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A Golden Age of Harmony? Misrepresenting Science and History in the 1001 Inventions Exhibit

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A Golden Age of Harmony? Misrepresenting Science and History in the 1001 Inventions Exhibit Nov Dec**_SI new design masters 9/27/12 10:57 AM Page 49 A Golden Age of Harmony? Misrepresenting Science and History in the 1001 Inventions Exhibit Its intentions may be good, but a major new exhibit disregards serious differences between medieval and modern science and warps history to serve a present-day agenda of perfect harmony between science and Islam. TANER EDIS AND SONJA BRENTJES isitors to The National Geographic Museum in Washington, DC, between August 2012 and Febru- Vary 2013 will encounter a touring exhibition called 1001 Inventions: Discover the Golden Age of Muslim Civi- lization. The exhibit is impressive and has won various awards and gathered endorsements from figures such as Charles, the Prince of Wales. The exhibit and accompa- nying catalog and website (www.1001inventions.com) are lavishly illustrated and richly produced. With past appear- ances in London’s Science Museum, Istanbul, the New York Hall of Science, Abu Dhabi, and the California Sci- ence Center in Los Angeles, 1001 Inventions tells a story of how, between the seventh and seventeenth centuries, Muslim scientists made groundbreaking discoveries that eventually shaped the modern world. According to the exhibit and catalog tinued earlier scholarly projects they But 1001 Inventions is a missed oppor- (Al-Hassani 2012), Muslims laid the often revolutionized their treatment. tunity to raise awareness about the his- foundations of modern science and Much of this story, however, is not tory of science. The exhibit presents a technology. Great Muslims of the accurate. Certainly, it does not hurt to series of heroic tales of medieval Mus- past—mathematicians, astronomers, be aware that modern science and tech- lim discoveries from out of nowhere, chemists, physicians, architects, engi- nology did not appear out of the blue with no context, and with a disregard neers, economists, sociologists, artists, in Western Europe, and that scholars in for accuracy that shades into pure fic- artisans, and educators—expressed their medieval Muslim societies did not tion. The term “Golden Age” is occa- religiosity through beneficial contribu- merely preserve and transmit the sionally used by historians of science to tions to society and humanity. They knowledge of antiquity. There were describe the vibrant intellectual life in were the first to discover or invent much times when the richest intellectual life a number of predominantly Muslim so- in the sciences, technologies, industries, on the planet was to be found in places cieties between the eighth and four- and daily life; and when Muslims con- where Islam was the dominant religion. teenth centuries. The exhibit 1001 In- Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2012 49 Nov Dec**_SI new design masters 9/27/12 10:57 AM Page 50 ventions, however, draws on a more feathers, no less—is based mainly on a omers, bureaucrats, and architects long popular, mythic conception of a Golden few sentences in a Moroc can chronicle before Ibn al-Haytham analyzed the Age. It disregards serious differences from seven hundred years later. 1001 working principles of the camera obscura, between medieval and modern science Inventions also endorses and expands wrote about it, and described some of its and warps history to serve a present- on the similar Turkish legend of properties: not only Aristotle or Theon day agenda of perfect harmony between Hezarfen Ahmet Çelebi, who allegedly of Alexandria, but allegedly also MoTzi science and Islam. It promotes serious used eagle feathers to fly over Istanbul in fifth-century BCE China, Anthemius misunderstandings of science and his- in the seventeenth century, according to of Tralles, or al-Kindi. Ibn al-Haytham tory. another few sentences by a chronicler. did not invent the device nor did he de- Egregious mistakes and disregard (A small airport in Istanbul is named velop it to any higher level of complexity for professional standards are very com- after Hezarfen.) The sparseness of the or accuracy. Ibn al-Haytham’s main con- mon throughout the exhibit catalog. A historical evidence for these feats is ev- tributions consisted of the theoretical in- few examples give the flavor. ident even with a simple Wikipedia terpretation of what he saw and in the Flight. 1001 Inventions portrays the check, and at face value, flight with systematic character of some of his ex- ninth-century Andalusian Ibn Firnas as muscle-powered wings is physically im- periments. The catalog says Ibn al- the first person to build a flying ma- possible. And yet, 1001 Inventions not Haytham was “the first to totally reject chine. The catalog goes on for many only endorses notoriously unreliable ac- the theory of the Greeks.” However, his pages, describing his success at flight, counts but indulges in lengthy and theory of vision combines concepts, his design improvements, an injury he purely fictional elaborations. methods, and questions from ancient sustained in a flight attempt, and so Optics. A section on “Vision and Greek philosophy, optics, and mathe- forth (pp. 296–98). It gives artistic im- Cameras” highlights Ibn al-Haytham in matics, which he critically sorted, taking pressions of Ibn Firnas strapped with the tenth century and the first half of important concepts like the Aristotelian what looks like a frame resembling bird the eleventh. Indeed, Ibn al-Haytham’s form or the Euclidean geometrical ray or bat wings. The legend of Ibn Firnas’s work is recognizably in the tradition of aboard his new theory, as well as flight is popular among many Muslims what became physics in today’s sense, Ptolemy’s experiments on reflection and today; there is an airport north of and it should be better known. But 1001 Euclidean geometry. Baghdad named after him. And yet, Inventions presents his optics in a vac- The misplaced emphasis of 1001 In- this claim of successful powered uum. Its major illustration is the camera ventions on “the first inventor or discov- flight—with wings made out of eagle obscura, but other philosophers, astron - erer” leads the catalog to declare that A scale model of al-Jazari’s elephant clock (left). Despite the exhibit’s claims, the clock was not the “frst robotics with moving, time-telling features. The supposed ninth-century fight of Ibn Firnas, pictured in an artist’s impression (right), would have been actually impossible. 50 Volume 36 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer Nov Dec**_SI new design masters 9/27/12 10:57 AM Page 51 the “ninth-century polymath al-Kindi sophical debates about how we see, de- Clocks. The section on clocks fea- first laid down the foundations of mod- bates that were clearly anchored in the tures al-Jazari, who “was a pious Mus - ern day optics by questioning the Greek intellectual and instrumental contexts lim and highly skilled engineer who gave theories of vision. He said that how we of Late Antiquity (Adamson 2006, birth to the concept of automatic ma- see, our visual cone, is not formed of 213-4). The almost complete erasure of chines.” Whether he was a pious Mus- discrete rays as Euclid had said, but ap- such ancient contexts as well as the lim is as unknown as almost everything peared as a volume, in three dimen- contexts of Muslim scholars themselves else about him, except for his works, ex- sions, of continuous radiation” (p. 54). makes it impossible to understand the tant in manuscripts, and possibly a few Peter Adamson has studied some of the achievements of those scholars, their new material objects like clocks. Reading his modifications of the texts known as contributions, and their conceptual pe- work on ingenious mechanical devices teaches us, however, that al-Jazari did not see himself as the birth giver of au- Al-Jazari’s so-called “elephant clock” was not tomatic machines or their conceptual- ization or as an engineer, but as the head “the first robotics with moving time-telling figures.” of what perhaps signifies constructions Reports about analogous automata are well attested (ra’s al-‘amal), as which he was appar- for pre-Islamic cultures. ently highly appreciated. Al-Jazari’s so-called “elephant clock” was not “the first robotics with moving time-telling figures.” Reports about analogous automata are well attested Euclid’s Optics and those derived from culiarities, limitations, and errors. Claims for pre-Islamic cultures. It is highly un- them in Arabic and Latin. He places al- of al-Kindi laying the foundations of likely that al-Jazari’s clock “celebrated Kindi in the tradition of the Pseudo- modern-day optics are gross exaggera- the diversity of human kind” (p. 44; in Euclidian De Speculis and Johannes tions resulting from a lack of knowledge the second edition, this claim had a Philoponus (sixth century) who are about ancient Greek and medieval Ara- stronger religious connotation, ascrib- among the many mostly anonymous bic as well as Latin texts on optics and ing to al-Jazari the intention “to cele- teachers and students who modified the differences between these theories brate the diversity of mankind and the older positions in the light of philo- and today’s geometrical optics. universal nature of Islam”). These were A map drawn in the twelfth century by al-Idrisi on display at the 1000 Inventions exhibit. Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2012 51 Nov Dec**_SI new design masters 9/27/12 10:57 AM Page 52 not concerns of his time and culture, for sities at the time, madrasas as institu- for much of modernity. The exhibit is which the diversity of humankind and tions teaching some parts of mathemat- blind to differences between today’s sci- its celebration are completely anachro- ics and astronomy are later creations ence and its medieval precursors, and nistic ideas. Histor ical chronicles of the only vaguely similar to universities.
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