Book description
For over 700 years the international language of science was Arabic.
In Pathfinders, Jim al-Khalili celebrates the forgotten
pioneers who helped shape our understanding of the world.
All scientists have stood on the shoulders of giants. But most
historical accounts today suggest that the achievements of the ancient
Greeks were not matched until the European Renaissance in the 16th
century, a 1,000-year period dismissed as the Dark Ages. In the
ninth-century, however, the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, Abu Ja'far
Abdullah al-Ma'mun, created the greatest centre of learning the world
had ever seen, known as Bayt al-Hikma, the House of Wisdom. The
scientists and philosophers he brought together sparked a period of
extraordinary discovery, in every field imaginable, launching a golden
age of Arabic science.
Few of these scientists, however, are now known in the western world.
Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, a polymath who outshines everyone in history
except Leonardo da Vinci? The Syrian astronomer Ibn al-Shatir, whose
manuscripts would inspire Copernicus's heliocentric model of the solar
system? Or the 13th-century Andalucian physician Ibn al-Nafees, who
correctly described blood circulation 400 years before William Harvey?
Iraqi Ibn al-Haytham who practised the modern scientific method 700
years before Bacon and Descartes, and founded the field of modern
optics before Newton? Or even ninth-century zoologist al-Jahith, who
developed a theory of natural selection a thousand years before Darwin?
The West needs to see the Islamic world through new eyes and the
Islamic world, in turn, to take pride in its extraordinarily rich
heritage. Anyone who reads this book will understand why.
Jim Al-Khalili OBE is a theoretical physicist, author and
broadcaster. He is currently Professor of Physics at the University of
Surrey, where he also holds the first Surrey chair in the public
engagement in science. He was awarded the Royal Society Michael Faraday
Prize for science communication in 2007, elected Honorary Fellow of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science and has also received
the Institute of Physic's Public Awareness of Physics Award. Born in
Baghdad, Jim was educated in Iraq until the age of 16 and it was there,
being taught by Arabic teachers in Arabic that he first heard and learnt
about the great Arab scientists and philosophers. He has long championed
the influence of Islam on science and hopes to bring attention to the
rich Arab heritage in our understanding of science today.
