Science in Medieval Islam: An Illustrated Introduction by Howard R. Turner Review by: Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad Middle East Journal, Vol.

52, No. 4 (Autumn, 1998), pp. 628-629 Published by: Middle East Institute Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4329273 . Accessed: 01/05/2012 00:15
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628 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL

of hierarchies.According to such value systems, individuals were destined to belong to a social rank from which they could not and should not escape. To determine the origins of these ideas, the author has looked at the legacy of Greek! Byzantine social thought and to ancient Persian ideas of hierarchy.She argues convincingly that Persianideas of a stable social structure, voiced in such fragmentarysurvivals of Sassanianpolitical writing as the Letter of Tansar and the Testament of Ardashir,provided the foundationfor much of this world view. The division of society into soldiers, priests, merchants and cultivators (or variationsof this division) was taken up by early Islamic intellectuals. A typical feature of these distinctionswas the lowly status assigned not just to cultivators but to merchantsand crafts people as well. By the time of the Saljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk in the 12th century or the philosopher Nasir al-Din Tusi in the 13th, it could be argued thatthe maintenanceof class distinctionsbased on descent and function was one of the most important roles of a good Muslim ruler.Equalitybased on merit might be found in the next world, but such ideas could not be countenancedin this. Marlow investigates these changes by a meticulous use of a wide range of sources in both Arabic and Persian.These include hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) collections, adab (belles-lettres), philosophical works and Mirrors for Princes (works of advice for rulers).Marlow's bibliography and discussion of the origin and context of many of these works are a valuable feature of this book. It is a pleasureto see such a wide variety of material used to illuminate a single theme. As mentionedabove,the authorlooks to boththe tradition the Persiantradition and Greek/Byzantine to discover the roots of hierarchical thought.She might also have consideredthe influence of preMuslim Arab ideas of hierarchy. Admittedlythese are rarely formulatedin literaryterms, but some tribesandindividuals were clearlyacknowledged to have a higherstatusthanothers.As IgnazGoldziher recognized long ago,' much of the social protest in which was apparent the firstcenturyof Islamwas directedat the ashraf, the chiefs of the pre-Islamic
1. "The Arab Tribes and Islam," in Muslim Studies, Vol. 1, tr. S.M. Stern (London, 1967), pp. 45-97.

order,and the importancethey continuedto enjoy in the new Muslim order,ratherthan any Persian ideas of hierarchy. Despite this reservation,it is clear that Marlow has made a majorcontributionto our understanding of early Islamic society and social thought. The work is clear and lucid, free fromjargon and firmly grounded in the text. Students of Islamic history will read it once with enjoyment but find themselves returningfrequentlyto seek out ideas, insights and fascinating nuggets of bibliography. Hugh Kennedy is Professor of Middle Eastern History at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.

Sciencein MedievalIslam:An Illustrated Introduction,by Howard R. Turner. Austin:

Universityof Texas Press, 1995. xx + 230 pages. Tables to p. 237. Gloss. to p. 240. Bibl. to p. 246. Illustrationsources to p. 252. Index to p. 262. $40 cloth; $19.95 paper. Reviewed by Imad-ad-DeanAhmad Insofar as the authorof this book has focused on the theme suggested by its subtitle, "anillustrated introduction science in medieval Islam,"he has to done an excellent job. HowardR. Turnerpresents a historical summaryof the subject in a readable, concise and generally accuratefashion. The 106 illustrations of mainly Muslim scientific texts, instruments and structures-all in black and white-are attractiveand pertinent.The book is well organized and interesting, and appropriate for an undergraduate course in medieval science, but the epilogue is disappointing. There he attempts-as so many non-Muslim Western analysts of Islam do-to explain the currentstate of science in the Muslim world in terms of a conflict between reason and revelation. This perspective comes out of Christian history and sheds more confusion than light on the problems and controversies in the Muslim world today. The firstthreechapters introduce reader the the to classical Islamiccivilization(7th to 15thc.), to the forces and bonds that held it together and to the roots of Islamic science in previous Egyptian, and Babylonian, Greek,Iranian Indiancivilizations. These chapters are a good introductionto the subject, but their main flaw is the absence of an

BOOK REVIEWS* 629

of appreciation the role that the Quranicmessage played in the developmentof that science. Chapters four through 12 admirably review medieval Muslims' contributionsin the areas of mathematics, astronomy, astrology, geography, medicine, the naturalsciences, alchemy and optics. In each field, the readercan see how Muslims studied, assimilated, adaptedand expanded upon the knowledge that was producedby earlier civilizations and cultures with which they came in contact. The examples are somewhat biased towards the Hellenistic cultures, a reflection of the author's Western source material, but the existence of other influences is acknowledged. Although the author gives many examples of the increasing importanceof empirical research, he seems to be unawareof the importanceof the fact that the Quranencouragedobservationof the materialworld and provoked Muslim respect for the empiricalaspect of the sciences, in contrastto the rationalisticancient Greeks. Turnerdiscusses the similarity between Ibn al-Shatir's planetary models and those of Copernicus, but does not seem to realize the significance of Ibn al-Shatir's concernfor the empiricalfailings of the Ptolemaic model. Ibn al-Shatir developed a model for the motions of planets (first proposed by al-Tusi) which dispensed with Ptolemy's cumbersome concepts of the "equant" and "eccentric" and described planetary motion by a set of linked epicycles. Copernicus' model is identical to Ibn al-Shatir'swith the epicycles shuffled.Al-Shatir's critique went beyond dissatisfaction with mere technical departures from absolutely circular planetarymotions. Chapter 14 gives an adequateif brief description of the transmissionof Islamic science to the West, but the concluding chaptersare inadequate. Chapter 15 underestimatesthe worth of the individual in the Islamic conception of tawhid. In the epilogue, the authorerrs in seeking to analyze the scientific backwardness of the modern Muslim world by simply taking for granted that the responsibilitylies on a supposed conflict between science and religion. His premise that classical Islamic antipathytowards philosophical speculation and pseudo-science (like astrology) constitutes an anti-science prejudice is untenable. The fact that such alleged attitudes did not prevent medieval Islam from achieving the magnificent scientific feats outlined in the rest of the book

suggests that an anti-science prejudice is a poor explanation for the present state of the Muslim world. The author's presumption,stated without documentation or example, that modern "Muslims attitudestowardthe characterand purposeof science include a broadrange of opposition, with an equivalent range of intensity" (p. 226) is certainlyfalse. The conclusion that the "confrontation between reasoning and revelation as sources of ultimate truthremains active throughout the worldwide Islamic community, with an intensity generally unmatched in the West" (p. 228) is astonishing.Even those Muslims who are fanatical in their opposition to certain aspects of modernity do not share the anti-technology tendencies found among certain "Christianfundamentalists"and among Luddite eco-extremists. It is uncommon to find a Muslim who would admit to any contradictionbetween reason and revelation. The issue of contention among Muslims is, and always has been, whose interpretation of revelationis the most reasonable.Debate about the meaning of religious texts (the signs of Allah in the Quran) was the inspiration for the first 1,000 years of Islamic scholarly endeavors.Muslims also debated the soundness of their competing interpretationsof observations (the signs of God in the heavens and on earth). Any renaissance of the Muslim world will depend not upon choosing science over revelation, but upon employing reason in all debate, whether scripturalor scientific. Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D., President of the Minaret of Freedom Institute, is author of Signs in the Heavens:A Muslim Astronomer'sPerspective 'on Religion and Science (Beltsville: Writers Inc., International,1992).

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