10 centuries of Islamic science comes to Jersey
Monday, July 30, 2007
BY KITTA MacPHERSON
Star-Ledger Staff

Jersey City public schoolteacher Charlene Shariff stepped back to snap a photo of the vast graphic image before her, a timeline spanning several walls -- and more than 10 centuries -- of Islamic scientific history.

"It's good to come into a warm, soothing atmosphere to learn about Islam," said Shariff, a Christian married to a Muslim.

"It's a world apart from what we see on TV. A person might just come and take a walk through here and learn something."

The exhibit "Islamic Science Rediscovered," is being given its North American premiere at the newly renovated Liberty Science Center.

The mammoth, 7,000-square-foot exhibit, which focuses on science and technology and not politics or religion, will remain at the museum until Jan. 6.

The center, which will manage the national tour, is in negotiations with a number of museums that want to host the display after it leaves Jersey City, said Libby Lewis, director of featured experiences at the center.

The exhibition is a multimedia showcase that includes genuine artifacts and reproductions that illustrate the golden age of Islamic science, running from 700 to 1700.

"Although we cover a particular period of great achievement, this doesn't mean that this civilization disappeared," said Ludo Verheyen, the exhibit's principal designer. A cluster of displays at the end of the exhibit lists Muslim Nobel Prize winners and other contemporary brilliance.

"There is a spirit of invention, innovation and creativity in Arab Nations which led the world in the past and can lead to an even more prosperous future," Verheyen said.

And while Muslim visitors may revel in the obvious ingenuity of Islamic thought through the ages, the display also was conceived for non-Muslim Westerners who may be unaware of Islam's rich history.

"We want to create an awareness of our indebtedness to a civilization which was once the greatest in the world, and which is undoubtedly part of our heritage," said Ludo Verheyen, the CEO of MTE Studios in South Africa and the exhibit's chief creator. History books, he said, often refer to the Dark Ages as the period when Europe slumbered. But few are aware of the tremendous contributions Muslim scholars made in science and technology during that same period.

Many living in the West, for example, may know of the great Italian Renaissance artist, Leonardo da Vinci, and his interest in flying machines. Less familiar is Abbas bin Firnas who, in 9th Century Muslim Spain, not only made a glider but flew it successfully. Displays use the tale to explain the physics of flight.

Similarly, western schoolchildren know of the travels of the Italian explorer Marco Polo. But the exhibit tells another story -- the exploits of Ibn Battuta, the Marco Polo of the Islamic world, who set out for Mecca from his hometown of Tangiers, Morocco, in 1325 and returned 29 years later after traveling 75,000 miles and touring 40 countries. Visitors can see a reproduction of a page from his diary, known as the "Rinla."

Visitors can also learn of the Chinese Muslim Admiral Zheng He and the massive fleet of treasure ships he used to explore the world six centuries ago. Visitors can see a reproduction of the compass that belonged to one of the greatest mariners in world history.

Included in the exhibit are some of civilization's most important astronomical devices invented by Islamic astronomers, including the astrolabe, armillary sphere and quadrant. Driven by the need to know exactly when to pray, Islamic astronomers invented devices that could precisely predict the time of sunrise and sunset, as well as other astronomical events.

"What it demonstrates very visually is that every culture and every group has made positive contributions or has positive contributions to be made to our society," said Diane Schwartz, president and CEO of the American Conference on Diversity in New Brunswick, who recently toured the exhibit. "Things don't happen in a vacuum. It's a wonderful representation of the inter-relationships and interconnections that we all have as people and societies."

Displays also explain how the culture brought together the two strands of early mathematical thinking -- the geometric approach of the Greeks and the algebraic approach of the Babylonians, Indians and Chinese -- and built on this foundation by making unique discoveries of their own. They applied them to fields as diverse as optics, astronomy, architecture, engineering and navigation.

Guests can conduct experiments following in the footsteps of the 10th century Muslim physician Al Haytham who invented the pinhole camera, discovered how the eye works, studied eye disease, developed accurate theories about the laws of refraction -- how light bends -- and understood that light is made up of distinct colors.

In a curious juxtaposition, three stories below the Islamic exhibit, there is a presentation called "Skyscraper!" which features two beams recovered from the ruins of the World Trade Center towers after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 by Islamic extremists.

"The poignancy of having the World Trade Center artifacts on Floor 1 and this particular exhibition on Floor 4 is not lost on us, but science is science," said Emlyn Koster, CEO of Liberty Science Center. "We offer 'Islamic Science Rediscovered' as a poorly known chapter in the history of science -- nothing more, nothing less."

Since opening in 1993, he said, center officials have selected "the best available science-focused exhibitions, films and programs." Any exhibit must, he said, meet the science center's standard of manifesting the key words of the science center's mission --nature, humanity and technology.

"We hope that everyone who visits can learn from them in terms of their curiosity, interest, insight and action," Koster said.

Kitta MacPherson may be reached at kmacpherson@starledger.com or (973) 392-5836.