Commanded by the Koran to seek knowledge and read nature for signs of the Creator, and inspired by ancient Greek learning, Muslims created a society that in the Middle Ages was the scientific center of the world. The Arabic language was synonymous with learning and science for 500 years, a golden age that can count among its credits the precursors to modern universities, algebra, the names of the stars and even the notion of science as an empirical inquiry...
"Muslims have a kind of nostalgia for the past, when they could contend that they were the dominant cultivators of science," Mr. Bakar said. The relation between science and religion has generated much debate in the Islamic world, he and others said. Some scientists and historians call for an "Islamic science" informed by spiritual values that they say Western science ignores, but others argue that a religious conservatism in the East has dampened the skeptical spirit necessary for good science...
Why didn't Eastern science go forward as well? "Nobody has answered that question satisfactorily," said Mr. Sabra. Pressed, historians offer a constellation of reasons. Among other things, the Islamic empire began to be whittled away in the 13th century by Crusaders from the West and Mongols from the East. Christians reconquered Spain and its magnificent libraries in Cordoba and Toledo, full of Arab learning. As a result, Islamic centers of learning began to lose touch with one another and with the West, leading to a gradual erosion in two of the main pillars of science - communication and financial support. It was the infusion of this knowledge into Western Europe, historians say, that fueled the Renaissance and the scientific revolution.
