The history of science in the Islamic world, like all history, is filled with questions of interpretation.
Historians of science generally consider that the study of Islamic science, like all history, must be seen within the particular circumstances of time and place.
• A. I. Sabra opened a recent overview of Arabic science by noting, "I trust no one would wish to contest the proposition that all of history is local history ... and the history of science is no exception."[57]
Some scholars avoid such local historical approaches and seek to identify essential relations between Islam and science that apply at all times and places.
• The Persian philosopher and historian of science, Seyyed Hossein Nasr saw a more positive connection in "an Islamic science that was spiritual and antisecular" which "point[ed] the way to a new 'Islamic science' that would avoid the dehumanizing and despiritualizing mistakes of Western science."[58][59] Nasr identified a distinctly Muslim approach to science, flowing from Islamic monotheism and the related theological prohibition against portraying graven images. In science, this is reflected in a philosophical disinterest in describing individual material objects, their properties and characteristics and instead a concern with the ideal, the Platonic form, which exists in matter as an expression of the will of the Creator. Thus one can "see why mathematics was to make such a strong appeal to the Muslim: its abstract nature furnished the bridge that Muslims were seeking between multiplicity and unity."[60]
Some historians of science, however, question the value of drawing boundaries that label the sciences, and the scientists who practice them, in specific cultural, civilizational, or linguistic terms.
• Some scholars consider the practice to be an example of "boosterism" and object that it "defines the achievements of scholars... in terms of their religion rather than their research."[61]
Science in medieval Islam 116
• While others simply consider it futile. For example, Nasir al-Din Tusi (1201–1274), invented his mathematical theorem, the Tusi Couple, while he was director of Maragheh observatory. Tusi's patron and founder of the observatory was the non-Muslim Mongol conqueror of Baghdad, Hulagu Khan. The Tusi-couple "was first encountered in an Arabic text, written by a man who spoke Persian at home, and used that theorem, like many other astronomers who followed him and were all working in the "Arabic/Islamic" world, in order to reform classical Greek astronomy, and then have his theorem in turn be translated into Byzantine Greek towards the beginning of the 14th century, only to be used later by Copernicus and others in Latin texts of Renaissance Europe."[62]
Notes
[1] Robinson, Francis (1996). The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World edited by Francis Robinson. Cambridge University Press.
p. 228–229.
[2] Joseph A. Schumpeter, Historian of Economics: Selected Papers from the History of Economics Society Conference, 1994, y Laurence S.
Moss, Joseph Alois Schumpeter, History of Economics Society. Conference, Published by Routledge, 1996, ISBN 0-415-13353-X, p.64.
[3] Ibn Khaldun, Franz Rosenthal, N. J. Dawood (1967), The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, p. 430, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-01754-9.
[4] Howard R. Turner (1997), Science in Medieval Islam, p. 270 (book cover, last page), University of Texas Press, ISBN 0-292-78149-0 [5] Hogendijk, Jan P. (January 1999), Bibliography of Mathematics in Medieval Islamic Civilization (http://www.math.uu.nl/people/hogend/
Islamath.html)
[6] A. I. Sabra (1996). "Greek Science in Medieval Islam". In Ragep, F. J.; Ragep, Sally P.; Livesey, Steven John. Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: Proceedings of Two Conferences on Pre-modern Science held at the University of Oklahoma. Brill Publishers. pp. 20.
ISBN 9004091262
[7] Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam, 1987, page 6 [8] Salah Zaimeche (2003), Introduction to Muslim Science.
[9] Hogendijk 1989
[10] Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response [11] Lewis, Brenard (1987). The Jews of Islam. Princeton University Press. pp. 5–6.
[12] Courbage, Youssef; Fargues, Phillipe (1995). Christians and Jews under Islam. London: I.B. Tauris Publishers. pp. ix-x.
ISBN 1-86064-285-3.
[13] Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam Conscience and History in a World Civilization Vol 1. The University of Chicago, 1974, pg. 234.
[14] Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam Conscience and History in a World Civilization Vol 1. The University of Chicago, 1974, pg. 230.
[15] Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam Conscience and History in a World Civilization Vol 1. The University of Chicago, 1974, pg. 233.
[16] Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam Conscience and History in a World Civilization Vol 1. The University of Chicago, 1974, pg. 235.
[17] Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam Conscience and History in a World Civilization Vol 1. The University of Chicago, 1974, pg.
236–238.
[18] Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam Conscience and History in a World Civilization Vol 1. The University of Chicago, 1974, pg. 238.
[19] Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam Conscience and History in a World Civilization Vol 1. The University of Chicago, 1974, pg.
238–239.
[20] Nasr, Seyyed (1968). Science and Civilization in Islam. Harvard University Press. p. 41.
[21] Nasr, Seyyed (1968). Science and Civilization in Islam. Harvard University Press. p. 41.
[22] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. p. 153–155.
[23] Lagerkvist, Urf (2005). The Enigma of Ferment: from the Philosopher's Stone to the First Biochemical Nobel Prize. World Scientific Publishing. p. 32.
[24] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. p. 161–163.
[25] Lindberg, David (1978). Science in the Middle Ages. The University of Chicago Press. p. 23,56.
[26] Selin, Helaine (1997). Helaine Selin. ed. Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures.
Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 151,235,375.
[27] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 49–52.
[28] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 47–48, 59, 96–97, 171–172.
[29] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 71–73.
[30] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 48–49.
[31] Toomer, Gerald (1990). "Al-Khwārizmī, Abu Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Mūsā". In Gillispie, Charles Coulston. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 7. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 0-684-16962-2.
[32] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 139–145.
[33] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 74, 148–150.
[34] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 74,99-105.
Science in medieval Islam 117
[35] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 148–149.
[36] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 104–105.
[37] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 108–109.
[38] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 173–175.
[39] Linton (2004, p.97) (http://books.google.com.au/books?id=B4br4XJFj0MC&pg=PA97). Owing to the unreliability of the data al-Zarqali relied on for this estimate its remarkable accuracy was somewhat fortuitous.
[40] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 73–75.
[41] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 5, 104, 145–146.
[42] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 79-–80.
[43] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 110–111.
[44] Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd. pp. 132–135.
[45] Bertrand Russell (1945), History of Western Philosophy, book 2, part 2, chapter X
[46] Abdus Salam, H. R. Dalafi, Mohamed Hassan (1994). Renaissance of Sciences in Islamic Countries, p. 162. World Scientific, ISBN 9971-5-0713-7.
[47] (Saliba 1994, pp. 245, 250, 256–257) [48] (Hobson 2004, p. 178)
[49] Abid Ullah Jan (2006), After Fascism: Muslims and the struggle for self-determination, "Islam, the West, and the Question of Dominance", Pragmatic Publishings, ISBN 978-0-9733687-5-8.
[50] Ahmad Y Hassan and Donald Routledge Hill (1986), Islamic Technology: An Illustrated History, p. 282, Cambridge University Press [51] Robert Briffault (1928). The Making of Humanity, p. 191. G. Allen & Unwin Ltd.
[52] (Huff 2003)
[53] Saliba, George (Autumn 1999). "Seeking the Origins of Modern Science? Review of Toby E. Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science:
Islam, China and the West" (http://www.riifs.org/review_articles/review_v1no2_sliba.htm). Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies 1 (2). . Retrieved 2008-04-10.
[54] Will Durant (1980). The Age of Faith (The Story of Civilization, Volume 4), p. 162–186. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-01200-2.
[55] Fielding H. Garrison, An Introduction to the History of Medicine: with Medical Chronology, Suggestions for Study and Biblographic Data, p. 86
[56] Edmund, Norman W. (2005). End the Biggest Educational and Intellectual Blunder in History: A $100,000 Challenge to Our Top Educational Leaders. Scientific Method Publishing. p. 447. ISBN 0963286668.
[57] Sabra (2000) p. 216.
[58] F. Jamil Ragep, "Freeing Astronomy from Philosophy: An Aspect of Islamic Influence on Science," Osiris, topical issue on Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions (http://www.jstor.org/pss/301979), n.s. 16(2001): 49–50, note 3
[59] Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (1968). "The Principles of Islam" (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/nasr.html). Science and Civilization in Islam. Harvard University Press. ISBN 094662111X. . Retrieved 2008-02-03.
[60] Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Science and Civilization in Islam. (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/nasr.html)
[61] Aaen-Stockdale, C.R. (2008). "Ibn al-Haytham and psychophysics". Perception 37 (4): 636–638. doi:10.1068/p5940. PMID 18546671.
[62] George Saliba (1999). Whose Science is Arabic Science in Renaissance Europe? (http://www.columbia.edu/~gas1/project/visions/
case1/sci.1.html)
References
• Campbell, Donald (2001). Arabian Medicine and Its Influence on the Middle Ages. Routledge. (Reprint of the London, 1926 edition). ISBN 0-415-23188-4.
• d'Alverny, Marie-Thérèse. "Translations and Translators", in Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable, eds., Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, p. 421–462. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Pr., 1982.
• Hobson, John M. (2004). The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 0521547245.
• Hudson, A. (2003). Equity and Trusts (3rd ed.). London: Cavendish Publishing. ISBN 1-85941-729-9
• Huff, Toby E. (2003). The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52994-8
• Joseph, George G. (2000). The Crest of the Peacock. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00659-8.
• Katz, Victor J. (1998). A History of Mathematics: An Introduction. Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-321-01618-1.
• Levere, Trevor Harvey (2001). Transforming Matter: A History of Chemistry from Alchemy to the Buckyball.
Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-6610-3.
Science in medieval Islam 118
• Linton, Christopher M. (2004), From Eudoxus to Einstein—A History of Mathematical Astronomy, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-82750-8
• Masood, Ehsan (2009). Science and Islam A History. Icon Books Ltd.
• Morelon, Régis; Rashed, Roshdi (1996). Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science. 3. Routledge.
ISBN 0415124107
• Phillips, William D.; Carla Rahn Phillips, Jr. Phillips (1992). The Worlds of Christopher Columbus. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-44652-X.
• Sabra, A. I. (2000) "Situating Arab Science: Locality versus Essence," Isis, 87(1996):654–70; reprinted in Michael H. Shank, ed., The Scientific Enterprise in Antiquity and the Middle Ages," (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr.), pp. 215–231.
• Saliba, George (1994). A History of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary Theories During the Golden Age of Islam. New York University Press. ISBN 0814780237
• Turner, Howard R. (1997). Science in Medieval Islam: An Illustrated Introduction. University of Texas Press.
ISBN 0292781490
Further reading
• Daffa, Ali Abdullah al-; Stroyls, J.J. (1984). Studies in the exact sciences in medieval Islam. New York: Wiley.
ISBN 0471903205.
• Nader El-Bizri, 'A Philosophical Perspective on Alhazen's Optics', Arabic Sciences and Philosophy (Cambridge University Press), Vol. 15 (2005), pp. 189–218.
• Nader El-Bizri, 'In Defence of the Sovereignty of Philosophy: al-Baghdadi's Critique of Ibn al-Haytham's Geometrisation of Place', Arabic Sciences and Philosophy (Cambridge University Press), Vol. 17 (2007), pp. 57–80.
• Hogendijk, Jan P.; Abdelhamid I. Sabra (2003). The Enterprise of Science in Islam: New Perspectives. MIT Press.
ISBN 0-262-19482-1. Reviewed by Robert G. Morrison at (http://www.ircps.org/publications/aestimatio/pdf/
2004-02-02_Morrison.pdf)
• Hogendijk, Jan P.; Berggren, J. L. (1989). "Episodes in the Mathematics of Medieval Islam by J. Lennart Berggren" (http://jstor.org/stable/604119). Journal of the American Oriental Society 109 (4): 697–698.
doi:10.2307/604119.)
• Hill, Donald Routledge, Islamic Science And Engineering, Edinburgh University Press (1993), ISBN 0-7486-0455-3
• Huff, Toby E. (1993, 2nd edition 2003), The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52994-8. Reviewed by George Saliba at Seeking the Origins of Modern Science? (http://www.riifs.org/review_articles/review_v1no2_sliba.htm)
• Huff, Toby E. (2000). "Science and Metaphysics in the Three Religions of the Books" (http://www.umassd.
edu/media/umassdartmouth/seppce/departmentofpublicpolicy/ScienceandMetaphyics.pdf). Intellectual Discourse 8 (2): 173–198.
• Kennedy, Edward S. (1970). "The Arabic Heritage in the Exact Sciences". Al-Abhath 23: 327–344.
• Kennedy, Edward S. (1983). Studies in the Islamic Exact Sciences. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0815660677.
• Morelon, Régis; Rashed, Roshdi (1996). Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science. 2-3. Routledge.
ISBN 0415020638
• Saliba, George (2007). Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance. The MIT Press.
ISBN 0262195577.
• Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (1976). Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study. Kazi Publications. ISBN 1567443125.
• Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (2003). Science & Civilization in Islam (2nd ed.). Islamic Texts Society.
ISBN 1903682401.
Science in medieval Islam 119
• Suter, Heinrich (1900). Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber und ihre Werke. Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Mathematischen Wissenschaften Mit Einschluss Ihrer Anwendungen, X Heft. Leipzig.
Popular
• Deen, S M (2007). Science Under Islam: Rise, Decline, Revival (http://www.scienceunderislam.com). LULU.
ISBN 978-1-84799-942-9.
Television
• BBC (2010). Science and Islam.
External links
Academic institutes
• Commission on the History of Science and Technology in Islamic Societies (http://www.ub.edu/islamsci/) at University of Barcelona
Other
• "How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs" (http://www.aina.org/books/hgsptta.htm) by De Lacy O'Leary
• Saliba, George. "Whose Science is Arabic Science in Renaissance Europe?" (http://www.columbia.edu/~gas1/
project/visions/case1/sci.1.html).
• Habibi, Golareh. Review article (http://www.scq.ubc.ca/?p=574), Science Creative Quarterly.
• Islam, Knowledge, and Science (http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/introduction/woi_knowledge.html)
• The Islamization of science or the marginalization of Islam (http://www.smi.uib.no/paj/Stenberg.html)