A History of Mathematics From Mesopotamia to Modernity

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Islam,Neglect andDiscovery 109


150 years later with an abundance of written texts from the ninth centuryce, many of which
have survived.
As with Chinese history, Islamic history can be structured by a succession of dynasties; however,
after the earliest years this becomes confusing and it is simpler to give a broad outline. In fact, the
world which was quickly conquered by the forces of Islam was large, and it hardly ever came under
an undisputed single ruler. The conquest by those who accepted Muh.ammad’s new religion and
message of Islam, is one of the most spectacular events of history, however interpreted; between
Muh.ammad’s death in 632ceand the end of the seventh century the whole of the Middle East,
Egypt, North Africa, Spain, Iran, and parts of India and Central Asia were incorporated into the
new state, under the rule of the khalif, first at Damascus and then at Baghdad. In the orthodox
history of Islam, the period of ‘Umar and ‘Al ̄ ̄i, the companions of Muh.ammad mentioned above,
was the golden age. Subsequent rulers, as always, fell off both in personal ethics and in their human
rights record from the original standards, and the rulers who were remembered as good were (as in
the Italian Renaissance) those who at least presided over a period of peace and promoted the arts
and sciences. In this respect the Abbasid rulers of the early ninth century, particularly the khalif al-
Ma’mun (813–833), were outstanding. Indeed, the history of Islamic mathematics, like Chinese,
seems to divide naturally into two periods, an early one (say 800–1000) of quite concentrated
activity, with a large number of mathematicians, working often in collaboration; and a later one
of particular scholars, often very gifted, who, in times often of civil war or external attack, worked
either in isolation or under the patronage of local rulers. There are signs that as early as the eleventh
century al-B ̄ir ̄un ̄i and Khayyam were looking back at the previous age and contrasting it with their
own:


We have been suffering from a dearth of men of science, possessing only a group as few in number as its hardships have
been many —persons who had recourse merely to a brief respite of time to concentrate on research and verification
of facts. Most of our contemporaries are pseudo-scientists who mingle truth with falsehood...In all circumstances
we seek refuge in God, the Helper. (Khayyam 1931, p. 47)


Accordingly, when there was a revival, as in the Mongol court of the conqueror Hulaghu Khan
(c.1260), or that of Timur’s grandson Ulugh Beg at Samarkand (c.1410), scholars looked back to
the period of al-Ma’mun and his ‘House of Wisdom’ at Baghdad as a model.
What was this ‘golden age’, and where did it come from? Early Islam was, as is well-known,
tolerant particularly to Jews and Christians (‘People of the Book’), and it is thought that much of
the population of this empire were slow in acquiring the Arabic language and the Islamic religion,
although both had advantages. Similarly, in the first 100 years the conquerors seem to have
been unconcerned with the remnants of Greek learning which were cultivated by scholars—often
refugees from Christian persecution—in centres like Harran in Turkey and Jundishapur in Iran.
The stage was set for a surprising union of cultures which took place in the late eighth and early
ninth centuries. This was incidentally the period in which the religion of Islam took on most of
its later form—the traditions with their injunctions about life and conduct, the legal system, and
much else. The new Abbasid dynasty who ruled from Baghdad not only favoured trade, commerce,
and public works (which, as usual, require mathematics at some level), but, particularly under
al-Ma’mun, saw a value in pure research. In the context, this meant the discovery of the work
of the Greek and Indian mathematicians, and its translation into Arabic. Scholars from what we
can see as a melting-pot—Syriac, Greek and Arabic speakers, Christian, pagan, and Muslim—
combined in the work of translation; and then immediately began to build on what they had

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