The History and Philosophy of Islamic Science

The essays presented in The History and Philosophy of Islamic Science discuss the principles behind the different sciences cultivated in the Islamic world from the third century of the Islamic era onwards and the place of science in relation to other branches of Islamic learning. In defining what Islamic science means, Professor Osman Bakar shows how these sciences are organically related to the fundamental teachings of Islam. Covering all the natural and mathematical sciences, The History and Philosophy of Islamic Science illustrates what Islamic science shares with modern science. Professor Osman Bakar also highlights where the Islamic approach to science differs from the secular, modern approach. Being based on the metaphysical, cosmological, epistemological, ethical, and moral principles of Islam, Islamic science adopts goals and methodological principles that are different in several respects from thoe of modern science. The great attraction of The History and Philosophy of Islamic Science is its interdisciplinary character. The book is of value to all those concerned with the problem of knowledge in all its dimensions.

"[Osman Bakar’s book] marks a most valuable contribution both to the effort of revealing the Islamic intellectual and spiritual approach to science, and to the concomitant endeavour to highlight the deeper causes of the contemporary crisis in western science and technology...it opens up, with clarity and simplicity, the philosophy of Islamic science." Islamic Quarterly

Professor Dato’ Dr Osman Bakar is Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic Affairs) of the University of Malaya, Malaysia and an authority on Islamic science.