Islam Creator of the Modern Age
3. Muslim Contribution to Science
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astronomer who offended the Church simply by
endorsing the Copernican view of the planets
moving round the sun. He was sentenced by a
religious court and thrown into prison. When he
saw that death awaited him, he was forced to recant
before the Inquisition. Kneeling, with both his
hands on the Bible, he solemnly withdrew his ‘far-
fetched’ theory of the movement of the planets
around the sun. He not only rejected this theory,
but said that he considered it ‘abominable.’
This was not just an isolated incident, but rather a
symptom of the intellectual malaise created by the
Christian scholars of those times. The search for
new truths and the discovery of nature’s secrets
remained forbidden pastures to them for centuries.
Such activities were reviled as black magic and a
part of satanic teachings. In such circumstances, it
was impossible for the processes of research and
investigation to be carried on with any success. In
the Middle Ages, it was solely due to the Muslims
that such work could be given any impetus, thanks
to the Qur’an having removed the kind of mental
blocks that had stood in the way of people of other
faiths, such as Galileo.
