My Visit to the Islam Exhibit
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By Fatma Elashmawi
I was really amazed and proud at the same time when I attended the opening of the Islamic Science Rediscovered exhibit last Thursday night at the Tech Museum. Quite a number of VIPs from many Muslim and non-Muslim organizations attended, and there was plenty of food and drinks. We then had the opportuinity to tour this global exhibition celebrating the contribution of Muslim scholars to science and technology during the Golden Age of the Islamic World (8th to 18th centuries CE) and the influence of their discoveries and inventions on contemporary society. Unfortunately, the remarkable contributions of Muslim scholars in science and technology have quietly been ignored from world history.
I am sure that visitors educated in the Western world will be surprised to learn of the discoveries and inventions in the Muslim World which predate by many years, sometimes centuries, discoveries thought to be developed in the West. While I was wandering through this amazing scientific know-how of an Islamic Golden Age, someone said "Oh, my God, they discovered all this and we took the credit for it." The West is not aware nor familiar with the Islamic civilization, and this exhibit demystifies this grand civilization and introduces visitors to the vast influence of its discoveries and inventions on contemporary society. Did the Wright brothers soar in the sky first? Was Leonardo da Vinci the first to describe "machines of the future"? Centuries before the Wright brothers took flight, Abbas ibn Farnas was soaring over the hills of the Spanish countryside in a one-man glider – a thousand years before the famed Wright flight in North Carolina occurred. Al-Jazari himself laid the foundation of modern engineering by writing The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices in 1206, where he described fifty mechanical devices along with instructions on how to build them, more than 200 years before Leonardo da Vinci became revered for his technological prowess. There are videos that recreate the ingenuity of these amazing ancient Islamic inventions. The exhibition covers the main fields of Islamic scientific endeavor including: architecture, arts, astronomy, engineering, exploration, flight, mathematics, medicine, optics, and water control. I do highly recommend everyone to visit this exhibit, and am confident you will have a great educational experience and feel very proud about what Muslims have accomplished in many fields. |
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The South Bay Islamic Association (SBIA) is one of the oldest Islamic Organizations in The Bay Area. Its headquarters are located in San Jose, CA. SBIA has been providing various services to the community since 1977 including the five daily prayers at two locations (San Jose Downtown, and Harris Way) and Friday prayers at both locations. SBIA has been active in spreading Islam through various Dawah programs and by hosting a number of activities including Weekend Islamic School, Quranic classes for children, Tafseer (English translation and Exegesis) classes for adults, conferences and community get-togethers.