Science among the Ottomans: The Cultural Creation and Exchange of Knowledge

by Miri Shefer-Mossensohn

Overview

Scholars have long thought that, following the Muslim Golden Age of the medieval era, the Ottoman Empire grew culturally and technologically isolated, losing interest in innovation and placing the empire on a path toward stagnation and decline. Science among the Ottomans challenges this widely accepted Western image of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Ottomans as backward and impoverished.

In the first book on this topic in English in over sixty years, Miri Shefer-Mossensohn contends that Ottoman society and culture created a fertile environment that fostered diverse scientific activity. She demonstrates that the Ottomans excelled in adapting the inventions of others to their own needs and improving them. For example, in 1877, the Ottoman Empire boasted the seventh-longest electric telegraph system in the world; indeed, the Ottomans were among the era’s most advanced nations with regard to modern communication infrastructure. To substantiate her claims about science in the empire, Shefer-Mossensohn studies patterns of learning; state involvement in technological activities; and Turkish- and Arabic-speaking Ottomans who produced, consumed, and altered scientific practices. The results reveal Ottoman participation in science to have been a dynamic force that helped sustain the six-hundred-year empire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781477303610
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	10/15/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	246
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

MIRI SHEFER-MOSSENSOHN is an associate professor of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. She is an Ottomanist, working on both the Arabic- and Turkish-speaking domains of the empire. Her interests lie with medicine and science as a social encounter between scholars and laypersons, patrons and clients, readers and artisans, and the state apparatus and the individual.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• A Note on Transliteration
• Introduction: What Is the History of Science?
  • The History of Science and Technology
  • The History of Islamic Science and Technology
  • The History of Ottoman Science and Technology History
  • Toward a History of Ottoman Scientific Experiences
  • On Inventiveness: An Ottoman Lesson
• Chapter 1. Framing “Knowledge” in the Ottoman Empire
  • A Eurasian Matrix: The Multiple Cultural Sources of Knowledge in the Ottoman Empire
  • The Ottoman Concept and Epistemology of Knowledge: The Term cIlm
  • Classification of Knowledge in Muslim Societies
  • Amalgamation of Bodies of Knowledge in Muslim Societies
  • Tensions due to Fusion of Bodies of Knowledge: The Dispute regarding the Status of Pre-Islamic Sciences
  • Mediating Mechanisms of Reception
• Chapter 2. Where and How Does Learning Take Place?
  • Pedagogy
  • New Educational Institutions and a New Type of Education in the Long Nineteenth Century
• Chapter 3. Transfer of Knowledge to, from, and within the Ottoman Empire
  • Ottoman Literacy
  • Translations and Translators among the Ottoman Elite
  • Marginal Groups as Agents of Knowledge
  • The Passage of Travelers and Knowledge to and from the Empire
• Chapter 4. State in Science: On Empire, Power, Infrastructures, and Finance
  • The Patron and the Scholar: Intisap and Waqf/Vakıf
  • Science and Technology and the Ottoman State Infrastructure
  • Science, State, and the State above It: The (Semi)Colonial Connection
• Conclusion: Ottoman Science
  • A Teacher and a Student: Murtaḍá al-Zabīdī and cAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jabartī as Ottoman Scientists
  • Ottoman Patterns of Scientific Activity
  • Ottoman Innovation
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

What People are Saying About This

Emilie Savage-Smith

"Science among the Ottomans will fill what has been a major lacuna in the history of science—namely, the lack of a comprehensive study of the role of science and learning in Ottoman culture. Science among the Ottomans is not just a significant contribution to the field but a major and unique one. No other study has attempted to place scientific learning during the Ottoman period within the wider cultural frame. Miri Shefer-Mossensohn reflects the best of the current trends in modern historiography, applying them to the sphere of Ottoman scientific and technological activity. The conclusions drawn are significant."

Zvi Ben-Dor Benite

"The main argument of Science among the Ottomans is actually quite simple—there was such a thing as ‘Ottoman Science.’ This statement entails a major task. In order to establish the historicality of Ottoman science, one must differentiate it from Western science and discuss it on its own terms. This requires a discussion on the broader aspects of the history of science as a field and a discussion of the concept of ‘science’ itself. In addition, one should engage the question of non-western scientific traditions and, above all, present and discuss the subject of Islamic science and its history. Shefer-Mossensohn does all the above, and more, admirably."

Editorial Reviews

"By offering us a new synthesis that represents the current state of the field, Shefer-Mossensohn’s book addresses the perennial question of what happened to Islamic science and medicine after the Middle Ages. It offers a starting point for further discussions."

Early Science & Medicine

"Science among the Ottomans is a remarkable achievement…Shefer-Mossensohn has produced a landmark study with which many of us will train the next generation of historians of science."

Turkish Historical Review

"Timely...Shefer-Mossensohn consistently avoids the emphasis on technical development that long characterized the literature on science in Islamic contexts, limiting its readership to specialists...Science among the Ottomans opens an important conversation."

H-Net Reviews