Islamic inventions? How islamic inventors did not change the world

Think_Israel 29 October 2012
By Paul Vallely

These past few years have seen many inventions falsely claimed and attributed to Islamic inventors, which in fact either existed in pre-Islamic eras, were invented by other cultures, or both. Such claims have even been forced upon the unsuspecting public in a nationwide tour which opened with an exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester and the University of Manchester, England. To celebrate this 'momentous' series of events, an article titled "How Islamic inventors changed the world" was written by Paul Vallely and published in The Independent on the 11th of March 2006.

This inaccurate piece of propaganda has received much praise from Muslims and is still being widely circulated on Islamic websites, forums, blogs, and is even used as a source (to validate false claims of Islamic inventions) in over twenty[1] separate articles on Wikipedia. This article boldly opened with the following statement: "From coffee to cheques and the three-course meal, the Muslim world has given us many innovations that we take for granted in daily life. As a new exhibition opens, Paul Vallely nominates 20 of the most influential - and identifies the men of genius behind them."[2]

This article lists and examines all twenty of these "Islamic inventions that changed the world", and in doing so, it will reveal their actual inventors and the true role of Islam/Muslims, if any, behind the inventions.

The Inventions

Coffee

The story goes that an Arab named Khalid was tending his goats in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia, when he noticed his animals became livelier after eating a certain berry. He boiled the berries to make the first coffee. Certainly the first record of the drink is of beans exported from Ethiopia to Yemen where Sufis drank it to stay awake all night to pray on special occasions. By the late 15th century it had arrived in Mecca and Turkey from where it made its way to Venice in 1645. It was brought to England in 1650 by a Turk named Pasqua Rosee who opened the first coffee house in Lombard Street in the City of London. The Arabic qahwa became the Turkish kahve then the Italian caffé and then English coffee.[2]
How Islamic inventors changed the world
christian_monks_in_ethiopia
Christian monks at the monastery on the island of Daga Estephanos- Ethiopia, still produce and market coffee today under the "Lake Tana Monastery Island Coffee" brand.

The legend being referred to by Paul Vallely is expounded upon in the Coffee History, found on www.decentcoffee.com:

"Arabian coffee-drinking began almost 12 centuries ago (850 A.D.) when an Abyssinian goat herder named Khalid noticed that while the afternoon sun made him drowsy, his flock frolicked and skipped about after nibbling at some berries. Khalid either ate the berries whole, or ground and boiled them.

When his wife saw how energetic the normally exhausted Khalid was, she urged him to share this miraculous discovery with the local holy man at the monastery. The chief monk did not share Khalid's enthusiasm. Declaring the berries "the work of the Devil," he flung them into a fire to banish their offending presence. Soon the room filled with the delicious aroma of roasting berries, and other monks hurried in to discover the source of this new delight."

Notice above, that the passage says the goat herder named Khalid (or Kaldi as he is named in another version of the story) was an Abyssinian. Abyssinians were predominantly Orthodox Christians. In addition, there is no such thing as monasteries or monks in Islam. In fact, it is forbidden (Qur'an 57:027). Therefore, if this legend were to be true, Khalid (or Kaldi) would not have been a Muslim, but a Christian.

Also, the discovery of coffee, according to the maronite monk Antonius Faustus Naironus (1635 - 1707 AD), differs somewhat from the above tale. In "De saluberrima potione Cahue, seu Cafe nuncupata discursus" (1671) he writes, that a herdsman complained to the Prior of a nearby monastery in Abyssinia, that his animals could not sleep. Two monks, together with the herdsman, were sent by their superior to investigate what it was the animals were eating. They discovered coffee plants which they took back to the monastery, where they brewed a beverage from its fruits. They passed the whole night in pleasant conversation, without any fatigue. Undoubtedly, the evidence shows that it were Christian monks who first cultivated the coffee plant and prepared the beverage from its roasted beans.[3]

Vision

The ancient Greeks thought our eyes emitted rays, like a laser, which enabled us to see. The first person to realise that light enters the eye, rather than leaving it, was the 10th-century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haitham. He invented the first pin-hole camera after noticing the way light came through a hole in window shutters. The smaller the hole, the better the picture, he worked out, and set up the first Camera Obscura (from the Arab word qamara for a dark or private room). He is also credited with being the first man to shift physics from a philosophical activity to an experimental one.[2]
How Islamic inventors changed the world
First picture of a pin-hole camera, 1545
The first picture of a pin-hole camera; an illustration from De Radio Astronomica et Geometrica (1545)

The basic optical principles of the pinhole are commented on in Chinese texts from the 5th century BC. Ibn al-Haitham might have been the first to realize that light enters the eyes, but the claim that he invented the pin-hole camera is false. Giovanni Battista della Porta (1538 - 1615), a scientist from Naples, was long thought to have been the inventor, due to his description found inside Magia naturalis (1558). However, the first published picture of a pin-hole camera is a drawing in Gemma Frisius' De Radio Astronomica et Geometrica (1545).[4]

While both the Latin and Arabic languages have borrowed from each other, the Latin language actually pre-dates classic Arabic (the precursor to modern Arabic) by at least 1,600 years. The term "camera" was not derived from the Arabic word "qamara". "Camera" is a Latin word meaning a vaulted or arched space, derived from the Greek, which refers to anything with an arched cover. The Italian word "camera", the French word "chambre", and the English word "chamber" all share the same Latin root. "Camera obscura" literally meaning a "dark room".[5][6] The term "camera", as applied today, was first coined by Johannes Kepler (1571 - 1630). The Arabic word "qamara" has almost certainly been borrowed from the Latin word "camera", and at best the similarity between the two words is a coincidence.[4]

Chess

A form of chess was played in ancient India but the game was developed into the form we know it today in Persia. From there it spread westward to Europe - where it was introduced by the Moors in Spain in the 10th century - and eastward as far as Japan. The word rook comes from the Persian rukh, which means chariot.[2]
How Islamic inventors changed the world
6th C chess piece in Butrint, Albania

The 6th Century chess piece found in Butrint, Albania.

British archaeologists in July 2002 unearthed an ivory chess piece, at a Byzantine palace in southern Albania proving that Europeans were playing chess a lot earlier than what was previously thought. The recent discoveries, dating back to the 6th Century (500 years older than any other), seem to have been largely ignored to allow Muslims to claim that they were the real brains that introduced chess to the idiotic West 400 years later, through Spain in the 10th Century.[7] And while the form of chess we know today was largely (though not completely) developed in Persia, it was by Zoroastrian (rather than Islamic) Persians prior to the Muslim Arab invasions. Also ironic is the fact that chess is forbidden in Islam, as it was condemned by Muhammad who compared playing chess with dying ones hand with the flesh and blood of swine.[8][9] So in reality, Paul Vallely and Muslims themselves claiming Islam was the cause of the spread of chess to Europe is an offence to the pious, and would no doubt have Muhammad rolling in his grave.

Flying

A thousand years before the Wright brothers a Muslim poet, astronomer, musician and engineer named Abbas ibn Firnas made several attempts to construct a flying machine. In 852 he jumped from the minaret of the Grand Mosque in Cordoba using a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts. He hoped to glide like a bird. He didn't. But the cloak slowed his fall, creating what is thought to be the first parachute, and leaving him with only minor injuries. In 875, aged 70, having perfected a machine of silk and eagles' feathers he tried again, jumping from a mountain. He flew to a significant height and stayed aloft for ten minutes but crashed on landing - concluding, correctly, that it was because he had not given his device a tail so it would stall on landing. Baghdad international airport and a crater on the Moon are named after him.[2]
How Islamic inventors changed the world

To get to the root of the facts concerning who was the first to fly, one must go to the very basics first. As far as flying is concerned, at the beginning were the kites, and these were a Chinese invention. They date back as far as 3,000 years, where they were made from bamboo and silk in China. The earliest written account of kite flying was about 200 BC. In 478 BC a Chinese Philosopher, Mo Zi, spent three years making a hawk from light wood or bamboo which sailed with the wind. It could fly, but after one day's trial it was wrecked. Kites were also used in Chinese warfare for years. They carried hideously painted faces, pipes and strings that gave noises to frighten the enemy.

Many attempts to use kites to fly men were also made, the earliest recorded success was very brutal. In AD 550 Emperor Kao Yang overcome his powerful enemies the Thopa and Yuan families. He ordered that the surviving Thopas and Yuan to be fitted out with bamboo-mat wings and cast from the top of the Tower of the Golden phoenix. All died. Other captives were attached to kites cut out in the form of owls and launched from the tower. Only one of the captives survived after flying 2.5 Km. Later that survivor, named Yuan Huang-Thou was starved to death. The Chinese also tried to produce flying machines. In the book Pao Phu Tzu, dated AD 320, Ko Hung states: "Some have made flying cars with wood, using ox-leather straps fastened to returning blades to set the machines in motion". He is clearly describing rotating blades attached to a spinning axle and driven by a (leather) belt that is a rotor top the principal of which underlie the modern-day helicopter. It seems that the system worked because flying cars had been used. The machine, known as "bamboo dragonfly", is still used today as a child's toy.[10][11][12]

In the West, the ancient Greek engineer, Hero of Alexandria, worked with air pressure and steam to create sources of power. One experiment that he developed was the aeolipile, which used jets of steam to create rotary motion. The importance of the aeolipile is that it marks the start of engine invention - engine created movement will later prove essential in the history of flight.[13]

Given all of the above information, how can anyone possibly accredit the invention of flight to a 9th century Muslim jumping off a mosque in Spain? (continue reading...)