THE IMPORTANCE OF SCIENTIFIC SUPERIORITY

            The superiority of nations is never an empty password. It is always attained by their hard labour and acquisition of knowledge. How important is the place of knowledge in the status of a nation is suggested by the hadith: `The superiority of any nation is maintained only through attainment of knowledge and if persons belonging to a superior nation discarded knowledge, they lose their superiority' (Mishkat 2:1). Nations receive respect on the basis of their contribution to the well being of mankind. They excel in knowledge and learning.

There is a desideratum of collective consciousness about this in the Muslim world today. It is perhaps time for educated people in the Muslim world to reconstruct the background of their respective disciplines, which have been enriched by Muslim scholars in the past, and to draw a renewed confidence from such information. It may be a surprise for the present generations, but the Muslim contribution had been unique and outstanding in those disciplines, which have been classified as sciences in modern education. Unfortunately, we seem to have forgotten that there was a time when the Muslims were the people of natural sciences and they had discovered the scientific data which had been unknown before they had undertaken a systematic study of nature.

Mathematics also, like other disciplines, won the attention of great Muslim scholars. They made commendable contributions to this branch of knowledge with the same rigour as in other domains of knowledge during the formative phases of its tradition. The tradition of mathematics mastered by the Muslim scholars was also a continuation of the work done previously in earlier ages. But as the facts are, the science, before it was adopted by Muslims, was in its elementary phase and what now goes as modern mathematics was probably non-existent.

In the pre-Islamic civilizations the state of mathematical science, as it had developed in Athens, Alexandria, Edessa  (modern Urfa in Turkey) and Jundishapur in Sassanid Persia, had the Euclid and the Almagist (c.150  A.D.) of Ptolemy among its foremost achievement. The pre-Islamic scholars had been successful in creating a world map but were unable to solve the problem of detecting the longitude. The simple basis of number theory had been discovered by Eratosthenes and the size of the Earth's circumference had also been estimated by him. The Romans had applied mathematical formulae to city-planning and architectural monuments.

Nevertheless, by the year 590 A.D. the intolerance of the then rulers completely extinguished free thought which had been so essential for intellectual activity and thus the great tradition of mathematical studies came to an end by the seventh century.

At this point, mathematics throughout the world had become unproductive and intellectual activity thrived on past knowledge and worked almost in an imitative manner. But with the advent of Islam however, not only a commonwealth had emerged but a new environment favourable to intellectual growth had also appeared, in the land between Samarkand and Cordova. The Muslims came in contact with sciences from various sources of pre-Islamic civilizations.

From 750 A.D. to 1100 A.D., the period lasting for 350 years, is completely dominated by Muslim scholars. Through the patronage of Baghdad's House of Wisdom (Baitul Hikmat) almost the entire literature about mathematics was translated into Arabic. As a consequence, mathematics became an important science in the curriculum of Islamic education. It attracted the full attention of the Muslims, and the study of mathematics became a popular pursuit among the rising middle classes of the Muslim world.

There were numerous reasons for this growing interest; the main reason being that mathematics was regarded as the source of growth of the human mind. The translation of work of about two hundred years, and a systematic teaching of mathematics, royal patronage, facilities for intellectual growth, prosperity, freedom from bureaucratic hegemony and freedom to know, had all created a climate of fresh ideas in the Muslim world which eventually released the Muslim genius in all walks of life, including the study of mathematics.

This wave of intellectual awakening became very soon a world phenomenon and the universities of the Muslim Commonwealth attracted not only Muslims to their campuses but students from Britain, France and Italy also came to study there. These included great scholars like Robert of Chester, Gerard of Cremona, John of Seville, Adelard of Bath, Leonardo di Vinci, Walcher of Malveru, Michael Scot, Plato of Tivolli, Gerbert French (Pope Sylvester II), etc.

The proud phase of Muslim intellectual life and its contribution to the tradition of mathematics from the 8th to 12th century A.D., was a great phenomenon of success in the knowledge of natural sciences. History bears out that there are numerous significant contributions by Muslim scholars in mathematics. For example, the introduction of algebra by Khowarzmi as a subject, itself is a great achievement. The name algebra is the word appearing in the title of the famous work by Khowarzmi al-jabr wal muqabalah, the seminal work of algebra, a branch of mathematics which until that time, had not been the object of any serious systematic study. The magnitude of influence of Khowarzmi in the history of algebra is undeniable. It is said of Abel that `he has left mathematicians something to keep busy for 500 years'. The same can be said of Khowarzmi: that he had left mathematicians something to keep them busy for more than five centuries.

The basic task of elementary algebra, namely, the solution of equations, and the stepwise introduction of new types of numbers, for use in solving them, was first systematically enunciated by the Muslims. Omar Khayyam was in fact the originator of some of the basic ideas underlying what is now known as non-Euclidean theory of parallel lines, at least so far as it antedates the work of Saccheri. The method of proof in the propositions has remained the same as was introduced by Omar Khayyam.

Apart from Khowarzmi and Omar Khayyam, other Muslim scholars who made notable contributions in mathematics during the Golden Age of science in the Muslim world were Abu Kamil, Al Biruni, Al Farabi, Al Kashi, Nasiruddin Tusi, Ibn Sina, Thabit Ibn Qurra, Ibn Haitham and Abu Wafa. Trigonometry and Number Theory in their modern form were the work of Muslim scholars. Muslim scholars were also the first to construct Tables of Tangents. It was again Muslim scholars who first set forth essentially all six cases of the right-angled spherical triangles. The modern function of zero is also a contribution by Khowarzmi. The place-value theory of the numerals (nine figures plus zero) has its origin in Muslim culture too.

History bears out that scientific brilliance is always accompanied by mathematical efflorescence. When the Muslims dominated the world of science and philosophy, they were supreme in mathematics. No nation has ever achieved scientific greatness without attaining mastery over mathematics. Nations which have developed the scientific infrastructure for socio-economic development have done so by realizing the importance of mathematics.