Saturday, December 9, 2006

Post 17th CE - In search of Al-Farabi!

By Faraz Khan

"It is good to recall that three centuries ago, around the year 1660, two of the greatest monuments of modern history were erected, one in the West and one in the East; St. Paul's Cathedral in London and the Taj Mahal in Agra. Between them, the two symbolize, perhaps better than words can describe, the comparative level of architectural technology, the comparative level of craftsmanship and the comparative level of affluence and sophistication the two cultures had attained at that epoch of history. But about the same time there was also created - and this time only in the West - a third monument, a monument still greater in its eventual import for humanity. This was Newton's Principia, published in 1687. Newton's work had no counterpart in the India of the Mughals [or the Muslim world]". Ideals and Realities by Abdus Salam, Pakistani nuclear physicist 1926-1996 (The Nobel Prize in Physics 1979).
*al-Farabi Abu Nasr al-Farabi (259-339 AH / 870-950 AD) is one of the foremost Islamic Philosopher /Scientist. was a great and unique individual. He was a scientist specializing in encyclopedias, who, over the course of his life, at the beginning of the Renaissance Era was granted the title of “The Second Master” after Aristotle. Al-Farabi contributed considerably to astronomy, logic, the musical theory, and mathematics along with sociology and ethics, medicine and psychology, philosophy and law. Al-Farabi: from History of Muslim Philosophy

Posted by Faraz Khan at 3:18 PM  

Source:

 http://liberalartsforum.blogspot.com/2006/12/post-17th-ce-in-search-of-al-farabi.html