Egyptian Professor: Europe Owes Its Science, Moral Values & Hygiene to Muslims

Egyptian researcher Ragheb El-Sergany said that Europe became acquainted with science and with moral values only through the Muslims. According to El-Sergany, a professor in the Faculty of Medicine of Cairo University, it was the Muslims who brought the notion of cleanliness to Europe, where people used to wash themselves only twice a year, he said, adding that the bidet is evidence of this. The interview with El-Segany was broadcast on Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV on November 24.

Egyptian Professor Ragheb El-Sergany: Europe Owes Its Science, Moral Values, and Hygiene to the Muslims pic.twitter.com/JQuUU3hIow

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 11, 2016

By the 8th century Islam had conquered the Christian lands of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Egypt. This swift conquest further severed Western Europe from many of the great works of Aristotle, Plato, Euclid and others, many of which were housed in the great library of Alexandria. Having come upon such a wealth of knowledge, the Arabs, who viewed non-Arab languages as inferior, even as a source of pollution, employed conquered Christians and Jews to translate these works from the native Greek and Syriac into Arabic.

Thus equipped, Arab philosopher Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham) performed optical and physiological experiments, reported in his manifold works, the most famous being Book of Optics (1021).