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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... problems that it fails to solve, before I propose, in the next chapter, an alternative narrative that, I believe, accounts for the historical facts in a much more comprehensive fashion. I do so because the classical narrative leaves us ...
... problems, both with regard to the beginnings of Islamic science and with regard to its decline and eventual demise. In the case of beginnings, the classical narrative creates the impression that the birth of Islamic science took place ...
... problems regarding the manner in which the “ancient sciences” were transmitted to the Islamic civilization were all resolved once and for all, and even if ... problem: that of the timing of this transmission, which Question of Beginnings I 9.
George Saliba. important problem: that of the timing of this transmission, which the classical narrative locates toward the beginning of the Abbasid times. Why at that time in particular and not during the earlier 100-year rule of the ...
... Problems with the Classical Narrative When it comes to details, the classical narrative cannot account for the very scientific facts that have been preserved either in the classical historical sources of the period or in the scientific ...
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 |