a fascinating and clearly written book

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Home |Science in Society | Opinion
Time to acknowledge science's debt to Islam? 25 February 2009 by Jo Marchant Magazine issue 2696. Subscribe and save For similar stories,Cheap Windows 7 Key, visit the Histories and Books and Art Topic Guides
WHEN Roman civilisation fell in the early centuries AD,Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Key, the light of scholarship was extinguished. It was near to a thousand years before civilisation recovered, thanks to European scholars who rediscovered classical Greek learning and ushered in the new dawn of the Renaissance.
At least, this is how history is taught. Now two books argue that this view ignores the crucial role of Islamic scholars.
In the first part of Science and Islam, a fascinating and clearly written book, Ehsan Masood tells how Islam spread rapidly from the 7th century onward, from the west of China to the south of Spain. As Europe slumbered in the Dark Ages,Buy Office Standard 2007, science-friendly caliphs such as al-Mamun,Office Professional Key, who ruled Baghdad in the 9th century, sponsored the translation of scientific texts from lands they had conquered.
Among them were the works of scholars such as 8th-century mathematician Musa al-Khwarizmi, who popularised the Indian number system ...