Muslim Contributions to the European Renaissance

It is widely known that what many historians call The European Renaissance have occurred sometime around the beginning of the 16th century after a long period of darkness (European Dark Ages) in Earth’s western hemisphere . Reasons leading to the beginning of this period have been surrounded by many debates, as well as countless works trying to explain what the main factor leading to the reawakening of Europe was. It is also well known amongst leading figures in the field of history like George Saliba that there was an Islamic Golden Age during Europe’s darkness until the Renaissance in the beginning of the 1500’s . The Islamic Golden Age has been studied thoroughly by many scholars and was defined as the time of scientific advancement in the Islamic World especially in the area of the Middle East where the centers of research and libraries were located . Recently, there have been many works written on the subject of the Islamic contribution to the European Renaissance igniting many debates in the academic community. In the field of astronomy, one could not read about the history of this branch of science and not acknowledge the contributions made by Muslims throughout history. This was apparent to Saliba and Pederson. However, many historians such as Duhem and Gingerich have continuously tried to refute these contributions by stating that Muslims only copied the science of their Greek predecessors and passed it on to the Europeans. If we were to follow such claims one could conclude that Muslims are one of the main factors leading to the Renaissance, at least by preserving the knowledge of the Greeks and passing it on to the Europeans. This was not the case. Muslims not only preserved and passed the knowledge of the Greeks, but also significantly contributed to it by adding to and correcting many branches of this knowledge like mathematics, astronomy, and medicine to mention a few. This is extant in many manuscripts preserved in many museums and libraries around the world. In addition, the works of Al-Khawarizmi, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, and many others cannot be disregarded as they stand as evidences to the advancement of knowledge in almost all its branches between the time of the Greeks and the Europeans. One of the many examples, is the paper written by on The Theory of Parallax in Islamic Astronomy in which he talks about how Muslims in the time of Al-Khawarizmi (between the 8th and the 9th centuries) and others were setting the basis of this theory that was attributed to Copernicus by many historians much later. The European Renaissance cannot be mentioned without acknowledging the contributions of the famous astronomer Copernicus. In studies conducted by the aforementioned, Copernicus has borrowed from the works of ibn al-Shatir and other Muslim astronomers in order to help construct his own lunar model and the model of the upper planets. This borrowing of Islamic works on astronomy is to be considered as a secondary contributor to the Renaissance. Of course, any reader of the history of that time can conclude that similar borrowing of Islamic works can be considered to be secondary in causing the Renaissance, although, in my opinion, such borrowings were significant. So what were the main influences in bringing Europe to light? Historian James Burke mentioned that many Islamic works that worked as igniters in the Renaissance of Europe, two of which were mentioned by Maziak in his article, Science in the Arab World: vision of Glories Beyond, where he lists:

1. The work of ibn Sina exemplified in his book “Kitab Al-Shifa” (“The Book of Healing”). In this book, ibn Sina showed ways of using logic and applying it to every branch of knowledge in order to master that knowledge. He also equated the terms of science and religion and showed how to utilize them to understand the world around us.

2. The works of ibn Rushd that helped Europeans understand the teachings of Aristotle and explained his ways of learning the nature around us by reasoning and by the method of observation. These teachings can be observed when reading the works of many European scientists that heavily rely upon observations and reasoning to help understand the subjects they are investigating. Finally, the control of the Church in Medieval Europe and the limitations it forced upon scientists regarding freedom of academic/scientific opinion might have delayed this Renaissance. This, on the other hand, was not prevalent in Medieval Islam (from 750-1500 C.E.), which, in turn, helped in the enhancement of knowledge in all its branches in that world.