tabsir.net » Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance.

 

 

[Note: The cover interview of Rorotoko has an essay by historian of Islamic science George Saliba on his fascinating study entitlted Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance. Here is the start of the essay, the whole of which can be read at Rorotoko.]

This book started almost ten years ago. Initially, I wanted to know what were the conditions under which a civilization could produce science afresh.

I was trained in ancient Semitics, and mathematics, but I was always interested in these rumors that the general reader knows about, that the great invention of science was a really Greek project. And that everything else is either a shadow or a continuation of the classic antiquity.

Growing up, you assimilate these paradigms. You begin to think that these are the normal things. But then, trained in mathematics, and beginning to read a little bit of what was produced in the Islamic civilization, in science, I grew curious. I grew curious because I began to note that some of the science produced was not a shadow of the Greek project. It was more re-focusing of light, a new way of looking at things, which the Greeks did not know.

via tabsir.net » Saliba on Islamic Science and the Renaissance.

~ by yahyasheikho786 on November 7, 2009.