Eyas's Blog

Month Archives for November 2009

Islamic Achievements in the Shadow of Eurocentrism: How Islam Paved Europe's Future and Europe Forgot

Lunar Eclipse diagram by al-BiruniPublic Domain

I wrote this paper as part of my coursework at MIT in 2009. Here it is in (largely undedited) form:

More often than not, it may seem to many as if the world, historically, evolved under the leadership of Europe. As Europe went ‘dormant’ in the Dark Ages, many believe that, with it, History stood still. Certainly, this can be witnessed in science and technology as well, where the history of knowledge, invention, and innovation almost consistently begins in Europe with Newton and his local contemporaries. Moving further into the past, one would mainly come across the Ancient Greeks, who, widely, are alone recognized as the “intellectual precursors” to the more recent European intellectuals.

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