Author: Lewis Jones Muslim science? On the face of it, it seems
as incongruous as Christian physics or Jewish oceanography. But
can Islam plead a special case? A popular element along these
lines has always been Islam's historical track record. When
Ziauddin Sardar published his thoughts on the subject in New
Scientist almost a quarter of a century ago, he titled his
article, not "Can science come to Islam?" but "Can science come
back to Islam?" In the words of F.R. Rosenthal (The Classical
Heritage of Islam): "Islamic rational scholarship, which we have
mainly in mind when we speak of the greatness of Muslim
civilization, depends in its entirety on classical antiquity . .
. Islamic civilization as we know it would simply not have
existed without the Greek heritage." Ibn Warraq, author of Why I
Am Not a Muslim, points out: "Islamic science was founded on the
works of the ancient Greeks, and the Muslims are important as
the transmitters of Greek (and Hindu) learning that may well
have been lost otherwise" (Ari