Islamic Heritage

1001 Inventions (Book) : Muslim Heritage in Our World, 2nd Edition

Hardback 370 pages

What do coffee beans, torpedoes, surgical scalpels, arches and observatories all have in common?

Were Leonardo da Vinci’s flight ideas originals?

Who devised the casing for pill capsules and where did Fibonacci learn to flex his mathematical fingers?

All these answers can be found here in ‘1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in Our World’.

Over 370 pages of colour photographs and written in an accessible style for those with limited knowledge of either Islam or history.

A golden age of civilisation, from 600 and 1600 CE, will unfold, because medieval Muslims were trailblazers in fields as diverse as medicine and mechanics, cartography and chemistry, education and engineering, architecture and astronomy. No area was too obscure to miss the scrutiny of enquiry backed up by rigid scientific experimentation.

So get comfortable with this guidebook and prepare to begin on a voyage of discovery through a thousand years of science and technology into the lives of medieval pioneers whose ingenious inventions have helped create our world today.

Review:

"This glorious book overflows with the great ideas of the Muslim middle ages. From al-Jazari and his elegant clocks and al-Kindi and Ibn al-Haitham with their revolutionary optical theories, experiments, and books, to the astronomers who navigated across the desert by the stars, and the map-makers who put north at the bottom, every page is a mine of joyous information. There are even recipes to try out, and everything is beautifully illustrated. I wish I had had this book fifty years ago." ---Adam Hart-Davis; Photographer, Writer and TV Science Presenter of BBC Series ‘What the Ancients Did for Us’.

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Muslim Heritage and The 21st Century : by Muhammad Ahsan

Paperback - 100 pages

Muhammad Ahsan : A dedicated research scholar, has extensively published on social and economic issues particularly in relation to the Muslim World. His recent work focuses on globalisation and the Muslim world.

The contribution of the Muslim World to a wide range of sciences and academic disciplines is often overlooked or taken for granted. This book provides a glimpse of the rich cultural heritage within the Muslim World and the significant role that Muslims have played in the advancement of knowledge.

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What Islam did for us - Understanding Islam's Contribution to Western Civilisation Paperback - 260 pages by Tim Wallace Murphy

In these troubled and extremist times, when the religion and culture of Islam are under seemingly perpetual attack, it is salutary to consider how much we, living in the Christian West, have in common with, and how much we owe to, the spiritual insights of that great culture.

Religious tolerance, respect for learning, the concepts of chivalry and brotherhood - these principles were brought by the Islamic Moors when, in medieval Spain, they acted as "Beacons of Light" in the Dark Ages of European religious arrogance, intolerance and persecution. The Moors gave Europe an architectural and artistic heritage that is still a source of wonder to the modern world. It was in translation from Arabic, not the original Greek, that knowledge of Greek philosophy became prominent in Christian thought.

Western mathematics are based on Arabic numerals and calculations, and the first effective medical school in Europe was founded by Jewish doctors who had been trained in Moorish Spain and North Africa. Tim Wallace-Murphy shows how over the last century it was European Western powers who laid the foundations for the chaos that reigns in the Middle East. We need to find a just and equitable solution to these problems and we should begin by acknowledging our common spiritual heritage and the profound debt that Western civilization owes to Islamic culture.

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Lost History - The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers and Artists

Paperback - 320 pages by Michael Hamilton Morgan

Product Description : Early Muslim culture set the foundation for the Rennaissance of Europe and for nearly every aspect of the modern world. In this age of conflict, "Lost History" provides a vital look at the Muslim world and its deep connection to all cultures. Unlike many histories, which address the noted Arab Golden Age of Baghdad, Persia, and Muslim Spain from 632 to 1258 AD and the fall of Baghdad, "Lost History" reveals the many 'golden ages' of Muslim thought, from Iran to Mughal India, to the 18th century. Engaging chapters introduce a contemporary accountant, obstetrician, civil engineer, or astrophysicist, all whose work is linked to early Muslim advancements. Artful flashbacks render page-turning accounts of such luminaries as Al Ma'mun, who founded Baghdad's international House of Wisdom from which came foundations for modern math, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, and literature; Al Khwarizmi, often considered the Father of Algebra, whose invention of algorithms makes possible cell phones today; revered Arab philospher Al Kindi, who wrote, 'nothing should be dearer to the seeker of truth than the truth itself;' Astronomer Al Manon, for whom is named a crater of the moon; the exiled Emir Abdal Rahman, who brought to Cordoba, Spain, irrigation systems and unique architecture; and the Syrian-born Al Nafis, who revealed that the blood flows from the heart, through the lungs, to the body and back again. Finally, readers discover that Omar Khayyam, well-loved poet of the Rubaiyat, was a mathematical wizard who calculated the length of a year to be 365.242 days (later calculated by atomic clocks to within millionths of a second). Writes the author: 'By recovering lost history together, maybe we can really get at the issues of today that will never be solved by force. Because if there is no other lesson to be drawn from "Lost History", it is that force rarely ever positively resolves issues of the spirit and the soul - whether in individuals, or in civilizations.'

Review : "Mathematics, astronomy and medicine; those are three of the many disciplines that would not exist in their present form without the contributions of Muslim scholars and thinkers throughout the centuries. We in the West don't often remember that." ---Aaron Schachter, Anchor, "BBC "The World"

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Science and Islam : A History by Ehsan Masood

Hardback - 256 pages

The official tie-in to the BBC television series, Science and Islam tells the story of one of history's most misunderstood yet rich and fertile periods in science: the extraordinary Islamic scientific revolution between 700 and 1400 CE. It charts a religious empire's scientific heyday, its decline, and the many debates that now surround it.

Between the 8th and 15th centuries, scholars and researchers working from Samarkand in modern-day Uzbekistan to Cordoba in Spain advanced our knowledge of astronomy, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, medicine and philosophy to new heights.

It was Musa al-Khwarizmi, for instance, who developed algebra in 9th-century Baghdad, drawing on work by mathematicians in India; there was also al-Jazari, a Turkish engineer of the 13th century whose achievements include the crank, the camshaft, and the reciprocating piston; and ibn-Sina, whose textbook Canon of Medicine was a standard work in Europe's universities until the 1600s. These scientists were part of a sophisticated culture and civilisation that was based on belief in God - a picture which helps to scotch the myth of the 'Dark Ages' and the idea that scientific progress falters because of religion.

Ehsan Masood is Acting Chief Commissioning Editor at Nature and teaches international science policy at Imperial College London. He also writes for Prospect and OpenDemocracy.net and is a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4's Home Planet.

HARDBACK BOOK : Paperback Version
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The House of Wisdom : How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization

Hardback - 272 pages by Jonathan Lyons

For centuries following the fall of Rome, Western Europe was backward and benighted, locked into the Dark Ages and barely able to tell the time of day. Augustine had decreed that belief, not reason, should be the guiding light of Christian thinking and partially as a result Europeans lived in a world of nominal literacy and subsistence farming, where blind faith, superstition and sorcery took the place of medicine, and the church harnessed nascent aggression among the kingdoms to its own ends in the pursuit of astonishingly violent and cruel holy wars - the Crusades.

Arab culture, however, was thriving, and had become a powerhouse of intellectual exploration and discussion that dazzled the likes of Adelard of Bath who ventured to the Near East in search of the scientific riches pouring out of cities like Antioch or Baghdad, whose House of Wisdom held four hundred thousand books at a time when the best European libraries housed, at most, several dozen.

The Arabs could measure the earth’s circumference, a feat not matched in the West for eight hundred years; they discovered algebra; were adept at astronomy and navigation, developed the astrolabe, translated all the Greek scientific and philosophical texts including, importantly, those of Aristotle; they made paper lenses and mirrors. Without them, and the knowledge that travellers like Adelard brought back to the West, Europe would in all likelihood have been a very different place over the last millennium.

Review : ‘A wonderful and important book which for the first time presents the Western debt to medieval Arabic learning in a clear, accessible manner. From the azimuth to the zenith, from algebra to the zero, so much of what the West takes for granted came to us from the Arab world . . . A fascinating book’ ---William Dalrymple

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Destiny Disrupted : A History of the World through Islamic Eyes

Hardback - 416 pages by Tamim Ansary

Book Description :
This sweeping history illuminates how Muslims must have seen the history of the world - and what western world history leaves out.

We in the West share a common narrative of world history - that runs from the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia, through Greece and Rome and the French Revolution, to the rise of the secular state and the triumph of democracy. But our story largely omits a whole civilization that until quite recently saw itself at the center of world history, and whose citizens shared an entirely different narrative for a thousand years.

In "Destiny Disrupted", Tamim Ansary tells the rich story of world history as the Islamic world saw it, form the time of the Beloved Prophet Muhammad May Allah bless him and grant him peace, to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and beyond. He clarifies why our civilizations grew up oblivious to each other, what happened when they intersected, and how the Islamic world was affected by its slow recognition that Europe - a place it long perceived as primitive and disorganized - had somehow hijacked destiny. Entertaining and enlightening, "Destiny Disrupted" also offers a vital perspective on current conflicts.

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How Islam Created the Modern World by Mark Graham

Hradback - 208 pages

For several centuries, corresponding to the European Middle Ages, Baghdad was the intellectual center of the world. It was there that a huge community of translators and scholars appropriated in Arabic culture the knowledge of ancient civilisations and combined it with the cultural traditions and imperatives of the Islamic context to create a scientific, mathematical and philosophical golden age. This golden age of Islam embraced all the products of human spirit practiced at that time, including different scientific disciplines, medicine, symbolic and artistic creation, social organisation and material culture, including productive branches of applied knowledge in industry, architecture and the making of instruments. These accomplishments were so numerous and original that they realised an unprecedented stage of civilisation and occupied a high rank in human creation. Being unique and at the front of inventivity, they gained the admiration of other peoples who were aware of the existence of these treasures. Hence a dynamic process of transmission was set up between the Muslim and the Latin worlds all over the Mediterranean coasts. This transfer process was progressive and uninterrupted for several centuries, mainly in the Andalus, but also in Sicily, Southern France and in the Middle East during the Crusades.

In other places of his book, Graham shows more concrete ways in which the West is indebted to Islam: A Mongol invasion of Europe was thwarted when Egypt's Mamluk army defeated the Mongols at ‘Ain Jalut, Palestine, in 1260. Imagine how different the West would be today if the Mongols had triumphed! As it turned out, the West never again faced the threat of Mongol invasion after ‘Ain Jalut, and the breather which thus provided Europe a chance to absorb what Graham terms "the other great gift of Islam—knowledge".

Contents of the book

Acknowledgements 9

Foreword 11

Introduction 15

Chapter 1: Islam becomes an empire 17

Chapter 2: The House of wisdom 37

Chapter 3: Hippocrates wears a turban 51

Chapter 4: The great work 63

Chapter 5: Beyond the Arabian nights 77

Chapter 6: Islam's secret weapon 97

Chapter 7: A medieval war on terror 117

Chapter 8: The first World war 139

Chapter 9: Raiders of the last library 157

Chapter 10: Children of Abraham, children of Aristotle 175

Appendix 1: What the Qur'an says 183

Appendix 2: Arabic words in English 185

Treasures of Islam : Artistic Glories of the Muslim World

Hardback - 224 pages by Professor Bernard O Kane

Product Description : Discover the grandeur of Islam in a vivid portrait of some of the greatest and most creative civilizations ever to have existed—a wide range of peoples and cultures all united spiritually by their adherence to Islam and its holy book. This important survey—which features outstanding production values, an oversized volume, a foil-trimmed cover, and special five-color printing—celebrates the remarkable diversity of Muslim art, from beautiful textiles and peerless ceramics to awe-inspiring architecture and exquisite metalwork. With superb photography throughout, this guide marries the religion’s artistic legacy with its rich history, travelling from the royal mosque at Isfahan to the beauty of Quranic illumination.

From Publishers Weekly : In this sumptuous volume, O'Kane combines an overview of Islamic art and architecture with a cursory history of Islam's empires and dynasties. Beginning with a brief discussion of the earliest mosque from the seventh century, and showing how Islamic architects created a distinctive artistic tradition, O'Kane (The Iconography of Islamic Art) follows architectural and artistic ideas to the 19th century. Major monuments, such as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the Great Mosque of Damascus, the Sultan Hasan mosque in Cairo, the Alhambra in Moorish Spain and the Taj Mahal, are highlighted, as are many works of art, including colourful mosaics, lace-like wood and stone carvings and exquisite manuscript paintings.

O'Kane stresses the significance of religious and secular symbolism, and points out the craftsmanship that makes this art a feast for the eye. He does a credible job of surveying a vast panorama of art and culture, but it's difficult to compress so much complex material into one volume. The wealth of glorious full-colour illustrations make this beautifully designed book an excellent introduction to the art of Islam. (Oct. 24)

Hardback : 12.1 x 9.3 x 1 inches
This beautifully presented book is larger than your average hardback, and makes the ideal gift to your Muslim or non-Muslim freind.
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Essays On The Origins Of Islamic Civilization

Paperback - 312 pages

by Dr M.A.J Beg

Anyone attempting to study the origins of Islamic Civilisation must first ask How Islam originated. Orientalists contend that it owed its origin to Judaism and Christianity. This theory is critically analysed.

Attention is also focussed on the origins of the Islamic State with special reference to the constitution of Madinah. The rights of women and their role in society are discussed under the new dispensation of Islam.

Dr M.A.J. Beg ; Born in Gachahar, Dinajpur, in British India in 1944 and brought up and educated in East Pakistan, Dr Muhammad Beg obtained his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Islamic history from Rajshahi University before he proceeded to Christ’s College, Cambridge University, where he obtained a doctorate in Middle Eastern history in 1971. With the assistance of the late Dr Martin Lings (Abu Bakr Siraj al-Din), the famed author of The Life of Muhammad, he was able to obtain temporary work at the British Museum in London and in 1972 he became a British citizen. Then he moved to Malaysia where he taught Islamic history at the National University of Malaysia for more than a decade. Thereafter, he moved to the University of Brunei Darussalam as an Associate Professor of Islamic history and civilization, and lectured there for four years.

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Wisdom of Islamic Civilization

Paperback -132 pages by Dr M.A.J Beg

A Miscellany of Islamic Quotations

(Translated from the classical Arabic Literature, edited and complied with an Introduction)

Description : This book is a compilation of Islamic quotations from the Prophet of Islam, May Allah bless him and grant him peace, the Sahabah (the Noble Companions) as well as from Muslim scholars and writers up to Ibn Khaldun. This book is intended for general readers and students alike.

Review: ''This book of Islamic quotations reveals traditional views on intellect, aesthetics, morality, politics and economics'' --- The Middle East Journal

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The Image of Islamic Civilization

Paperback - 144 pages by Dr M.A.J Beg

This book is based on the thesis that every civilization is a distinct one. Islamic civilization revolves around the concept of the Unity of God. Hence its art represents the abstract concept of unity and rejects representational art; instead it emphasizes the beauty of abstract forms, such as calligraphy, geometrical patterns and vegetal ornaments. Islamic polity attributes the concept of sovereignty to God and assigns mankind the role of God's representative (Khalifah) on earth. In economics, Islam rejects usury (riba) as principles designed to exploit the poor. In the domain of intellect there is no contradiction between Islam and science. Moreover, Islam elevates the pursuit of science and knowledge of all kinds as an act of divine worship (ibadah). This explains why in its heyday, Islamic civilization, championed the cause of science and religious education, law and literature as worthy endeavours. It even cultivated new and challenging branches of foreign language, such as philosophy, physics, chemistry, mathematics, trigonometry, algebra, botan and medicine and made significant contributions to these branches of human sciences.

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Islamic and Western Concepts of Civilization

Paperback - 104 pages by Dr M.A.J Beg

The word civilisation is widely known, yet it is not fully understood by most people. The elite in society claim to understand civilisation but they too can hardly explain it.

4th Edition 2006 Cambridge

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