“Recreation” of the Recreation A critical essay on Floris Cohen’s Herschepping van de Wereld

By: Hüseyin Sen Faculty of Science

Department for the History & Philosophy of Science Utrecht University

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INTRODUCTION In 2007, in the newly published book De Herschepping van de Wereld (The Recreation of the World) the author, Professor Floris Cohen claims to have found the final answer to the question why modern science arose in the West and not in other civilizations like the Islamic or Chinese civilization, despite the fact that these civilizations developed a high standing scientific tradition. What was the reason that science in these civilizations declined? Why did these traditions not develop further and give birth to Modern science? In his explanation, Cohen first compares the three medieval civilizations, identifies factors for their decline and tries to find those factors which make the western civilization peculiar and different from other civilizations and which made the birth of modern science possible. His approach, although being more sympathetic towards the contributions of other cultures than most writers have been thus far, is still more or less similar to other “triumphalist” and Eurocentric writers such as J.M Roberts and David S. Landes. This essay will primarily discuss the parts of Cohen’s book which specifically deal with the history of Islamic civilization. First of all, some problems regarding Cohen’s historiographic approach will be dealt with while in the second part, some important claims of Cohen regarding the history of Islamic civilization will be revisited. Cohen’s Historiographic Approach Cohen’s book starts with a rather strange remark in which he stresses that it is the question whether modern science enforces a scientific world-view. He continues by saying that the relationship between modern science and the world-view of traditional world religions is obviously very tense. This tense relationship can be seen on a daily basis for instance by looking at the difficult integration of ‘farmers’ from the mountains of Morocco or the highlands of Anatolia in Turkey into the modern Dutch society. He writes:

Of de moderne natuurwetenschap iets als een ‘wetenschappelijk wereldbeeld’ daadwerkelijk afdwingt, dat is maar de vraag (waar ik op het slot van dit boek nader op in ga). Maar dat ze op gespannen voet staat met de kijk op de wereld die bij de traditionele wereldreligies hoort, dat ligt voor de hand en dat kunnen we dagelijks om ons heen waarnemen, schrijnenst misschien aan de moeizame intregratie in de moderne Nederlandse samenleving van boeren weggeplukt uit het Rifgebergte of de hoogvlakte van Anatolië.1

It makes one wonder how integration, with issues such as women’s rights, acceptance of homosexuals, learning the local language, relates to a scientific world view. The fact that he uses the term ‘farmers’, to describe these people, is even more confusing. The only problem which comes to mind and can be mentioned as a conflict between a traditional world view and modern science in the Netherlands is the one-time incident at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam during which Dutch students with an Islamic background, refused to take classes on the evolution theory. These students were not ‘farmers’ but highly educated young people born and raised in modern Dutch society. Moreover, recent surveys have shown that a 1 Cohen, De Herschepping van de Wereld, p. 9

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significant percentage of Dutch natives believe in creation2. One survey even shows that 33 percent of the students at the Agricultural University of Wageningen were not convinced by the evolution theory. It appears as though even modern well educated native Dutch ‘farmers’ have problems with scientific world views.3 Whether meant literally or figuratively, in both cases, the example given here and the use of the term ‘farmer’ is incorrect, prejudiced and even denigrating to some extent. Cohen makes another controversial claim when he says that the madrasas founded in the Islamic world since the eleventh century, were all comparable to madrasas in Pakistan “which regularly make it to the news.” He writes:

Her en der werden madrasa’s opgericht, scholen voor hoger onderwijs in Arabische kennis, van een type dat nog altijd bestaat en geregeld de krantenkoppen haalt. Hun vreedzaam naast elkaar bastaan maakte plaats voor de wijd verspreide gedachte dat “uitheemse” kennis volmaakt overbodig is in het van de ‘Arabisch’, of zelfs dat het najagen van Griekse wijsbegeerte als heiligschennis moet worden gekwalificeerd.4

Cohen is clearly implying that these medieval madrasas were crowed with radical fanatics similar to the Taliban. It is understandable when the writer of a popular historical book uses certain images known to the public to clarify complicated matters to the readers, but using such ‘powerful’ images and politically sensitive issues from the media and linking these images with historical events, seems to be a rather controversial and unacceptable way of writing historiography. In his article on current day madrasas, Alexander Evans writes in Foreign Affairs:

These criticisms have focused on the few dozens Pakistani madrasahs that served as de facto training grounds for jihadists fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980. Many of these jihadists went on to become foot soldiers in later campaigns, including those against Indian rule over Kashmir and against Shiite Muslims within Pakistan. They also helped forge the Taliban and gave succor and support Osama bin Laden. From this record, critics have put together a seemingly convincing charge sheet against madrasahs across the Muslim world. They extrapolate from this relatively small number of problem madrasahs in Pakistan and conclude that all madrasahs breed fanatics. But they were wrong. The majority of madrasahs actually present an opportunity, not a threat. For young village kids, it may be their only path to literacy. For many orphans and the rural poor, madrasahs provide essential

2 “Veel Nederlanders geloven in scheppingsverhaal”, Trouw newspaper, 27 February, 2009, visited on 19 March, 2009 3 “1 op 3 studenten twijfelt aan Darwin”, Algemeen Dagblad, February 12th 2009, visited on 19 March, 2009 4 Cohen, p. 77

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social services: education and lodging of children who otherwise could well find themselves the victims of forced labor, sex trafficking, or other abuse.5

Cohen seems to take it even a step further, when he does not extrapolate in space but also back in time. How acceptable is such an approach, considering the complex geopolitical issues even involving CIA support to the Taliban in their fight against the Sovjet republic and the claims which have been made regarding the University of Nebraska preparing Jihadist schoolbooks for Madrasas in Afghanistan? Pervez Hoodboy writes in Foreign Affairs:

CIA funds went to buy advertisements inviting hardened and ideologically dedicated men to fight in Afghanistan, and a $50 million U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) grant, administered by the University of Nebraska, Omaha, paid for textbooks that exhorted Afghan children "to pluck out the eyes of their enemies and cut off their legs." These were approved by the Taliban for use in madrasas (Islamic schools) and are still widely available in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.6

This shows that, no matter how similar some contemporary events might seem to various events in the past, authors should be very careful using certain media images, especially those involving complex geopolitical issues, when trying to create an image in the mind of the reader. Finally, I would like to discuss a remark made by Cohen in which he invites the reader to look at the various non-western and western art collections in the world and concludes with a claim that all these non-western artifacts are more or less similar in their pattern: an anonymous artist making art about something greater than himself: his god or gods. He writes:

Datzelfde geldt voor een laatste eigenaardigheid van Europa die met die extraverte instelling samengaat, een uizonderlijke mate van individualistisch zelfbewustzijn. Bij mijn weten wordt in geen museum ter wereld een veelzijdiger collectie niet-Westerse kunst tentoongesteld dan in het ‘Museum of Fine Arts’in Boston. Wie de gelegenheid heeft, moet eens een dag ronddwalen door de stille afdelingen gewijs aan China, Japan, India, Zuidoost Azië, Islambeschaving en Europese Middeleeuwen, om pas daarna mee te stromen met de drommen bezoekers in de afdeling Renaissance-kunst. Dan valt op dat in die stille afdelingen de stijlen uiteraard per beschaving verschillend uitpakken maar dat het patroon toch steeds hetzelfde is: een sacrale kunst, met stereotype vormen die in de loop der eeuwen wel enige wisseling doormaken maar toch steeds weer hetzelfde uitdrukken, de vanzelfsprekende overgave van de anonieme kunstenaar aan wat groter is dan hijzelf- zijn godheid of godheden.7

5 Alexander Evans, “Understanding Madrasahs: How Threating Are They?,” p. 1 6 Pervez Hoodbhoy, “Can Pakistan work? A Country in Search of itself”, 2004 7 Cohen, pp. 149-150

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The most disturbing about the generalization Cohen makes, is the way he projects his own ‘impressions’ of these artifacts, seemingly without having studied the objects in detail, as though his interpretation is something very obvious. His ‘impression’ of the collection is much more a problem of how the museum collects and presents the objects and his own interpretation rather than the objects themselves. First of all, in contrary to what Cohen claims regarding the so called anonimosity of the medieval Islamic artisans and craftsmen, there exist examples of art made in the Islamic world which have a signature. Many artisans were proud enough to sign their work so we may conclude that the medieval ‘Islamic’ artist too had a certain individualistic self-consciousness, as Cohen names it. Eva Bear states on this matter:

Finally, the number of signatures found on medieval Islamic metalwork by far exceeds those found on ceramics, glass, or other art objects. They unfortunately have so far not provided much information on workshops, on the position of the artist and the like. They seem however to indicate that the artists were proud of their achievements and aware of the excellence of their craft.8

Secondly, except for artifacts which are typically religious such as a Qur’an manuscript, Qur’an stands or a pulpit (minbar), most artifacts which have survived from medieval Islamic civilization were not concerned with religion at all. As Tim Stanley puts it in the catalogue of the Victoria & Alberts Museum:

One marker of religious buildings and of objects made for religious purposes is their decoration with quotations from the Qur’an, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad and other Islamic religious texts…This is true even of swords and other arms emblazoned with Qur’anic inscriptions [..], science they could be used in defending the lands of Islam, which was a religious duty. Nevertheless, such items form a relatively small proportion of Islamic art as it is defined here. Indeed while Islam, as the dominant religion and the basis of the legal system, provided much of the background against which art was generated in Islamic societies, this art was not necessarily created in obedience to Islam and its law. Rather, it was created in negotiation with them.9

The problems regarding the term ‘Islamic art’ is well explained by Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom:

The term ‘Islamic art’ refers not only to the art for Islamic practices and settings but also to the art made by and for people who lived in lands where most- or the most important – people were or are Muslims, that is believers in Islam. The term is, therefore, used somewhat differently than such comparable terms as ‘Christian’ or Buddhist’ art: Islamic art refers to the arts of all Islamic

8 Eva Baer, Metalwork in Medieval Islamic Art, p. 304 9 Tim Stanley, Mariam Rosser-Owen, Stephen Vernoit, Palace and Mosque: Islamic Art from the Middle East,2004, pp. 28-29

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cultures and not just to the arts related to the religion of Islam. Indeed, as we shall see, specifically religious art plays a relatively small role in the great variety of Islamic art.10

It is even more important to consider is that the idea of Islamic art – beginning in seventh-century Arabia en encompassing by the fifteenth century all the lands between the Atlantic and the Indian oceans, the steppes of Central Asia and the deserts of Africa is a modern notion generated not by Islamic culture itself but by outsiders. 11 Moreover, in the West, the Christian church was the major patron of, and an inspiration of the arts. But in contrary to Christianity, in which institutions developed who played an important role in the making of Christian art, Islam never developed such institutions.12 Muslims were no less religious than their Christian brethren but only a small portion of Islamic art was of religious nature. Thus, concluding, it can be said that Cohen’s generalizations, oversimplifications, projections of personal incorrect impressions and his controversial methodology of extrapolating current political issues to historical events is rather unsatisfactory, especially with regard to his excellent scholarship on European history of science.

10 Jonathan Blair and Sheila Blair, Islamic Arts, Phaidon Press, London, 1997, p. 5 (“Introduction”) 11 Ibidem 12 Ibidem

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THE FACTORS OF DECLINE Throughout the book Cohen identifies several factors for the decline of science in the Islamic world. His main claims can be summarized as follows:

- Islam is an intermediate religion, neither extrovert as Christianity nor introvert as Hinduism.

- One fundamental difference between Christianity and Islam, Cohen claims, is that Christianity knows the tradition of allegorical (figurative) interpretation, while Islam, which is based on one book brought by one angel to one person, does not. This, according to Cohen, means that even if there would have been an Islamic “al-Galileo”, he would not have survived, because when Galileo was accused, he made an appeal to allegorical interpretation of the Holy Scripture introduced by St. Augustine. Something similar would not be possible in the Islamic world.

- After the ‘golden era’ of Islamic Science of the ninth and tenth century, there was a severe decline in the eleventh century due to destructive invasions from for instance the Mongols from the east or the Crusaders from the west, etc.

- From the eleventh century onwards there was a Sunni orthodox revival. Thus the Islamic society became introvert and everywhere in the Islamic world, religious schools were founded similar to those established nowadays in Pakistan. There was neither philosophy nor science education in the curriculum.

- After the eleventh century there were some significant achievements, but these were individual local successes. In this period mostly commentaries and supercommentaries were produced.

Additionally, Cohen claims that the fact that the Islamic world did not have the printing press or adopted it very late did not form an obstacle for developing modern science. Islam: an intermediate religion? Cohen refers to Weber when he claims that Islam is an intermediate religion, ‘neither introvert as Hinduism nor extrovert as Christianity’.13 Although Weber is much respected for his research on Protestantism, he is not the first to come to mind as an expert on Islam. It is well known that Weber never had the chance to study Islam as extensive as Christianity. Much of what Weber wrote on Islam is unacceptable to contemporary scholarship on Islam.14 During Weber’s life scholarship on Islam was still in its early stages and therefore he cannot be blamed for not having had the chance to study Islam. It is however rather strange that Cohen adopts this outdated and limited view of Islam. Another claim of Cohen was that Islam was never familiar with the tradition of allegorical interpretation as was the case with Christianity, thanks to the writings of St. Augustine.15 It is a pity that Cohen’s work was written without footnotes, since it truly makes one wonder from where Cohen’s idea originated. Unlike Christianity, Islam has no central institution such as the papacy in Christianity. Therefore, it was possible that many religious and contradictory beliefs and dogmas prevailed

13 Cohen, De Herschepping van de Wereld, p. 188 14 Toby E. Huff, Wolfgang Schluchter (Ed.), Max Weber & Islam, Transaction Publishers, New Jersey, 1999 15 Cohen, p. 187

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at the same time. Throughout history, from the earliest centuries until modern times, there have always been literalists as well as allegorists and many people holding intermediate positions in the Islamic world. As Ira Lapidus puts it in his work A History of Islamic Societies:

The existence of a normative concept of Islam did not mean the formation of a new orthodoxy. The complex of views contained in Sunni-Shari’a-Sufi Islam never became a formal system. Islam has no master science as Christianity has in theology. Within the Sunni complex there were numerous collections of hadith, several equally valid versions of the law, several acceptable theological positions, and different schools of mysticism. Within the Sunni consensus the range of theological viewpoints could vary from sophisticated philosophical reasoning in theology and law to complete exclusion of the use of reasoning and literal reliance on scripture.16

Cohen argues in his response to a review of his book that in Islam allegorical interpretation is more difficult because the Qur’an was dictated by one angel to one prophet in one session.17 Thus his conclusion is: even if there would be an “al-Galileo”, he never would have survived, because of the lack of an allegorical interpretation in Islam.18 Even though Islam is believed to be a religion based on a holy book that was dictated by one angel to one prophet, this did not change anything to the need for allegorical interpretation. For example, the Qur’an contains anthropomorphic verses in which God’s face, hands or feet are mentioned. These anthropomorphic verses have always been the subject of numerous disputes between literalists and allegorists.19 However, the real question here is whether in one or more of the prevalent Islamic theologies throughout Islamic history allegorical interpretation was applied to creational verses which seemed to contradict with science. And indeed, also in Islamic theology allegorical interpretation was applied to creational verses and can be demonstrated by, for example, the famous example of the six days of creation. In the Dictionary of Scientific Biography it is stated that one of the views held by St. Augustine was that the six days of creation could be interpreted as six periods.20 St. Augustine writes in his Literal Meaning of Genesis:

The day in the account of creation, or those days that are numbered according to its recurrence, are beyond the experience and knowledge of us mortal earthbound men. And if we are able to make any effort towards

16 Ira Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, p. 179 17 He writes “Dat ligt daar ook lastiger, met een Heilig Boek dat niet in de loop van eeuwen door reeksen auteurs is neergeschreven maar dat één aartsengel in één ruk door aan één profeet heeft gedicteerd. Natuurlijk is daarmee niet-letterlijke interpretatie in de Islam niet uitgesloten, Blom hoeft me dat heus niet uit te leggen, maar ik verkondig toch ook niets opzienbarends als ik constateer dat zelfs vandaag de dag nog dit alles in de Islam lastiger ligt dan in het Christendom?” http://www.vn.nl/KunstCultuur/DeRepubliekDerLetteren/ArtikelLiteratuur/HeiligeBoekenEnDeModerneNatuurwetenschap.htm?print=true 18 Cohen, p. 187 19 See for example Biyamin Ambrahamov, Qasim ibn Ibrahim, Antropomorphism and interpretation of the Qur’ān in the theology of al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhiīm: Kitāb al-Mustarshid, Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden, 1996 20 McMullin, “Saint Augustine of Hippo”, p. 336

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an understand of the meaning of those days, we ought not to rush forward with an ill-considered opinion, as if no other reasonable and plausible interpretation could be offered. Seven days by our reckoning, after the model of the days of creation, make up a week. By the passage of such weeks time rolls on, and in these weeks one day is constituted by the course of the sun from rising to its setting; but we must bear in mind that these days indeed recall the days of creation, but without in any way being really similar to them.21

When we look at the Islamic tradition, we see exactly the same method being applied to these six days of creation. Let’s start with the celebrated Persian polymath al-Biruni. In his work The Determination of the Coordinates of Cities Biruni writes the following about the interpretation of the six days of creation:

Again, those with a book of divine revelation, like the Jews, the Christians, and other like the Sabians and the Magians, have all agreed about dating events by the Era of the Creation of Mankind, but they differ greatly in their estimation of the duration of that era. They have not referred to the Era of the Creation of the World, except in the opening two verses of the Torah, which have the following content but not the exact wording: <<In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and the spirit of God was moving upon the surface of the waters>> (Genesis I: I,2). They considered that to be the first day of the week in which the world was created, but that was a period of time which cannot be measured by a day and a night, for the cause of these periods is the sun with its rising and setting, and both the sun and the moon were created on the fourth day of the week. How is it possible to imagine that these days are like the days of our reckoning! The Qur’ān says: << A day in the sight of thy reckoning Lord is like a thousand years of your reckoning>> (sura 22:47). In another verse, God says: <<In a day the measure whereof is as fifty thousand years>> (Sura 70:4). Thus it is obvious that we cannot estimate that period with our method of reckoning, and that it is unverifiable since the beginning of creation.22

Not only scientists such as al-Biruni, but also theologians such as Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 1209) applied this method in their influential theological works as well. When we look for example at Fakhr al-Din al-Razi’s Tafsīr al-Kabīr, his Qur’an Commentary which encompasses nearly thirty volumes in modern print, we see that al-Razi uses the same approach for interpreting the six days of creation. He explains that the days mentioned in the Qur’an cannot be meant literally, because a day in Arabic means the period from sunrise to sunset and before the creation of the heavens there was neither sun nor moon. He continues explaining that therefore time periods must be meant.23 Al-Razi’s grand commentary became a yardstick for all later commentaries on

21 St. Augustine, The literal meaning of Genesis, p.135 22 Al-Bīrunī, Jamil Ali (trans.), The Determination of the Coordinates of Cities: a translation of the Arabic of al-Bīrunī’s Kitāb Taḥdīd Nihāyāt al-Amākin Litaṣḥīḥ Masāfāt al-Masākin, 1967 23 Unfortunately there is no translation of his large commentary to any western language, except for Turkish. I have seen the Turkish translation: Fahruddin Er-Râzi, Tefsir-i Kebir Mefâtihu’l-Gayb, Akçağ Yayınları: 20, pp. 313-314

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the Qur’an and had a profound influence until modern times.24 His commentary seems even to have been known in Europe, since his name is mentioned by seventeenth century theologian Voetsius, in his oration Disputatio de Mohammedanismo, March the 25th, 1648. He writes:

Sin vero quis tali quail cognitione Alcoranica pro tempore contentus esse velit, is adeat Latinam, aut Germanicam, aut Italicam, aut Belgicam translationem. Post primam hujus Disput, editionem prodiitParisiis anno 1649. Versio Gallica Andreae de Ryer Viri in linguis & rebus Orientalibus praecipuos ac receptos tam Commentatores Alcoranicos, tum tractatus digitum intendit, scil. Gilaldin Bedaei, le Tenoir seu Kitabel tenoir, Ekteri, Falkredin.25

Al-Razi, besides writing Qur’an commentaries, also wrote works on astronomy and medicine, which unfortunately have not been studied yet. Another theologian and scientist, Nizam al-Din al-Nisaburi, for example, also wrote a large Qur’an commentary which was heavily influenced by his scientific knowledge.26 What is even more interesting is that, as George Saliba has shown, al-Nisaburi’s astronomical works were used as textbooks at the Samarkand madrasa.27 Coming back to the question of an Islamic al-Galileo: the following quotation shows that at least some medieval Islamic scholars discussed the rotation of the earth:

I have seen an astrolabe invented by Abū Sa’īd al-Sijzī, of one simple type, not composed of Northern and Southern (projections), and he called it the boat-shaped astrolabe. I liked it immensely because he developed it on an independent principle, which is derived from some people’s belief that the regular (daily) motion of the Universe from East (to West) is due to the Earth and not the Sky. By my life, it is an uncertainty, extremely difficult to resolve or verify. Those who depend merely on the lines resulting from measurement, and I mean by them the geometers and astronomers, have no means to contradict this theory. Whether the movement is ascribed to the Earth or the Heavens, in either case it does not affect their arts. If it is possible to contradict this belief and resolve the uncertainty, then this is assigned to the natural philosophers (i.e. not the astronomers).28

This shows that it were not religious factors that blocked a possible Islamic ‘al-Galileo’. Allegorical interpretation in the Islamic world was always existent and was definitely not

24 Frank Griffel, “Razi, Al-, Fakhr al-Din” in Medieval Islamic Civilization. An Encyclopedia, p.670 25 Dr. J. van Amersfoort en dr. W.J. van Asselt, Liever Turks dan Paaps?: De visies van Johannes Coccejus, Gisbertus Voetsius en Adrianus Relandus op de Islam, 1997, pp. 84-85; 150 26 Robert Morrison, “The Portrayal of Nature in a Medieval Qur’an Commentary”, 2002, pp. 115-38. For a biography of al-Nisaburi see from the same author: Islam and Science: The Intellectual Career of Nizam al-Din al- Nisaburi, Culture and Civilization in the Middle-East series. Routledge, Oxon, 2007 27 George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, p. 189 28 Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Abū al-Rahḥān al-Bīrūnī, Istī’āb al-wujūh al-mumkina fi ṣan’at al-uṣṭurlāb, [ed. (taṣḥīḥ wa-taḥqiq) al-Sayyid Muḥammad Akbar Jawādī al-Ḥusaynī], Islamic Research Foundation Astan Quds Razavi, Meshed, 1422 H. p. 128 (Translation by Prof. Jan Hogendijk) http://www.math.uu.nl/people/hogend/treasures/astro1handout.pdf visited on 8-4-2009

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exceptional. Only the extent to which allegorical interpretation was applied could vary within each separate school. It seems more reasonable to assume that from one side the existence of a good trade network and the printing press in Protestant areas and from the other side the fact that Galileo had a telescope and for the first time was making observations which challenged the Ptolemaic theory, were factors that made his ideas convincing. Accordingly, one question we could ask in this context is: what happened when the Copernican theory was introduced in the Islamic world? The Copernican theory was first introduced in the Ottoman world through the translation of Ibrahim Efendi in the period of 1660-1664, just a century after Copernicus.29 Although the first translators were informed about the reactions which Copernicanism caused in Europe and wrote in a precautionary style, it did not create a conflict with the Ottoman religious scholars in the way it did in Europe.30 The Ottomans gradually became aware of the Copernican theory, but the convincing power was still limited, as shown in a short study on a late Ottoman astronomical work written for the madrasa by a certain ‘Abd Allāh al-Shukrī ibn al-Sayyid ‘Abd al-Karīm al-Qunāvī (fl. 1857). In this work the writer presents the Copernican and the Ptolemaic theories but finally opts for the Ptolemaic one, because according to him, it was more accurate.31 The writer seems not to be aware of the writings of Galileo and Newton, as he does not mention them in the text. This implies that the developments in physics in Europe that contributed to the acceptance of the Copernicus in Europe were absent in the Ottoman Islamic world. Therefore the reason of the late acceptance of Copernicanism in the Ottoman world should not be sought after in religious factors. It is also essential to remember that Christian theology had a profound influence on Islamic theology. Many of the problems Muslim theologians came across had also been dealt with by Christian theologians centuries before. There seems to be a remarkable similarity between St. Augustine and al-Ghazali. While St. Augustine writes:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided,

29 Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, “The Introduction of Western Science to the Ottoman World: A Case Study of Modern Astronomy (1660-1860)”, 2005, p. 187 30 Ibidem. p.194 31 Robert Morrison, “The Reception of Early-Modern European Astronomy by Ottoman Religious Scholars,” 2003, p. 194

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but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writes of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matter concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason.32

Almost seven centuries later, but still in a very similar manner, Al-Ghazali writes:

The second drawback arises from the man who is loyal to Islam but ignorant. He thinks that religion must be defended by rejecting every science connected with the philosophers, and so rejects all their sciences and accuses them of ignorance therein. He even rejects their theory of the eclipse of sun and moon, considering that what they say is contrary to revelation. When that view is thus attacked, someone hears who has knowledge of such matters by apodeictic demonstration. He does not doubt his demonstration, but, believing that Islam is based on ignorance and the denial of apodeictic proofs, grows in love for philosophy and hatred for Islam. A grievous crime indeed against religion has been committed by the man who imagines that Islam is defended by the denial of the mathematical sciences, seeing that there is nothing in revealed truth opposed to these sciences by way of either negation or affirmation, and nothing in these sciences opposed to the truths of religion.33

It would be interesting to know whether there is some kind of indirect relationship between the two and whether al-Ghazali conceived his ideas totally independently or somehow heard about Christian writings. There is one remark in historical sources which sheds some light on this question. Muslim scholar al-Bayhaqi, writing in the twelfth century, claims in his biographical dictionary that many of the arguments used by al-Ghazali against the philosophers come from the writings of John the Grammarian.34 John the Grammarian, a Christian philosopher of the sixth century, a scientist and theologian also known as Philophonus, wrote a refutation of Aristotle which has been lost and is only known from citations by other writers.35 Historical sources attest that this work was also translated into Arabic.36 This clearly shows how little sense it makes to speak about “Christianity’ or “Islam” in a whole. Especially during the early period of Islam, many people who converted to Islam brought their expertise of the Christian or Jewish theology with them. Others remained Christian but interacted with Muslim theologians. Thus, they were part of Islamic civilization and influenced one another. Many of them had what we might consider to be multiple identities, for in the medieval world it was quite common to be a theologian and a scientist at the same time. Within

32 St. Augustine, The literal meaning of Genesis, p.42 33 Watt, The Faith and Practice of al-Ghazali, pp. 34-35 34 Max Meyerhof, “‘Ali al-Bayhaqi’s Tatimmat Siwan al-Hikma: A Biographical Work on Learned Men of the Islam”, p.144 35 Joel L. Kreamer, “A Lost Passage from Philoponus’ Contra Aristotelem in Arabic Translation”, p. 320 36 Ibidem

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one time period, one country and even at one place, multiple schools or sects of the same religion could prevail and co-exist. One could be a very literalist and extremely traditionalist Hanbalite, a more rationalist Hanafite, a mystical Sufi or an Ismaili. The role Jews and Christians played throughout Islamic history, especially with respect to philosophy and medicine, can hardly be overestimated. They were a vital part of the scientific tradition, but were free from Islamic religious opposition, simply because they were members of another religion and could not be judged according to Islamic law. Hence, knowing all this, how can Cohen say that the there was a lack of allegorical interpretation and that this was one of the reasons that caused a decline of science in the Islamic world?

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SCIENCE AFTER THE ELEVENTH CENTURY According to Cohen, after the steep decline of the eleventh century, science in the Islamic world came to a standstill and only commentaries where produced. Any achievements that were made were only local and individual successes. The following section will discuss these claims and will attempt to demonstrate why Cohen’s claims are untenable. The Commentaries Regarding his claim that after the eleventh century mostly commentaries were produced, it can be said that Cohen does not seem to realize that most of the post-eleventh century achievements are contained in commentaries. One discovery, the Tusi-couple, is to be found in a commentary on the Almagest, while the explanation of the rainbow by Kamāl al-Dīn al-Farīsī is contained in a commentary on the optical work of Ibn al-Haytham. Another example not mentioned by Cohen is the discovery of the lesser pulmonary circulation by physician Ibn al-Nafis, who worked in Damascus and Egypt. Al-Nafis wrote about his discovery in his commentary on Ibn Sina (Avicenna). These are just a few examples and considering the fact that only very few commentaries have been studied thus far, future research could yield even more interesting discoveries. Local achievements or a scientific network? Another part of Cohen’s claim is that achievements after the eleventh century were local individual achievements. Here again Cohen does not realize that the achievements he mentions are intrinsically related to each other by a chain of student-master relationships, which was the primary mode of knowledge transmission in the medieval Islamic world. The preliminary diagram of master-student relationships in the twelfth/thirtheenth century in appendix I shows how far these relationships stretched. If we start, for example, with al-Tūsī we see that one of al-Tūsī’s students was Qutb al-Dīn al-Shirazī, who was a celebrated scientist, philosopher, judge, mystic and a theologian who worked initially at the observatory of Maragha but later on as a judge in the Anatolian city of Sivas.37 One of al-Shirazī’s students was Kamal al-Dīn al-Farīsī, whom we already know for his explanation of the rainbow. If we go back to al-Tusi again and go up in the chain, we encounter one of his teachers, Kamāl al-Dīn Ibn Yunus, the mathematician who is known for his answers to mathematical questions sent by Emperor Frederick II. His teacher, Sharaf al-Dīn al-Tūsi, was an excellent mathematician, whose works show that there were important advances in the theory of equations after Omar Khayyam and that Sharaf al-Tūsī’s work continued to stimulate serious mathematical investigation until the seventeenth century.38 These questions mentioned above, which are known as the “Sicilian Questions”, have survived in several manuscripts. It is rather odd that Cohen does not say a word about Frederick II’s leanings towards Arabic Science and his relationship with the Islamic world. Like his

37 For a biography of Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, see John Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights: Qutb al-Din Shirazi and the Illuminationist Tradition of Islamic philosophy, Harvard Eastern Monographs, Harvard University Press, 1992 and also see Thomas Hockney (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Astronomers, Springer Reference, Springer Verlag, New York, 2007 (pp.1054-1055). Also available online at http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Shirazi_BEA.htm 38Berggren, “Review: Innovation and Tradition in Sharaf al-Dīn al-Tūsī’s Mu’ādalāt”, p.309

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grandfather Roger II, who employed the famous Arabic cartographer al-Idrīsī at his court, Frederick II also had an interest for Arabic science and employed several Islamic scholars.39 He even used to wear a coronation mantle with embroidered Arabic inscriptions, made at a workshop at Palermo.40 One of the scholars he employed at his court was Theodore of Antioch, who interestingly enough had been a student of Kamal al-Din ibn Yunus. Theodor of Antioch, the “Magister Theodorus” to whom Fibonacci dedicates a work, was born in Antioch and later travelled to Mosul twice to study with Kamal al-Din Ibn Yunus. What Cohen also does not mention is that Theodor translated an Arabic work on Falconry for Frederick the II.41 Of course, this does not change the fact that Frederick’s observations were unique and original but in any case, it shows that science was still flourishing in the thirteenth century in the Islamic world and relations with the Christian world were, despite the crusades, not always as hostile as it seems. The relationship of Frederick II with the Islamic world and the questions he used to send shed light to the state of science and technology in the Islamic world. One interesting story in this context is the planetarium that was sent to Frederick II as a gift by al-Ashraf, the Ayyubid ruler of Syria. This planetarium, which has unfortunately not survived, seems to have greatly impressed the ruler, while Conradus de Fabaria, Abbot of Saint Gall was told by Frederick that, next to his son Conrad, the ‘astronomical heaven, of gold stellated with gems’, which had ‘within itself the course of the planets’, was the possession he held most dear.42 The thirteenth century was an interesting period in the history of science, especially fruitful in terms of transfer of scientific knowledge. Examples are the court of Alfonso X in Toledo (Spain), the court of Frederick II in Palermo/ Sicily, the Ayyubids and Mamluks in Damascus and Cairo, the patronage of Islamic Scholars of the same Mongol ruler who devastated Baghdad and the interesting relationship with his brother, Qubilay, in China. Moreover, the Rasulid dynasty in Yemen entertained relations with the Ayyubids and the Mamluks in Egypt. Most of the Rasulid rulers were scientists themselves and wrote on subjects such as astronomy, astrology, medicine, veterinary medicine, botany and agriculture.43 One of the treasures of the Metropolitan museum of Art in New York is an astrolabe made by the Rasulid sultan Malik al-Ashraf (d. 1290).44 The oldest known evidence of a bowl compass for finding the direction of Mecca is a text written by the same sultan.45 The exact scientific relations of the Rasulids with the Mamluks and Ayyubids and the relevant manuscripts still have to be studied. It is surprising, that Cohen mentions the fact that the astronomical Bureau in Peking employed Muslim astronomers but does not mention the fact that the Emperor Qubilay Khan, who first requested for them initially, was the brother of Hulagu Khan. In response to this request a

39 For the relationship between Frederick II and Islamic science please see Matthias Schramm, Frederick II of Hohenstaufen and Arabic Science, Science in Context 14(1/2), 2001, (pp. 289-312) and Charles C. Haskins, “Science at the Court of Frederick II,” American Historical Review, Vol. 27, No. 4, Jul., 1922 (pp. 669-694) 40 This mantle has survived and is now in the collection of the Kunstkammer of the Museum in Vienna 41 For a German translation of this Arabic work see: Muḥammad ibn 'Abdallāh al-Bāzyār, Anna Akasoy, Stefan Georges, Das Falken- und Hundebuch des Kalifen al-Mutawakkil: ein arabischer Traktat aus dem 9. Jahrhundert, Akademie Verlag, 2005 42 John David North, Stars, minds, and fate: Essays in Ancient and Medieval Cosmology, 1989, p.162 43 Daniel Martin Varisco, “Medieval agricultural from Rasulid Yemen”, Manuscripts of the Middle East vol. 4, p.150 44 David King, In Synchrony with the Heavens, Part II, Instruments of Mass Calculation, p. 623 45 Petra G. Schmidl, “Two Early Arabic Sources on the Magnetic Compass”, 1996/97, pp. 81-132

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certain Jamal al-Din was sent in 1267 from Maragha to Peking together with six scientific instruments.46 Willy Hartner, who studied the Chinese source in which this envoy is mentioned, writes:

The first Yüan Emperor of China, Kublai (Qublai, according to Mongol spelling), was the brother of the Persian Īl-Khān, Hūlagū. Despite the constant internal struggle between the descendants of Cingiz Khān, the two brothers lived always in close friendship with each other. Kublai’s genuine interest in the arts and sciences is beyond doubt; he had it common with Hūlagū. Hence it was natural that, when Kublai heard of the new observatory of Marāgha, he was eager to raise Chinese astronomy to an equally high level. Accordingly, he asked his brother to supply him with all the materials suited to his purpose. For some reason or other, the messenger, our Cha-ma-lu-ting, was not dispatched during Hūlāgū’s lifetime, but shortly after his death (8 Feb. 1265); as evidenced by the Yüan-shih passage, he arrived in Khanbalig (Khan Balyg, Peking) in the course of the year 1267.47

Cohen’s view of the Mongols and Crusades and their relationship seems to be rather simplistic. In reality, the situation was complex; one can barely imagine that the very same ‘barbarian hordes’ who were destroying many Islamic cities, were also patronizing Islamic scholars. What is even more interesting is the fact that Hulagu, who devastated Baghdad and other cities in the region, was actually born from a Christian mother and that his chief wife Doguz Hatun was a Christian. His army general, Kitbuqa, whom he left in Damascus, was also a Christian. However, soon the Mongols were to convert to Islam themselves. 48 Qutb al-Dīn Shirazi (d.1311), whom we have mentioned before as a student of al-Tusi and the teacher of Kamal al-Dīn al-Farīsī (d. 1320), would later act as an intermediary between the two Muslim Ilkhanid and Mamluk states.49 Hulagu sought allies in the west against the Mamluks in Egypt. On 3 September 1260, the Mamluk army fought with Kitbuqa, Hulagu’s Christian general, whom he had left behind in Syria with a small part of his army. Kitbuqa’s forces sacked the city of Sidon in august 1260. This outrage provoked such indignation in Acre that when the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt, Sayf al-Din Qutuz, advanced northwards to attack the Mongols and requested safe-conduct through Latin territory, many of the crusaders were ready to fight alongside the Egyptians.50 Finally, the Mongol army lost at the battle of Ayn Jalut in Galilee, which became a turning point. In April 1262, Hulagu wrote to Louis IX, clarifying his plans to attack the Mamluks and asking the French king to send his fleet to blockade Egypt by sea.51 In the same year, Hulagu’s cousin, Berke, who was a Muslim himself, wrote a letter to the Mamluk leader Baybars, “complaining about Hulagu’s conduct and appealing to the Mamluk Sultan, on the basis of their common faith, to prosecute the holy war against his infidel cousin in Iran”.52

46 Willy Hartner, “Chinese Astronomy and the Observatory of Maragha,” p. 343 47 Willy Hartner, “The Astronomical Instruments of Cha-ma-lu-ting”, p.192 48 Cyril Glassé; Huston Smith [ed.], “Hūlāgu Khān”, The new encyclopedia of Islam, p.186 49 George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, p.188 50 Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the West, p. 118 51 Ibidem, p. 166 52 Ibidem, p. 126

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Science and Religion Now we can use the same examples mentioned above to illustrate another aspect of the Islamic world, namely the relationship between science and religion after the eleventh century. The principal person we started with, Nasīr al-Dīn Al-Tusi, was as much a theologian as he was a scientist. His student Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, is also known for his theological works and worked as a qadī, an Islamic judge. Ibn al-Shātir (d. 1375) of Damascus was actually employed as a muwaqqit (timekeeper) at the Umayyad mosque. Ṣadr al-Sharī’a (d. 1347), a highly praised theologian, wrote a sophisticated critique of Ptolemaic astronomy.53 One set of scientific questions sent by Frederick to the ruler of Egypt, Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil, was concerned with the formation of the rainbow. Frederick asked how it came that the star Canopus appeared to be bigger near the horizon, why a pencil in a glass of water seemed broken and how a rainbow was formed. The last question was answered, curiously enough, by a famous Egyptian theologian, Ibn al-Qarafi.54 Although the correct explanation was given by al-Farīsī almost a century later, al-Qarafi still gave a fairly original Aristotelian answer.55 How does a famous theologian know Aristotelian physics and why does he bother to answer such a scientific question anyway? Another example is the abovementioned Ibn al-Nafis (d. 1288), who besides being a celebrated physician, was very well known for his theological works.56 The simplistic dichotomy of theologians versus scientists that Cohen creates in his story, does not seem to fit the historical evidence, for many scholars had multiple “identities”. They could be a theologian, a judge and a scientist at the same time. That the rational sciences were still being studied, even in difficult times with turmoil and war, can be read in the autobiography of the famous scholar Abd al-Latif al-Bagdadi (d. 1231), who is a towering figure in the intellectual and scientific history of the Islamic Middle Ages. He was famous because of his writings on medicine and his description of Egypt, and he also wrote an autobiography, which has survived in the biographical dictionary of physicians Ibn Abī Uṣaybi’a. This autobiography gives us great insights on how science survived, even during difficult times and circumstances. He writes:

News spread that Saladin had concluded a treaty with the Franks and had returned to Jerusalem. I was driven by a need to see him, so I took what I could carry of the books of the Ancients and headed for Jerusalem. There I saw a great sovereign, generous, affectionate, and awesome to behold, who filled the hearts of those near and far with love.57

Thus a scholar, in such turmoil, decided to embark on a trip to see his ruler and patron, the famous Saladin in this case, who is at the moment involved in a demanding fight against the

53 ‘Ubayd Allāh ibn Mas’ūd Maḥbūbī, [ed., trans., Ahmad S. Dallal], An Islamic response to Greek astronomy: kitāb Tadīl Hay’at al-Aflāk of Ṣadr al-Sharī’a, E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1995 54 Sherman A. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī, Brill, Leiden, 1996 55 Aydin M. Sayili, “Al Qarāfī and His Explanation of the Rainbow”, pp. 16-26 56 Nahyan Fancy, Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection; The Interaction of Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in the works of Ibn al-Nafis (d. 1288). Phd thesis, University of Notre Dame, USA, 2006 57 Dwight F. Reynolds [ed.], Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition, p. 163

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crusaders. He continues by explaining that once he arrived and met Saladin, he was granted with a stipend by him:

Saladin granted me a stipend of thirty dinars a month from the Friday mosque treasury and his sons gave me stipends, as well, so that my monthly income amounted to one hundred dinars. I returned to Damascus and devoted myself eagerly to my studies and my lecturing at the Friday mosque. The more assiduously I studied the books of the Ancients the more my desire for them increased.58

It is not clear where the teaching of the non-religious subjects took place but one passage seems to indicate that he taught Islamic sciences at the mosque and the ancient sciences at home. Al-Baghdadi narrates of his daily routine of teaching:

My daily routine at that time was as follows: I taught Islamic sciences in the al-Azhar mosque from the break of day until the fourth hour. Midday, those who wished to study medicine and other subjects would come to me. And then at the end of the day, I would return to the al-Azhar mosque and teach other students. At night I would do my own studying. I did this until the death of al-Malik al-‘Aziz.59

This example shows that the situation of scholars was more complicated, colorful and fascinating than the simplistic view that Cohen creates in his work. Madrasa Education and the Rational Sciences According to Cohen, there was practically no science and philosophy in these newly founded Madrasa schools.60 Cohen’s idea of the so called “Sunni Revival”, the foundation of madrasas and the religious opposition to the rational sciences, is not new, and dates back to an article written by Hungarian orientalist Goldziher, almost a century ago.61 Despite a century of scholarship and research on this subject, many later researchers seem to have adopted this view. Dimitri Gutas provides in his book Greek Thought, Arabic Culture a good overview of the history of Goldziher’s view and his critique on it.62 Most recently, Gerhard Endress in his article “Reading Avicenna in the Madrasa” has successfully shown that philosophy had found its way into the madrasa especially after the eleventh century. In this article Endress shows examples of scientific manuscripts which were

58 Ibidem 59 Ibidem, p. 164 60 Cohen, p.77. 61 I. Goldziher, “Stellungen der alten islamischen Orthodoxie zu den antiken Wissenschaften”, Abhandlungen der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Jahrgang 1915, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, no. 8, Berlin, Verlag der Akademie, 1916. Translated by M. L. Swarts in his Studies on Islam, Oxford University Press, 1981, Oxford, pp. 185-215. 62 See Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ‘Abbāsid Society, (2nd-4th /8th -10th centuries), Routledge, 1998 pp 166-175

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actually copied at madrasas; in this case the Nizamiyah madrasa in Baghdad.63 Ahmad al-Hassan mentions one alchemical manuscript copied in 1252 by a certain Muhammad Ibn Maymun ibn ‘Umran, when he was residing at the Nizamiyah madrasa.64 One more manuscript is mentioned in the catalogue of the Schoenberg collection in the United States. This manuscript bears an owner mark of al-Tusi, who ironically was in the service of Hulagu, the same Mongol ruler who would destroy Baghdad in 1258.65 It is true that the Mongol invasions caused immense devastation to libraries and cost many lives, but from the other side the Mongols were patrons of science. Even scholars, who had barely escaped death at the hands of the Mongol armies, later worked in Maragha under patronage of the Mongols. One such an example is astronomer Muḥyī al-Dīn al-Maghribī who had escaped death when the Mongols invaded Damascus around 1258.66 Moreover, the transmission of knowledge in the medieval Islamic world was mainly based on a personal master-student relationship. There was no such thing as a standardized set of curriculum for madrasas. Michael Chamberlain writes, in his study on knowledge and social practice in Medieval Damascus:

Madrasas in Damascus were useful spaces for the interactions of the learned, as well as mansabs for their residents and shaykhs. There is no doubt that they were important religious institutions, in that the learned often resided in them, prayed in them, interacted with one another in them, and taught students in them. But there is remarkably little evidence that they were specialized institutions of learning, as the knowledge that was transmitted in them was little different from that transmitted elsewhere. Most of what the young learned – in medicine, law, the Hellenistic or scholastic sciences, and other fields- was in fact transmitted as it had been previously, in relations between a single shaykh and a young person or small group of people. The production of knowledge- in readings, study circles, recitations, and open audiences- was the main form of elite cultural life in the city, and people of all ages and varied intentions participated.67

Thus, on one side historical evidence shows that madrasas were not hostile environments for the rational or ancient sciences as they were usually called. However, evidence also shows that the main mode of transmission of knowledge in the medieval Islamic world was by master-student relationships. Education was not confined to formal institutions but could take place anywhere, be it at home, in the mosque or a madrasa.

63 Gerhard Endress, “Reading Avicenna in the Madrasa: Intellectual Genealogies and Chains of Transmission of Philosophy and the Sciences in the Islamic East,” pp. 382-383 64 Ahmad al-Hassan, “An Eight Century Treatise on Glass, Kitab al-Durra al-mamkuna (The Book of the Hidden Pearl) of Jabir ibn Hayyan” http://www.history-science-technology.com/Articles/articles%209.htm visited 8-04-2009 65 Manuscript LJS 293, described in the collection catalogue by Crofton Black, Transformation of Knowledge, Early manuscripts from the collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg, p.38 66 George Saliba, A History of Arabic Astronomy, p. 167 67 Michael Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, p. 85

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Other evidence showing that the ancient sciences were present in science and education after the so-called decline in the eleventh century can be found in biographical dictionaries and also in works regarding the classification of the sciences.68 Furthermore, there is also evidence for the presence of the rational sciences after the eleventh century in medieval Islamic manuscripts which contain “lecture certificates” in which attendants of public lectures were carefully recorded.69 Some of these lectures were on the rational sciences

68 Sonja Brentjes, “On the Location of the Ancient or ‘Rational’ Sciences in Muslim Educational Landscapes (AH 500-1100), pp. 47-71 69 Jan Just Witkam, Van Leiden naar Damascus, Over vormen van islamitische lees- en leercultuur, 2003, p.12

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CONCLUSION In conclusion, Cohen’s view of the Islamic world is too simplistic and oversimplified to be acceptable. Almost all of Cohen’s arguments date back to almost a century ago, to the writings of Max Weber and Goldziher. Unlike what Cohen claims, there was no steep decline in Islamic science in the eleventh century, and religious opposition was limited and dependent on local political developments. Several types of historical evidence show us that scientific tradition continued well after the eleventh century. The evidence can be summarized as follows:

- Numerous manuscript copies of medieval Islamic scientific works which have survived were copied in the period after this so called decline in the eleventh century.

- There are examples of scientific manuscripts which were actually copied at madrasas. - The ancient sciences seem to have been continually present in biographical

dictionaries written during the medieval period. - The ancient sciences were also present, even after the eleventh century, in the so called

“classification” literature, in which sciences are classified according to their importance.

- In so called “lecture certificates” which have survived in medieval Islamic manuscripts in which the attendants of public lectures were carefully recorded, there are examples of lectures on rational sciences.

The scientific discoveries after the eleventh century were not local individual achievements but were the fruits of a continuing scientific tradition kept alive by knowledge transmission in a network of master-student relationships. Cohen tries to identify religious and political factors but he does not mention factors such as economic decline or epidemic outbreaks. What were the impact of Vasco the Gama’s voyage and the discovery of the New World on the Islamic world and the patronage of science? It is surprising that Cohen does not deal with theses questions. Cohen’s story could have been more interesting if he, in stead of introducing a fictional trend watcher, would have used authentic reports of the status of Islamic science. He could have consulted the interesting observations of fourteenth century scholar Ibn Khaldun or the writings of seventeenth century Ottoman scientist Katip Celebi, whose works are readily available in English translation.70 The way in which Cohen portrays Islam and the history of Islamic civilization is also not realistic. As has been shown repeatedly in this essay, there is no one uniform type of Islam, nor were the developments in the Islamic civilization throughout history uniform in all parts of the

70‘Abd al-Rahman b, Muhammad Ibn Haldun, Franz Rozenthal (tr.), The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, Princeton University Press, 1967 and Katip Ghelebi, G.L. Lewis. The Balance of Truth, from the series Ethical and religious classics of East and West, Allen and Unwin, London, 1957. See also the study of Ibn Khaldun’s view of the fate of Islamic Science published by Mohammad Abdala, "Ibn Khaldun on the Fate of Islamic Science after the 11th Century", Islam & Science 5 (1), Summer 2007 (pp. 61-70) available online via http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0QYQ/is_1_5/ai_n19295967/

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Islamic world. Cohen’s theories and claims need a thorough revision and update with the latest scholarship on history of Islam and Islamic civilization and also on history of Islamic science. The information of the history of Islamic Science is increasing rapidly. Despite the fact that thousands of manuscripts are still waiting to be studied and discovered, every year we come to know more about the history of science in medieval Islamic civilization, thanks to the research efforts of a small group of researchers. How rapid historical research changed the view on Islamic science can be seen by comparing the first edition of David C. Lindberg’s well known book The Beginnings of Western Science published in 1992 with the recently published second edition. While he writes the following in the first edition of his book about the “decline” of Islamic science:

In assessing this collapse, we must remember that at an advanced level the foreign sciences had never found a stable constitutional home in Islam, that they continued to be viewed with suspicion in conservative religious quarters, and that their utility (especially as advanced disciplines) may not have seemed overpowering.71

He writes the following in the second edition, eleven years later:

Finally, religious opposition was confined to issues with theological import and had little or no effect on the natural sciences. The truth is that the image of decline in the twelfth to fifteenth centuries is not the product of research in manuscript archives, but an assumption made in the absence of research and encouraged for its usefulness as a tool in religious polemics over the relative merits of Islam and Christianity: which religious culture wins the natural science sweepstakes?72

I hope that Cohen, in his soon to be published academic version of his work, will take notice of the most recent literature on the subject, in the same manner as Lindberg did.

71 David C. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, Chicago, 1992, p.182 72 David C. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, Second Edition, University of Chicago Press, 2007, p.191

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Abd al-Latif al-Bagdadi 1162-1231

Sharaf al-Dīn al-Tūsī 1135-1213

Kamal al-Dīn ibn Yunus Died 1242

Nasir al-Din al-Tūsī 1201-1274

Qutb al-Dīn al-Shirazī 1236-1311

Kamal al-Dīn al-Farīsī 1260-1320

Magister Theodorus

Fibonacci 1170-120

Pope John XXI Petrus Hispanus

Muhyiddin al-Magribi 1220-1283

Shams al-Din al-Bukhari 13th century

Bar-Hebraeus 1226-1286

Master-student Relationship

Christian Spain

Alfonso X 1221-1284

Gregory Chioniades 1240-1320

Norman Sicily/Italy Byzantium

Frederick II 1194-1250

Mamluks/Ayyubids

Malik al-Kamil 1180-1238

Cousin of Salah al-Din

Al-Rashid d. 1232-1242 Almohad ruler

Mongols/Timurids

Yehuda B. Salomo School of Toledo

Michael Scotus 1175-1234 Translator

Ibn Sab’in 1217-1270

Philosopher from Murcia

Hulagu Mongol Ruler 1217-1265

The Islamic World 12-14th century

Scientific Activity & Transmission of Knowledge

Maimonides 1135-1204

Personal Physician Salah al-Din

Malik al-Ashraf 1180-1238

Ruler of Damascus

Siraj al-Dīn Urmawi

APPENDIX I

Aquintance or Diplomatic Relationship

Qubilay Founder Yuan Dynasty

Brother of Hulagu 1215-1293

Cha-ma-lu-ting Jamal al-Dīn, came from

Maragha with astronomical instruments

- Maimonides fled Islamic Spain, went to Fez and later to Egypt, became physician of Saladin. - Fibonacci, son of a merchant, studied in North Africa - Siraj al-Dīn was sent to Frederick II to teach him Logic - Magister Theodorus, also known as Theodore of Antioch, studied 2x with Kamāl al-Dīn ibn Yunus, became teacher of Petrus Hispanus. Translated Arabic falconry book for Frederick II. - Abd al-Latif al-Bagdadi knew Kamāl al-Dīn ibn Yunus, worked for Saladdin and went to Egypt to meet Maimonides. - Muhyiddin al-Magribi, originally from Spain, fled the Mongol disaster in Damascus, later worked in Maragha together with Bar-Hebraeus and Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī. -Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsi, worked at Alamut for Ismaīlī patron but later worked for Hulagu. -Gregory Chioniades, went to Tabrīz, studied with Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Bukhari. He brought back Islamic scientificl manuscripts to Byzantium. Some of these works have survived in Byzantine manuscripts. - Frederick II, sent questions to Almohad ruler al-Rashid, entertained relations with al-Kamīl and al-Ashraf