Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

16 • The Making of Islamic Scienceframework of inquiry and, more specifically, his “Theory of Balance.”According to Jabir, all that exists in the cosmos has a cosmic balance.This balance is present at various levels and reflects the overallharmony of all that exists.In addition to Jabir, many lesser-known scientists of this perioddemonstrated keen interest in astronomy, mathematics, cosmology,and medicine. Only a small number of fragmented works from thisperiod have so far been studied, and this does not allow us to traversethe early history of Islamic scientific tradition. Texts available tohistorians of science take us directly into the first half of the ninthcentury, when Baghdad had already become the intellectual andscientific capital of the Abbasid empire, providing scientists patronageand opportunities to experiment, discuss, and discover. Most of thesescientists were interested in more than one branch of science, as wasusual at that time. The highest concentration of scientific activityat this early stage is, however, in mathematics, astronomy, alchemy,natural history, and medicine.It is important to pay attention to this early period of Islamicscientific tradition, because the massive amount of Greek workssubsequently translated into Arabic have created the erroneousimpression that Islamic scientific tradition came into existencethrough the Translation Movement, and that all it did was to preserveGreek science for later transmission to Europe.Greek ConnectionThat the Islamic scientific tradition preceded the translationmovement, which brought a large number of foreign scientific textsinto this emerging tradition, is beyond doubt; even our meagerresources amply prove this. Astronomy, alchemy, medicine, andmathematics were already established fields of study before any majortranslations were made from Greek, Persian, or Indian sources.Translations were done to enrich the tradition, not to create it, assome Orientalists have claimed.In the field of astronomy, for instance, a very accomplishedgeneration of astronomers, which included Yaqub b. Tariq (fl. secondhalf of the eighth century) and several others, was already at work