When we study about Development, all it starts from the history of second world war, industrialization and the associated theories and paradigms. What will be said then about the civilizations before western colonizations? Was there no development? Or, there are strict distinctions between development and civilization? This presentation is prepared based on some books, lectures and research works and structured in two parts. Part one focuses on some islamic contributions to civilization. Part two very briefly discusses on few questions to be reflected upon in future in detail to erase the misunderstandings among people, if there is any. (2019)

1. Contribution of Islamic Civilization to Global
Development Before Western Colonization
Shawkat Ara Begum
29th June, 2019

2. Part 1-Contribution
•Education
•Mathematics
•Art and Architecture
•Agriculture
•Health
•Engineering and Technology
•Oil Industry
•---------------------------------------
(Consulted books written by Dr.
Bryn Barnard, Dr. Omar Chapra,
Ibn Khaaldun, Dr. Naajimuddin
Arbakan
Organization of the Topic
Part 2-Theoretical
Discussion
• Role of a narrative in Military
Diplomacy
• Psychological affect
--Negative spiraling
--Positive Spiraling
--Development Model
• Conclusion towards a
constructive direction
-------------------------------
(Consulted works of Dr. Micheal
Andrew Berger, Dr. Martin P.
Seigman

3. Part 1-Background
Bryn Barnard:
• An illustrator for over 25 years,
• a professor of art at University
of Delaware; University of the
Arts, Philadelphia; and
University of Pittsburgh's
Semester at Sea.
• He has been an Institute of
Current World Affairs fellow, a
Fulbright fellow to Universiti
Sains Malaysia, and a consulting
associate of the Universities
Field Staff International.
The Genius of Islam began
as a series of slide lectures he
created after 9/11
--To educate public about Islamic
civilization.
• about deep historical connections
between Islam and the West.
• He spent five years living in
Malaysia and Indonesia; also
traveled extensively in India,
Egypt, Morocco, and Turkey.
• Barnard has given "Genius of
Islam" presentations at World
Affairs Councils, schools,
universities, libraries, and
mosques across North America.

4. Spread of Islamic Civilization (622-1700 AD)
• Founded at the hand of an
Arabian Merchant Muhammad
(SM) in Mecca---a trading centre
at the edge of two warring
empire—Byzantine &Persia, soon
united entire Arabian Peninsula
• Within a century, expanded from
Spain to China
• First 4 rulers were elected
• then became hereditary
dynasties:
• a heterogeneous multicultural, multiethnic, multi-religious,
cosmopolitan, literate and tolerant society
• recognized and rewarded talented minorities
• Jews became generals and PMs, Christians led centers of learning and
embassies, converted Persians became esteemed scholars.
• Damascas-based Umayyads
upto750 overthrown by Baghdad-
based Abbasids and Spain-based
Western Umayyaad dynasty
• Next 3 centuries competition
between Umayyad &Abbasids
fueled much muslim innovation
• 1527, Turkish Ottiomans came in
power
• 1924, Kemal Ataaturk abolished
caliphate

5. Education
• Principles: Iqra…”God will raise up in rank those of you..who have
given knowledge”…”Quest for learning is obligatory for every
muslim”
• gave birth to many Muslim scholars built on knowledge from
wherever they traveled through adoption and adaptation
• Memory-based oral poetry—scribal society—development of font
type as calligraphy
Islam’s tradition of oral recitation
developed into an efficient vehicle for
mass-produced handwritten literature. A
single Muslim reciter would read a book
aloud to a group of scribes, who copied his
spoken words simultaneously. Europe, by
contrast, used a much slower system.
Monks copied books individually, one at a
time.

6. Zoomorphic calligraphy was developed in the fifteenth century. It
squashes and stretches Arabic letters to create recognizable
animal and human shapes. This peacock is formed from the
sentence bismillah il rahman nir rahim (“In the name of Allah,
the beneficent and merciful”), which begins every chapter of the
Quran but one.
• In Europe, Christians fought Muslims in many wars,
but Muslim trade goods were sought-after status
symbols. Arabic symbolized style, wealth, and power,
as the way a Gucci logo or Nike swoosh does today.
• Then, clever entrepreneurs created knockoffs to
compete with the real thing: “pseudo-Arabic.” This
Arabic-like nonsense writing was used to copy and
compete with authentic Muslim crafts—Islamic art,
minus Islam.
• Eventually, pseudo-Arabic was used to decorate
churches. Arabic and pseudo-Arabic may actually have
affected the evolution of the Latin alphabet. Our
lowercase Roman i and j still sport differentiating dots,
just like the language of Islam.

7. In tenth-century Córdoba, an
Umayyad city in Spain with
over seventy libraries, the
palace library alone had over
600,000 volumes, all written
by hand. At the time, the
best Latin library in Europe
could boast only 600
parchment books.
Paper and Publishing Industry
•Muslim learnt paper-making art from Chinese
in 8th century
• automated the process by stamping linen
rags (an abundant factor of production there)
in water-powered mills.
•Paper mills were set up across the Muslim
world making milled rag paper cheap and
plentiful.
•Paper production went up fuelling up the
book production too
Muslims preferred the
multipage, easily searchable
codex (what we call a book)
over the cumbersome single-
sheet roll, the papyrus-based
recording used in Egypt and
Greece. Islam produced
millions of books, popularizing
that format. That is why today
we read books, not scrolls.

8. Paper-based Communication system
• Paper-based communication
made the spread of scientific
knowledge across the Islamic
empire fast and cheap,
accelerating debate, invention,
and change.
• Booksellers and libraries
became integral parts of every
Muslim city
• new forms of notation had to
be invented to record ideas:
not just words but musical
notes, mathematical
equations, maps, architectural
designs, recipes, and
decorative patterns.
The caliph’s pigeon post used thin, ultra-
light “bird paper” to quickly send and
receive messages across the empire. It
was the email of the day.

9. Mathematics
•Influential Abbasid
mathematician Muhammad ibn
Musa al-Khwarizmi developed
introduced Arabic numerals
developing the idea from Hindu
numerals and it evolved new
branches of mathematics in
Muslim world.
•The new numbers were an
improvement over pebble
counting, finger counting, and
other systems of reckoning then
in use.
•Contribution of Al Zabir in
Algebra, Cube-root and its’
equation
•Al Haryem-Logerithm and all
its’ formula

10. • Concept of
Trigonometry
introduced during
Caliph Maamun’s rule
• Zeyp Down- Zeyp
Above translated into
Latin as Sine/Cosine
and then spread
among Europeans.
• Sinus Table and the
concept of Pie
explained by Giasuddin
Jamshed in Khorashan
in his book”Risalat-ul-
Muhitiet”
Arab astronomers and
astrologers continued to use
60-based numerical system
developed by the Babylonians
and Greeks. We call this
system sexidecimal. We use
base-sixty reckoning in time,
geometry, and navigation.
There are 360 degrees in a
circle and the points of the
compass.

11. • In the thirteenth century, the Muslim
numerical system began to spread via
Spain and Italy to Europe.
• In 1202, Leonardo Fibonacci, a
merchant from Pisa, Italy, published
his revolutionary Liber Abaci (“The
Book of Calculation”), about the
Muslim computation system.
• His book was a hit and helped spread
Arabic numerals to Europe. Arabic
numerals and computation
revolutionized Western accounting
and made all subsequent
mathematical discoveries possible,
among them Newton’s calculus and
Einstein’s theory of relativity in time
and space.
•Until the importation of easily manipulable
Arabic numerals, Europeans did math with
cumbersome Roman numerals, often using
pebbles (calculi) on counting boards like this
one. Roman numeral value is notational,
determined by a combination of letters.
Different letters represent different
quantities: I=1; V=5; X=10; L=50. These are
added and subtracted to make bigger
numbers. IV=4. VI=6. LXVIII=68. LXXXVI=86.
Although notational addition and subtraction
are possible, multiplication and division are
difficult. And higher math is impossible.

12. Arts and Architecture and Construction
•Islamic patterns can be divided into three general areas.
--Calligraphy
--Arabesque (a European term): a type of heavily stylized floral and
vegetative pattern based on a repeating spiral motif that for
Muslims suggested the gardens of Paradise.
-- Geometry: A visual expression of the mathematical formulas that
Muslims discovered and developed when they translated classical
Greek texts into Arabic.

13. Islamic aesthetics have
influenced many modern
European artists, most
notably M. C. Escher,
whose lifelong fascination
with pattern and
geometry was directly
influenced by a visit to the
Alhambra in Spanish
Granada.
The pointed arch was first
employed by Islamic
architects in Jerusalem’s
al-Aqsa Mosque. It was
one of many arch styles
developed by Muslims
and later used in Gothic
churches.
Divisions of a circle into multiples of 4
or 6 parts produced interlocking
patterns of squares, hexagons, and
stars that could be reduced, enlarged,
or repeated to cover virtually any
surface.
•Repetition, stylization, intricacy, and
precision became hallmarks of the art
of the Muslim world.

14. Astronomy-A key to Space Journey
• Many stars retain their Arabic names from the
centuries of Muslim astronomical dominance.
Betelgeuse (from Yad al-Jauza), Altair (from at-Ta’ir),
and Aldebaran (from al-Dabaran) are just a few.
• Muslim star maps used pictorial depictions of the
constellations and the zodiac.
• The figures, even the exact poses of the
constellations, influenced the way the West
imagined the heavens.
• This is Sagittarius, the centaur archer.
•Discovery of Egyptian
astronomer Batlamyus
(Ptoleme) vs. Al Battani
Ismaili

15. • Astrolabes helped Muslims determine size of the earth. Between 820 and 833,
an Arab expedition from Baghdad used lengths of rope and pegs to measure
the distance between two points on earth that, using an astrolabe, they
calculated were one degree of latitude apart. That figure—67.73 miles—was
multiplied by 360 degrees. The result was only 518 miles short of the earth’s
actual circumference of 24,901 miles.
--Astrolabe was introduced to Latin Europe
via Muslim Spain in 12th century. It would
become an important navigational tool at the
beginning of the Age of Exploration
--Connection of Cristopher Columbus and
Muslims---new investigation’s finding
Astrolabes were status symbols that suggested braininess and
learning, like a fancy calculator or computer today. They took
different shapes depending on their purpose. The most popular
form, the disk, is called a planispheric astrolabe.

16. A spherical astrolabe is
globe-shaped,
converting the flat
environment of the
planispheric astrolabe
into three dimensions.
The safiha, a Muslim invention, was a
universal astrolabe. Instead of the
different plates for different latitudes
needed on conventional astrolabes, the
safiha had a single plate, easily usable at
any latitude. In 11th century
A simple ring used for
navigation is called a
mariner’s astrolabe.

17. Health System
• Early Christians took care of
travelers, the sick, and the poor in
monasteries.
• Sick Persians, went to a center
where patients were treated by
specialist doctor-teachers. This
was called a bimaristan, a Persian
word meaning “place of the ill.”
• When Muslims conquered Persia,
they adopted this idea and
adapted it into the most widely
copied healthcare model on
earth.

18. • Included a pharmacy, a place
where patients could
convalesce, an insane asylum,
and a retirement home.
• Muslim bimaristan had
different wings for different
diseases, each staffed by its
respective specialists.
• The entire enterprise was
free, supported by charitable
donations from the wealthy—
the medieval Muslim version
of universal health care.
•It also included
different halls for men
and women, kitchens,
staff sleeping quarters,
storage rooms, libraries,
a special surgical theater,
isolation wards, and
outpatient clinics.
Courtyards had
fountains, trees, music,
and singing birds to aid
healing.

19. Health System
--Ibn Sina (known to the West as Avicenna)
spent his career outside hospitals, treating
elites across the Islamic world. His famous
five-volume al-Qanun fi al-Tibb (“The Law of
Medicine”) was a million-word medical
encyclopedia.
--Until 17th century, the Latin translation was
considered the most important book in
European medicine.
Medieval Islamic medicine was
centuries ahead of the
competition in understanding
the body, the circulation of the
blood, the causes of disease,
and the control of infection.

20. Physics-Chemistry-Optics
• Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham,
an eleventh-century Muslim mathematician,
philosopher, and astronomer. (Europeans knew
him as Alhazen.)
• He based his optical ideas on observation,
theory, and repeated experiments.
• This rigorous methodology became the basis of
the modern scientific method: observe, predict,
and experiment.
• Skepticism and experimentation elevated
human reason over faith in received wisdom.

21. • Al-Haytham’s idea about the
bending of light (the Law of
Refraction) was used by Renaissance
Europeans to create all manner of
glass lenses that enlarged or
reduced images.
• Spectacles, telescope, etc. Were
invented based on his idea.
• Contribution of Ibn
Heysam to introducing the
idea of Atom and molecule
and the formula of
refraction angle (not by
Oclid, the Greek Scientist)

22. Agricultural Revolution
The saqiya, an animal-
powered water-raising
irrigation machine, traveled
from Syria to Spain to the
New World. Some saqiyas
are still used in Mexico’s
Yucatán Peninsula.
--To grow the thirsty Indian crops
in the desert-dry climate of the
Mediterranean, Muslim engineers
became experts at moving large
quantities of water across deserts
in underground canals called
qanats.
--These were built up to fifty feet
underground with only a slight
degree of inclination over many
miles.
They featured manholes, which
allowed ready access for periodic
cleaning and repair.

23. • Muslim scientists bred new
drought-resistant crop strains
• invented fertilization and crop-
rotation methods to keep soil
productive.
The noria was a Syrian-style
waterwheel Islam introduced
to Spain for crop irrigation.
Some machines, centuries
old and repeatedly rebuilt, still
operate today.

24. • Where the ancient Greeks, Romans, and
Egyptians had grown one crop a year,
Muslims now grew two or three, mixing
tropical and local crops depending on the
season. Unlike those practicing
traditional farming,
• Muslims rotated as many as six different
crops in succession.
• The variety of the crops and the order in
which they were grown improved the
soil.
• Because each crop drew different
nutrients from the soil and was
susceptible to different diseases, the soil
did not become sterile or overloaded
with pathogens.
Crops introduced by Islamic
civilization to the West include
sugarcane, rice, bananas,
plantains, mangoes, coconuts,
watermelons, spinach,
artichokes, lemons, limes,
eggplant, sorghum, oranges,
and cotton, today the world’s
most important textile crop.

25. Engineering and Automobile technology
• Although the automobile engine is made up
of some 10,000 separate inventions, the
crank-and-connecting-rod idea is crucial: with
it, the engine can turn the wheels and thus
move the car.
• crank-and-connecting-rod
mechanism, a thirteenth-
century Muslim invention

26. --Considered the single most important document
in the history of medieval engineering, it describes
50 different mechanisms, distilling all Muslim
engineering to that point in a single volume.
--This simple invention was first outlined in 1206 by
the Arab engineer Isma’il ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari in his
Kitab fi ma’rifat al-hiyal al-handasiyya (“Book of
Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices”).
--Around 1450, the crank-and-rod idea
appeared in Europe in a book by
Francesco di Giorgio Martini that included
an illustration of a waterwheel-driven
timber saw.
--By 1769, Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot had
invented the first steam-powered
automobile, with back-and-forth pistons
that cranked rotating wheels.

27. Musical Industry

28. Part 2
So far we have discussed in Part 1 are not found in
Development Discourses.
• Development is a term coined from the WWII
context by Article 22 of Covenant of the League
of Nations: “well-being and development”.
• US president Harry Truman: “..Only by helping the
least fortunate of its members to help themselves
can the human family achieve the decent,
satisfying life that is the right of all people.:

29. Paradigm Shift of Development
• Assumed to have been a concept arisen from
Keynesian Theory of Modernization and its’
reflection in Bretton Wood Conference
• Economic Growth---Mass industrialization/
mechanization/commercialization
• Environment---Human Rights---Economic
Development
• So it is a western coin developing the whole
world gradually reserved its’ sole position in
development discourse

30. Question arise:
• No development before western colonization?
• No economic growth ?
• No human rights or worse human rights situation
• Foundation of development: where?
• This is not any evidence-based claim, rather a
significant part intentionally or unintentionally
lost/removed from development discourse and
gone unnoticed

31. Petrarch, “the father of humanism,” urged
Europeans to turn away from Muslim
scholarship and focus on classical Greek
sources.
Ibn Rushd was famous in Latin Europe.
Although renowned in his native Spain, he
was virtually unknown in the rest of the
Muslim world.

32. Psychology
• The Coercion Strategy in Military Diplomacy
states the Balance theory---The Well-
articulated narrative
• How this narrative spirals negativity and
destruction
• How the positive spiraling can be achieved

33. Development Model of Ibn Khaldun

34. • The Development Model of Ibn Khaldun
• What Muslims can offer to build a collective
sense of Development goals
• Further study on other civilizations so that no
people are left behind in claiming their share
of contribution and bridge the gap of
misunderstanding and sick competition

35. Thank You!!