Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

Aspects of Islamic Scientific Tradition • 13material. We know, for instance, that as early as the second quarter ofthe eighth century, astronomical treatises were being written in Sind(modern Pakistan) in Arabic. These early treatises were often basedon Indian and Persian sources, but they employed technical Arabicterminology that could not have come into existence without thepresence of an already-established astronomical tradition in Islamiccivilization that could then absorb new material from Indian andPersian sources.As we proceed with the account of the emergence of sciencein Islamic civilization, we should note that the Islamic scientifictradition was emerging in a cosmopolitan intellectual milieu andthat those who were making this tradition were not only Muslims butalso Jews, Christians, Hindus, Zoroastrians, and members of otherfaith communities. An Indian astronomer who arrived in the courtof the Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur (r. 754–775) as part of a delegationfrom Sind, for instance, was probably a Hindu. He knew Sanskrit andhelped al-Fazari (fl. second half of the eighth century) translate aSanskrit astronomical text into Arabic; this text contained elementsfrom even older astronomical traditions. The resultant translation,Zij al-Sindhind, became one of the sources of a long tradition of suchtexts in Islamic astronomy (Pingree 1970, 103–23).The emergence of the scientific tradition in this multireligious,multiethnic atmosphere was a dynamic process involving interactionsbetween patrons of learning, scholars, scientists, rulers, guilds, andwealthy merchants. To be sure, the scientific activity at this early timewas not yet an institutionalized effort, but we do know that groupsof scientists were already working together in the second half of theeighth century in Baghdad and other cities of the Abbasid caliphate.We should also keep in mind that this scientific tradition was evolvingat a time when the religious sciences had already been established ona firm foundation, with advanced texts in QurāĀnic studies, philology,grammar, jurisprudence, and other branches of religious studiescirculating among scholars. This fact is particularly important forour study because the prior establishment of religious sciences meantthat the new scientific tradition emerged into an intellectual milieualready shaped by religious thought.