Islam Creator of the Modern Age
3. Muslim Contribution to Science
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gods. They held them to be objects of reverence
rather than of conquest. The Arabs with their
changed mind saw these phenomena of nature in
the form of God’s creations. They saw them with an
eye to conquering them for exploitation. It was this
mental revolution, which enabled the Arabs to
perform their historic feats in the world of irrigation
and agriculture.
How can we learn methods of irrigation in the
desert where water is scarce? Ignorant of the true
source of this Arab skill, Bertrand Russell linked it,
quite irrelevantly, to their life in the desert, sans
water, instead of to their mental revolution, which
had come about thanks to monotheism. The science
of irrigation was developed not because of their
desert life but because of their monotheistic
thinking.
HISTORIOGRAPHY
The starting point in Arnold Toynbee’s philosophy
of history was his contention that the proper unit of
historical study must be a civilization, rather than
the traditional unit, the nation state.
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