Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

49
SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY PROGRESS UNDER THE ABBASIDS,
The rapid growth of Islamic scientific thought is one of the most instructive and astonishing events in human history. This process started after the death of Holy Prophet. The Holy-Prophet had left behind the Glorious Qur’an and example of his noble path for the growing community of believers, among whom were his companions from Makkah, learned scholars, statesmen and experts in military matters. This community provided the nucleus for the future growth of a worldwide Muslim society. Within fifty years of the Prophet’s death, the Muslims commanded a vast area covering the territories that had belonged to two ancient empires, and laid down the foundations of administrative, judicial, financial and educational systems based on Islamic principles. Shortly after the establishment of this infrastructure, Muslim scientists started their efforts to unravel the mysteries of the universe. Thus under the Abbasids, astronomy, physics, medicine, alchemy and other branches of science developed into organized subjects. True to the teachings of the Holy Prophet, Muslim.scholars also enriched themselves by learning from other civilizations. They imbedded the Greek philosophy and scientific discoveries of the ancient world, thus preserving a rich scientific heritage for later generations.
Natural sciences were studied by the Muslim physicians and chemist opposition to dissection and vivisection no doubt discouraged anatomy and physiology, but the Arabs made progress in this field by studying the skeletons of monkeys imported from Africa. Making exhaustive experiments with new theories and taking precaution in ail operations, they made particular progress in aetilogy, pathology and therapeutics. Arab produced physicians who

590 Political and Cultural History of Islam

specialized in various branches and wrote works illustrated with surgical instruments. These were their great innovations to which modern medical science is dealt.
When we speak of ”Arabian Sciences” or ”Arabian Medicine” we mean that body of scientific or medical doctrine which is enshrined in books written in the Arabic language, but which is for the most part Greek in its origin, though with Indian, Persian and Syrian accretions, and only in a very small degree the product of the Arabian mind. Although there is not a single aspect of European growth in which the decisive influence of Islamic culture is not traceable nowhere is it so clear and momentous as in the genesis of that power, which constitutes the permanent distinctive force of the modern world and supreme source of its victory, natural sciences and the scientific spirit. According to Arnold, the treasure houses of Islamic science are just beginning to be opened. In Constantinople alone there are more than eighty mosque libraries containing tens of thousand of manuscripts. In Cairo, Damascus, Mosul, Baghdad as well as in Persia and India, there are other collections.
Age of Translation
The debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist in startling discoveries of revolutionary theories. Science owes a great deal more to the Arab culture. It owes its existence. The Greek systematized, generalized and the organized, but the patient ways of investigation, the accumulation of positive knowledge, the minute method of science, detailed and prolonged observation and experimental inquiry were altogether alien to the Greek temperament. If we just trace the history of pre-lslamic world of Arabia, we find that ”the Arabian pre-lslamic and early Islamic poetry shows that the Bedouins possessed a certain knowledge of the animals, plants and stones of their vast peninsula. By the time of Arabs had penetrated into the Byzantine and Persian Empire, Greek science had for centuries ceased to be a living force. It had passed into the hands of scholars who copied or commented on the works of Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen, Ptolemy, Archimedes and the rest. The Greek medical traditions had found its most effective expositors in Actios of Amida and Paul of Aegina who dwelt in Alexandria. After the conquest of Egypt and some area of the Byzantine Empire, the Muslims came across some scientific institutions such as the 1. Jundishahpur 2. Harran 3. AJexandria. The scientific and philosophical works of the Greeks found in these and other places
Scientific and Literary Progress under the Abbasids gc
caused a great curiosity in them. The access to such foreign scientif literature was ensured in many ways. The manuscripts in tl territories which fell into the possession of Muslims were accessib without any difficulty.1
These sciences had developed their modes of action und<
the Abbasids. Transformation of knowledge of different civilizatio
started from the, ”Age of Translation” which started from Mansu
The translation work which began in the 8th century was, on
significant scale, done by the end of the 10th century. The translatio
was according to the original manuscript into Arabic. The translatoi
belonged to different ethnic and religious groups. Fo; instanci
Naubakht was of Persian origin, Muhammad Ibn Ibrahim al-Faza
was an Arab. Hunain bin Ishaq was Nestorian Christian from Hiral
A number of academies were established by the rulers at man
places in the Muslim world to carry out the work of translator
These academies undertook the translation of the main Greek wor
on philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, medicine and othe
sciences. The first such academy was Bait-ul-Hikma, set up b;
Mamun. Similarly in Spain and Egypt such academies were set u]
for the propagation of science and art. Muslim scientists fused th<
practical approach to scientific problem with the abstract thought
Their highly developed scientific techniques, the labelled diagram o
their scientific apparatus, the elaborative discussion of chemica
reaction found in their books confirm this thesis. Spanish sciences
with reference to Iraqi, has a comparison to find the fair result of th«
development of sciences. The first impulse given to the desire of the
Arabs for knowledge of wisdom of Greek came from the Umayyacj
prince Khalid who had a passion for al-chemy. Jabir bin Hayyan
the most competent chemist of early Islam.