomy and agronomy, the classical heritage was clarified and supplemented by the experiments and observations of the medieval Middle East. 5

As noted by Westerners, this advanced scientific culture of the Islamic world paved the way for the Western Renaissance. Muslim scientists acted in the knowledge that their investigation of God's creation was a path through which they could get to know Him. Esposito stresses that "Muslim scientists, who were often philosophers of mystics as well, viewed physical universe from within their Islamic worldview and context as a manifestation of the presence of God, the Creator and the source and unity and harmony in nature." 6

With the transfer of this paradigm and its accumulation of knowledge to the Western world, the advance of the West began.

References:

Harun Yahya

3. John L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path, Oxford University Press, 1991, s. 52-53

4. Quoted in Weiss and Green, p. 1875.

5. Bernard Lewis, The Middle East, 1998, p. 2666.

6. John L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path, s. 54

Agama Islam adalah agama yang sempurna

HADITS KELIMA

عَنْ أُمِّ الْمُؤْمِنِيْنَ أُمِّ عَبْدِ اللهِ عَائِشَةَ رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهَا قَالَتْ : قَالَ رَسُوْلُ الله صلى الله عليه وسلم : مَنْ أَحْدَثَ فِي أَمْرِنَا هَذَا مَا لَيْسَ مِنْهُ فَهُوَ رَدٌّ. [رواه البخاري ومسلم وفي رواية لمسلم : مَنْ عَمِلَ عَمَلاً لَيْسَ عَلَيْهِ أَمْرُنَا فَهُوَ رَدٌّ ]

Terjemah hadits / ترجمة الحديث :

Dari Ummul Mu’minin; Ummu Abdillah; Aisyah radhiallahuanha dia berkata : Rasulullah Shallallahu’alaihi wasallam bersabda :

"Siapa yang mengada-ada dalam urusan (agama) kami ini yang bukan (berasal) darinya), maka dia tertolak. (Riwayat Bukhori dan Muslim), dalam riwayat Muslim disebutkan: siapa yang melakukan suatu perbuatan (ibadah) yang bukan urusan (agama) kami, maka dia tertolak."

Pelajaran yang terdapat dalam hadits / الفوائد من الحديث :

1. Setiap perbuatan ibadah yang tidak bersandar pada dalil syar’i ditolak dari pelakunya.

2. Larangan dari perbuatan bid’ah yang buruk berdasarkan syari’at.

3. Islam adalah agama yang berdasarkan ittiba’ (mengikuti berdasarkan dalil) bukan ibtida’ (mengada-adakan sesuatu tanpa dalil) dan Rasulullah Shallallahu’alaihi wasallam telah berusaha menjaganya dari sikap yang berlebih-lebihan dan mengada-ada.

4. Agama Islam adalah agama yang sempurna tidak ada kurangnya.

Sumber:

http://haditsarbain.wordpress.com/