Introduction
There has been a resurgence of interest in the relationship between science and Islam across history in Islamic states during the last fifty years. Upon gaining independence, several Muslim nations have failed to align their religious traditions with Western concepts of research and schooling (Chinnici 23). The educational systems of a significant number of Muslim states are based on so-called secular Western learning. Consequently, their societies have a generational gap, with traditional Islamic education confined to religious groups on the one hand and contemporary Western education in secular colleges, universities, and schools on the other. Education is perceived as a means of acquiring practical expertise and technological improvement to advance financially in the developed world.
The Islamic Civilization
The ‘Golden Age of Islamic Civilization’ is described as the seventh to the fifteenth centuries. At this time, a strong focus was placed on the acquisition of information. As a result, there were scholars and holy people, including Al-Khwarizmi, Al-Biruni, and Ibn Sina, who thrived not only in the exploration of theological scriptures but also in chemistry, geography, medicine, physics, mathematics, and astronomy. Islam was a collection of philosophical teachings at the time and a set of concepts, principles, and values that included all facets of human existence. As a consequence, Islamic society was created. Therefore, the Islamic religion (in both the divine and material senses) and Arabic became the driving forces behind this civilization.
Moreover, though scientific progress in Europe stagnated during the Medieval Period, research advanced throughout Islam’s Golden Period. The revival that followed in Europe could not have happened if Muslim science had not contributed in the intervening century. Nevertheless, several Muslim intellectuals in the Medieval Period of Islam researched existence in the light of the Quran. The bond between man and nature was portrayed in the Quran, which influenced Muslim intellectuals to natural research occurrences to comprehend God better. Islam’s involvement in science was complex and extensive, spanning three civilizations and approximately a millennium of history.
Muslim Interpretation of Environment
In the Golden Age, the Islamic perception of evolution was that humanity should research nature to find God and use the character for the good of humankind. Nature should be utilized to sustain society, and its riches were to be divided fairly between all races. All practices that harmed humanity and, as a result, damaged nature were prohibited. The devastation of the ecological cycle was prevented. For instance, excessive livestock slaughter or vegetation removal could result in malnutrition due to a shortage of food. This viewpoint grew out of the belief that ‘man’ had been brought to earth to serve God.
The Quran, God’s name and the foundation of Islam formed the Islamic understanding of existence throughout the Golden Age. In the light of the Quran, Islamic philosophers were encouraged to research existence. The following Quranic verses depict the bond between man and nature and the way this connection motivated Islamic academics to research natural occurrences to comprehend God better:
We did not build the universe, the planet, and anything in between for the sake of (idle) fun. We did not create them for nefarious purposes, but most do not comprehend (Ramli et al., 34). Get this: In the formation of the heavens and the world; in the night and day variation; in the voyage of ships around the globe for the sake of humanity; in the rain that Allah brings down from the sky and the resurrection that He offers to a dying planet. There are indications for wise men in the beasts of all sorts that He scatters across the earth; in the changing winds and clouds that trail like slaves between the heavens and the earth; (here) indeed are signs for wise people (Ramli et al., 35).
The Influences of Islamic Intellectuals
In respect of cultures, practices, beliefs, and spirituality, the Islamic Empire was a tolerant society. When Muslims left Arabia to invade the states around them, they conquered significant lands populated by citizens of various religions and cultures. As a result, the Islamic Kingdom included Muslims from three nations Persians, Arabs, Africans, Indians, Asians, Jews, Turks, Christians, and people of other religions. As a result, academics of all religions collaborated under the banner of Islam to create a unique tradition of learning and understanding. In this light, the significance of Islam to astronomy is acknowledged and discussed in the following section for contributions rendered by academics from the Muslim community.
Astronomy
Astronomy was deemed one of the mathematical sciences by Islamic academics. Islamists discovered and converted traditional astronomical texts into Arabic. After that, they conducted experiments to confirm the measurements in these scientific studies. Ptolemy, a Greek astronomer, devised a scientific hypothesis about the planet’s motions and moon and established the earth’s role as the center of the universe. He had credited extra motions to the planets to cover for mistakes in observations. Among the first academics to create a periodic astronomical table was Al-Khwarizmi (zij) (see Table 1). The locations of the planets and stars could be calculated using this astronomical model. Following that, every astronomer published their own zij, attempting to render it more precise than the previous ones (Muammar et al. 54). In the 9th century, Al-Farghani published a concise description of Ptolemy’s Almagest, which was utilized for the next 700 years across Central Asia and Europe (Muammar et al. 53). This research marked the origins of experimental theories and interactions being empirically checked.
Moreover, the Ptolemaic solar structure hypothesized the concept of universal circular movement for the planets to rotate in circular orbits and was passed on to Muslim scholars and astronomy. On the other hand, Islamic astronomers gradually came to dismiss this hypothesis, claiming that the epicyclic action defied the concept of movement uniformity. Al-Tusi, a Persian scientist, proposed the “Tusi Couple” in the thirteenth century, a theoretical paradigm of “epicyclic motion involving a mixture of movements every of which was standardized with regard to its own nucleus” (Ramli et al., 34). During the fourteenth century, Ibn al-Shatir used this framework to explain the movements of the celestial bodies. The findings of Ibn al-Shatir were the first steps toward confirming conceptual astronomy by systematic experimentation.
Consequently, the hypothesis of the lunar motion of Ibn al-Shatir was quite close to that recognized 150 years later by Copernicus (Chinnici 4). Researchers are presently researching if Copernicus saw Ibn al-Shatir’s fourteenth-century text demonstrating his idea of planetary motion when attending the Vatican Library in Rome (Chinnici 3). This hypothesis is based on a description in Copernicus’ Writings that looked strikingly close to Ibn al-Shatir’s mathematical equations. Unlike Ibn al-Shamir, who developed his definition of planetary motion to play a key role in an earth-centered planetary framework, Copernicus utilized a similar theory of motion to portray his sun-centered planetary model. As a result, alternate models were created, allowing for scientific investigation of the concepts.
If the activities of these two men are directly linked today remains uncertain. Still, it must be remembered that Muslim innovations in astronomical research have helped establish astronomical research history (Chinnici 4). These advances offered current guidelines for research in Europe during the Renaissance and Enlightenment times. Al-Tusi, an astronomer of the 13th century, was often accused of treating trigonometry as a distinct discipline from spherical astronomy. In this new structure of mathematical ideas and connections, astronomers could more accurately measure directions and distances for locations in the sky.
In Maragha, Samarkand, and subsequently Delhi and Jaipur, and Turkey, Muslims founded huge observatories. They built on the Greek astrolabe and sundial by incorporating functionality to measure time and path in Mecca for Muslim prayers. For the calculation of celestial details for years and other astronomical knowledge in various geographic places, prehistoric astrolabe can be adjusted (Adúriz-Bravo 394). These Medieval astrolabes were listed in several writings and featured in Geoffrey Chaucer’s article on the late Middle Ages in Europe. Throughout all Muslim states, the astrolabes, celestial globes, sundials, and quadrants formed and grew, and the Muslims even adjusted the compass when it landed in Muslim nations. They could not have started using the compass, nevertheless, because the root of the compass usage seems not to have been precisely established and could originally come from China.
Therefore, Muslim researchers specialized in conceptual and computational celestial astronomy, circular astronomy, time-keeping, modulation, and folk astronomy in all main areas of astronomy (see Table 2). King (2004) has detailed studies on Muslim instruments and has pointed out that “medieval European instrumentation owes itself to Islamic practice very much, and yet just after approximately 1550 European instruments builders have developed techniques that Muslim astronomers have not traditionally been aware of (Adúriz-Bravo 394). As such, the initial idea behind astronomy belonged to the Muslims and was afterward modified by the Europeans.
Scientific Information Filtering from the Islamic Empire to Europe
The Eastern Empire’s conquest by the Arabs implied that Western Religion, by hostility and shared distrust of conflicting beliefs and the wider Mediterranean, has been robbed for millennia of the major repositories of Greek education (Adúriz-Bravo 394). However, wisdom started to flow from the Islamic nation to the West as early as the close of the 10th century. Thompson (1929) addressed the issue of Arabic sciences being adopted into Lorraine in the late 10th century and hence into Latin Europe in his report “Introduction of Arabic science into Lorraine in the tenth century” (Adúriz-Bravo 395). Thereby the extension of the Muslim World in North Africa created an academic route through Spain into Europe outside the Pyrenees.
Discussion
In the early stages, the translation revolution took place, and scholars worked in the Islamic Kingdom in three regions and interpreted Greek, Persian, Indian, and every old information instrument into Arabic. However, they have acquired the ability to make significant and initial contributions to the knowledge and assimilate, examine, and analyze them.
From the close of the 19th century, this experience started to trickle back into Europe by transferring Greek information into Arabic and the initial Greek Treaty (Adúriz-Bravo 420). However, the pioneering works of Islamic world scientists were as well translated to Europe. Modern science as we now know it operates on empirically tested hypotheses and frameworks beginning in medicine, astronomy, and math. The Muslims also evolved scientific and analytical methods for evaluating information. However, its empirical nature was a significant feature in Islamic research. Islamic scholars were mainly involved in applied sciences, appliance building, research hypotheses by observations, and mathematical study of data (Adúriz-Bravo 420). All these theories and processes were possible in Western Europe via the significant works of Islamic thinkers, whom they were mostly credited before Galileo, Descartes, and Newton.
Future Prospect
There are several implications of Islamic contribution to astronomy in the future of science. For instance, considering Muslim’s contributions to astrological research, science, technology, and culture would all be affected in the future. Conversely, technology such as the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) may be developed in the future (Muammar et al. 68). The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which is put on a mountaintop in Chile, would peek out into space, helping individuals to image worlds outside their planetary system to see whether they might support life. With a primary mirror spanning 39.3 meters long, it would be the globe’s most giant infrared or optical telescope, and as such it is a major future implication.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the seventh to fifteenth centuries were referred to as the Golden Age of Islamic Civilization. At the moment, the collection of intelligence was a major priority. Consequently, scientists and holy people such as Al-Biruni, Al-Khwarizmi, and Ibn Sina flourished in mathematics, geography, astronomy, engineering, chemistry, and medicine addition to the study of religious scriptures. As a result, Islamic scholars developed the capacity to make important and early inputs to science and integrate, examine, and evaluate data, resulting in the contribution to astronomy.
Works Cited
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Chinnici, Ileana. ‘Astronomy and Correlated Sciences in the Arabic Sicily’, The European Physical Journal Plus, vol. 133, no. 8, 2018, pp. 1-4.
Goldstein, Bernard R., and David Pingree. ‘The Astronomical Tables of al-Khwārizmī in a nineteenth-century Egyptian Text’, Journal of the American Oriental Society vol.47, no. 3, 1978, pp. 96-99.
Muammar, Muammar, Muslich Shabir, and Muhammad Falih Abdul Ghoni. ‘Geneology of Astronomy Science in Java’, Hikmatuna, vol. 6, no. 2, 2020, pp. 68-79.
Ramli, Ahmad Faizuddin, Jaffary Awang, and Zaizul Ab Rahman. ‘The Contribution of Muslim-Buddhist Relation on Islamic Civilization’, Abqari Journal, vol. 22, no.2, 2020, pp. 34-46.