Light from the East: How the Science of Medieval Islam helped to shape the Western World - Softcover

'John Freely is a virtuoso of cultural narration. His Light from the East stands as a towering achievement that chronicles the process of awakenings in the Western world under the impetus of Islamic sciences.' - Talat S. Halman, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Letters, Bilkent University 'A thorough and wide-ranging account of pre-Islamic and Islamic science as well as of the considerable debt that Western scientific thinking owes to the Arabs.' - Robert Irwin, Middle East editor, Times Literary Supplement

Long before the European Renaissance, while the western world was languishing in what was once called the 'Dark Ages', the Arab world was ablaze with the creativity of its Golden Age. This is the story of how Islamic science, which began in eighth-century Baghdad, enhanced the knowledge acquired from Greece, Mesopotamia, India and China. Through the astrologers, physicians, philosophers, mathematicians and alchemists of the Muslim world, this knowledge influenced western thinkers from Thomas Aquinas and Copernicus and helped inspire the Renaissance and give birth to modern science.