Islamic Acquisition of the Foreign Sciences

Abstract

The study of the transmission and transformation of ancient science is more than a study of which texts were translated, when, and by whom. It was a complex process, better seen as beginning rather than ending with the translation of relevant books, for the heart of the process is the assimilation rather than the simple reception of the material. Scientific ideas move because people study books, compute with tables, and use instruments, not simply because they translate books, transcribe tables, or buy pretty artifacts. It suffices to recall that the scholars of the Byzantine Empire, despite their status as the direct heirs of the classical Greek scientific tradition and their direct access to whatever classical Greek manuscripts the Islamic world eventually came to possess-indeed to more of them and from an earlier date-were largely uninterested in this knowleldge. Hence no account of the transmission of scientific knowledge can be complete if it does not recognize that it is, at root, an account of the activities of what Dupree has called "homo sapiens in a social context." Two Caveats At the outset of this paper, two points mu5t be taken into consideration. First, although we may wish to study the whole process of the Islamic acquisition of the foreign sciences as it took place over several centuries and over an area extending from Spain to Afghanistan, it must be realized that the examples given refer to specific events that took place at specific times and in specific places. As a result, eminent Islamic thinkers and writers are quoted without any accompanying claim that each one is representative of all Islamic thinkers at all times and in all places. It is sufficient that when a person such without any accompanying claim that each one is representative of all Islamic ...