The Arabic History of Science of Abū Sahl ibn Nawbakht (fl. ca 770-809) and Its Middle Persian Sources (original) (raw)
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Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period , 1990
A frequent problem in the history and other sciences is the determination of the extent to which new data affect previously-accepted doctrine. Usually, it seems, the problem is one of excessive conservatism : scholars may at first tend to limit the new data's effect, localizing it to this or that detail, while in fact the new information is eventually recognized to have fundamental and far-reaching implications'). It may also happen, however, that scholars err on the side of radicalism, wrongly assuming that a change or addition of data implies that the entire body of knowledge, to which it is relevant, must be changed or abandoned. This is especially likely to occur, it seems, if those supplying the new data are not, primarily, practioners of the field to which it applies. For, on the one hand, they may not be fully familiar with all the underpinnings of the old theory or the ramifications of the new one. And, on the other hand, it is easier to give up some previously-held theory if it was not close to one's heart or interest to begin with2). *) This paper was first presented, in different form, at the 1985 national meeting of the American Philological Association. My thanks to Professors S. Japhet, B. Porten, M. Stern and Dr. D. Satran of the Hebrew University, and to Dr. M. Mor of Haifa University, for their advice and comments on a previous draft, also to the students of my first-year classes at Hebrew University in the past few years, who served as sounding-boards, not to say guinea pigs, for many of the arguments offered below. 1) For the classic discussion, see T. S. KUHN, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago-London, 1962. At times, however, failure to recognize implications is due more to their intricacy than to plain conservatism. I have elsewhere shown, for example, that a nineteenth-century epigraphic theory which derived, ultimately, from an eighteenth-century numismatic hypothesis, failed to change, but rather remained on the books until today, even after nineteenth-century numismatic discoveries proved the older hypothesis wrong; no one noticed the connection. See D.R. SCHWARTZ, "Caesarea and its "Isactium": Epigraphy and Herodian Chronology", Cathedra 51 (April 1989), esp. pp. 21-26 [Hebrew]. 2) According to KUHN (above, n. 1), scientists are readiest to abandon an accepted theory when there is a new one waiting to take its place, thus preventing the creation of a vacuum. It seems obvious that the rejection of a theory will not cause a vacuum for people basically unconcerned with it.
Brill, 2020
Maqālīd al-ʿulūm (Keys to the Sciences) is a significant source on definitions of Arabic scientific terms in the post-classical period. Composed by an anonymous author, it contains over eighteen hundred definitions in the realm of twenty-one religious, literary, and rational sciences. The work was dedicated to the Muzaffarid Shāh Shujāʿ, who ruled over Shiraz and its neighbouring regions from 759/1358 to 786/1384. The present volume contains a critical edition of Maqālīd al-ʿulūm based on its three extant manuscripts. In the introduction, the editors review previous scholarship on the text, present an overview of patronage at the court of Shāh Shujāʿ and identify some of the sources used by the author of the work. They suggest that the work in its structure mirrors Abū ʿAbdullāh Khwārazmī’s Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm, completed in 366/976.