ALADDIN'S LAMP - HOW GREEK SCIENCE CAME TO EUROPE THROUGH THE ISLAMIC WORLD

John Freely tells the fascinating story of how ancient Greek philosophy and science began in the sixth century b.c., producing the remarkable discoveries and theories of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, Galen, Ptolemy, and others, which through the centuries spread across the Greco-Roman world. He explains how, as the Dark Ages shrouded Europe, scholars in medieval Baghdad translated the works of these Greek thinkers into Arabic, spreading their ideas throughout the Islamic world from Central Asia to Spain and adding their own contributions in philosophy and science. And he shows how these texts by Islamic scholars were then translated from Arabic into Latin beginning in the twelfth century, sparking the emergence of European science at the dawn of the Renaissance and climaxing in the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century.
Caliph Harun al-Rashid was one of the Muslim rulers who first promoted translating Greek texts into Arabic. His Baghdad is the setting for The Thousand and One Nights, where Scheherazade’s Tale of Aladdin and His Magic Lamp reflects the marvels of the new science and the amazing inventions it was said to produce. Freely’s Aladdin’s Lamp returns us to that time and brings to light anessential and longoverlooked chapter in the history of science.