The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance

339 Pages·2016·2.26 MB·English

by  Jim Al Khalili

Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Preface

Chapter 1 - A Dream of Aristotle
Chapter 2 - The Rise of Islam
Chapter 3 - Translation
Chapter 4 - The Lonely Alchemist
Chapter 5 - The House of Wisdom
Chapter 6 - Big Science
Chapter 7 - Numbers
Chapter 8 - Algebra
Chapter 9 - The Philosopher
Chapter 10 - The Medic
Chapter 11 - The Physicist
Chapter 12 - The Prince and the Pauper
Chapter 13 - Andalusia
Chapter 14 - The Marāgha Revolution
Chapter 15 - Decline and Renaissance
Chapter 16 - Science and Islam Today

Notes
Glossary of Scientists
Timeline: The Islamic World from Antiquity to the Beginning of the Modern
Period
Index

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Copyright © Jim al-Khalili, 2010
All rights reserved

Illustration credits appear on pages xi-xii.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
al-Khalili, Jim.
The house of wisdom : how Arabic science saved ancient knowledge and gave us the Renaissance / Jim al-
Khalili.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN : 978-1-101-47623-9
1. Science—Arab countries—History. 2. Science—Philosophy—History. 3. Science, Medieval. 4. Science
—Methodology—History. 5. Arab countries—Intellectual life—History. 6. Science, Renaissance. I. Title.
Q127.A5A4 2011
509.17’67—dc22 2010053136

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To Julie
He who finds a new path is a path finder, even if the trail has to be found again by others; and he
who walks far ahead of his contemporaries is a leader, even though centuries pass before he is
recognized as such.
Nathaniel Schmidt, Ibn Khaldūn
List of Plates
1. Abbasid Caliph Harūn al-Rashīd and King Charlemagne, oil painting by
Julius Koeckert (1827-1918). (Maximilianeum Foundation, Munich) 2.
Hārūn al-Rashīd and the barber in a Turkish bath, fifteenth-century oil
painting. (British Library, London, UK/ © British Library Board. All
Rights Reserved/The Bridgeman Art Library) 3. The ruins of the eighth-
century Abbāsid Palace of Ukhaidhir, south of Baghdad.
(alimdi.net/photographersdirect.com) 4. The spiral cone minaret of the
Sāmarra mosque. (Thomas J. Abercrombie/Getty Images) 5. The ruins of
the tenth-century palace-city complex Medinat al-Zahrā’, outside
Córdoba. (Medjai) 6. Description of the eye in Hunayn ibn Ishāq’s Ten
Treaties on the Eye. (The Art Archive/Kharbine-Tapabor/Boistesselin) 7.
Brass astrolabe from Saragossa (c. 1079-80). (Germanisches
Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg (Nuernberg), Germany/The Bridgeman Art
Library) 8. A trickster in eleventh-century Baghdad; thirteenth-century
painting. (Institute of Oriental Studies, St Petersburg, Russia/ The
Bridgeman Art Library) 9. Page from the Canon of Medicine by Ibn Sīna.
(Wellcome Library, London) 10. Medieval Muslim surgical instruments,
from Kitab al-Tasrīf.
11. Eleventh-century Balkhi-style map of northern Iraq. (The Art
Archive/National Library Cairo/Gianni Dagli Orti) 12. Al-Idrīsi’s
twelfth-century map of the world.
13. Copernicus’ heliocentric universe. (Mansell/Getty Images) 14.
Ptolemy’s geocentric universe as it appears in the Almagest.
15. Diagram of a solar eclipse, from an eleventh-century manuscript of al-
Karkhi. (The Art Archive/Kharbine-Tapabor/Photo Boistesselin) 16. A
map from the Book of Routes and Provinces.
17. Ibn al-Shātir’s sundial, Umayyad Mosque, Damascus. (Billbl) 18. The
Banū Mūsa brothers’ self-trimming lamp. (The Art Archive/ National
Library Cairo/Gianni Dagli Orti) 19. The Elephant Clock of al-Jazari.
20. The inner workings of the Elephant Clock.
21. Diagram of a system for pumping water into a basin, from the Book of
Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, by al-Jazari (1206).
(Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul, Turkey/ The Bridgeman Art Library)
22. The campus of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
(KAUST), Jeddah. (Matin Durrani/‘Buying success, Saudi style’, Physics
World, November 2009)