Ahead Of Their Time

These days, the Arab world is too often associated only with despotism, terrorism and a rejection of all things Western. That notion is reinforced by media images of young, mainly Arab rioters setting the working-class suburbs of Paris afire. But in the center of the French capital, another view of Arab life unfolds, one that is rich, open-minded and full of achievement in astronomy, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and medicine. A fascinating show at The Institute of the Arab World, the "Golden Age of Arab Sciences," concentrates on the period between the 8th and 15th centuries, when most of Europe was struggling to emerge from the Dark Ages. As this exhibition, which runs until March, demonstrates, that's when Arab scholarship was at the height of its own Enlightenment.

The show focuses on a period when the Arab empire stretched from India to Spain and caliphs, like Al-Ma'mun in Baghdad, set up centers of learning that attracted the best minds of the age. In Baghdad, around 825, Al-Khwarizmi wrote a mathematical treatise that for the first time used the word al-jabr — algebra — to describe the process of solving equations. Three Baghdad brothers produced pioneering works in mechanical engineering. In Cordoba, under princely patronage, the 12th century thinker Ibn Rushd, also known by the medieval Latin name Averroës, reconciled Islamic religion and Aristotelian philosophy in ways that would influence the European Renaissance. While the Golden Age empire was wealthy, diverse and unified by a common language, regional politics were not always stable. The polymath Ibn Sina (980-1037) found himself out of favor — and sometimes in prison — when his patrons in Persia lost power. Still, the man called Avicenna in the West managed to write The Canon of Medicine, considered one of the most influential tomes in the history of medical science.

All this fits the exhibition's theme. Written on the wall (in French, as all the captions are) of the first room is an inscription from the Koran: "God will exalt those of you who believe, and those who are given knowledge, in high degrees." Arab astronomy, to name just one science, achieved a high degree of sophistication, inspired, in part, by religion: Muslims needed to determine accurate times for the five daily prayers, the exact location of Mecca, and the beginning and end of the holy month of Ramadan. On display are some of the oldest texts and instruments related to the study of the heavens. They were created to answer specific questions, but they also uncovered natural phenomena that helped explain celestial processes. In his Book of Fixed Stars, 10th century scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi provided exact coordinates for 1,018 stars and 48 constellations. A 14th century copy of his book imaginatively renders a constellation as two sword-wielding warriors holding the heads of recently dispatched enemies. An 11th century celestial globe from Muslim Spain also pinpoints the precise locations of the then known stars, with delightful, fine-lined engravings of humans and animals marking the signs of the zodiac.

During their occupation of Spain, Arabs invented the universal astrolabe, a mechanism that could be used in all latitudes to determine the times of sunset and sunrise as well as the precise minute of the day. The show displays one of the oldest examples, dated 1329 and signed by Ahmad Ibn al-Sarraj, an instrument maker in Syria. Though the Arabs built many observatories during the Golden Age, not many survived. But viewers can see current images of two of these amazing outdoor structures, in the Indian cities of Delhi and Jaipur, on the show's ubiquitous video screens.