Leonid Zhmud The Origin of the History of Science in Classical Antiquity

Osiris 9 (1945) 555–564; idem. Ishaq b. Hunayn Ta’rih al-attiba’, Oriens 7 (1954)
55–80; idem. An ancient commentary on the Hippocratic Oath,
BHM 30 (1956)
52–87; Plessner, M. M. Der Astronom und Historiker Ibn Sa‘id al-Andalusi und
seine Geschichte der Wissenschaften,
RSO 31 (1956) 235–257; Hau, F. R. Die medi-
zinische Geschichtsschreibung im islamischen Mittelalter,
Clio medica 18 (1983);

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Introduction: Greek science and its historiography
4
hardly suffice to say that Muslim scientists had a lively interest in their Greek
predecessors. They held them in the highest esteem, tried to find every last bit
of information on them, made annotated catalogues of their works, translated
the extant biographies of eminent scientists and physicians and compiled new
ones.
8
Later, on the basis of all of this, a historiography of Arabic science and
medicine arose, which in turn influenced both the Byzantine and the Western
traditions.
In many ways, the situation in Europe in the 15
th
–17
th
centuries parallels the
Arabic assimilation of Greek science. To return to ancient science after so
many centuries; to edit and translate Euclid, Apollonius, Archimedes, Ptolemy,
Diophantus, and Pappus; to understand ‘who was who’ in ancient science – all
this urgently demanded at least a general historical picture of Greek mathemat-
ics and astronomy, which presented its achievements chronologically.
9
The ab-
sence of such a picture hampered, if it did not foreclose, progress to new dis-
coveries. During the Renaissance, the historiography of science therefore re-
mained as inseparable from the classical heritage as science itself;
10
the Middle
Ages, apart from the Arabs, were usually ignored.
69–80; Brentjes, S. Historiographie der Mathematik im islamischen Mittelalter,
AIHS 42 (1992) 27–63; Gutas, D. The ‘Alexandria to Baghdad’ complex of nar-
ratives,
Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 10 (1999) 155–193.
See also below, 8.3.
7
On the methodology of science in the works of Arabic thinkers, see
Alfarabi. Über
den Ursprung der Wissenschaften (De ortu scientiarum), ed. by C. Baeumker,
Münster 1916; Wiedemann, E. Auszüge aus Ibn Sina’s Teile der philosophischen
Wissenschaften (mathematische Wissenschaften),
 Aufsätze zur arabischen Wissen-
schaftsgeschichte, Vol. 1, Hildesheim 1970, 146–154; idem. Definitionen verschie-
dener Wissenschaften und über diese verfaßte Werke, ibid., Vol.2, 431–462; Maróth,
M. Das System der Wissenschaften bei Ibn Sina,
Avicenna/Ibn Sina, ed. by
B. Brentjes, Vol. 2, Halle a. S. 1980, 27–34; Gutas, D. Paul the Persian on the clas-
sification of the parts of Aristotle’s philosophy: A milestone between Alexandria and
Baghdad,
Islam 60 (1983) 231–267; Hein, C. Definition und Einteilung der Philo-
sophie. Von der spätantiken Einleitungsliteratur zur arabischen Enzyklopädie,
Frankfurt 1985; Daiber, H. Qosta ibn Luqa (9. Jh.) über die Einteilung der Wissen-
schaften,
ZGAIW 6 (1990) 92–129.
8
Wiedemann, E. Einige Biographien von griechischen Gelehrten nach Qifti (1905),
Aufsätze zur arabischen Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 86–96, cf. 62–77; The Fihrist of
al-Nadim, transl. by B. Dodge, Vol. 2, New York 1970, 634ff., 673; Pinault, J. R.
Hippocratic lives and legends, Leiden 1992.
9
Interestingly, until Commandino’s edition (1572) Euclid was generally confused
with Euclid of Megara, who lived hundred of years earlier.
10
Nutton, V. ‘Prisci dissectionum professores’: Greek texts and Renaissance anatom-
ists,