October

2014

October

2014
Webcasting on the worlds first real-time Islamic service at
www.virtualmosque.co.uk
Editors:
Lord Shahid Aziz
Mr Mustaq Ali M.Sc
Contents:
The Call of the Messiah

Page
1

Muhammad (s) II
By Prof K. S. Ramakrishna Rao

Family Day by Dr Zahid Aziz

The Call of the Messiah
by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad,
the Promised Messiah and Mahdi
The Afghans
In short, it is very strange that just as a Messiah i.e. the restorer of religion merely by means
of spiritual power, and the propagator of faith
and belief merely with the help of the Holy Spirit, came at the close of the
Mosaic dispensation, another
one, and after the expiry of a
similar period of time, came
at the close of the order of
Khilafat of the like of Moses. It
has been proved conclusively
that our Master, the holy
Prophet Muhammad (peace
and the blessings of God be
upon him) is the like of Moses. Just as Moses had delivered the Jews from the hands
of Pharaoh, and not only delivered them, but the Jews, as
an ultimate result of their
belief, also got Kingdom and
rulership, in the same way,

our Holy Prophet (peace and the blessings of

God be upon him) came at such a time when
the Jews had been wallowing in dishonour and
disgrace. The Holy Prophet opened on them
the doors of freedom and deliverance, and
raised them to the position of authority and
rule, just as he had opened the doors of freedom and deliverance on other believers, and
delivered them from the tyranny and oppression of the unbelievers, and lifted them at last
to the dignity of Khilafat and Kingship, so that
the Jews, after only a few centuries, became
the rulers of the world. (continued from Ayyam
I Sulah - The Age of Reconciliation)

Muhammad (pbuh) Part II

Prof. K. S. Ramakrishna Rao,
(Head of the Dept. of Philosophy, Govt. College
for Women. University of Mysore, Mandya571401, Karnatika, India).
Re-printed from Islam and Modern age,
Hydrabad, March 1978.
(continued from The Light September 2014)
The theory of Islam and Sword for
instance is not heard now frequently in any quarter worth the
name. The principle of Islam that
there is no compulsion in religion
is well known. Gibbon, a historian
of world repute says, A pernicious
tenet has been imputed to Mohammadans, the duty of extirpating all
the religions by sword. This
charge based on ignorance and
bigotry, says the eminent historian,
is refuted by Quran, by history of
Musalman conquerors and by their
public and legal toleration of
Christian worship. The great success of Mohammads life had been
effected by sheer moral force,
without a stroke of sword.

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But in pure self-defence, after repeated efuge in a place more than 200 miles away, that
forts of conciliation had utterly failed, circumcity now lay at his feet. By the laws of war he
stances dragged him into the battlefield. But the
could have justly avenged all the cruelties inprophet of Islam changed the whole strategy of
flicted on him and his people. But what treatthe battlefield. The total number of casualties in
ment did he accord to them? Mohammads heart
all the wars that took place during his lifetime
flowed with affection and he declared, This day,
when the whole Arabian Peninsula came under
there is no reproof against you and you are all
his banner, does not exceed a few hundreds in
free. This day he proclaimed, I trample under
all. But even on the battlefield he taught the Army feet all distinctions between man and man,
ab barbarians to pray, to pray not individually,
all hatred between man and man.
but in congregation to God the Almighty. During
This was one of the chief objects why he
the dust and storm of warfare whenever the
permitted war in self-defence, that is to unite
time for prayer came, and it comes five times a
human beings. And when once this object was
every day, the congregation prayer had not to be
achieved, even his worst enemies were parpostponed even on the battlefield. A party had
doned. Even those who killed his beloved uncle,
to be engaged in bowing their heads before God
Hamazah, mangled his body, ripped it open,
while other was engaged with the enemy. After
even chewed a piece of his liver.
finishing the prayers, the two parties had to exThe principles of universal brotherhood and
change their positions. To the Arabs, who would
doctrine
of the equality of mankind which he
fight for forty years on the slight provocation
proclaimed represents one very great contributhat a camel belonging to the guest of one tribe
tion of Mohammad to the social uplift of humanhad strayed into the grazing land belonging to
ity. All great religions have preached the same
other tribe and both sides had fought till they
doctrine but the prophet of Islam had put this
lost 70,000 lives in all; threatening the extinctheory into actual practice and its value will be
tion of both the tribes, to such furious Arabs the
fully recognized, perhaps centuries hence, when
Prophet of Islam taught self-control and disciinternational consciousness being awakened,
pline to the extent of praying even on the battleracial prejudices may disappear and greater
field. In an age of barbarism, the Battlefield itbrotherhood of humanity come into existence.
self was humanized and strict instructions were
issued not to cheat, not to break trust, not to
Miss Sarojini Naidu speaking about this asmutilate, not to kill a child or woman or an old
pect of Islam says, It was the first religion that
man, not to hew down date palm nor burn it,
preached and practiced democracy; for in the
not to cut a fruit tree, not to molest any person
mosque, when the minaret is sounded and the
engaged in worship. His own treatment with his
worshipers are gathered together, the democrabitterest enecy of Islam is emmies is the nobodied five times a
blest example
day when the peasfor his followant and the king
ers. At the conkneel side by side
quest of Mecca,
and proclaim, God
he stood at the
alone is great. The
zenith of his
great poetess of
power. The city
India continues, I
which had rehave been struck
fused to listen
over and over again
to his mission,
by this indivisible
which had torunity of Islam that
tured him and
makes a man inhis followers,
stinctively a brothwhich
had
er. When you meet
Fairy Meadow, Nanga Parbat, Pakistan
driven him and
an Egyptian, an Alhis people into
gerian and Indian and a Turk in London, it matexile and which had unrelentingly persecuted
ters not that Egypt is the motherland of one and
and boycotted him even when he had taken refIndia is the motherland of another.
Mahatma Gandhi, in his inimitable style,

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3
says Some one has said that Europeans in South
Africa dread the advent Islam Islam that civilized Spain, Islam that took the torch light to Morocco and preached to the world the Gospel of
brotherhood. The Europeans of South Africa dread
the Advent of Islam. They may claim equality with
the white races. They may well dread it, if brotherhood is a sin. If it is equality of colored races then
their dread is well founded.
Every year, during the Haj, the world witnesses
the wonderful spectacle of this international Exhibition of Islam in leveling all distinctions of race,
color and rank. Not only the Europeans, the African, the Arabian, the Persian, the Indians, the Chinese all meet together in Medina as members of
one divine family, but they are clad in one dress
every person in two simple pieces of white seamless cloth, one piece round the loin the other piece
over the shoulders, bare head without pomp or
ceremony, repeating Here am I O God; at thy command; thou art one and alone; Here am I. Thus
there remains nothing to differentiate the high
from the low and every pilgrim carries home the
impression of the international significance of Islam.
In the opinion of Prof. Hurgronje the league of
nations founded by prophet of Islam put the principle of international unity of human brotherhood
on such Universal foundations as to show candle to
other nations. In the words of same Professor the
fact is that no nation of the world can show a parallel to what Islam has - done the realization of the
idea of the League of Nations.
The prophet of Islam brought the reign of democracy in its best form. The Caliph Ali cousin and
the son in-law of the prophet, the Caliph Mansur,
Abbas, the son of Caliph Mamun and many other
caliphs and kings had to appear before the judge as
ordinary men in Islamic courts. Even today we all
know how the black Negroes were treated by the
civilized white races. Consider the state of Bilal, a
Negro Slave, in the days of the prophet of Islam
nearly 14 centuries ago. The office of calling Muslims to prayer was considered to be of status in the
early days of Islam and it was offered to this Negro
slave. After the conquest of Mecca, the Prophet
ordered him to call for prayer and the Negro slave,
with his black colour and his thick lips, stood over
the roof of the holy mosque at Mecca called the
Kaba the most historic and the holiest mosque in
the Islamic world, when some proud Arabs painfully cried loud, Oh, this black Negro Slave, woe be
to him. He stands on the roof of holy Kaba to call
for prayer. At that moment, the prophet an-

nounced to the world, this verse of the holy Quran

for the first time.
O mankind, surely we have created you, families and tribes, so you may know one another.
Surely, the most honourable of you with God is
Most righteous among you. Surely, God is Knowing,
Aware.
And these words of the holy Quran created
such a mighty transformation that the Caliph of
Islam, the purest of Arabs by birth, offered their
daughter in marriage to this Negro Slave, and
whenever, the second Caliph of Islam, known to
history as Umar the great, the commander of faithful, saw this Negro slave, he immediately stood in
reverence and welcomed him by Here comes our
master; here comes our lord. What a tremendous
change was brought by Quran in the Arabs, the
proudest people at that time on the earth. This is
the reason why Goethe, the greatest of German
poets, speaking about the Holy Quran declared
that, This book will go on exercising through all
ages a most potent influence. This is also the reason
why George Bernard Shaw says, If any religion has
a chance of ruling over Europe, say, England, within
the next 100 years, it is Islam.
It is this same democratic spirit of Islam that
emancipated women from the bondage of man. Sir
Charles Edward Archibald Hamilton says Islam
teaches the inherent sinlessness of man. It teaches
that man and woman have come from the same essence, posses the same soul and have been equipped
with equal capabilities for intellectual, spiritual and
moral attainments.

Family Day Talk

(Darus Salaam, Wembley, UK, 3rd August 2014)

by Dr Zahid Aziz
The Holy Quran says: And when We made a
covenant with the Children of Israel: You shall
serve none but Allah. And do good to (your) parents, and to the near of kin and to orphans and the
needy, and speak good (words) to (all) people, and
keep up prayer and give the due charity. (2:83)
righteous is the one who believes in Allah,
and the Last Day, and the angels and the Book and
the prophets, and gives away wealth out of love for
Him to the near of kin and the orphans and the
needy and the traveller and to those who ask and
to set slaves free and keeps up prayer and gives the
due charity (2:177)
And serve Allah, and do not set up any partner
with Him, and be good to the parents and to the
near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the

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neighbour of (your) kin and the alien neighbour,
(4:36)
In these verses, it has been made one of the
fundamentals of Islam to do good to the near of
kin (zil qurba), and parents have been specially
mentioned. It has been mentioned along with
worshipping only Allah, keeping up prayer, and
paying the zakat.
But it will be noticed that, in all cases, needy
persons and neighbours are also mentioned.
Therefore Islam has kept a balance by mentioning our duty to non-relatives at the same time.
Otherwise, nepotism would be
practised in society, where people
favour only their own relatives,
even at the expense of those who
are not their relatives.
In the well-known verse of the
Holy Quran recited at the marriage ceremony, it is said:
O people, keep your duty to
your Lord, Who created you from
a single being and created its mate of the same (kind), and spread
from these two many men and
women. And keep your duty to
Allah, by Whom you demand one
of another (your rights), and (to)
the ties of relationship. Surely
Allah is ever a Watcher over
you. (4:1)

others, bear in mind your own duty to Allah. In

other words, demand only your just and fair
rights, and make sure you are giving them their
rights.
This verse mentions men and women being spread from one pair of parents. Whatever it
may mean scientifically, what it is pointing out is
that you have ties of relationship to the whole of
humanity. Of course, our ties are closer with
those who are nearer to us than those who are
further away. This nearness would be in terms
of family relationship, or in terms of belonging
to the same community, or the
same religion, or the same country. Naturally, we spend more time
with those who are near to us in
any respect than those who are
further away, and our rights and
obligations in regard to them are
greater. But it must never be forgotten that we have ties of relationship to the whole of humanity.
Once Hazrat Maulana Abdul Haq
Vidyarthi had to make a statement
in a dispute between a relative of
his and one who was not a relative, whom he did not even know
and had never met. He said: As a
Muslim I have to regard the other
party as my relatives as well; if I
wrongfully favour my relative, I
am still harming my relatives, who
are the other party.

Marriage is the institution Moraine Lake, Canadian Rockies

whereby ties of relationship are
The Quran says: O you who believe, be
created, i.e. the couple have children, they bemaintainers of justice, bearers of witness for
come brothers and sisters, they have parents
Allah, even if it is against your own selves or
and grand-parents, uncles and aunts, etc. Here
(your) parents or near relatives whether he is
Muslims are instructed to keep their duty to Alrich or poor, Allah has a better right over them
lah as well as their duty to the ties of relationboth. (4:135)
ship (arham). A persons ties of relationship reSo, while the Quran prescribes the doing of
quire from him duties towards relatives in the
the
utmost good to relatives, yet we are forbidmaterial, emotional, moral and spiritual sides of
den
to depart in the least from truth and justice.
life. The closer they are related, the greater is a
persons duty. Of course, these duties are mutual
Prophets and their relatives
and reciprocal. A person has duties towards
There are examples in the Quran of how
others, and others owe him duties towards him.
prophets and other righteous people dealt with
This is what binds them together.
their relatives. Abraham prayed:
This verse also indicates that each person
My Lord, make me keep up prayer and
has rights. What is one persons duty towards
(those) from my offspring (too), our Lord, and
another, it is the others right from him. People
accept my prayer. Our Lord, grant me protection
do demand their rights from relations. Principaland my parents and the believers on the day
ly this happens between husband and wife, and
when the reckoning comes to pass. (14:4041)
between parents and their offspring. The Quran
The first part of his supplication shows that
here teaches that when you demand rights from
when we wish our offspring to follow Islamic

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5
teachings, such as keeping up the salaat, we
must start by setting an example of doing the
same ourselves: make me keep up prayer and
those from my offspring. The second part of the
supplication, for the forgiveness of (deceased)
parents, again shows that we must start by asking forgiveness for our own selves: grant me
protection and my parents. We are alive and
have the opportunity to make ourselves deserving of Allahs forgiveness through our deeds. The
deceased ones can only benefit from our prayers; they cannot change their deeds. We plead
for them before Allah that He may look at their
good deeds and ignore their shortcomings. If we,
in practice, emulate their good deeds, then it
increases the worth and reward of these deeds
for them with Allah.
The Quran contains an example of a father
preaching goodness to his son, but also of a son
preaching to his father. The first example is that
of Luqman who starts by saying: My son, set up
no partner with Allah. Surely setting up partners
(with Him) is a grievous wrong. (31:13) and he
goes on to give his son the most beautiful moral
instructions including:
bear patiently whatever
befalls you
do not turn your face away
from people in contempt, nor go
about in the land exultingly. Surely
Allah does not love any selfconceited boaster
lower your voice (when
talking to people). Surely the most
hateful of voices is braying of donkeys.
In the story of the sacrifice of
Ismail, we read that Abraham said
to his son:
My son, I have seen in a dream
that I should sacrifice you: so consider what you think. (37:102)
Abraham asked for his sons opinion. He didnt say: God has commanded me to sacrifice you, so I am going to do
it. The son replied: My father, do as you are
commanded; if Allah please, you will find me
patient. (37:102) So the attempted sacrifice
was with the willing consent of the son.
Abraham is said to have preached to his father as follows: why do you worship something
which does not hear, nor see, nor can it avail you
at all? To me indeed has come the knowledge
which has not come to you; so follow me, I will

guide you on a right path. Do not serve the devil.

Surely the devil is disobedient to the Beneficent. (19:4244) This shows that a son may
preach the true religion to his father.

Story of Joseph
This story, related in chapter 12 of the
Quran, is one of jealousy within a family followed by forgiveness. Ten of the twelve brothers
were jealous of the other two, Joseph and Benjamin. They left the boy Joseph in a well in a wilderness to his fate, and told the father Jacob that
he had been eaten by a wolf. Jacob said: I will
exercise patience because I dont believe you.
It so happened that Joseph was picked up by
some passing travellers and sold in Egypt.
There, after suffering many difficulties and imprisonment on a false charge, eventually his
righteousness and ability were recognised by
the king who made him minister in charge of
finance. Many years later, there was a drought
and food shortage. Food was rationed by the
government. Josephs bad brothers came to get
corn, and he recognized them but they did not.
Without disclosing his identity, he still helped
them. He could have extracted
his revenge. I will skip over the
other details of the story, and
just say that later on when the
brothers were reduced to begging him for help, he revealed
to them who he was. They
then admitted to him: Allah
has indeed chosen you over us,
and we were certainly sinners. (12:91)
Joseph said to them: There is
no rebuke or blame against
you this day. Allah may forgive
you, and He is the most Merciful of those who show mercy (12:92).
Incidentally, it was in these
same words that the Holy
Prophet Muhammad forgave
his enemies, the leaders of the Quraish, when
they were presented before him for meting out
judgment at the conquest of Makkah.
Later, when the ten brothers of Joseph asked
their father Jacob to pray to God to forgive them,
he said: I shall ask forgiveness for you of my
Lord. Surely He is the Forgiving, the Merciful (12:98). Without harming the ten brothers,
Joseph made them conscious of their wrong-

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doing by his good actions and noble behaviour
towards them.

Leadership can only pass to sons if

they are worthy
It says in the Quran: And when his Lord
tried Abraham with certain commands he fulfilled them. He said: Surely I will make you a
leader of people. (Abraham) said: And of my
offspring? My covenant does not include the
wrongdoers, said He. (2:124)
Abraham was made a leader of people because he fulfilled Allahs commands when he
was tested by Him. Since Abraham was given the
mission to preach Allahs commands to people,
he was appointed to this position after he had
proved that he himself obeyed those commands
fully and in the most perfect way. This shows
that in Islam a leader must first of all himself
observe those laws which he commands his followers to obey. Then Abraham asked Allah if the
leadership bestowed upon him would be inherited by his sons and progeny after him. Allah
replied that His promise will not cover such of
his offspring as are wrongdoers. Therefore, it is
a principle in Islam that someones sons or
progeny cannot inherit his high spiritual rank,
or the blessings bestowed upon him by Allah,
merely by their descent and birth unless they
are worthy of it in their own right.
The Quran goes on to say: And who forsakes the religion of Abraham but he who makes
a fool of himself. And certainly We made him
pure in this world, and in the Hereafter he is
surely among the righteous. When his Lord said
to him, Submit, he said: I submit myself to the
Lord of the worlds. And the same did Abraham
command his sons, and (so did) Jacob: My sons,
surely Allah has chosen for you (this) religion,
so do not die except as submitting ones. Or were
you witnesses when death visited Jacob, when
he said to his sons: What will you serve after
me? They said: We shall serve your God and the
God of your fathers, Abraham and Ishmael and
Isaac, one God only, and to Him do we submit. (2: 130133)
Fathers are mentioned here, i.e. Abraham
and Jacob, as exhorting their sons to submit to
Allah. The sons affirmed that they would do so.
Thus they became spiritual sons, as well as being physical ones. May Allah enable us to pass
on our heritage of the service of Islam to our
progeny, and may He enable them to accept this
responsibility, ameen.

Muslim Contribution to
Civilisation
Paul Vallely
Source: Independent UK
Originally published in March, 2006
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.
1 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
caffe and then English coffee.
2 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 alHaitham. 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.
3 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.
4 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 didnt. But the cloak

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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.
5 Washing and bathing are religious requirements for Muslims, which is perhaps why they
perfected the recipe for soap which we still use
today. The ancient Egyptians had soap of a kind,
as did the Romans who used it more as a pomade. But it was the Arabs who combined vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide and aromatics
such as thyme oil. One of the Crusaders most
striking characteristics, to Arab nostrils, was
that they did not wash. Shampoo was introduced to England by a Muslim who opened Mahomeds Indian Vapour Baths on Brighton seafront in 1759 and was appointed Shampooing
Surgeon to Kings George IV and William IV.
6 Distillation, the means of separating liquids through differences in their boiling points,
was invented around the year 800 by Islams
foremost scientist, Jabir ibn Hayyan, who transformed alchemy into chemistry, inventing many
of the basic processes and apparatus still in use
today liquefaction, crystallisation, distillation,
purification, oxidisation, evaporation and filtration. As well as discovering sulphuric and nitric
acid, he invented the alembic still, giving the
world intense rosewater and other perfumes
and alcoholic spirits (although drinking them is
haram, or forbidden, in Islam). Ibn Hayyan emphasised systematic experimentation and was
the founder of modern chemistry.
7 The crank-shaft is a device which translates rotary into linear motion and is central to
much of the machinery in the modern world,
not least the internal combustion engine. One of
the most important mechanical inventions in
the history of humankind, it was created by an
ingenious Muslim engineer called al-Jazari to
raise water for irrigation. His 1206 Book of
Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices
shows he also invented or refined the use of
valves and pistons, devised some of the first mechanical clocks driven by water and weights,
and was the father of robotics. Among his 50
other inventions was the combination lock.
8 Quilting is a method of sewing or tying

two layers of cloth with a layer of insulating material in between. It is not clear whether it was
invented in the Muslim world or whether it was
imported there from India or China. But it certainly came to the West via the Crusaders. They
saw it used by Saracen warriors, who wore
straw-filled quilted canvas shirts instead of armour. As well as a form of protection, it proved
an effective guard against the chafing of the Crusaders metal armour and was an effective form
of insulation so much so that it became a cottage industry back home in colder climates such
as Britain and Holland.
9 The pointed arch so characteristic of Europes Gothic cathedrals was an invention borrowed from Islamic architecture. It was much
stronger than the rounded arch used by the Romans and Normans, thus allowing the building
of bigger, higher, more complex and grander
buildings. Other borrowings from Muslim genius included ribbed vaulting, rose windows and
dome-building techniques. Europes castles
were also adapted to copy the Islamic worlds
with arrow slits, battlements, a barbican and
parapets. Square towers and keeps gave way to
more easily defended round ones. Henry Vs castle architect was a Muslim.
10 Many modern surgical instruments are of
exactly the same design as those devised in the
10th century by a Muslim surgeon called alZahrawi. His scalpels, bone saws, forceps, fine
scissors for eye surgery and many of the 200
instruments he devised are recognisable to a
modern surgeon. It was he who discovered that
catgut used for internal stitches dissolves away
naturally (a discovery he made when his monkey ate his lute strings) and that it can be also
used to make medicine capsules. In the 13th
century, another Muslim medic named Ibn Nafis
described the circulation of the blood, 300 years
before William Harvey discovered it. Muslims
doctors also invented anaesthetics of opium and
alcohol mixes and developed hollow needles to
suck cataracts from eyes in a technique still
used today.
11 The windmill was invented in 634 for a
Persian caliph and was used to grind corn and
draw up water for irrigation. In the vast deserts
of Arabia, when the seasonal streams ran dry,
the only source of power was the wind which
blew steadily from one direction for months.
Mills had six or 12 sails covered in fabric or
palm leaves. It was 500 years before the first
windmill was seen in Europe.

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12 The technique of inoculation was not invented by Jenner and Pasteur but was devised in
the Muslim world and brought to Europe from
Turkey by the wife of the English ambassador to
Istanbul in 1724. Children in Turkey were vaccinated with cowpox to fight the deadly smallpox at least 50 years before the West discovered
it.
13 The fountain pen was invented for the
Sultan of Egypt in 953 after he demanded a pen
which would not stain his hands or clothes. It
held ink in a reservoir and, as with modern
pens, fed ink to the nib by a combination of
gravity and capillary action.
14 The system of numbering in use all round
the world is probably Indian in origin but the
style of the numerals is Arabic and first appears
in print in the work of the Muslim mathematicians al-Khwarizmi and al-Kindi around 825.
Algebra was named after al-Khwarizmis book,
Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah, much of whose contents are still in use. The work of Muslim maths
scholars was imported into Europe 300 years
later by the Italian mathematician Fibonacci.
Algorithms and much of the theory of trigonometry came from the Muslim world. And AlKindis discovery of frequency analysis rendered
all the codes of the ancient world soluble and
created the basis of modern cryptology.
15 Ali ibn Nafi, known by his nickname of
Ziryab (Blackbird) came from Iraq to Cordoba in
the 9th century and brought with him the concept of the three-course meal soup, followed
by fish or meat, then fruit and nuts. He also introduced crystal glasses (which had been invented after experiments with rock crystal by
Abbas ibn Firnas see No 4).
16 Carpets were regarded as part of Paradise by medieval Muslims, thanks to their advanced weaving techniques, new tinctures from
Islamic chemistry and highly developed sense of
pattern and arabesque which were the basis of
Islams non-representational art. In contrast,
Europes floors were distinctly earthly, not to
say earthy, until Arabian and Persian carpets

were introduced. In England, as Erasmus recorded, floors were covered in rushes, occasionally renewed, but so imperfectly that the bottom
layer is left undisturbed, sometimes for 20
years, harbouring expectoration, vomiting, the
leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings, scraps
of fish, and other abominations not fit to be
mentioned. Carpets, unsurprisingly, caught on
quickly.
17 The modern cheque comes from the Arabic saqq, a written vow to pay for goods when
they were delivered, to avoid money having to
be transported across dangerous terrain. In the
9th century, a Muslim businessman could cash a
cheque in China drawn on his bank in Baghdad.
18 By the 9th century, many Muslim scholars took it for granted that the Earth was a
sphere. The proof, said astronomer Ibn Hazm,
is that the Sun is always vertical to a particular
spot on Earth. It was 500 years before that realisation dawned on Galileo. The calculations of
Muslim astronomers were so accurate that in
the 9th century they reckoned the Earths circumference to be 40,253.4km less than 200km
out. The scholar al-Idrisi took a globe depicting
the world to the court of King Roger of Sicily in
1139.
19 Though the Chinese invented saltpetre
gunpowder, and used it in their fireworks, it was
the Arabs who worked out that it could be purified using potassium nitrate for military use.
Muslim incendiary devices terrified the Crusaders. By the 15th century they had invented both
a rocket, which they called a self-moving and
combusting egg, and a torpedo a selfpropelled pear-shaped bomb with a spear at the
front which impaled itself in enemy ships and
then blew up.
20 Medieval Europe had kitchen and herb
gardens, but it was the Arabs who developed the
idea of the garden as a place of beauty and meditation. The first royal pleasure gardens in Europe were opened in 11th-century Muslim
Spain. Flowers which originated in Muslim gardens include the carnation and the tulip.

Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam Lahore (UK)

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