By Farzad Roohi

Why is it that most people believe that Islam had a great Golden Age while Europe was burning dreadfully in its Dark Age? This is a historical misconception which needs to be addressed. Allow me to give you an analogy before I make my point. There are two rotten apples in my analogy –one of the apples is more rotten than the other one. Obviously, the less rotten apple looks more attractive when it comes to choosing one out of the two. This does not necessarily mean that the less rotten apple is not rotten.

Now, take the above analogy and apply it to the so-called Golden Age Islamic civilization compared to the Dark Age Europe. Obviously, the Islamic civilization looks very pleasing when you compare it to the European Dark Ages. This does not necessarily mean that the Islamic civilization was a great civilization. This simply means that the Islamic civilization was not as rotten as its European Dark Age counterpart.

Allow me to present a few true examples to illustrate my point regarding how Muslims of that era did so little to improve human life, even though, they controlled a large portion of the global power and wealth for almost a millennium.

As you may know, the earliest known treatise on Algebra is credited to Diophantus of Alexandria in 3rd century A.D. However, it was a Muslim named Kharazmi from Persia, who for the first time used the Arabic language (the official language of the time) to write a book called Algebra. What did Muslims do with Algebra, anyway? The answer is that they just introduced the writing down of calculations in place of using the abacus. Surprised perhaps? Despite having the knowledge of Algebra for centuries and they did not achieve any significant accomplishments towards improving quality of life.

On the other hand, when the West got hold of Algebra, it was Isaac Newton of England and Libnitz from Germany who invented and developed Calculus out of Algebra. With the newly invented Calculus and its mathematical outcomes, the secular West managed to send Man to the Moon; space crafts to distant planets, and space probes beyond our solar system. Over the centuries, it was the West that came up with Linear Algebra and its pattern in Graphs, Matrices, and Subspaces.

It is true that Muslims managed to come up with Algorithm (Thanks to Kharazmi). This fact comes as no surprise to me. After all, the scientists of the Islamic civilization had access to many global resources yet what they accomplished over the millennia with Algorithm was literally “NOTHING”. In contrast, when Algorithm was introduced to the West they invented electronics, digital computing, computers, robots, and the almighty Internet.

As a whole, mathematics was a tool to keep Muslim scientists busy counting and writing numbers to replace the abacus, and writing mathematical formulas to please their Caliphs. In reality, what the secular West did with mathematics was to find the mysteries of our universe by inventing Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity, Special Relativity, cosmology and modern astronomy.

Also, there is a big misconception that Muslims invented chemistry (Alchemy).

Having their hands on chemistry, Muslims did not do much with it either. Nevertheless, in the West, chemistry was used to discover over 100 chemical elements which make up everything in this universe, including us. Furthermore, it was the West which came up with organic chemistry and the science of Pharmaceutical with its miraculous drugs and medications.

I believe that the invention of glass was a hallmark in the history of mankind. Glass is thought to have been invented around 3000 BC during the Bronze Age. Modern glass originated in Alexandria during the Ptolemaic period in which slices of colored glass were used to create decorative patterns. Over time, Glassblowing was developed during the 1st century BC by the glassmakers of Syria. However, during the 15th century, in Venice, Italy the first clear glass called cristallo was invented and exported throughout the world. In 1675, glassmaker George Ravenscroft invented lead crystal glass by adding lead oxide to Venetian glass.

It was 1902, when Irving W. Colburn patented the sheet glass drawing machine, making the mass production of glass for windows possible. In 1904, a patent for a "glass shaping machine" was granted to Michael Owen that paved the way to the mass production of bottles, jars, etc. Look around and you will see it’s all around us.

What Muslims did during the Golden Age with glass was to make their holy mosques and shrines more decorative and beautiful to please their Caliphs and the nonexistent Allah. In this case, when the secular West got hold of glass, they invented the lens to improve the visually impaired. Thanks to Antony van Leeuwenhoek, the microscope was invented to see and explore the micro-universe. Consequently, the West invented microbiology (Thanks to Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch) and established modern medicine. At the same time, they used glass to invent telescope to explore the macro-universe (Thanks to Galileo Galilee) and to see that our universe is expanding (Thanks to Hubble).

As a matter of fact, Muslims had their chance for a millennium to contribute many milestones to the world. Yet much of their legacy is in the form of great mosques and shrines. Since the great Renaissance, the secular West seized upon its chance to shape the world and in my opinion, they have done so.

Within a couple of centuries, the West launched the industrial revolution with its great outcomes of our modern life. Just think about your life without electricity!

With these facts in mind, without Western ingenuity and creativity the Islamic Golden Age would only be one step above the Dark Ages of Europe. Hardly surprising, when its followers were brought up to believe that “paradise is under the shade of the sword”. What do you expect from a civilization that eulogize martyrdom and celebrate death with no respect for life on Earth? Moreover, what do you expect from a society whose spiritual leader (Khomeini) once said: “Economy is for the donkey”? Or, what do you expect from a society that dresses up a toddler as suicide bomber and take pride in their own ignorance? These are the principles pursued by the so-called Golden Islamic civilization.

Finally, I let you elaborate on other Western inventions and discoveries. You can start with textile, sewing and weaving machines. Try to imagine a world without these machines where the Ayatollahs, Imams, and mullahs have no turban to wrap around their heads. That would be a good start.

Cheers!