“Even if you must go all the way to China,” said the Prophet, “seek knowledge”.  This was the theme of Muslim (Submission) during the golden age lasted for 500 years.  There was split in Muslim, those who believed and followed ‘only way to God is by Revelation’ and those who believed and followed ‘only way to God is by Reason’. 

A famous Caliph of 8^th century C.E established what known as the ‘House of Wisdom’ which seeded the greatest invention, discoveries in all known fields of human knowledge – Physics, Mathematics, Astrology, Astronomy, Chemistry, Architecture, Poetry, Philosophy, Medicine and list goes on.  This golden age at 8tgh century C.E, Baghdad being the center of Islam intellect would one day lay the seeds of European renaissance and enlightenment.   Unfortunately much of the contribution from Islam is lost for every in history.  The foundation laid by Islam intellects and buildings were built by Europeans and later to become as Europe single handedly achieved the wealth of knowledge know to mankind.

Theory of relativity was known to Islam scholars a thousand years before Einstein.  Islamic scholars flew gliders eight hundred years before Wright Brothers.

I am working to compile a long list of Islamic inventions and discoveries and dates vs. the same achieved (or rather used) by European counterparts.

In an era when the relationship between Islam and the West seems fraught with misunderstanding, how many of us realize that Muslim intellectual achievement was once the envy of the world? In magnificent centers of learning, from Damascus to Baghdad and Cairo, mathematicians a thousand years ago developed algebra, algorithms, and trigonometry – the foundations upon which modern technology is built.  Inventors devised the crankshaft and early versions of the torpedo and the parachute.  Physicians’ techniques ranged from orthodontia to asthma care to tracheotomy.  And Muslim astronomers calculated our planet’s diameter and circumference to a remarkable degree of accuracy – at the time when Europeans thought the earth was flat!!!

Their contribution to modern knowledge are almost beyond counting.  How many of us know the names of ibn al-Haytham, ibn Sina, al-Tusi, al-Khwarizmi, Omar Khayyam? These very men paved the way for Newton, Copernicus, Einstein, and many others

[MS dictionary does not know them.  Newton, Einstein are valid words in English Dictionary where as ibn al-Haytham, ibn Sina are underlined RED]

The Lost History – A book from National Geographic 

In the British-Indian battler at the fortress of Srirangapatanam in Mysore, in 1979, at this point India is succumbing to the invading British, but under Muslim ruler Tipu Sultan, India is still fighting.  One tactic, put in place by the sultan’s father Hyder Ali, is a formidable rocket force.  Each Indian battalion had 200 rocketeers in place, armed with ample supplies of rockets capable of traveling a thousand yards and tipped with lethal warheads, including gunpowder charges, pointed tips, and even a kind of whirling blade that shreds everything on point of impact like a meat grinder.  Though by then Europe had rockets, none of them had the range and lethality of these rockets.

During the battle, thousands of Indian missiles slam into the British forces, considerably slowing their advance.  Finally, when the fortress falls, the British capture several hundred loaded rockets and rocket launchers and thousands of unarmed ones.  Some of these are packed and shipped back to Britain for study.  They come to the attention of one William Congreve, an armaments expert in the service of the king.  He swiftly sets about incorporating the Indian design into the British forces.

And then, only 14 years later, when the infant United States is under attack from the same British Empire, the so-called Congreve rockets fashioned after the Indian rockets are fired at the uncooperative Americans, in particular from ships in the Chesapeake Bay against one Fort McHenry, protecting the American city of Baltimore.

An American prisoner of the British will watch throughout the night as his captors launch volley upon volley of Congreve rockets at the American fortification.  The next morning, when he sees the tattered American flag still flying above the fort, he will be inspired to write a patriotic song called the ‘Start Spangled Banner’!!!

Most Americans know about Francis Scott Key and their national anthem.  But because of lost history, they do not know that those rockets inspiring the song were born in faraway China, brought west by the Mongols for events like the attack on Baghdad, then transformed by the Muslims into more versatile weapon of war, and shot into the European mind through the Crusades, through the re-conquest of Spain, through the Turkish attack on the gates of Vienna, and through the final Muslim-Indian resistance against British.

Nor do they know that one day, distant descendants of those rockets and rocketeers will animate renewed bloodlettings in the 21^st century in the so-called clash of civilizations, tiresomely like the battles of lost history, and in many of the same places: Baghdad, Israel, Afghanistan.

It is one irony of lost history that its blade cuts both ways!!!

Courtesy: The Lost History – Michael Hamilton Morgan for National Geographic