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
... Ptolemy, Euclid, or Galen, or even fully understood what those giants had written. Furthermore, neither in Antioch nor in Harra ̄n nor in Jundı ̄sha ̄pu ̄r could one find a single scientist or philosopher of any importance who could ...
... Ptolemy's Almagest and Handy Tables. The fact that Sergius knew of such august works of the classical Greek tradition is duly attested by his references to them, but only to say that they were to be sought only by those who needed ...
... Ptolemy's Handy Tables. Such tables would indeed enable one to cast a horoscope. Furthermore, when one surveys the ... Ptolemy, Euclid's Elements, the Arithmetica of Diophantus, the Conics of Apollonius, and the Arithmetic of Nicomachus ...
... Ptolemy's Almagest. We know, for example, that al-Hajja ̄j finished his translation of the Almagestin the year 829, as is attested in the surviving copy now kept at the Library of Leiden University (Or. 680). And when we look at this ...
... period that indicate a much longer acquaintance with those fields. The observation that determined that the inclination of the ecliptic was not 23;51,20° (as was reported in Ptolemy's Almagest47) or 24°48 (as Question of Beginnings I 19.
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 |