Islamic Science Quotes

“Perhaps the most remarkable geological observation ever made by a Muslim scientist, however, is al-Birūni's identification of the Ganges Plain in India as a sedimentary deposit. After studying extensively all aspects of India including its natural forms al-Birūni wrote in his unique work Taḥqīq mā li'l-hind (India): 'One of these plains is India, limited in the south by the above-mentioned Indian Ocean, and on three sides by lofty mountains, the waters of which flow down to it. But if you see the soil of India with your own eyes and meditate on its nature, if you consider the rounded stones found in the earth however deeply you dig, stones that are huge near the mountains and where the rivers have violent current, stones that are of smaller size at a greater distance from the mountains and where the streams flow more slowly, stones that appear pulverized in the shape of sand where the streams begin to stagnate near their mouths and near the sea — if you consider all this, you can scarcely help thinking that India was once a sea, which by degrees had been filled up the alluvium of the streams.”
― Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Science : An Illustrated Study