Islam Creator of the Modern Age
3. Muslim Contribution to Science
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path of enlightenment, eliminating the differences
between men on an intellectual plane. He held as
baseless all those suppositions and superstitions
which had been responsible for creating and
perpetuating the slave-master mentality.
Towards the end of the Prophet Muhammad’s life,
Maria Qibtiya bore him a beautiful and vivacious
son in Medina. The Prophet named him Ibrahim,
after the Prophet Abraham (May peace be upon
him). Ibrahim was just one and a half years old
when, in the tenth year of Hijrah (January 632 A.D.),
he died. It so happened that the death of Ibrahim
coincided with a solar eclipse. From ancient times,
one of the many prevailing superstitions was that
the solar and lunar eclipses were caused by the
death of some king or other important personage.
They were meant to show, they thought, that the
heavens mourned the death of the exalted in
station. At that time the Prophet Muhammad, may
peace be upon him, was King of Arabia. For this
reason, certain of the Medinans began attributing
the eclipse to the death of the Prophet’s son. As
soon as the Prophet heard of this, he refuted it.
There are several accounts of this incident in the
