Islam Medeniyetinde Bilim Onculeri - Ibn Erenboğa ez- Zerdkaş (original) (raw)

Sâid al-Andalusî’s Tabaqât al-Umam in the context of the Relationship Between Science and Civilization With the rapid spread of Islam, Muslim people found the possibility of the meeting with the other cultures and civilizations and in considering the scientific heritages of former civilizations as their lost treasures they inherited products of these cultures. In the processes of the acquisition of these former scientific traditions they reproduced it in accordance with their own conception of knowledge. In addition to its scientifically central place in the Middle Ages, Muslim World was very prolific in the writing of the history of sciences as well. In his Tabaqât al-Umam, Qâdî Sâid al-Andalusî (d. 462/1070) classifies the scientific activities according to different nations and after describing these activities he informs about the transmission of ancient scientific traditions to Islamic civilization and scholars in the East and West part of Muslim World. In this respect, Tabaqât al-Umam is not only a history of science, but also a history of civilizations and nations. Saîd al-Andalusî does not confine himself to dealing with the places of nations in world history, he also deals with the classification of nations in respect to their contribution to scientific production. In this proceeding I will discuss Tabaqât al-Umam in terms of attitudes and approaches toward the science in Islamic civilization. For this purpose, the paper aims to discuss the meaning and importance of the conception of classification of nations and to evaluate this classification in terms of its absolute and conditional features. Finally, I will try to determine what is the implicit message that Tabaqât al-Umam conveys for our understanding of knowledge and science. Key words: Tabaqât al-Umam, Sâid al-Andalusî, Science, history of civilizations and nations.