logo
episode-header-image
May 2010
1m 21s

Sciences

OXFORD UNIVERSITY
About this episode
Piet looks at how the works of famous ancient thinkers such as Aristotle, Hippocrates, Euclid or Ptolemy traveled from culture to culture and formed the basis of Muslim, Christian and Jewish science and philosophy alike. Ancient Greek science and philosophy reached Christian Europe mainly through the Islamic world. A large corpus of Greek scientific works ha ... Show More
Up next
May 2010
Introduction to Crossing Borders
An introduction to the Crossing Borders exhibition. The exhibition tells the story of how Jews, Christians and Muslims have contributed to the development of the book. 
59s
May 2010
From Roll to Codex
Piet explains codices, the oldest manuscripts in book form, looking in particular at a fragment of the Hebrew text of the book of Ecclesiasticus (ch. 40) from the Cairo Genizah, and the four Gospels in Syriac. Around the ancient Mediterranean the prevailing form of book was the r ... Show More
2m 39s
May 2010
Arabic Art Forms in Spanish Book Production
Piet explains Arabic design and illustration in Spanish books, looking in particular at the Kennicott Bible, produced in La Coruna, Spain, in 1476. Distinctive features of Arabic books, including their non-figurative illuminations, are manifest in Hebrew manuscripts produced unde ... Show More
1m 36s
Recommended Episodes
Aug 2021
Reconsidering relations among Greeks, Arabs, science and philosophy
Dr George Saliba, Professor and Director of AUB’s Farouk Jabre Center for Arabic and Islamic Science and Philosophy, explains how his research identifies how Arab and Greek scholars and philosophers jointly articulated new knowledge that went on to spark the European Renaissance. ... Show More
26m 2s
Jun 2012
Al-Kindi
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the Arab philosopher al-Kindi. Born in the early ninth century, al-Kindi was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy and supervised the translation of many works by Aristotle and others into Arabic. The author of more than 2 ... Show More
41m 53s
Mar 2015
Al-Ghazali
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of Al-Ghazali, a major philosopher and theologian of the late 11th century. Born in Persia, he was one of the most prominent intellectuals of his age, working in such centres of learning as Baghdad, Damascus and Jerusalem. He ... Show More
44m 12s
Mar 2015
Al-Ghazali
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of Al-Ghazali, a major philosopher and theologian of the late 11th century. Born in Persia, he was one of the most prominent intellectuals of his age, working in such centres of learning as Baghdad, Damascus and Jerusalem. He ... Show More
44m 12s
Nov 2021
Et dieu dans tout ça ? - L’islam et la science, avec Faouzia Charfi - 21/11/2021
La religion et la science peuvent-elles cohabiter en terre d’islam ? A quelles conditions ? Comment ne pas les confondre, comment réaffirmer l’autonomie de la science ? Dans son dernier ouvrage, «L’islam et la Science : en finir avec les compromis» (Editions Odile Jacob), la phys ... Show More
44m 48s
Nov 2007
Avicenna
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Persian Islamic philosopher, Avicenna. In the city of Hamadan in Iran, right in the centre, there is a vast mausoleum dedicated to an Iranian national hero. Built in 1952, exactly 915 years after his death, it’s a great conical tower with twelv ... Show More
41m 49s
Feb 2017
Maths in the Early Islamic World
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the flourishing of maths in the early Islamic world, as thinkers from across the region developed ideas in places such as Baghdad's House of Wisdom. Among them were the Persians Omar Khayyam, who worked on equations, and Al-Khwarizmi, latinised as ... Show More
49m 7s
Jul 2023
Liana Saif et al., "Islamicate Occult Sciences in Theory and Practice" (Brill, 2020)
Islamicate Occult Sciences in Theory and Practice (Brill, 2020) brings together the latest research on Islamic occult sciences from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, namely intellectual history, manuscript studies, and material culture. Its aim is not only to showcase the r ... Show More
1h 2m
Jun 2022
S1 Ep8a Pedagogy
When colonial powers entered Muslim lands, pedagogy was harnessed as a weapon. In erasure of the intellectual pillars of Islamic civilization, the laymen’s assuming of scholarly authority and the scholar’s assuming of the laymen’s taqlid are no worse than each other. In the dizzi ... Show More
9m 30s
Listen to millions of songs and podcasts on Anghami