Science

The new Arab and Islamic rulers of the Middle East continued to study the sciences that had preceded Islam in their region as I've already mentioned (especially but not exclusively Hellenistic science). Naturally they focused on what would be useful to them and so medicine was continued in the Eastern tradition. As the position of heavenly bodies was still regarded as important to events on earth, astrology (and ultimately astronomy) continued to be studied. Astronomy and geography assumed new importance in order to determine the direction of Mecca from a given locality for religious and architectural purposes. Already-established hospitals, the newly formed ‘Abbasid centre for translation in Baghdad, the Bayt al-Hikma, and observatories all played a role in ensuring the continuation of the older forms of learning. The great translation process into Arabic from (usually) Greek initially tended to take place via an earlier Syriac translation with attendant problems of subtly changed meanings (later, as Arabic expanded its capacities as a language of learning, direct translations from the Greek into Arabic were able to be made).

The initial chief of the Bayt al-Hikma was Hunayn Ibn Ishaq who lived in the 9^th Century. His translators translated works of philosophy, logic, medicine, pharmacy, alchemy, astrology, astronomy, geography, mathematics, musicology, politics and ethics.

These motives and actions are the basis for the sciences that I will discuss in later posts as well as the philosophy I discussed in the last post. I'll begin with medicine in the next post and proceed to discuss the other sciences mentioned above and other forms of Arab science in later posts.