gems, Arabic mineralogy

Mieli, with additions by Renaud, Meyerhof, and Ruska, presents a broad history of “Arabic” science, using the term for scientific activity throughout the medieval Islamic world regardless of the scholars’ ethnicity, religion, or sometimes language. Beginning with Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Indian, and Persian antecedents, the work follows the translation and assimilation of earlier scientific traditions and the development of original scholarship from the eighth through thirteenth centuries. It surveys mathematics, astronomy, geography, medicine, pharmacology, natural history, philosophy, chemistry, and alchemy, with substantial treatment of figures including al-Rāzī, al-Bīrūnī, Ibn Sīnā, and Ibn al-Haytham. Particular attention is given to Arabic alchemy and chemistry, the transmission of Greek scientific traditions through Syriac and Arabic, and the subsequent passage of Arabic learning into Christian Europe through Spain, Sicily, Salerno, and the medieval translation movement. Mieli regards Arabic science as the essential intellectual link between ancient science and the emergence of medieval and ultimately modern European science, while stressing the need for critical editions and reliable translations of surviving Arabic scientific texts.