̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Arabic

Endless Stories at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

sjr81 — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 14:05:11 +0000

Centuries-old Asian and African manuscripts go on display for the first time

New, handwritten Maimonides texts discovered at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

sjr81 — Thu, 11 May 2023 15:41:27 +0000

900-year-old paper fragment verified as the handwriting of legendary philosopher Maimonides.

A world of science

lw355 — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 09:20:44 +0000

̽��ֱ��year was 1789; the place Bengal. Isaac Newton’s masterpiece Principia Mathematica was being translated for only the third time in its already 100-year-old history; this time, into Arabic.

̽��ֱ��author of this remarkable feat of scholarship was Tafazzul Husain Khan. According to a member of the ruling East India Company: “Khan… by translating the works of the immortal Newton, has conducted those imbued with Arabick literature to the fountain of all physical and astronomical knowledge.”

For Professor Simon Schaffer, who has researched the story of Tafazzul’s achievements, the complex work of translation is deeply significant. Tafazzul worked with scholars in English, Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit language communities in his efforts to connect Newtonian theories with the Indo-Persian intellectual tradition. For Tafazzul was, as Schaffer describes, “a go-between”.

“ ̽��ֱ��‘go-betweens’ are the individuals who, across the centuries, have been the cogs that have kept science moving,” he explains. “They are the knowledge brokers and translators, networkers and messengers – the original ‘knowledge transfer facilitators’. Their role may have disappeared from mainstream histories of science, but their tradecraft has been indispensable to the globalisation of science.”

Schaffer and Dr Sujit Sivasundaram are historians of science with an interest in understanding how the seeds of scientific knowledge have spread and grown. They believe that the global history of science is really the history of shifts and reinventions of a variety of ways of doing science across the world.

They, and others, have called for a retelling of science’s past, not only to be more “culturally symmetric” but also because the issue has enormous contemporary relevance.

“A standard tale is that modern science spread around the world from Western Europe, starting about 500 years ago based on the work of those such as Newton, Copernicus and Galileo, and then Darwin, Einstein, and so on,” explains Schaffer. “But this narrative about the globalisation of science just doesn’t work at all. It ignores a remarkable process of knowledge exchange that happened between the East and West for centuries.”

“Successful science is seen to be universal in its applicability,” adds Sivasundaram. “Yet, accounts of scientific discovery, heroism and priority have been part and parcel of a political narrative of competitive ownership by empires, nations and civilisations. To tease this story apart, we focus on the exchanges and ‘silencings’ across political configurations that are central to the rise of science on the global stage.”

Over the past two years, with funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, he and Schaffer have undertaken a programme of debates to ask whether a transregional rather than a Eurocentric history of science could now be told.

To do so, they teamed up with researchers in India and Africa, including Professor Irfan Habib from Delhi’s National ̽��ֱ�� of Educational Planning and Administration and Professor Dhruv Raina of Jawarhalal Nehru ̽��ֱ��, and in December 2014 held an international workshop at the Nehru Memorial Library in New Delhi. “And now our debate is also being carried forward by a new generation of early-career researchers who came to the workshop,” adds Sivasundaram.

One conundrum the researchers debated was how global narratives of science could have been missed by scholars for so long. It largely stems from the use of source materials says Schaffer: “It’s an archival problem: as far as the production and preservation of sources is concerned, those connected with Europe far outweigh those from other parts of the world.”

“If we are to de-centre from Europe, we need to use radically new kinds of sources – monuments, sailing charts, courtly narratives, and so on,” explains Sivasundaram. He gives an example of Sri Lankan palm-leaf manuscripts: “ ̽��ֱ��Mahavamsais a Buddhist chronicle of the history of Sri Lanka spanning 25 centuries. Among the deeds of the last kings of Kandy, I noticed seemingly inconsequential references to temple gardens. This led me back to the colonial archive documenting the creation of a botanic garden in 1821, and I realised that the British had ‘recycled’ a Kandyan tradition of gardening, by building their colonial garden on the site of a temple garden.”

Moreover, says Sivasundaram, the mechanisms of knowledge assimilation are often overlooked. Europeans often accumulated knowledge in India by engaging with pandits, or learned men. “ ̽��ֱ��Europeans did not have a monopoly over the combination of science and empire – the pioneering work of Chris Bayly [see panel] shows how they fought to take over information networks and scientific patronage systems that were already in place. For Europeans to practice astronomy in India, for instance, it meant translating Sanskrit texts and engaging with pandits.”

“Very often, scientific achievement is used as a standard to measure a country’s progress because science and technology can intervene in problems of hunger, disease and development,” adds Sivasundaram. “If a biased history of science is told, then the past can become what Irfan Habib has called a ‘battlefield’, instead of a ‘springboard’ for future research or indeed for conversation across cultures.”

This is why, says Schaffer, it becomes so important to provide a better account of the worldly interaction between the kinds of knowledge communicated, the agents of communication – like Tafazzul Husain Khan – and the paths they travelled.

̽��ֱ��history of science has been centred for too long on the West, say Simon Schaffer and Sujit Sivasundaram. It’s time to think global.

̽��ֱ��‘go-betweens’ have been the cogs that have kept science moving ... their tradecraft has been indispensable to the globalisation of science

Simon Schaffer

Private collection/Bridgeman Images

̽��ֱ��European in India, 1813 by Charles D'Oyly (1781-1845)

̽��ֱ��art of listening in

Knowledge networks were as important to the building of British political intelligence in north India in the 18th and 19th centuries as they were to the diffusion of science.

No discussion of Indian history, or of the communication and the movement of knowledge, would be complete without reference to the work of the late Professor Sir Christopher Bayly (1945–2015).

Bayly saw the role of Indian spies, runners and knowledgeable secretaries as crucial to the British in helping to keep information and gossip flowing in the 1780s and 1860s. His ground-breaking research uncovered the social and intellectual origins of these informants, and showed how networks of ‘go-betweens’ helped the British understand India’s politics, economic activities and culture.

“One overriding reason why the East India Company was able to conquer India… was that the British had learnt the art of listening in on the internal communications of Indian polity and society,” he explained in his seminal work Empire and Information (1996).

Ultimately, however, India’s complex systems of debate and communication challenged the political and intellectual dominance of the British; it was their misunderstanding of the subtleties of Indian politics and values, he argues, that contributed to the British failure to anticipate the 1857 Mutiny–Rebellion.

World-renowned for his enormous contributions to his subject, Bayly was the Director of Cambridge’s Centre of South Asian Studies until his retirement in 2014, as well as President of St Catharine’s College, and the Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History in the Faculty of History.

He completely transformed people’s understanding of India in the 18th and 19th centuries, explains Professor Joya Chatterji, the Centre’s current Director: “Chris has been one of the most influential figures in the field of modern Indian history. Every one of his monographs broke new ground, whether in political, social and economic, or latterly intellectual history.”

His work was increasingly drawn towards ‘world historical’ comparisons and connections; his ̽��ֱ��Birth of the Modern World (2004) transformed the understanding of the history of modernity itself, drawing attention to its richly complex, overlapping global roots.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Praise for research initiative on British Muslims

bjb42 — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

"Contextualising Islam In Britain", which published its findings in October 2009, is singled out by the House of Commons Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG) Select Committee in a report evaluating the Government's policies to tackle extremism in the UK.

̽��ֱ��nine-month research project was hosted by Cambridge's Centre of Islamic Studies, in association with the Universities of Exeter and Westminster. It was funded by the Department, but remained completely independent of any Government involvement.

Scholars, academics and activists representing a diverse spectrum of views from Muslim communities in the UK took part in discussions about Islam in modern Britain, contributing to a final report which covers issues including secularism, democracy, Shariah law, human rights and citizenship.

̽��ֱ��intent is that this report, will act as the basis for a wider discussion with other Muslim leaders and communities in the UK. In time, it is hoped that this will lead to the development of a virtual "House of Wisdom", providing space for discussion among both Muslims and non-Muslims on how Islam should function in the UK and contribute to wider society.

Commenting on the initiative, the authors of the Select Committee report, published on March 30th, describe Contextualising Islam in Britain as "a model for the way forward", adding: "This is precisely the kind of exercise - self-managed and independent of Government - which will retain credibility in the Muslim community."

Professor Yasir Suleiman, Director of the HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies, which was established in May 2008, said: "This is a significant expression of confidence. It's extremely gratifying to know that the Centre has been established so quickly as a source of independent and reliable research and public outreach."

̽��ֱ��comments coincide with the start of a new partnership between the Centre and Azhar ̽��ֱ�� in Cairo, which is aimed at the graduates of Muslim Colleges in both the UK and Egypt.

̽��ֱ��two institutions will run a 12-week course designed to encourage participants to think critically about Islamic ideas and values, understand the major achievements of Muslim thought and develop an awareness of how Muslims respond to the challenges of modernity.

Through lectures, tutorials, seminars and workshops, as well as personal studies and assignments, the students will cover topics such as Muslim approaches to ethics and the law, state and citizenship, inter-religious relations and the true meaning of "Jihad". Three weeks of the course will be spent in Cambridge, with the first cohort arriving in June 2010.

This weekend will also see a major conference hosted by the Centre of Islamic Studies on Language, Conflict and Security. ̽��ֱ��event will bring together academics, policy-makers and field officers and will take place on April 10th and 11th.

It aims to cover a wide range of issues, explaining, for example, how political conflicts can affect the idioms in which we speak, the terminology we use, the languages we choose to learn or are encouraged to study, and those which we prefer to ignore. ̽��ֱ��role of language as a bridge between societies in conflict and as an instrument of war will also be considered, with reference to conflicts in the Middle East in particular.

In addition, participants will examine the extent to which heightened awareness of national security can impact on the way in which we write, speak, translate foreign languages or attempt to access knowledge and information.

Professor Suleiman added: "This is the first conference to try to link language to security through conflict. It brings together academics and field officers to discuss and debate the increasing securitisation of language in many parts of the world. In a post 9/11 world, Arabic will be a major focus of interest."

General information about the Centre of Islamic Studies at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge can be found at: http://www.cis.cam.ac.uk

A Cambridge ̽��ֱ��-led project which investigated what it means to be a Muslim living in modern Britain has won high praise as a model for future research in the same field.

This is a significant expression of confidence. It's extremely gratifying to know that the Centre has been established so quickly as a source of independent and reliable research and public outreach.

Professor Yasir Suleiman

Beth Rankin from Flickr

Games!

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