During this weekends sohbet Lukman Khwaja raised an interesting fact that many people are not aware of. The fact that during Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent’s time, rocket science was being developed and shown to the Sultan. This is certainly interesting as the Ottomans are sharply criticized by some for falling behind in technology.
“Evliya Celibi’s anecdote of Lagari Hasan Celebi flying with a seven winged rocket of his own invention is still more interesting, and is as follows:
“Lagari Hasan Celebi: The night Murad Han’s daughter, Kaya Sultan, was born as brilliant as a star, and there was an infant ceremony. Lagari Hasan had invented a seven winged rocket using fifty okka (140 lbs) of gunpowder paste. In Sarayburnu, he mounted the rocket before the emperor. His students lit the wick. Lagari said ‘O my sultan! Be blessed, I am going to talk to Christ’, and he ascended praying. He lighted the rockets he took with him, illuminating the surface of the sea. When the big rocket ran out of gunpowder, he splashed into the sea while landing. Thereon, he swam and came before the sultan naked. He kissed the ground and joked ‘O my sultan! Christ sends his regards to you’. He was granted a sack of silver coins, and was enrolled as a cavalry soldier with seventy silver coins for his salary:
Then he went to Selamet Giray Khan in Crimea, and died there. The deceased was a close friend of mine. God bless him”
Lukman Khawaja pointed out that while the Ottomans had this technology, Sultan Suleyman ordered for it to be covered up, as he, even back then, realized the harm that would come when nations like today were to have access to such technology. He realized then that if this type of knowledge fell into the hands of the wrong people, they would destroy not only each other, but all of humanity with it. And this is where we are today.
Today nations are desperate, yet they cannot stop the spread of nuclear weapons, as they attempt to follow Sultan Suleyman’s example.
People mistake wisdom, earnestness, clarity and goodness for backwardness. This is something that needs to be reevaluated.
April 3rd, 2007 - 9:54 am
BismillahirRahmanirRahim,
Mash’Allah!
April 3rd, 2007 - 4:01 pm
interesting post…
April 3rd, 2007 - 10:14 pm
As Salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakhatu: I’m also reminded of the ban on printing religious texts by the Ottomans. As Abdal Hakim Murad noted, it was to preserve the veracity of the oral transmission of texts, not as a backward, Luddite means of preserving temporal power.
Great, interesting post.
April 4th, 2007 - 9:25 am
WalaikumAssalam,
JazakAllah for your comments! Abdallah, I am very interested in where Shaikh Abdul Hakim Murad pointed that out as I have also learned that from my Shaikh.. Was it in a text or a lecture?
November 13th, 2007 - 12:25 am
[...] points out to an article which suggests that the Ottoman were developing Winged Rockets in the [...]
December 2nd, 2007 - 12:32 pm
Sounds rather like why Robert Oppenheimer opposed development of the H-Bomb…
December 9th, 2007 - 12:14 pm
Regarding issue of the printing press, check out http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200704/keyboard.calligraphy.htm, http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198102/arabic.and.the.art.of.printing-a.special.section.htm, http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199903/revolution.by.the.ream-a.history.of.paper.htm, which describe the reasons why Muslims waited until the 18th century C.E. to adopt block printing.
December 10th, 2007 - 5:33 am
So it was the nature of the Arabic script itself which hobbled the development of printing in the Muslim world?
Was the Shari’ah prohibition on depicting living things in art ultimately to blame (by steering the Islamic art tradition heavily in the direction of calligraphy)?