Islamic Contributions and Their Impacts on the World
By: Jack • Essay • 543 Words • March 22, 2010 • 2,686 Views
Islamic Contributions and Their Impacts on the World
Islamic Contributions and their Impacts on the World
The Islamic civilization had many great achievements and accomplishments that have contributed to world culture. Islamic achievements have helped other cultures adopt new ideas and make great advancements in an immense variety of fields. These fields include medicine, art and literature, architecture, astronomy, philosophy, and mathematics. Islamic achievements also assisted in making daily life for the Muslim people a great deal easier. Of all the Islamic achievements, those in the fields of medicine, mathematics, and art were the most important and influential to the world today.
From the field of medicine came many important accomplishments, including many medical reference books such as al-Razi’s Comprehensive Book and Treatise on Smallpox & Measles(document 3), and The Canon on Medicine by Ibn Sina (‘World History: Connections to Today’ textbook). Also in Islamic hospitals there was a facility similar to today’s emergency room where injured people could get immediate treatment. Muslims were able to make these great medical contributions because of the knowledge from the ancient Greeks in which they built on to develop their medical field and references. They were able to make these advancements also because of their need for medical cures and diagnosis’s in times of sickness and suffering. These accomplishments impacted world culture by providing the doctors of today with medical references and doctorials. There were also other important fields, whose advancements impacted the world today.
From the field of mathematics came Al-Kwarizmi’s textbook on Algebra (document 4), which was used throughout Europe and beyond; and also Arabic numerals which were adopted from the Indians and used in a place-value system (document 4). These advancements were made possible because of the knowledge of both Indian and Greek mathematics, which were studied by Muslim scholars before the creation of any Islamic civilization mathematics. These contributions highly impacted the world because they were the foundation for modern day mathematics.