Science and Islam

The ´fascinating and clearly written´ (New Scientist) history of the extraordinary Islamic scientific revolution between the eighth and fifteenth centuries. Long before the European Enlightenment, scholars and researchers working from Samarkand in modern-day Uzbekistan to Cordoba in Spain advanced our knowledge of astronomy, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, medicine and philosophy. From Musa al-Khwarizmi who developed algebra in 9th century Baghdad to al-Jazari, a 13th-century Turkish engineer whose achievements include the crank, the camshaft and the reciprocating piston, Ehsan Masood tells the amazing story of one of history´s most misunderstood yet rich and fertile periods in science, via the scholars, research, and science of the Islamic empires of the middle ages.