This is a review of the book prepared by Hilal Kazan for the Istanbul Greater City Council Cultural Foundation in order to provide a useful and important bio-bibliographic resource on the history of calligraphy of the Muslim Civilization. Written in Turkish and English, the book consists of notices of past and present Muslim female calligraphers, with many priceless examples of masterpieces of calligraphy. It emphasises also the importance of the activities of female calligraphers in the Muslim civilization at various places. The book reviewed in the following article is a unique work on the subject.
For much of the millennium before the rise of Portugal and Spain, Venice flourished as the hub of Europe's trade with the lands to its east and south. The profound mutual influences that resulted have inspired multiple scholars and historians to cast fresh looks at Venice and its history during pre-modern and modern times, as a meeting point for commerce and culture, especially with the Muslim World.
Some medical historians of the last century mistakenly recorded that Caesarean section was strictly forbidden amongst Muslims. This opinion has been repeatedly quoted without examining its authenticity or validity. Research into available ancient Arabic sources can lead to evidence contrary to such a view. The Islamic scholars of the Middle ages were, in fact, the first to not only write about this operation but to illustrate it in pictures and describe it in poetry. Considering the antiquity of their time, it is unfair to compare them with scholars of a later date; but their achievements must be valued.
Written nearly a thousand years ago, Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq's tenth-century cookbook is the most comprehensive work of its kind. Its recent edition and English translation offers a unique glimpse into the culinary culture of the Medieval Islam. This traditional cookbook with more than 600 recipes from the luxurious cuisine of classical Islam is also a rare guide to the contemporary culinary culture. Its numerous anecdotes and poems unfold the role of food in the politics of Islam's golden era. Informative and entertaining to scholars and general readers, the book has recently been edited and translated into English by Nawal Nasrallah. We present in the following review this important book, with references and links to related literature on the Islamic cuisine.
This article aims to give an overview of the formation and development of mathematical studies and the work of famous mathematician in the Ottoman State over a 600 year period, from the period preceding the conquest of Constantinople to the early 20th century. Dozens of mathematicians and hundreds of mathematical works flourished and they constitute rich material for ongoing investigation.
Ali Al-Qushji was one of the most noteworthy and important scientists in the Islamic world. He wrote valuable works especially on astronomy and mathematics. He was a student and co-worker of the famous statesman and scientist Ulugh Beg. After Ulugh Beg's death, Ali Al-Qushji left Samarqand to Tabriz where he worked for Akkoyunlu Ruler Uzun Hasan. Afterwards, he worked for the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II in Istanbul during the last two years of his life. This article presents a short survey of Al-Qushji's contributions to mathematics and astronomy.
The famous scientist Ibn al-Haytham (‘Alhazen') has rightly been credited with many advances in optics and vision science, but recent spurious claims that he is the ‘founder of psychophysics' rest upon unsupported assertions, a conflation of psychophysics with the wider discipline of psychology, and semantic arguments over what it is to ‘found' a school of thought.
It is often supposed in Islamic studies that Al-Ghazali demolished the basis for science in the Muslim world by his so-called orthodox attack against rational thinking which nurtured a negative climate that resulted in the eventual rejection of scientific research in the Islamic world after the 12th century. In this article, Arun Bala questions such views on both historical and epistemological grounds. Historically, historians showed that science advanced in the Muslim world even after Al-Ghazali, especially in directions that broke free from the heritage of Greek science. Moreover, epistemologically, the author argues that Al-Ghazali's impact was positive in the Muslim world and beyond. In the former, he provided epistemological and theological grounds for breaking free from the narrow rationalism of ancient science. In the West, his impact provoked the Scholastic philosophy, in order to respond to his theses, to develop new epistemological grounds which paved the way for modern science.
After briefly describing his work background, Trevor Hilder tells the story of the young man who set out to seek his fortune. He then offers an interpretation of the meaning of the story as an analogy of the rise of Western Civilisation and the waves of infrastructure which have been developed over the last five hundred years. He invites the reader to consider what the story can teach us as we try to create a truly global civilisation.
This primary-source study of four medical works of the 13th century Muslim scholar Ibn al-Nafis confirmed that his Kitab al-Mûjaz fi al-Tibb was authored as an independent book. It was meant as a handbook for medical students and practitioners not as an epitome of Kitab al-Qanun of Ibn Sina as thought by recent historians. Ibn al-Nafis' huge medical encyclopedia Al-Shamil represents a wave of intense scientific activity that spread among the scholars of Cairo and Damascus in the 13th century. Like his predecessors in the Islamic Era, Ibn al-Nafis critically appraised the views of scholars before him in the light of his own experimentation and direct observations. Accordingly, we find in his books the first description of the coronary vessels and the true concept of the blood supply of the heart as well as the correct description of the pulmonary circulation and the beginnings of the proper understanding of the systemic circulation. Those discoveries, spreading from East to West, were translated into Latin by Andreas Alpagus and appeared in the works of European scholars from Servetus to Harvey. Furthermore, this study documented several other contributions of Ibn al-Nafis to the progress of human functional anatomy and to advances in medical and surgical practice.
During the classical Muslim civilisation, big scientific advances in medicine were made. Muslim doctors began by collecting all the medical observations and theories of their predecessors, especially Hippocrates and Galen, and built an original and influential tradition of medical knowledge. This article presents selected episodes from this tradition, thus proving its richness and wide scope. Beginning by briefly setting the historical context, the author then then to Al-Zahrawi, the "Father of Surgery", Ibn Zuhr, the Doctor of Seville, Ibn Rushd, Doctor and Philosopher, Ibn Maymun, a doctor in exile, and finally the discoverer of the "secrets of the heart", Ibn al-Nafis al-Dimashqi.
One of the most popular books ever written is the book the Arabs know as Kalila wa-Dimna, a bestseller for almost two thousand years, and a book still read with pleasure all over the world. It has been translated at least 200 times into 50 different languages. In this article, Paul Lunde biefly presents Kalila wa-Dimna origins and characterizes its content.
In this short bio-bibliography of Kamal al-Din al-Farisi, Dr Saira Malik presents succinctly the life and work of one of the most original scientists of the Islamic tradition. The author of Tanqih al-Manazir was indeed a prominent physicist, mathematician, and scientist of the early 14th century, and an original reader and commentator of Ibn al-Haytham's optics.
Many of the prominent stars known today are of Arabic origin as they bear names given to them during the golden age of Islamic astronomy. A major contribution in this field is that of al-Sufi (10th century). Presenting shortly the historical context of the old nomenclature of Arabic star names, the article contains also a list of 165 stars known by Arabic names.
Attitudes and expectations towards medical knowledge and medical practice standards influence and determine the position of health practitioners and the development of medicine. While describing the basic characteristics of the Ottoman Turkish medicine and medical practice through their scientific approach and standards, the following article by Professor Nil Sari aims at putting forth the priorities of the Ottoman Turkish medicine, by means of primary sources such as archive documents and medical manuscripts.
The 14th-century historiographer and historian Abu Zayd ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Khaldun was a brilliant scholar and thinker now viewed as a founder of modern historiography, sociology and economics. Living in one of human kind's most turbulent centuries, he observed at first hand, or participated in, such decisive events as the birth of new states, the disintegration of the Muslim Andalus and the advance of the Christian reconquest, the Hundred Years' War, the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, the decline of Byzantium and the epidemic of the Black Death. Considered by modern critics as the thinker that conceived and created a philosophy of history that was undoubtedly one of the greatests works ever created by a man of intelligence, so groundbreaking were his ideas, and so far ahead of his time, that his writings are taken as a lens through which to view not only his own time but the relations between Europe and the Muslim world in our own time as well.
Piri Reis is a well known Ottoman-Turkish admiral, geographer and cartographer from the 16th century. His famous world map compiled in 1513 and discovered in 1929 at Topkapi Palace in Istanbul is the oldest known Turkish map showing the New World, and one of the oldest maps of America still in existence. The half of the map which survives shows the western coasts of Europe and North Africa and the coast of Brazil with reasonable accuracy in addition to various Atlantic islands including the Azores and Canary Islands. This article presents the achievements of Piri Reis in cartography through the analysis of the surviving partial versions of his two world maps and his book of navigation, the Kitab-i Bahriye.
The history of the astrolabe begins more than two thousand years ago, but it is in the Islamic classical world that the astrolabe was highly developed and its uses widely multiplied. Introduced to Europe from Islamic Spain in the early 12th century, it was one of the major astronomical instruments until the modern times. In this concise and beautifully illustrated article, Emily Winterburn casts a short story of the Islamic art of making astrolabes – developing the different varieties, the description of their structure and parts and their uses in social, religious and scientific functions.
The Seljuks were the first Turkish dynasty to rule the Muslim World reviving the dying Caliphate. Their arrival marked the introduction of the four Iwan mosque concept, the Caravanserais (Khans) and baroque art that spread to Europe in the 16th century.
What
is Taught
Sir William Harvey is wrongly credited with the modern theory of Pulmonary Circulation. Ibn Al-Nafis, an Arab physician of the 13th Century, explained the basic principles of Pulmonary Circulation nearly 350 years before Harvey was born.
Timeline
Discover Muslim Heritage through this interactive timeline.
Virtual
Civilisation
Explore Muslim Heritage through this interactive map of the Muslim World.
Topics
Browse all articles and topics on this website.
