When renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson revealed that two-thirds of all named stars carry Arabic names, it sparked a fascinating reaction from Firas Zahabi and TheDeenShow about the Islamic Golden Age — a 300-year period when Baghdad was the intellectual center of the world and Muslim scholars made discoveries in engineering, biology, medicine, and mathematics that still underpin modern civilization.
Neil deGrasse Tyson and the Arabic Stars
Tyson pointed out that while constellations carry Greek and Roman names, the individual stars themselves predominantly have Arabic names. This is because during a remarkably fertile intellectual period, Muslim civilization had “naming rights” over the heavens through their advanced astronomical observations. The most expensive, beautifully carved astrolabes in history come from this period, with a great collection housed at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.
“Of all the stars that have names, two-thirds of them have Arabic names. Our numerals are called Arabic numerals — stop and think about that. They fully exploited the discovery of zero, created algebra (itself an Arabic word), and algorithm is an Arabic word.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson
The Islamic Golden Age and Its Legacy
- During this 300-year period, Baghdad was completely open to all visitors — Jews, Christians, atheists — all exchanging ideas freely under Muslim governance
- Arabic numerals, algebra, and algorithms — the foundations of modern mathematics and computing — all originated from Muslim scholars
- Muslim contributions to navigation, celestial mapping, medicine, and engineering during this era shaped the trajectory of human civilization
- Tyson noted that this intellectual enterprise collapsed after the 12th century due to philosophical shifts that viewed mathematics as suspect — a tragedy that the Muslim world has not fully recovered from
- The lesson for today’s Muslims: Islam at its peak was a civilization of learning, discovery, and openness — returning to that spirit is both a religious duty and a civilizational imperative
