Muslim Heritage and the 21st Century

Throughout history, civilisation has continuously passed through stages, and records bear out the progress achieved by humankind in ancient Egypt and Greece. After this, there was the golden age of scientific progress during the heyday of Muslim rule. When the Muslims faced decline on account of their internal bickering and other factors, the Europeans took over not only wealth and territory from them, but they established their supremacy in the domain of technical scientific knowledge as well. Contemporary youth is familiar with the contributions of Western scholars to Zoology and Botany, yet he knows nothing about the fact that the Muslims had introduced several centuries ago the artificial insemiation of animals and grafting of fruit-bearing plants. The discovery of America is attributed to Columbus yet it is unknown to him that the Arab navigators had reached the shores of the New World much earlier than Columbus, something borne out of the testimony of historical evidence.

Scholars have made many attempts to remove the widespread ignorance about Muslims' contributions to knowledge. There is no shortage of voluminous works on the subject. However, most of these scholarly works are beyond the reach and understanding of the general public and the young students. Realising this need, the present work has been compiled in order to show a glimpse of the rich Muslim heritage.