Many scientists around the world are gearing up for 2009, wherein they will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of their most admired fi gure, Charles Darwin. It will also be around 150 years since of the publication of his theory ‘The Origin of Species’, which revolutionised modern scientists understanding of human biology

Although Muslim scholars have openly rejected Darwin’s theory, lets leave aside the debate of whether he was correct or not, and let us for a moment assume that Darwin wasn’t the fi rst to discuss evolution in detail. Well you would be right to make this assumption for it has been revealed that approximately 1,000 years before the British naturalist published his theory of evolution, a scientist working in Baghdad was thinking along similar lines. In the ‘Book of Animals’ written by abu Uthman al-Jahith (781-869 AD), an intellectual of East African descent, was the fi rst to speculate on the infl uence of the environment on species. He wrote:

“Animals engage in a struggle for existence; for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed. Environmental factors infl uence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to offspring.”

There is no doubt that this qualifi es as a theory of natural selection - even though the Book of Animals appears to have been based to a large extent on folklore rather than on zoological fact.

Islamic scholars see the Quran as creationist, and so at odds with evolution so it is probably due to this reason alone that al-Jahith’s quote were largely ignored. Nevertheless, al-Jahith’s work was part of an astonishing fl owering of invention and innovation that took place in the Muslim world, and in Iraq in particular, in the Middle Ages by producing wonderful advances in philosophy, astronomy, medicine and mathematics, in particular the emergence of algebra and trigonometry.

The Muslim world is now seen as illequipped for scientifi c discovery, but one can look back to Baghdad and see the origins of the modern scientifi c method, the world’s fi rst physicist and the world’s fi rst chemist; advances in surgery and anatomy, the birth of geology and anthropology; not to mention remarkable feats of engineering.

For 700 years, the international language of science was Arabic; and Baghdad, the capital of the mighty Abbasid Empire, was the centre of the intellectual world. There are many Muslim scholars and scientist in history who have contributed to modern science, in fact too many to mention, so let us outline just a few who were inspirational founders of the cause.

Around 813, the caliph of Baghdad, al- Ma’mun told his followers that he had a vivid and life-changing dream in which he met the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who instructed him to “seek knowledge and enlightenment”.

This became the starting point for a lifelong obsession with science and philosophy and al-Ma’mun created the famous House of Wisdom, a library, translation house and scientifi c academy unmatched since the glory days of Alexandria.

The caliph would then recruit some of the greatest names in Arabic science to conduct their science. In the West, they were better known by their Latin names, such as Alkindus, Alhazen and Averroes. The most famous of all was Avicenna (or ibn Sina, to give him his correct name).

Born in Persia in 980, ibn Sina was a child prodigy who grew up to become one of the world’s greatest philosophers and physicians. His great work, the Canon of Medicine, was to remain the standard medical text both in the Islamic and Christian worlds until well into the 17th century.

He is credited with the discovery and explanation of contagious diseases and the fi rst correct description of the anatomy of the human eye.

There was another Persian scholar by the name of al-Biruni. Here we had a formidable intellect, which to this day is still matched only by a few. Not only did he make signifi cant breakthroughs as a philosopher, mathematician and astronomer, but he also left his mark as a theologian, encyclopaedist, linguist, historian, geographer, pharmacist and physician.

Famously, having developed the mathematics of trigonometry, he was able to measure the circumference of the Earth to within a few miles. The only other fi gure in history whose legacy comes close to rivalling the scope of al-Biruni’s scholarship would be Leonardo da Vinci. Another of my favourite personalities is Ibn al-Natis, a Syrian from the late 13th century who was credited with giving the fi rst correct description of blood circulation in the body, 400 years before the work of Thomas Harvey.

The famous Polish astronomer Copernicus (1473-1543) has Arabic astronomers to thank for his calculations. In fact, there are diagrams in his books that appear to have been lifted exactly from the work of the Arab astronomer Ibn Shatir 100 years earlier.

The world’s fi rst true chemist was a Yemeni Arab by the name of Jabir ibn Hayyan, born in 721. The word “alchemy” was actually derived from the Arabic “alkimya”, which means “chemistry”.

The word “algebra” comes from the Arabic “al-jebr”, and was made famous by the great ninth-century mathematician al-Khwarizmi.

And fi nally there was Al-Razi (Rhazes) who was probably the greatest clinician of the Middle Ages. Born near Teheran in 865, he ran a psychiatric ward in Baghdad at a time when, in the Christian world, the mentally ill would have been regarded as being possessed by the devil and therefore tortured or even killed.

It is due to these barbaric acts that these facts have been overlooked in history books, and in a world of increasing religious tension, the untold story of Arabic science is a timely reminder of the debt the West owes to the Muslim world – and, perhaps more importantly, of the proud heritage today’s Muslims should acknowledge.