One of the brightest names in Islamic medieval sciences is that of mathematician and scholar Abu ‘Ali al-Hasan bin al-Hasan bin al-Haytham, known as “Alhazen” to the Western world. Born in Basra, Iraq in 965, he won repute there as a mathematician and engineer. He was invited to move to Cairo, Egypt by the Fatimid …

Although astronomers through their study of the universe were able to theorize about such general geographical concepts like the shape of the earth, early geography was for the most part a product of the imagination: a collection of wondrous fables and marvelous tales of faraway places.

Ibn Zuhr, known in the West as Avenzoar, was one of the greatest physicians, clinicians and parasitologists of the Middle Ages.

Few people have not heard of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, but the fame of his poetry in the West has only existed since 1839, when Edward Fitzgerald published an English translation of Khayyam’s Rubaiyat (“Quatrains”).

Arabic pharmacy (Saydanah)* as a profession and school of thought separate from medicine was recognized by the beginning of the ninth century CE (third century AH). Baghdad, the center of learning at the time, saw a rapid expansion of the number of privately owned pharmacy shops, a trend that quickly spread to the suburbs and other …

Earthquakes are amongst the most unpredictable natural disasters people can experience. In a matter of moments, with little or no warning, thousands and millions of people are put in danger.