The Re-emergence of Islamic Enlightenment — Page 22
22 “Al-Tusi thrived there, publishing many great works on astronomy, ethics, mathematics and philosophy, that marked him as one of the great intellectuals of his age… The road to modern astronomy, scholars say, leads through the work that he and his followers performed at Maragha and Alamut in the 13 th and 14 th centuries. . . Muslims created a society that in the Middle Ages was the scientific centre of the world. The Arabic language was synonymous with learning and science for 500 years, a golden age that can count among its credits the precursors to modern universities, algebra, the names of the stars and even the notion of science as an empirical inquiry. . . ” 12 Hence, from the outset, Islam emphasised the immense value of learning and pushing the boundaries of human knowledge. Since it was founded in 1889, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has always promoted education amongst its members and, to the best of our abilities, we seek to provide access to education in the developing world. With the Grace of Allah, the very first Muslim Nobel Laureate was an Ahmadi Muslim, Professor Dr Abdus Salam, an eminent physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979 for his contribution to the development of electroweak unification theory. Throughout his life, Professor Salam spoke of how Islam, and the Holy Quran in particular, was the inspiration and guiding light behind his work. In fact, he used to say that there were around 750 verses in the Holy Quran directly related