Aladdin’s Lamp by John Freely

Aladdin’s Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World by John Freely. (ISBN 0307277836). An all-encompassing title and ditto subject! What a book! My memory falls short, and I cannot keep up with all the names and the inventions, treatises, analyses, and discoveries that were made over the centuries in so many fields: geometry, philosophy, cosmology, physics, mathematics, medicine, astrology, and astronomy, to name just a few! 

As the title states, Greek science traveled from Athens to Alexandria. With the spread of Islam to Baghdad, many works were translated into Arabic. But Islam also went westwards through northern Africa to Spain, where the Moors ruled for several centuries. Some textbooks were translated into Spanish with the Reconquista by the different Christian kings of Spain. Later, power in Europe shifted to Sicily, where Arabic documents were consulted and translated into Latin, picked up by several popes who hired and invited such scientists to their court, just like the eastern rulers had done before them. With the creation of the first universities, the Greek theories of men like Aristotle and Euclid were reinterpreted and occasionally translated into English. 

On the other hand, works that had stayed in Byzantium found their way, if not burned by the Crusaders, to the powerful Italian city-states, where they were translated into Latin. It is pretty amazing to read how early discoveries were reviewed and reworked over the centuries while others were totally ignored until later scientists reinvented theories that were, in fact, more than a millennium old. This is not exactly bedtime reading, but it is absolutely worthwhile to understand the lost richness of antiquity and our modern world. 

John Freely starts in Miletus with Thales (end 7th/early 6th century BC), Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, and Hecataeus. He then moves to the 6th century (mainly in Magna Graecia, southern Italy) with Pythagoras of Samos, known for his famous theorem, which states that in a right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides). Xenophanes of Colophon, Philolaus of Crotona, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Empedocles of Acragas, Leucippus of Milete, Democritus of Abdera (Thracia), and Anaxagoras of Clazomenae – and more. 

He then moved to classical Athens with the times of Pericles, when Plato founded the Academy (to be compared with the colleges in the first European Universities), and when Hippocrates of Cos wrote the Hippocratic Oath used by physicians for centuries. This is the time of Eudoxus of Cnidos, the greatest mathematician (including arithmetic, geometry, harmonics, and astronomy), Callipsus of Cyzicus, the astronomer who studied our planets, and the great Aristotle of Stagira, who was competent in a wide range of sciences: logic, metaphysics, rhetoric, theology, politics, economy, meteorology, literature, ethics, psychology, physics, mechanics, astronomy, cosmology, biology, botany, natural history, and zoology (a knowledge-baggage that Alexander the Great must have picked up, of course!). Among his pupils, we find Heraclides Ponticus (from the Black Sea) and Theophrastus, who was Aristotle’s successor at the Athenian Lyceum. 

I’m not going to list all the scientists John Freely treats in this book, as the list would be too long. I only wanted to put the above names down because I’m terribly impressed with their sheer numbers and the knowledge of so many scientists so early in our history. 

With the decline of the Macedonian rule due to repeated civil wars, Athens was soon surpassed by Alexandria with its precious Museum and Library, founded by Ptolemy (one of the generals and successors of Alexander the Great) and further developed by his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus. In the early 3rd century BC, the Library counted more than half a million scrolls. 

That era was full of great names referred to time and again in later centuries. One of them was Euclid (ca. 295 BC), whose extant textbook on geometry is still in use today; he also laid the foundations of algebra and number theory; and wrote a textbook on astronomy and an elementary treatise on perspective. Greek mathematical physics reached its peak with Archimedes of Syracuse (ca 287-212 BC), famous for his inventions, among which was a model of the celestial motions (mechanism of Antikythera?) and his screw used to move water to a higher level. He worked as a military engineer, discovered the concept of specific gravity, studied the fluids in equilibrium, and found that the earth rotated around the sun! And our faithful geographer Strabo (63 BC-25 AD) also made encyclopedic descriptions of land and sea, animals, plants, fruits, etc. Finally, we should not forget to mention the astrology and geography works of Claudius Ptolemaeus (ca 100-170 AD), referred to as Ptolemy. He cataloged the stars, wrote extensively about trigonometry, and researched light. 

The Alexandrian Library was active at least till the early 6th century AD. Although the Romans controlled most of the Mediterranean by the mid-second century BC, Rome never reached the level of Alexandria. Yet Rome was not left out of the inevitable cultural exchanges. We are all familiar with the accounts of Pliny the Elder (ca 23-79 AD) about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, or Seneca’s letters, dialogues, and tragedies, for instance. 

With the rise of Islam, tables were turned around. It took only a century for the armies of Islam to be stopped in southern France in 732 during the Battle of Tours. From Jerusalem, they moved to Damascus and soon reached Baghdad, which was established as the capital in 762-765. It so happened that the ruling caliphs had books translated from foreign languages into Arabic. This meant that books on arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and practical skills such as surveying, meteorology, and civil engineering in Greek, Latin, Byzantine Greek, Pahlavi, Neo-Persian, and Syriac found their way east. Local astrologers added their own knowledge; mathematical works were reviewed, and algebra found its own place. Philosophers and scientists got involved, and it is impressive to see the explosion of new calculations and discoveries. 

I must admit that I’m not familiar with their names, except maybe Al-Biruni (973-1050). He wrote many works on astronomy, astrology, chronology, time measurement, geography, geodesy, cartography, and mathematics (including arithmetic, geometry, and trigonometry). He also treated mechanics, medicine, pharmacology, meteorology, mineralogy, history, philosophy, religion, literature, and magic. Additionally, he made a detailed description of his own inventions and the instruments he used. To complete the report of this genius, it should be noted that he spoke Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Chorasmian, and Turkic, besides Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac! We honestly have no idea of the wealth of knowledge that brought Baghdad to the center of the world. 

Meanwhile, Moorish Spain knew a Renaissance of its own. Cordoba was promoted to capital in 784-786, and the independence of Al-Andalus was proclaimed by the end of the 10th century. This was the time of El Cid when the Christian opposition fought for the Reconquista. It ended with the fall of Cordoba in 1236. During Moorish rule, Greek and Arabic manuscripts were used to study and create new theories. Cordoba had a reputed school of medicine from which many prominent physicians emerged. Also, astrology flourished besides science, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, and many works were translated into Spanish. It is surprising to read that a score of women copyists were employed in that field! 

In these golden times, Christian scholars came to study in Spain. We owe it to them that many scientific works were translated from Arabic into Latin, often with the help of local multilingual scribes. When the Crusaders established their first states in cities like Edessa, Antioch, and Jerusalem, east and west met again. New volumes were translated from Arabic into Latin, while additional treatises were written in Arabic, Latin, and Greek. All these translations were most significant, for there was no other way for scholars to learn about previous inventions or theories. 

By the 13th century, Europe was slowly awakening from the dark Middle Ages, now that an enormous amount of Graeco-Arabic works were translated into Latin. New universities were opened one after the other, in Bologna (1088), Paris (1150), Oxford (1167), Salerno (1173), Valencia (1178), Reggio (1188), Vicenza (1204), Cambridge (1209), Salamanca (1218), Padua (1222), etc. By 1500 Europe counted some eighty universities! Despite the goodwill of so many scholars, they all had to reckon with the Vatican. The Pope maintained that the earth was the center of the universe because God had created the world, meaning that many discoveries and proofs otherwise remained unpublished or were silenced. The Polish Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543), the German Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), and the Italian Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) faced hard times because of that.

 

When we reach the days of Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), it is surprising to read that he made no reference to any Arabic scientist. Instead, he widely credited his European predecessors, most notably Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and the ancient Greeks like Pythagoras of Samos, Empedocles, Philolaus, Democritus, and Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius, Aristarchus, Diophantus, Ptolemy and Pappus of Alexandria.

Since I am far more interested in antiquity than in any other time of history, my summary may seem distorted. Still, I can assure the prospective reader that this book has enough facts, figures, and names to place every scholar in the proper context. Plenty of drawings illustrate the significance or consequence of many of the theories. It’s a kind of reference work to be consulted on many occasions!