Islamic Sciences

The set of pictures below tells about the advances of Islamic sciences before the modern era. Islamic scientists were respected then and many of their findings became the foundations or important components of the sciences that we know today. There is much written about how advanced Islamic science during medieval times. Taken from "THE WORLD OF ISLAM"- Faith, People, Culture" By Bernard Lewis. Copyright Thames and Hudson, 1992

Islamic Astronomy (dated 14th century): These 2 diagrams from Ibn ash-Shatir's Nihayat al-sul illustrate the first successful representation of the motions of Planet Mercury exclusively in terms of uniform circular rotations.

Spherical Astrolab (dated 1480): These were rare and the only one known to exist. The large ecliptic circle bears the names of the signs of the zodiac. The rete, or star map, is attached to the globe with pointers for nineteen fixed stars.

 

Astrolab (dated 9th century): This was for measuring the altitude of heavenly bodies above the horizon, and so determining (among other things) the time of day or night. Readings are taken by means of rotatable alidade, a diametrical rule with sights.

 

Celestial Sphere (dated 1285): This equipment is from Iran. It incorporates information derived from Abd ar-Rahman as-Sufi's Book of Fixed Stars.

 

Observatory: At Samarqand, a great observatory was built. This trough supported a large arc erected in the meridian plane. Celestial bodies crossing this plane cast light through an opening at the arc's centre onto a graduated cylindrical base, from which their altitudes could be read off.

Geography (dated 1154): Arab geographers understood the basic outlines of Asia, Europe and North Africa by the 12th Century, and their knowledge was summed up in the great atlas of al-Idrisi. It places the south at the top, the diagram has been inverted to make it recognisable.

 

Biology (dated 17th century): Arabic medicine was in advance in Europe throughout the middle ages, and from the first medical school of Salerno down to Vesalius, Western doctors learned from their muslim counterparts.

 

Optics (dated 1083):  Ibn al-Haytham's Optics, written in Eqypt in the first half of the 11th Century, represented a theory of vision that went beyond Galen, Euclid and Ptolemy. This diagram of the two eyes seen from above, shows the principal tunics and humours and the optic nerves connecting the eyeballs to the brain

 
 

Mathematics Decimal Fractions (dated 10th century):  Decimal Fractions first appeared in Arabic in the work of the Damascene arithmetician Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi. This page from the unique manuscipt of al-Uqlidisi's Kitab al-Fusul shows the decimal point as a stroke above the number in the units place in lin 10.

 

Mathematics - Parallel: The problem of parallel lines, posed by Euclid's parallels postulate, received much attention from Islamic mathematicians throughout the history of medieval Arabic science. Nasir ad-Din at-Tusi's was probably the most mature treatment of the problem in Arabic, making sure use of Euclid's definition of parallel lines as non-secant lines and drawing on the results of his predecessors.