eBook - ePub
Light from the East
How the Science of Medieval Islam helped to shape the Western World
- 264 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
Long before the European Renaissance, while the western world was languishing in what was once called the 'Dark Ages', the Arab world was ablaze with the knowledge, invention and creativity of its Golden Age. This is the story of how Islamic science, which began with the translation of Greek manuscripts into Arabic in eighth-century Baghdad, preserved and enhanced the knowledge acquired from Greece, Mesopotamia, India and China. Through the astrologers, physicians, philosophers, mathematicians and alchemists of the Muslim world, this knowledge was carried from Samarkand and Baghdad to Cordoba and beyond, influencing western thinkers from Thomas Aquinas and Copernicus and helping to inspire the cultural phenomenon of the Renaissance. John Freely tells this spellbinding story against a background of the melting pot of cultures involved and concludes with the decline of Islam's Golden Age, which led the West to forget the debt it owed to the Muslim world and the influence of medieval Islamic civilisation in forging the beginnings of modern science.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Author biography
- Dedication page
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Contents
- List of Plates
- Prologue: The Scriptorium at the Süleymaniye
- 1 Science Before Science: Mesopotamia and Egypt
- 2 The Land of the Greeks
- 3 The Roads to Baghdad
- 4 ‘Abbasid Baghdad: The House of Wisdom
- 5 ‘Spiritual Physick’
- 6 From Baghdad to Central Asia
- 7 The Cure of Ignorance
- 8 Fatimid Cairo: The Science of Light
- 9 Ayyubid and Mamluk Cairo: Healing Body and Soul
- 10 Ingenious Mechanical Devices
- 11 Islamic Technology
- 12 Al-Andalus
- 13 From the Maghrib to the Two Sicilies: Arabic into Latin
- 14 Incoherent Philosophers
- 15 Maragha and Samarkand: Spheres Within Spheres
- 16 Arabic Science and the European Renaissance
- 17 Copernicus and his Arabic Predecessors
- 18 The Scientific Revolution
- 19 The Heritage of Islamic Science
- Notes
- Bibliography
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Yes, you can access Light from the East by John Freely in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Science History. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.