History Of Science And Technology In Islam

In an introduction to the present Catalogue it is a difficult task to convey to the reader an adequate idea of the importance of the Arab-Islamic culture area in the universal history of science. It is difficult, not only because only a modest part of the extant source material of manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and Turkish has been published and only a small portion analysed so far. There are various other reasons that render such an undertaking difficult. The reception and assimilation of Arab-Islamic science, right in the middle of its active phase, encountered hostility and violent rejection in the Occident as early as in the second half of the 7th/13th century.