God Arises
Affirmation of Prophethood
~ 250 ~
existence being so highly organised. Birds do not,
like man, carry out research and pass on
information.
If man were to be denied access to the historical
information which has been accumulating over the
centuries or to the institutions which made the
exchange of ideas a fruitful reality, he would be
unable to accomplish anything. For instance, it is
doubtful if Columbus would have sailed west in
1492 in the hope of finding India, if he had not been
influenced by the ideas about the roundness of the
world which were propagated by Latin translations
of the works of Al-Idrisi (1100-1165), an Arab
geographer and scientist who wrote one of the
greatest mediaeval works on geography. The latter,
in his day, had derived this idea from the Hindi
concept of Arin. Columbus’ experiences in turn
increased the knowledge of his successors, and so
the chain of learning was added to the science of
geography till it reached its present state of
progress. If a captain with confidence sails his ship
from one shore to another of a vast ocean, or a pilot
makes a perfect flight across several continents, it is
thanks to the accretion of centuries of experience.
