Islam Essay

Throughout civilization, religions have come a long way in impacting modern society and civilization. One of the major Abrahamic religions, Islam, has made many advances and has contributed a variety of concepts, ideas and inventions to western civilization. Most of these contributions have gone unnoticed throughout the years, and have been credited by various people, when in reality Muslim scholars have formulated these concepts. Although some may believe that these contributions are irrelevant, the reality is that most of the everyday concepts humans use all around the world, have been derived from a primarily Islamic school of thought.

In 622 CE, a new world religion, Islam, emerged. The founder, a man by the name of Prophet Muhammad, began to lead his growing band of followers in the way of Islamic ideals. Through many trials and tribulations, Islam was finally garnering more followers, and was eventually established as an Abrahamic world religion, spreading across the Islamic empire. For many years, Muslims were challenged, and fought against in religious wars, causing tensions, however a mere 150 years later, Islam was one of the most popular religions in the area. With the establishment of the city of Baghdad as the new capital city of the Empire, and the Abbasid caliphate around the mid 8th century- Islam transitioned into a new age. This was the signal of new prosperity, educational boons, and the flourishing of many new concepts and ideas in the fields of mathematics, architecture, science, the arts and education. Intellectual centers, such as Baghdad, Cairo, Istanbul, Cordoba, and other began to flourish, as talented scholars began to ponder up ideas that had never been discovered before. This was the epitome of wor...

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...everywhere began to investigate further into concepts never derived before. A famous scholar of the time, Ibn Al-Haytham, is often referred to as “the worlds first scientist” for his usage of what now is the scientific method to obtain results for one of his experiments. By utilizing observations, controlled experiments, and rationale, he began the process which all scientist use today in order to obtain accurate results. Similarly, Ibn Al-Haytham, while being a pioneer in the scientific method, also wrote book on the subject of Optics, which explored the concepts of reflection and refraction of light rays, and also in which he proposed new theories on the concepts of vision and how light worked. This Book of Optics (Kitab-al-Manazir), had 7 volumes, all in which Al-Haytham investigated on the wonders of light using the scientific method to experiment his theories.