Essay, Exchange of Views, I
Toby E. Huff
The Rise of Early Modern Science:
A Reply to George Saliba (1)

Copyright © 2002 Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies. All rights reserved. BRIIFS vol. 4 no 2, 2002. Republished on Baheyeldin.com by permission of Dr. Saliba.

Use the menus on the right, or at the bottom of this page, to read the original article, or Dr. Saliba's reply to this response.

Read George Saliba's original article, and Dr. Saliba's response to the reply.

Review Article by George Saliba, Professor of Arabic and Islamic Science, Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University.

Toby E. Huff. The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pb. ed., 1995. xiv, 409 pp. Hb. ISBN 0 521 43496 3. ISBN 0 521 49833 3.

"It is not altogether easy to break the habit of thinking of history as blindly groping toward a goal that the West alone was clever enough to reach. . . . " A. C. Graham (1)

Al Hassan Ibn Al Haitham, الحسن بن الهيثم known in Latin as Alhazen, is a famous Muslim scientist from the 10th and 11th century. He was famous in optics, but was also versed in Geography, Astronomy, Architecture.

In one of his lectures, Dr. George Saliba mentions Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Zakareya Al Razi (Rhazes) and his treatise on Measles and Smallpox (being the first one to distiguish between them. That work was published in Arabic and Latin in London 1766, as "Ar-Razi, Muhammad Ibn-Zakariya: Rhazes De Variolis Et Morbilis / cura et impensis Iohannis Channing. - Londini : Bowyer, 1766. - XVI, 276 S."My interest was piqued, and I did some searching for myself.

Al Hassan Ibn Muhammad Al Wazzan Al Fasi الحسن بن محمد الوزان الفاسي, also known as Leo Africanus ليو الأفريقي, is one enigmatic figure in 16th century Europe.

On Thursday March 4, 2004, Dr. George Saliba Professor of Arabic and Islamic Science at Columbia University in New York City gave a lecture at the University of Waterloo titled "Reception of Islamic Sciences in Europe".The main points of the lecture were:

Jacobus Golius (1596-1667), Dutch Orientalist.

Thomas van Erpe (1584-1624), also known by his Latin name Erpenius, was a famous Dutch orientalist who studied Arabic works, published them, and taught Arabic.

Joseph Barbatus was an Egyptian Copt named Yusuf ibn Abu Daqn يوسف بن ابو دقن who lived in early 17th century Paris, France, and taught Arabic there.

He is also known as Josephus Barbatus, Abudacnus, which is a latinized version of the Arabic أبو دقن "Abu Dakn" (one with a beard).

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