INTRODUCTION 9
CHAPTER1: CONTEXTUALIZING LEARNING AND TEACHING OF THE SCIENCES IN ISLAMICATE SOCIETIES 17 1.1. Hie Beginnings 18 1.2. Hie Early Abbasid Period 19 1.3. A Period of Consolidation, Synthesis, and Contests 21 1.4. Breakdown, Reorientation, and Reconfirmation in the Wake of the Mongol Conquests 24 1.5. Change as the Norm? A Further Wave of New Empires and Dynasties 26 1.6. Consolidation, Climax, and New Challenges 27 1.7. Comparisons 30 1.8. Postface 31
CHAPTER 2: TEACHERS AND STUDENTS AT COURTS AND IN PRIVATE HOMES (EIGHTH-TWELFTH CENTURIES) 33 2.1. Limited Resources 35 2.2. Stories about the Transfer of Philosophy and Medicine from Alexandria to Baghdad 37 2.3. Teaching the Mathematical Sciences 38 2.4. Teachers and Students 42 2.5. Postface 65
CHAPTER 3: SCHOOLS OF ADVANCED EDUCATION 67 3.1. Hie Legal Status and Formalities of Advanced Education 68 3.2. Teaching Non-Religious Disciplines at Religious Institutions 70 3.3. Processes of Professionalization and Specialization 71 3.4. Secretaries, Animals, and Foreigners 75
CHAPTER 4: THE SCIENCES AT MADRASAS 77 4.1. Mathematical Disciplines 77 4.2. Medicine and Pharmacology 91
Brentjes, Sonja digitalisiert durch: Teaching and learning the sciences in Islamicate societies ... IDS Basel Bern 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS
4.3. Natural Philosophy 98 4.4. Divination, Magic, Alchemy 107 4.5. Postface Hl
CHAPTER 5: OTHER TEACHING INSTITUTIONS 113 5.1. Learning and Teaching at Hospitals 115 5.2. Family Education 131 5.3. Travel fbr the Sake of Knowledge 135 5.4. Postface 144
CHAPTER 6: TEACHING AND LEARNING METHODS 147 6.1. Meetings, Teachers, and Goals 149 6.2. Reflections on Creativity and Professional Control 155 6.3. Reading, Writing, Speaking, Seeing 161 6.4. Tradition, Ingenuity, and Discursive Method 168 6.5. "Hie Etiquette of Scholarly Disputation" 177 6.6. Commentaries and Super-Commentaries 181 6.7. Postface 185
CHAPTER 7: ENCYCLOPAEDIAS AND CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 187 7.1. Philosophical Perspectives and Works 194 7.2. Administrators and Their Encyclopaedias and Knowledge Systems 204 7.3. Madrasa Teachers as Writers of Summas and Divisions 211 7.4. Postface 221
CHAPTER 8: TEACHING LITERATURE AND ITS TEMPORAL GEOGRAPHIES 223 8.1. Euclid's Elements and the Middle Books 227 8.2. Other School Texts for Geometry 237 8.3. Arithmetic, Algebra, and Number Theory 239 8.4. Astronomy and Astrology 243 8.5. Medicine 247 8.6. Logic and Natural Philosophy 255 8.7. Postface 262 TABLE OF CONTENTS 7
APPENDICES 263 Table 1. Islamicate Dynasties Prominently Mentioned in this Book 263 Table 2. Ancient Scholars 264 Table 3. Scholars from Islamicate Societies 266 Table 4. Muslim Rulers 286
BIBLIOGRAPHY 289 Primary Sources 289 Secondary Sources 292
INDEX 305