Revealed Sciences: The Natural Sciences in Islam in Seventeenth-Century Morocco (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization)

"Demonstrating the vibrancy of an Early Modern Muslim society through a study of the natural sciences in seventeenth-century Morocco, Revealed Sciences examines how the natural sciences flourished during this period, without developing in a similar way to the natural sciences in Europe. Offering an innovative analysis of the relationship between religious thought and the natural sciences, Justin K. Stearns shows how nineteenth and twentieth-century European and Middle Eastern scholars jointly developed a narrative of the decline of post-formative Islamic thought, including the fate of the natural sciences in the Muslim world. Challenging these depictions of the natural sciences in the Muslim world, Stearns uses numerous close readings of works in the natural sciences to a detailed overview of the place of the natural sciences in scholarly and educational landscapes of the Early Modern Magreb, and considers non-teleological possibilities for understanding a persistent engagement with the natural sciences in Early Modern Morocco." Cover 1 Half-title page 3 Series page 4 Title page 5 Copyright page 6 Dedication 7 Contents 9 List of Figures 11 List of Tables 12 Preface: Paths not Taken 13 Acknowledgments 21 Introduction: Narratives of Science, Old and New 27 1 A Landscape of Learning in the Far West 60 Excursus The Poverty of Intellectual History as a Series of Great Men 94 2 Constructing Knowledge in Morocco between the Sixteenth and Eighteenth Centuries 99 Excursus: The Horizons of Causality or How to Think about Causes, Nature, and Ghosts of Scientific Methods 146 3 Legalizing Science: The Authority of the Natural Sciences in Islamic Law 151 Excursus: Kuhn and the History of Science in Islamicate Societies 196 4 Writing the Mathematical and Natural Sciences 201 Excursus Sufism and the Spiritual Life or Balancing the Exoteric and Esoteric Sciences 257 Conclusion: The Significance of a Landscape of Sciences in Seventeenth-Century Morocco 262 Appendix 1: List of the Sciences Given in ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Fāsī’s Kitāb al-Uqnūm 268 Appendix 2: Extant Manuscripts in the Natural Sciences from the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries in Moroccan Libraries 272 Bibliography 290 Index 316 "Introduction Narratives of Science, Old and New Overview For this book to tell its story another needs to be untold. This is because the seismic political and intellectual changes that took place globally in the nineteenth to twentieth centuries during successive stages of European colonial and economic expansion and the subsequent periods of decolonization and globalization have profoundly shaped our understandings of the preceding centuries.1 It has frequently been argued that modernity itself emerged in connection with industrialization in the long European century that began in the eighteenth century with European colonial adventures into the Middle East and Africa and ended with a world war in 1914-18, although it is far less clear what this actually means.2 Today, to attempt to reconstruct the pre-modern, pre-industrial societies before this century requires a considerable feat of imagination"-- Provided by publisher Provides a detailed overview of the place of the natural sciences in the scholarly and educational landscape of Early Modern Morocco, this study challenges previous negative depictions of the natural sciences in the Muslim world to demonstrate the vibrancy of an Early Modern Muslim society in seventeenth-century Morocco.