Sarah Stroumsa, “Early Muslim and Jewish Kalām: The Enterprise of Reasoned Discourse,” in Christoph Markschies and Yohanan Friedmann, ed., Rationalisation of Religion: Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Jerusalem and Berlin: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and de Gruyter, 2019), 202-223 (original) (raw)
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The Rise and Fall of Science and Philosophy in Islamic Civilizations
Islam arose in the seventh century. History has recorded a huge number of Muslim scientists between the eighth and the sixteenth century, who contributed to the civilizations that flourished in that era. Among them were astronomers and astrophysicists, chemists and alchemists, mathematicians, physicists, biologists, architects, geographers, etc. However, a great mystery which has engaged many contemporary scholars is that why the progress stopped. Why while Europe, after experiencing Renaissance, rapidly and increasingly developed in science and technology and, as a result, prospered materially, Islamic civilizations—mainly the Middle East, ceased to thrive? This essay is concerned with exploring the cause of decline of science and philosophy in Islamic world after a period, the three centuries of which has come to be called the Islamic Golden Age. In order to do so, first I need to demonstrate that there actually was a Golden Age, that is, a period of rise of great Muslim scientists and philosophers in the Muslim civilizations, which is taken to refer to the region which today is called the Middle East as well as the Medieval Muslim region of what is now Spain. These will be discussed in Part One. In Part Two, some of the most important proposed explanations for the decline will be looked at.
POLARISING ʿIlm: SCIENCE AND RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ISLAM
'Ilm: Science, Religion, and Art In Islam, 2019
The polarisation of the traditional concept of ʿilm, ‘knowledge’, into ʿilm, modern ‘science’ versus dīn, ‘religion’, has a short history in the Islamic tradition. Emerging awareness of the conflict between ʿilm and dīn can be traced back to the early decades of the 19th century; however, intense public debate of the polarity began later in the same century. Views about the conflict emerged after exposure to the European Enlightenment ideas generally, and the works of the fabricators of the ‘conflict thesis’, JW Draper and AD White, specifically. Arab and Turkish scholars celebrated Draper’s view that, unlike Christianity, Islam nurtured and advanced science. Taking this as evidence of Islam’s superiority over Christianity, they restricted the conflict thesis to Christendom and saw it as a result of the repressive practices of the Church. By the mid-20th century, new adaptations of the conflict thesis emerged, which mapped the polarity of science and religion over the traditional Islamic division of sciences into rational (ʿaqlī) and transmitted (naqlī). This chapter discusses the polarisation of ʿilm into science and religion, which occurred in the 19th century, in order to show, first, its inconsistency with pre-19th century Islamic sources on the classification of the rational and transmitted sciences, and, second, the distinct trajectory the polarity took in the Arab-Islamic context. It argues that the questions the polarity has raised in the Islamic context are concerned primarily not with historiography and the lost moral guidance of the scientific enterprise, but rather with Islam’s schizophrenic approach to modernity and its humanistic foundations.
History of the Development of Philosophy and Science in the Islamic Age
The type of research that the author uses is a type of qualitative research using a content analysis approach, or it can be called content research. This analysis is a research technique for making a conclusion or inference that can be replicated and the correctness of the data by taking into account the context. The object of this research is explored through various information in the form of books, interpretations, and journals. This journal aims to discuss Islamic philosophy, born from the holy book of Muslims themselves because it contains many verses that tell people to think. On the other hand, because of the incessant efforts made by Alexander the Great in conquering important cities such as Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and Persia, cultural centres were later established in these important cities which helped develop Alexander's efforts in developing knowledge. Greek knowledge and philosophy.
Science in Western Islam. The circulation of knowledge in Mediterranean region
2009
La Mediterrània ha estat gresol de la circulació d¿ idees i persones des de fa mil· lennis. Durant l¿ edat mitjana, però, el moviment més rellevant va ser, tal vegada, el que es va produir entre l¿ Orient (Maixriq) il¿ Occident (Magrib) islàmics. Els viatges d¿ estudis, íntimament units a les prescripcions religioses, varen convertir els científics musulmans en membres especialment actius en la difusió dels coneixements i dels avenços que s¿ anaven adquirint a la capital de l¿ imperi, Bagdad.
Science, Philosophy and Religion as Categories for the Rising of the Arab Mind: Past and Present
The Journal of the Faculty of Arts, Minufiya University, 66, July 2006, pp. 73 – 94., 2016
This paper primarily aims at taking an objective look at the factors that have led to the launching of the Arab cultural project and at its flourishing in the Middle Ages, as well as at identifying the 'local' elements of originality with regard to what was produced by the Arab mind in science and philosophy. This has been often overseen by historians and philosophers of science of later epochs under the influence of their special historical situation. In other words, I will try to determine the exact position of the Arab-Islamic civilization in the course of the development of the human civilization in general. The results of my efforts will be used in order to answer a pivotal question, namely if it is possible – in the light of the current 'locality' – to launch a contemporary Arab civilizational project, which can be compared to the great project of our ancestors?
“Classification of the Sciences in Islam: beyond the paradigms”
Thought lecture (2 hours) by Celeste Gianni Course: Arabic Critical Theory and Thought 2016/17 Weeks 4 & 5: “Sciences of Language and Logic in Classification of the Sciences” , 31 October 2016 SOAS – University of London Assigned text: Ibn Khaldun from the Muqaddima (excerpts) Required readings: Muhammad ‘Abid al-Jabiri, ‘Reason and Culture’ (3-34), ‘The Reigious “Rational” and the Irrational of “Reason”’ (159-194), and ‘Knowledge, Science and Politics in Arab Culture’ (413-438), The Formation of Arab Reason. Mohamed Arkoun, ‘Logocentrism and Religious Truth in Islamic Thought: the example of al-I‘lam bi–manaqib al-Islam’ (170-203), The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought. Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge. Michel Foucault, ‘Classifying’, The Order of Things: an Archaeology of the Human Sciences, 125-165.
In recent years, the subject of science in the Muslim World in the pre-modern period has largely been discussed in the context of two master narratives: (1) how and to what extent did Muslim scholarship influence European intellectual history, and (2) the nature of the decline of science and intellectual life in general in the Muslim world during the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods. This essay moves beyond these two narratives by first summarizing the history of European studies of science in the Muslim world. It then draws upon recent developments in Europeanist history of science and outstanding work by historians of Islamicate science to stress the importance of avoiding Whiggish readings of the history of the natural sciences in the Muslim world as well as the necessity for situating the same sciences in relation to developments in theology, jurisprudence, philosophy, and mysticism.