According to historians of technology, Donald Routledge Hill and Ahmad Yousef al-Hassan, when Muslims spread to the African and European continents in the first 200 years of Hijrah they introduced \u201cdiffusion of new crops\u201d into agricultural lands, displacing the system previously used by the Romans and the Byzantines whose technique involved sowing lands with a single type of crop and only during winter.<\/p>\n
Through this revolutionary agricultural technique called al-filahah<\/em>, they were able to rotate the plantation of crops from tropical places such as rice, cotton, sugar cane, eggplants, and watermelons in cooler and drier regions.<\/p>\n This technique allowed lands to become more fertile and increased the productivity of lands otherwise idle during hot summer seasons, ready for harvest four times a year compared to previous system which allowed for harvest only once every 24 months.<\/p>\n Inspired by Qur\u2019anic verses about the gardens of paradise in the Hereafter, Muslims of the past strived to develop (\u2018imarah<\/em>) and make good (islah<\/em>) the gardens of the earth for the benefit of all mankind.<\/p>\n Another example of Muslim familiarity with disruptive technology could be found in the 9th century, when Arab philosopher and scientist al-Kindi, working under the auspices of the \u2018Abbasid caliphs, invented the technology for distillation. He recorded his technique in his book Kitab al-Kimiya al-\u2018Itr wa Tas\u2018idat<\/em>, a compendium on the chemistry of perfumes, rose water, essential oils and the methods of distilling them.<\/p>\n Advancement of the distillation technology eventually enabled the refinement of petroleum drawn from the ground into naphtha (naft<\/em>) and alcohol (al-kuhl)<\/em> which are useful for various applications even today.<\/p>\n In medicine, naphtha was used to treat mange in animals such as dogs and camels, but alcohol continue to be used as disinfectant, displacing the extremely painful method of cauterization using a piece of metal heated until it was glowing red.<\/p>\n Muslim armies also found application for naphtha during the first three Crusades in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, where it became an ingredient in ranged incendiary weapons (alat al-nar<\/em>) such as grenade-like fire pots (qidr<\/em>), and fire rockets (naft tayyar<\/em>).<\/p>\n The effectiveness of these weapons became more pronounced when the Mamluk were able to incorporate these new weapons into their military doctrine and tactics to defeat the fearsome Mongol horde during their counter offensive, two years after Hulagu Khan\u2019s terribly devastating attack during the Siege of Baghdad in 1258 CE which resulted from 800,000 to 2 million civilian casualties.<\/p>\n The Muslim root of all these technological developments lies in the philosophical understanding of \u2018ilm al-hiyal<\/em>, a branch of scientific knowledge defined by 10th century philosopher Abu al-Hasan al-\u2018Amiri as the discipline that deals with waterworks and overcoming obstacles using mathematics and natural sciences.<\/p>\n The discipline of \u2018ilm al-hiyal<\/em> also was responsible for the creation of various types of pumps, floodgates, and tools used alongside the agricultural techniques of al-filahah<\/em>.<\/p>\n Hiyal<\/em>, or its singular form hilah<\/em> (Malay: helah<\/em>), comes from the Arabic word hala<\/em>, which means to change, to transform, to shift, to deviate or depart from customary behaviour. Sharing the same root, the word hal<\/em> refers to a condition, a situation, or a state of affairs. Therefore, hilah<\/em> could be understood as a manifestation of power in the form of breaking away from customary behaviour or escaping a situation.<\/p>\n In the oft-repeated Islamic invocation La hawla wa la quwwata illa bi-\u2019Llahi<\/em>\u00a0 (\u201cThere is no power and strength save with God\u201d), the term hawl<\/em> is interchangeable with hayl<\/em>.<\/p>\n The 14th century lexicologist of the Arabic language, Ibn Manzur, traced through Ibn \u2018Abbas the early Muslim usage of this term to the Holy Prophet himself, who in his venerable supplications addressed God as the Possessor of Great Power (dha-\u2019l-Hayli al-Shadid<\/em>).<\/p>\n From the viewpoint of linguistics, hiyal<\/em> means artifice, ruse, stratagem, manoeuvre, and trick. In statecraft, ihtiyal<\/em> refers to the skill to govern properly, to create policies, or to administer an affair.<\/p>\n As a technical term employed in Islamic jurisprudence, hiyal<\/em> is synonymous with the use of creativity to overcome a difficulty with regards to the laws of Shari\u2018ah especially related to economic activities, so long as it does not directly contradict the Shari\u2018ah. It is used in transactions (mu\u2018amalah<\/em>) in order to enable the fulfilment of the needs and necessities of contracting parties, whose absence would otherwise make transaction difficult to the point it disrupts the financial system already in place under certain conditions.<\/p>\n All the above show that disruptive technology, defined as new technology which displaces \u201colder process, operation, product, procedure or habit\u201d, is no stranger to the civilisation of Islam.<\/p>\n Also, the examples show that by having courage to look into the richness of the Islamic scientific tradition and making it the source of strength, there is a possibility to unlock a powerful dynamism needed to face the changing times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to historians of technology, Donald Routledge Hill and Ahmad Yousef al-Hassan, when Muslims spread to the African and European continents in the first 200 years of Hijrah they introduced \u201cdiffusion of new crops\u201d into agricultural lands, displacing the system previously used by the Romans and the Byzantines whose technique involved sowing lands with a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-straits-times","category-139","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}