User:Spacepotato/Examples of source problems

muslimheritage.com (= FSTC Ltd.)

NB: This source has been deemed unreliable on the reliable sources noticeboard (Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_18#History_of_Science.)

Example n

Source: "The Contribution of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) to the development of Earth Sciences", Munim M. Al-Rawi, November 2002, pub #4039.
Quote: "(p. 2)...In Kitab Al-Shifa, Avicenna had presented fundamental principles of Geology in terms of Earth processes, major events and long geologic time...It was an inspiring source of thought to the founders of geological thought in Europe...(later on p. 9)...It is not intended here to prove or disprove how much Hutton was influenced by Avicenna's thinking?"
Comment: This is a common pattern in muslimheritage.com: the writers on the site quote some piece of medieval Muslim writing and then claim that it was greatly influential later on, but give no evidence for this. It's taken as axiomatic that if it was written down in a manuscript, later ideas must have come from this. However this is not so and many early scientific ideas languish completely ignored until they are later rediscovered independently.

The Miracle of Islamic Science

This book is by a Dr. K. Ajram, and was published by Knowledge House Publishers (Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA) in 1992. It is a polemic dedicated to extolling the contributions of medieval Islamic civilization to science, and contains numerous inaccuracies.

Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine (ISHIM)

(Website: http://www.ishim.net/newsletter.htm)

Example 1

Source: "Islamic medicine: 1000 years ahead of its times", Ibrahim B. Syed, JISHIM 1, #2 (October 2002)
Quote: (p. 7) "Words such as retina and cataract are of Arabic origin."
Comment:

Example 2

Source: "Attitude of a Muslim Scholar at Human Embryology", Ibrahim B. Syed, JISHIM 1, #3 (April 2003)
Quotes: (Summary) "In this paper the author presents material on Human Embryology to prove that modern scientific material confirms the revelations in the Holy Qur'an and how these revelations should be incorporated in the Textbooks for Muslim students."
Comment: This paper is devoted to proving, by selective interpretation, that the Qur'an is packed with scientific facts about embryology. For example, the author interprets ...

Example 3

Source: "Unknown Contributions of the Arab and Islamic Medicine in the Field of Anaesthesia in the West", Jasser Mohamed Taha, JISHIM 6-7 (April/October 2007-2008)
Quote (p. 70) "(al-ghoul)" ...