علم الزمن والوقت
I have been asking for years:
Who generates sciences and theories, terminologies and concepts in today’s world?
Is the logic of knowledge production the same as that of the beehive, where only the queen produces eggs, which generates all members of the hive, whereas other bees are nothing but workers?
Under this perspective, the West is considered as a queen, whereas others/ lower class people are less likely to generate and produce a science.
Rather, even if someone from the East wants to establish a new science; the international standards and measures quickly associate the oriental scientist to the West, so as to have the right to refer this science to him;
Integrate his name in a research team and will thereby get lost within the team.
Deny his claims.
Or ignore him so as he won’t be mentioned in the sources of knowledge, until they find someone who can impersonate what he claimed and refer it to him.
There are some more severe and unfair ways, that are only known by those who read about “the Algerian crisis in 1990s” or “the invasion in Iraq and Syria” in particular, and the consequence of scholars in these countries, which was either to the West or to death?
In this regard, I can provide three examples among dozens of others:
First: I read the book of “The Order of Time” written by Krzysztof Pomian, who was confused whether or not to classify “history” as a science or as a subject? He said “for long time, history was considered as a subject, since 17th century, scholars began to liken it to science”. The problem according to the author is that talking about past events is not related to science, but was involved with literature, and refers in this opinion to Lacombe Paul in his book “History considered as a science”.
Surprisingly, in another page of his book, Pomian paid tribute to “Dendrochronology” he is considered to have turned the European history upside down; and proves what George Sarton said in his book “History of Sciences” that “historians of science in Europe have a very short memory, which dates back to the 16th century and does not surpass it”.
Second: in the Islamic heritage, there are dozens of independent books, thousands of articles and uncountable number of chapters in jurisprudence sources; all of which tackled Qibla from different perspectives; a lot of which indicated Qibla in the title, for instance: “On determining the meridian line and the direction of Qibla using geometry” written by Al-Kinidi, and “Treatise on the Direction of the Qibla” written by Al-Nayrizi, “Determining the Direction of Qibla” by Al-Quhi, and “Solution for Finding the Direction of the Qibla by Calculation” by Ibn Al-Haytham. For Al-Biruni, he has eight books and letters pertaining to “Al-Qibla” between theory and practice, among which are the following: “Determining the Azimuth of the Qibla”, “Elaborating Evidence upon Determining the Azimuth of the Qibla” “Fi Taqwim Al-Qibla fi Bust Bitasshih Touliha wu Ardiha” (1).
Shams Al-Din Muhammad ibn Muhammad Al-Hijazi (849 A.H/ 1445 AD) referred “time and direction to Qibla” to science, he entitled his book “On Science of Time and Qibla”; which enables this wide field of science with multiple introductions like: jurisprudence, interpretation, hadith, mathematics, physics, astronomy, instruments, shadows and scenery… most of these introductions can form an interesting “science”, which what library catalogues and science classifications lack today.
When I searched for this science on social media, I was surprised to find the same science with the same spelling “Ilm Al-Qibla = Science of Direction to Qibla”, I looked it up delightfully, however, I was disappointed to find the same science but with different spelling “Ilm Al-Qubla = philematology” which is the scientific study of kissing. Researchers in the field for instance found out that kissers tilt their head to the right for kissing, and that kissing in average takes more than 12 seconds today etc.
In the Western sources, we find philematology as science, which is originally a Greek word as indicated by the glossaries like most of the scientific words.
1 – It is very surprising that a researcher called “Monica Rios” publishes an article entitled “Is Qibla a religious science? Or a scientific religion?” which is a PhD thesis entitled: “Qibla direction in Andalusia and the West” defended in 2000, in Barcelona University. The first lines of her research indicated what can be called as “reminder of superiority of the West over the East”, for instance, she says “until the mid-19th century, Muslims had no accurate astronomical and mathematical knowledge that enable them to set the exact Qibla direction for Mosques” the articles continues this way to mix between political decisions, jurisprudential rulings, scientific rules and practical excesses; until she ends up saying that Qibla is a scientific religion or religious science, but sill certain that it is not an accurate science. Look, the article, translated by Alhassan Swieqi, Nama journal, edition 14, 2021, taking into consideration that researchers from the East promote such works with no vision or review, discussion or scrutiny.
Third: when I read the most recent studies published in the West, like articles, books, and hearing lectures of scholars from different backgrounds, especially in philosophy and physics, likes Stephen Hawking, Étienne Klein, Brian Greene, Boissier Bernard and others. There is no doubt that I learned a lot, especially for tackling the latest problematics in different fields of knowledge worldwide, which have to do with time.
However, it is even more surprising that they all agree upon something that surpassed science to “dogma”, which is “putting the West at the center of everything”, and “eliminating the East”; you never hear a figure’s name from the wide world of the East, nor a scientist from the wide world East is mentioned, but all new inventions and achievements must always have a representative from the West; for instance Ibn Yunus (died in 399 A.H/ 1009 A.D) observed the pendulum law and used it to measure time periods; however, the western sources refer it to Galileo (died in 1642) because he established its mathematical form; instead of associating the invention of pendulum to Ibn Yunus and Galileo for instance, all the sources, museums and encyclopedias associate it to Galileo only. Perhaps some books and studies in history of sciences published by Muslims remain as exceptional cases and cannot be generalized.
We may except a number of history of science researchers in western writers, however, it is seldom to find that in the “official science” as considered by Thomas Kuhn; i.e., in official encyclopedias, curriculums and reference books in the same science, among the names that are mentioned for their exerted efforts, in an attempt to be fair, we can mention: Nallino, Sarton, Sedillot the father and the son, Ruttr, Krakovsky and others.
The question remains:
Who has the credibility in setting sciences, theories, concepts and terminologies?
Do the Western universities in various spheres of life in knowledge and politics, in economics and culture and in arts and sports “objective” “neutral” “innocent”?
Is it going the same way like wars today, and in the same manner as classifying people around the world, according to the “Covid” model, and the scandals that have resulted which can never be forgotten in the human history? And on the manner of the Western-Western war in Ukraine that exposed the credibility of international norms for decades?
Written by: Dr. Mohamed Babaami
Translated by: Toufik Achour
Date: 02/12/2022
The Article title in Arabic: الغرب وشرعية القول
