Without a doubt, there were many more scientists in the middle ages than in
Greek and Roman antiquity, and many of them wrote in Arabic. We will spend the
next three weeks getting to know a few of these medieval scientists in Europe and
the Middle East. In this assignment we will focus on medieval Islamic
scientists.
For an introduction to Islamic science, read the following:
Note that by "Islamic" science we are referring to the natural knowledge of anyone who wrote in Arabic, regardless of whether they were Muslims or ethnically Arabic. People who wrote in Arabic might be Jewish, European, Persian, African, etc. Although the culture was thoroughly pervaded by Islamic religious sensibilities, we might just as easily refer to Islamic science as Arabic-language science, for many Jewish, Christian and pagan writers contributed to the cosmopolitan Islamic culture. Arabic was the "lingua franca" of the time. In this course we will use Islamic science and Arabic science interchangeably.
-
T
or F ? When the Roman empire
split into two east and west regions, the Byzantine empire in the east suffered
more economic decline, social upheaval and political disruption due to invasion
than the Latin West.
-
T
or F? Constantinople fell
to invaders long before the city of Rome itself.
-
T
or F? Simplicius (Simplikios)
was an important Byzantine Neoplatonic physicist and cosmologist in the
6th century.
-
T
or F? The Christian John
Philoponos (Philoponus) argued strongly for the authority of Aristotle in
the 6th century.
-
T
or F? According to Lindberg,
religion played a decisive role in obstructing the spread of Greek learning.
-
T
or F? In part due to the
influence of the Nestorians, 6th century Persian intellectuals developed
an appetite for Greek learning.
-
T
or F? Christian translators,
scientists, and physicians in Persian and Islamic cultures were invariably
forced by the sword to convert to the surrounding Persian or Islamic religions.
-
T
or F? Over a period lasting
nearly a thousand years, and encouraged by Nestorian influence, Greek texts
were translated into Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic in widespread use in the
Middle East.
-
T
or F? From the time of
its writing in the 7th century, the Qur’an (Koran) helped to stabilize Arabic
as a written language.
-
T
or F? In the 8th century,
with al-Mansur and the Abbasid dynasty in Baghdad, Islamic culture became
transformed into a centralized state that required the participation of
intellectuals with diverse ethnic identities and varied religious persuasions.
-
T
or F? The grandson of
al-Mansur, Harun ar-Rashid, maintained a Christian physician in his court.
-
T
or F? Al-Ma’mun, Harun’s
son, founded the House of Wisdom in Baghdad where Hunayn ibn Ishaq led a
collaborative effort to translate scientific works into Arabic and Syriac.
-
T
or F? Thabit ibn Qurra
translated the Almagest of Ptolemy into Arabic in the 12th century.
-
T
or F? In Islamic culture,
fields of learning were divided into two categories: the traditional disciplines
based on the Qu’ran; and the foreign sciences based on reason and critical
discussion.
-
T
or F? The “appropriation
thesis” interprets the role of science in Islamic culture as marginal because
of its status as a handmaiden to theology and the traditional disciplines.
-
T
or F? Lindberg argues
that Greek learning found a secure institutional home in Islamic culture
through the madrasas, which functioned as the equivalent to medieval universities.
-
T
or F? Pierre Duhem’s interpretation
of the role of science in Islamic culture was closer to the marginality
thesis than the appropriation thesis.
-
T
or F? Lindberg argues
that the writing of commentaries on Greek scientific works may sometimes
count as original contributions to the development of science.
-
T
or F? Important Islamic
contributors to the development of Ptolemaic astronomy include Ibn al-Haytham,
al-Farghani, Thabit ibn Qurra, and al-Battani.
-
T
or F? For at least 500
years after the initial efforts at translation, Islamic scientists continued
to advance the development of every branch of Greek science.
-
T
or F? Centers of Islamic
activity in the sciences stretched from Baghdad in the east, to Cairo in
Egypt, and as far away as Cordoba in Spain.
-
T
or F? Lindberg attributes
the decline of Islamic science in part to the loss of peace, prosperity
and patronage.
-
T
or F? Most scholars in
Islamic culture were ethnically Arab in origin.
-
T
or F? Madrasas incorporated
mathematical and astronomical instruction to support their programs of religious
instruction.
-
T
or F? Qibla refers to
the calculation of appropriate times of prayer.
-
T
or F? Astronomical observatories
illustrate the importance of astronomy for the traditional sciences.
-
T
or F? Astronomers of the
Maragha observatory developed a model of the motion of the Moon that was
used by Copernicus.
-
T
or F? Ibn Rushd (or Averroes)
wrote the Canon, an important medical treatise.
-
T
or F? Ibn Sina (or Avicenna)
wrote a comprehensive commentary on the Aristotelian corpus.
-
T
or F? Arabic astronomers
criticized Ptolemy for geometrical devices like the equant that could not
be represented by physical models.
-
T
or F? Astronomical instruments
at Samarqand were larger than those of Tycho Brahe.
- T or F?
Ali Qushji demonstrated propositions essential to Copernicus around 1430,
and affirmed the possibility of the motion of the Earth.
-
T
or F? Islamic scientists
continued to develop the alternative to Aristotle’s theory of natural motion
proposed by John Philoponos, which became known as impetus theory and is
similar to 17th century concepts of inertia.
