Did you take Chemistry as part of your high school graduation requirement?

Question

What do you think of this contribution by a muslim? The point is to show those that state not a single muslim has contributed anything are wrong.

"Distillation, the means of separating liquids through differences in their boiling points, was invented around the year 800 by Islam's foremost scientist, Jabir ibn Hayyan, who transformed alchemy into chemistry, inventing many of the basic processes and apparatus still in use today - liquefaction, crystallisation, distillation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation and filtration. As well as discovering sulphuric and nitric acid, he invented the alembic still, giving the world intense rosewater and other perfumes and alcoholic spirits (although drinking them is haram, or forbidden, in Islam). Ibn Hayyan emphasised systematic experimentation and was the founder of modern chemistry."

Answer 1

Sweet heart anyone who says that Muslims have never made contributions to the world is a fool and you can not change the way a fool thinks. I do applaud you for trying, but you are beating your head against a wall. Let them be foolish and stupid, try to only talk with people who have a brain and that have the ability to use it. If not you will go crazy. There are a lot more fools in this world than there are smart intelligent people. So we just kinda have to ignore them and go on.

Answer 2

I did, and got an A in it; indeed, I attended MIT on a chemistry scholarship. It is true that some Arabs made significant contributions to science and mathematics way back when, but there has been precious little done in the past several centuries. It is not entirely clear why this should be the case; it may be that Muslims simply spend more effort rummaging around in the Qur'an and the hadiths than they do working on original research. In any event, Arabs have not been well represented in Nobel prizes.

Answer 3

i would never say that muslims have made no contributions, i know that this is not true. but they have made very few significant contributions to chemistry or any other science, while working in their native countries, that i'm aware of for the last several hundred years. this man springs to mind, although i have no idea whether he's muslim or how devout he is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Zewail

now look at where he did the vast majority of his research.

religion per se is not the problem i think. it's religion that aims to restrict and control thought. early islam did not do this. i can see why some american scientists hope that their country learns the lessons of history.

Answer 4

Has anyone actually said no muslims have contributed anything?

BTW, just like the claim that Hitler made the trains run on time, one good thing or a hundred good things do not excuse hudreds of acts of terrorism, by ALL religions.

BTW, just because it is claimed by an Islamic textbook, that doesn't make it true.

Answer 5

Sadly, scientific contributions quit after Islam got going strong.

Edit: Oh, and yes, I took chemistry. It was the only class in high school that I aced.

Edit: It's true though, the middle east is responsible for much of the foundations of science and math. But when Islam (dogmatic thinking) took over, the progress slowed tremendously.

Answer 6

Of course they're wrong.
Muslims have contributed to society just as much as every other religion in the world has.

This is mostly because science **has hardly anything to do with religious beliefs.

**Ye gads, what a typo.

Answer 7

The Islamic contribution to modern science/medicine/math is incredible.

Prior to the current period; scientific breakthroughs were encouraged, specifically in the former Persian and Ottoman empires.

When the West started overtaking them; the radical religious nuts in both societies won out: "We're losing ground because our god hates us, we need to become more religious!"

Enter: scientific oppression; progression = 0.

Answer 8

Yes ma'am I did. Hated it, too!

:-)

I don't want to upset you and I don't mean this as an insult or anything like that, but I wonder... why so much effort on defending Muslims and Islam? Who are you addressing?

Answer 9

If not you will go crazy. There are a lot more fools in this world than there are smart intelligent people. So we just kinda have to ignore them and go on.

Answer 10

I took chemistry in high school. I loved it. I'm in university studying biology and I still take Chemistry.

I'm generally not biased to people according to their religion. I judge people by their personality and by the things they have done. My opinion of this chemist: Good for him, he did something great for the chemistry world.