Can anyone give one example of a contribution to civilisation made by a Muslim or an Islamic country ??

Question

Has an Islamic country contributed anything constructive to society in the last 200 years??

Rob Roy. Just give one in the last 200 years.
I'm not asking about over 1000 years where the contributions according to Muslims were huge but that no one else has ever heard of.
Give just ONE contribution in the last 200 years. Is that doable or not???

Are some of you deliberately missing the point.??

There might have been something a long long time ago, but has there been ANYTHING in the last 200?.
If you think there has please name it. Try to give detail.
The point I'm trying to make is that is NOTHING. Not a single contribution. Zippo.

Answer 1

Two hundred is a relatively little amount of time, considering all of the achievements they reached before hand.
I know for sure the laser technique developed by Dr Ahmed Zuweil ( Egyptian) is the ultimate slow-motion camera, which allows scientists for the first time to observe atoms during chemical reactions, when they are moving at speeds measured in femtoseconds (one millionth of a billionth of a second). We are talking here of a time scale that is totally alien to our normal, that is, biological, time scale. As such a condensed time scale lies outside the scope of our senses, the discovery will have no discernible impact on our everyday life, even if its importance for numerous fields of scientific endeavour cannot be overstated. It must be good he won a Nobel prize for it.!!!!
Another of my favourites is Naguib Mahfouz,( another Egyptian and Nobel Prize winner) He wrote among others a beautiful and intelligent set of books called the Trilogy.
Also Anwar Sadat, yet again another Nobel Prize winner, who was the first Arab, Muslim leader to try to extend the hand of peace to Israel.

My favourite although not in 200 hundred years is they taught us Christians personal hygiene. When Christianity forbade any kind of bathing as a sin, when Europeans were full of lice and fleas and drowning in their own stench, Muslims bathed and wore perfume and kept themselves immaculate.

Answer 2

I think you may have started a controversy here. I am not a Muslim, but I think they must have made some contributions to civilisation. Remember a lot of the now Islamic countries were not always Islamic. I think you have to look at the individual contributions people have made rather than a whole society. And is it necessary they had to contribute something. Lots of us in non-Islamic countries sit back and enjoy the spoils of others, and yet most of us contribute nothing to our society either. I am sure if you looked up on the Internet regarding their contributions you would probably find many. Are you suggesting we eradicate those countries that make no contribution to civilisation. Do you think the invention of the atomic bomb and nuclear armaments is a worthwhile contribution made by the west? Perhaps that is debatable. Or perhaps even the automobile which has created so much pollution and devastation, was that a worthwhile contribution?

Answer 3

It seems typical to me that an US-citizen asks about contributing to "civilisation" and not to "culture" or even "peace". How much has the USA contributed to peace over the last 200 years?

Don't tell me that they liberated Europe from the Nazis - they didn't. Britain stopped Hitler in the air, the Soviet Union on the ground, the USA got stuck in Italy and liberated France, Belgium and Luxemburg - full stop. And they came only because otherwise the red flags would have been flying over all of Europe.

Ask the people of Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Grenada, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and many others of how the USA contributed to peace (and civilisation). Ask the women and children at Wounded Knee and Mylai how much the USA contributed to civilisation! Or the natives of Bikini. Or the survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Destroying cultures and civilisations worldwide was the contribution of the Christians for the last 500 years. And now the USA and ist Christian fundamentalists are undermining science, on which civilisation is based, and destroying the world by poluting.

Answer 4

You left out metal working, poetry and art. Two other areas Arabic culture flourished. I say Arabic not Islamic because the majority of the inovations you mentioned came about before the Islamic religion was born. Still in the early days arts and sciences flourished. Islamic nations were also once known as the most tolerant to other relgions. So I agree the religion itself does not preclude high culture. That you would have to even remind people that the Arab nations once led the world in these areas shows how far these Arab nations have fallen. In fact the majority of the Arab world had higher technology, more freedom, was more literate, had better standards of living, much more freedom and were far more tolerant in the 700s than they were 1200 years later in the 1900s. 1200 years and not only no advancement but a major loss in technology. The Arts have almost disapeered from the Arab world. Unless it is a religious work of art it is unlikely to get done or be accepted. Works of art from other cultures have been destroyed. So I ask you, before Islam the Arab peoples led the world. After religious fanaticism took over they were literally moved almost all the way back to the stone age technologically until purchasing technology from the rest of the world. What conclusion do you draw?

Answer 5

I checked out the site given by one of the contributors as informing people of Muslim achievements and could find nothing at all after the 18th century.
While your question poses a problem in that it involves a value judgement -how do you define 'contribution to civilisation'? - it seems very odd that nobody on the first page at any rate could name a modern Muslim scientist, artist or writer. There must be some

Answer 6

Muslim Nobel laureates:

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

* Ahmed Zewail, 1999

Nobel Prize in Literature

* Naguib Mahfouz, 1988
* Orhan Pamuk, 2006

Nobel Peace Prize

* Anwar El-Sadat, 1978
* Yasser Arafat, 1994
* Shirin Ebadi, 2003
* Mohamed ElBaradei, 2005
* Muhammad Yunus, 2006

Nobel Prize in Physics

* Abdus Salam, 1979 [2]

Answer 7

No religion contributes to civilisation. People do.

Visionary men and women regardless of their religion make their contributions to their societies. Is the US or the west built on contributions made by only Christians? No, you'd find that many other 'religions' have contributed to the rise of the west... Jews, Hindus Buddists and Muslims too.

Contributions to civilisation have been made throughout human history by nations who weren't afraid to think beyond the cocoons that they live in.

Muslims had their time. 'Islamic civilisation' was at its best when it was ready to accept new ideas... so are the current nations who are willing to have open and liberal societies.

Religion has little to do with contributions. In fact, most or all of the religions seem to hold back human progress.

Answer 8

I am Muslim from Malaysia. Even my country don't do any contribution to civilisation, but my country is in peace and all the people here live in harmony. contribution to civilisation is not really important, what is really important is to be a peace, harmony country that is really hard to find nowadays. But, there is many non- Islamic country that is always leading us to war!

Answer 9

You are asking a complex question. I am not a muslim and do not sympathise with radical Islam. However, I am wary of any antipathy towards the average muslim person as this is wrong. Their ideology has some merits, with some good family values and caring for their fellow man etc. You are asking for one example of one contribution made by either a single muslim individual or any Islamic country. This is a rhetorical question almost implying that there is none. However, I am sure that would be a matter of perspective. Your muslim or Islam-sympathisers would argue for examples of such and your anti-Islamic responders will argue against there being even one. In the last 200 years, Islam has been noted for wars, terrorism and unrest in the Middleeast. I am sure they look after their own by works of charity at Ramadan etc. Perhaps also the Islamic nations are guardians of the majority (could be wrong) of the oil resources on earth. Some rich Islamic nations provide employment for Third World people from Bangladesh and Phillippines for example. Muslim doctors work in the NHS in the UK and surely in USA and make contribution to the health service of non-muslims in these nations. Muslims are there in every profession making a contribution into science, medicine, music, arts and law. I feel this question is useful to ask as you have elicited a wide ranging response. Perhaps this could inform you on what the opinions of people are in cyberspace. The real question is not about muslims or Islamic nations, as they have individually and collectively done much good, and we shouldn't knock them, nor deny the good they have done. The real question is whether Islam is responsible for turning ordinary people into destructive individuals that would destroy the fabric of western civilsation. It is a question of how a Theocratic 6th century ideology can co-exist peacefully with divergent philosophies of the "free" West. I say western civilisation as that is the predominant one in the world influencing thought worldwide. Islam is vying for this dominance and so can never truly be at peace with the rest of the world until all the world is Darul Islam. Fortunately for us, most muslims do not have this radical view and are peace-loving and gentle people. We must not alienate them as this risks radicalising them, and putting them in conflict with us.

Answer 10

The point you seem to miss is that cultures change over time.

500 years ago Christian countries called science heresy and made no advances.At the same time Islamic states were surging ahead with new developments in science, medicine,maths and technology.Oh and astronomy,architecture and irrigation methods etc.

Now the roles have changed and more new advances are coming from Christian countries than Islamic countries but that could change again-none of us know what the world will be like in 100 years.