ABSTRACT
The Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies provides a comprehensive survey on science in the Islamic world from the 8th to the 19th century.
Across six sections, a group of subject experts discuss and analyze scientific practices across a wide range of Islamicate societies. The authors take into consideration several contexts in which science was practiced, ranging from intellectual traditions and persuasions to institutions, such as courts, schools, hospitals, and observatories, to the materiality of scientific practices, including the arts and craftsmanship. Chapters also devote attention to scientific practices of minority communities in Muslim majority societies, and Muslim minority groups in societies outside the Islamicate world, thereby allowing readers to better understand the opportunities and constraints of scientific practices under varying local conditions.
Through replacing Islam with Islamicate societies, the book opens up ways to explain similarities and differences between diverse societies ruled by Muslim dynasties. This handbook will be an invaluable resource for both established academics and students looking for an introduction to the field. It will appeal to those involved in the study of the history of science, the history of ideas, intellectual history, social or cultural history, Islamic studies, Middle East and African studies including history, and studies of Muslim communities in Europe and South and East Asia.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|217 pages
Late antiquity, translating, and the formation of the sciences in Islamicate Polities (1st bh–7th/5th–13th centuries)
chapter I.6|16 pages
The Astral Sciences through the 7th/13th Century
part II|136 pages
Scientific practices at courts, observatories and hospitals (2nd–13th/8th–19th centuries)
chapter II.9|12 pages
Another Scientific Revolution
part III|94 pages
Learning and collecting institutions – debates and methods (3rd–13th/9th–19th centuries)
chapter III.5|6 pages
The Role of Sense Perception and Experience (Tajriba) in Arabic Theories of Science
part IV|92 pages
The materiality of the sciences (3rd–13th/9th–19th centuries)
part V|167 pages
Centers, regions, empires and the outskirts (3rd–13th/9th–19th centuries)
chapter V.1|11 pages
Mathematical Knowledge Fields in the Islamicate World
chapter V.2|14 pages
Jewish Mathematical Activities in Medieval Islamicate Societies and Border Zones
chapter V.7|7 pages
Cool and Calming as the Rose
part VI|87 pages
Encounters, conflicts, changes (4th–13th/10th–19th centuries)