Talk:Science in the medieval Islamic world/Cleanup

Cleanup of article

As outlined at Talk:Science in medieval Islam#Misuse of sources, this article has been extensively edited by an editor who is known to have misused sources (see WP:Jagged 85 cleanup). With the aid of a script, I have tried to determine what material is still in the article, where the material was originally added by Jagged 85. I acknowledge that the following lists are too large to be useful, but having done the work to produce them I felt it best to post the information for general review. They show that a large portion of the current article is still based on Jagged 85's edits. Johnuniq (talk) 02:18, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Summary diffs

Jagged 85 made 924 edits to Science in medieval Islam. Diffs for each edit are listed at cleanup1, but since there are so many that list is not helpful; it is easier to view the full history of the article.

A script has been used to generate the following summary. Each item is a diff showing the result of several consecutive edits to Science in medieval Islam by Jagged 85, in chronological order.

• [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113] ([29] is missing because it involved the reversion of a vandal who blanked the page.)

References still in article

These references were added by Jagged 85, and are still in the current article. The <ref>...</ref> tags have been removed from this list.

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• A. Martin-Araguz, C. Bustamante-Martinez, Ajo V. Fernandez-Armayor, J. M. Moreno-Martinez (2002). "Neuroscience in al-Andalus and its influence on medieval scholastic medicine", Revista de neurología 34 (9), p. 877-892.
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• Akbar S. Ahmed (1984). "Al-Beruni: The First Anthropologist", RAIN 60, p. 9-10.
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• Bashar Saad, Hassan Azaizeh, Omar Said (October 2005). "Tradition and Perspectives of Arab Herbal Medicine: A Review", Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2 (4), p. 475-479 [476]. Oxford University Press.
• Behrooz Broumand, The contribution of Iranian scientists to world civilization, Archives of Iranian Medicine 2006; 9 (3): 288–290
• Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response:

  "There have been many civilizations in human history, almost all of which were local, in the sense that they were defined by a region and an ethnic group. This applied to all the ancient civilizations of the Middle East — Egypt, Babylon, Persia; to the great civilizations of Asia — India, China; and to the civilizations of Pre-Columbian America. There are two exceptions: Christendom and Islam. These are two civilizations defined by religion, in which religion is the primary defining force, not, as in India or China, a secondary aspect among others of an essentially regional and ethnically defined civilization. Here, again, another word of explanation is necessary."

  "In English we use the word “Islam” with two distinct meanings, and the distinction is often blurred and lost and gives rise to considerable confusion. In the one sense, Islam is the counterpart of Christianity; that is to say, a religion in the strict sense of the word: a system of belief and worship. In the other sense, Islam is the counterpart of Christendom; that is to say, a civilization shaped and defined by a religion, but containing many elements apart from and even hostile to that religion, yet arising within that civilization."

• Bernard Lewis The Jews of Islam 1987 page 6 "Similarly, Islamic science means mathematics, physics, chemistry, and the rest, produced within this Islamic civilization and expressed normally in Arabic, occasionally in one of the other languages of Islam. Much of this science, as of this art, is the work not of Muslims but of Christians and Jews living in Islamic lands and constituting a part of the Islamic civilization in which they were formed."
• Bernard R. Goldstein (March 1972). "Theory and Observation in Medieval Astronomy", Isis 63 (1), p. 39-47 [40-41].
• Bernard S. Bloom, Aurelia Retbi, Sandrine Dahan, Egon Jonsson (2000), "Evaluation Of Randomized Controlled Trials On Complementary And Alternative Medicine", International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care 16 (1), p. 13–21 [19].
• Bertrand Russell (1945), History of Western Philosophy, book 2, part 2, chapter X
• Boris A. Rosenfeld and Adolf P. Youschkevitch (1996), "Geometry", p. 469, in (Morelon & Rashed 1996, pp. 447–494)
• Bradley Steffens (2006). Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist, Chapter 5. Morgan Reynolds Publishing. ISBN 1-59935-024-6.
• Bradley Steffens (2006). Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist, Morgan Reynolds Publishing, ISBN 1-59935-024-6.
• Bradley Steffens (2006). Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist, Morgan Reynolds Publishing, ISBN 1-59935-024-6. (cf. Bradley Steffens, "Who Was the First Scientist?", Ezine Articles.)
• Chairman's Reflections (2004), "Traditional Medicine Among Gulf Arabs, Part II: Blood-letting", Heart Views 5 (2), p. 74-85 [80].
• Charles Burnett, ed. Adelard of Bath, Conversations with His Nephew, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. xi.
• Conway Zirkle (1941). Natural Selection before the "Origin of Species", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 84 (1), p. 71-123.
• D. C. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from al-Kindi to Kepler, (Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1976), pp. 60–67.
• D. Campbell, Arabian Medicine and Its Influence on the Middle Ages, p. 3.
• D. Campbell, Arabian Medicine and Its Influence on the Middle Ages, p. 4-5.
• D. Campbell, Arabian Medicine and Its Influence on the Middle Ages, p. 4.
• D. Campbell, Arabian Medicine and Its Influence on the Middle Ages, p. 5.
• D. Campbell, Arabian Medicine and Its Influence on the Middle Ages, p. 6.
• D. Craig Brater and Walter J. Daly (2000), "Clinical pharmacology in the Middle Ages: Principles that presage the 21st century", Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics 67 (5), p. 447-450 [448].
• D. Craig Brater and Walter J. Daly (2000), "Clinical pharmacology in the Middle Ages: Principles that presage the 21st century", Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics 67 (5), p. 447-450 [449].
• D. S. Kasir (1931). The Algebra of Omar Khayyam, p. 6-7. Teacher's College Press, Columbia University, New York.
• David Pingree (1964), "Gregory Chioniades and Palaeologan Astronomy", Dumbarton Oaks Papers 18, p. 135-160.
• David W. Tschanz, MSPH, PhD (August 2003). "Arab Roots of European Medicine", Heart Views 4 (2).
• David W. Tschanz, PhD (2003), "Arab Roots of European Medicine", Heart Views 4 (2).
• Diane Boulanger (2002), "The Islamic Contribution to Science, Mathematics and Technology", OISE Papers, in STSE Education, Vol. 3.
• Dr. Nader El-Bizri, "Ibn al-Haytham or Alhazen", in Josef W. Meri (2006), Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopaedia, Vol. II, p. 343-345, Routledge, New York, London.
• Dr. Abu Shadi Al-Roubi (1982), "Ibn Al-Nafis as a philosopher", Symposium on Ibn al-Nafis, Second International Conference on Islamic Medicine: Islamic Medical Organization, Kuwait (cf. Ibn al-Nafis As a Philosopher, Encyclopedia of Islamic World).
• Dr. Lotfollah Nabavi, Sohrevardi's Theory of Decisive Necessity and kripke's QSS System, Journal of Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences.
• Dr. S. W. Akhtar (1997). "The Islamic Concept of Knowledge", Al-Tawhid: A Quarterly Journal of Islamic Thought & Culture 12 (3).
• Dr. Sulaiman Oataya (1982), "Ibn ul Nafis has dissected the human body", Symposium on Ibn al-Nafis, Second International Conference on Islamic Medicine: Islamic Medical Organization, Kuwait (cf. Ibn ul-Nafis has Dissected the Human Body, Encyclopedia of Islamic World).
• Duhem, Pierre (1908, 1969). To Save the Phenomena: An Essay on the Idea of Physical theory from Plato to Galileo, p. 28. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
• Edward Grant (1996), The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages: Their Religious, Institutional, and Intellectual Contexts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• Edward Rosen (1985), "The Dissolution of the Solid Celestial Spheres", Journal of the History of Ideas 46 (1), p. 13-31 [19-20, 21].
• Erica Fraser. The Islamic World to 1600, University of Calgary.
• Ernest A. Moody (1951). "Galileo and Avempace: The Dynamics of the Leaning Tower Experiment (I)", Journal of the History of Ideas 12 (2): 163-193 [.
• Ernest A. Moody (June 1951). "Galileo and Avempace: The Dynamics of the Leaning Tower Experiment (II)", Journal of the History of Ideas 12 (3), p. 375-422 [375].
• Ernest A. Moody (June 1951). "Galileo and Avempace: The Dynamics of the Leaning Tower Experiment (II)", Journal of the History of Ideas 12 (3), p. 375-422 [380].
• F. Jamil Ragep (2001), "Tusi and Copernicus: The Earth's Motion in Context", Science in Context 14 (1-2), p. 145–163. Cambridge University Press.
• F. Woepcke (1853). Extrait du Fakhri, traité d'Algèbre par Abou Bekr Mohammed Ben Alhacan Alkarkhi. Paris.
• Farid Alakbarov (Summer 2001). A 13th-Century Darwin? Tusi's Views on Evolution, Azerbaijan International 9 (2).
• Felix Klein-Frank (2001), "Al-Kindi", in Oliver Leaman & Hossein Nasr, History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 174. London: Routledge.
• Felix Klein-Frank (2001), Al-Kindi, in Oliver Leaman and Hossein Nasr, History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 172. Routledge, London.
• Fielding H. Garrison, An Introduction to the History of Medicine: with Medical Chronology, Suggestions for Study and Biblographic Data, p. 86
• Frank N. Egerton, "A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 6: Arabic Language Science - Origins and Zoological", Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, April 2002: 142-146 [143]
• Franz Rosenthal (1950). "Al-Asturlabi and as-Samaw'al on Scientific Progress", Osiris 9, p. 555-564 [559].
• G. G. Joseph, The Crest of the Peacock, p. 306.
• George Saliba (1994). "Early Arabic Critique of Ptolemaic Cosmology: A Ninth-Century Text on the Motion of the Celestial Spheres", Journal for the History of Astronomy 25, p. 115-141 [116].
• George Saliba (1999). Whose Science is Arabic Science in Renaissance Europe?
• George Sarton (cf. Dr. Paul Ghalioungui (1982), "The West denies Ibn Al Nafis's contribution to the discovery of the circulation", Symposium on Ibn al-Nafis, Second International Conference on Islamic Medicine: Islamic Medical Organization, Kuwait)
  (cf. The West denies Ibn Al Nafis's contribution to the discovery of the circulation, Encyclopedia of Islamic World)
• George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science, Vol. 1, p. 710.
• George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science.
  (cf.
• H. Mowlana (2001). "Information in the Arab World", Cooperation South Journal 1.
• H. Salih, M. Al-Amri, M. El Gomati (2005). "The Miracle of Light", A World of Science 3 (3). UNESCO.
• Hogendijk, Jan P. (January 1999), Bibliography of Mathematics in Medieval Islamic Civilization:

  "Although most of the mathematicians in this period of Islamic civilization were Muslims, some prominent mathematicians had other religious backgrounds (Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian)."

• Howard R. Turner (1997), Science in Medieval Islam, p. 270 (book cover, last page), University of Texas Press, ISBN 0-292-78149-0:

  "Muslim artists and scientists, princes and laborers together made a unique culture that has directly and indirectly influenced societies on every continent."

• Husain F. Nagamia (2003), "Ibn al-Nafīs: A Biographical Sketch of the Discoverer of Pulmonary and Coronary Circulation", Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine 1, p. 22–28.
• I. M. Oweiss (1988), "Ibn Khaldun, the Father of Economics", Arab Civilization: Challenges and Responses, New York University Press, ISBN 0-88706-698-4.
• Ibn Khaldun, Franz Rosenthal, N. J. Dawood (1967), The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, p. x, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-01754-9.
• Ibn Khaldun, Franz Rosenthal, N. J. Dawood (1967), The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, p. x, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-01754-9. page 430: "Only the Persians engaged in the task of preserving knowledge and writing systematic scholarly works. Thus, the truth of the following statement by the Prophet becomes apparent:"If scholarship hung suspended in the highest parts of heaven, the Persians would attain it. [...] This situation continued in the cities as long as the Persians and the Persian countries, the 'Iraq, Khurasan, and Transoxania, retained their sedentary culture. But when those cities fell into ruins, sedentary culture, which God has devised for the attainment of sciences and crafts, disappeared from them. Along with it, scholarship altogether disappeared from among the non-Arabs (Persians), who were (now) engulfed by the desert attitude. Scholarship was restricted to cities with an abundant sedentary culture. Today, no (city) has a more abundant sedentary culture than Cairo (Egypt). It is the mother of the world, the great center (Iwan) of Islam, and the mainspring of the sciences and the crafts. Some sedentary culture has also survived in Transoxania, because the dynasty there provides some sedentary culture. Therefore, they have there a certain number of the sciences and the crafts, which cannot be denied. Our attention was called to this fact by the contents of the writings of a (Transoxanian) scholar, which have reached us in this country. He is Sa'd-ad-din at-Taftazani. As far as the other non-Arabs (Persians) are concerned, we have not seen, since the imam Ibn al-Khatib and Nasir-ad-din at-Tusi, any discussions that could be referred to as indicating their ultimate excellence."
• Ibrahim B. Syed PhD, "Islamic Medicine: 1000 years ahead of its times", Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine, 2002 (2), p. 2-9 [7-8].
• Ibrahim B. Syed PhD, "Islamic Medicine: 1000 years ahead of its times", Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine, 2002 (2), p. 2-9 [7].
• Ibrahim B. Syed, Ph.D. (2002). "Islamic Medicine: 1000 years ahead of its times", Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine 2, p. 2-9.
• Information taken from the abstract of Hadzović, S (1997). "[Pharmacy and the great contribution of Arab-Islamic science to its development] (Article in Croatian)". Medicinski arhiv. 51 (1–2): 47–50. ISSN 0350-199X. PMID 9324574. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• J. L. Berggren (1990). "Innovation and Tradition in Sharaf al-Din al-Tusi's Muadalat", Journal of the American Oriental Society 110 (2), p. 304-309.
• J. T. Walbridge (1998). "Explaining Away the Greek Gods in Islam", Journal of the History of Ideas 59 (3), p. 389-403.
• Jean David C. Boulakia (1971), "Ibn Khaldun: A Fourteenth-Century Economist", The Journal of Political Economy 79 (5): 1105-1118.
• Jerome B. Bieber. Medieval Translation Table 2: Arabic Sources, Santa Fe Community College.
• John Bagot Glubb (cf. Quotations on Islamic Civilization)
• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson (1999). Arabic mathematics: forgotten brilliance? MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
• John Warren (2005). "War and the Cultural Heritage of Iraq: a sadly mismanaged affair", Third World Quarterly, Volume 26, Issue 4 & 5, p. 815-830.
• Jonathan D. Eldredge (2003), "The Randomised Controlled Trial design: unrecognized opportunities for health sciences librarianship", Health Information and Libraries Journal 20, p. 34–44 [36].
• K. B. Wolf, "Geometry and dynamics in refracting systems", European Journal of Physics 16, p. 14-20, 1995.
• Karima Alavi, Tapestry of Travel, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University.
• L. Gari (2002), "Arabic Treatises on Environmental Pollution up to the End of the Thirteenth Century", Environment and History 8 (4), pp. 475-488.
• L. Leclerc (1876), Histoire de la medecine Arabe, vol. 2, p. 161, Paris.
  (cf. Salah Zaimeche, The Scholars of Aleppo: Al Mahassin, Al Urdi, Al-Lubudi, Al-Halabi, Foundation for Science Technology and Civilisation)
• Lawrence I. Conrad (1982), "Taun and Waba: Conceptions of Plague and Pestilence in Early Islam", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 25 (3), pp. 268-307 [278].
• Lenn Evan Goodman (2003), Islamic Humanism, p. 155, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-513580-6.
• M. Gill (2005). Was Muslim Astronomy the Harbinger of Copernicanism?
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• M.-T. d'Alverny, "Translations and Translators," pp. 444-6, 451
• Mariam Rozhanskaya and I. S. Levinova (1996), "Statics", p. 621, in (Morelon & Rashed 1996, pp. 614–642)
• Mariam Rozhanskaya and I. S. Levinova (1996), "Statics", p. 642, in (Morelon & Rashed 1996, pp. 614–642):

  "Arabic statics was an essential link in the progress of world science. It played an important part in the prehistory of classical mechanics in medieval Europe. Without it classical mechanics proper could probably not have been created."

• Mariam Rozhanskaya and I. S. Levinova (1996), "Statics", p. 642, in (Morelon & Rashed 1996, pp. 614–642):

  "Using a whole body of mathematical methods (not only those inherited from the antique theory of ratios and infinitesimal techniques, but also the methods of the contemporary algebra and fine calculation techniques), Arabic scientists raised statics to a new, higher level. The classical results of Archimedes in the theory of the centre of gravity were generalized and applied to three-dimensional bodies, the theory of ponderable lever was founded and the 'science of gravity' was created and later further developed in medieval Europe. The phenomena of statics were studied by using the dynamic approach so that two trends - statics and dynamics - turned out to be inter-related within a single science, mechanics. The combination of the dynamic approach with Archimedean hydrostatics gave birth to a direction in science which may be called medieval hydrodynamics. [...] Numerous fine experimental methods were developed for determining the specific weight, which were based, in particular, on the theory of balances and weighing. The classical works of al-Biruni and al-Khazini can by right be considered as the beginning of the application of experimental methods in medieval science."

• Martin-Araguz, A.; Bustamante-Martinez, C.; Fernandez-Armayor, Ajo V.; Moreno-Martinez, J. M. (2002). "Neuroscience in al-Andalus and its influence on medieval scholastic medicine", Revista de neurología 34 (9), p. 877-892.
• Mehmet Bayrakdar (Third Quarter, 1983). "Al-Jahiz And the Rise of Biological Evolutionism", The Islamic Quarterly. London.
• Michael E. Marmura (1965). "An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. Conceptions of Nature and Methods Used for Its Study by the Ikhwan Al-Safa'an, Al-Biruni, and Ibn Sina by Seyyed Hossein Nasr", Speculum 40 (4), p. 744-746.
• Mohamad Abdalla (Summer 2007). "Ibn Khaldun on the Fate of Islamic Science after the 11th Century", Islam & Science 5 (1), p. 61-70.
• Muhammad Hamidullah and Afzal Iqbal (1993), The Emergence of Islam: Lectures on the Development of Islamic World-view, Intellectual Tradition and Polity, p. 143-144. Islamic Research Institute, Islamabad.
• Muhammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, "The Spirit of Muslim Culture" (cf. [3] and [4])
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• N. M. Swerdlow (1993). "Montucla's Legacy: The History of the Exact Sciences", Journal of the History of Ideas 54 (2), p. 299-328 [320].
• Nahyan A. G. Fancy (2006), "Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection: The Interaction of Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in the Works of Ibn al-Nafīs (died 1288)", Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Notre Dame, pp. 3 & 6.
• Nahyan A. G. Fancy (2006), "Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection: The Interaction of Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in the Works of Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 1288)", p. 49 & 59, Electronic Theses and Dissertations, University of Notre Dame.[5]
• Nurdeen Deuraseh and Mansor Abu Talib (2005), "Mental health in Islamic medical tradition", The International Medical Journal 4 (2), p. 76-79.
• Oliver Joseph Lodge, Pioneers of Science, p. 9.
• Omar Khaleefa (Summer 1999). "Who Is the Founder of Psychophysics and Experimental Psychology?", American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 16 (2).
• Paul Vallely, How Islamic Inventors Changed the World, The Independent, 11 March 2006.
• Peter Barrett (2004), Science and Theology Since Copernicus: The Search for Understanding, p. 18, Continuum International Publishing Group, ISBN 0-567-08969-X.
• Plinio Prioreschi, "Al-Kindi, A Precursor Of The Scientific Revolution", Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine, 2002 (2): 17-19.
• R. L. Verma "Al-Hazen: father of modern optics", Al-Arabi, 8 (1969): 12–13.
• R. Rashed, "A pioneer in anaclastics: Ibn Sahl on burning mirrors and lenses", Isis 81, p. 464–491, 1990.
• Rabie E. Abdel-Halim (2005), "Contributions of Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) to the progress of surgery: A study and translations from his book Al-Taisir", Saudi Medical Journal 2005; Vol. 26 (9): 1333-1339.
• Rabie E. Abdel-Halim (2006), "Contributions of Muhadhdhab Al-Deen Al-Baghdadi to the progress of medicine and urology", Saudi Medical Journal 27 (11): 1631-1641.
• Rafik Berjak and Muzaffar Iqbal, "Ibn Sina — Al-Biruni correspondence", Islam & Science, December 2003.
• Ray Spier (2002), "The history of the peer-review process", Trends in Biotechnology 20 (8), p. 357-358 [357].
• Richard Covington (May-June 2007). "Rediscovering Arabic science", Saudi Aramco World, p. 2-16.
• Richard Tapper (1995). "Islamic Anthropology" and the "Anthropology of Islam", Anthropological Quarterly 68 (3), Anthropological Analysis and Islamic Texts, p. 185-193.
• Robert Briffault (1928). The Making of Humanity, p. 191. G. Allen & Unwin Ltd.
• Robert Briffault (1928). The Making of Humanity, p. 202. G. Allen & Unwin Ltd.
• Robert Briffault (1938). The Making of Humanity, p. 196-197.
• Rosanna Gorini (2003). "Al-Haytham the Man of Experience. First Steps in the Science of Vision", International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine. Institute of Neurosciences, Laboratory of Psychobiology and Psychopharmacology, Rome, Italy.
• Roshdi Rashed (2007). "The Celestial Kinematics of Ibn al-Haytham", Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 17, p. 7-55 [35-36]. Cambridge University Press.
• Roshdi Rashed (2007). "The Celestial Kinematics of Ibn al-Haytham", Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 17, p. 7-55. Cambridge University Press.
• Russell McNeil, Ibn al-Baitar, Malaspina University-College.
• S Safavi-Abbasi, LBC Brasiliense, RK Workman (2007), "The fate of medical knowledge and the neurosciences during the time of Genghis Khan and the Mongolian Empire", Neurosurgical Focus 23 (1), E13, p. 3.
• S. P. Scott (1904), History of the Moorish Empire in Europe, 3 vols, J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and London.
  F. B. Artz (1980), The Mind of the Middle Ages, Third edition revised, University of Chicago Press, pp 148-50.
  (cf. References, 1001 Inventions)
• Salah Zaimeche (2003), An Introduction to Muslim Science, FSTC.
• Salah Zaimeche (2003). Aspects of the Islamic Influence on Science and Learning in the Christian West, p. 10. Foundation for Science Technology and Civilisation.
• Salahuddin Ahmed (1999). A Dictionary of Muslim Names. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. ISBN 1-85065-356-9.
• Samar Attar, The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment: Ibn Tufayl's Influence on Modern Western Thought, Lexington Books, ISBN 0-7391-1989-3.
• Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1964), An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, (Cambridge: Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press), p. 135-136
• Seyyed Hossein Nasr, "The achievements of Ibn Sina in the field of science and his contributions to its philosophy", Islam & Science, December 2003.
• Shlomo Pines (1964), "La dynamique d’Ibn Bajja", in Mélanges Alexandre Koyré, I, 442-468 [462, 468], Paris
  (cf. Abel B. Franco (October 2003), "Avempace, Projectile Motion, and Impetus Theory", Journal of the History of Ideas 64 (4): 521-546 [543])
• Simon Singh, The Code Book, p. 14-20.
• Teun Koetsier (2001), "On the prehistory of programmable machines: musical automata, looms, calculators", Mechanism and Machine theory 36: 590-591
• Thomas Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution, (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Pr., 1957), p. 142.
• Toby Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science, p. 326. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-52994-8.
• Toufic Fahd (1996), "Botany and agriculture", p. 849, in (Morelon & Rashed 1996, pp. 813–852)
• Toulmin, S. and Goodfield, J. (1965), The Ancestry of science: The Discovery of Time, Hutchinson & Co., London, p. 64 (cf. Contribution of Ibn Sina to the development of Earth Sciences)
• V. J. Katz, A History of Mathematics: An Introduction, p. 291.
• Victor J. Katz (1995). "Ideas of Calculus in Islam and India", Mathematics Magazine 68 (3), p. 163-174.
• Victor J. Katz (1998). History of Mathematics: An Introduction, p. 255-259. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-321-01618-1.
• Wael B. Hallaq (1993), Ibn Taymiyya Against the Greek Logicians, p. 48. Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-824043-0.
• Walter J. Daly and D. Craig Brater (2000), "Medieval contributions to the search for truth in clinical medicine", Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 43 (4), p. 530–540 [536], Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Will Durant (1980). The Age of Faith (The Story of Civilization, Volume 4), p. 162-186. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-01200-2.
• Zafarul-Islam Khan, At The Threshhold Of A New Millennium – II, The Milli Gazette.
• A. I. Sabra (1996). "Greek Science in Medieval Islam". In Ragep, F. J.; Ragep, Sally P.; Livesey, Steven John (eds.). Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: Proceedings of Two Conferences on Pre-modern Science held at the University of Oklahoma. Brill Publishers. p. 20. ISBN 9004091262. Of crucial importance in the first stage were of course the agents of transmission, the Christians and Sabians who served their Muslim employers. They did not for the most part adopt the new faith; and while they wrote on scientific matters in Arabic for their patrons, they continued to write in Syriac on matters of religious concern to their co-religionists. As genuine believers in the values of the Hellenistic tradition which they propagated they cannot be merely considered as mercenaries, but they remained, in a sense, outsiders. Their heirs in the second stage were mostly Muslims who came from all parts of the Muslim world. [...] But the general outlook which determined the direction of their thought and in terms of which they sought to interpret their own religion and expound their views on the place of religion and of rational thought in the organization of society was uncompromisingly Hellenistic. A look at the later centuries, what I called the third stage, reveals a clearly noticeable change. The carriers of scientific and medical knowledge and techniques now largely consisted of men who were not only Muslim by birth and faith, but who were imbued with Muslim learning and tradition, and whose conceptual framework had been produced in the process of forging a consciously Muslim outlook. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Huff, Toby (2003). The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West. Cambridge University Press. p. 218. ISBN 0521529948. {{cite book}}: More than one of |pages= and |page= specified (help)
• Kepple, George Robert (1998). The Night Sky Observer's Guide, Volume 1. Willmann-Bell, Inc. p. 18. ISBN 0-943396-58-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Hatfield, Gary (1996). "Was the Scientific Revolution Really a Revolution in Science?". In Ragep, F. J.; Ragep, Sally P.; Livesey, Steven John (eds.). Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: Proceedings of Two Conferences on Pre-modern Science held at the University of Oklahoma. Brill Publishers. p. 500. ISBN 9004091262.
• Krebs, Robert E. (2004). Groundbreaking Scientific Experiments, Inventions, and Discoveries of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Greenwood Press. p. 196. ISBN 0-3133-2433-6.
• Nas, Peter J (1993). Urban Symbolism. Brill Academic Publishers. p. 350. ISBN 9-0040-9855-0. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |origmonth=, |month=, |chapterurl=, |origdate=, and |coauthors= (help)
• Syed, M. H. (2005). Islam and Science. Anmol Publications PVT. LTD. p. 71. ISBN 8-1261-1345-6.
• Sardar, Ziauddin (1998). "Science in Islamic philosophy". Islamic Philosophy. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 2008-02-03.
• Sabra, A. I.; Hogendijk, J. P. (2003). The Enterprise of Science in Islam: New Perspectives. MIT Press. pp. 85–118. ISBN 0262194821.
• Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (1968). "The Principles of Islam". Science and Civilization in Islam. Harvard University Press. Retrieved 2008-02-03.
• Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (1996). History of Islamic Philosophy. Routledge. pp. 315 & 1022–1023. ISBN 0415131596. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Edmund, Norman W. (2005). End the Biggest Educational and Intellectual Blunder in History: A $100,000 Challenge to Our Top Educational Leaders. Scientific Method Publishing. p. 447. ISBN 0963286668.
• David C. Lindberg (1980). Science in the Middle Ages. University of Chicago Press. p. 21. ISBN 0226482332. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Seyyed Hossein Nasr & Mehdi Amin Razavi (1996). The Islamic intellectual tradition in Persia. Routledge. p. 72. ISBN 0700703144. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Shlomo Pines (1970). "Abu'l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī , Hibat Allah". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 26–28. ISBN 0684101149.
  (cf. Abel B. Franco (October 2003). "Avempace, Projectile Motion, and Impetus Theory", Journal of the History of Ideas 64 (4), p. 521-546 [528].)
• Kennedy, Edward S. (1962). "Review: The Observatory in Islam and Its Place in the General History of the Observatory by Aydin Sayili". Isis. 53 (2): 237–239. doi:10.1086/349558. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lindberg, David C. (1967). "Alhazen's Theory of Vision and Its Reception in the West". Isis. 58 (3): 321–341 [332]. doi:10.1086/350266. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Savage-Smith, Emilie (1995). "Attitudes Toward Dissection in Medieval Islam". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 50 (1). Oxford University Press: 67–110. doi:10.1093/jhmas/50.1.67. PMID 7876530. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Toomer, G. J. (December 1964). "Review: Ibn al-Haythams Weg zur Physik by Matthias Schramm". Isis. 55 (4): 463–465 [463–4]. doi:10.1086/349914. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Derewenda, Zygmunt S. (2007). "On wine, chirality and crystallography". Acta Crystallographica Section A: Foundations of Crystallography. 64 (Pt 1): 246–258 [247]. doi:10.1107/S0108767307054293. PMID 18156689. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Jacquart, Danielle (2008). "Islamic Pharmacology in the Middle Ages: Theories and Substances". European Review. 16. Cambridge University Press: 219–27. doi:10.1017/S1062798708000215. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Simon, Gérard (2006). "The Gaze in Ibn al-Haytham". The Medieval History Journal. 9 (1): 89–98. doi:10.1177/097194580500900105. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Fahd, Toufic. : 815. {{cite journal}}: |contribution= ignored (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Missing or empty |title= (help), in (Morelon & Rashed 1996)
• Micheau, Francoise. : 988–991. {{cite journal}}: |contribution= ignored (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Missing or empty |title= (help) in (Morelon & Rashed 1996, pp. 985–1007)
• Micheau, Francoise. : 992–3. {{cite journal}}: |contribution= ignored (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Missing or empty |title= (help), in (Rashed & Morelon 1996, pp. 985–1007)
• Micheau, Francoise. : 992–3. {{cite journal}}: |contribution= ignored (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Missing or empty |title= (help), in (Morelon & Rashed 1996, pp. 985–1007)
• Saliba, George (Autumn 1999). "Seeking the Origins of Modern Science? Review of Toby E. Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West". Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies. 1 (2). Retrieved 2008-04-10. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Bellosta, Hélèna (2002). "Burning Instruments: From Diocles to Ibn Sahl". Arabic Sciences and Philosophy. 12. Cambridge University Press: 285–303. doi:10.1017/S095742390200214X. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Abdel-Halim, R. E. (2008). "Contributions of Ibn Al-Nafis to the progress of medicine and urology: A study and translations from his medical works". Saudi Medical Journal. 29 (1): 13–22 [15–6]. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Adi Setia (2004). "Fakhr Al-Din Al-Razi on Physics and the Nature of the Physical World: A Preliminary Survey". Islam & Science. 2. Retrieved 2010-03-02. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ashy, Majed A. (Fall 1999). "Health and Illness from an Islamic Perspective". Journal of Religion and Health. 38 (3): 241–57. doi:10.1023/A:1022984718794. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Rashed, Roshdi (2 August 2002). "Portraits of Science: A Polymath in the 10th Century". Science. 297 (5582): 773. doi:10.1126/science.1074591. PMID 12161634. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ute Ballay (November 1990). "The Astronomical Manuscripts of Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī". Arabica. 37 (3). Brill Publishers: 389–392 [389]. doi:10.1163/157005890X00050. Retrieved 2010-03-29. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them."^{[Quran 17:36]}
• "Behold! In the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of the night and the day; in the sailing of the ships through the ocean for the benefit of mankind; in the rain which Allah Sends down from the skies, and the life which He gives therewith to an earth that is dead; in the beasts of all kinds that He scatters through the earth; in the change of the winds, and the clouds which they trail like their slaves between the sky and the earth - (Here) indeed are Signs for a people that are wise."^{[Quran 2:164]}
• "Observatoire de Paris (Abd-al-Rahman Al Sufi)". Retrieved 2007-04-19.
• "Observatoire de Paris (LMC)". Retrieved 2007-04-19.
• Saoud, R. "The Arab Contribution to the Music of the Western World" (PDF). Retrieved 2007-01-12.
• Munim M. Al-Rawi and Salim Al-Hassani (2002). "The Contribution of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) to the development of Earth sciences" (PDF). FSTC. Retrieved 2008-07-01. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• (Eglash 1999, p. 61)
• (Gaudiosi 1988)
• (Hobson 2004, p. 178)
• (Hudson 2003, p. 32)
• (Huff 2003)
• (Saliba 1994, p. vii):

  "The main thesis, for which this collection of articles came be used as evidence, is the one claiming that the period often called a period of decline in Islamic intellectual history was, scientifically speaking from the point of view of astronomy, a very productive period in which astronomical thories of the highest order were produced."

• (Saliba 1994, pp. 245, 250, 256–257)
• (Saliba 1994, pp. 60 & 67-69)
• (Turner 1997, pp. 136–138)
• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Abu'l Hasan ibn Ali al Qalasadi", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Al-Biruni", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Al-Farisi", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews

• "Observe nature and reflect over it."

  — Qur'an

  (cf. C. A. Qadir (1990), Philosophy and Science in the lslumic World, Routledge, London)
  (cf. Bettany, Laurence (1995), "Ibn al-Haytham: an answer to multicultural science teaching?", Physics Education 30: 247-252 [247])

Links still in article

These links to other articles were added by Jagged 85, and are still in the current article. Links to common terms like London are omitted from this list.

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Material still in article

The following paragraphs were introduced by Jagged 85 and are still in Science in medieval Islam, perhaps modifed.

It is also known as Arabic science due to most texts during this period being written in Arabic, the lingua franca of the Islamic civilization. Despite these names, not all scientists during this period were Muslim or Arab, as there were a number of notable non-Arab scientists (most notably Persians), as well as some non-Muslim scientists, contributing to science in the Islamic civilization.

There are several different views on Islamic science among historians of science. The traditionalist view, as exemplified by Bertrand Russell, holds that Islamic science, while admirable in many technical ways, lacked the intellectual energy required for innovation and was chiefly important as a preserver of ancient knowledge and transmitter to medieval Europe. The revisionist view, as exemplified by Abdus Salam and George Saliba, holds that a Muslim scientific revolution occurred during the Middle Ages, an expression with which scholars such as Donald Routledge Hill and Ahmad Y Hassan express the view that Islam was the driving force behind the Muslim achievements, while Robert Briffault even sees Islamic science as the foundation of modern science. The most prominent view in recent scholarship, however, as examplified by Toby E. Huff, Will Durant, Fielding H. Garrison, Muhammad Iqbal Hossein Nasr and Bernard Lewis, holds that Muslim scientists did help in laying the foundations for an experimental science with their contributions to the scientific method and their empirical, experimental and quantitative approach to scientific inquiry, but that their work cannot be considered a Scientific Revolution, like what occurred in early modern Europe and led to the emergence of modern science, with the exception of Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics which is widely considered a revolution in the fields of optics and visual perception.

During the early Muslim conquests, the Muslim Arabs led by Khalid ibn al-Walid conquered the Sassanid Persian Empire and much of the Byzantine Roman Empire, establishing the Arab Empire across the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa, followed by further expansions across Pakistan, southern Italy and the Iberian Peninsula. As a result, the Islamic governments inherited "the knowledge and skills of the ancient Middle East, of Greece, of Persia and of India. They added new and important innovations from outside, such as positional numbering from Ancient India," as Bernard Lewis wrote in What Went Wrong?

The art of papermaking was obtained from two prisoners at the Battle of Talas (751), resulting in paper mills being built in Samarkand and Baghdad. The Arabs improved upon the Chinese techniques using linen rags instead of mulberry bark.

Not all scientists in Islamic civilization were Arab or Muslim. Some argue that the term "Arab-Islamic" does not appreciate the rich diversity of eastern scholars who have contributed to science in that era.

During the Islamic Golden Age, Muslim scholars made significant advances in science, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, engineering, and many other fields. During this time, early Islamic philosophy developed and was often pivotal in scientific debates — key figures were usually scientists and philosophers.

The number of important and original Arabic works written on the mathematical sciences is much larger than the combined total of Latin and Greek works on the mathematical sciences.

A number of important institutions previously unknown in the ancient world have their origins in the medieval Islamic world, with the most notable examples being: the public hospital (which replaced healing temples and sleep temples) and psychiatric hospital, the public library and lending library, the academic degree-granting university, and the astronomical observatory as a research institute (as opposed to an observation post as was the case in ancient times).

The first universities which issued diplomas were the Bimaristan medical university-hospitals of the medieval Islamic world, where medical diplomas were issued to students of Islamic medicine who were qualified to be practicing doctors of medicine from the 9th century. Sir John Bagot Glubb wrote:

A number of distinct features of the modern library were introduced in the Islamic world, where libraries not only served as a collection of manuscripts as was the case in ancient libraries, but also as a public library and lending library, a centre for the instruction and spread of sciences and ideas, a place for meetings and discussions, and sometimes as a lodging for scholars or boarding school for pupils. The concept of the library catalog was also introduced in medieval Islamic libraries, where books were organized into specific genres and categories.

Another common feature during the Islamic Golden Age was the large number of Muslim polymaths or "universal geniuses", scholars who contributed to many different fields of knowledge. Muslim polymaths were known as "Hakeems" and they had a wide breadth of knowledge in many different fields of religious and secular learning, comparable to the later "Renaissance Men", such as Leonardo da Vinci, of the European Renaissance period. Polymath scholars were so common during the Islamic Golden Age that it was rare to find a scholar who specialized in any single field at the time. Notable Muslim polymaths included al-Biruni, al-Jahiz, al-Kindi, Abu Bakr Muhammad al-Razi, Ibn Sina, al-Idrisi, Ibn Bajja, Omar Khayyam, Ibn Zuhr, Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Rushd, al-Suyuti Geber, al-Khwarizmi, the Banū Mūsā, Abbas Ibn Firnas, al-Farabi, al-Masudi, al-Muqaddasi, Alhacen, Omar Khayyám, al-Ghazali, al-Khazini, Avempace, al-Jazari, Ibn al-Nafis, Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī, Ibn al-Shatir, Ibn Khaldun, and Taqi al-Din, among many others.

Islamic science and the numbers of Islamic scientists were traditionally believed to have begun declining from the 12th or 13th centuries. It was believed that, though the Islamic civilization would still produce scientists, that they became the exception, rather than the rule (see List of Islamic scholars). Recent scholarship, however, has come to question this traditional picture of decline, pointing to continued astronomical activity as a sign of a continuing and creative scientific tradition through to the 16th century, of which the work of Ibn al-Shatir (1304–1375) in Damascus is considered the most noteworthy example. This was also the case for other areas of Islamic science, such as medicine, exemplified by the works of Ibn al-Nafis and Şerafeddin Sabuncuoğlu, and the social sciences, exemplified by Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah (1370), which itself points out that science was declining in Iraq, al-Andalus and Maghreb but continuing to flourish in Persia, Syria and Egypt.

One of the traditional reasons given for the scientific decline was when the orthodox Ash'ari school of theology challenged the more rational Mu'tazili school of theology, with al-Ghazali's The Incoherence of the Philosophers being the most notable example. Recent scholarship has questioned this traditional view, however, with a number of scholars pointing out that the Ash'ari school supported science but were only opposed to speculative philosophy and that some of the greatest Muslim scientists such as Alhazen, Biruni, Ibn al-Nafis and Ibn Khaldun were themselves followers of the Ash'ari school. Other reasons for the decline of Islamic science include conflicts between the Sunni and Shia Muslims, and invasions by Crusaders and Mongols on Islamic lands between the 11th and 13th centuries, especially the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. The Mongols destroyed Muslim libraries, observatories, hospitals, and universities, culminating in the destruction of Baghdad, the Abbasid capital and intellectual centre, in 1258, which is traditionally believed to have marked an end to the Islamic Golden Age.

From the 13th century, some traditionalist Muslims believed that the Crusades and Mongol invasions may have been a divine punishment from God against Muslims deviating from the Sunnah, a view that was held even by the famous polymath Ibn al-Nafis. Such traditionalist views as well as numerous wars and conflicts at the time are believed to have created a climate which made Islamic science less successful than before. However, Y. Ziedan has pointed out that the sack of Baghdad in 1258 was followed by intense scientific activity across Damascus and Cairo, as many Muslim scholars wrote huge encyclopedias (including an 80-volume medical encyclopedia by Ibn al-Nafis) in an attempt to preserve the scientific heritage of the Islamic world and cope with the loss of Baghdad.

Another reason given for the decline of Islamic science is the disruption to the cycle of equity based on Ibn Khaldun's famous model of Asabiyyah (the rise and fall of civilizations), which points to the decline being mainly due to political and economic factors rather than religious factors. With the fall of Islamic Spain in 1492, the scientific and technological initiative of the Islamic world was inherited by Europeans and laid the foundations for Europe's Renaissance and Scientific Revolution.

Fibonacci presented the first complete European account of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system from Arabic sources in his Liber Abaci (1202). Al-Khazini's Zij as-Sanjari was translated into Greek by Gregory Choniades in the 13th century and was studied in the Byzantine Empire. The astronomical corrections to the Ptolemaic model made by al-Battani, Averroes, Mo'ayyeduddin Urdi (Urdi lemma), Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (Tusi-couple) and Ibn al-Shatir were later adapted into the Copernican heliocentric model. Al-Kindi's (Alkindus) law of terrestrial gravity influenced Robert Hooke's law of celestial gravity, which in turn inspired Newton's law of universal gravitation. Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī's Ta'rikh al-Hind and Kitab al-qanun al-Mas’udi were translated into Latin as Indica and Canon Mas’udicus respectively. Ibn al-Nafis' Commentary on Compound Drugs was translated into Latin by Andrea Alpago (d. 1522), who may have also translated Ibn al-Nafis' Commentary on Anatomy in the Canon of Avicenna, which first described pulmonary circulation and coronary circulation, and which may have had an influence on Michael Servetus, Realdo Colombo and William Harvey. Translations of the algebraic and geoemetrical works of Ibn al-Haytham, Omar Khayyám and Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī were later influential in the development of non-Euclidean geometry in Europe from the 17th century. Ibn al-Baitar's Kitab al-Jami fi al-Adwiya al-Mufrada also had an influence on European botany after it was translated into Latin in 1758.

Muslim scientists placed far greater emphasis on experimentation than any previous ancient civilization, due to the Qur'an's emphasis on empiricism, and they introduced quantification, precise observation, controlled experiment and careful records as a result. Their new approach to scientific inquiry led to the development of the scientific method. In particular, the empirical observations and quantitative experiments of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) in his Book of Optics (1021) is seen as the beginning of the modern scientific method, which he first introduced to optics and psychology. Rosanna Gorini writes:

Other early experimental methods were developed by Geber (for chemistry), Muhammad al-Bukhari (for history and the science of hadith), al-Kindi (for the Earth sciences), Avicenna (for medicine), Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (for astronomy and mechanics), Ibn Zuhr (for surgery) and Ibn Khaldun (for the social sciences). The most important development of the scientific method, the use of experimentation and quantification to distinguish between competing scientific theories set within a generally empirical orientation, was introduced by Muslim scientists.

Ibn al-Haytham, a pioneer of modern optics, used the scientific method to obtain the results in his Book of Optics. In particular, he combined observations, experiments and rational arguments to show that his modern intromission theory of vision, where rays of light are emitted from objects rather than from the eyes, is scientifically correct, and that the ancient emission theory of vision supported by Ptolemy and Euclid (where the eyes emit rays of light), and the ancient intromission theory supported by Aristotle (where objects emit physical particles to the eyes), were both wrong. It is known that Roger Bacon was familiar with Ibn al-Haytham's work.

Ibn al-Haytham developed rigorous experimental methods of controlled scientific testing in order to verify theoretical hypotheses and substantiate inductive conjectures. Ibn al-Haytham's scientific method was similar to the modern scientific method in that it consisted of the following procedures:

1. Observation
2. Statement of problem
3. Formulation of hypothesis
4. Testing of hypothesis using experimentation
5. Analysis of experimental results
6. Interpretation of data and formulation of conclusion
7. Publication of findings

In The Model of the Motions, Ibn al-Haytham also describes an early version of Occam's razor, where he employs only minimal hypotheses regarding the properties that characterize astronomical motions, as he attempts to eliminate from his planetary model the cosmological hypotheses that cannot be observed from Earth.

Robert Briffault wrote in The Making of Humanity:

"Science is the most momentous contribution of Arab civilization to the modern world, but its fruits were slow in ripening. Not until long after Moorish culture had sunk back into darkness did the giant to which it had given birth, rise in his might. It was not science only which brought Europe back to life. Other and manifold influences from the civilization of Islam communicated its first glow to European life."

Oliver Joseph Lodge wrote in the Pioneers of Science:

"The only effective link between the old and the new science is afforded by the Arabs. The dark ages come as an utter gap in the scientific history of Europe, and for more than a thousand years there was not a scientific man of note except in Arabia."

"It is clear from the large number of Qur’anic verses, a few of which have been quoted above, and from the writings of numerous eastern as well as western scholars, that modern science owes its very existence to Islam. The new spirit of enquiry and the new methods of experiment, observation, and measurement, on which modern science is based, are all contributions of those who followed the teaching of Islam."

Muhammad Iqbal wrote in The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam:

"Thus the experimental method, reason and observation introduced by the Arabs were responsible for the rapid advancement of science during the medieval times."

The first documented description of a peer review process is found in the Ethics of the Physician written by Ishaq bin Ali al-Rahwi (854–931) of al-Raha, Syria, who describes the first medical peer review process. His work, as well as later Arabic medical manuals, state that a visiting physician must always make duplicate notes of a patient's condition on every visit. When the patient was cured or had died, the notes of the physician were examined by a local medical council of other physicians, who would review the practising physician's notes to decide whether his/her performance have met the required standards of medical care. If their reviews were negative, the practicing physician could face a lawsuit from a maltreated patient.

Fielding H. Garrison wrote in the History of Medicine:

"The Saracens themselves were the originators not only of algebra, chemistry, and geology, but of many of the so-called improvements or refinements of civilization, such as street lamps, window-panes, firework, stringed instruments, cultivated fruits, perfumes, spices, etc..."

In the applied sciences, a significant number of inventions and technologies were produced by medieval Muslim scientists and engineers such as Abbas Ibn Firnas, Taqi al-Din, and especially al-Jazari called by some the "father of modern day engineering". Some of the inventions believed to have come from the medieval Islamic world include the programmable automaton, coffee, hang glider, flight control surfaces, soap bar, shampoo, pure distillation, liquefaction, crystallisation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation, filtration, distilled alcohol, uric acid, nitric acid, alembic, crankshaft, valve, reciprocating suction piston pump, mechanical clocks driven by water and weights, combination lock, quilting, pointed arch, scalpel, bone saw, forceps, surgical catgut, windmill, inoculation, fountain pen, cryptanalysis, frequency analysis, three-course meal, stained glass and quartz glass, Persian carpet, modern cheque, celestial globe, explosive rockets and incendiary devices, torpedo, and artificial pleasure gardens.

During the Muslim Agricultural Revolution, Muslim scientists made significant advances in botany and laid the foundations of agricultural science. Muslim botanists and agriculturists demonstrated advanced agronomical, agrotechnical and economic knowledge in areas such as meteorology, climatology, hydrology, soil occupation, and the economy and management of agricultural enterprises. They also demosntrated agricultural knowledge in areas such as pedology, agricultural ecology, irrigation, preparation of soil, planting, spreading of manure, killing herbs, sowing, cutting trees, grafting, pruning vine, prophylaxis, phytotherapy, the care and improvement of cultures and plants, and the harvest and storage of crops.

Al-Dinawari (828-896) is considered the founder of Arabic botany for his Book of Plants, in which he described at least 637 plants and discussed plant evolution from its birth to its death, describing the phases of plant growth and the production of flowers and fruit.

In the 13th century, the Andalusian-Arabian biologist Abu al-Abbas al-Nabati developed an early scientific method for botany, introducing empirical and experimental techniques in the testing, description and identification of numerous materia medica, and separating unverified reports from those supported by actual tests and observations. His student Ibn al-Baitar published the Kitab al-Jami fi al-Adwiya al-Mufrada, which is considered one of the greatest botanical compilations in history, and was a botanical authority for centuries. It contains details on at least 1,400 different plants, foods, and drugs, 300 of which were his own original discoveries. His work was also influential in Europe after it was translated into Latin in 1758.

Muslim physicians later made many of their own significant advances and contributions to the field of medicine, including the subjects of anatomy, ophthalmology, pharmacology, pharmacy, physiology, and surgery.

Muslim physicians set up some of the earliest dedicated hospitals. Hospitals later spread to Europe during the Crusades, inspired by the hospitals in the Middle East. The first hospital in Paris, Les Quinze-vingt, was founded by Louis IX after his return from the Crusade between 1254-1260.

Al-Kindi wrote De Gradibus, in which he first demonstrated the application of quantification and mathematics to medicine, particularly in the field of pharmacology. This includes the development of a mathematical scale to quantify the strength of drugs, and a system that would allow a doctor to determine in advance the most critical days of a patient's illness. Razi (Rhazes) (865-925), the father of pediatrics, recorded clinical cases of his own experience and provided very useful recordings of various diseases. His Comprehensive Book of Medicine, which introduced measles and smallpox, was very influential in Europe. In his Doubts about Galen, al-Razi was also the first to prove both Galen's theory of humorism and Aristotle's theory of classical elements false using experimentation. He also introduced urinalysis and stool tests.

Abu al-Qasim (Abulcasis), regarded as the father of modern surgery, wrote the Al-Tasrif (1000), a 30-volume medical encyclopedia which was taught at Muslim and European medical schools until the 17th century. He invented numerous surgical instruments, including the first instruments unique to women, as well as the surgical uses of catgut and forceps, the ligature, surgical needle, scalpel, curette, retractor, surgical spoon, sound, surgical hook, surgical rod, and specula, bone saw, and plaster. In 1021, Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) made important advances in eye surgery, as he studied and correctly explained the process of sight and visual perception for the first time in his Book of Optics (1021).

Avicenna, considered the father of modern medicine and one of the greatest thinkers and medical scholars in history, wrote The Canon of Medicine (1020s) and The Book of Healing (11th century), which remained standard textbooks in both Muslim and European universities until the 17th century. Avicenna's contributions include the introduction of systematic experimentation and quantification into the study of physiology, the discovery of the contagious nature of infectious diseases, the introduction of quarantine to limit the spread of contagious diseases, the introduction of experimental medicine, evidence-based medicine, clinical trials, randomized controlled trials, efficacy tests, and clinical pharmacology, the first descriptions on bacteria and viral organisms, the distinction of mediastinitis from pleurisy, the contagious nature of phthisis and tuberculosis, the distribution of diseases by water and soil, and the first careful descriptions of skin troubles, sexually transmitted diseases, perversions, and nervous ailments, as well the use of ice to treat fevers, and the separation of medicine from pharmacology, which was important to the development of the pharmaceutical sciences.

Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) is considered the father of experimental surgery, for introducing the experimental method into surgery in the 12th century, as he was the first to employ animal testing in order to experiment with surgical procedures before applying them to human patients. He also performed the first dissections and postmortem autopsies on humans as well as animals.

In 1242, Ibn al-Nafis, the father of circulatory physiology, was the first to describe pulmonary circulation and coronary circulation, which form the basis of the circulatory system, for which he is considered one of the greatest physiologists in history. He also described the earliest concept of metabolism, and developed new systems of physiology and psychology to replace the Avicennian and Galenic systems, while discrediting many of their erroneous theories on the four humours, pulsation, bones, muscles, intestines, sensory organs, bilious canals, esophagus, stomach, etc. Ibn al-Lubudi (1210-1267) rejected the theory of four humours supported by Galen and Hippocrates, discovered that the body and its preservation depend exclusively upon blood, rejected Galen's idea that women can produce sperm, and discovered that the movement of arteries are not dependent upon the movement of the heart, that the heart is the first organ to form in a fetus' body (rather than the brain as claimed by Hippocrates), and that the bones forming the skull can grow into tumors.

The Tashrih al-badan (Anatomy of the body) of Mansur ibn Ilyas (c. 1390) contained comprehensive diagrams of the body's structural, nervous and circulatory systems. During the Black Death bubonic plague in 14th century al-Andalus, Ibn Khatima and Ibn al-Khatib discovered that infecious diseases are caused by microorganisms which enter the human body. Other medical innovations first introduced by Muslim physicians include the discovery of the immune system, the introduction of microbiology, the use of animal testing, and the combination of medicine with other sciences (including agriculture, botany, chemistry, and pharmacology), as well as the invention of the injection syringe by Ammar ibn Ali al-Mawsili in 9th century Iraq, the first drugstores in Baghdad (754), the distinction between medicine and pharmacy by the 12th century, and the discovery of at least 2,000 medicinal and chemical substances.

The Arab physician Ibn al-Nafis was the first to describe human blood circulation and pulmonary circulation. In the 15th century, the Persian work by Mansur ibn Muhammad ibn al-Faqih Ilyas entitled Tashrih al-badan ("Anatomy of the body") contained comprehensive diagrams of the body's structural, nervous and circulatory systems. Other medical advancements came in the fields of pharmacology and pharmacy.

Islamic logic not only included the study of formal patterns of inference and their validity but also elements of the philosophy of language and elements of epistemology and metaphysics. Due to disputes with Arabic grammarians, Islamic philosophers were very interested in working out the relationship between logic and language, and they devoted much discussion to the question of the subject matter and aims of logic in relation to reasoning and speech. In the area of formal logical analysis, they elaborated upon the theory of terms, propositions and syllogisms. They considered the syllogism to be the form to which all rational argumentation could be reduced, and they regarded syllogistic theory as the focal point of logic. Even poetics was considered as a syllogistic art in some fashion by many major Islamic logicians.

Important developments made by Muslim logicians included the development of "Avicennian logic" as a replacement of Aristotelian logic. Avicenna's system of logic was responsible for the introduction of hypothetical syllogism, temporal modal logic, and inductive logic. Other important developments in Islamic philosophy include the development of a strict science of citation, the isnad or "backing", and the development of a scientific method of open inquiry to disprove claims, the ijtihad, which could be generally applied to many types of questions. From the 12th century, despite the logical sophistication of al-Ghazali, the rise of the Asharite school in the late Middle Ages slowly limited original work on logic in the Islamic world, though it did continue into the 15th century.

John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson wrote in the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive:

"Recent research paints a new picture of the debt that we owe to Islamic mathematics. Certainly many of the ideas which were previously thought to have been brilliant new conceptions due to European mathematicians of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are now known to have been developed by Arabic/Islamic mathematicians around four centuries earlier."

In the 9th century, the mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, from whose name the word algorithm derives, contributed significantly to algebra, which is named after his book, Kitab al-Jabr, the first book on elementary algebra. He also introduced what is now known as Arabic numerals, which originally came from India, though Muslim mathematicians did make several refinements to the number system, such as the introduction of decimal point notation. His contemporary, al-Kindi, was a pioneer in cryptanalysis and cryptology. He gave the first known recorded explanations of cryptanalysis and frequency analysis in A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages.

The first known proof by mathematical induction appears in a book written by Al-Karaji around 1000 AD, who used it to prove the binomial theorem, Pascal's triangle, and the sum of integral cubes. The historian of mathematics, F. Woepcke, praised Al-Karaji for being "the first who introduced the theory of algebraic calculus." Ibn al-Haytham was the first mathematician to derive the formula for the sum of the fourth powers, and using the method of induction, he developed a method for determining the general formula for the sum of any integral powers, which was fundamental to the development of integral calculus. In the 11th century, the poet-mathematician Omar Khayyám was the first to find general geometric solutions of cubic equations and laid the foundations for the development of analytic geometry and non-Euclidean geometry. In the 12th century, Sharaf al-Din al-Tusi found algebraic and numerical solutions to cubic equations and was the first to discover the derivative of cubic polynomials, an important result in differential calculus.

Other achievements of Muslim mathematicians include the invention of spherical trigonometry, the discovery of all the trigonometric functions besides sine, the development of analytic geometry by Ibn al-Haytham, the first refutations of Euclidean geometry and the parallel postulate by Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī, the first attempt at a non-Euclidean geometry by Sadr al-Din, and numerous other advances in algebra, arithmetic, calculus, cryptography, geometry, number theory and trigonometry.

Islamic astrology, in Arabic ilm al-nujumis the study of the heavens by early Muslims. In early Arabic sources, ilm al-nujum was used to refer to both astronomy and astrology. In medieval sources, however, a clear distinction was made between ilm al-nujum (science of the stars) or ilm al-falak (science of the celestial orbs), referring to astrology, and ilm al-haya (science of the figure of the heavens), referring to astronomy. Both fields were rooted in Greek, Persian, and Indian traditions. Despite consistent critiques of astrology by scientists and religious scholars, astrological prognostications required a fair amount of exact scientific knowledge and thus gave partial incentive for the study and development of astronomy.

The work of Ptolemy was replicated and refined over the years under Arab, Persian and other Muslim astronomers and astrologers. The astronomical tables of al-Khwarizmi and of Abu al-Qasim Maslama b. Ahmad (al-Majriti) served as important sources of information for Latinized European thinkers rediscovering the works of astronomy, where extensive interest in astrology was discouraged.

An important contribution by Islamic astronomers was their much greater emphasis on observational science and observational astronomy. Their work was based largely on actual observations of the heavens, far more so than the earlier Greek tradition which relied heavily upon abstract calculation. This led to the emergence of the first astronomical observatories, in the sense of modern scientific research institutes, in the Muslim world by the early 9th century. Accurate Zij catalogues were at the Islamic observatories, which were the first specialized astronomical institutions with their own scientific staff, director, astronomical program, large astronomical instruments, and building where astronomical research and observations are carried out. These Islamic observatories were also the first to employ enormously large astronomical instruments in order to greatly improve the accuracy of observations.

In the 10th century, Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (Azophi) carried out observations on the stars and described their positions, magnitudes, brightness, and colour and drawings for each constellation in his Book of Fixed Stars. He also gave the first descriptions and pictures of "A Little Cloud" now known as the Andromeda Galaxy. He mentions it as lying before the mouth of a Big Fish, an Arabic constellation. This "cloud" was apparently commonly known to the Isfahan astronomers, very probably before 905 AD. The first recorded mention of the Large Magellanic Cloud was also given by al-Sufi.

From the 11th century, Muslim astronomers began questioning the Ptolemaic system, beginning with Ibn al-Haytham, and they were the first to conduct elaborate experiments related to astronomical phenomena, beginning with Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī. Many of them made changes and corrections to the Ptolemaic model within a geocentric framework. In particular, the corrections of al-Battani, Ibn al-Haytham, Averroes, Mo'ayyeduddin Urdi (Urdi lemma), Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (Tusi-couple) and Ibn al-Shatir were later adapted into the Copernican heliocentric model. Several Muslim astronomers also discussed the possibility of a heliocentric model with elliptical orbits, such as Ibn al-Haytham, Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, Abu Said Sinjari, 'Umar al-Katibi al-Qazwini, and Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi. Al-Biruni discovered the Milky Way galaxy to be a collection of numerous nebulous stars. The optical writings of Ibn al-Haytham are reported to have laid the foundations for the later European development of telescopic astronomy.

In the mechanics field of physics, Ja'far Muhammad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir (800-873) of the Banū Mūsā hypothesized that heavenly bodies and celestial spheres were subject to the same laws of physics as Earth, unlike the ancients who believed that the celestial spheres followed their own set of physical laws different from that of Earth. In his Astral Motion and The Force of Attraction, he also hypothesized that there was a force of attraction between heavenly bodies, which Robert Briffault views as a precursor to Newton's law of universal gravitation. Thābit ibn Qurra (836-901) rejected the Peripatetic and Aristotelian notions of a "natural place" for each element. He instead proposed a theory of motion in which both the upward and downward motions are caused by weight, and that the order of the universe is a result of two competing attractions (jadhb): one of these being "between the sublunar and celestial elements", and the other being "between all parts of each element separately". the discovery that the celestial spheres are not solid and that the heavens are less dense than the air by Ibn al-Haytham,

In the 12th century, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi criticized the idea of the Earth's centrality within the universe, and instead argued that there are more than "a thousand thousand worlds (alfa alfi 'awalim) beyond this world such that each one of those worlds be bigger and more massive than this world as well as having the like of what this world has." The first empirical observational evidence of the Earth's rotation was given by Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī in the 13th century and by Ali Qushji in the 15th century, followed by Al-Birjandi who developed an early hypothesis on "circular inertia" by the early 16th century. Natural philosophy (particularly Aristotelian physics) was separated from astronomy by Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) in the 11th century, by Ibn al-Shatir in the 14th century, and Qushji in the 15th century, leading to the development of an independent astronomical physics.

Geber ... considered a pioneer of chemistry

Al-Kindi was the first to debunk the theory of the transmutation of metals, followed by Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī and Avicenna. Avicenna also invented steam distillation and produced the first essential oils, which led to the development of aromatherapy. Al-Razi first distilled petroleum, invented kerosene and kerosene lamps, soap bars and modern recipes for soap, and antiseptics. In the 13th century, Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī stated an early version of the law of conservation of mass, noting that a body of matter is able to change, but is not able to disappear. Alexander von Humboldt regarded the Muslim chemists as the founders of chemistry.

Will Durant wrote in The Age of Faith:

"Chemistry as a science was almost created by the Moslems; for in this field, where the Greeks (so far as we know) were confined to industrial experience and vague hypothesis, the Saracens introduced precise observation, controlled experiment, and careful records. They invented and named the alembic (al-anbiq), chemically analyzed innumerable substances, composed lapidaries, distinguished alkalis and acids, investigated their affinities, studied and manufactured hundreds of drugs. Alchemy, which the Moslems inherited from Egypt, contributed to chemistry by a thousand incidental discoveries, and by its method, which was the most scientific of all medieval operations."

Muslim scientists made a number of contributions to the Earth sciences. Alkindus was the first to introduce experimentation into the Earth sciences. Biruni is regarded as the father of geodesy for his important contributions to the field, along with his significant contributions to geography and geology.

Among his writings on geology, Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni (973-1048) wrote the following on the geology of India:

"But if you see the soil of India with your own eyes and meditate on its nature, if you consider the rounded stones found in earth however deeply you dig, stones that are huge near the mountains and where the rivers have a violent current: stones that are of smaller size at a greater distance from the mountains and where the streams flow more slowly: stones that appear pulverised in the shape of sand where the streams begin to stagnate near their mouths and near the sea - if you consider all this you can scarcely help thinking that India was once a sea, which by degrees has been filled up by the alluvium of the streams."

John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson write in the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive:

"Important contributions to geodesy and geography were also made by al-Biruni. He introduced techniques to measure the earth and distances on it using triangulation. He found the radius of the earth to be 6339.6 km, a value not obtained in the West until the 16th century. His Masudic canon contains a table giving the coordinates of six hundred places, almost all of which he had direct knowledge."

In geology, Avicenna hypothesized on two causes of mountains in The Book of Healing (1027) and developed the law of superposition and concept of uniformitarianism. In cartography, the Piri Reis map drawn by the Ottoman cartographer Piri Reis in 1513, was one of the earliest world maps to include the Americas, and perhaps the first to include Antarctica. His map of the world was considered the most accurate in the 16th century.

The earliest known treatises dealing with environmentalism and environmental science, especially pollution, were Arabic treatises written by al-Kindi, al-Razi, Ibn Al-Jazzar, al-Tamimi, al-Masihi, Avicenna, Ali ibn Ridwan, Abd-el-latif, and Ibn al-Nafis. Their works covered a number of subjects related to pollution such as air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination, municipal solid waste mishandling, and environmental impact assessments of certain localities. Cordoba, al-Andalus also had the first waste containers and waste disposal facilities for litter collection.

Ibn Sahl (c. 940-1000), a mathematician and physicist connected with the court of Baghdad, wrote a treatise On Burning Mirrors and Lenses in 984 in which he set out his understanding of how curved mirrors and lenses bend and focus light. Ibn Sahl is now credited with first discovering the law of refraction, usually called Snell's law. He used this law to work out the shapes of lenses that focus light with no geometric aberrations, known as anaclastic lenses.

Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) ... pioneer of optics ... explained vision ... rays travel from object to eye ... pinhole camera ... discovered laws of refraction ... discussed attraction between masses ... acceleration due to gravity ... heavenly bodies accountable to laws of physics ... law of inertia (Newton's first law) ... discovered concept of momentum (Newton's second law) ... dealt at length with the theory of ... shadows, eclipses, rainbow ... attempted to explain binocular vision and the moon illusion

Ibn al-Haytham's contemporary, Avicenna, agreed that the speed of light is finite, as he "observed that if the perception of light is due to the emission of some sort of particles by a luminous source, the speed of light must be finite." Another contemporary, Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, also agreed that light has a finite speed, and he was the first to discover that the speed of light is much faster than the speed of sound. In the 14th century, Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi and Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī gave the first correct explanations for the rainbow phenomenon.

Al-Biruni, and later al-Khazini, were the first to apply experimental scientific methods to mechanics, especially the fields of statics and dynamics, particularly for determining specific weights, such as those based on the theory of balances and weighing. Muslim physicists unified statics and dynamics into the science of mechanics, and they combined the fields of hydrostatics with dynamics to give birth to hydrodynamics. They applied the mathematical theories of ratios and infinitesimal techniques, and introduced algebraic and fine calculation techniques into the field of statics. They were also the first to generalize the thoery of the centre of gravity and the first to apply it to three-dimensional bodies. They also founded the theory of the ponderable lever and created the "science of gravity" which was later further developed in medieval Europe.

"According to the majority of the historians al-Haytham was the pioneer of the modern scientific method. With his book he changed the meaning of the term optics and established experiments as the norm of proof in the field. His investigations are based not on abstract theories, but on experimental evidences and his experiments were systematic and repeatable."

Ibn al-Haytham's contemporary, Avicenna, discovered the concept of momentum, when he referred to impetus as being proportional to weight times velocity, a precursor to the concept of momentum in Newton's second law of motion. He is thus considered the father of the fundamental concept of momentum in physics. His theory of motion was also consistent with the concept of inertia in Newton's first law of motion. Another contemporary, Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, was the first to realize that acceleration is connected with non-uniform motion.

In 1121, al-Khazini, in The Book of the Balance of Wisdom, was the first to propose that the gravity and gravitational potential energy of a body varies depending on its distance from the centre of the Earth. This phenomenon was not proven until Newton's law of universal gravitation centuries later. In statics, al-Khazini first clearly differentiated between force, mass, and weight, and he showed awareness of the weight of the air and of its decrease in density with altitude, and discovered that there was greater density of water when nearer to the Earth's centre. In the 12th century, Ibn Bajjah (Avempace) was the first to state that there is always a reaction force for every force exerted, a precursor to Gottfried Leibniz's idea of force which underlies Newton's third law of motion. His theory of motion had an important influence on later physicists like Galileo Galilei. Avempace's contemporary, Hibat Allah Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdaadi, was the first to negate Aristotle's idea that a constant force produces uniform motion, as he realized that a force applied continuously produces acceleration, a fundamental law of classical mechanics and a precursor to Newton's second law of motion. Like Newton, he described acceleration as the rate of change of velocity. Averroes (1126–1198) was the first to define and measure force as "the rate at which work is done in changing the kinetic condition of a material body" and the first to correctly argue "that the effect and measure of force is change in the kinetic condition of a materially resistant mass." The Muslim developments in mechanics laid the foundations for the later development of classical mechanics in early modern Europe.

The first Muslim biologist to develop a theory on evolution was al-Jahiz (781-869). He wrote on the effects of the environment on the likelihood of an animal to survive, and he first described the struggle for existence and an early form of natural selection. Al-Jahiz was also the first to discuss food chains, and was also an early adherent of environmental determinism, arguing that the environment can determine the physical characteristics of the inhabitants of a certain community and that the origins of different human skin colors is the result of the environment.

Ibn al-Haytham wrote a book in which he argued for evolutionism (although not natural selection), and numerous other Islamic scholars and scientists, such as Ibn Miskawayh, the Brethren of Purity, al-Khazini, Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, Nasir al-Din Tusi, and Ibn Khaldun, discussed and developed these ideas. Translated into Latin, these works began to appear in the West after the Renaissance and appear to have had an impact on Western science.

Significant contributions were made to the social sciences in the Islamic civilization. Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni (973-1048) has been described as "the first anthropologist". He wrote detailed comparative studies on the anthropology of peoples, religions and cultures in the Middle East, Mediterranean and South Asia. Biruni's anthropology of religion was only possible for a scholar deeply immersed in the lore of other nations.

Biruni has also been praised by several scholars for his Islamic anthropology. Biruni is also regarded as the father of Indology. His contemporary, al-Muqaddasi, also made contributions to the social sciences. Another contemporary, al-Saghani, wrote some of the earliest comments on the history of science, which included a comparison between the "ancients" (including the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks and Indians) and the "modern scholars" (the Muslim scientists of his time).

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) is regarded as the father of demography, cultural history, historiography, the philosophy of history, sociology, and the social sciences, and is viewed as a father of modern economics. He is best known for his Muqaddimah (Latinized as Prolegomenon). Some of the ideas he introduced in the Muqaddimah include social philosophy, social conflict theories, social cohesion, social capital, social networks, dialectics, the Laffer curve, the historical method, systemic bias, the rise and fall of civilizations, feedback loops, systems theory, and corporate social responsibility. He also introduced the scientific method into the social sciences.

Franz Rosenthal wrote in the History of Muslim Historiography:

"Muslim historiography has at all times been united by the closest ties with the general development of scholarship in Islam, and the position of historical knowledge in MusIim education has exercised a decisive influence upon the intellectual level of historicai writing....The Muslims achieved a definite advance beyond previous historical writing in the sociological understanding of history and the systematisation of historiography. The development of modern historical writing seems to have gained considerably in speed and substance through the utilization of a Muslim Literature which enabled western historians, from the seventeenth century on, to see a large section of the world through foreign eyes. The Muslim historiography helped indirectly and modestly to shape present day historical thinking."

"Islamic psychology" or Ilm-al Nafsiat refers to the study of the Nafs ("self" or "psyche") in the Islamic world and encompassed a "broad range of topics including the qalb (heart), the ruh (spirit), the aql (intellect) and irada (will)." Al-Kindi (Alkindus) was the first to experiment with music therapy, and Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari was the first to practice 'al-‘ilaj al-nafs ("psychotherapy"). The concepts of al-tibb al-ruhani ("spiritual health") and "mental hygiene" were introduced by Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi, who was "probably the first cognitive and medical psychologist to clearly differentiate between neuroses and psychoses, to classify neurotic disorders, and to show in detail how rational and spiritual cognitive therapies can be used to treat each one of his classified disorders." Al-Razi (Rhazes) made significant advances in psychiatry in his landmark texts El-Mansuri and Al-Hawi, which presented definitions, symptoms and treatments for mental illnesses and problems related to mental health. He also ran the psychiatric ward of a Baghdad hospital. Such institutions could not exist in Europe at the time because of fear of demonic possessions.

Al-Farabi wrote the first treatises on social psychology and dealt with consciousness studies. In al-Andalus, Abulcasis pioneered neurosurgery, while Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) gave the first accurate descriptions on neurological disorders and contributed to modern neuropharmacology, and Averroes suggested the existence of Parkinson's disease. Ali ibn Abbas al-Majusi discussed "the relationship between certain psychological events to the physiological changes in the body", while Avicenna anticipated the word association test, discussed neuropsychiatry in The Canon of Medicine, and described the first thought experiments on self-awareness and self-consciousness.

Ibn al-Haytham is considered the founder of psychophysics and experimental psychology, for his pioneering work on the psychology of visual perception in the Book of Optics. In Book III of the Book of Optics, Ibn al-Haytham was the first scientist to argue that vision occurs in the brain, rather than the eyes. He pointed out that personal experience has an effect on what people see and how they see, and that vision and perception are subjective. He explained possible errors in vision in detail, and as an example, describes how a small child with less experience may have more difficulty interpreting what he/she sees. He also gives an example of an adult that can make mistakes in vision because of how one's experience suggests that he/she is seeing one thing, when he/she is really seeing something else. Ibn al-Haytham was also the first to combine physics and psychology to form psychophysics, and his investigations and experiments on psychology and visual perception included sensation, variations in sensitivity, sensation of touch, perception of colours, perception of darkness, the psychological explanation of the moon illusion, and binocular vision.

Nasr identified a distinctly Muslim approach to science, flowing from Islamic monotheism and the related theological prohibition against portraying graven images. In science, this is reflected in a philosophical disinterest in describing individual material objects, their properties and characteristics and instead a concern with the ideal, the Platonic form, which exists in matter as an expression of the will of the Creator. Thus one can "see why mathematics was to make such a strong appeal to the Muslim: its abstract nature furnished the bridge that Muslims were seeking between multiplicity and unity."

Some historians of science, however, question the value of drawing boundaries that label the sciences, and the scientists who practice them, in specific cultural, civilizational, or linguistic terms. Consider the case of Nasir al-Din Tusi (1201–1274), who invented his mathematical theorem, the Tusi Couple, while he was director of Maragheh observatory. Tusi's patron and founder of the observatory was the non-Muslim Mongol conqueror of Baghdad, Hulagu Khan. The Tusi-couple "was first encountered in an Arabic text, written by a man who spoke Persian at home, and used that theorem, like many other astronomers who followed him and were all working in the "Arabic/Islamic" world, in order to reform classical Greek astronomy, and then have his theorem in turn be translated into Byzantine Greek towards the beginning of the fourteenth century, only to be used later by Copernicus and others in Latin texts of Renaissance Europe."

[Added to References section]

• Campbell, Donald (2001). Arabian Medicine and Its Influence on the Middle Ages. Routledge. (Reprint of the London, 1926 edition). ISBN 0415231884.
• d'Alverny, Marie-Thérèse. "Translations and Translators", in Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable, eds., Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, p. 421-462. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Pr., 1982.
• Joseph, George G. (2000). The Crest of the Peacock. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691006598.
• Katz, Victor J. (1998). A History of Mathematics: An Introduction. Addison Wesley. ISBN 0321016181.