Hawzah News Agency - (Mashhad - Iran) -  The move toward civilization in Western countries owes much to Muslim scientists as they learned many branches of knowledge from Islamic countries, says Hassan Rahimpour Azghadi, member of Iran’s Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution.

Elaborating on the development of Europeans in commerce, mathematics, navigation, architecture, and post to a group of young Iranians, Rahimpour said: “According to the western and eastern tourists, Islamic countries were main hubs of science and wealth in the past centuries in a way that teachers at University of Cambridge and the like learned their teaching methods from Islamic universities”.

He also said: “Global commerce and sailing was kicked off by the Muslims; the western countries were not even aware of the spherical shape of the earth.”

Rahimpour went on to say: “Some ethnicities of people emulated Muslim nations’ cloth styles and customs and the Crusades were the first time that Europeans become familiar with the fire arms”.

“Islamic countries’ commerce fleet were equipped with over 1000 merchant ships and more than 100 great commercial ports in five continents were used by Muslims,” he noted.

The Renaissance was born in Italy and in Europe’s south which was a part of Islamic government in the past”, Rahimpour Azghadi added.

According to him, Muslim author’s first books explained different types of soil, cultivation of over 500 types of plants, symptoms of plant diseases and their ways of identification and control while Westerners learned about the science some time later. “They owe medicine to Islamic civilization and mathematics”.

“Ayatollah Khamenei has highly emphasized on the promotion of people’s knowledge over Muslims’ historical capabilities in the statement issued on the 40th victory anniversary of the Islamic Revolution known as statement of the second phase,” he concluded.