Emilie Savage-Smith FBA (born 20 August 1941) is an American-British historian of science known for her work on science in the medieval Islamic world and medicine in the medieval Islamic world. [1]
Savage-Smith was born on 20 August 1941, in the US, and became a dual citizen of the UK and US in 2003. She was an undergraduate at DePauw University, graduating in 1962, and completed her Ph.D. in 1969 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. [2] Her doctoral dissertation, Galen on Nerves, Veins and Arteries, was a critical edition of book 16 of Galen's De usu partium corporis humani , including a translation from the Arabic edition of Hunayn ibn Ishaq. [3]
She is retired as Professor of the History of Islamic Science at the University of Oxford, where she continues to be Fellow Archivist of St Cross College, Oxford and a senior research consultant for the Bodleian Library. [1] [2] She is the president of the Society for the History of Medieval Technology and Science. [4] Before moving to the Oriental Institute at the University of Oxford she was a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the Gustave E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies and in the Medical History Division of the Department of Anatomy.
Savage-Smith is the author or coauthor of: [2]
Additionally, she has contributed as an editor or translator to multiple other books including critical editions of works from the medieval Islamic world, edited volumes, and catalogues of collections. [2]
Savage-Smith was named a Fellow of the British Academy in 2010. [1] She became a corresponding fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 2020. [2]
In 2014, DePauw University gave her an honorary doctorate. [2] [10] In 2016, the Scientific Instrument Society chose Savage-Smith as their Gerard Turner Memorial Lecturer and gave her the Turner Medal. [2] [11] A workshop in honour of her career and contributions to the history of Islamic science, Health, Magic and Stars: Workshop on the history of Islamic science, was held at Oxford in 2019. [12]
Her book Medieval Islamic Medicine was one of three 2008 winners of the British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize. [13]
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus, often anglicized as Galen or Galen of Pergamon, was a Roman and Greek physician, surgeon, and philosopher. Considered to be one of the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity, Galen influenced the development of various scientific disciplines, including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and neurology, as well as philosophy and logic.
The history of medicine is both a study of medicine throughout history as well as a multidisciplinary field of study that seeks to explore and understand medical practices, both past and present, throughout human societies.
Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, c. 864 or 865–925 or 935 CE, often known as (al-)Razi or by his Latin name Rhazes, also rendered Rhasis, was a Persian physician, philosopher and alchemist who lived during the Islamic Golden Age. He is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of medicine, and also wrote on logic, astronomy and grammar. He is also known for his criticism of religion, especially with regard to the concepts of prophethood and revelation. However, the religio-philosophical aspects of his thought, which also included a belief in five "eternal principles", are fragmentary and only reported by authors who were often hostile to him.
The Canon of Medicine is an encyclopedia of medicine in five books compiled by Muslim Persian physician-philosopher Avicenna and completed in 1025. It is among the most influential works of its time. It presents an overview of the contemporary medical knowledge of the Islamic world, which had been influenced by earlier traditions including Greco-Roman medicine, Persian medicine, Chinese medicine and Indian medicine. Its translation from Arabic to Latin in 12th century Toledo greatly influenced the development of medieval medicine. It became the standard textbook for teaching in European universities into the early modern period.
Science in the medieval Islamic world was the science developed and practised during the Islamic Golden Age under the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, the Umayyads of Córdoba, the Abbadids of Seville, the Samanids, the Ziyarids and the Buyids in Persia and beyond, spanning the period roughly between 786 and 1258. Islamic scientific achievements encompassed a wide range of subject areas, especially astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Other subjects of scientific inquiry included alchemy and chemistry, botany and agronomy, geography and cartography, ophthalmology, pharmacology, physics, and zoology.
Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers.
Medical astrology or astrological medicine is an ancient applied branch of astrology based mostly on melothesia, the association of various parts of the body, diseases, and drugs with the nature of the sun, moon, planets, and the twelve astrological signs. The underlying basis for medical astrology is considered to be a pseudoscience as there is no scientific basis for its core beliefs.
Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (Arabic: أبو زيد حنين بن إسحاق العبادي; ʾAbū Zayd Ḥunayn ibn ʾIsḥāq al-ʿIbādī, known in Latin as Johannitius, was an influential Arab Nestorian Christian translator, scholar, physician, and scientist. During the apex of the Islamic Abbasid era, he worked with a group of translators, among whom were Abū 'Uthmān al-Dimashqi, Ibn Mūsā al-Nawbakhti, and Thābit ibn Qurra, to translate books of philosophy and classical Greek and Persian texts into Arabic and Syriac.
In the history of medicine, "Islamic medicine" Also known as "Arabian medicine" is the science of medicine developed in the Middle East, and usually written in Arabic, the lingua franca of Islamic civilization.
This timeline of science and engineering in the Muslim world covers the time period from the eighth century AD to the introduction of European science to the Muslim world in the nineteenth century. All year dates are given according to the Gregorian calendar except where noted.
Abu'l Hassan Ali ibn Radwan Al-Misri was an Arab of Egyptian origin who was a physician, astrologer and astronomer, born in Giza.
An ijazah is a license authorizing its holder to transmit a certain text or subject, which is issued by someone already possessing such authority. It is particularly associated with transmission of Islamic religious knowledge. The license usually implies that the student has acquired this knowledge from the issuer of the ijaza through first-hand oral instruction, although this requirement came to be relaxed over time. An ijaza providing a chain of authorized transmitters going back to the original author often accompanied texts of hadith, fiqh and tafsir; but also appeared in mystical, historical, and philological works, as well as literary collections. While the ijaza is primarily associated with Sunni Islam, the concept also appears in the hadith traditions of Twelver Shia.
The Graeco-Arabic translation movement was a large, well-funded, and sustained effort responsible for translating a significant volume of secular Greek texts into Arabic. The translation movement took place in Baghdad from the mid-eighth century to the late tenth century.
The phrase false god is a derogatory term used in Abrahamic religions to indicate cult images or deities of non-Abrahamic Pagan religions, as well as other competing entities or objects to which particular importance is attributed. Conversely, followers of animistic and polytheistic religions may regard the gods of various monotheistic religions as "false gods", because they do not believe that any real deity possesses the properties ascribed by monotheists to their sole deity. Atheists, who do not believe in any deities, do not usually use the term false god even though that would encompass all deities from the atheist viewpoint. Usage of this term is generally limited to theists, who choose to worship some deity or deities, but not others.
The Islamic Golden Age was a period of scientific, economic and cultural flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 13th century.
Sonja Brentjes is a German historian of science, historian of mathematics, and historian of cartography known for her work on mapmapking and mathematics in medieval Islam.
The Book of Curiosities is an anonymous 11th-century Arabic cosmography from Fatimid Egypt containing a series of early illustrated maps of the world and celestial diagrams of the universe and sky. TheBook of Curiosities contains 17 maps in total, 14 of which are extremely rare not only in Islamic cartography but also in greater medieval map history. The cosmography includes the earliest recorded map of Sicily as well as a rectangular world map, considered the earliest surviving map with a graphic scale. The autograph manuscript has not survived, but the Bodleian Library of Oxford University acquired one of the only known copies of the manuscript in 2002, making its contents widely accessible today due to its digitization. Based on the production processes and physical materials of the copy, such as paper and pigment, scholars date the production of this copy to the early 13th century.
Anna Ayșe Akasoy is a German orientalist and professor of Islamic intellectual history at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Akasoy works on the intellectual history of Islam, especially of al-Andalus, on Islamic philosophy as well as on Arab veterinary medicine, falconry and hunting.
Evelyn Edson is an author, medievalist, and professor emerita of history. She is known for her three books on the history of cartography.
Petros Bouras-Vallianatos is a Greek historian of medicine, author, and academic. He is the author of Innovation in Byzantine medicine. Bouras-Vallianatos is best known for this work on late antique and Byzantine medicine.