Professor: Dr Moulay-
AFTS370-01 3/14/2013 Reaction/Reflection Paper #2 : Lowney, chs. 11 & 12, Menocal, pp. 174-188 We learned that Muslim’s invasion of Spain provided economic, architectural and social developments in this area. In these readings (Lowney’s and Menocal’s) we can see that Muslims also had significant importance in medical and mathematical world. Maimonides was one of the most important physicians in Jewish society and he had many intellectual contributions to Judaism. He had important position as a physician. The important part is that where Maimonides inherited his wisdom? His medical secrets were based on ancient authorities like Galen and Hippocrates which were forgotten in the West but revived in the Islamic East. There were many successful philosopher-doctors in Islamic world like Ibn Sina (Avicenna in the West). Ibn Sina’s book was translated by Gerard as a Canon of Medicine. It was the Europe’s first translation about health and medicine. Ibn Sina’s (Avicenna) knowledge pushed European’s medicine forward. Moreover, there was another Spanish Muslim Abu-l-Qasim, also known as Abulcasis who became the practical companion to Avicenna’s theoretical Canon. He have gotten his hands dirty and actually practiced surgeries like amputating limbs, removing bladder stones and artificial teeth from beef bone thanks to Ibn Sina’s knowledge. In Latin system the zero as a number was absent but with the help of Baghdadi adaptation of Indian system which was invented by al-Khawarizmi they made mathematical calculations possible. Also, the zero can be used as a digit representation of magnitude ten which makes calculations easier than Roman numerals. To conclude, Muslims contributions to medicine and mathematic were remarkable as well as their other contributions to European world.