Arab domination of biology

During the almost 1,000 years that science was dormant in Europe, the Arabs, who by the 9th century had extended their sphere of influence as far as Spain, became the custodians of science and dominated biology, as they did other disciplines. At the same time, as the result of a revival of learning in China, new technical inventions flowed from there to the West. The Chinese had discovered how to make paper and how to print from movable type, two achievements that were to have an inestimable effect upon learning. Another important advance that also occurred during that time was the introduction of the so-called Arabic numerals into Europe from India.

From the 3rd until the 11th century, biology was essentially an Arab science. Although the Arabic scholars themselves were not great innovators, they discovered the works of such men as Aristotle and Galen, translated those works into Arabic, studied them, and wrote commentaries about them. Of the Arab biologists, al-Jāḥiẓ, who died about 868, is particularly noteworthy. Among his biological writings is Kitāb al-ḥayawān (“Book of Animals”), which, although revealing some Greek influence, is primarily an Arabic work. In it the author emphasized the unity of nature and recognized relationships between different groups of organisms. Because al-Jāḥiẓ believed that earth contained both male and female elements, he found the Greek doctrine of spontaneous generation (life emerging from mud) to be quite reasonable.

Muslim physician Avicenna was an outstanding scientist who lived during the late 10th and early 11th centuries; he was the true successor to Aristotle. His writings on medicine and drugs, which were particularly authoritative and remained so until the Renaissance, did much to take the works of Aristotle back to Europe, where they were translated into Latin from Arabic.