This work is an important reference on the history of science in Islamic lands after the 13th century. A group of researchers prepared the list of 582 authors who produced works of astronomy during the period between 1400 and 1923 in the lands of the Ottoman State and inventories their works preserved in libraries within and outside Turkey.
Reviews:
“History is as good as its sources. The history of Ottoman science has been neglected because we have lacked an inventory of Ottoman scientific literature. This will now be remedied by an important bio-bibliographical project, of which the set of two volumes under review is the first part. … The publication of the two volumes is a watershed in the study of history of science in the Ottoman world. It is a key that will open the door to new and important research. … The long-awaited dawn of a new period of research has now arrived.” Prof. William Shea, International Academy of the History of Science, France; in Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences.
Excerpts from an article titled “Eclipsed no more” by Dr. Ziauddin Sardar was published in Nature, Vol. 394, on 13 August 1998: “The project on ‘scientific literature in the Ottoman period’ undertaken by the international Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA), is designed to highlight the achievements of Ottoman science and restore it to its rightful place. It is a massive enterprise … The result is a monumental achievement. It not only provides us with a true picture of the extent of Ottoman scientific activity, but also turns the standard view on its head. It is a truly prodigious work that will be celebrated by historians of Islamic science everywhere.”
Prof. Abdelhamid Sabra from Harvard University, U.S.A., wrote that the comprehensive information which is compiled for the first time in this book will help historians’ progress in this hitherto insufficiently explored field; Prof. David King from Frankfurt University, Germany, qualified the book as “a key to Islamic astronomy”, and Prof. Jamil Ragep from Oklahoma University stated that the “Introduction” to the book is an analytic study of the transition process from the Hellenistic-Islamic background of Ottoman science to modern European science and that the book as a whole constituted an important step in the study of history of science in Islam.
