The Quran lays emphasis on tadabbur and tafakkur in over 500 verses. It urges the reader to reflect on the heavens and the earth: إِنَّ فِي خَلْقِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَاخْتِلَافِ اللَّيْلِ وَالنَّهَارِ لَآيَاتٍ لِأُولِي الْأَلْبَابِ (3.190) Lubb means reason. People of reason are being exhorted to contemplate on the heavens and the earth. When you reflect, the truths that have been mentioned in the Quran will become known to you at the scientific level.

This task was to be performed by Muslims at first, since they have belief in the Quran. But in the later periods, Muslims largely became involved in politics. We can see this to the present day as well. Political activities and political power became highly important for them. The task of exploration of nature and discovering nature's truths wasn’t performed by Muslims, and thousands of years passed away. Apart from political activities, Muslims didn’t do anything else.

They did engage in some scientific work in Baghdad, Cordoba and Granada. But this was not enough. I remember a poem from Musaddas Haali, which we used to read in childhood. Muslims took pride in discovering Greek sciences, translated them and spread them in Arabic. Maulana Altaf Husain, the writer of Musaddas Haali, says:

The thoughts of Aristotle, and the laws of Solan,

Were all lying buried in some grave,

When they came here, their silence was broken,

In this garden, their fragrance came alive!

The books written by Aristotle, Plato and other Greek philosophers were books on philosophy. When the Abbasid caliphate was established in Baghdad, these Greek books were brought, translated and spread among Muslims. Then philosophers became prominent, logicians became plenty and a tradition of philosophy was established.  The Greek sciences which were hidden, according to Maulana Haali, were unknown because they were trapped in library books. These books were not read much, as they were only available in libraries.

This is why, he has said that this knowledge was lying abandoned in a grave. Muslims dug it out. Muslims take pride that the Greek philosophy which was shut off in libraries were opened up by them through translations. But something else was also locked off. That was nature's library. Muslims take pride in taking out Greek books from libraries and translating them. But as far as reflection on nature, the heavens and the earth and the universe is concerned, they were unable to do anything significant in terms of discovering the laws of nature.  The work done by Muslims in the past was quite trivial.

The task that the Quran urges them to do was to contemplate on the heavens and the earth and to explore nature, so that they could discover nature's truths which confirm Quranic statements. This is what was actually required. When the Muslims failed to perform this, God Almighty raised western nations for this, and great minds were born among them.