Islamic Science and the Making of the European RenaissanceThe rise and fall of the Islamic scientific tradition, and the relationship of Islamic science to European science during the Renaissance. The Islamic scientific tradition has been described many times in accounts of Islamic civilization and general histories of science, with most authors tracing its beginnings to the appropriation of ideas from other ancient civilizations—the Greeks in particular. In this thought-provoking and original book, George Saliba argues that, contrary to the generally accepted view, the foundations of Islamic scientific thought were laid well before Greek sources were formally translated into Arabic in the ninth century. Drawing on an account by the tenth-century intellectual historian Ibn al-Naidm that is ignored by most modern scholars, Saliba suggests that early translations from mainly Persian and Greek sources outlining elementary scientific ideas for the use of government departments were the impetus for the development of the Islamic scientific tradition. He argues further that there was an organic relationship between the Islamic scientific thought that developed in the later centuries and the science that came into being in Europe during the Renaissance. Saliba outlines the conventional accounts of Islamic science, then discusses their shortcomings and proposes an alternate narrative. Using astronomy as a template for tracing the progress of science in Islamic civilization, Saliba demonstrates the originality of Islamic scientific thought. He details the innovations (including new mathematical tools) made by the Islamic astronomers from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, and offers evidence that Copernicus could have known of and drawn on their work. Rather than viewing the rise and fall of Islamic science from the often-narrated perspectives of politics and religion, Saliba focuses on the scientific production itself and the complex social, economic, and intellectual conditions that made it possible. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 88
... first and foremost to M. François Zabbal, of the Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris), for making the first expression of this book possible when he invited me to give its early contents as a series of lectures under the auspices of La ...
... first chapter surveys the various theories that have confronted the question of why and when this scientific tradition came into existence. It begins with a detailed account of the theories. The critique that follows addresses their ...
... first I have to deconstruct some of the basic tenets of this classical narrative. That Islamic civilization was isolated in a desert environment is an oversimplification. As is well known, Islamic civilization came into being around the ...
... first. And this theory too has some evidence to support it. In this context people cite the works of the Syriac writers Paul the Persian (c. 550) and Sergius of Rasaina (d. 536), and the slightly later writers Severus Sebokht (c. 660) ...
... first in Transoxania, and they did so against the Umayyads, who were in turn characterized by the classical narrative that bases itself on many other classical Arabic sources as champions of the “Arab elements” of the empire. In fact ...
Contents
1 | |
Question of Beginnings II | 27 |
3 Encounter with the Greek Scientific Tradition | 73 |
The Critical Innovations | 131 |
The Case of Astronomy | 171 |
The Copernican Connection | 193 |
The Fecundity of Astronomical Thought | 233 |
Notes and References | 257 |
Bibliography | 289 |
Index | 307 |