muzzammil: You're a Muslim, which means that you are factually challenged. I'm not Eurocentric; I'm factocentric and truthocentric. You apparently suffer from a severe case of factophobia and truthophobia. That's what Islam does to your brain.

I forgive you.

You should stop spamming this thread, muzzammil. Saying that the Arabs invented calculus is pure nonsense, plain and simple. And yes, I have read the history of mathematics quite extensively. I will write a history of algebra at a later point. If you want to look at calculus, Eudoxus and Archimedes among the ancient Greeks developed the seeds of what would later become calculus, but they remained seeds. The Kerala school of mathematics in India did some promising work, as did Seki Kowa in Japan. They were more sophisticated than anything produced in the Islamic world, yet calculus was fully developed by Newton and Leibniz.

I respect Toby E. Huff a great deal more as a serious scholar than either Dimitri Gutas or George Saliba. As for the germ theory of disease, the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro suggested it already in the first century BC. I'm sure you can find similar examples in Asia. The thing to remember here is that this didn't have any practical consequences until nineteenth century Europe, when scholars such as Pasteur could PROVE the germ theory of disease.

I would rate it as below that of Alhazen and al-Khwarizmi in importance, but if I am to make a list of a dozen or so Muslim scholars who contributed something, I will probably mention him, too.

It is actually wrong to say that Muslim scholars contributed absolutely nothing. It is correct to say that they contributed no major conceptual breakthrough to any of the sciences. Alhazen in optics and al-Khwarizmi in algebra were closest to this level and were decent scholars, but nowhere near the level of true geniuses such as Galileo or Newton, that is true.

Chicagotrance: Yes, if Islam is ever put on trial, I want Ali Sina to be in charge of it.

If anybody wants to post parts of this essay at Amazon.com or other venues they have my blessing to do so.

Thank you for posting, Robert. I suppose I could also recommend some books that people should read.

About Islam I recommend essentially everything written by Robert Spencer. Bat Ye’or’s books are groundbreaking and important, though admittedly not always easy to read. The Legacy of Jihad by Andrew Bostom should be considered required reading for all those interested in Islam. It is the best and most complete book available on the subject in English, and possibly in any language. Ibn Warraq’s books are excellent, starting with his Defending the West . Understanding Muhammad by the Iranian ex-Muslim Ali Sina is also worth reading, as is Defeating Jihad by Serge Trifkovic.

If you are looking for books about the history of science, I recommend everything written by Edward Grant. The Beginnings of Western Science by David C. Lindberg is very good, though slightly more politically correct than Grant when it comes to science in the Islamic world. The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West by Toby E. Huff is excellent and highly recommended. These books are easy to read for an educated, mainstream audience.

For books that are excellent, yet more specialized and slightly more difficult, I can recommend Victor J. Katz for the history of mathematics and The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy by James Evans for the history of pre-telescopic astronomy up to and including Kepler. Evans’ book is extremely well researched and detailed, almost too much so on European and Middle Eastern astronomy, but contains virtually nothing on Chinese or Mayan astronomy. For a more global perspective, Cosmos: An Illustrated History of Astronomy and Cosmology by John North is good and not too difficult to read.

Sorrow: Thank you. As ridiculous as the claims about "Islamic science" are these days, there were a few scholars who were at least nominally Muslims and still did good work. Alhazen probably tops my list. If you write a global history of science, he should have a positive entry.

Thank you for posting, Robert.

I will send Wilders a copy of my book Defeating Eurabia, http://www.lulu.com/content/4730263. I hope he will find it interesting.