Islamic Studies: Philosophy & Science

"From the introduction of Greek philosophy into the Muslim world in the eighth century, right through to modern times, Majid Fakhry charts the evolution and interaction of philosophy, theology, and mysticism in the Islamic context. Highlighting key individuals, movements, concepts and writings, Fakhry also explores the conflicts and controversies between anti- and prophilosophical parties that have characterised the development of Islamic thought." - Publisher

Written by established philosophers who know their subjects inside-out, these thorough alphabetical guides cover both traditional and contemporary terminology. Key features are: clear and concise entries provide an introductory overview and a handy reference to the field,
extensive cross-referencing links ideas, thinkers and wider debates, and includes suggestions for further reading.

"The Islamic scientific tradition has been described many times in accounts of Islamic civilization and general histories of science, with most authors tracing its beginnings to the appropriation of ideas from other ancient civilizations—the Greeks in particular. In this thought-provoking and original book, George Saliba argues that, contrary to the generally accepted view, the foundations of Islamic scientific thought were laid well before Greek sources were formally translated into Arabic in the ninth century. Drawing on an account by the tenth-century intellectual historian Ibn al-Naidm that is ignored by most modern scholars, Saliba suggests that early translations from mainly Persian and Greek sources outlining elementary scientific ideas for the use of government departments were the impetus for the development of the Islamic scientific tradition. He argues further that there was an organic relationship between the Islamic scientific thought that developed in the later centuries and the science that came into being in Europe during the Renaissance." - MIT Press

"This book is about a Muslim Shi’i philosopher of the early 16th century, Najm al-Din Mahmud al-Nayrizi. Educated in Shiraz, he became interested in Avicennan and Suhrawardian philosophy. Apart from Nayrizi, the present study introduces his contemporary philosophers and provides an outlines of the main philosophical challenges of the time." - Brill

"Between A.D. 800 and 1450, the most important centers for the study of what we now call "the exact sciences"—including the mathematical sciences of arithmetic, geometry, and trigonometry and their applications in such fields as astronomy, astrology, geography, cartography, and optics—were not in Europe but in the vast, multinational Islamic world. Research from the last few decades has profoundly changed our understanding of the Islamic scientific tradition. We now know that it was richer and more profound and had more complex relations to other cultures than we had previously thought. This book offers an overview of this newly energized field of historical investigation. The areas discussed include cross-cultural transmission; transformations of Greek optics; the philosophy and practice of mathematics; numbers, geometry, and architecture; the transmission of astronomy; and science and medicine in the Maghrib. The emphasis throughout the book is on the transmission of scientific knowledge, either from one culture to another or within the medieval Islamic world. The book also presents many unsolved historical problems, such as the question of when and where the Hindu-Arabic number symbols evolved from the Eastern Islamic forms to the Western Islamic forms, which are virtually identical to the modern forms 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0." - MIT Press