Introduction - Sciences, Crafts, and the Production of Knowledge: Iran and Eastern Islamic Lands

Two successive sessions held at the Sixth Biennial Conference of Iranian Studies in London (3-5 August 2006) mark the occasion for publishing the present volume. The organizers and session chairs, Elaheh Kheirandish and Carol Bier ( Geometry in Medieval Persian Sciences and the Arts ) and Najm al-Din Yousefi ( Science and Technology in Medieval and Early Modern Iran ) found sufficient common ground among their diverse subjects and approaches to collab orate on this special issue of Iranian Studies, with two immediate objectives: (1) To expose underrepresented areas within historical studies of the sciences and crafts with local and temporal coordinates specific to eastern Islamic lands of the third/ninth through the twelfth/eighteenth centuries. (2) To introduce analytical and interpretive frameworks that offer both historical and contemporary perspectives regarding the production of knowledge and its simultaneous expression in the sciences and crafts