Henry, John

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     Edinburgh Research Explorer                                      Avner Ben-Zaken, Cross-Cultural Scientific Exchanges in theEastern Mediterranean, 1560-1660 (Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 2010)Citation for published version:Henry, J 2011, 'Avner Ben-Zaken, Cross-Cultural Scientific Exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1560-1660 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010)' American Historical Review, vol 116, no. 5, pp.1445-1446., 10.1086/ahr.116.5.1445Digital Object Identifier (DOI):10.1086/ahr.116.5.1445Link:Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research ExplorerDocument Version:Preprint (usually an early version)Published In:American Historical ReviewPublisher Rights Statement:© Henry, J. (2011). Avner Ben-Zaken, Cross-Cultural Scientific Exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1560-1660 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010). American Historical Review, 116(5), 1445-1446.10.1086/ahr.116.5.1445General rightsCopyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s)and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise andabide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.Take down policyThe University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorercontent complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright pleasecontact openaccess@ed.ac.uk providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately andinvestigate your claim.Download date: 20. Feb. 2015AVNER BEN-ZAKEN. Cross-Cultural Scientific Exchanges in the EasternMediterranean, 1560–1660. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2010. Pp.246. $60.00.This finely textured book offers fresh and fascinating perspectives on thedevelopment of science in the early modern period. In five substantial chapters AvnerBen-Zaken indicates the extent of, and thereby establishes the importance of, cross-cultural exchanges between Christians and Muslims. Chapter one focuses on Taqī al-Dīn, who has been characterized as “the Tycho Brahe of the Ottoman Empire” (p. 9). Countering earlier claims of Taqī’s purely Muslim provenance, the author shows that he gained expertise in astronomy from Christian and Jewish thinkers, at first in Italyand subsequently from a captured Italian Jewish astronomer. While showing theimportance of the capture and exchange of prisoners between the West and theOttoman Empire, this chapter also offers a very useful discussion of the role ofapocalypticism in the encouragement of astronomy by kings and emperors (East andWest).Chapter two offers a new perspective on the Galileo affair, showing howattempts to find lost Holy Scriptures (in particular an early version of the Book ofJob) were motivated by desires to vindicate Galileo through a scriptural endorsementof heliocentrism. The Galileo affair, therefore, “generated travels for the purposes ofcollecting ancient manuscripts of ‘lost scriptures’ ” (p. 75). This broad theme iscontinued in chapter three in a discussion of Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, a Jewishstudent of Galileo who collected ancient Jewish manuscripts with a view toconfirming Copernicanism.Chapter four deals with the origins of English Orientalism through a highlynuanced study of John Greaves, Savilian Chair of Astronomy at Oxford, and founderof what is now called “pyramidology.” The chapter is enhanced by the author’sdiscussion of Greaves’s conviction that the pre-Babel language had to be recovered inorder to establish philosophical and religious truths. Ben-Zaken also analyzes theideas of John Wilkins, who believed, like many others, in the possibility of a universal“natural” language that could be reconstructed by reason, rather than by historicalscholarship. Chapter five provides another highly nuanced account of the backgroundto the translation of Noël Duret’s Nouvelle théorie des planètes into Arabic by anOttoman scholar, Ibrāhīm Efendi al-Zigetvari. Here, the text is enriched by an exposition of the mystical Sufi element in al-Zigetvari’s works. The author’s freshperspective will likely open up new areas of debate. I note, for example, a possibleweakness in his claims about the importance of the Sufi concept of idrāk—“an intuitive mode of cognition, a direct knowledge of something, whether throughsensation or intuition” (p. 148)—for al-Zigetvari’s assessment of Copernicus.According to Ben-Zaken al-Zigetvari’s evident refusal to see Copernicus asrevolutionary in his astronomy derived from his commitment to idrāk, which led him to emphasise harmony in the history of astronomy. I know nothing of idrāk (or Sufism more widely) but I noticed that al-Zigetvari is quoted as saying: “Copernicus laid anew foundation and compiled small tables [of planetary movements] supposing thatthe Earth is in motion” (p. 155). This suggests that al-Zigetvari, like his source NoëlDuret, simply assumed (as the majority of professional astronomers did) thatCopernicus could not possibly have been serious about the motion of the Earth, but hemerely “supposed” its motion for mathematical (not physical) reasons. In short, themotion of the Earth was a mathematical trick, just like using the square root of minusone (an impossible number) to enable the solution of various algebraic expressions.From this perspective Copernicus never was a revolutionary; he was just anothermathematician with a neat trick up his sleeve. I should like, therefore, a secondopinion on the possible role of idrāk in al-Zigetvari’s history of astronomy. I do not intend to diminish Ben-Zaken’s achievement. This is a serious, andremarkable, work of scholarship, and as such it very much deserves to be the startingpoint for further debate. In the meantime, this book has much to offer specialists ofthe early modern period. Although the main cast of characters consists ofcomparatively obscure thinkers, their minor roles in more significant movementsensures the importance of Ben-Zaken’s scholarship. Certainly, this is a book that willneed to be read by those interested in exchanges between science and the Abrahamicreligions. Ben-Zaken is also alert to, and astute about, occult traditions in the thoughtof his protagonists. For those interested in the relations between magic and science,therefore, it should also be essential reading. Ben-Zaken does an excellent job ofshowing how and why the to and fro of information exchange, and of expertise,results not just in distortion but sometimes in embellishment or enhancement.JOHN HENRYUniversity of Edinburgh

Avner Ben-Zaken, Cross-Cultural Scientific Exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1560-1660 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010)

John Henry

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The American Historical Review