Science and Islam: A History

Ehsan Masood

Paperback

9781785782022

Long before the European Enlightenment, scholars and researchers working from Samarkand in modern-day Uzbekistan to Cordoba in Spain advanced our knowledge of astronomy, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, medicine and philosophy.

From Musa al-Khwarizmi who developed algebra in 9th century Baghdad to al-Jazari, a 13th-century Turkish engineer whose achievements include the crank, the camshaft and the reciprocating piston, Ehsan Masood tells the amazing story of one of history's most misunderstood yet rich and fertile periods in science, via the scholars, research, and science of the Islamic empires of the middle ages.

Contents

Prologue

1. The Dark Age Myth

Part I: The Islamic Quest

2. The Coming of the Prophet

3. Building Islam

4. Baghdad’s Splendour

5. The Caliph of Science

6. The Flowering of Andalusia

7. Beyond the Abbasids

Part II: Branches of Learning

8. The Best Gift From God

9. Astronomy: The Structured Heaven

10. Number: The Living Universe of Islam

11. At Home in the Elements

12. Ingenious Devices

Part III: Second Thoughts

13. An Endless Frontier

14. One Chapter Closes, Another Begins

15. Science and Islam: Lessons From History

Timeline