Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies: Practices from the 2nd/8th to the 13th/19th Centuries (The Routledge Handbooks)

The Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies provides a comprehensive survey on science in the Islamic world from the 8th to the 19th century. Across six sections, a group of subject experts discuss and analyze scientific practices across a wide range of Islamicate societies. The authors take into consideration several contexts in which science was practiced, ranging from intellectual traditions and persuasions to institutions, such as courts, schools, hospitals, and observatories, to the materiality of scientific practices, including the arts and craftsmanship. Chapters also devote attention to scientific practices of minority communities in Muslim majority societies, and Muslim minority groups in societies outside the Islamicate world, thereby allowing readers to better understand the opportunities and constraints of scientific practices under varying local conditions. Through replacing Islam with Islamicate societies, the book opens up ways to explain similarities and differences between diverse societies ruled by Muslim dynasties. This handbook will be an invaluable resource for both established academics and students looking for an introduction to the field. It will appeal to those involved in the study of the history of science, the history of ideas, intellectual history, social or cultural history, Islamic studies, Middle East and African studies including history, and studies of Muslim communities in Europe and South and East Asia. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 List of contributors 12 List of abbreviations 24 List of figures 25 List of tables 33 List of boxes 34 Preface 35 Introduction 40 Part I Late Antiquity, translating and the formation of the sciences in Islamicate polities (1st bh–7th/5th–13th centuries) 52 I.1 Translation as an enduring and widespread cultural practice 54 I.2 Multiple translation activities 64 I.3 Translations in the mathematical sciences 78 I.4 Translations of medical and occult texts into Arabic and Syriac and their contexts after 80/700 96 I.5 Geometry and its branches 103 I.6 The astral sciences through the 7th/13th century: Attitudes, experts and practices 119 I.7 Algebra and arithmetic 135 I.8 Optics: experiments and applications 145 I.9 Automata and balances 152 I.10 Medicine 169 I.11 Natural philosophy 179 I.12 Alchemy and the chemical crafts 193 I.13 Geography and mapmaking 205 I.14 Physiognomy: science of intuition 219 I.15 The Hieroglyphic script deciphered? An Arabic treatise on ancient and occult alphabets 233 I.16 Practices of Zoroastrian scholars before and after the advent of Islam 247 I.17 Evaluating the past: scholarly views of ancient societies and their sciences 260 Part II Scientific practices at courts, observatories and hospitals (2nd–13th/8th–19th centuries) 270 II.1 The emergence of Persian as a language of science 272 II.2 The emergence of a new scholarly language: the case of Ottoman Turkish 279 II.3 Imperial demand and support 287 II.4 The practice of pharmacy in later medieval Egypt 298 II.5 Ottoman and Safavid health practices and institutions 307 II.6 Planetary theory 319 II.7 Practices of celestial observation in the Islamicate world 337 II.8 The practical aspects of Ottoman maps 352 II.9 Another scientific revolution: the occult sciences in theory and experimentalist practice 367 II.10 Arts, sciences and princely patronage at Islamicate courts (4th/10th–11th/17th centuries) 379 II.11 Physiognomy (ʿilm-i firāset) and politics at the Ottoman court 393 Part III Learning and collecting institutions – debates and methods (3rd–13th/9th–19th centuries) 406 III.1 Libraries – beginnings, diffusion and consolidation 408 III.2 Madrasas and the sciences 417 III.3 Scientific matters in kalām (theology) 433 III.4 Ashʿarite occasionalist cosmology, al-Ghazālī and the pursuit of the natural sciences in Islamicate societies 442 III.5 The role of sense perception and experience (tajriba) in Arabic theories of science 452 III.6 Logic: didactics and visual representations 458 III.7 Medical commentaries 475 III.8 Textual genres and visual representations in the astral sciences 486 Part IV The materiality of the sciences (3rd–13th/9th–19th centuries) 500 IV.1 The materiality of scholarship 502 IV.2 Three-dimensional astronomy: celestial globes and armillary spheres 513 IV.3 Projecting the heavens: astrolabes 525 IV.4 Medical instruments 541 IV.5 Alchemical equipment 551 IV.6 Water and technology in the Islamicate world 562 IV.7 Arts and sciences in the Islamicate world 577 Part V Centers, regions, empires and the outskirts (3rd–113th/9th–19th centuries) 592 V.1 Mathematical knowledge fields in the Islamicate world: similarities and differences 594 V.2 Jewish mathematical activities in medieval Islamicate societies and border zones 605 V.3 Patronage and the practice of astrology in al-Andalus and the Maghrib 619 V.4 Anwāʾ and mīqāt in calendars and almanacs of the societies of al-Andalus and the far Maghrib 634 V.5 Scholarly communities dedicated to the sciences in al-Andalus 647 V.6 Post-Avicennan natural philosophy 661 V.7 Cool and calming as the rose: pharmaceutical texts as tools of regional medical practices in early modern India 673 V.8 Medical practices and cross-cultural interactions in Persianate South Asia 680 V.9 Premodern Ottoman perspectives on natural phenomena 689 V.10 Scientific practices in sub-Saharan Africa 703 V.11 Medical practices in Tibet in intercultural contexts 718 V.12 Islamicate astral sciences in eastern Eurasia during the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) 727 V.13 Collation and articulation of Arabo-Persian scientific texts in early modern China 735 V.14 The multiplicity of translating communities in the Iberian Peninsula (12th–13th centuries) 744 Part VI Encounters, conflicts, changes (4th–13th/10th–19th centuries) 760 VI.1 Cross-communal scholarly interactions 762 VI.2 Which is the right qibla? 780 VI.3 Were philosophers considered heretics in Islam? 791 VI.4 Systems of knowledge: debating organization and changing relationships 800 VI.5 Embassies, trading posts, travelers and missionaries 812 VI.6 The sciences in two private libraries from Ottoman Syria 826 VI.7 13th/19th-century narratives and translations of science in the South Asian Islamicate world 837 Consolidated Bibliography 847 Index 852 Antiquity;,Islamicate;,sciences Antiquity,Islamicate,sciences "The Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies provides a comprehensive survey on science in the Islamic world from the 8th to the 19th century. Across six sections, a group of subject experts discuss and analyse scientific practices across a wide range of Islamicate societies. The authors take into consideration several contexts in which "science" was practiced, ranging from intellectual traditions and persuasions, to institutions such as courts, schools, hospitals, and observatories, to the materiality of scientific practices, including the arts and craftsmanship. Chapters also devote attention to scientific practices of minority communities in Muslim majority societies, and Muslim minority groups in societies outside the Islamicate world, thereby allowing readers to better understand the opportunities and constraints of scientific practices under varying local conditions. Through replacing Islam with Islamicate societies, the book opens up ways to explain similarities and differences between diverse societies ruled by Muslim dynasties. This handbook will be an invaluable resource for both established academics and students looking for an introduction to the field. It will appeal to those involved in the study of the History of Science, the History of Ideas, Intellectual History, Social or Cultural History, Islamic studies, Middle East and African studies including history, and studies of Muslim communities in Europe, South and East Asia"-- Provided by publisher