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  • The Enterprise of Science in Islam: New Perspectives
  • George Saliba (bio)
The Enterprise of Science in Islam: New Perspectives. Edited by Jan P. Hogendijk and Abdelhamid I. Sabra. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003. Pp. xxii+386. $45.

This book derives from a conference hosted by the Dibner Institute in November 1998, its twelve chapters being written versions of talks presented during that conference. Like all conference proceedings, individual contributions vary greatly in quality, length, and scope, and are of course independent of each other rather than comprising a coherent argument. The common denominator that binds them together is the effort of individual contributors to present the findings that have come to light from their own window of expertise. And in that limited sense those latest findings can be justifiably thought of as constituting "new perspectives," though they need not be expected to entail any major shifts in the history and historiography of Islamic science.

Because the scope of the book reflects the domains and expertise of the people who participated in the conference, it is by no means representative of the whole "enterprise of science in Islam." The editors note in the very first paragraph of their introduction that the conference was limited to the "exact sciences." Hence there were no contributions devoted to medicine, mechanical engineering, botany, or zoology. And even within the exact sciences, the editors also confess that "the time is not yet ripe for a reliable survey of the entire field." So, for those who would expect the overview suggested in the title, this book will be a disappointment.

But that does not mean that some of the contributions do not tackle general issues regarding the status of science in Islamic civilization, or address the worldview of some of the scientists of that civilization. This is particularly true of coeditor Abdelhamid I. Sabra's contribution on the "revolutionary" nature of Ibn al-Haytham's "project in optics." It is also true of the general characterization of the relationships between mathematics (understood in its widest sense) and philosophy by Gerhard Endress (despite its misgivings and inaccuracies), and even Ahmad Djebbar's overview of mathematical activities in the western part of the Islamic world between the ninth and sixteenth centuries, despite its localized regional perspective. These contributions all whet the appetite for overarching treatments of the various subsets of the larger enterprise of science.

The other contributions are, however, more limited and more loosely connected, though they do provide an enjoyable read. On the whole the contributions can be thought of as case studies rather than addresses to the six general themes the editors hoped to cover: "Cross-Cultural Transmission," "Transformation of Greek Optics," "Mathematics: Philosophy and Practice," "Numbers, Geometry and Architecture," "Seventeenth-Century Transmission of Astronomy," and finally "Science and Medicine in the Maghrib and [End Page 251] al-Andalus." The last theme does not really include medicine, but rather is restricted to a critique of a specific problem of quantifying botanical powers in a specific pharmacological context.

The one glaring omission in a book that claims to deal with the "exact sciences" and with the "revolutionary" character of Islamic science is the field of planetary theories. Aside from a few erroneous remarks in Endress's contribution on mathematics and philosophy—particularly regarding the work of Qushji—nothing is said about the most active field of planetary theories. Otherwise, the general reader will benefit from this book, which one hopes will provide a spur to consulting more of the recent research in the history of Islamic science, research which is not covered here.

George Saliba

Dr. Saliba is professor of history at Columbia University.

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