Islam Creator of the Modern Age
1. Islam: Creator of the Modern Age
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philosophy. Their contribution to the field of
science—with the exception of Archimedes’
hydrostatics—was actually quite negligible.
It is an indisputable fact that for scientific enquiry
and scientific progress, an atmosphere of
intellectual freedom is absolutely essential. But such
an atmosphere did not exist in any of the countries
of ancient times, and neither did it exist in Greece.
Socrates, for example, was forced to commit suicide
by drinking hemlock as a punishment for his
encouraging free enquiry among the youth of
Athens. And Archimedes was struck down by a
Roman soldier in 212 B.C. while pondering over
geometrical problems in the sand.
7
According to
Plutarch, in
The Ancient Customs of the Spartans,
the
Spartans learned to read and write for purely
practical reasons, and all other educational
influences—books and treatises, as well as the
discourses of learned men—were banned. The arts
and philosophy flourished in democratic Athens,
yet many artists and philosophers, among them
Aeschylus, Euripides, Phidias, Socrates, and
Aristotle were either exiled, imprisoned or
executed, or they took flight.
