The Interests of the Republic of Letters in the Middle East, 1550-1700

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4516385
AutoresSonja Brentje (0000-0002-8205-8550, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, autor de correspondencia), Sonja Brentjes
Año1999
Volumen12
Número3
Páginas435-468
Fecha de publicación1999-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaScience in Context (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0269-8897 • E-ISSN: 1474-0664
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0269889700003525
OpenAlexW2155179589
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas9

The ArgumentThe "raison d'être" of this paper is my dissatisfaction with current portrayals of the place and the fate of the so-called rational sciences in Muslim societies. I approach this issue from the perspectives of West European visitors to the Ottoman and Safavid Empires during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I show that these travelers encountered educated people capable of understanding and answering their visitors' scholarly questions in non-trivial ways. The travels and the ensuing encounters suggest that early modern Muslim societies and their institutions, their ways of producing knowledge, the types of their knowledge, and their material resources contributed important elements to various early modern West European approaches to gaining knowledge about nature, history, and politics

Epistemology · Middle East · Political science · Politics · Sociology · The Republic · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Philosophy