Islamic Science And The Making Of The European Renaissance

Author : George Saliba
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 329 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2011-01-21
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780262261128

Get Book

Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance by George Saliba Pdf

The 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.

Author : J. P. Hogendijk,A. I. Sabra
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 414 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : History
ISBN : 0262194821

Get Book

The Enterprise of Science in Islam by J. P. Hogendijk,A. I. Sabra Pdf

Recent historical research and new perspectives on the Islamic scientific tradition.

Author : George Saliba
Publisher : NYU Press
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 1995-07-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780814738894

Get Book

A History of Arabic Astronomy by George Saliba Pdf

A History of Arabic Astronomy is a comprehensive survey of Arabic planetary theories from the eleventh century to the fifteenth century based on recent manuscript discoveries. George Saliba argues that the medieval period, often called a period of decline in Islamic intellectual history, was scientifically speaking, a very productive period in which astronomical theories of the highest order were produced. Based on the most recent manuscript discoveries, this book broadly surveys developments in Arabic planetary theories from the eleventh century to the fifteenth. Taken together, the primary texts and essays assembled in this book reverse traditional beliefs about the rise and fall of Arabic science, demonstrating how the traditional “age of decline” in Arabic science was indeed a “Golden Age” as far as astronomy was concerned. Some of the techniques and mathematical theorems developed during this period were identical to those which were employed by Copernicus in developing his own non-Ptolemaic astronomy. Significantly, this volume will shed much-needed light on the conditions under which such theories were developed in medieval Islam. It clearly demonstrates the distinction that was drawn between astronomical activities and astrological ones, and reveals, contrary to common perceptions about medieval Islam, the accommodation that was obviously reached between religion and astronomy, and the degree to which astronomical planetary theories were supported, and at times even financed, by the religious community itself. This in stark contrast to the systematic attacks leveled by the same religious community against astrology. To students of European intellectual history, the book reveals the technical relationship between the astronomy of the Arabs and that of Copernicus. Saliba’s definitive work will be of particular interest to historians of Arabic science as well as to historians of medieval and Renaissance European science.

Author : Hill Donald R. Hill
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
Page : 363 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2014-03-31
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780748696512

Get Book

Islamic Science and Engineering by Hill Donald R. Hill Pdf

Author : G. E. R. Lloyd
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2002-10-21
Category : History
ISBN : 0521894611

Get Book

The Ambitions of Curiosity by G. E. R. Lloyd Pdf

Publisher Description

Author : Ehsan Masood
Publisher : Icon Books Ltd
Page : 246 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2009-11-05
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781848311602

Get Book

Science & Islam by Ehsan Masood Pdf

From Musa al-Khwarizmi who developed algebra in 9th century Baghdad to al-Jazari, a 13th-century Turkish engineer whose achievements include the crank, the camshaft and the reciprocating piston, Science and Islam tells the story of one of history’s most misunderstood yet rich and fertile periods in science: the extraordinary Islamic scientific revolution between 700 and 1400 CE.

Author : Alparslan Açıkgenç
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 106 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 1996
Category : Islam
ISBN : 9839900285

Get Book

Islamic Science by Alparslan Açıkgenç Pdf

Science was conceived as something absolute by the Positivists; they thus failed to see that it is basically a human activity and that no human phenomenon can be absolute. The discussion in this monograph takes its departure from this point and investigates the epistemological foundations of science. It argues that one such foundation is the worldview of the scientist which reflects his physical-social environment. If this is the case, then it becomes clear why there can be a certain scientific activity that can be identified as Islamic. This is the fundamental theoretical ground upon which Islamic Science: Towards a Definition is based. In order to demonstrate this point, the author attempts to present a historical illustration of how scientific activities gradually emerged in Islam within the first three centuries, i.e. 610-900 AD. The argument developed follows three frameworks that are said to be the foundation of these activities: 1) the Islamic worldview; 2) the Islamic scientific conceptual scheme; and 3) specific terminology of each science. These points are all defined and clarified from an epistemological standpoint.

Author : Jim Al-Khalili
Publisher : National Geographic Books
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2012-03-27
Category : History
ISBN : 9780143120568

Get Book

The House of Wisdom by Jim Al-Khalili Pdf

A myth-shattering view of the Islamic world's myriad scientific innovations and the role they played in sparking the European Renaissance. Many of the innovations that we think of as hallmarks of Western science had their roots in the Arab world of the middle ages, a period when much of Western Christendom lay in intellectual darkness. Jim al- Khalili, a leading British-Iraqi physicist, resurrects this lost chapter of history, and given current East-West tensions, his book could not be timelier. With transporting detail, al-Khalili places readers in the hothouses of the Arabic Enlightenment, shows how they led to Europe's cultural awakening, and poses the question: Why did the Islamic world enter its own dark age after such a dazzling flowering?

Author : David Levering Lewis
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2009-01-12
Category : History
ISBN : 0393067904

Get Book

God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 by David Levering Lewis Pdf

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning author, God’s Crucible brings to life “a furiously complex age” (New York Times Book Review). Resonating as profoundly today as when it was first published to widespread critical acclaim a decade ago, God’s Crucible is a bold portrait of Islamic Spain and the birth of modern Europe from one of our greatest historians. David Levering Lewis’s narrative, filled with accounts of some of the most epic battles in world history, reveals how cosmopolitan, Muslim al-Andalus flourished—a beacon of cooperation and tolerance—while proto-Europe floundered in opposition to Islam, making virtues out of hereditary aristocracy, religious intolerance, perpetual war, and slavery. This masterful history begins with the fall of the Persian and Roman empires, followed by the rise of the prophet Muhammad and five centuries of engagement between the Muslim imperium and an emerging Europe. Essential and urgent, God’s Crucible underscores the importance of these early, world-altering events whose influence remains as current as today’s headlines.

Author : K. Killeen,P. Forshaw
Publisher : Springer
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2007-04-11
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780230206472

Get Book

The Word and the World by K. Killeen,P. Forshaw Pdf

This book explores the impact of biblical reading practices on scientific thought in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries. It addresses the idea that the natural philosophers of the era forged their new sciences despite, rather than because of, the pervasive bible-centeredness of early modern thought.

Author : Hans Belting
Publisher : Belknap Press
Page : 303 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2011
Category : Art
ISBN : 0674050045

Get Book

Florence and Baghdad by Hans Belting Pdf

In this lavishly illustrated study, Belting deals with the double history of perspective, as a visual theory based on geometrical abstraction (in the Middle East) and as pictorial theory (in Europe). Florence and Baghdad addresses a provocative question that reaches beyond the realm of aesthetics and mathematics: What happens when Muslims and Christians look upon each other and find their way of viewing the world transformed as a result?

Author : Tobias P. Graf
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2017-02-23
Category : History
ISBN : 9780192509048

Get Book

The Sultan's Renegades by Tobias P. Graf Pdf

The figure of the renegade - a European Christian or Jew who had converted to Islam and was now serving the Ottoman sultan - is omnipresent in all genres produced by those early modern Christian Europeans who wrote about the Ottoman Empire. As few contemporaries failed to remark, converts were disproportionately represented among those who governed, administered, and fought for the sultan. Unsurprisingly, therefore, renegades have attracted considerable attention from historians of Europe as well as students of European literature. Until very recently, however, Ottomanists have been surprisingly silent on the presence of Christian-European converts in the Ottoman military-administrative elite. The Sultan's Renegades inserts these 'foreign' converts into the context of Ottoman elite life to reorient the discussion of these individuals away from the present focus on their exceptionality, towards a qualified appreciation of their place in the Ottoman imperial enterprise and the Empire's relations with its neighbours in Christian Europe. Drawing heavily on Central European sources, this study highlights the deep political, religious, and cultural entanglements between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe beyond the Mediterranean Basin as the 'shared world' par excellence. The existence of such trans-imperial subjects is not only symptomatic of the Empire's ability to attract and integrate people of a great diversity of backgrounds, it also illustrates the extent to which the Ottomans participated in processes of religious polarization usually considered typical of Christian Europe in this period. Nevertheless, Christian Europeans remained ambivalent about those they dismissed as apostates and traitors, frequently relying on them for support in the pursuit of familial and political interests.

Author : John W. Livingston
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 797 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2017-12-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9781351589253

Get Book

The Rise of Science in Islam and the West by John W. Livingston Pdf

This is a study of science in Muslim society from its rise in the 8th century to the efforts of 19th-century Muslim thinkers and reformers to regain the lost ethos that had given birth to the rich scientific heritage of earlier Muslim civilization. The volume is organized in four parts; the rise of science in Muslim society in its historical setting of political and intellectual expansion; the Muslim creative achievement and original discoveries; proponents and opponents of science in a religiously oriented society; and finally the complex factors that account for the end of the 500-year Muslim renaissance. The book brings together and treats in depth, using primary and secondary sources in Arabic, Turkish and European languages, subjects that are lightly and uncritically brushed over in non-specialized literature, such as the question of what can be considered to be purely original scientific advancement in Muslim civilization over and above what was inherited from the Greco–Syriac and Indian traditions; what was the place of science in a religious society; and the question of the curious demise of the Muslim scientific renaissance after centuries of creativity. The book also interprets the history of the rise, achievement and decline of scientific study in light of the religious temper and of the political and socio-economic vicissitudes across Islamdom for over a millennium and integrates the Muslim legacy with the history of Latin/European accomplishments. It sets the stage for the next momentous transmission of science: from the West back to the Arabic-speaking world of Islam, from the last half of the 19th century to the early 21st century, the subject of a second volume.

Author : John Freely
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2009-02-17
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780307271327

Get Book

Aladdin's Lamp by John Freely Pdf

Aladdin’s Lamp is the fascinating story of how ancient Greek philosophy and science began in the sixth century B.C. and, during the next millennium, spread across the Greco-Roman world, producing the remarkable discoveries and theories of Thales, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, Galen, Ptolemy, and many others. John Freely explains how, as the Dark Ages shrouded Europe, scholars in medieval Baghdad translated the works of these Greek thinkers into Arabic, spreading their ideas throughout the Islamic world from Central Asia to Spain, with many Muslim scientists, most notably Avicenna, Alhazen, and Averroës, adding their own interpretations to the philosophy and science they had inherited. Freely goes on to show how, beginning in the twelfth century, these texts by Islamic scholars were then translated from Arabic into Latin, sparking the emergence of modern science at the dawn of the Renaissance, which climaxed in the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century.

Author : Giancarlo Abbamonte,Stephen Harrison
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 323 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2019-06-04
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9783110657975

Get Book

Making and Rethinking the Renaissance by Giancarlo Abbamonte,Stephen Harrison Pdf

The purpose of this volume is to investigate the crucial role played by the return of knowledge of Greek in the transformation of European culture, both through the translation of texts, and through the direct study of the language. It aims to collect and organize in one database all the digitalised versions of the first editions of Greek grammars, lexica and school texts available in Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries, between two crucial dates: the start of Chrysoloras’s teaching in Florence (c. 1397) and the end of the activity of Aldo Manuzio and Andrea Asolano in Venice (c. 1529). This is the first step in a major investigation into the knowledge of Greek and its dissemination in Western Europe: the selection of the texts and the first milestones in teaching methods were put together in that period, through the work of scholars like Chrysoloras, Guarino and many others. A remarkable role was played also by the men involved in the Council of Ferrara (1438-39), where there was a large circulation of Greek books and ideas. About ten years later, Giovanni Tortelli, together with Pope Nicholas V, took the first steps in founding the Vatican Library. Research into the return of the knowledge of Greek to Western Europe has suffered for a long time from the lack of intersection of skills and fields of research: to fully understand this phenomenon, one has to go back a very long way through the tradition of the texts and their reception in contexts as different as the Middle Ages and the beginning of Renaissance humanism. However, over the past thirty years, scholars have demonstrated the crucial role played by the return of knowledge of Greek in the transformation of European culture, both through the translation of texts, and through the direct study of the language. In addition, the actual translations from Greek into Latin remain poorly studied and a clear understanding of the intellectual and cultural contexts that produced them is lacking. In the Middle Ages the knowledge of Greek was limited to isolated areas that had no reciprocal links. As had happened to many Latin authors, all Greek literature was rather neglected, perhaps because a number of philosophical texts had already been available in translation from the seventh century AD, or because of a sense of mistrust, due to their ethnic and religious differences. Between the 12th and 14th century AD, a change is perceptible: the sharp decrease in Greek texts and knowledge in the South of Italy, once a reference-point for this kind of study, was perhaps an important reason prompting Italian humanists to go and study Greek in Constantinople. Over the past thirty years it has become evident to scholars that humanism, through the re-appreciation of classical antiquity, created a bridge to the modern era, which also includes the Middle Ages. The criticism by the humanists of medieval authors did not prevent them from using a number of tools that the Middle Ages had developed or synthesized: glossaries, epitomes, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, translations, commentaries. At present one thing that is missing, however, is a systematic study of the tools used for the study of Greek between the 15th and 16th century; this is truly important, because, in the following centuries, Greek culture provided the basis of European thought in all the most important fields of knowledge. This volume seeks to supply that gap.