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
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... began to explore the germs of those ideas, which were not yet fully formulated, and are now further developed in this book. Those people patiently listened to what must have sounded to them like half-baked thoughts, and always pushed me ...
... began to develop scientific thought only when it came into contact with other more ancient civilizations, which are assumed to have been more advanced, but with a particular nuance to “advanced.” 1 - The Islamic Scientific Tradition ...
... began, and where the European Renaissance could find its wellsprings. Critique of the Classical Narrative In what follows, I would like to subject this classical narrative to some criticism and to point to some of the problems that it ...
... began to translate them. Why the sudden awakening? And why were the Abbasids so motivated toward the beginning of the ninth century to finance, patronize, and undertake such a major operation, or even make it “a regular state activity ...
... began to reflect, at that particular time, the racial makeup of the people in power. That phenomenon itself must be explained rather than be stipulated in such essentialist terms, as the classical narrative seems to do with that ...
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 |