Holyoake Lecture: The Forgotten Legacy of Arabic Science

Jim Al-Khalili takes a look at the rich scientific heritage of Arabic science.

In the ninth century, the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, al-Ma'mun, created the House of Wisdom, one of the greatest centres of learning the world had ever seen. The House of Wisdom produced a golden age of Arabic science, an institution from which scientists and philosophers sparked a period of extraordinary discovery. This was a time of great advances and wonderful characters, undoubtedly one of the most exciting periods in the history of science. This lecture will tell the forgotten story of the outstanding scientific achievements made by people such as al-Kindi, Ibn al-Haytham, Ibn Sina and al-Biruni – all comparable to the likes of Newton, Galileo and Aristotle. The role of the medieval Islamic Empire in the fields of physics and astronomy, and our understanding of it today, cannot be underestimated.

Jim Al-Khalili will argue that the world needs to look at the achievements of these scholars with fresh eyes, and that the rich scientific heritage of the House of Wisdom should not be eclipsed by the dogmatic anti science attitudes found in some quarters of Islam today. With this in mind, he will also ponder the possibility of a scientific renaissance within the Arab and Islamic world.

Details can be found at http://humanism.org.uk/events/?page=CiviCRM&q=civicrm/event/info&id=28&reset=1

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