The contribution of the Muslim World in the Modern Society

By Feax21 | Publish0x Writing Contests | 20 Nov 2021

Image Source: The Muslim mathematician Muhammad bin Moosaa Al-Khawaarizmi, the founder of Modern Algebra

Introduction

Since the Battle of Manzikert in 26th August 1071 when Seltzuk Turks were spread into Anatolia, the Fall of Constantinople and Byzantine Empire in 29th May 1453, the establishment of the Ottoman Empire around the Mediterranean Sea and Central Europe, the Crusades and until today there is a continuous intense rivalry between the Western Christian and the Eastern Muslim civilisations. Especially during the 21st Century, there is a stipe rise of religious extremism and fighting after the events of 11/9/2001 that brought a huge negativity and discomfort in the modern Western and Christianity-based society about the Muslim culture. According to the article with title "Explainer: what Western civilisation owes to Islamic cultures", Political scientist Samuel Huntington in his 1993 book The Clash of Civilizations claimed that Islam and the West have always been diametrically opposed but in 2004, historian Richard Bulliet proposed an alternative perspective arguing that the modern society and civilisation is a continuing conversation and exchange, rather than a uniquely Western phenomenon. Still, Western World still struggles to acknowledge the contributions of Islamic cultures (whether Arabic speaking, Persian, Ottoman, or others) to the modern society.

Image Source: A European and an Arab practicing geometry together. 15th-century manuscript

Normally, I don't do socio-political and religious discussions or discriminations on my articles and certainly for Satoshi Nakamoto there is no kind of discrimination in the participation of the peer to peer free and decentralised economic society as it is described on the paper "A peer-to-peer electronic cash system". However, the contributions of the Muslim world during the Muslim Golden Age in the modern society are numerous and quite remarkable and I have to admit that until today I wasn't aware its huge effect in several aspects of the modern life; from mathematics, to science, art, architecture and today in the blockchain world through the Marhaba project.

The recent writing competition #MRHBDeFiExplained has put me into deep thoughts to perform a more thorough investigation on the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) contributions of the Muslim world in the modern society in order to help removing this stigma about Muslims and try to embrace them as true brothers.

Apart from everything else, it is an undeniable historical fact that before the rise of Islamic Golden Age, the pursuit of Science in the Medieval world was condemned as heresy by the hordes of Catholic Church Inquisition. The cornerstone of the Islamic Golden Age was undoubtedly the development of Arabian Mathematics through the crucial adoption of zero from the Hindu civilisation for the development of the so-called arithmetic of positions of the decimal system and the introduction of algebra as a unifying theory, widening significantly also the concepts of Physics, Mechanics, Alchemy, Geography and Astronomy and Muslim developed inventions and scientific methods that are used widely until today. In fact, the first ever university to be built in the world was Al Azhar University in Cairo and became a major centre of education for the Arab World. As it is shown below, its Main Gate resemblance with the University of Cambridge Main Gate is remarkable.

Mathematics

Undoubtedly, the most significant contribution is the modern wide use of the Western Arabic variant of the Hindu-Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). It was the famous Italian Mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci (1170–1250) who made them well known in the Western World as "Arabian Numbers" and through international trade they have been spread and established globally today as the main numerical system beyond the Roman (Latin) or Ancient Greek numerals that lack the concept of zero. Someone can easily understand the easiness of the the Hindu-Arabic numerals after trying to combine IV+XXI or γκ'+ιδ' in the absence of the zero concept. Their contribution in the modern society has been expanded not only as a global arithmetic system but also for their use in technology for the encoding of every ASCII character designed in electric, radio, computing and digital communication.

The Muslim mathematician Muhammad bin Moosaa Al-Khawaarizmi is considered to be the founder of Modern Algebra as the word ‘Algorithm’ is actually a corrupted Latin translation (‘Algorismus’) derived from the name of his birthplace Khwaarizm (Kheva), in modern Uzbekistan. The method of "algorism" or Algebra for performing arithmetic is actually derived from 'al-jabr', an operation he used to solve quadratic equations using the Hindu-Arabic numerals as it is described in his book with title ‘Hisabal-jabr wa’l-Muqabala’ which it also was translated into latin in the 12th century and it was the most important mathematical text in Europe for the next 400 years. It is very likely that the Algorand blockchain, created in 2019 by the mathematician and MIT professor Silvio Micali, who has developed an alternative solution to improve blockchain technology by making it as much as possible decentralized, secure, and scalable, has been derived from the same naming root.

The Arabs also developed the trigonometry functions of Sine, Tangent and Co-Tangent. Ibn Moosaa's work with title "Hisaab-Al Jab-Wal Muqaabala" (The Calculation of Integration and Equation) presented multiple examples of Trigonometry and it was also translated in Latin becoming Western's Civilisation main textbook until the 16th century.

Physics

The main contributions of the Islamic Golden Age in Physics are found mainly in Optics and Astronomy through the development of Algebraic Trigonometry. In Optics, there was a huge advance in the scientific understanding of how the eye functions and on the behaviour of light that resulted in the invention of the devices that are well-known today as Camera Obscura and Binoculars. In fact, in the 11th century, the Egyptian scientist Ibn al-Haytham known in the Latin World as Alhazen and referred today as the "father of Optics" overturned ancient ideas of how our eyes see. While the popular Roman writer Ptolemy believed that the light rays came out of the eyes, through systematic reasoning and experiment, Ibn Haytham discovered that light isn't emitted from the eye itself, but in fact it is actually reflected off an object and enters the eye. Famous European scientists such as Newton and Descartes used in fact Alhazen as a reference in their works.

Islamic examples of complex water clocks and automata inherited the lost scientific tradition of the Automation Engineers of Alexandria such as Heron or the geared navigational mechanisms of the Hellenistic Ages such as the Antikythera Mechanism. Inevitably, through the continuous cultural exchange between the Christian Medieval World and the Islamic Golden Age, they have been also introduced to Charlemagne and have strongly influenced the European craftsmen who produced the first mechanical clocks in the 13th century.

Image Source

Moreover, the invention of astronomical instruments such as the Arabian SunDials, Astronomical sextants, Astrolabe quadrants, a precision navigational instrument relevant to modern GPS system, enabled the progress of navigation, geography, Earth's exploration and international trade. In fact the astronomical observations and modifications of the Ptolemaic model led eventually to non-Ptolemaic models which were later adapted into the Copernican heliocentric model. Muslim astronomers established sophisticated observatories, Al-Biruni of Afghanistan [973-1048] measured the magnitude of the earth’s circumference with a high precision for his era and the first map of the then known world was made during the Caliphate of Ma’moon.

Image Source: Work in the observatorium of Taqi al-Din.

Chemistry - Alchemy

Although, distillation was known to the Ancient Greeks and Romans, it was rediscovered in medieval Europe through the Arabs and the "alchemical" works of Jābir ibn Hayyān translated in Latin as "Geber", were used to be the standard texts for the European alchemists & chemists of the medieval Europe. The word alchemy itself was derived from the Arabic word الكيمياء al-kimia. Many chemical terms find their roots in Arabic such as alcohol [from al-kuhul], chemistry [from al-kimiya], arsenic [from al-zirnikh], alkaline [from al-qali], camphor [from kafur] etc. Specifically, alcohol in Arabic means “BODY-EATING SPIRIT” and the specific reasoning for this name can be found on the article with title "ALCOHOL” IS SAID TO COME FROM THE ARABIC TERM “AL-KHUL” WHICH MEANS “BODY-EATING SPIRIT”. More extended and detailed information about the contribution of the Muslim World in Alchemy can be found on the article with title "Alchemy (Islam)" of ChemEurope.com which I can't also reproduce due to the plagiarism limitations of Publish0x. Please feel free to visit these links to learn more.

Image Source: Geber depicted in Liebig's Extract of Meat Company trading card "Chimistes Celebres", 1929.

Fintech

Arabs and Muslims in general were and still can be considered to be great merchants and traders. However the economic theory although it is based on the Algebraic Mathematics, it has been mainly developed from Western economists during the 18th, 19th and 20th century and finance in general has been considered only a privilege of the Western "Capitalistic" World. The greatest advantage of the Western (a-theistic) World and the Capitalistic financial system is their independent operation from the Bible teachings of the Christian faith, whereas the Muslim World operates strictly according to the teachings of Quran the religious book of Muslims and the Shariah Law. According to islamWeb.com in the article with title "Muslims laid the foundation of physical science", all the great developments in Physical Science that were briefly described above are in completely agreement and compliance with Quran's teachings that:

“And He has made subservient to you the night and the day and the sun and moon and the stars are made subservient by His commandment; most surely there are signs in this for people to ponder...” [Quran 16:12]

More explanation on that argument can be found on the article with title "Muslims laid the foundation of physical science". Feel free to visit the link to learn more.

Still, the globalisation of the modern society emerged the demand of the application of the economical theories in the Muslim World and the recent revolution of the fintech that emerged from Satoshi Nakamoto's paper "A Peer to peer electronic cash system" operated as a catalyst for the inclusion of Muslims into the development of the blockchain technology and decentralised economy. As I initially mentioned, I am pretty confident that Satoshi Nakamoto's Vision of a decentralised world include no discrimination of sex, race, age or religion and people from all faiths including Muslims are welcome on that Vision.

Yet, according to Blockchain Australia, due to the lack of clarity of the Shariah Law over the status of crypto assets, Islamic communities have generally missed out on the benefits of the Crypto Market, with a low adoption of the blockchain technology in many Muslim countries apart from the Kemalic modern Turkey which traditionally has in general a more Capitalistic lifestyle closer to the one of the Western world and less bonded to religious Islamic ethics. Yet, contrary to the discrimination-free Satoshi Nakamoto's Vision that it has been mentioned above, the current Crypto world that continues to expand fails at the same time to accommodate the needs of the 2+ billion Muslims niche market since, according to some hyper-conservative Muslim scholars, it is the volatility of cryptocurrencies that makes them religiously forbidden in Islam.

In an interview in Cointelegraph, Naquib Mohammed, chief innovation officer of Blockchain Australia commended that on the attitudes of many Arabic communities regarding crypto assets.

"In the Muslim countries, we found that 99% of the time, people ask: ‘Is this token Halal? Is this token Shariah compliant?' [...] Question number two is: ‘Where do you buy this?’"

Marhaba - The Ethical DeFi Platform for all ethical religions

Marhaba’s aim is to bridge this gap between the Muslim community and the blockchain world. That meant merging the knowledge of the Islamic ecosystem of the founding Arabic Team, with Blockchain Australia’s legal, tech and marketing expertise, in order to create a Muslim-oriented crypto platform bringing ethics and equality in the crypto world under the brand name of MRHB (pronounced ‘Marhaba’) DeFi. Specifically Blockchain Australia is a Blockchain Development Consultancy firm that has been voted as "Best Blockchain Development Consultancy" in 2021 by APAC Insider. As MRHB is focused on the same beliefs and values that also governs the traditional Islamic principles, it aims to bring ethical financial and business practises in the crypto world avoiding the common modern toxic capitalistic (and a-theistic) business practices such as usury, gambling, exploitation and other scamming or misleading business practises that are deemed unethical not only in Islam but also in Christianity, in Jewism or in Buddism and in any other religion that pursues relevant ethical conservative principles.

This Arabian Team of Marhaba is consisting of the following Muslim individuals:

Naquib Mohammed, Chief Strategist
Deniz Dalkilic, Products & Architecture
Harly Zappino, Legal & Compliance
Hazem Ben Taarit, Operations & Finance
Amirsan Roberto, Head of Investor Relations
Ahmed Jawa, Marketing & Operations
Dr. Ajmal Muhammad, Product Development & Research

In an interview in Cointelegraph, Naquib Mohammed, Marhaba’s CEO and founder commended:

“We are building a platform that aims at the inclusivity of the community and a trusted place where faith-conscious Muslims can be onboarded without any hesitation or doubt.”

By bringing Shariah principles to blockchain, Marhaba’s services include various ethical crypto products as follows:

Sahal Wallet - A multi-crypto-currency "non-custodial" (???) Wallet, that would be holding only shariah-compliant tokens, with ethical token swapping features.
SouqNFT Platform - A marketplace for Shariah-compliant NFTs and a platform for Muslim NFT creators for the promotion of Islamic Arts and contemporary Calligraphy with the application of Smart Contracts Technology.
Liquidity Harvester - A cross-chain liquidity harvesting protocol, designed to generate halal returns in the 5 - 15% range serving a similar purpose to a traditional Saving Accounts.
Cross-Chain DEX Aggregator - A traditional crypto aggregator bringing bring the best available crypto exchanging rates with minimal slippage and transaction fees
Interest Free Lending and Borrowing Interface - Based on Shariah compliance, funds are used as collaterals that are interest free, decentralised, transparent and secure.
DePhi Protocol Interface - Operating Similarly to Social Good Crypto charity Wallet, users may donate to the MARHABA-approved charities with transparency and privacy as the transactions are secure, discrete and confidential between the (Halal) KYC-Wallet and the MARHABA-approved destination charities.
LaunchPad - An ethical decentralised Launchpad similar to the Binance Launchpad, for Shariah-compliant tokens.
Governance and DAO - Similarly to the fake "socialistic" concept of Shapeshift who has been shifted into a Decentralised Autonomous Organization from its founders Erik Voorhees in order to earn a profit from the provision of the native Governance Tokens $FOX, MRHB is planned to become also a DAO and provide the entire control of the platform to the community who hold its tokens ($MRHB) and MRHB users will be able to propose and vote on matters that relate to protocol level changes without any interference from the founding team.

Currently, Marhaba is on the Presale (PreIDO) round 2 of its native token $MRHB with a current token price of $0.025 in a First Come First Serve selection basis. The minimum purchase is $50 worth of $MRHB tokens and the maximum purchase is $5000 worth of $MRHB tokens. The transaction cryptocurrencies that are accepted are only USDT, USDC and BUSD. There is a Youtube tutorial about how to buy the MRHB tokens in PrePublic Sale.

On another Youtube Video, Marhaba Team answers the most frequently asked investor questions!

Personal Experience on Marhaba

To be honest, I was also intrigued from the honesty and ethical presentation of Marhaba crypto platform and its ethical advantages in comparison with the unethical shady DeFi platform cataclysm and Meme tokens that emerged due to the current Crypto enthusiasm and hype as numerous ambitious crypto platforms and projects have emerged like mushrooms in the cryptoworld hoping that Elon Musk will eventually endorse them in one of his future tweets.

Out of curiosity, I tried to explore the Marhaba Dashboard and I was surprised to find out that there is no DEX interface where the user is connecting his non-custodial wallet such as Metamask or TrustWallet as it happens for example in REAL DEX platforms such as 1Inch or BiSwap. On the contrary before registering in the platform, the user should complete a goverment-oriented KYC verification similar to the one of centralised Crypto-exchanges (CEX) such as Binance or CoinBase that stopped me from proceeding further as above everything else it comes in contradiction to open-source decentralised philosophy of a proper DAO and a REAL DeFi platform that the Marhaba team is falsely advertising. Nevertheless, it appears that the founding team is actually interested only in selling their $MRHB tokens for USDT, USDC or BUSD and then avoid the obligation and responsibility of the management of the platform by leaving the governance to its Muslim users. The latter made me to believe that the founders are actually trying to find an ethical and shariah-compliant loophole in order to earn some easy profit out of thin air. So the founders should really answer ONE QUESTION.

Is Marhaba just another CeFi Crypto platform or something else? And if it is something else, what is it, because it isn't a DeFi platform as the founders team promote since it requires a KYC-verification from this users? Is Marhaba compliant with Satoshi Nakamoto's Vision for decentralisation and anonymity in the crypto world?

And I would like to emphasize that my criticism should always be considered as constructive and positive and I never have any intention to nullify the efforts of the Marhaba project for the promotion of blockchain technology in the Islamic World. Still, I have never tried to become a flatterer, trying to look nice, "lick someone's ears" only just to win competitions and become popular and in my articles I always demonstrate my personal opinion. It is you, the reader, who will judge if my ideas, opinions and arguments are synced with the truth and the reality. This is the REAL freedom of speech.

We have all seen similar fake examples of Decentralised Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) like the one of Shapeshift of Eric Voorhees, Uniswap, Alien Worlds, AmpleForth or relevant examples when a Football company decides to provide Governance stocks and rights to its users, where the whales of the governance tokens or stocks (you name it) are in ACTUAL control of the governance of the organisation and surprisingly these whales are usually the same founders and ex-owners of the platform who have made good profits by selling a portion of the governance tokens in public. For example, 15 years ago the previous owner of Olympiakos F.C. announced a relevant scheme of "Members of Olympiakos" where supporters were asked to buy stocks in exchange of the participation in the governance of the club. I am not a supporter of Olympiakos F.C. but I remember well that the main governance stock holder of the team and previous owner actual plan was to hand the majority of the governance stocks of the club to another Greek entrepreneur and shipowner in order to run the team and keep the supporters "happy" by securing the Greek national football championship every year as the only expert on the field.

I am finishing this article with a youtube video of the iconic Sema ritual dated in 13th century and performed by the Semezens from the Mevlevi Order of Whirling Dervishes, a UNESCO Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.