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The Fate of Islamic Science Between the Eleventh and Sixteenth Centuries: a Critical Study of Scholarship from Ibn Khaldun to the Present

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The Fate of Islamic Science Between the Eleventh and Sixteenth Centuries: a Critical Study of Scholarship from Ibn Khaldun to the Present The Fate of Islamic Science Between the Eleventh and Sixteenth Centuries: A Critical Study of Scholarship from Ibn Khaldun to the Present Author Abdalla, Mohamad Published 2004 Thesis Type Thesis (PhD Doctorate) School School of Science DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/2281 Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise. Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367065 Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au THE FATE OF ISLAMIC SCIENCE BETWEEN THE ELEVENTH AND SIXTEENTH-CENTURIES: A CRITICAL STUDY OF SCHOLARSHIP FROM IBN KHALDUN TO THE PRESENT MOHAMAD ABDALLA BSC HONS (GRIFFITH) SCHOOL OF SCIENCE GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY, 2003 SUBMITTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PhD) DECEMBER 2003 ABSTRACT The aim of this thesis is to comprehensively survey and evaluate scholarship, from Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) to the present, on the fate of Islamic science between the eleventh and sixteenth-centuries, and to outline a more adequate scholarly approach. The thesis also assesses the logic and empirical accuracy of the accepted decline theory, and other alternative views, regarding the fate of Islamic science, and investigates the procedural and social physiological factors that give rise to inadequacies in the scholarship under question. It also attempts to construct an intellectual model for the fate of Islamic science, one that examines the cultural environment, and the interactions among different cultural dynamics at work. Drawing upon Ibn Khaldun’s theory and recent substantial evidence from the history of Islamic science, this thesis also entails justifying the claim that, contrary to common assumptions, different fates awaited Islamic science, in different areas, and at different times. For the period of Ibn Khaldun to the present, this thesis presents the first comprehensive review of both classical and contemporary scholarship, exclusively or partially, devoted to the fate of Islamic science for the period under study. Based on this review, the thesis demonstrates that, although the idea that Islamic science declined after the eleventh century has gained a wide currency, and may have been established as the preferred scholarly paradigm, there is no agreement amongst scholars regarding what actually happened. In fact, the lexicon of scholarship that describes the fate of Islamic science includes such terms as: “decline,” “decadence,” “stagnation,” “fragmentation,” “standstill,” and that Islamic science “froze,” to name just a few. More importantly, the study shows that six centuries ago, the Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun provided a more sophisticated and complex theory regarding what happened to Islamic science, which was not utilised except in the work of two scholars. The thesis tests the adequacy of the different claims by applying them to four case studies from the history of Islamic science, and demonstrate that evidence for specified areas shows that different fates awaited Islamic science in different areas and times. In view of the fact that Ibn Khaldun’s theory is six centuries old, and that evidence of original scientific activity beyond the eleventh century emerged in the 1950s, what would one expect the state of scholarship to be? One would expect that with the availability of such evidence the usage of “decline” and other single- faceted terms would begin to disappear from the lexicon of scholarship; scholars would show awareness, and criticism, of each other’s work; and development of more and more sophisticated concepts would emerge that would explain the fate of Islamic science. The thesis demonstrates that this did not happen. It argues that the key problem is that, after Ibn Khaldun, there was a centuries-long gap, in which even excellent historians used simple, dismissive terms and concepts defined by a limited, but highly persistent, bundle of interpretative views with a dominant theme of decline. These persistent themes within the scholarship by which Islamic science is constructed and represented were deeply embedded in many scholarly works. In addition, many scholars failed to build on the work of others; they ignored major pieces of evidence; and, in most cases, they were not trying to discern what happened to Islamic science but were referring to the subject as part of another project. Thus, in this corpus of scholarship, one that contains the work of some of the ‘best’ scholars, the myth of the decline remains not only intact but also powerful. Convinced of its merit, scholars passed it on and vouched for it, failing to distinguish facts from decisions based on consensus, emotion, or tradition. There are very few noteworthy cases where Islamic science is being represented in ways that do not imply negativity. There are also some few narratives that present more complex descriptions; however, even Ibn Khaldun’s complex theory, which is arguably the most adequate in the scholarship, is non-comprehensive. Some modern scholars, like Saliba and Sabra, present a challenge to the common argument that Islamic science suffered a uniform decline. However, in the absence of any significant challenges to the common claims of the fate of Islamic science, particularly that of decline, it is evident that, at the very least, the scholarship seems to offer support to the work of discourses that construct the fate of Islamic science in single-faceted, simplistic and reductive terms. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ----------------------------------------------------------1 CHAPTER TWO: THE IMPORTANCE OF ISLAMIC SCIENCE: PROGRESSIVE UNDERSTANDING IN THE SCHOLARLY COMMUNITY ----------------------------------22 CHAPTER THREE: THE SCHOLARLY COMMUNITY: IDEAL STANDARDS AND CONSTRAINING PROBLEMS ---------------------------------------------------------------46 CHAPTER FOUR: A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF SCHOLARSHIP FROM IBN KHALDUN TO THE PRESENT --------------------------------------------------------------88 CHAPTER FIVE: THE FATE OF ISLAMIC MATHEMATICS IN THE MAGHRIB BETWEEN THE ELEVENTH AND SIXTEENTH-CENTURIES ----------------------------------------142 CHAPTER SIX: THE FATE OF ISLAMIC ASTRONOMY IN PERSIA BETWEEN THE ELEVENTH AND SIXTEENTH-CENTURIES-----------------------------------------------160 CHAPTER SEVEN: THE FATE OF ISLAMIC ASTRONOMY IN EGYPT AND SYRIA BETWEEN THE ELEVENTH AND SIXTEENTH-CENTURIES-----------------------------185 CHAPTER EIGHT: THE FATE OF ISLAMIC MEDICINE IN EGYPT AND SYRIA BETWEEN THE ELEVENTH AND SIXTEENTH-CENTURIES-----------------------------198 CHAPTER NINE: A DISCUSSION ON THE QUALITY OF SCHOLARSHIP ON THE FATE OF ISLAMIC SCIENCE---------------------------------------------------------------------219 CHAPTER TEN: THE FATE OF ISLAMIC SCIENCE: A POSSIBLE ADEQUATE INTELLECTUAL MODEL ------------------------------------------------------------------249 CHAPTER ELEVEN: CONCLUDING REMARKS-----------------------------------------261 BIBLIOGRAPHY---------------------------------------------------------------------------276 “HE WHO DOES NOT THANK PEOPLE DOES NOT THANK ALLAH.” PROPHET MUHAMMAD ACKNOWLEDGMENT I would like to wholeheartedly thank my supervisor, Dr. Martin Bridgstock, for his excellent guidance and continuous and relentless encouragement at every stage of the preparation and writing of this thesis. I do not think that this thesis would have been completed without his magnificent support. Thanks also to my second supervisor, Associate Professor John Forge, for his support. I must also thank the scholars whose work I used to formulate my ideas, especially Professor of the History of Arabic Science, George Saliba; Professor Ahmad al-Hassan, and Emeritus Professor of the History of Islamic science, Abdelhamid Sabra. Many thanks to my parents who offered continuous support at every stage of the preparation and writing of this thesis. Finally, I thank my wonderful wife, Umm Abdul-Jaleel, for her patience and support, who has been a source of inspiration, throughout the preparation of this thesis. STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. Mohamad Abdalla December 2003 CHAPTER ONE - Introduction 11 INTRODUCTION The history of science is studied for many different reasons. For George Sarton, founder of history of science in America,1 the study of the history of science is significant because: The past cannot be separated from the present without grievous loss. The present without the past is insipid and meaningless; the past without the present is obscure. The life of science, like the life of art, is eternal, and we must view it from the point of view of eternity.2 For J. D. Bernal, author of the monumental Science in History, the history of science allows one to “analyse the relationship between science and society throughout history.”3 For Joseph Needham, the history of science is important because it breaks through the “parochial, Europe-centred views” of most Orientalists’ literature,4 by disclosing the achievements of traditional civilisations, 1 Lewis Pyenson, “The History of Science,” American Scientist, 91,3, 2003, p. 265. 2Quoted by Eugene Garfield. “How an Understanding of Science History Is Useful, Enriching, and Rewarding.” The Scientist, 7, 24, 1993, p.12. 3 The MIT Press, Science in History.
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