Islam Creator of the Modern Age
2. Holding Sacred that which is not Sacred
~ 92 ~
It is highly probable that but for the Arabs,
modern industrial civilization would never
have arisen at all.
43
The
Encyclopaedia Britannica
(1984) says that
libraries formed important features of Islamic
society. There were a number of institutions, which
possessed more than one lakh books. Most of the
classical literature that spurred the European
Renaissance was obtained from translations of
Arabic manuscripts in Muslim libraries.
44
To some, the achievement of the Arabs is at best
their transmission of the Greek sciences to Europe
through translations. Professor Hitti puts it in these
words:
This stream (of Greek culture) was redirected
into Europe by the Arabs in Spain and Sicily,
whence it helped create the Renaissance of
Europe.
45
Such an assertion is not, however, correct, for what
the Arabs had received from Greek philosophers
was not experimental knowledge but theoretical
argument. In other words, what they received from
