• Feza Günergun, Professor emerita of History of Science, Istanbul, Türkiye
Allegorists, Alchemists and Iatrochemists in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire
The Early Modern period of Europe is defined as the era spanning from the mid-15th to late 18th centuries. This periodization, however, does not correspond to a similar epoch in Ottoman history. Seated at the confluence of Southern Europe and Westerm Asia, the Ottoman Empire did not experience many of the decisive historical events that paved the way to the European Early Modern. In the domain of science, until the end of the 18th century, Ottomans relied on medieval Islamicate treatises produced in the scholarly centres of the East, by translating, compiling, copying and explicating customized texts. The Ottoman Early Modern commenced in the 17th century when European scientific / technical material was introduced to the Empire albeit with hesitance.
The interpretation and instruction of medieval scientific (i.e. astronomical and mathematical) texts fell upon the scholars of the medrese, the traditional institution of religious learning. As alchemy was excluded from the medrese curriculum, medrese members expressed interest in this field of teaching only exceptionally. Alchemy remained in the realm of the Sufi mystics or dervishes who were regarded as ‘heterodox Muslims’. The motivation of Ottoman Sufis to engage with alchemy appears to be similar to that of their ideological forerunners: to excel as perfect human beings by spiritual purification. Al-Jildaki’s (fl. 14th c. in Egypt) works describing numerous experiments, without renouncing his allegorical vision, were highly praised by Ottoman alchemists, especially by the Sufi mystic Ali Çelebi el-Izniki (d. 1607). His Mücerrebname includes numerous recipes, also attesting to his interest in practical alchemy. The Sufi physicians of the 17th and 18th centuries, heirs to alchemical literature accumulated by their masters, were drawn to European iatrochemical remedies and therapies. They sought to elaborate and disseminate this new knowledge by composing formularies in Ottoman Turkish. Sufi alchemical texts comparing the process of becoming an “ideal man” with the transformation of base metals into silver and gold, continued to be re-created through the 17th and 18th centuries. Although earlier Ottoman alchemical texts can be traced, in absence of patronage and against impediments of alchemical practice, Anatolian Sufis could hardly develop individual techniques and further their chemical knowledge akin to their peers in Early Modern Europe.
Keywords: Alchemy, Dervishes, Iatrochemistry, Ottoman Empire, Sufi physicians.
• Harun Küçük, Associate Professor of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, USA
Is It Time to Abandon 'Islamic Science'? Genres, Languages, Centers and the Problem of Periodization in Light of Recent Scholarship
A monolithic notion of Islamic science overlooks the shifting influence of intellectual centers, the true breadth of practices and motivations and, the diverse political and political-economic trajectories of Islamic empires. It also fails to capture the dynamics between Western and Islamic geographies. Although a sense of the Islamic world existed long before the nineteenth century, the notion of “Islamic science” is a product of the 19th and 20th centuries. It is inextricably linked to the imbalance of resources – including symbolic resources-, stemming from Western domination of the modern capitalist world system. Islamic science is a category fundamentally born of violence—a reflection of the profound asymmetries and injustices blanketing Islamic countries, rather than a perennial intellectual designation. While much contemporary scholarship on Islamic science serves the struggle to recuperate recognition at the symbolic level, this moral focus risks obscuring the long-standing patterns of domination, which lie not in science itself, but in the global economic shifts from the 17th century onward. Indeed, many of the observations on as well as frustrations with Western science that we find in nineteenth- or twentieth-century Muslim authors have much earlier precedents. Most importantly, while tensions between utilitarian and intellectualist interpretations of knowledge existed long before Western hegemony, Western dominance recalibrated their significance and outcomes. Thus, for many Muslim actors who confronted encroaching Western powers, science played an ambivalent role. For some, it was something to adopt as a pragmatic tool for advancement in areas like arms, public health, and industry. For others, science attached to moral ends rooted in older Aristotelian and Islamic legacies and in different economic conditions. This inherent duality—science as both the perceived fruit of wealth and the perceived locomotive of development—lies at the heart of modern debates surrounding Islamic science. Thus, I contend that the more profound historical divide isn't between Islamic science and Western science, but between utilitarian and intellectual interpretations of science as they were transformed by the pressures of the capitalist world system. I will follow medieval, early modern and modern examples of this rift to suggest that instead of talking about Islamic science, we may be better served by focusing on the shifting ends and means of science.
Keywords: Islamic science, history of capitalism, longue durée, early modern science.
