On So called Islamic Golden Age

Most of scholars who did something were influenced by Greek and Socratic kind of philosophy, which asked to doubt, enquire. Upper class pseudo rational Muslims bring everywhere about Islamic Golden Age; want to believe things based on faith and bring stuff which agrees that; not doubt them. Most of those scholars were rejected by Muslims themselves later on; during their own lives many were labeled as heretic. Muslims conquered unto Spain, and they come across Greek philosophy. 

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Book by Muhammad Iqbal. 

Iqbal has disowned Al Farabi, Sina, Ghazali and that entire Golden period as bad time in history of Muslims, a diversion. Iqbal has said, reason is shaitan ka kam. Reason and debates are useless, one can understand Allah with feeling and heart alone.

Iqbal has meant that asal chij ishaq hai aur ishq wo jo dil hi jan sakta hai. agar aap apni duniya ko samjhna chahen to aapki akal jo hai wo bekar chij hai. akal aapko sirf satahi (superficial) chijen bata sakti hain, jo asal chij hai wo dil janta hai. Reason is insufficient, reason will not allow you to know the world. Not only western education is waste, you cant understand the world by facts and reasoning. You can only understand the world by passion of heart.

“Greek philosophy has been a great cultural force in the history of Islam. Yet a careful study of Quran and various schools of scholastic theology. that arose under the inspiration of Greek thought disclose the remarkable fact that while Greek philosophy very much broadened the outlook of Muslim thinkers. It on the whole obscured their vision of the Quran. “

Iqbal on science: Physics ki buniyad hi kharab hai. Thus physics has found it necessary to criticize its own foundations. “It has eventually found reason to break its own idol and eventually and empirical attitude which appears to necessitate scientific materialism has finally ended in a revolt against matter.”

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Reference for content below:  The Nostalgia of Islamic Golden Age vs. the History of Science by Syed Kamran Mirza

The so called ‘Islamic Golden Age’ was not any product of Islamic scriptural knowledge, nor it was due to any degree of devoutness of religion Islam. It was all about the success of some Muslim-born freethinkers during the period of liberal freethinking Caliphs of Abbasid dynasty.

The seventh Abbasid caliph, al-Ma'mun took considerable pains to obtain Greek manuscripts and even sent a mission to the Byzantine Emperor Leon the Armenian (8l3 to 890) for that purpose. He ordered the translation of these manuscripts. He organized at Baghdad a sort of scientific academy called the House of Wisdom. He encouraged scholars from all kinds (various religions), and an enormous amount of scientific work was done under his patronage.

Al-Razi (865-925) : His views on religion in general and Islam in particular earned him public condemnation for blasphemy. Almost all of Al-Razi’s philosophical books were destroyed by the revival force. 

Ibn Sina (973-1037): Because of his views, became the main target of an attack Islamic philosophers and was even called “apostate”.

Al-Ma'arri, (973-1057): The greatest Syrian philosopher poet, skeptic and freethinker known as "Lucretius of the East", despised religions in general and Islam in particular. Omar Khayyam (1048-1122): He was an agnostic, He did not believe in resurrection, Judgment Day or rewards and punishments in an alleged afterlife.

Ibn Rushd (1126-1198): born in present-day Spain was an important philosopher and scientist. Ibn Rushd worked as a mediator between the Arabic and the Western world by commenting and interpreting Greek philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato, making them accessible to Arabic culture. he was condemned for heresy by the Christian, the Jewish and the Islamic orthodoxy and his works were frequently banished and burnt.

al-Khwarizmi (780-850): born in Khwarizm in Uzbekistan. He worked most of his life as a scholar in the house of wisdom in Baghdad. He was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, astrologer and geographer. His "Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing". Latin translations of his Arithmetic, on the Indian numerals, introduced the decimal positional number system to the Western world in the 12th century. Most of the positional base 10 numeral systems in the world have originated from India which first developed the concept of positional numerology. The Indian numeral system is commonly referred to the West as Hindu-Arabic numeral system, since it reached Europe through the Arabs.

History of Algebra: The Chinese, the Persians, and the people of India used algebra thousands of years ago. The Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks contributed to the early development of algebra. Al-Khwarizmi a teacher in the mathematical school in Baghdad, collected and improved the advances in algebra of previous Hindu and Arab scholars. His works included the translation of Greek and Sanskrit scientific manuscript.

Al-Khwarizmi never indicated that he was influenced by religiosity or he received any scientific theory out of Koran or hadiths.

Al-Biruni (973-1048): held that the Qur’an does not interferes in the business of science nor does it infringe on the realm of science.

Ishaq al-Kindi (c. 801–873): Al-Kindi became a prominent figure in the House of Wisdom, and a number of Abbasid Caliphs appointed him to oversee the translation of Greek scientific and philosophical texts into the Arabic language. This contact with "the philosophy of the ancients" (as Greek philosophy was often referred to by Muslim scholars) had a profound effect on his intellectual development. His own thought was largely influenced by the Neo-Platonic philosophy of Proclus, Plotinus and John Philoponus, amongst others, although he does appear to have borrowed ideas from other Hellenistic schools as well. During his life, al-Kindi was fortunate enough to enjoy the patronage of the pro-Mutazilite Caliphs al-Ma'mun and al-Mu'tasim, which meant he could carry out his philosophical speculations with relative ease. His works, says Deborah Black, contained all the seeds of future controversy that would be fully realized in al-Ghazali's "Incoherence of the Philosophers".

Al-Farabi (870-950): He was inspired by the Platonism and Neo-Platonism and was a great exponent of the Aristotelian school of philosophy. He wrote rich commentaries on Aristotle and like al-Razi, he considered reason superior to revelation and advocated for the relegation of prophecy to philosophy. According to him as quoted by Nicholson, “…reason should govern and control the life of man. He definitely did not believe in the inherent doctrines of the Islamic creed and wished it could be reformed guided by philosophy.

Al-Ghazali (1058-1111 AD): Was born and died in Iran. Imam Al-Ghazali is widely known for his heroic role to defeat Mu‘tazilites (rationalized movement) and revived pure Islam. While it is well known that Al-Ghazali himself intended to "shut the door of ijtihad" (the process through which Islamic scholars can generate new rules for Muslims) completely and permanently, which led the Islamic societies to be "frozen in time". Works of critics of Al-Ghazali (such as Ibn-Rushd, a rationalist), as well as the works of any ancient philosopher, were practically forbidden in these "frozen societies" through the centuries. As a result, all chances were lost to gradually revitalize religion of Islam. His 11th century book titled “The Incoherence of the Philosophers” marks a major turn in Islamic epistemology (study of the nature, methods, limitations, and validity of knowledge and belief) and marked a turning point in Islamic philosophy in its vehement rejections of Aristotle and Plato. The book took aimed bitter attack to the group of Islamic philosophers (from the 8-11 centuries) most notable Avicenna and Al-Frabi etc. who drew intellectually upon the Ancient Greeks. Ghazali bitterly denounced Aristotle, Socrates and other Greek philosophers and writers. And labeled those who adopted their methods and ideas as corrupters of the true Islamic faith.

Another of Ghazali’s major work was : “Ihya ʿulūm al-din” (“The revival of religious sciences”) was widely regarded as the greatest work of Muslim spirituality, and has, for centuries, been the most read work after the Qur’ān in the Muslim world. In this book Imam Ghazali rejuvenated Islamic dogmas (full of ridiculous hadiths with untold superstitions and absurdities) only to push back Muslim societies deep into the darkness of Islamic radicalism. He mastered philosophy and then criticized it in order to Islamicize it. Philosophy declined in the Sunni world after al-Ghazali, and his criticism of philosophers (Islamic luminaries who followed Aristotle, Pluto, Socrates etc) certainly accelerated this decline.

Imam Ghazali was the only Islamic luminary who was a perfect Muslim or a strong believer in Islamic theology and because of his strong belief (without reason and logic) in Islamic theology—Imam Ghazali turned into a famous Islamic theologian, scholar and a philosopher but he was not a scientists.

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Anal Haq: Ana Al-Haqq is a short story based on the life of the Sufi Mansur Al-Hallaj, who was indicted and stoned to death on charges of heresy. First his legs were chopped, then his hands were chopped, tongues pulled out. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_Haq

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Hallaj

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Those like Sina were not were not organic with the nature of Islam. Their scholarship was not because of Islam, but in-spite of it. They were not strong enough to change the Islam, so in the long term they were rejected by body politic of Islam. While Ghazali types were accepted. Same way Muslims in Indian continent have rejected Dr Kalam, Abdus Samad types and accepted Owaisi and Jinnah types. 

When Xenotransplant was first tried, human beings would survive few days on Babbon heart, or lever, then immune system of the body will reject it. Same happens with Islam. 

In Hindu culture there is capacity to accept and digest, so there were Buddha, Mahavira, Nanak and all are respected, and they flourished, influenced us. 

Human beings are stupid in one time frame. Conditions of the world did not change much from 7th century to 20th century. So Islam flourished. But Islam is not organic with evolution, so in a longer time frame in a fast changing world after scientific revolution, Islam will be completely rejected by evolved Human brain. 

Take example of Indian continent. 

APJ Abdul Kalam: You won't find Muslims reading APJ Abdul Kalam, but his book wings of fire, everyone (Hindu) want's to read or has read. The day he was being put in grave, mostly Hindus mourned his death. On the same day lakhs of Muslims of India were in the death procession of terrorist Yakub Menon (convicted in Mumbai 1993 blasts). 

Pakistan produced four scientists and one Industrialist of eminence. 

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995), was born in Lahore, spent his childhood there until 1922. He was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics with William A. Fowler for "...theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars". 

Har Gobind Khorana (1922-2011), was born in Multan, this famous MIT professor had won the 1968 Nobel Prize and started a brand new field — protein synthesis via nucleotides. He did his bachelor and master’s degrees from Punjab University.

 Sarvadaman Chowla  (1907 – 1995) , an accomplished mathematician who headed the mathematics department from 1937 to 1947. Being Hindu, he left Lahore after the rioting began and went to Princeton University, then the University of Colorado at Boulder, and eventually became professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He died in 1995 and was celebrated as a famous number theorist by the American Mathematical Society with several important theorems to his name.

Abdus Salam (1926-1996) winner of the 1979 physics Nobel, he studied at Government College (GC) Lahore and later taught at Punjab University. However, no road or landmark in Lahore bears Salam’s name. He was an Ahmadiya Muslim. On his grave it was written "First Muslim to win Nobel in science" Muslim was erased after Ahmadiya were declared non-Muslim in Pakistan. 

Sir Ganga Ram (1851-1927): He was a civil engineer and architect who developed irrigation system of Layllpur and Montgomrey districts of Punjab (now in Pakistan) and he developed Lahore city. 

He designed and built General Post Office, Lahore, Lahore Museum, Aitchison College, Mayo School of Arts (now the National College of Arts), Ganga Ram Hospital, Lahore 1921, Lady Mclagan Girls High School, the chemistry department of the Government College University, the Albert Victor wing of Mayo Hospital, Sir Ganga Ram High School (now Lahore College for Women), the Hailey College of Commerce (now Hailey College of Banking & Finance), Ravi Road House for the Disabled, the Ganga Ram Trust Building on "The Mall" and Lady Maynard Industrial School. He also constructed Model Town and Gulberg town, once the best localities of Lahore, the powerhouse at Renala Khurd as well as the railway track between Pathankot and Amritsar.

He took more than 20,000 acres of land on lease from the Government near Renala and cultivated it by completely irrigating the barren land with hydro-electric pumping. He purchased thousands acres of barren land in Lyallpur on lease and by using engineering skills and modern irrigation methods, turned the arid lands into fertile fields.[citation needed] He established a Maynard-Ganga Ram award of Rs 3000 with a Rs 25000 endowment. The award was to be made every three years for anyone who made an innovation that increased agricultural production in Punjab.

First thing after independence, Pakistanis did, was to destroy statue of Sir Ganga Ram at a popular location in Lahore. There is no semblance of recognition for these four gentlemen who were Hindu. They are dirty, evil for Pakistanis. They find their pride in Turkish jihadi Ertugrul Ghazi from 13th century. Their love for science and these ancient thousand year old Muslim scholars is only their love for pride in Islam, they have zero love for science. They reject everything done by non-Muslim or claim it to have come from Quran. 

I don't want to tell about Bhagat Singh and other people of politics. They find love in 1000 year old Arab scholars, but they spit on Taxshila, Bamiyan etc. 

Reminds me of this Muslim colleague Adn from Delhi, I suggested him many books of  pioneers in our field, many times. He never read. But once I was reading a book by an Egyptian Engineer, Mohammed El Reedy, a third class book. He said "ab mai bhi kuchh padhta hun, mai ye kitab kharidta hun." That was not a proper book even. 

Another Senior from college, has PhD, once I was talking about book by Tal Ben Shaher, he asked me if he is Arab, I said no he is Jew. His curiosity vanished.