 The Arab American National Museum
Survey: Arab and Jewish Americans Human Rights in the US | N.J. exhibit honors a golden age
Thursday, November 15, 2007
By JOHN CHADWICK
STAFF WRITER
The Muslim world can seem bleak to Western eyes – authoritarian governments, militant religious movements and stunted economic and educational opportunities.
But centuries ago, Muslims built a prosperous society that pioneered advances in science, philosophy and medicine while the Christian West stagnated in the Dark Ages.
Now, a new exhibit at Liberty Science Center is telling the story of that lost civilization.
The exhibit, "Islamic Science Rediscovered," tells the story of such innovators as Abbas bin Firnas, who in ninth-century Cordoba, Spain, donned a glider, leapt off a hill and was airborne for a short time before crash landing.
He survived, and his experiment in aerodynamics is widely seen as an important first step toward flight.
The exhibit also takes museum-goers to eighth-century Baghdad – a city far different from the violence-prone Iraqi capital of today. The city was the home of a "house of wisdom" that attracted scholars, artists and scientists from across the continent to discuss and translate important works.
The exhibit, developed by a Dubai-based company, is making its national debut at Liberty and will travel to other museums in 2008. Officials at Liberty said they were invited to see the exhibit at a Dubai mall and were impressed.
"It was a fascinating subject we knew nothing about," said Wayne LaBar, Liberty's vice president for exhibitions and theaters. "It allowed us to build bridges between the West and a culture that we do not have a positive feedback on because of current events."
The exhibit covers the period between the 700s and 1700s – an era when Islam spread from its beginnings in Arabia and eventually covered the area from Spain, across Northern Africa and the Middle East to the Far East.
At a time when Europe, dominated by the Catholic Church, was mired in the Dark Ages, Muslims discovered the works of ancient Greeks and Romans and translated them into Arabic.
The 7,500-square-foot exhibit covers nine disciplines – including astronomy and hydrology – through a range of models and interactive displays. It particularly stresses advances in surgery, including the concept of public hospitals.
One North Jersey Muslim was so impressed he spent the holy day that follows Ramadan at the center.
"When all we hear about is the endless war on terrorism, it's very gratifying to see a display that captures the achievements of the Muslim world and its influence on the West," said Aref Assaf, president of the Arab American Forum in Paterson.
Although the religious tenets of Islam aren't addressed in the exhibit, one display pointed out that the Quran encourages Muslims to seek knowledge.
"It's a fundamental part of Islam, this obligation of seeking knowledge," said Charles G. Haberl, an instructor at Rutgers University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
Two evangelical Christian women who viewed the exhibition said they admired the Islamic achievements but remained unchanged in their feelings about the contemporary Muslim world.
"That is in the past," said Rosemarie Arace of Ocean County. "What is going on now, with women and the treatment of women?"
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