Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  The Lab and the Mosque (02 Dec 2003) From its beginnings, the Prophet Muhammad emphasised that the material world could only be understood through scientific inquiry. Islamic culture, he said, should be a knowledge based culture. He valued science over extensive worship and declared: ‘An hour’s study of nature is better than a year’s prayer’. But despite the Prophet's teaching, by the middle of the sixteenth century, Islamic science had gone into a steep decline. Why? Article URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/labandmosque.shtml   28.57    (Science)   Read 169 more articles from BBC Radio 4 sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: From text to talk: multiplayer games and voiceover IP This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy