My dear friend, Joshua (aka da_truth)

You are the seeker of the truth.  Please do not be confused by all these flood of ineffective and conflicting disputes by those who claim to be scholars, Phds, and professors of our modern time.  Just ask them “where is the place, the people, and the time in history that they became civilized without the influence of religion?”, then they will suddenly run out of words.

They can amuse themselves in their vain imaginations and meaningless discourses by pretending that it was scholars and philosophers that founded civilizations.  Based on some sketchy and unreliable legends, myths, and fairy tales, the will try to convince you that there was an “uninterrupted and continuous civilization starting 1700 BC in the Orient.”  But the whole world knows that there was no significant progress in civilization anywhere in the world before the coming if Jesus. 

From the coming of Jesus until the coming of Prophet Mohammad, there was a little progress.  Then from the time of Mohammad until the coming of Bahaullah, civilization took a giant step.  Finally, from the time of Bahaullah (1844) until the present time, this world progressed with the lightening speed.  From the creation of this world, which is millions of years, until the present time, this world has never seen such a progress in such a very short period of time, that is, from 1844 until the present time this world has progressed tremendously that no one could adequately fathom or explain “why?”, except those whose inner eyes has been opened.

Therefore, my friend, it has always been because of religion that people were transformed from barbarism to civilization; and it was because of that civilization that scholars, philosophers, and scientists flourished.  The fish can deny the existence of the water upon which it is absolutely dependent for the very existence of its life.  Simply because it denies it, it doesn’t mean the water doesn’t exist.  Baha'u'llah says:

"O Sun-like Mirrors! Look ye upon the Sun of Truth. Ye, verily, depend upon it, were ye to perceive it. Ye are all as fishes, moving in the waters of the sea, veiling yourselves therefrom, and yet asking what it is on which ye depend." And likewise, He saith: "I complain unto thee, O Mirror of My generosity, against all the other Mirrors. All look upon Me through their own colors."   --( Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 160)

This discussion started with your question that the Hindus worship (or used to worship) 300 million gods.  It is also true that at the same time, their civilization was also uncultivated and primitive until they came in contact with the Christians and/or Muslims.  Among many other primitive practices, they used to avoid strangers and prohibit the touching of others, even though they were of the same race, country and religion.  They used to burn the living with the dead in the funeral rites they call “Antyesti”.  Briefly, before Christ, they did not make any significant progress in their civilization. 

Now, please allow me to share with you a brief contribution of Islam to civilization. 

Just as the ancient Hindus, during the 6th century, the Arab tribes used to worship thousands of gods, sculptured figures of men, beasts, idols, stars, moon, and swarm of spirits (jinn).  At the same time, their civilization was in its lowest ebbs of savagery and barbarism. Now and then they offered human sacrifices. They buried their baby daughters alive because they thought they were curse from the gods.  They used to threaten their wives that if they give birth to a girl, they would kill them and their children. Furthermore, the leaders of the tribes used to have thousands of wives. The average man would have at least 10 wives. Since they were always at constant tribal wars, after they killed their enemies, the women and girls were their war booties,  that is, they would take the wives and daughters of their enemies  and sell them as slaves or use them as their concubines.  ‘Abdu'l-Bahá says:

“ If a man dies leaving 10 widows, one of his sons would take any woman as a slave and treat her as his own property. To unfortunate woman, he had every right to curse her, beat her, to imprison her in a well or even kill her. Needless to say that there was a lot of jealousy and hatred in the households between the children and the wives. Moreover, the Arabs lived by pillage and robbery. They even used to eat the flesh of their enemies. Banu-Tamim, one the most barbarous tribe practiced this.” (Some Answered Questions, in the section “Mohammad”)

In one particular case, for example, a woman named Hind asked her Abyssinian slave, a great marksman, to kill her enemy, Hamza, with the promise of his freedom. Hind was the wife of the tribal chief, Abu Sufyan's, Muhammad’s archenemy.  Her father, uncle, and brother had been slain at a previous war against the Muslims.   The Muslims lost the war and Mohammad Mohammed fought bravely, received many wounds, and was carried half unconscious from the field.  The victorious Hind then chewed the liver of the fallen Hamza who had slain her father and made anklets and bracelets for herself from Hamza's skin and nails. (In Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, V.4 pp.170) .

This was the condition of the Arabs before they became Muslims.

After they became Muslims, however, when the Arabs conquered many lands and brought the gift of Islam with them, the conquered lands were already decadent, that culturally they were worn-out, and socially they were slaves of other conquerors, such as the Byzantines, Abyssinians, or the Persians.

Few years later, all of the conquered states, comparing before and after Islam, looking back in their earlier years before the conquest of the Muslims, they saw a great difference in terms of their prosperity in political, social, and economic institutions.  The cultural achievements that had been exchanged their decadent lifestyles for the comfort and the luxury that was brought by the Islamic civilization was immense. They even regrettably remember that fighting the Muslims from advancing to their lands as a wanton attempt that would have lead them towards wreck rather than to build. Thus, within just a few short period of time, the Muslims conquered vast areas of lands driving the Byzantine and Persian conquerors out.

Then Muslims extricated themselves and the world out of the darkness of ignorance unto the enlightenment of knowledge and learning. 

Mohammed, unlike most religious re-formers, admired and urged the pursuit of knowledge.  If we have to believe the traditions, He said: "He who leaves his home in search of knowledge walks in the path of God . . . and the ink of the scholar is holier than the blood of the martyr"; (In Ameer Ali “Spirit of Islam” pp.331, see also Durant, “The Age of Faith” V.4 p.235.)

In his book, "Muhammad and the Course of Islam", H. M. Balyuzi writes:

"Over a vast area of the world, extending from the heart of Asia and the boundaries of the Pacific to the shores of the Atlantic, the power of Islam raised men to a high level of achievement and ennobled their lives. Only prejudice can ignore these facts." (pp. 4)

Furthermore, 'Arab scholars were studying Aristotle,' writes Professor Philip Hitti, 'when [in Europe] Charlemagne and his lords were learning to write their names. Scientists in Cordova, with their seventeen great libraries, one alone of which included more than 400,000 volumes, enjoyed luxurious baths at a time when washing the body was considered a dangerous custom at the University of Oxford." --("The 'Arabs", pp.2.)

The Muslims continued, in this period (700-1258), their unchallenged ascendancy in scholarship, mathematics, science, medicine, literature, music, arts, philosophy, jurisprudence, politics and so forth.   (Will Durant, The Story of Civilization V. 4 pp. 153-351).

This has been just a general survey of Islamic civilization.  God willing, we will continue this discussion by bringing specific Islamic contributions to civilizations of the modern world one by one.

Salutations!

In mathematics the most signal advances were made in Morocco and Azerbaijan.  In 1229 Hasan al-Marraqushi  (i.e.,  of Al-Marraqesh) published tables of sines for each degree, and tables of versed sines, arc sines, and arc cotangents. A generation later Nasir-Din al- Tusi (i.e., of Tus) issued the first treatise in which trigonometry was issued the first treaties in which trigonometry was considered as an independent science rather than an appendage to astronomy.

The outstanding work of physical science in this age was Kitab mizan al-hikma, or Book of the balance of Wisdom, written about 1122 by a Greek slave from Asia Minor, Abu’l Fath al-Khuzini.  It gave a history of physics, formulated the laws of the lever, compiled tables of specific gravity for many liquids and solids, and proposed a theory of gravitation as a universal force drawing al things towards the center of the earth.

In 1081 Ibrahinl al-Sahdi of Valencia constructed the oldest known celestial globe, …that paved the way for Copernicus.

B Botany, almost forgotten since Theophrastus, revived  with the Muslims of this age. . Al-Idrisi wrote a herbal, but stressed the botanical rather than merely medicinal interest of 360 plants.

Abu Bekr (Europe’s Abubacer) ibn Tufail (1107?-1185) continued the ideas of Ibn Bajja, and almost realized his ideals. He too was scientist, poet, physician, and philosopher. He became the doctor and vizier of the Caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf at Marraqesh, the Almohad capital in, Morocco, Africa.

As early as the seventh century the Moslims wrote measurable music (apparently unknown to Europe before 1190).  Their notation indicated the duration, as well as the pitch, of each note.  (p. 179)

Millionaires were numerous; one Christian fed the whole population of Egypt at his own expense during five years of famine caused by the low level of the Nile; and Yaqub ibn Qillis gave an estate of some $30,000,000.  Such men joined, with the Fatirnid caliphs in building mosques, libraries, and colleges, and fostering the sciences and the arts.  Despite occasional cruelties, wasteful luxuries, the usual exploitation of labor, and the proper number of wars, the rule of the Fatimids was in general beneficent and liberal, and could compare in prosperity and culture, with any age in Egyptian history.

Al-Haitham studied the refraction of light through transparent mediums like air and water, and came so close to discovering the magnifying lens that Roger Bacon, Witerlo, and other European three centuries later based upon his work their own advances toward the microscope and the telescope. 

This is how the first University was started in Cairo, Egypt.  In Al-Mamustansir’s time (988) the caliphal library at Cairo, Egypt had 200,000 volumes of books.  We are told that the manuscripts were lent without charge to all responsible students.  Yaqub ibn Qillis persuaded the Caliph Aziz to provide tuition and maintenance for thirty-five students in the mosque of el-Azhar; thus began the oldest existing university.  As this school developed, it drew students from all over the Muslim world, as the University of Paris, a century later would draw them from all Europe.