Founding Figures and Commentators in Arabic Mathematics
Founding Figures and Commentators in Arabic Mathematics

Author: Roshdi Rashed

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-03-07

Total Pages: 814

ISBN-13: 1136620001

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In this unique insight into the history and philosophy of mathematics and science in the mediaeval Arab world, the eminent scholar Roshdi Rashed illuminates the various historical, textual and epistemic threads that underpinned the history of Arabic mathematical and scientific knowledge up to the seventeenth century. The first of five wide-ranging and comprehensive volumes, this book provides a detailed exploration of Arabic mathematics and sciences in the ninth and tenth centuries. Extensive and detailed analyses and annotations support a number of key Arabic texts, which are translated here into English for the first time. In this volume Rashed focuses on the traditions of celebrated polymaths from the ninth and tenth centuries ‘School of Baghdad’ - such as the Banū Mūsā, Thābit ibn Qurra, Ibrāhīm ibn Sinān, Abū Ja ́far al-Khāzin, Abū Sahl Wayjan ibn Rustām al-Qūhī - and eleventh-century Andalusian mathematicians like Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-Samh, and al-Mu’taman ibn Hūd. The Archimedean-Apollonian traditions of these polymaths are thematically explored to illustrate the historical and epistemological development of ‘infinitesimal mathematics’ as it became more clearly articulated in the eleventh-century influential legacy of al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham (‘Alhazen’). Contributing to a more informed and balanced understanding of the internal currents of the history of mathematics and the exact sciences in Islam, and of its adaptive interpretation and assimilation in the European context, this fundamental text will appeal to historians of ideas, epistemologists, mathematicians at the most advanced levels of research.

Founding Figures and Commentators in Arabic Mathematics
Founding Figures and Commentators in Arabic Mathematics

Author: Roshdi Rashed

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-12-12

Total Pages: 808

ISBN-13: 9780367865283

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In this unique insight into the history and philosophy of mathematics and science in the mediaeval Arab world, the eminent scholar Roshdi Rashed illuminates the various historical, textual and epistemic threads that underpinned the history of Arabic mathematical and scientific knowledge up to the seventeenth century. The first of five wide-ranging and comprehensive volumes, this book provides a detailed exploration of Arabic mathematics and sciences in the ninth and tenth centuries. Extensive and detailed analyses and annotations support a number of key Arabic texts, which are translated here into English for the first time. In this volume Rashed focuses on the traditions of celebrated polymaths from the ninth and tenth centuries 'School of Baghdad' - such as the Banū Mūsā, Thābit ibn Qurra, Ibrāhīm ibn Sinān, Abū Ja ́far al-Khāzin, Abū Sahl Wayjan ibn Rustām al-Qūhī - and eleventh-century Andalusian mathematicians like Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-Samh, and al-Mu'taman ibn Hūd. The Archimedean-Apollonian traditions of these polymaths are thematically explored to illustrate the historical and epistemological development of 'infinitesimal mathematics' as it became more clearly articulated in the eleventh-century influential legacy of al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham ('Alhazen'). Contributing to a more informed and balanced understanding of the internal currents of the history of mathematics and the exact sciences in Islam, and of its adaptive interpretation and assimilation in the European context, this fundamental text will appeal to historians of ideas, epistemologists, mathematicians at the most advanced levels of research.

Classical Mathematics from Al-Khwarizmi to Descartes
Classical Mathematics from Al-Khwarizmi to Descartes

Author: Roshdi Rashed

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-08-21

Total Pages: 621

ISBN-13: 1317622383

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This book follows the development of classical mathematics and the relation between work done in the Arab and Islamic worlds and that undertaken by the likes of Descartes and Fermat. ‘Early modern,’ mathematics is a term widely used to refer to the mathematics which developed in the West during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. For many historians and philosophers this is the watershed which marks a radical departure from ‘classical mathematics,’ to more modern mathematics; heralding the arrival of algebra, geometrical algebra, and the mathematics of the continuous. In this book, Roshdi Rashed demonstrates that ‘early modern,’ mathematics is actually far more composite than previously assumed, with each branch having different traceable origins which span the millennium. Going back to the beginning of these parts, the aim of this book is to identify the concepts and practices of key figures in their development, thereby presenting a fuller reality of these mathematics. This book will be of interest to students and scholars specialising in Islamic science and mathematics, as well as to those with an interest in the more general history of science and mathematics and the transmission of ideas and culture.

Ibn al-Haytham's Geometrical Methods and the Philosophy of Mathematics
Ibn al-Haytham's Geometrical Methods and the Philosophy of Mathematics

Author: Roshdi Rashed

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-20

Total Pages: 637

ISBN-13: 1351686003

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This fifth volume of A History of Arabic Sciences and Mathematics is complemented by four preceding volumes which focused on the main chapters of classical mathematics: infinitesimal geometry, theory of conics and its applications, spherical geometry, mathematical astronomy, etc. This book includes seven main works of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) and of two of his predecessors, Thābit ibn Qurra and al-Sijzī: The circle, its transformations and its properties; Analysis and synthesis: the founding of analytical art; A new mathematical discipline: the Knowns; The geometrisation of place; Analysis and synthesis: examples of the geometry of triangles; Axiomatic method and invention: Thābit ibn Qurra; The idea of an Ars Inveniendi: al-Sijzī. Including extensive commentary from one of the world’s foremost authorities on the subject, this fundamental text is essential reading for historians and mathematicians at the most advanced levels of research.

Reflections on Observational Astronomy in the Medieval Islamic Period
Reflections on Observational Astronomy in the Medieval Islamic Period

Author: S. Mohammad Mozaffari

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-12-13

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1040228429

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This volume presents comprehensive investigations into various facets of observational astronomy during the medieval Islamic period, spanning from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries. The chapters compiled here, originally published between 2012 and 2018, have undergone significant revisions to enhance their accuracy and explore a broad spectrum of topics organized into five main sections. Reflections on Observational Astronomy in the Medieval Islamic Period begins with solar astronomy, providing a detailed evaluation of Islamic astronomers’ determinations of fundamental solar parameters. In the realm of lunar astronomy, it examines the gradual endorsement and rationalization of annular solar eclipses, along with an exclusive historical account of predicting and observing such an event in 1283 CE. The section on planetary astronomy scrutinizes empirical discoveries that distinguish between the precession of equinoxes and the motion of apogees, as well as significant enhancements to Ptolemy’s parameters for planetary latitudes. Stellar astronomy is explored through a non-Ptolemaic star table that encompasses observations from ninth-century Baghdad to thirteenth-century Marāgha. The final section examines observational instruments, focusing on those constructed during the second period of activities at the Marāgha observatory. A critical analysis of astronomical observations conducted at the Marāgha and Istanbul observatories is a key focus of this work. This book will be invaluable to those interested in the historical progression of exact sciences; the scope, distinctive aspects, and caliber of experimental activities in medieval times; and the interplay between theory and observation throughout history. It is intended for historians, scientists (including astronomers and physicists), and particularly, historians of astronomy.

Menelaus' ›Spherics‹
Menelaus' ›Spherics‹

Author: Roshdi Rashed

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2017-10-23

Total Pages: 888

ISBN-13: 3110571420

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Despite its importance in the history of Ancient science, Menelaus’ Spherics is still by and large unknown. This treatise, which lies at the foundation of spherical geometry, is lost in Greek but has been preserved in its Arabic versions. The reader will find here, for the first time edited and translated into English, the essentials of this tradition, namely: a fragment of an early Arabic translation and the first Arabic redaction of the Spherics composed by al-Māhānī /al-Harawī, together with a historical and mathematical study of Menelaus’ treatise. With this book, a new and important part of the Greek and Arabic legacy to the history of mathematics comes to light. This book will be an indispensable acquisition for any reader interested in the history of Ancient geometry and science and, more generally, in Greek and Arabic science and culture.

Ibn al-Haytham and Analytical Mathematics
Ibn al-Haytham and Analytical Mathematics

Author: Roshdi Rashed

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-05-02

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 1136191089

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This volume provides a unique primary source on the history and philosophy of mathematics and the exact sciences in the mediaeval Arab world. The second of five comprehensive volumes, this book offers a detailed exploration of Arabic mathematics in the eleventh century as embodied in the legacy of the celebrated polymath al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham. Extensive analyses and annotations from the eminent scholar, Roshdi Rashed, support a number of key Arabic texts from Ibn al-Haytham’s treatises in infinitesimal mathematics, translated here into English for the first time. Rashed shows how Ibn al-Haytham’s works demonstrate a remarkable mathematical competence in mathematical subjects like the quadrature of the circle and of lunes, the calculation of the volumes of paraboloids, the problem of isoperimetric plane figures and solid figures with equal surface areas, along with the extraction of square and cubic roots. The present text is complemented by the first volume of A History of Arabic Sciences and Mathematics, which focused on founding figures and commentators in the ninth and tenth centuries Archimedean-Apollonian mathematical ‘School of Baghdad’. This constellation of works illustrates the historical and epistemological development of ‘infinitesimal mathematics’ as it became clearly articulated in the oeuvre of Ibn al-Haytham. Contributing to a more informed and balanced understanding of the internal currents of the history of mathematics and the exact sciences in Islam, and of its adaptive interpretation and assimilation in the European context, this fundamental text will appeal to historians of ideas, epistemologists and mathematicians at the most advanced levels of research.

The Poetics of Ancient and Classical Arabic Literature
The Poetics of Ancient and Classical Arabic Literature

Author: Esad Durakovic

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-04-24

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 1317520483

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Through analysing ancient and classical Arabic literature, including the Qur'an, from within the Arabic literary tradition, this book provides an original interpretation of poetics, and of other important aspects of Arab culture. Ancient Arabic literature is a realm of poetry; prose literary forms emerged rather late, and even then remained in the shadow of poetic creative efforts. Traditionally, this literature has been viewed through a philologist’s lens and has often been represented as ‘materialistic’ in the sense that its poetry lacked imagination. As a result, Arabic poetry was often evaluated negatively in relation to other poetic traditions. The Poetics of Ancient and Classical Arabic Literature argues that old Arabic literature is remarkably coherent in poetical terms and has its own individuality, and that claims of its materialism arise from a failure to grasp the poetic principles of the Arabic tradition. Analysing the Qur’an, which is known for confronting the poetry of the time, this book reveals that "post Qur’anic" literature came to be defined against it. Thus, the constitution and interpretation of Arabic literature imposed itself as a particular exegesis of the sacred Text. Disputing traditional interpretations by arguing that Arabic literature can only be assessed from within, and not through comparison with other literary traditions, this book is of interest to students and scholars of Islamic Studies, Arabic Studies and Literary Studies.

Arabic and Hebrew Love Poems in Al-Andalus
Arabic and Hebrew Love Poems in Al-Andalus

Author: Shari Lowin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-11-20

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1135131538

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Arabic and Hebrew Love Poems in al-Andalus investigates a largely overlooked subset of Muslim and Jewish love poetry in medieval Spain: hetero- and homo-erotic love poems written by Muslim and Jewish religious scholars, in which the lover and his sensual experience of the beloved are compared to scriptural characters and storylines. This book examines the ways in which the scriptural referents fit in with, or differ from, the traditional Andalusian poetic conventions. The study then proceeds to compare the scriptural stories and characters as presented in the poems with their scriptural and exegetical sources. This new intertextual analysis reveals that the Jewish and Muslim scholar-poets utilized their sacred literature in their poems of desire as more than poetic ornamentation; in employing Qur’ānic heroes in their secular verses, the Muslim poets presented a justification of profane love and sanctification of erotic human passions. In the Hebrew lust poems, which utilize biblical heroes, we can detect subtle, subversive, and surprisingly placed interpretations of biblical accounts. Moving beyond the concern with literary history to challenge the traditional boundaries between secular and religious poetry, this book provides a new, multidisciplinary, approach to existing materials and will be of interest to students, scholars and researchers of Islamic and Jewish Studies as well as to those with an interest in Hebrew and Arabic poetry of Islamic Spain.

An Arab Ambassador in the Mediterranean World
An Arab Ambassador in the Mediterranean World

Author: Nabil Matar

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-04-10

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 1317649249

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This book provides translated selections from the writings of Muhammad Ibn Othman al-Miknasi (d. 1799). The only writings by an Arab-Muslim in the pre-modern period that present a comparative perspective, his travelogues provide unique insight with in to Christendom and Islam. Translating excerpts from his three travelogues, this book tells the story of al-Miknasi’s travels from 1779-1788. As an ambassador, al-Miknasi was privy to court life, government offices and religious buildings, and he provides detailed accounts of cities, people, customs, ransom negotiations, historical events and political institutions. Including descriptions of Europeans, Arabs, Turks, Christians (both European and Eastern), Muslims, Jews, and (American) Indians in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, An Arab Ambassador in the Mediterranean World explores how the most travelled Muslim writer of the pre-modern period saw the world: from Spain to Arabia and from Morocco to Turkey, with second-hand information about the New World. Supplemented with extensive notes detailing the historic and political relevance of the translations, this book is of interest to researchers and scholars of Mediterranean History, Ottoman Studies and Muslim-Christian relations.