Islam’s forgotten geniuses

The Telegraph writes of what they are calling “Islam’s forgotten geniuses”:

Next year, we will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, and the 150th of the publication of his On The Origin of Species, which revolutionised our understanding of biology.

But what if Darwin was beaten to the punch? Approximately 1,000 years before the British naturalist published his theory of evolution, a scientist working in Baghdad was thinking along similar lines.

In the Book of Animals, abu Uthman al-Jahith (781-869), an intellectual of East African descent, was the first to speculate on the influence of the environment on species. He wrote: “Animals engage in a struggle for existence; for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed. Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to offspring.”