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A comprehensive rebuttal to claims about miraculous Islamic contributions to cardiology and medicine in the paper, The Heart and Cardiovascular System in the Quran and Hadeeth, published in the reputed International Journal of Cardiology.


The reputed International Journal of Cardiology, belonging to the renowned Elsevier publishing group, published an article entitled, The Heart and Cardiovascular System in the Quran and Hadeeth, on August 25, 2009 on its online edition and would soon appear in print.

The article discusses contributions of the Quran and hadeeths (i.e. Prophet Muhammad’s deeds and sayings) in medicine, particularly in understanding the heart and cardiovascular system. The crux of the article is: The Quran and the hadeeths made monumental contributions toward modern understanding of medicine in general, and of the cardiovascular system in particular, which the Western world willfully refuse to recognize, as can be gauged from concluding statement of the paper:

As new advances in technology and medicine continue to grow at an exponential rate today, there is time to reflect and appreciate the Islamic contribution to medicine. It is for this reason that the discoveries and medical revelations in Qur'an should not be ignored or forgotten.

In this article, I will address the gaping shortcomings of an otherwise reputed medical science journal for its acceptance of a trash paper, and how that reflects on the journal’s editors’ and reviewers’ intellectual and moral integrity.

Journal’s compromise on its publishing scope

The first ethical/intellectual compromise the journal made in accepting this article is a compromise of the scope of its content. According to published aims and objectives, the journal publishes latest “basic research and clinical papers”, as well as “editorials, brief reports and review articles covering recent developments”. Therefore, publishing a ‘review article’ containing ridiculous (see below) statements of an archaic seventh-century religious text, twisted inside out, to portray them as the precursor of modern medical developments, is a glaring violation of the journal’s stated scope, aims and objectives.

Outrageous interpretations and twisting of facts

This paper has used many interpretations or drawn conclusions based on Quranic verses or hadeeths that completely out of place. I will take on section by section to expose the outrageous inaccuracies in the claims and assertions made in the paper.

Cardiovascular System: First, the paper contains certain often-ridiculous statements from the Quran and hadeeth, having no scientific truth as per modern understanding of medicine, but the authors have twisted them to every extent possible to make a link with modern understanding of medicine and cardiology. The most important Quranic statement in the article is:

“We created man—We know what his soul whispers to him: We are closer to him than his jugular vein” [Quran 50:16].

Then the authors say:

“By noting the importance of the internal jugular vein and its connection with the heart, the authors of the Qur'an were well aware of the vitality of blood and the heart to the maintenance of life. It was also known that blood circulation reached all parts of the body and is an important element to life.”

This statement is completely out of place. This verse makes no mention of the ‘heart’, or the ‘vitality of blood’, or that ‘blood circulation reached all parts of the body’. It is out and out ridiculous that a peer-reviewed cutting-edge scientific journal would accept such totally out-of-place conclusions.

The fact is that humankind has observed for thousands of years before Islam that blood vessels are spread all over the human body, and this verse may mean that Allah has similar integral presence within humans, so that no thoughts or whispers in one’s heart/mind/soul can escape Allah’s notice.

That is exactly what renowned interpreter of the Quran say. Ibn Kahtir (14th century), the most respected interpreter of the Quran, explained it thus:

Allah the Exalted affirms His absolute dominance over mankind, being their Creator and the Knower of everything about them. Allah the Exalted has complete knowledge of all thoughts that cross the mind of man, be they good or evil… (And We are nearer to him than his jugular vein.) means, His angels are nearer to man than his jugular vein.

In sum, this verse simply states that Allah has a more intimate presence in the human body than the blood vessels, scattered in all parts of the body. This is simply a statement of a fact about the spread of blood vessels in the body that humankind has known for thousands of years before. There is nothing astoundingly novel or miraculous in this seventh-century Quranic, and allegedly divine, statement?

Second, this paper outlines the second major Quranic reference concerning cardiovascular system in the following passage:

Another great vessel mentioned in the Qur'an is the Al-Aatín or aorta: “We would certainly have seized his right hand and cut off his Al-Watín” [20]. Al-Watín has been translated into different, yet similar words, including “aorta” [21], “life-artery” [20] and [21], and simply “artery” [21]. This verse is taken to mean that if the Prophet Mohammed was lying about the teachings of God, then God would have grabbed the Prophet Mohammad's arm and cut a vital artery, certainly killing Mohammad. This verse confirms that 1. Blood was indeed viewed as a vehicle for life and 2. The artery directly leading from the heart is vital to survival. By analyzing the different translations and exegesis of Al-Watín, it can be safely assumed that it is the aorta that the author of the Qur'an is referring to in this verse.

It is obvious that authors of this paper are bent on, based on various translations, concluding that Allah pointed to “aorta” by al-watin in this verse. What one must take into consideration is that that division of blood vessels—namely into artery, vein and aorta etc.—was unknown to any people at that time. And the Arabs, being least developed in the world, could never have any clue to such classification of blood vessels.

The question is: How could, then, their language have such a term, al-watin, which Muhammad or Allah used, to refer to ‘aorta’ as claimed by the authors?

This means that al-watin probably meant to the then Arabs as nothing but a vital blood vessel, not a specific vessel like ‘artery’ or ‘aorta’, as deceptive modern translators have rendered it into.

And, if al-watin truly meant such a special part of the circulatory system, it would mean that the Arabs had knowledge of it before the birth of Islam and Muhammad, and had already devised a special term, al-watin, to denote it, which Allah used.

Neither way the author of the Quran made new contribution to cardiology through this verse as the paper has concluded.

Heart: Next, the paper claims that the Quran portrays the ‘heart’ as the central organ in the body, as it says: “The repetitive use of the concept of the heart illustrates its centrality to the core of every individual.”

The ‘heart’ is, indeed, the most important organ. But none of the Quranic references, which this paper has used as allegedly pointing to ‘heart’, means ‘heart’ of the cardiovascular system. Let us see what the paper says:

Firstly, the importance of the heart is demonstrated in the fact that we find different states of the heart in the three groups of people that the Qur'an describes; the mu'minun (Believers) have hearts that are alive, the kafirun (the rejecters of faith) have hearts that are dead, and the munafiqun (the hypocrites) have hearts that are diseased…

In general, religious scholars discuss two types of (spiritual) heart diseases: shubahat which relate to one's level of understanding and trust, and shahawat which are desires of the self and become diseases when they grow out of proportion. Emotions, attitudes, knowledge, diseases, desires, truthfulness, actions and intentions are all rooted in the heart.

First thing, this classification does not refer to ‘heart’ the human organ, but rather the ‘mind’, whose centre is in the ‘brain’. It is a gross error to claim that “Emotions, attitudes, knowledge, diseases, desires, truthfulness, actions and intentions are all rooted in the heart”. Except for “diseases” (predominantly related to immune system and infectious agents, not so much to ‘heart’), all these human attributes are rooted in the “brain”, not “heart”. It is ridiculous that a leading 21st-century cardiology journal would accept such trash.

Secondly, while this classification of the so-called ‘heart’ is utterly ridiculous on one hand, it is extremely hateful on the other. It is utterly hateful, racist, and grossly inaccurate on part of the International Journal of Cardiology (IJC) to disseminate the hateful idea of Islam that hearts of the world’s unbelievers (i.e. non-Muslims), some 80% of the global population, are dead. The stupor of the editors and reviewers of the journal knows no bounds, given that, on the whole, the world’s non-Muslims are healthier than Muslims. One may go to hospitals in India, Malaysia or Singapore, and notice that, proportion-wise, Muslim patients much outnumber the non-Muslim ones.

There are many such verses in the Quran, referring to ‘heart’, that are not only hateful of non-Muslims, but also demand violence against them for having a ‘dead hearts’. For example:

Allah sealed the hearts of the nonbelievers, and put veils on their eyes; there is a great penalty for the nonbelievers. (Quran 2:7).

Muslims should muster all their power and might, including steeds of war (tanks, planes, missiles…etc.) to strike terror in the hearts of the unbelievers (Quran 8:6).

One should take note that Muhammad put the unbelievers of Arabia to the sword, unless they would convert, because of this idea of Allah that they had “dead hearts”. Moreover, Abdullah ibn Obayi—a half-hearted Muslim and opponent of Muhammad, and the Quran’s hypocrite par excellence—whose ‘heart’ was “diseased” according to the Quran and the editors and reviewers of IJC, was a great humanist. He, through forceful intervention, saved the lives of the innocent Banu Qainuqa tribesmen, whom Muhammad had attacked, defeated and was about to slaughter en masse [Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, Karachi, p. 363-64]. A year later, the Banu Nadir tribesmen were also spared, and were exiled instead, when Abdullah sided with them (ibid, p.437-39], while the Banu Qurayza tribesmen were slaughtered en masse two years later, defying Abdullah’s condemnation of it, when he had become politically weak [ibid, p. 461-70].

It is shocking and unfortunate that a 21st-century science journal would act as a vehicle for propagating Islam’s unfettered hatred, nay barbarism, toward non-Muslims and good-hearted people, which has left a legacy of lasting horror to humanity.

The paper further states:

“Other malaise qualities contributing to a diseased heart includes blasphemy, rejection of truth, deviation, sin, corruption, aggressiveness, negligence, fear, anger, and jealousy, among others.”

Here again, none of these attributes have a primary relation with the ‘heart’, but the ‘brain’. However, would IJC explain what constitutes blasphemy and sin etc., and how they emanate from ‘diseased hearts’?

History is the proof that it is the deviators (from norms), and the so-called sinners and blasphemers, who, despite suffering persecution by the religious, have been the wheel for change and progress. IJC should not condemn them, but appreciate.

The deceptive authors pass on above references to ‘heart’ in the Quran as “spiritual heart”, although organically they related to the ‘brain’. Then the authors find mention of ‘heart’ as consisting of ‘muscles’ in the following hadeeth:

“Beware! There is a piece of flesh in the body if it remains healthy the whole body becomes healthy, and if it is diseased, the whole body becomes diseased. Beware, it is the heart” [Bukhari, Book 2, Number 49].

Before I expose deception or stupidity of the authors in interpreting this hadeeth, let me first ask: Do the authors of this paper mean to say that when other organs, say the brain, liver, lungs, or blood are diseased, the whole body does not become diseased? IJC editors and reviewers should have known that disfunctionality of any organ would affect the whole body.

Now let us see the deception of the authors by taking a look at the complete text of the hadeeth (Sahih Bukhari, volume 1, Book 2, Number 49):

Narrated An-Nu'man bin Bashir: “I heard Allah's Apostle saying, 'Both legal and illegal things are evident but in between them there are doubtful (suspicious) things and most of the people have no knowledge about them. So whoever saves himself from these suspicious things saves his religion and his honor. And whoever indulges in these suspicious things is like a shepherd who grazes (his animals) near the Hima (private pasture) of someone else and at any moment he is liable to get in it. (O people!) Beware! Every king has a Hima and the Hima of Allah on the earth is His illegal (forbidden) things. Beware! There is a piece of flesh in the body if it becomes good (reformed) the whole body becomes good but if it gets spoilt the whole body gets spoilt and that is the heart.”

Would anybody tell me which organ this hadeeth is referring to by the phrase “a piece of flesh in the body”? The ‘heart’ here again stands for minds/soul/spiritual heart, whose center is the ‘brain’; it, in no way, refers to ‘heart’ the organ. I’m left to wonder how the editors and reviewers would miss this most obvious inaccuracy.

The authors further claims:

Furthermore, there is a prophetic tradition that discusses heart surgery, extraction of a blood clot, and treatment of the heart as follows:

…the Angel Gabriel came to Mohammad as a child while he was playing with playmates, “…lay him prostrate on the ground and tore open his breast and took out the heart from it and then extracted a blood-clot out of it and said, ‘That was the part of Satan in thee.’ And then he washed it with the water of Zam Zam in a golden basin and then it was joined together and restored to its place.” [Muslim 1:311].

Then they add: “Thus, although rudimentary and perhaps even metaphorical, the surgery described required knowledge of the anatomical and physiological importance of the heart to the healthy functioning of the body and the detrimental effects of a thrombus.

One is left to wonder how heart-surgery is performed by extracting the heart from one’s body, and place it back to its place. If this is possible, it would be “super-advance”, but the authors call it “rudimentary”.

Moreover, the authors must have the weirdest of mind to connect this ridiculous hadeeth to ‘heart surgery’. First thing, how can a four-year-old child (as Muhammad was at the time) have a life-threatening blood-clot in his heart?

Muhammad’s first biographer Ibn Ishaq relates the story as thus: “two men in white raiment came to Muhammad and threw him down and opened up his belly and searched [something] therein.” [Ishaq, 71-72]. (I’m sure the authors are unaware of this mention; else they would have claimed “white raiment” was actually “apron”, normally worn by doctors.]

Let us now see how Allah relates the so-called miraculous event, on which He revealed a complete chapter in the Quran (Chapter 94):

“Have We not expanded for you your breast, And taken off from you your burden, Which pressed heavily upon your back, And exalted for you your esteem? Surely with difficulty is ease. With difficulty is surely ease. So when you are free, nominate. And make your Lord your exclusive object.”

One must wonder: Does a so-called life-threatening “blood-clot” (although Allah calls it “burden”) in a little child’s heart press heavily upon his back? If at all, it would press upon his chest/breast, not on his back.

Traditionally, Islamic scholars have interpreted the event as consecration of Muhammad, i.e. removal of his sins, so as to make him sin-free, and therefore, suitable for the mission of prophethood. If one looks closely at how Allah relates the event, it means exactly that, not an ‘open-heart surgery’ this paper twists it to mean. Yet, one would be baffled as to how four-year-old Muhammad could commit sin? Was he the greatest sinner in history?

One, with a few stands of neurons left in his/her brain, would have rejected such gross twisting of facts, but not the reviewers and editors of IJC.

Cardiovascular disease: The paper continues:

Although not outwardly mentioned in the Qur'an and Hadeeth, the lifestyle that the authors of the Qur'an encourage drastically decreases the chances of individuals developing such cardiovascular diseases such as heart diseases, blood clots, atherosclerosis and arteriosclerosis via the following ways: engaging in spiritual activities, moderate eating, physical labor, reducing anger and jealousy, eliminating greediness, and abstention of forbidden foods and drinks.

While growing up as a Muslim, we are advised such things, and having seen and mixed with people of different culture, I have known that almost every culture recommends moderate eating, physical activity, not sleeping or sitting down immediately after eating etc. Even then, the authors claim that Islam’s prohibition of certain foods and drinks is healthier is grossly untrue. Muslims are not the healthiest people in the world; instead, the opposite is frequently true. People eating swine-meat, say in India, Malaysia or Singapore, are as healthy as Muslims, if not healthier. Similarly, alcohol-consuming non-Muslims are equally as healthy as, if not healthier than, Muslims anywhere. Of course, excessive eating of mutton and beef is as much a health-hazard as eating excessive pork. Eating beef, Muslims’ favourite meat, may cause “mad cow” disease? Why didn’t Allah prohibit it?

Moreover, pig meat was prohibited amongst Jews for almost two millennia, and Muhammad copied their tradition. Any credit for it should go the Jews and Judaism, not Islam.

Similarly, excessive consumption of alcohol could be health-hazard; drinking excessive water can also kill. Nonetheless, recent studies have shown that moderate daily drinking of wine is beneficial for the heart, not harmful, as authors of this paper erroneously suggest.

It’s baffling that such grossly-mistaken statements in this paper could escape attention of the editors and reviewers.

The authors also try to portray the five-time daily prayers in Islam as a form of physical exercise to keep one’s cardiovascular system healthy. In support, it adds from the Quran (13:28): “Truly it is in the remembrance of God that the hearts find peace.”

This verse is again not referring ‘heart’ of the cardiovascular system, but the ‘mind’, whose center is in the ‘brain’. Still, Muslims, despite the daily exercise, are not a healthier people in the world; the opposite is the reality.

Moreover, the daily five-time prayer ritual in Islam—including its reverential postures: standing with palms together, bowing down, kneeling, and sitting on the heels—were practised by Christian monks of the region during Muhammad’s time; Muhammad simply copied them [Walker Benjamin, Foundations of Islam, p. 62]. Therefore, credit for any supposed physical and cardiovascular benefit of Islamic prayer rituals, despite opposite being the fact, must go to its original Christian inventors, not to Muhammad, Allah or Islam.

The paper also mentions: “It is said that Mohammad advised people not to go to sleep immediately after meals, for that would lead to a hardening of the heart”.

Would the authors explain what they meant by ‘hardening of the heart’ here? Lack of enough exercise and sleeping immediately after meals, would likely make one’s heart fattier, and more sagging, not harder. On the contrary, one, who does sufficient exercise and avoid going to bed immediately after meals, would have less fat in the heart, and more muscles, therefore, a more toned heart. Doesn’t Muhammad’s above statement contradict well-established medical facts?

The authors then claim:

“Furthermore, Mohammad encouraged the consumption of foods such as white meat of fish that are low in fat and help decrease serum cholesterol levels. He also encouraged the consumption of whole-grain brain (sic) for higher fiber intake.”

The authors provide no reference for these claims (because there is probably none), and the reviewers of the paper seem to have no necessity of it either. Whether Muhammad made any recommendation for eating fish is doubtful (I haven’t come across any), yet he left plentiful reference of lamb and camel meats in Islamic literature, which are not quite a healthy food-choice.

Contributions to medicine: While IJC is supposed to publish contents related to cardiology, it had no problem with including content that fall outside its scope, such as embryology. However, let us see the paper says about embryology:

The Qur'an and the Hadeeth provide detailed, accurate descriptions of the major events that occur during embryological development. The terminology used by the author of the Qur'an is “…characterized by descriptiveness, accuracy, ease of comprehension, and integration between description of appearance and main internal processes” and the “timing of sexual development, fetal development and the acquisition of a human appearance” are also discussed.

Many critical authors have trashed the “voodoo” Islamic embryology as described in the Quran, which the editors and reviewers, it appears, have wilfully ignored. The paper makes the case for Quranic embryology as thus:

Although many verses in the Qur'an and prophetic traditions discuss the development of the embryo, only two will be described below. It is remarkable to note that the descriptions presented in these 7th century texts closely resemble the various stages of the embryo.

“We [God] created man from a quintessence of clay. We then placed him as a nutfah (drop) in a place of settlement, firmly fixed, then We made the drop into an ‘alaqah (leech-like structure), and then We changed the ’alaqah into a mudhah (chewed-like substance, somite stage), then We clothed the bones with lahm (muscles, flesh), then We caused him to grow and come into being and attain the definitive (human) form. So, blessed be God, the best to create”.

“When forty-two nights have passed over the conceptus, God sends an angel to it, who shapes it (into human form), makes its hearing, sight, skin, muscles and bones…”

Above Quranic mention of stages of development of the embryo is grossly unscientific in modern understanding. However, humankind, through experiences such as miscarriages over thousands of years before Muhammad (Muhammad should have known more about it given he maintained a harem of over a dozen wives and a number of sex-slaves), had made a rough understanding of how a human child gradually develops in mother’s womb. Above description reflect absolutely nothing more than that age-old knowledge. Above reference also suggests that bones are created first, then muscle and flesh to cloth it, which is thoroughly inaccurate, contrary to facts.

Interestingly, the deceptive or half-educated authors of the paper have left the Quranic embryology incomplete. Let me complete it. The Quran says, humans are created from “the earth” (11:61), from “sounding clay” (15:26,28,33), from “clay” (17:61, 32:7), from “wet earth”/“quintessence (of clay)” (23:12), “out of mire” (38:71), from “dust” (3:59, 30:20, 35:51), from “water” (25:54, 21:30, 24:45), and, finally, from “nothing” (19:67, 52:35).

This is the miraculous accuracy, as authors of the paper claim, with which the Quran describes embryology. While the Quran’s own description of embryology is utterly contradictory, it would be stupidity at its grossest to suggest, today, that humans are created in mother’s womb from “clay”, “mud”, “dust”, “water” or “nothing”.

Other mentions suggest human beings are created from a “drop of fluid” or “seed”, meaning ‘semen’. But humanity had known for tens of thousands of years before Muhammad that intercourse between man and woman, and the release of male semen, were essential for procreations. Nothing was novel or miraculous in these references.

Strikingly, what people still did not know is that procreation, more vitally, also need the egg from the mother, and the Quran or hadeeth make no mention of female contribution in procreation (except probably her role was a career of the product of male “seed”/“semen”). Allah, the Islamic God, it seems, knew no better than humans of the time.

Conclusion: In concluding section of the paper, the authors write:

Shortly after the death of Mohammad, not only did his followers vastly expand the Islamic empire, but they also became scientific and medical innovators and educators. The Islamic empire, for more than 1000 years, remained the most advanced and civilized empire in the world, and the inspiration of all the scientific and medical discoveries and practices stemmed from the teachings of the Qur'an and the Hadeeth, teachings that strongly encouraged and supported the drive to seek knowledge and to make scientific achievements and discoveries.

For instance, a few centuries after the death of Mohammad, the medical education that developed closely resembled what we have today. The curriculum consisted of training in the basic sciences, which included anatomy being taught by dissecting apes, skeletal studies, and didactics, and clinical training, where therapeutics, pathology, surgery, and orthopedics were taught.

First, it is a gross exaggeration on part of the authors to claim that “a few centuries after the death of Mohammad, the medical education that developed closely resembled what we have today”.

Second, it is true that Islamic world led the world in science, technology and medicine for a number of centuries, but it never “stemmed from the teachings of the Qur'an and the Hadeeth, teachings that strongly encouraged and supported the drive to seek knowledge and to make scientific achievements and discoveries”, as claimed by the authors.

In fact, the Quran is, and the Prophet was, patently opposed to critical and rational thinking and creative pursuits, which are the precursor of new knowledge and innovation (Khan, M. A., Islamic Jihad, p. 177-82). Prophet Muhammad was illiterate and the Islamic God glorified this quality of Muhammad (as do modern Muslims) (7:157) instead of encouraging him to learn how to read and write, which would have helped his pursuit for wisdom and knowledge.

Elsewhere, the Quran explicitly prohibit critical inquiry as thus: “O ye who believe! Ask not questions about things, which, if made plain to you, may cause you trouble… Some people before you did ask such questions, and on that account lost their faith” (5:101–02).

Prophet Muhammad also advised his followers against asking creative questions and to follow pliantly whatever Allah revealed: ‘Allah’s Apostle said, ‘Satan comes to one of you and says, ‘Who created so-and-so? ‘till he says, ‘Who has created your Lord?’ So, when he inspires such a question, one should seek refuge with Allah and give up such thoughts’ [Buhkari 4:496; Muslim 1:242–43].

Indeed, the Quran in multiple verses (3:164, 6:38, 12:111) claims to be the depository of divinely-revealed knowledge that is all needed by humankind to live a fulfilling life. Therefore, ‘Muslims came very early to believe that, with the advent of Islam, all previous system of thoughts were abrogated. The Quran was considered to be the only true guide to humanity that promised success in this world and the next.” (Umaruddin M, Ethical Thoughts of Iman Ghazzali, p. 42]. Similarly, said Dr Ali Issa Othman that the Quran is ‘an end of knowledge’ for Muslims (quoted by Waddy C, The Islamic Mind, p. 15).

Consistent with this Islamic prohibition to creative pursuits, and with adequacy of the Quran for a fulfilling life on earth, Muhammad himself did not undertake any initiative to promote science or creative learning during his rule in Medina, neither did the Rightly Guided Caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali, 632-661). This is the period considered the true “Golden Age” of Islam by pious Muslims.

Instead, creative pursuits were invigorated after the Persianized Abbasids took power in 750, some 120 years after Muhammad death. The captured power after decimating the Arab Umayyads (r. 661-750), and exterminating the pro-Arab factions and pretenders to the caliphate, including the prophet’s descendants through his daughter.

The question is: why the Islamic world quickly rose to leading position in science and creative pursuits?

Firstly, it is because barbarous Jihadi Islamic warriors had conquered half the known world, including the world’s crown civilizations, namely Persia, Egypt, the Levant, and India. With Europe in backwater, thanks to Barbarian depredations and increasing puritanical hold of Christianity, it is none but the Islamic world, that devoured the world’s greatest treasures of intellectual acquisitions, could be the world’s leading civilization. It must be noted that the intellectual treasures and centers of classical Greece had been shifted, after Alexander’s conquest, to the East, mainly to Egypt and the Levant.

Secondly, the adoption of the Persian culture and civilization by the Abbasids, which the generally Arab-centric orthodox always condemned, was crucial in the Islamic world’s rise in science, knowledge and innovations. When Muhammad was founding Islam and consolidating power in Arabia, neighboring Persia had become one of the world’s leading center of intellectual pursuits. While we see no creative initiative being undertaken during the entire period of the “Islamic Golden Age” under the stewardship of Muhammad and the four Rightly Guided caliphs (instead, Islamic conquerors destroyed many libraries in Egypt, Persia, Syria, India), the Persian kings were sending envoys to far parts of the world to collect books and manuscripts for their rendering into Persian. For example, decades before Islam’s birth, Persian King Khosro I (531-79 CE) had turned the city of Jundhishpur, a great center of Nestorian learning, into the most important intellectual center in the world. There assembled scholars and sages from Greece (kicked out from Athens when Justinian closed the philosophical schools in 529 CE), Persian and Indian. Khosro I sent his personal physician to India in search of medical books, which were then translated into Persian, and many other Greek scientific works were also translated.

Had the Arabs, who invented Islam, not been dislodged from power by the pro-Persian Abbasids, the Islamic world would never have seen any excellence in science, innovations and knowledge, as it didn’t when the Arabs dominated for over a century.

Why this paper in IJC?

An individual of even mediocre understanding of modern science would be left baffled as to how the editors and reviewers of this cutting-edge journal could accept such absolute rubbish!

One astonishing feature of this paper is that it was submitted on May 7, 2009 and accepted within five days on May 12. I have known friends in the biomedical science field, some of whom have published even in Lancet, Science and Nature. According to them, acceptance of a paper in reputed biomedical science journals takes at least three months.

What then could be behind quick acceptance of this paper, as nonsensical as it is, in IJC?

Recently Elsevier has been reeling from the global recession, and is trying to sell off selected titles from its Reed Business US arm. Also Elsevier’s CEO Ian Smith is leaving after just eight months in the position.

Amidst this financial turmoil of Elsevier, publishing this trash paper is risky, as it would harm the journal’s reputation and subscription.

The Arab world is awash with petro-dollar amidst sky-rocketing fuel prices over the past decade. Could petro dollars have over-compensated the journal?

In sum, this paper is utterly rubbish, unfit for publication in any science journal, let alone in a reputed high-impact journal like IJC. This paper tarnishes the journals reputation, and exposes the intellectual incapacity or dishonesty of the authors, as well as of the editors and reviewers of journal.

Moreover, by publishing this paper, IJC has also acted as a vehicle for propagating the unrestrained hatred and barbarism of Islam, which is nothing but a politico-religious ideology of violence and terror.

In a trying time that we live in, this constitutes gross disservice not only to reason and critical inquiry, but also to the welfare of humanity.