Page 70 - A Call for a Turkish-Islamic Union

A CALL FOR A TURKISH-ISLAMIC UNION

curate that they were used for 600 years in Europe's faculties of
medicine.
A documentary about the world of Islam, prepared for the
BBC by the commentator Terry Jones, says the following on the

high scientific standards of Islam:
One philosopher from the town of Harran for example had al-
ready correctly calculated the distance from the earth to the
moon. Well another had suggested that if you could divide the
atom, you'd release enough power to destroy city the size of
Baghdad. In this medical school built here in Damascus in
1154, doctors were already teaching anatomy, inventive med-
icine, hygiene surgery, the circulation of the blood, centuries
before Harvey. 2
Centuries before their European counterparts, Muslim
physicians knew about blood circulation and took their patients'

pulses during their examinations. Childbirth took place under
the most hygienic conditions possible at
the time. Surgical instruments, as de-
picted in medical books of the era, are ev-
idence of advanced medical knowledge.
Muslim scientists made important
discoveries in optics and the nature of
light. The first person to reveal the eye's
structure in detail was Ibn al-Haytham,

whose extraordinary research on lenses
cleared the way for the camera's inven-
Ibn Al-Haytham
tion. Muslim physicians discovered the
reasons behind sight impairments and performed successful
cataract surgery 1,000 years before any European physician.
The great scientific heritage of the Islamic world made the
European Renaissance possible. Christian scientists established

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