[FRIAM] The Islamic Flowering

Tue Sep 21 13:31:10 EDT 2021

Dear Friam Colleagues, 

Some weeks ago, you-all expressed an interest in the flowering of Islamic scientific though that anticipated, and may have caused, a similar flowering during the, so called, Western enlightenment.   In response, I wrote to my Iranian colleague Hossein Najafizideh (he who ran a fascinating blog on the history and conditions for such flowerings on Research Gate on which I got to sharpen my ideas on Peirce and Pragmaticism)  to ask if he could provide me with an web-accessible source for FRIAM to chew on.  One of the sources (not web-accessible) that he provided was to the work of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, whom I also wrote.  The whole correspondence, with Dr. Nasr’s research assistant, is below.  (Yes, I did mix up his name in my first letter, and he deserves credit for not writing me off as a complete idiot.)  

Before I forget, I am providing you with the link his office provided me, after some back and forth.  

http://traditionalhikma.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Islam-Science-Muslims-and-Technology-Seyyed-Hossein-Nasr-in-Conversation-with-Muzaffar-Iqbal-2009.pdf

It seems NOT to work in firefox, but worked well for me in Chrome/Google.

I have not yet looked it over, but It looks like, from the table of contents, etc.,  everything I could have hoped for. 

You have every right not to dig into it until I have, but I am still up to my neck in deskdrek, and would love it if one of you could be the first penguin off the ice flow. 

You might want, some day, to “meet” my collegue Dr. Najafizadeh, to whom I owe  great deal.  Since he is in Iran, and I have no idea what constraints might exist on intellectual life in Iran, I am not providing his email address here, lest I unwittingly stir some pot.  But if any few of you care to be in touch, I am pretty sure I can link you up.  

Nick 

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Seyyed Hossein Nasr <shnasr at gwu.edu> 
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2021 12:34 PM
To: thompnickson2 at gmail.com
Subject: Re: [EXT] Re: MyGW Directory Contact Form: The Islamic Flowering

I would recommend this book Islam, Science, Muslims and Technology, which is an extensive series of conversations that Dr. Nasr had with one of the leading intellectuals of Pakistan, Muzaffar Iqbal.  This text is available online for free and to download at:

http://traditionalhikma.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Islam-Science-Muslims-and-Technology-Seyyed-Hossein-Nasr-in-Conversation-with-Muzaffar-Iqbal-2009.pdf

Sincerely,

David

On Behalf of:

Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr
University Professor of Islamic Studies
The George Washington University
2130 H Street, NW | GW Libraries and Academic Innovations, Suite 709 R
Washington, DC 20052
Phone: (202) 994-5704 | E-mail: shnasr at gwu.edu <mailto:shnasr at gwu.edu>  

On Sun, Sep 19, 2021 at 3:15 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Dear Dr. Dukake,

Thank you so very much for compiling this list for me.  I shall not only forward it on to my colleagues but treasure it myself. 

However, I know my colleagues well enough that while they may treasure the list, and keep it for future reference, they would be more likely to read something now if it were (1) available on the web (2) and spoke narrowly to the Islamic contribution to modern scientific and mathematical thought.   Perhaps you and/or Professor Nasr could provide some suggestions that would seduce my colleagues into exploiting the wider list.  Mind you these are very sophisticated software engineers, physicists, etc., so they [think they] know what science is.  What they know they don’t know is Islamic contributions to it.  

Many thanks, 

Nick Thompson

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Seyyed Hossein Nasr <shnasr at gwu.edu <mailto:shnasr at gwu.edu> > 
Sent: Sunday, September 19, 2021 1:38 PM
To: Nicholas Thompson <nthompson at clarku.edu <mailto:nthompson at clarku.edu> >
Subject: [EXT] Re: MyGW Directory Contact Form: The Islamic Flowering

Dear Mr. Thompson,

Dr. Nasr asked me to forward to you this list of important sources on the issues of "religion and science" that he has compiled.  He hopes this will aid you in finding what you are looking for.  

Sincerely,

David Dakake

Research Assistant to Dr. S.H. Nasr

Bakar, O., Critique of Evolutionary Theory, Kuala Lumpur, 1987.

Barbour, I., Issues in Science and Religion, New York, 1971.

Barbour, I., Religion in an Age of Science, San Francisco, 1990.

Bohm, D., The Implicate Order, New York, 1980.

Brunner, F., Science et Realite, Paris, 1955.

Burckardt, T., Alchemy Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul, Baltimore, 1971.

Burrell, D. and McGinn B., God and Creation: An Ecumenical Symposium, Notre Dame, 1990. 

Burtt, E. A., Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science, New York, 1967.

Butterfield, H., Origins of Modern Science, New York, 1959.

Capra, F., The Tao of Physics, New York, 1977.

Clayton (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science, Oxford.

Coomaraswamy, A. K., Am I My Brother’s Keeper? New York, 1947.

Cornford, F., From Religion to Philosophy. A Study of the Origins of Western Speculation, New York, 1957.

Cornford, F., Principium Sapientiae: The Origins of Greek Philosophical Thought, Cambridge (U. K.), 1952.

Critchlow, K., Time Stands Still, London, 1979.

Debus, A., Man and Nature in the Renaissance, Cambridge (U. K.), 1978.

Del Re, Giuseppe., The Cosmic Dance, Philadelphia, 2000.

Eddington, A. E., The Nature of the Physical World, Cambridge (U. K.), 1949.

Eliade, M., Yoga, Immortality and Freedom, Princeton, 1970.

Guenon, R., The Reign of Quantity and the Sign of the Times, Baltimore, 1972.

Haught, J., Science and Religion – From Conflict to Conversation, New York, 1995.

Haught,J.  Science and Religion in Search of Cosmic Purpose, Georgetown     University Press.

Iqbal, Muzaffar., Islam and Science, Burlington, 2002.

Jammer, M., Concepts of Mass in Classical and Modern Physics, Cambridge, 1961.

Kayser, H., Akroasis, The Theory of World Harmonics, New York, 1970.

Koyre, A., From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe, Baltimore, 1957.

Lipsey, R., (ed), Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish, 3 Vols., Princeton, 1977.

McClain, E., The Myth of Invariance: The Origin of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rig Veda to Plato, Boulder, 1978.

Maritain, J., The Degrees of Knowledge, New York, 1938.

Maritain, J., The Philosophy of Nature, New York, 1951.

Nasr, S. H., An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, Albany, (N.Y.), 1993.

Nasr, S. H., Man and Nature, London, 1989.

Nasr, S. H., Knowledge and the Sacred, Albany, (N. Y.) 1989.

Nasr, S. H., Religion and the Order of Nature, Oxford, 1996.

Nasr, The Need for a Sacred Science, SUNY.

Needham, J., Moulds of Understanding, London, 1976.

Needham, J., Science and Civilization in China, Cambridge, (U. K.),  1954 on.

Needleman, J.,  A Sense of the Cosmos, The Encounter of Modern Science & Ancient Truth, New York, 1977.

Needleman, J., (ed.), The Sword of Gnosis, Baltimore, 1974.

Northbourne, Lord, Looking Back on Progress, London, 1970.

Northrop, F. S., Man, Nature and God, New York, 1972.

Polanyi, M., Science, Faith and Society, Chicago, 1964.

Raven, C. E., Science, Religion and the Future, Cambridge (U. K.), 1943.

Roszak, Th., Unfinished Animal, New York, 1975.

Roszak, Th., Where the Wasteland Ends, New York, 1973.

Sambursky, S., Physics of the Stoics, New York, 1973. 

De Santillana, G., and H. von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill, Boston, 1969.

De Santillana, G., Origins of Scientific Thought, New York, 1961.

Schrodinger, E. Mind and Matter, Cambridge (U. K.), 1958.

Schrodinger, E. My View of the World, Cambridge (U. K.), 1964.

Schumacher, E. F., Guide for the Perplexed, New York, 1978.

Schwaller de Lubicz, R. A., The Temple in Man: The Secrets of Ancient Egypt, New York, 1977.

Smith, H., Beyond the Post Modern Mind, New York, 1981.

Smith, H., Forgotten Truth, The Primodial Tradtioan, New York, 1977.

Smith, H. Why Religion Matters?, San Francisco, 2001.

Smith, W., Teilhardism and the New Religion, Rockford (ILL.), 1988.

Smith, W., The Quantum Enigma, Peru (ILL.) 1984.

Smith, W.,  The Wisdom of Ancient Cosmologies: Contemporary Science in the Light of Tradition, Foundation for Traditional Studies. 

Smith, W.,  Science and Myth: What We are Never Told, Sophia Perennis.

Whitehead, A. N., The Concept of Nature, Cambridge (U. K.), 1971.

Whitehead, A. N., Religion in the Making, New York, 1960.

Yates, F., Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, London, 1964.

Yates, F., The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, Boston, 1972.

Zaehner, R. C., Evolution in Religion: A Study of Sri Aurobindo and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Oxford, 1971.

Zukav, G., The Dancing Wu Li Masters, New York, 1984.

On Behalf of:

Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr
University Professor of Islamic Studies
The George Washington University
2130 H Street, NW | GW Libraries and Academic Innovations, Suite 709 R
Washington, DC 20052
Phone: (202) 994-5704 | E-mail: shnasr at gwu.edu <mailto:shnasr at gwu.edu>  

On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 4:31 PM Nicholas Thompson <noreply at gwu.edu <mailto:noreply at gwu.edu> > wrote:

The following e-mail has been sent to you through the "Send Seyyed an E-mail" form on the myGW online directory.

This email was sent via the myGW Online Directory Form, which is available for public use. Proceed with caution when replying. If you feel that the message below appears suspicious, please forward it to abuse at gwu.edu <mailto:abuse at gwu.edu> . If you ever have any questions about the validity of a message you receive, contact the IT Support Center at 202-994-4948, ithelp at gwu.edu <mailto:ithelp at gwu.edu>  or http://it.gwu.edu.

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From: Nicholas Thompson (nthompson at clarku.edu <mailto:nthompson at clarku.edu> )
Subject: The Islamic Flowering
To: Seyyed
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 
Dear Professor Hossein, 

I am a member of an online group broadly interested in computation, mathematics, physics, and the philosophy of science, which recently expressed an interest in the flowering of intellectual life in the Muslim world that occurred before the Western "enlightenment'.  I wanted to provide some means for them to pursue that interest.  I have an Iranian correspondent  who supplied me with some sources, mostly old, and your name.  Knowing of the neophilic predilections of my list members, I wondered if you might provide me with references to  some more easily available texts, journal articles perhaps, possibly some available on the web? 

Please contact me as nthompson@[URL Removed].

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this note.

All the best, 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
Clark University,

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Sent from 174.196.214.90 at 09/13/21 4:30:21 PM

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