Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

Aspects of Islamic Scientific Tradition • 23investigations revealed a intellectual tradition of proportionsthat no medieval or Renaissance European could ever haveimagined: anyone who might doubt this should look at themonumental bio-bibliographical writings of Heinrich Suter,Carl Brokelmann, and Fuat Sezgin. (King 2004, xvii)Even though King’s book is concerned with only one aspect ofIslamic science (astronomical timekeeping and instrumentation), ithas brought to the field of history of Islamic science a large amountof new materialwhich has become known only in the past 30 years. Inevitably[it] modifies the overall picture we have of Islamic science.And it so happens that the particular intellectual activity thatinspired these materials is related to the religious obligationto pray at specific times. The material presented here makesnonsense of the popular modern notion that religion inevitablyimpedes scientific progress, for in this case, the requirementsof the former actually inspired the progress of the latter forcenturies. (King 2004, xvii)Since this book is not on the history of Islamic scientific traditionbut on the relationship between Islam and science, it cannot go intofurther details, but it is clear that what remains to be recovered andstudied from the original sources in various branches of scienceis far greater than what has been studied so far, and that a finalassessment of the Islamic scientific tradition can only be made afterfurther source material has been carefully examined by competenthistorians and scholars.Before exploring various aspects of the Islam and sciencerelationship, it must be pointed out that sciences cultivated inIslamic civilization were not always the work of Muslims; in fact,a considerable number of non-Muslims were part of this scientifictradition. What made this science Islamic were its integral connectionswith the Islamic worldview, the specific concept of nature providedby the QurāĀn, and the numerous abiding concerns of Islamictradition that played a significant role in the making of the Islamicscientific enterprise. There were, of course, at times bitter disputesbetween proponents of various views on the nature of the cosmos,its origin, and its composition, but all of these tensions were within