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Ehsan Masood

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Science and Islam (Icon Science): A History Kindle Edition

by Ehsan Masood (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 81 ratings

Part of: Icon Science (12 books)

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Long before the European Enlightenment, scholars and researchers working from Samarkand in modern-day Uzbekistan to Cordoba in Spain advanced our knowledge of astronomy, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, medicine and philosophy.

From Musa al-Khwarizmi who developed algebra in 9th century Baghdad to al-Jazari, a 13th-century Turkish engineer whose achievements include the crank, the camshaft and the reciprocating piston,

Ehsan Masood tells the amazing story of one of history's most misunderstood yet rich and fertile periods in science, via the scholars, research, and science of the Islamic empires of the middle ages.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'The fruits of the golden age of Islamic science are summarised briskly and engagingly in Ehsan Masood's Science & Islam, which was written to accompany a recent BBC television series ... Keen to dismantle the myth that Islam is fundamentally opposed to science, and [shows] that the words of Muhammad can be read as obliging rational inquiry.' Sunday Times 'Why did science and learning decline so rapidly [in the Islamic World]? Ehsan Masood gives a viable answer to this question. Masood's eminently readable survey of science in Islam fills many gaps in [Jonathan Lyons'] The House of Wisdom by providing the social and political context in which discoveries took place.' The Times 'A delightful and approachable work, packed with surprises and treats, and offered by a writer whose passion for the subject does not daunt his objectivity' Wharf

About the Author

Ehsan Masood is a journalist based in London. His work has appeared mostly in Nature, New Scientist and www.SciDev.Net. He is also a columnist for www.OpenDemocracy and has also contributed articles to The Economist, El Pais, The Guardian, The Independent, Le Monde and Prospect magazine. His latest books include: Dry: Life Without Water (2006) and Who Decides: Analysing Decisionmaking on Genetically Modified Crops in Developing Countries (2005). He is also the editor of How Do You Know: Reading Ziauddin Sardar on Islam, Science and Cultural Relations (2006).

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01N02JHU7
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Icon Books; 2nd edition (April 6, 2017)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 6, 2017
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2017 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 258 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #1,391,516 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #334 in Islamic History
- #901 in Religious Studies - Science & Religion
- #1,092 in History of Islam

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4.4 81 ratings

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Ehsan Masood

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Ehsan Masood is a senior editor with the science journal Nature. He edited the science policy magazine, Research Fortnight between 2009 and 2017 and also taught science and innovation policy at Imperial College London. A 2017/2018 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he has written and presented documentaries for BBC Radio 4, including 'Surviving McCarthy', 'Science: Right or Left?' and a three-part series, 'Islam and Science'. He began his journalism in the late 1980s on the pioneering and much-missed satirical magazine 'MuslimWise'.

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4.4 out of 5

81 global ratings

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Ehsan Ahmed

Excellent book describing the forgotten contributions of Muslims towards science, astronomy and medicine.

Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2015

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Does a great job in highlighting the great contributions of Muslim scientists and scholars centuries before European Renaissance.

One person found this helpful

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Robert S. Schaefer

Untold history

Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2015

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Very well written and insightful. A part of history rarely told.

One person found this helpful

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Flamur Vehapi, Author

Really enjoyed the book and highly recommend it to anyone!

Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2015

This is a much needed work at a time when anything in connection to Islam is very often ignored. This work points out some of the major contributions of Muslims to human civilization. Really enjoyed the book and highly recommend it to anyone, whether they have a background and/or interest in science or not.

One person found this helpful

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Firas

Very Informative, But Too Basic

Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2012

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Science and Islam is a great way to get introduced to the contributions of Muslims during their golden age (750-1258). Unfortunately, Western textbooks completely ignore Muslim scientific accomplishments. In reading this book, your understanding of scientific history will be flipped on it's head via facts about Muslim biologists (natural selection 1000 years pre-Darwin), doctors (al-Zahrawi basically invented modern surgery), and mathematics (al-Khawarizmi pioneering liner and quadratic equations).

The only shortcoming of the book is that if you are already moderately informed about this subject, it will simply repeat what you already know. It is fairly short, and has big print (which could be a positive or a negative). It rarely goes into great detail about the people it talks about and leaves you wanting more.

Overall, it is a good introduction to Muslim scientists but if you're looking for something more in-depth, try Michael Hamilton Morgan's "Lost History".

11 people found this helpful

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Tabrizi

n Iraq

Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2014

keep explaining Islam and Science were in close relationship for that era so why Islamic Scholar did not come from heart of Islam Saudi Arabia Mecca but they were mostly from former Persian Empire territory including Iran, Iraq , Syria, minor Asia city of Samarkand & Bukhara and the later Spain scientific advances were the continuous of advance in former Persian empire territory. Islam did not contribute to advancement in Science but only to create a classless society because of its rule to manage the territory conquered that every one can participate and that participation with the help of former scholars in former Persia the education became a necessity to fight back the conquers with knowledge. I do not see Islam or Christianity or other religion as a reason to bring advancement in science as you explain and If Mongl Chankes Khan did not destroyed the Persian cities the Renaissance for sure flourished in that geographic location then Europe and middle east was more advance then Europe in Science and philosophy if only I hope you will reverse your thinking to understand my view.

2 people found this helpful

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Ayman

Useful Survey in Field of History of Science

Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2012

Ehsan Masood (Twitter) produced a BBC documentary on Islam and science. This book is its companion. It's excellent as a survey introduction to this topic in the history of science. It discusses multiple causes of historical phenomenon and the predominant historiography and its dissenters.

As in any work of history presented to the public, the academic academician, or even the humble ABD history student such as myself, can find weaknesses. But the wider public is not reading and watching our fascinating works, so maybe we can cut people like Ehsan Masood and Henry Louis Gates, Jr (Ali Mazrui's series on African history is better) and Neil deGrasse Tyson a break if they slip up now and again. Hopefully, the public intellectual strives to be like Carl Sagan and not Thomas Friedman, who can no doubt answer all of your questions.

The writing style is simple. The only references are listed as a bibliography at the end of the book.

Most readers will come away from the book thinking that, based on Muslims' past acceptance of the validity of scientific work, especially when it supported religiously-mandated activities such as determining prayer times or healing the sick or approved secular activities such as improving quality of life through applied technology in chemistry and horticulture, and their past tolerance of non-Muslims and non-orthodox Muslims, Muslims can participate in the global scientific enterprise. Their history of coercive pre- and early modern monarchies and colonial administrations has placed some stumbling blocks in their path, primarily mass suspicion of the science class, so to speak, as an arm of the state. The few who want more will simply need to follow up on the clues Dr. Ehsan has left for them to follow.

I personally think the bigger problem facing Muslim-majority society's participation in scientific production is the lack of infrastructure to support modern science (see this article for a description of how medical research might take place in a clinical setting), which is no longer a matter of one brilliant individual with enough time and energy to conduct his/her own experiments.

Brain drain is a serious problem. Mills et al estimated that nine sub-Saharan African countries lost more than 2 billion USD of investment through the emigration of trained doctors. This investment equates to subsidizing medicine in the developed nations to which they immigrated.

Based on the number of doctors working from the nine source countries and the average cost of medical education in these countries, this equals a saving of at least $621m for Australia, $384m for Canada, $2.7bn for the United Kingdom, and $846m for the United States; $4.55bn in total.

The World Health Organization has adopted the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel, but implementation is not widespread (see Norway's effort).

Muslims are participating in the global scientific enterprise (my guess again is in applied science), as evidenced by searches in PubMed, the National Library of Medicine's indexing service of peer-reviewed biomedical publications. See articles where the first author's last name begins with Abdul (350 as of 2012-Jul-26), Abdel (299), and Abdal (156).* Or Moham (679), Muham (68), Ahmad (845), and so on. They're just not participating, for the most part, in institutions in Muslim-majority countries.

And to whip out a Tom Friedman-like anecdote on you, I remember in 1988 or 1989 meeting in Cairo an Egyptian who studied physics in the Soviet Union. He told me how frustrated he was at not being able to do physics in Egypt because there was no institutional backing and lack of equipment.

Brain drain is simply one of the obstacles world systems theory predicts developing nations have to face.

I don't remember Ehsan Masood dealing with these types problems at all in his book.

Review my other blog entries related to science, particularly my reviews of Taner Edis's book Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam and George Saliba's Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance. I also liked a volume Ehsan Masood edited about how people are adapting to their arid climates.

On another note, no Georgia public library participating in the PINES system had the book, so I had to request it using my public library's Interlibrary Loan process. This cost me $8.65. Certainly this kind of book is appropriate for public libraries. Why doesn't my library carry this book?

*Christian Arabs have names like Abdulla and Abdelmasih, so some of these authors are certainly not Muslims.

8 people found this helpful

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Grand Sen~or

pseudo-multi-cultural societies

Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2010

Ehsan on page 71 of Science & Islam compares al-Andalus with pseudo-multi-cultural society of his times. During his comparison he recalls several not so important structural similarities and differences between the present pseudo-multi-cultural society and al-Andalus, but somehow the structural core of the real-multi-cultural society; the right to practice their own laws, with their own legal institutions of Christians, Jews and Muslims which was a historic fact in al-Andalus, slips from Ehsan's intellectual mind. Based on that I don't think I can recommend this book to you, for I am not sure how many other ommissions of important historic facts are filled up with gossips and legends to save the secular-pseudo-multi-cultural, mono-law society.

4 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Aisha Mohammad

Great supplement to the tv series

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 7, 2021

Verified Purchase

Great to go with the series

One person found this helpful

MOHAMMAD ARIF

You got to read this

Reviewed in India on June 17, 2020

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Just searching a book on how Islam and Science did have a connection, this book was right there. if you are not knowing about how Islam did promote science, you have to read this.

3 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Eager to know more about Islam and Science.

Reviewed in India on November 24, 2020

Verified Purchase

It is excellent.

Mrs. M. A. Meredith

Indebtedness

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 2, 2012

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The Arabs were so in advance of Western thought and science. We owe them so much. This book brought to light just how much they contributed to knowledge and explanation of the physical world. The TV series was admirable.

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Science and Islam (Icon Science): A History Kindle Edition

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