Islam Creator of the Modern Age
1. Islam: Creator of the Modern Age
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of Sinjar, north of the Euphrates, and near Palmyra,
yielded 562 Arabic miles as the length of a degree of
the meridian—a remarkably accurate result,
exceeding the real length of the degree at that place
by about 2877 feet. This would make the
circumference of the earth 20,400 miles and its
diameter 6500. Among those who took part in this
operation were the sons of Musa ibn Shakir and al--
Khwarizmi, whose tables, revised a century and a
half later by the Spanish astronomer Maslamah al-
Majriti and translated into Latin in 1126 by Adelard
of Bath, became the bases for other works both in
the East and the West. No less a feat was that of Al-
Idrisi who, as early as the 12th century, made a map
of the world in which he even showed the source of
the River Nile, which was not discovered by Europe
till the 19th century.
All these activities were going on in the world of
Islam at a time when the whole of Europe believed
that the earth was flat.
Ptolemy, the well-known Greek astronomer of the
2nd century, had presented the earth-centered
theory of the solar system, in his famous book,
