How did the Arab influence on science disappear from our history books?

“Baghdad in the ninth century was similar to Athens in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C. and later Rome. It was a place where literature and power met,” says Debeouf. But when we think of the development of science, Baghdad is not the city that immediately comes to mind. Dubiov thinks this is unfair. “You could say that Baghdad was a precursor of the Renaissance. In the ninth century, the city was the most important translation center in the world, where algebra was invented.”

But it didn’t stop there. Debov continues: “Not only were the classical texts translated, but the scholars in Baghdad also transferred this knowledge to a higher level. For the first time, Aristotle’s logic and scientific thinking connected with monotheism, which made the city an important place that contributed to modern knowledge that we still We use it a lot to this day.”

great importance

The fact that the Iraqi capital had a great influence on the European Renaissance was not known to Debeouf for a long time. “It only became apparent to me when I went to live in Cairo and began to delve into the history of the Arab world. I was surprised that I knew so little about this part of history, which was so important to Europe.”

Therefore, Debebeuf decided to investigate why Baghdad’s influence was so weak in our history books. He soon discovered that it wasn’t always this way. “Until the seventeenth century, the role of Baghdad was not known at all, but that changed in the eighteenth century. It was believed in Germany that science and philosophy should be Christian. This idea gradually spread throughout Europe, so the influence of the Arab-Islamic world writes Slowly from our books.”

Christian thing

It is a process that, according to Debeouf, is still in progress. “This no longer happens consciously and people sometimes try to correct it, but all the knowledge has been written from the story. Our view of science is determined historically and ideologically for us by the idea that science is a Christian thing.”