He is a contemporary French thinker and lawyer who gave much care to international relations and human rights and wrote much research in the conferences and periodicals concerned with these issues. Among many writings, his L’Islam, which emanated from the same interest, is an enlightening sign of the Western studies of Islam due to its objectivity, depth and reliance on references free from prejudice and inclination.

From L'Islam:

An irrefutable fact

“It is an irrefutable fact that Islam exercised real and social virtues in response to the calls of the Qur’an, which are indeed a part of Allâh’s commandments and continuation of righteousness, as shown in the following wonderful verse: {Righteousness is not that you turn your faces toward the east or the west, but [true] righteousness is [in] one who believes in Allâh, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets and gives wealth, in spite of love for it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveler, those who ask [for help], and for freeing slaves; [and who] establishes prayer and gives Zakâh; [those who] fulfill their promise when they promise; and [those who] are patient in poverty and hardship and during battle. Those are the ones who have been true, and it is those who are the righteous.} [Al-Baqarah 177] Cooperation, good hospitality, generosity, faithfulness to obligations towards community members, moderation of desires and contentment are the merits which still characterize Muslims. They constitute true idealism tended to promote the forces of human nature. They are sufficient to give man honor and self-dignity of which the Arabs of the pre-Islamic days were ignorant.”[1]

The metropolitan of Islam

“In his era, Baghdad turned to be a center of cultural radiation, as a result of the contributions of the native Arabs and enlightened Persians. What happened in Baghdad was, indeed, a development of civilization whose foundations had been laid since the Umayyads and seemed evident in the progress of religious sciences, spread of scholastic theology, elaboration of prose, renewal of poetic subjects and ideas and integrating the worldly and material sciences of India and Greece.”[2]

The economic renaissance

“This full flourishing went side by side with a very active economic life where various kinds of silk, carpets and embroidered fabrics were manufactured and exported and paper was also made in Baghdad and Samarkand. That was the important trade between the farthest East and West.”[3]

A conspicuous role

About the civilization in Andalusia, Dominik Sordail says: “Along the 10th and 11th centuries, the Eastern culture of Syriac roots spread, flourished and withstood all neighboring cultures, maintaining its faithfulness. In fact, it extended beyond the Islamic borders and played a conspicuous role in the development of pre-Renaissance European thought and knowledge.”[4]

Astronomy

“It flourished since the early beginnings of the ‘Abbasid caliphate and observatories were built in Baghdad. Thâbit ibn Qurrah[5] determined the length of the solar year (i.e. 365 days, 5 hours, 36 minutes and 24 seconds) and, in about 900 A.D., al-Battâni[6] calculated the values for the precession of equinoxes in Cairo, Samarkand, Cordoba and Toledo.”[7]

Mathematics

“Astronomy led Arab scientists to present the spherical trigonometry practically known among the Greeks. Both al-Battâni and his disciple, Abul-Wafa al-Buzjani,[8] introduced the concepts of sines and tangents. They devoted themselves to the study of algebra and made of it an accurate science which they developed to a great extent, especially at the hands of al-Khwarizmi[9] (840 A.D.) and the Persian poet and mathematician, ‘Umar al-Khayyâm[10] (1123 A.D.), without separating it entirely from geometry. By doing so, they laid the foundations of analytic geometry.”[11]

And also chemistry

“On the foundations laid by the Greeks, the Arabs improved chemistry mixed with alchemy, which was an amalgamation of scientific observations and spiritual reflections. The works attributed to Jâbir ibn Hayyân[12] and ar-Râzi[13] both indicate that the Arabs discovered such important substances as alcohol, whose names were transmitted into French. They also used one of the most elementary chemical processes, percolation.”[14]

And also physics

“As far as physics is concerned, they made the most authentic and innovative research, especially in optics, where ibn al-Khâzin refuted the theory of Euclid and Ptolemy and proposed a new theory which none of his successors adopted.”[15]

And also medicine

“In the field of medicine, Arab physicians were recognized for their clinical observation and methodological science. ar-Râzi, one of the greatest physicians in Rayy and then Baghdad, was one of the most experienced practitioners characterized by accurate observation. He left two kinds of works: practical research, the most famous of which is centered upon measles and a voluminous encyclopedia about the sciences of medicine, Kitâb al-Hâwi, which was later replaced with the Canon of Medicine by Avicenna[16]. Among the most famous Arab surgeons was Az-Zahrâwi[17]. A mention may also be made of such scholars as ibn Zuhr[18], Averroes[19] and Maimonides,[20] the Jew, from whose compositions and sciences Christianity benefitted much. In reality, the Islamic lands were far more advanced than Medieval Europe in medicine. After the Crusades, Europe learnt from them the building of hospitals which was of Persian origin, and increased and flourished in the East.”[21]

It was not a mere transmission

“The Arabs did not only transmit intellectual Greek and Indian traditions into Western Europe but also added many observations and numerous discoveries.”[22]

References:

[1]Dominik Sordail, L’Islam, (adapted from the Arabic translation), 107.

[2]Ibid. 65-66.

[3]Ibid. 68.

[4]Ibid. 156.

[5]Thâbit ibn Qurrah (Latinized as Thebit/Thebith/Tebit) 826 –18-02-901) was a mathematician, physician, astronomer and translator of the Islamic Golden Age who lived in Baghdad in the second half of the ninth century. ibn Qurrah made important discoveries in algebra, geometry and astronomy. In astronomy, Thâbit is considered one of the first reformers of the Ptolemaic system and in mechanics he was a founder of statics. [translator]

[6] âl-Battâni (Latinized as Albategnius, Albategni or Albatenius) (c. 858, Harrân – 929, Qasr al-Jiss, near Samarra) was a Muslim astronomer, astrologer and mathematician. He introduced a number of trigonometric relations and his Kitâb Az-Zij was frequently quoted by many medieval astronomers, including Copernicus. [translator]

[7]Ibid. 157.

[8] Abul-Wafa’ Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn Ismâ‘îl ibn al-‘Abbâs al-Bazjani (10-06-940 – 15-07-998) was a Persian mathematician and astronomer who worked in Baghdad. He made important innovations in spherical trigonometry and his work on arithmetic for businessmen contains the first instance of using negative numbers in a medieval Islamic text. He is also credited for compiling tables of sines and tangents at 15' intervals. He also introduced the sec and cosec and studied the interrelations between the six trigonometric lines associated with an arc. His Almagest was widely read by medieval Arab astronomers in the centuries after his death. He is known to have written several other books that have not survived. [translator]

[9] Abu ‘Abdullâh Muhammad ibn Mûsa al-Khwarizmi, earlier transliterated as Algoritmi or Algaurizin, (c. 780, Khwarizm – c. 850) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, geographer and scholar in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. In the twelfth century, Latin translations of his work on Indian numerals introduced the decimal positional number system to the western world. His Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing presented the first systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations in Arabic. In Renaissance Europe, he was considered the original inventor of algebra, although we now know that his work is based on older Indian or Greek sources. He revised Ptolemy's Geography and wrote on astronomy and astrology. [translator]

[10]‘Umar al-Khayyâm (1048–1131) was born in Nishapur, and was a Persian polymath, philosopher, mathematician, âstronomer and poet. He also wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, music, climatology and Islamic theology. He is the author of one of the most important treatises on algebra written before modern times, the Treatise on the Demonstration of Problems in Algebra, which includes a geometric method for solving cubic equations by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle. He contributed to a calendar reform. Outside Iran and Persian speaking countries, Khayyâm had an impact on literature and societies through the translation of his works and popularization by other scholars. The greatest such impact was in English-speaking countries and the English scholar, Thomas Hyde (1636–1703), was the first non-Persian to study him. The most influential of all was Edward FitzGerald (1809–83) who made Khayyâm the most famous eastern poet in the West through his celebrated translations and adaptations of Khayyâm's rather small number of quatrains in the Rubaiyat of ‘Umar al-Khayyâm. He died in 1131 and is buried in the Khayyâm Garden at the mausoleum of Imamzadeh Mahruq in Nishapur. In 1963, the mausoleum of ‘Umar Khayyâm was constructed on the site by Hooshang Seyhoun. [translator]

[11]Ibid. 157.

[12]Abu Mûsā Jâbir ibn Hayyân (Al-Azdi/At-Kûfi/At-Tûsi/as-Sûfi), often known simply as Geber, (Persian Tûs, Persia; died c. 815 in Kufa, Iraq), was a prominent Iranian polymath, chemist, alchemist, astronomer, astrologer, engineer, geographer, philosopher, physicist, pharmacist and physician. Born and educated in Tûs, he later traveled to Kûfa. Jâbir is held to have been the first practical alchemist. As early as the tenth century, the identity and exact corpus of works of Jâbir was in dispute in Islamic circles. His name was Latinized as "Geber" in the Christian West and, in 13th century Europe, an anonymous writer, usually referred to as Pseudo-Geber, produced alchemical and metallurgical writings under the pen-name, Geber. [translator]

[13] Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Râzi, known as Rhazes or Rasis after medieval Latinists, (26-08-865 – 925), was a Persian polymath, prominent figure in the Islamic Golden Age, physician, alchemist, chemist, philosopher and scholar. Many firsts in medical research, clinical care and chemistry are attributed to him including being the first to differentiate smallpox from measles through his clinical characterization of the two diseases and the discovery of numerous compounds and chemicals including kerosene as well as the study of sulfuric acid, among others. Edward Granville Browne considers him as "probably the greatest and most original of all physicians and one of the most prolific as an author". Razi made fundamental and enduring contributions to the fields of medicine, alchemy, music and philosophy which were recorded in over two-hundred books and articles in various fields of science. He was well-versed in Persian, Greek and Indian medical knowledge and made numerous advances in medicine through his own observations and discoveries. Educated in music, mathematics, philosophy and metaphysics, he chose medicine as his professional field. As a physician, he was an early proponent of experimental medicine and was described as the father of pediatrics. He was also a pioneer of ophthalmology. He was among the first to use Humoralism to distinguish one contagious disease from another. He became chief physician of Rey and Baghdad hospitals. [translator]

[14]Ibid. 157.

[15] Ibid. 157.

[16] Abul-Husayn ibn ‘Abdullâh ibn Sîna (c. 980, Afshana near Bukhara – 1037, Hamadân, Iran), commonly known as ibn Sina or by his Latinized name, Avicenna, was a Persian polymath who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects of which around 240 have survived. In particular, 150 of his surviving treatises concentrate on philosophy and 40 on medicine. His most famous works are The Book of Healing, a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopedia and The Canon of Medicine, which was a standard medical text in many medieval universities. The Canon of Medicine was used as a textbook in the universities of Montpellier and Leuven as late as 1650. ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine provides a complete system of medicine according to the principles of Galen (and Hippocrates). His corpus also includes writings on philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, geology, psychology, Islamic theology, logic, mathematics, physics and poetry. He is regarded as the most famous and influential polymath of the Islamic Golden Age. [translator]

[17] Abul-Qâsim Khalaf ibn al-‘Abbâs az-Zahrâwi (936–1013), also known in the West as Abulcasis, was an Arab physician who lived in al-Andalus. He is considered the greatest medieval surgeon to have appeared from the Islamic world and has been described by some as the father of modern surgery. His greatest contribution to medicine is Kitab at-Tasrîf, a thirty-volume encyclopedia of medical practices. His pioneering contributions to the field of surgical procedures and instruments had an enormous impact in the East and West well into the modern period, where some of his discoveries are still applied in medicine to this day. He was the first physician to describe an ectopic pregnancy and also the first to identify the hereditary nature of hemophilia. [translator]

[18] Abu Marwân ‘Abd-Al-Malik ibn Zuhr (also known as ibn Zuhr, Avenzoar, Abumeron or Ibn-Zohr) (1091–1161) was a Muslim physician, surgeon and teacher in al-Andalus. He was born at Seville (now southwestern Spain). His famous book at-Taysîr Fil-Mudâwâh Wat-Tadbîr (Book of Simplification Concerning Therapeutics and Diet) was influential to the progress of surgery. He also improved surgical and medical knowledge by keying out several diseases and their treatments. [translator]

[19] Abul-Walîd Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd, better known as just ibn Rushd, and in European literature as Averroes (14-04-1126 –10-12-1198), was an Andalusian Muslim polymath, master of Aristotelian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Mâliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music theory and the sciences of medicine, astronomy, geography, mathematics, physics and celestial mechanics. He was born in Cordoba, Al Andalus, modern-day Spain and died in Marrakesh, Morocco. His school of philosophy is known as Averroism. ibn Rushd was a defender of Aristotelian philosophy against claims from Islamic theologians such as Algazel who rejected such teachings so they would not become an affront to the teachings of Islam. [translator]

[20]Mûsa ibn Maymûn, called Maimonides, and also known as Rambam, was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages. He was born in Córdoba, Spain on Passover Eve, 1135, and died in Egypt on 12-12-1204. He was a rabbi, physician and philosopher in Morocco and Egypt. Although his writings on Jewish law and ethics were met with respectful opposition during his life, he was posthumously acknowledged to be one of the foremost rabbinical arbiters and philosophers in Jewish history. [translator]

[21] Ibid. 157.

[22] Ibid. 157.

http://300035.dotdothktrade.tech/en/artical/3408776/Dominik-Sordail