Islam Creator of the Modern Age
3. Muslim Contribution to Science
~ 115 ~
was announced by the UN that for the first time in
history, smallpox had been eradicated.
Now the question arises as to why such a long time
had elapsed between the initial discovery of the
disease and the first attempts to investigate it
medically with a view to finding a remedy. The
reason was the prevalence of
shirk,
that is, the
holding of something to be sacred when it is not, or
the attribution of divinity to the non-divine.
Dr. David Werner writes, ‘In most places in India,
people believe that these diseases are caused
because the goddess is angry with their family or
their community. The goddess expresses her anger
through the diseases. The people believe that the
only hope of a cure for these diseases is to make
offerings to her in order to please her. They do not
feed the sick child or care for him because they fear
this will annoy the goddess more. So the sick child
becomes very weak and either dies or takes a long
time to get cured. These diseases are caused by
virus infection. It is essential that the child be given
plenty of food to keep up his strength so that he can
fight the infection.’
