March 10, 2006
The Guardian

Charting the Lost Innovations of Islam

by Paul Lewis

It is the thread that links cars, carpets and cameras and is also responsible for three-course meals, bookshops and modern medicine. The Islamic civilisation, according to the curators of a national exhibition that opened this week, has made an enormous but largely neglected contribution to the way we live in the west.

The project, 1001 Inventions: Discover the Muslim Heritage of Our World, supported by the Home Office and the Department for Trade and Industry, uncovers the Islamic civilisation's overlooked contribution to science, technology and art during the dark ages in European history.

It lifts the veil on hundreds of innovations - from kiosks and chess through to windmills and cryptography - that are often popularly associated with the western world but originate from Muslim scholarship and science.

Based on more than 3,000 peer-reviewed academic studies, the exhibition charts Islamic innovations during ten decades of "missing history" spanning from the 6th to the 16th century and covering an area stretching from China to southern Spain. . . .

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1001 Inventions Book, Teachers' Pack, Educational Posters

VIDEO: 1001 Inventions and The Library of Secrets

"Islam's Contribution To Europe's Renaissance," The Wisdom Fund

[There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world.

It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean, and from northern climes to tropics and deserts. Within its dominion lived hundreds of millions of people, of different creeds and ethnic origins.

. . . The technology industry would not exist without the contributions of Arab mathematicians. Sufi poet-philosophers like Rumi challenged our notions of self and truth. Leaders like Suleiman contributed to our notions of tolerance and civic leadership. . . .

This kind of enlightened leadership - leadership that nurtured culture, sustainability, diversity and courage - led to 800 years of invention and prosperity.--Carly Fiorina, "Technology, Business and Our Way of Life: What's Next," hp.com, September 26, 2001 - read last 12 paragraphs]

Paul Vallely, "How Islamic inventors changed the world ," Independent, January 16, 2006

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Xan Rice, "In fabled city at the end of the earth, a treasury of ancient manuscripts," Guardian, July 2, 2007

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David Levering Lewis, God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215," W. W. Norton (January 21, 2008)

[A series of documentary travelogues in which Tim Mackintosh-Smith follows in the footsteps of 14th Century Moroccan scholar Ibn Battutah, who covered 75,000 miles, 40 countries and three continents in a 30-year odyssey. He was Islam's and perhaps the world's greatest traveller--"The Man Who Walked Across The World," BBC, August 29, 2008]

Paul M. Barrett, "Peace Be Upon Us: Islamic and Arabic traditions have long been part of American culture," Washington Post, November 9, 2008

Jonathan Curiel, Al' America: Travels Through America's Arab and Islamic Roots," New Press (November 11, 2008)

Jonathan Lyons, The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization," Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (February 2, 2009)

[After 150 years, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam still has an uncannily modern moral - enjoy yourself while you can--Libby Purves, "Life is short but this delightful poem lives on," Times, March 23, 2009]

Sulaiman Ismail Ibrahim Nabibukhsh "Aristotle and Western Civilization," The Wisdom Fund, January 2010

Raana Bokhari and Mohammad Seddon, The Illustrated Guide to Islam: History, philosophy, traditions, teachings, art and architecture, with 1000 pictures," Lorenz Books; Ill edition (July 16, 2012)

Muslim Heritage.com

PICTURE GALLERY: "Taj Mahal, Agra, India," wikipedia.org

PICTURE GALLERY: "Agra Fort, Agra, India," wikipedia.org

PICTURE GALLERY: "Qutb Complex, New Delhi, India," wikipedia.org