SCIENCE & ISLAM 5/6 | The language of science العلم والإسلام

A BBC documentary examining the great leap in scientific knowledge that took place in the Islamic world between the 8th and 14th centuries.

Isaac Newton is, as most will agree, the greatest physicist of all time.
At the very least, he is the undisputed father of modern optics, or so we are told at school where our textbooks abound with his famous experiments with lenses and prisms, his study of the nature of light and its reflection, and the refraction and decomposition of light into the colours of the rainbow.

Yet, the truth is rather greyer; and I feel it important to point out that, certainly in the field of optics, Newton himself stood on the shoulders of a giant who lived 700 years earlier.

For, without doubt, another great physicist, who is worthy of ranking up alongside Newton, is a scientist born in AD 965 in what is now Iraq who went by the name of al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham.

Most people in the West will never have even heard of him.
As a physicist myself, I am quite in awe of this man's contribution to my field, but I was fortunate enough to have recently been given the opportunity to dig a little into his life and work through my recent filming of a three-part BBC Four series on medieval Islamic scientists.
Modern methods
Popular accounts of the history of science typically suggest that no major scientific advances took place in between the ancient Greeks and the European Renaissance.
But just because Western Europe languished in the Dark Ages, does not mean there was stagnation elsewhere. Indeed, the period between the 9th and 13th Centuries marked the Golden Age of Arabic science.
Great advances were made in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, physics, chemistry and philosophy. Among the many geniuses of that period Ibn al-Haytham stands taller than all the others.

First shown on BBC4 05/01/2009
Professor Jim Al-Khalili presents Science and Islam

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Islam
• science
• Al-Khalili
• bbc
• bbc4
• technology
• Islamic
• knowledge
• Arabic
• medicine
• algebra
• physics
• scientific
• theoretical
• physicist
• ibn
• al-Haytham
• celestial
• mechanics
• university
• Alexandria

[shalashaskalives]

anyone know what that instrument is about 6 minutes in?

[microman780]

@shalashaskalives I believe its a Kanoon, Also spelt Qanun or Kanun,

[msabssa]

Islam's golden age...will re-occcur insha'allah...

[Pikaangelus]

wow ..islamic scholars rock.

[SuperButch888]

and it is iraq....mesopotamia....one of the oldest civilization....and the kalifs are liberal thinkers not really religious. thats why the sciences and arts flourished not like the medina and mecca....which is really a backwater area and not a melting pot of culture thats why iraq's greatness was destroyed by the radical fundamentalist from saudi.....saudi made most of the greatest civilization in the muslim world into a regressive, single minded, non scientific regions of which is of now..pity

[SuperButch888]

hahahahaha....a direct link from heiroglyphs to arabic....dude....everything is a direct link to the heiroglyps...more so the coptic..you are trying to justify it by only seeing it one way....this is funny and a waste of bbc money...good job doing it. no disrespect but really? the ministry of antiquity of egypt is laughing right now with your presumptions and assumptions..though i have to give it to you for really trying even distorting the data.

[wakeuptoday7]

@santo11072 Well why don't you disprove what I just said. The only credit I give to the lsIamic kingdons is that they collated all the works of Science/literature from the greeks persians etc and created a melting pot of all knowledge. Religion has always been about power &controlling people thoughts and actions. Its time that people open their eyes to the lies that a virgin can get impregnated by fairy godmother to give birth to Jesus &Muhammad becomes the steno-typist of the fairy godmother

[elchippe]

@msabssa not with the currents islam leaders

[faro0485]

@bilboinc /watch?v=aWUy_luMq0Q

[santo11072]

@wakeuptoday7 you little nonsense how much do you know regarding islam, science and ancent history. If you know and have sufficient information then why don't you challenge. you can only write in youtube and this is your position. it's better to keep silent and listen the truth than opposing . use your brain learn from truth and confess the truth.

[dkamil147]

تقرير رائع للباحث العراقي حوا تاريخ العلم في الحضارة الاسلامية 

[kspatriot92]

@microman780 kanun is law .......

[bilboinc]

@bilboinc Interlude.....Q. What do you say to a Muslim with his arm all the way up a camel's rump?

A. "Having car trouble?"