Islamic Acquisition of the Foreign Sciences A Cultural Perspective

Abstract

The study of the transmission and transformation of ancient science is
more than a study of which texts were translated, when, and by whom. It was
a complex process, better seen as beginning rather than ending with the translation
of relevant books, for the heart of the process is the assimilation rather
than the simple reception of the material. Scientific ideas move because people
study books, compute with tables, and use instruments, not simply because
they translate books, transcribe tables, or buy pretty artifacts. It suffices
to recall that the scholars of the Byzantine Empire, despite their status as the
direct heirs of the classical Greek scientific tradition and their direct access
to whatever classical Greek manuscripts the Islamic world eventually came
to possess-indeed to more of them and from an earlier date-were largely
uninterested in this knowleldge. Hence no account of the transmission of scientific
knowledge can be complete if it does not recognize that it is, at root,
an account of the activities of what Dupree has called "homo sapiens in a
social context."
Two Caveats
At the outset of this paper, two points mu5t be taken into consideration.
First, although we may wish to study the whole process of the Islamic acquisition
of the foreign sciences as it took place over several centuries and over
an area extending from Spain to Afghanistan, it must be realized that the
examples given refer to specific events that took place at specific times and
in specific places. As a result, eminent Islamic thinkers and writers are quoted
without any accompanying claim that each one is representative of all Islamic
thinkers at all times and in all places. It is sufficient that when a person such
without any accompanying claim that each one is representative of all Islamic ...