Author: Raheem Noormohamed

So I’m gonna try and keep this up, I think theres alot more we all would like to say.

I attended a presentation a couple days ago entitled “plurality in North American Islamic Architecture” by Dr.Omar Khalidi, a professor at MIT. The talk was awesome and there are some interesting aspects I found with presentation. Although we did not cover too much about architecture or design it is very much tied into science(and there have been a couple posts about art).

His talk really focussed on different approaches architects have taken for buildings in North America. He supported architecture that was well-situated within it’s environment and spoke about how certain Mosques have been implanted within North America. He meant that certain Mosques and there designs from other parts of the world were literally copied inot North American environments without any revision as to how they would work in the environment. He spoke of the Mosque in an inspiring way and how he felt that they should be in harmony with their environment, rather than forcing a statement on observers. He said certain traits can identify a Muslim building, most of which when used subtly and in harmony with local tradition, create a building that embodies Islamic ideas and at the same is an important and well-fitting part of its location.

He showed us a few great examples, I cant remember to many though, A great site for Muslim buildings, noth old and new, from around the world is www.archnet.org

I’m working on a paper for another class about how Cholera spread in India during the nineteenth century and how the British responded to it. What’s interesting is that religious pilgrimages were sites identified as places where the disease could easily be spread. Both in India and other parts of the world the British were afraid that religous gatherings would cause the disease to proliferate further. Oftentimes they identified the Hajj as a route of tranmission of the disease to Europe. Although they were entirely Eurocentric and they did not see how their actions in the world contributed to the spread of disease, the British were somewhat correct in saying that infectious disease could spread through close contact at religious gatherings(they blew things way out of proportion). This made me wonder, during the time before colonialism when Muslims ruled not only Mecca but lands surrounding it, did they see it as important to ensure hygenic conditions were upheld during the Hajj and journeys to it and that people were generally healthy. Alot is not written about this subject, but I feel that in all that wev’e learnt about medicine in Medeival Islam it would seem like physicians and rulers would want to promote healthy conditions at this time. That’s one thing which deserves attention-to look at how Medeival Islamic scholars, governments etc. promoted and organized public health beyond the upkeep of individual health.

Throughout this course we’ve explores some fascinating people and ideas from a long time period.  But a few times I have asked myself what my own reasons are for learning about these figures and why it would important for our society to acknowledge and explore this remarkable period of world history. To me there is no question at all that intellectual pursuits and science of historical Islamic societies represented a vibrant and influential learning tradition, but how is knowledge of this period going to help us today? This class and other intiatives can’t exist solely for the purpose of glorifying the period for a bunch of people who are interested, I think in studying any historical aspect of a society certain goals of the study must relate to contemporary contexts. Show how does the content of our class do this? I know we have many reasons, but oftentimes they are not entirely practical in the sense that even if a wider audience took our class or was educated on the topic it still may not result is changes that could be attributed to their new historical knowledge.

A few reasons that just come tothe top of my head for learning about science in Islamic civilizations is:

-it may allow Muslim nations to recover elements of their discourse which allowed historical societies to flourish in intellectual pursuits

-as students we know that sciences are not merely a European phenomenon, rather they have been an aspect of many societies who follow diverse cultural models of learning(why does this matter though?)

-it opens the door to pluralistic notions of education which remind us that many civilizations share common ambitions(positice ambitions) that are expressed and achieved in many ways, all of which are rich and fascinating in their own context-this is what I think is the most important becuase it affects us today in a world where on one hand due to globalization people are connected in new way(and thus require a hollistic understanding of one another, because a lot of clashes we see today are born out of mutual ignorance) and on the other many educated people(even students, both Muslim, non-Muslim, all types of peoples who learn) don’t feel the need to contextualize their learning or connect it to history. What we’ve learnt can be of great utility in this.

Why I wrote this as my final blog post is becuase I often felt with this course that we were studying Islamic science only to glorify it in an ideal way as a response to what we see in modern science. But I don’t think by saying that people today don’t appreciate Islamic contributions to science we are doing full justice to the topic because we are defining the subject matter in negative terms(by addresing something we feel is missing). To me there had to be more to it than this and I know there is, and I think that  the most lasting element from this course for me will be questions concerning what can be done with the knowledge wev’e acquired and why it is important to be curious about history that often feels very distant? I think alot of us will definitely leave with many questions(interesting and curious ones) from this course, and I really think that is awesome cause it will allow us to see more dimensions to what we have learnt and many of which will deal with our(individual and societal) current situations

This video really has no relavence to the class it’s just funny.

But I did find a video that has Iqbal(text author) in it. It is a debate between him, another lady and one of those scientists who sees no bonds between religion and science. From the begiinning I was impressed with Iqbal’s writing and I think he shows his intelligence in this piece as well. Its long but its worth watching.

What I started to wonder was in the “Golden Age” or whatever you wanna call it would these kinds of debates take place? In other words would there have been a movement by some scholars to really segregate science from religion? I’m sure the answer is no and I guess all of you would agree, so the scientists at the time had an easier time bringing religious ideas into their work, nobody was there to say “you’re” wrong.” Nowadays someone like Iqbal would have trouble establishing himself as a renowned scientist because of his beliefs…kinda sucks.

http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?fID=571&rID=3810

This is a documentary about a Chinese explorer/geogpraher, maybe engineer named Zheng He. Chinese, huh? Did I post on the wrong sight, no really he was also brough up a Muslim. This documentary descibes his upbringing in a part of rural China where Islam was practiced, and is still practices today. But heres the question, would you consider him an Islamic scientist/explorer? He didn’t really serve under a Muslim dynasty and he wasn’t surrounded by a strong Muslim presence for much of his work. I guess this just proves to show that the whole concept of Islamic science in history is somewhat ambigious.

Whats even more fascinating is that Zheng He kind of represents a hyrid between two prominent intellectual civilizations, the Islamic and Chinese ones. His accomplishments would have integrated things he learnt from his religion, his contact with other Muslims and his lessons from Chinese society. Also notice how history about him is tough to come by, it is not very transparent. This is common to what we have seen for many other scientists as well, good thing to think about.

I haven’t watched the whole thing, there’s 14 parts but it definetely seems worthwhile. I sorta wish I’d wrote my wiki about him.

Raheem

Ok so I have completed my wikipedia assignment.

1.Inventions in Medeival Islam:

I added a section at the end called “Purpose of Mechanical Inventions” discussing the role of technology in Muslim society. I used 3 sources.

Old Version:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Inventions_in_medieval_Islam&oldid=348321911

New:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Inventions_in_medieval_Islam&oldid=348626269

2.Funding of Science:

I added a section solely about funding/patronage of science in Medeival Islamic societies. There was nothing at all before about any Middle Age Science. My section is brief, but it has links to other pages which will be helpful I used 5 sources.

Old Version:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Funding_of_science&oldid=331976324

New Version:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Funding_of_science&oldid=348624103

Hey,

I am going to do my Wiki projects on 2 articles. I am adding a section to the ‘Inventions in Medeival Islam article,” and  I am adding to the history section of the neuroscience article.

1001 inventions video

This is the 1001 inventions video Dalia posted earlier. It’s very well made and pretty entertaining. Something of this sort would be a cool project and it’s perfect for a yoing audience which corresponds to our kids book idea?

I am sure many of you know that we have trying to find guest speakers for the course, and in doing so we have been able to speak to many knowledgable scholars. Today I had the oppurtunity to speak to Dr.Alnoor Dhanani, a scholar from Harvard  University. He specializes in the fields of the history of Islamic science, philosophy and relious thought. Speaking with him gave me an interesting perspective on many issues relavent to our course and he also brought up some ambiguous, but noteworthy questions that we could discuss in our “Islam and Modern Science,” section. Some of our discussions we have had in the past few weeks would have also benefitted from his insight.

Nonetheless he brought up a few key points. One of which is that in studying the hitory of science in any civilization, it must be understood in a local and temporal context. This means, how did scientisits view their work, why did they do it and how was it received by the society that existed at the time? It is very complicated to study historical sciences under Islam through the lens of modern science. This also brings up another point which is the fact that it is tough to draw similarities in abstract discoveries of the past to finding in the present. This will be very interesting to discuss in class. One last thing that stuck with me, is that many of the “great discoveries” we will see over the next few weeks in our presentations were not highlly revered in Muslim societies. An example of this is that Ibn Al-Haytham’s work on Optics was more widely read in some Latin circles than it was by some Muslims. I am sure why this is the case.

Anyways he sent me a chapter he wrote in a textbook, which would have probably been more useful earlier in the course as a reading, but it is still very well written, informative and interesting.  I will attach it to the media tab.

Raheem

Hey, This is an article I found from a couple years ago in the Vancouver Sun by Peter Mcknight, entitled “Coupling of Science and Religion.”

Link:http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=920b6a41-2536-4cab-a98f-df24da4c8789

I thought it was very well written and gave a good overview of historical relations between science and religion. It has obvious relevance to our class since he talks about Muslim influence on Modern science and about Islamic sentiments towards understanding divinity as driving intellectual pursuits.It is also interesting that he talks of Christianity and Science, and that these two entities have not always been hostile toward one another.

I was very happy to see this published in a local newspaper. It goes to show that voices which look not only to reconcile Science and Faith but also encourage exploring ways in which the two have been intertwined, can be heard. He makes a powerful point in his conclusion that only in the last century or two have Science and Religion been pried apart form one another into seperate spheres. It is this perceived segregation that has caused the dominant idea to be one of outright incompatibility. However, such an article will get everyday readers, whether they are religious or irreligious, or scientifically inclined, to consider the “Coupling of Science and Religion.”