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ISTANBUL: Muslims discovered Earth is round - Turkey's science min

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  • ISTANBUL: Muslims discovered Earth is round - Turkey's science min

    Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
    Nov 29 2014

    Muslims discovered Earth is round, Turkey's science minister says

    ISTANBUL


    Muslim scientists working around 1,200 years ago were the first to
    determine that the Earth is a sphere, Turkey's science, industry and
    technology minister, becoming the latest Turkish official to inform
    the world about apparent scientific firsts on the part of Islamic
    world.

    Speaking at a reception for business leader in the Central Anatolian
    province of Konya late Nov. 28, Minister Fikri IÅ?ık stressed the
    contributions of the Islamic world to science throughout history.
    "Some 700-800 years before Galileo, 71 Muslim scientists led by
    al-Khwarizmi convened by the order of the Caliph Al-Ma'mun and
    revealed that the Earth is a sphere," he said. IÅ?ık added that a copy
    of the original document is currently in the Museum of Islamic Science
    and Technology in Istanbul.

    The museum was founded by Fuat Sezgin, a Turkish professor emeritus on
    Arabic-Islamic science who was recently referred by Turkish President
    Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an, too. During a speech on Nov. 18, ErdoÄ?an quoted
    Sezgin's theories for his controversial claim that the American
    continent was "discovered by Muslim sailors" some 300 years before
    Christopher Columbus.

    The concept of a spherical Earth remained a matter of philosophical
    speculation until the 3rd century BC, when Hellenistic astronomy
    established the spherical shape of the earth as a physical given.

    Galileo Galilei, on the other hand, was put to trial and convicted by
    the Roman Catholic Inquisition in 1616 and 1633 for his support of
    heliocentrism, a theory which is not directly related to the notion
    that the Earth is a sphere. Heliocentrism, the theory that the Earth
    was a planet that revolved around the Sun, contradicted geocentrism,
    the Aristotelian view that the earth was the center of the universe,
    which agreed with a literal interpretation of the Bible.

    Around 830 AD, Caliph Al-Ma'mun commissioned a group of Muslim
    astronomers and geographers to measure the distance from Tadmur
    (Palmyra) to Raqqah in modern Syria. They calculated the Earth's
    circumference, reaching to numbers very close to the currently modern
    values.

    Today, the war-torn Raqqah is known as the stronghold of the Islamic
    State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants.


    November/29/2014
    http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/Default.aspx?pageID=238&nID=74989&NewsCatID=338

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