A Bridge to the Sky: The Arts of Science in the Age of 'Abbas Ibn Firnas

Abbas Ibn Firnas (d. 887) was a celebrated early scientist, Córdoban courtier, and polymath. His career in the Umayyad court includes an aeronautics experiment commemorated by NASA, which has yet to receive sustained scholarly attention. A Bridge to the Sky reconstructs his account to explore the exact sciences, design, and making as interconnected intellectual practices during the first flowering of the Islamic scientific revolution. It offers an intellectual biography of Ibn Firnas and an exploration of the culture of scientific learning in Umayyad al-Andalus, opening new avenues of study in medieval Islamic studies, art history, visual and material culture studies, and history of science.

Format: Hardback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 07 March 2024
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc

In the face of widespread Islamophobia, it is understandable that scientific achievement is sought to be constructed as a counternarrative in popular discourse about Islam. However, this approach often imposes an anachronistic conception of science onto pre-modern practices, while also obscuring broader views of the intellectual, philosophical, and particularly the material context of medieval scientific achievement. An exemplary case study for this phenomenon is the figure of Abbas Ibn Firnas (d. 887), a celebrated early scientist, courtier, and polymath. Ibn Firnas is best known today for conducting an early aeronautics experiment, which was commemorated by NASA. Some historians have even called it the first successful human flight. While his aeronautics experiment is well-documented, his career in the Umayyad court has yet to receive sustained scholarly attention. The earliest and fullest account of Ibn Firnas' career, as preserved in a volume of the Muqtabas of Ibn Hayyan (d. 1076), the Cordoban court chronicle, presents him as both the leading intellectual of early Islamic Iberia and as a pioneering figure in the design and construction of the court's first fine scientific instruments and space of scientific visualization.

A Bridge to the Sky aims to reconstruct Ibn Firnas' career to explore the exact sciences, design, and making as interconnected intellectual practices during the first flowering of the Islamic scientific revolution. Author Glaire D. Anderson deftly weaves analyses of the Arabic texts alongside striking contemporaneous visual evidence, including some of the earliest surviving Islamic scientific instruments and illustrated treatises that are, as argued here, also works of art. By doing so, Anderson provides a fresh perspective on the early Islamic scientific revolution and its contributions to the development of science and technology in the medieval world.

In conclusion, A Bridge to the Sky is a valuable contribution to the study of early Islamic science and its cultural context. By highlighting the achievements of figures such as Abbas Ibn Firnas and exploring the interconnected intellectual practices of the early Islamic scientific revolution, Anderson offers a fresh perspective on this important period of history. The book is well-researched, well-written, and visually stunning, making it accessible to a wide audience interested in the history of science and technology.

Weight: 710g
Dimension: 261 x 187 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780190913243