Medieval Islamic science had practical purposes as well as the goal of understanding. For example, astronomy was useful for determining the Qibla, the direction in which to pray, botany had practical application in agriculture, as in the works of Ibn Bassal and Ibn al-'Awwam, and geography enabled Abu Zayd al-Balkhi to make accurate maps. Islamic mathematicians such as Al-Khwarizmi, Avicenna and Jamshīd al-Kāshī made advances in algebra, trigonometry, geometry and Arabic numerals. Islamic doctors described diseases like smallpox and measles, and challenged classical Greek medical theory. Al-Biruni, Avicenna and others described the preparation of hundreds of drugs made from medicinal plants and chemical compounds. Islamic physicists such as Ibn Al-Haytham, Al-Bīrūnī and others studied optics and mechanics as well as astronomy, and criticised Aristotle's view of motion.
During the Middle Ages, Islamic science flourished across a wide area around the Mediterranean Sea and further afield, for several centuries, in a wide range of institutions.
The Islamic era began in 622. Islamic armies eventually conquered Arabia, Egypt and Mesopotamia, and successfully displaced the Persian and Byzantine Empires from the region within a few decades. Within a century, Islam had reached the area of present-day Portugal in the west and Central Asia in the east. The Islamic Golden Age (roughly between 786 and 1258) spanned the period of the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258), with stable political structures and flourishing trade. Major religious and cultural works of the Islamic empire were translated into Arabic and occasionally Persian. Islamic culture inherited Greek, Indic, Assyrian and Persian influences. A new common civilisation formed, based on Islam. An era of high culture and innovation ensued, with rapid growth in population and cities. The Arab Agricultural Revolution in the countryside brought more crops and improved agricultural technology, especially irrigation. This supported the larger population and enabled culture to flourish.[1][2] From the 9th century onwards, scholars such as Al-Kindi[3] translated Indian, Assyrian, Sasanian (Persian) and Greek knowledge, including the works of Aristotle, into Arabic. These translations supported advances by scientists across the Islamic world.[4]
The Abbasid Caliphate, 750–1261 (and later in Egypt) at its height, c. 850
Islamic science survived the initial Christian reconquest of Spain, including the fall of Seville in 1248, as work continued in the eastern centres (such as in Persia). After the completion of the Spanish reconquest in 1492, the Islamic world went into an economic and cultural decline.[2] The Abbasid caliphate was followed by the Ottoman Empire (c. 1299–1922), centred in Turkey, and the Safavid Empire (1501–1736), centred in Persia, where work in the arts and sciences continued.[5]
The early Islamic period saw the establishment of theoretical frameworks in alchemy and chemistry. The sulfur-mercury theory of metals, first found in Sirr al-khalīqa ("The Secret of Creation", c. 750–850, falsely attributed to Apollonius of Tyana), and in the writings attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan (written c. 850–950),[7] remained the basis of theories of metallic composition until the 18th century.[8] The Emerald Tablet, a cryptic text that all later alchemists up to and including Isaac Newton saw as the foundation of their art, first occurs in the Sirr al-khalīqa and in one of the works attributed to Jabir.[9] In practical chemistry, the works of Jabir, and those of the Persian alchemist and physician Abu Bakr al-Razi (c. 865–925), contain the earliest systematic classifications of chemical substances.[10] Alchemists were also interested in artificially creating such substances.[11] Jabir describes the synthesis of ammonium chloride (sal ammoniac) from organic substances,[7] and Abu Bakr al-Razi experimented with the heating of ammonium chloride, vitriol, and other salts, which would eventually lead to the discovery of the mineral acids by 13th-century Latin alchemists such as pseudo-Geber.[10]
Astronomy became a major discipline within Islamic science. Astronomers devoted effort both towards understanding the nature of the cosmos and to practical purposes. One application involved determining the Qibla, the direction to face during prayer. Another was astrology, predicting events affecting human life and selecting suitable times for actions such as going to war or founding a city.[12]Al-Battani (850–922) accurately determined the length of the solar year. He contributed to the Tables of Toledo, used by astronomers to predict the movements of the sun, moon and planets across the sky. Copernicus (1473–1543) later used some of Al-Battani's astronomic tables.[13]
Al-Zarqali (1028–1087) developed a more accurate astrolabe, used for centuries afterwards. He constructed a water clock in Toledo, discovered that the Sun's apogee moves slowly relative to the fixed stars, and obtained a good estimate of its motion[14] for its rate of change.[15]Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201–1274) wrote an important revision to Ptolemy's 2nd-century celestial model. When Tusi became Helagu's astrologer, he was given an observatory and gained access to Chinese techniques and observations. He developed trigonometry as a separate field, and compiled the most accurate astronomical tables available up to that time.[16]
The study of the natural world extended to a detailed examination of plants. The work done proved directly useful in the unprecedented growth of pharmacology across the Islamic world.[17]Al-Dinawari (815–896) popularised botany in the Islamic world with his six-volume Kitab al-Nabat (Book of Plants). Only volumes 3 and 5 have survived, with part of volume 6 reconstructed from quoted passages. The surviving text describes 637 plants in alphabetical order from the letters sin to ya, so the whole book must have covered several thousand kinds of plants. Al-Dinawari described the phases of plant growth and the production of flowers and fruit. The thirteenth century encyclopedia compiled by Zakariya al-Qazwini (1203–1283) – ʿAjā'ib al-makhlūqāt (The Wonders of Creation) – contained, among many other topics, both realistic botany and fantastic accounts. For example, he described trees which grew birds on their twigs in place of leaves, but which could only be found in the far-distant British Isles.[18][17][19] The use and cultivation of plants was documented in the 11th century by Muhammad bin Ibrāhīm Ibn Bassāl of Toledo in his book Dīwān al-filāha (The Court of Agriculture), and by Ibn al-'Awwam al-Ishbīlī (also called Abū l-Khayr al-Ishbīlī) of Seville in his 12th century book Kitāb al-Filāha (Treatise on Agriculture). Ibn Bassāl had travelled widely across the Islamic world, returning with a detailed knowledge of agronomy that fed into the Arab Agricultural Revolution. His practical and systematic book describes over 180 plants and how to propagate and care for them. It covered leaf- and root-vegetables, herbs, spices and trees.[20]
The spread of Islam across Western Asia and North Africa encouraged an unprecedented growth in trade and travel by land and sea as far away as Southeast Asia, China, much of Africa, Scandinavia and even Iceland. Geographers worked to compile increasingly accurate maps of the known world, starting from many existing but fragmentary sources.[21]Abu Zayd al-Balkhi (850–934), founder of the Balkhī school of cartography in Baghdad, wrote an atlas called Figures of the Regions (Suwar al-aqalim).[22]Al-Biruni (973–1048) measured the radius of the earth using a new method. It involved observing the height of a mountain at Nandana (now in Pakistan).[23]Al-Idrisi (1100–1166) drew a map of the world for Roger, the Norman King of Sicily (ruled 1105–1154). He also wrote the Tabula Rogeriana (Book of Roger), a geographic study of the peoples, climates, resources and industries of the whole of the world known at that time.[24] The OttomanadmiralPiri Reis (c. 1470–1553) made a map of the New World and West Africa in 1513. He made use of maps from Greece, Portugal, Muslim sources, and perhaps one made by Christopher Columbus. He represented a part of a major tradition of Ottoman cartography.[25]
Islamic mathematicians gathered, organised and clarified the mathematics they inherited from ancient Egypt, Greece, India, Mesopotamia and Persia, and went on to make innovations of their own. Islamic mathematics covered algebra, geometry and arithmetic. Algebra was mainly used for recreation: it had few practical applications at that time. Geometry was studied at different levels. Some texts contain practical geometrical rules for surveying and for measuring figures. Theoretical geometry was a necessary prerequisite for understanding astronomy and optics, and it required years of concentrated work. Early in the Abbasid caliphate (founded 750), soon after the foundation of Baghdad in 762, some mathematical knowledge was assimilated by al-Mansur's group of scientists from the pre-Islamic Persian tradition in astronomy. Astronomers from India were invited to the court of the caliph in the late eighth century; they explained the rudimentary trigonometrical techniques used in Indian astronomy. Ancient Greek works such as Ptolemy's Almagest and Euclid's Elements were translated into Arabic. By the second half of the ninth century, Islamic mathematicians were already making contributions to the most sophisticated parts of Greek geometry. Islamic mathematics reached its apogee in the Eastern part of the Islamic world between the tenth and twelfth centuries. Most medieval Islamic mathematicians wrote in Arabic, others in Persian.[26][27][28]
Sometime around the seventh century, Islamic scholars adopted the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, describing their use in a standard type of text fī l-ḥisāb al hindī, (On the numbers of the Indians). A distinctive Western Arabic variant of the Eastern Arabic numerals began to emerge around the 10th century in the Maghreb and Al-Andalus (sometimes called ghubar numerals, though the term is not always accepted), which are the direct ancestor of the modern Arabic numerals used throughout the world.[41]
Medicine
A coloured illustration from Mansur's Anatomy, c.1450
Islamic society paid careful attention to medicine, following a hadith enjoining the preservation of good health. Its physicians inherited knowledge and traditional medical beliefs from the civilisations of classical Greece, Rome, Syria, Persia and India. These included the writings of Hippocrates such as on the theory of the four humours, and the theories of Galen.[42]al-Razi (c. 865–925) identified smallpox and measles, and recognized fever as a part of the body's defenses. He wrote a 23-volume compendium of Chinese, Indian, Persian, Syriac and Greek medicine. al-Razi questioned the classical Greek medical theory of how the four humours regulate life processes. He challenged Galen's work on several fronts, including the treatment of bloodletting, arguing that it was effective.[43]al-Zahrawi (936–1013) was a surgeon whose most important surviving work is referred to as al-Tasrif (Medical Knowledge). It is a 30-volume set mainly discussing medical symptoms, treatments, and pharmacology. The last volume, on surgery, describes surgical instruments, supplies, and pioneering procedures.[44] Avicenna (c. 980–1037) wrote the major medical textbook, The Canon of Medicine.[36]Ibn al-Nafis (1213–1288) wrote an influential book on medicine; it largely replaced Avicenna's Canon in the Islamic world. He wrote commentaries on Galen and on Avicenna's works. One of these commentaries, discovered in 1924, described the circulation of blood through the lungs.[45][46]
Optics developed rapidly in this period. By the ninth century, there were works on physiological, geometrical and physical optics. Topics covered included mirror reflection. Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809–873) wrote the book Ten Treatises on the Eye; this remained influential in the West until the 17th century.[49]Abbas ibn Firnas (810–887) developed lenses for magnification and the improvement of vision.[50]Ibn Sahl (c. 940–1000) discovered the law of refraction known as Snell's law. He used the law to produce the first Aspheric lenses that focused light without geometric aberrations.[51][52]
In the eleventh century Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen, 965–1040) rejected the Greek ideas about vision, whether the Aristotelian tradition that held that the form of the perceived object entered the eye (but not its matter), or that of Euclid and Ptolemy which held that the eye emitted a ray. Al-Haytham proposed in his Book of Optics that vision occurs by way of light rays forming a cone with its vertex at the center of the eye. He suggested that light was reflected from different surfaces in different directions, thus causing objects to look different.[53][54][55][56] He argued further that the mathematics of reflection and refraction needed to be consistent with the anatomy of the eye.[57] He was also an early proponent of the scientific method, the concept that a hypothesis must be proved by experiments based on confirmable procedures or mathematical evidence, five centuries before Renaissance scientists.[58][59][60][61][62][63]
Pharmacology
Ibn Sina teaching the use of drugs. 15th-century Great Canon of Avicenna
Advances in botany and chemistry in the Islamic world encouraged developments in pharmacology. Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes) (865–915) promoted the medical uses of chemical compounds. Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis) (936–1013) pioneered the preparation of medicines by sublimation and distillation. His Liber servitoris provides instructions for preparing "simples" from which were compounded the complex drugs then used. Sabur Ibn Sahl (died 869) was the first physician to describe a large variety of drugs and remedies for ailments. Al-Muwaffaq, in the 10th century, wrote The foundations of the true properties of Remedies, describing chemicals such as arsenious oxide and silicic acid. He distinguished between sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate, and drew attention to the poisonous nature of copper compounds, especially copper vitriol, and also of lead compounds. Al-Biruni (973–1050) wrote the Kitab al-Saydalah (The Book of Drugs), describing in detail the properties of drugs, the role of pharmacy and the duties of the pharmacist. Ibn Sina (Avicenna) described 700 preparations, their properties, their mode of action and their indications. He devoted a whole volume to simples in The Canon of Medicine. Works by Masawaih al-Mardini (c. 925–1015) and by Ibn al-Wafid (1008–1074) were printed in Latin more than fifty times, appearing as De Medicinis universalibus et particularibus by Mesue the Younger (died 1015) and as the Medicamentis simplicibus by Abenguefit (c. 997 – 1074) respectively. Peter of Abano (1250–1316) translated and added a supplement to the work of al-Mardini under the title De Veneris. Ibn al-Baytar (1197–1248), in his Al-Jami fi al-Tibb, described a thousand simples and drugs based directly on Mediterranean plants collected along the entire coast between Syria and Spain, for the first time exceeding the coverage provided by Dioscorides in classical times.[64][17] Islamic physicians such as Ibn Sina described clinical trials for determining the efficacy of medical drugs and substances.[65]
The fields of physics studied in this period, apart from optics and astronomy which are described separately, are aspects of mechanics: statics, dynamics, kinematics and motion. In the sixth century John Philoponus (c.490– c.570) rejected the Aristotelian view of motion. He argued instead that an object acquires an inclination to move when it has a motive power impressed on it. In the eleventh century Ibn Sina adopted roughly the same idea, namely that a moving object has force which is dissipated by external agents like air resistance.[66] Ibn Sina distinguished between "force" and "inclination" (mayl); he claimed that an object gained mayl when the object is in opposition to its natural motion. He concluded that continuation of motion depends on the inclination that is transferred to the object, and that the object remains in motion until the mayl is spent. He also claimed that a projectile in a vacuum would not stop unless it is acted upon. That view accords with Newton's first law of motion, on inertia.[67] As a non-Aristotelian suggestion, it was essentially abandoned until it was described as "impetus" by Jean Buridan (c. 1295–1363), who was likely influenced by Ibn Sina's Book of Healing.[66]
In the Shadows, Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (973–1048) describes non-uniform motion as the result of acceleration.[68] Ibn-Sina's theory of mayl tried to relate the velocity and weight of a moving object, a precursor of the concept of momentum.[69] Aristotle's theory of motion stated that a constant force produces a uniform motion; Abu'l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī (c. 1080 – 1164/5) disagreed, arguing that velocity and acceleration are two different things, and that force is proportional to acceleration, not to velocity.[70]
The book was mentioned by Al-Kindī (died 850), and commented on by Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) in his The Book of Healing. Avempace (Ibn Bājja) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd) commented on and criticised On the Parts of Animals and Generation of Animals.[78]
Muslim scientists helped in laying the foundations for an experimental science with their contributions to the scientific method and their empirical, experimental and quantitative approach to scientific inquiry.[79] In a more general sense, the positive achievement of Islamic science was simply to flourish, for centuries, in a wide range of institutions from observatories to libraries, madrasas to hospitals and courts, both at the height of the Islamic golden age and for some centuries afterwards. It did not lead to a scientific revolution like that in Early modern Europe, but such external comparisons are probably to be rejected as imposing "chronologically and culturally alien standards" on a successful medieval culture.[2]
Ibn Sina, commonly known in the West as Avicenna, was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian rulers. He is often described as the father of early modern medicine. His philosophy was of the Muslim Peripatetic school derived from Aristotelianism.
Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham was a medieval mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age from present-day Iraq. Referred to as "the father of modern optics", he made significant contributions to the principles of optics and visual perception in particular. His most influential work is titled Kitāb al-Manāẓir, written during 1011–1021, which survived in a Latin edition. The works of Alhazen were frequently cited during the scientific revolution by Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Christiaan Huygens, and Galileo Galilei.
The Book of Healing is a scientific and philosophical encyclopedia written by Abu Ali ibn Sīna from medieval Persia, near Bukhara in Maverounnahr. He most likely began to compose the book in 1014, completed it around 1020, and published it in 1027.
Islamic philosophy is philosophy that emerges from the Islamic tradition. Two terms traditionally used in the Islamic world are sometimes translated as philosophy—falsafa, which refers to philosophy as well as logic, mathematics, and physics; and Kalam, which refers to a rationalist form of Scholastic Islamic theology which includes the schools of Maturidiyah, Ashaira and Mu'tazila.
Early Islamic philosophy or classical Islamic philosophy is a period of intense philosophical development beginning in the 2nd century AH of the Islamic calendar and lasting until the 6th century AH. The period is known as the Islamic Golden Age, and the achievements of this period had a crucial influence in the development of modern philosophy and science. For Renaissance Europe, "Muslim maritime, agricultural, and technological innovations, as well as much East Asian technology via the Muslim world, made their way to western Europe in one of the largest technology transfers in world history." This period starts with al-Kindi in the 9th century and ends with Averroes at the end of 12th century. The death of Averroes effectively marks the end of a particular discipline of Islamic philosophy usually called the Peripatetic Arabic School, and philosophical activity declined significantly in Western Islamic countries, namely in Islamic Spain and North Africa, though it persisted for much longer in the Eastern countries, in particular Persia and India where several schools of philosophy continued to flourish: Avicennism, Illuminationist philosophy, Mystical philosophy, and Transcendent theosophy.
Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni, known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously "Father of Comparative Religion", "Father of modern geodesy", Founder of Indology and the first anthropologist.
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.
Optics began with the development of lenses by the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians, followed by theories on light and vision developed by ancient Greek philosophers, and the development of geometrical optics in the Greco-Roman world. The word optics is derived from the Greek term τα ὀπτικά meaning 'appearance, look'. Optics was significantly reformed by the developments in the medieval Islamic world, such as the beginnings of physical and physiological optics, and then significantly advanced in early modern Europe, where diffractive optics began. These earlier studies on optics are now known as "classical optics". The term "modern optics" refers to areas of optical research that largely developed in the 20th century, such as wave optics and quantum optics.
Medieval Islamic astronomy comprises the astronomical developments made in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age, and mostly written in the Arabic language. These developments mostly took place in the Middle East, Central Asia, Al-Andalus, and North Africa, and later in the Far East and India. It closely parallels the genesis of other Islamic sciences in its assimilation of foreign material and the amalgamation of the disparate elements of that material to create a science with Islamic characteristics. These included Greek, Sassanid, and Indian works in particular, which were translated and built upon.
Latin translations of the 12th century were spurred by a major search by European scholars for new learning unavailable in western Europe at the time; their search led them to areas of southern Europe, particularly in central Spain and Sicily, which recently had come under Christian rule following their reconquest in the late 11th century. These areas had been under Muslim rule for a considerable time, and still had substantial Arabic-speaking populations to support their search. The combination of this accumulated knowledge and the substantial numbers of Arabic-speaking scholars there made these areas intellectually attractive, as well as culturally and politically accessible to Latin scholars. A typical story is that of Gerard of Cremona, who is said to have made his way to Toledo, well after its reconquest by Christians in 1085, because he:
arrived at a knowledge of each part of [philosophy] according to the study of the Latins, nevertheless, because of his love for the Almagest, which he did not find at all amongst the Latins, he made his way to Toledo, where seeing an abundance of books in Arabic on every subject, and pitying the poverty he had experienced among the Latins concerning these subjects, out of his desire to translate he thoroughly learnt the Arabic language.
Islamic cosmology is the cosmology of Islamic societies. Islamic cosmology is not a single unitary system, but is inclusive of a number of cosmological systems, including Quranic cosmology, the cosmology of the Hadith collections, as well as those of Islamic astronomy and astrology. Broadly, cosmological conceptions themselves can be divided into thought concerning the physical structure of the cosmos (cosmography) and the origins of the cosmos (cosmogony).
Some medieval Muslims took a keen interest in the study of astrology, partly because they considered the celestial bodies to be essential, partly because the dwellers of desert-regions often travelled at night, and relied upon knowledge of the constellations for guidance in their journeys.
Medieval Islamic geography and cartography refer to the study of geography and cartography in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age. Muslim scholars made advances to the map-making traditions of earlier cultures, explorers and merchants learned in their travels across the Old World (Afro-Eurasia). Islamic geography had three major fields: exploration and navigation, physical geography, and cartography and mathematical geography. Islamic geography reached its apex with Muhammad al-Idrisi in the 12th century.
During the High Middle Ages, the Islamic world was at its cultural peak, supplying information and ideas to Europe, via Al-Andalus, Sicily and the Crusader kingdoms in the Levant. These included Latin translations of the Greek Classics and of Arabic texts in astronomy, mathematics, science, and medicine. Translation of Arabic philosophical texts into Latin "led to the transformation of almost all philosophical disciplines in the medieval Latin world", with a particularly strong influence of Muslim philosophers being felt in natural philosophy, psychology and metaphysics. Other contributions included technological and scientific innovations via the Silk Road, including Chinese inventions such as paper, compass and gunpowder.
The natural sciences saw various advancements during the Golden Age of Islam, adding a number of innovations to the Transmission of the Classics. During this period, Islamic theology was encouraging of thinkers to find knowledge. Thinkers from this period included Al-Farabi, Abu Bishr Matta, Ibn Sina, al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham and Ibn Bajjah. These works and the important commentaries on them were the wellspring of science during the medieval period. They were translated into Arabic, the lingua franca of this period.
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.
Roshdi Rashed, born in Cairo in 1936, is a mathematician, philosopher and historian of science, whose work focuses largely on mathematics and physics of the medieval Arab world. His work explores and illuminates the unrecognized Arab scientific tradition, being one of the first historians to study in detail the ancient and medieval texts, their journey through the Eastern schools and courses, their immense contributions to Western science, particularly in regarding the development of algebra and the first formalization of physics.
1 2 Kraus, Paul (1942–1943). Jâbir ibn Hayyân: Contribution à l'histoire des idées scientifiques dans l'Islam. I. Le corpus des écrits jâbiriens. II. Jâbir et la science grecque. Cairo: Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale. ISBN978-3-487-09115-0. OCLC468740510. vol. II, p. 1, note 1; Weisser, Ursula (1980). Spies, Otto (ed.). Das "Buch über das Geheimnis der Schöpfung" von Pseudo-Apollonios von Tyana. Berlin: De Gruyter. p.199. doi:10.1515/9783110866933. ISBN978-3-11-007333-1.
↑ Norris, John (2006). "The Mineral Exhalation Theory of Metallogenesis in Pre-Modern Mineral Science". Ambix. 53 (1): 43–65. doi:10.1179/174582306X93183. S2CID97109455.
↑ Weisser, Ursula (1980). Spies, Otto (ed.). Das "Buch über das Geheimnis der Schöpfung" von Pseudo-Apollonios von Tyana. Berlin: De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110866933. ISBN978-3-11-007333-1. p. 46. On Newton's alchemy, see Newman, William R. (2019). Newton the Alchemist: Science, Enigma, and the Quest for Nature's Secret Fire. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN978-0-691-17487-7.
↑ Hogendijk, Jan P.; Berggren, J. L. (1989). "Episodes in the Mathematics of Medieval Islam by J. Lennart Berggren". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 109 (4): 697–698. doi:10.2307/604119. JSTOR604119.
↑ Toomer, Gerald (1990). "Al-Khwārizmī, Abu Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Mūsā". In Gillispie, Charles Coulston. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 7. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN978-0-684-16962-0.
↑ Gandz, S. (1936), "The Sources of Al-Khowārizmī's Algebra", Osiris, 1: 263–277, doi:10.1086/368426, S2CID60770737 , page 263–277: "In a sense, al-Khwarizmi is more entitled to be called "the father of algebra" than Diophantus because al-Khwarizmi is the first to teach algebra in an elementary form and for its own sake, Diophantus is primarily concerned with the theory of numbers".
↑ Maher, P. (1998). From Al-Jabr to Algebra. Mathematics in School, 27(4), 14–15.
↑ Broemeling, Lyle D. (1 November 2011). "An Account of Early Statistical Inference in Arab Cryptology". The American Statistician. 65 (4): 255–257. doi:10.1198/tas.2011.10191. S2CID123537702.
↑ Al-Kadi, Ibrahim A. (1992). "The origins of cryptology: The Arab contributions". Cryptologia. 16 (2): 97–126. doi:10.1080/0161-119291866801.
↑ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Ghiyath al-Din Jamshid Mas'ud al-Kashi", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.
↑ Al-Khalili, Jim (4 January 2009). "The 'first true scientist'". BBC News. Ibn al-Haytham is regarded as the father of the modern scientific method.
↑ Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa (2010). Mind, Brain, and Education Science: A Comprehensive Guide to the New Brain-Based Teaching. W. W. Norton & Company. p.39. ISBN978-0-393-70607-9. Alhazen (or Al-Haytham; 965–1039 CE) was perhaps one of the greatest physicists of all times and a product of the Islamic Golden Age or Islamic Renaissance (7th–13th centuries). He made significant contributions to anatomy, astronomy, engineering, mathematics, medicine, ophthalmology, philosophy, physics, psychology, and visual perception and is primarily attributed as the inventor of the scientific method, for which author Bradley Steffens (2006) describes him as the "first scientist".
↑ Ackerman, James S. (August 1991), Distance Points: Essays in Theory and Renaissance Art and Architecture, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, ISBN978-0-262-01122-8
↑ Haq, Syed (2009). "Science in Islam". Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. ISSN1703-7603. Retrieved 22 October 2014.
↑ Lindberg, David (1978). Science in the Middle Ages. University of Chicago Press. pp.23, 56.
↑ Selin, Helaine, ed. (1997). Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp.151, 235, 375.
↑ Kruk, R., 1979, The Arabic Version of Aristotle's Parts of Animals: book XI–XIV of the Kitab al-Hayawan, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam-Oxford 1979.
Huff, Toby (1993). The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West. Cambridge University Press.
Kennedy, Edward S. (1983). Studies in the Islamic Exact Sciences. Syracuse University Press. ISBN978-0-8156-6067-5.
Lindberg, D. C.; Shank, M. H., eds. (2013). The Cambridge History of Science. Volume 2: Medieval Science. Cambridge University Press. (chapters 1–5 cover science, mathematics and medicine in Islam)
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