Contributions of Muslims to Europe conference at Mulberry School
Wednesday, 02 July 2008 10:54
The Jam’iatul Ulama UK Held their much awaited confernce on the “Contributions Of Muslims To Europe” at Mulberry Conference Hall, Whitechapel On Sunday 29th June ’08. The conference was chaired by Maulana Shah Muhammed Anas and hosted by Maulana Syed Tamim Ahmed. Mufti Shah Sadruddin in his speech said, quoting many European historians, that
“By the beginning of the ninth century, Muslim Spain was the gem of Europe with its capital city, Cordova (Qurtuba). At a time when London was a tiny mud-hut village that "could not boast of a single streetlamp" (Digest, 1973, p. 622), in Cordova "there were nearly a million inhabitants, living in 200,000 houses. There were 700 mosques and 800 public baths & 700 public schools spread throughout the city. There were also 60,000 palaces by the eleventh century. The streets were paved and lit."
The houses had marble balconies for summer and hot-air ducts under the mosaic floors for the winter. They were adorned with gardens with artificial fountains and orchards". "Paper, a material still unknown to the west, was everywhere. There were bookshops and more than seventy libraries."
According to Goldstein the Islamic cities were ‘urban, commercial, sophisticated, exotic, and cosmopolitan”. The fact is the Muslims created the world’s first sophisticated, advanced civilization. It was according to Peter Mansfield, “the most splendid city on the continent.”
According to S. P. Scott education was so widespread that “it was difficult to find a…peasant who could not read of write.” At a time when the Kings of Europe were illiterate and could only sign their names with an “X,” a Muslim ruler in Spain maintained a private library of some 600,000 books.
In short, the Muslim scholars of Spain were the founding fathers of modern day inventions & civilisation!
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