An American writer is close to getting the necessary financial backing he needs to bankroll a movie project based on a book about the legacy of the early Muslim intellectuals and scientists, aimed at “bridging the gulf between Muslims and non-Muslims by remembering the greatness the Muslim world had spawned, and how much it meant to everyone.” In an interview with the Saudi Gazette during his recent visit to the Kingdom, Michael Hamilton Morgan, the author of the book entitled “Lost History: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists”, said that he has obtained “tentative commitment” from some Arab businessmen to finance the project, though withheld from naming them yet. He said businessmen in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait as well as Egypt demonstrated interest in the project, and right now “we are working on a deal.” The movie, which is tentatively named “The Master and The Magician”, would cost at least $25 million should it be a “Hollywood-style” blockbuster production, and Morgan forecast that production would start by January 2010 and be ready for showing by the following year. “The Lost History” showed the feat of early Muslim thinkers whose innovations and contributions in the modern world “cannot be ignored” since they served as the cornerstones of the European Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and modern Western society. Morgan was emboldened to work on the project to thwart the present stereotypical attitude toward Muslims and claimed that “if a fuller and deeper appreciation of Muslim history could be recovered, then maybe the very premises of the emerging ‘clash of civilizations' could be re-framed.” He said it is high time to “balance the incomplete and negative slant” on Muslims by reviving the “Muslim culture that had seeded the European Renaissance, and helped enable many aspects of the modern West and global civilization.” Modern science has its roots in the discoveries made by Muslim thinkers some 1,000 years ago, Morgan pointed out. He cited, for example, Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi, an Islamic mathematician, astronomer and geographer who worked most of his life as a scholar in Baghdad more than 1,200 years ago. Morgan said “the digital electronic world - computers, hardware, wireless devices, software, Google searches and hedge fund computation models were derived from higher mathematics including the algorithm developed by Al-Khwarizmi.” Another example of the glorious ancient Muslim era, Morgan remarked, is Abu Ali Al-Hasan ibn Al-Haytham, regarded as the “father of modern optics” for his influential “Book of Optics” which proved the intromission theory of vision and refined it into its modern form. He is also recognized for his experiments on optics, including experiments on lenses, mirrors, refraction, reflection, and the dispersion of light into its constituent colors. Due to his formulation of a modern quantitative and empirical approach to physics and science, he is considered the pioneer of the modern scientific method and the originator of the experimental nature of physics and science. More examples are Abu Ali Al-Husain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina (more popularly known as Avicenna), the Muslim physician and philosopher. The “inhalation anesthesia” and surgical antiseptics like alcohol come from ibn Sina, who is dubbed as the ‘doctor of doctors' and Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi of Cordova. The latter is best known for his early and original breakthroughs in surgery as well as for his famous Medical Encyclopedia called Al-Tasrif, added Morgan. Moreover, he argued that the “modern love song, descended from the medieval European troubadours and love ballads, is really a descendant of 8th century Arabic love poetry, which filtered up in various forms through Spain, Portugal, France, Sicily and Italy.” He noted that it was a “Muslim history that was about invention, creativity, big ideas, tolerance, and coexistence” that drives him to pursue the production of the movie based on his book. The Jeddah-based Cornerstone Company is the promoter of the project. Its Managing Director Mohamed Khoja said the planned film is in line with its vision of corporate social responsibility.
