Islam lends great value to thinking. It asks the learned and wise to think and think again about creation, time, night and day, the sky, the earth, animal life, man and the universe and what is in it.
"surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of night and day, and the ship that runs in the sea with profit to men, and the water Allah sends down from the sky therewith reviving the earth after it is dead, and His scattering abroad in it all manner of crawling thing, and the turning about of the winds and the clouds compelled between heaven and earth, surely there are signs for a people having understanding". (II;164)
Also it asks them to research into the lives of those who come before, their thoughts and the causes of their decline and fall, so that they may keep far from the precipices of their destruction.
"Divers institutions have passed away before you; journey in the land and behold how was the end of those that cried lies. This is and exposition of mankind, and a guidance and an admonition for the god fearing." (III;136-7)
In short, Islam desires that man should think deeply and freely and travel across the far horizons of thought and knowledge and take everything that is best for the improvement of his being. For this reason Islam values scientific advances and discoveries which are for the help of humanity, and this is why scientists and scholars rose up in the centuries following the advent of Islam, to decorate the high road of human civilisation with the jewel of their scientific endeavours, so much so that their great names will shine forever at the summit of scientific history.
They include Jabir ibn Hayyan, Razi, Ibn Sina ( Avicenna) and Khwajah Nasir ad-Din tusi, who were celebrated in all the sciences of their times: the intellectual sciences, natural science, astronomy, chemistry, etc. The books of Ibn Sina were even being taught in European universities up to the end of the last century. Jurji Zaydan, the famous Christian Lebanese writer, says on page 598 of his history of Islamic civilisaton: "As soon as Islamic civilisation found its feet, and the now sciences spread among the Muslims, Muslim scholars appeared whose thinking was more important that the founders of some of the branches of the sciences. in fact these sciences took on a fresh colour with the new researches of Islamic scientists, and progressed due to Islamic civilisation."
source : http://www.maaref-foundation.com
