Muslim Inventions That Changed The World

Here is a list of everyday inventions we use and had NO idea that they were actually invented or contributed to by Muslims. The books we are taught never told us the truth about how the things that we use everyday came into being. I bet many of you didn’t know more than half of these were invented by Muslims. Some of the Muslim inventions are stated as under:
 

Hospitals

The Ahmed Ibn Tulun hospital was the first ever hospital with nurses and a training centre, set up in Cairo. It was established in the year 872 and also facilitated the people with an in built mosque. All patients received free health care – a Muslim tradition which was institutionalized with the advent of the hospital.

The Toothbrush

The concept was derived from the Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H), who was an avid user of ‘Meswak’, which is one of the essential ingredients in toothpastes today. No better way to prove that hygiene really is a part of our faith.

Universities

The first ever degree granting University, al- Qarawiyyin, was founded in 859, by a princess named Fatima al- Firhi in Fez, Morocco. It is still operating 1,200 years later.

Shampoo

This was introduced to England by a Muslim who opened Mahomed’s Indian Vapor Baths on Brighton Seafront in 1759. This can also be attributed to Sheikh Deen Mohammad (of Indian origin), who was also responsible for introducing the concept in Europe.

Pay Cheques

These have been derived from the Arabic tradition of a written vow to pay for goods when they were delivered.

Surgery

Al- Zahrawi is deemed to be ‘father of modern surgery’. He invented many surgical tools, including the scalpel.

Hookah

Invented by Abu’l-Fath Gilani in Persia and introduced in India during the Mughal Empire. After health concerns were raised as a result of smoking tobacco, he envisaged a system which allowed smoke to be passed water though in order to be ‘purified’ and hence, less harmful.

The Pin-Hole Camera

The first person to realize that light enters the eye, rather than leaving it, was the 10th-century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haytham. He developed the field of optics and described how the first cameras work. Ibn al-Haytham’s discoveries led to the modern development of cameras around the same concepts. Without his research into how light travels through apertures and is projected by them, the modern mechanisms inside everyone’s cameras would not exist.