G.C: Absolutely, the same applies to Christianity for the date of Easter and so on. This was actually the impetus which drove the popes to seek knowledge from Islam in the 11th and 12th centuries.
J.R: Well so many religious holidays are based on accurate measurements of astronomy. So it would have been important for both religion and science to understand how this works and when these different moments were thriving.
J.R: What do you mean the popes were seeking knowledge from Islam?
G.C: Well the pope, understood that in Spain, when it was reconquered by the Christians, had libraries which had repositories of astronomy and mathematics that went way beyond the ancient Greeks. So the popes encouraged scholars from France to go there to translate and learn the mathematics and astronomy so that they could come back and fix the calendars and mathematics and so on. What they found was a trove which was bigger than they could possibly imagine.
J.R: Was it not known across the western world that Islam and the Islamic caliphate had such advanced scientists and researchers in their midst?
G.C: Well it was known but the rivalry between the states, that was a military conflict, for most of their existence, sort of precluded that and they did not have access to these libraries until they were conquered from those territories that the Christians got back.
J.R: So they conquered those libraries and found these Arabic texts which had borrowed heavily and built upon what the Greeks had done right? Did the Europeans and the Christians then translate them into Latin and then sort of pretend that the Islamic scholars never contributed?
G.C: No, not right away. The translations of these texts took over a century. They came in waves to. Aristotle and Galen were among the last of the waves. All through the European ages these texts fostered what we now know as the early renaissance. During the renaissance that we know of, the Italian renaissance, this is when people began to deny the Arabic contribution. During that time, you had parallel strands, you had scholars that were studying Arabic. They were trying to learn the contributions that Muslim scholars were still making in things like astronomy and mathematics. But then you have the humanists that were emphasising the pure Greek, and they thought of these translations, in the middle ages, from Arabic, as having corrupted the pure Greek. Even though with science, as we know, it is accumulative so what they took as corruptions were actually improvements that the mediaeval Islamic scientists and physicians had made in these texts. So the humanists actually set the clock back, scientifically in some ways, and they also began to obscure the Islamic contribution.
 Figure 14.Frontispiece of the Latin Version of the Canon of Medicine, printed in Venice (Source) |
J.R: Was that out of xenophobia? I mean why would they obscure the Islamic contribution?
G.C: Well there’s the rivalry between religions. Which religion is the true faith? Both Christianity and Islam felt that they were the one true faith and that says a lot for how they related to one another on an ideological level.
J.R: When did you realise that there was this whole rich world of Islamic scientific thought and inquiry that had been obscured.
G.C: Well I studied philosophy at oxford and I began to notice that there was this gap in the history of philosophy, from late antiquity till the 11th century. It was almost as if ancient, classical philosophy suddenly appeared out of nowhere. I poked around a bit and discovered that this wasn’t the case, there was this vast body of Arabic commentary and translations of these ancient works that were avidly studied by the very people that were using them in the middle ages to revive philosophy and science. So that is when I became aware of it and I decided to study that subject in graduate school where I completed my PHD.
J.R: How accessible are the records and the resources and do they still live in some of these places that remain majority Muslim to this day? Are some of these individuals, that you mentioned, known and appreciated in places like Syria and Iraq today?
G.C: Yes, they are. However, some of these scientists that were rediscovered in the 20th century, by western scholars primarily, had been forgotten in the Islamic world. For example, Ibn al-Nafis’ contribution, the pulmonary circulation, had actually been forgotten exclusively. So Western scholars are actually contributing the reawakening and contribution of Islamic pride and their own history.
J.R: Is there today this same kind of energy and interest in scientific pursuits in Islam?
G.C: I think the desire is there and I think that the vision is there. There are numerous efforts, for example, the 1001 Inventions international exhibition, is designed to show the vast contributions of the Islamic world in technology and the sciences. Both to make the west aware of these thing but also to encourage young Muslim youth to do the STEM subjects?
Figure 15. www.1001inventions.com/stem-bonanza
 Figure 16. 15th-century European portrait of "Geber", the Latin name of Jabir ibn Hayyan: in Codici Ashburnhamiani 1166 (Source) |
J.R: Why is this important to you? what do you hope is the result of your efforts to raise awareness about what really does plug this gap between the Greeks and the Europeans?
G.C: Well, personally I don’t like to be lied to about the way history goes. But my broader vision is to encourage my fellow westerners to appreciate the contributions of the Islamic world. I don’t mean necessarily to love Islam, but to appreciate that the history of science is a global thing with many strands, many contributions and I would also like to see western arrogance hum down a little bit. We didn’t invent everything and the Greeks didn’t invent everything. We are not the only heirs of the Greeks the Muslims were to.
J.R: Glen Cooper is an adjunct assistant professor of history at Pitzer College a former professor of history here at BYU and a graduate of the University. Thank you for coming in today I really appreciate it.
G.C: Thank you very much.
muslimheritage.com/authors/glen-m-coop
Figure 17. House of Wisdom Sketch
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