مجله تاریخ علم
سال سیزدهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 18، بهار و تابستان 1394)

Harmonic mean, based on the concept of harmonic proportion, along with the arithmetic and geometric means are the three principal means discussed on ancient and medieval mathematics. This article intends to provide a survey of the concepts of harmonic mean and harmonic proportion in history of mathematics. In the first section the authors introduce the harmonic proportion and some relations obtained on its basis. In the second part a short history of this subjects is presented, while in the third part the monographs written in the Islamic period are introduced. In the two remaining sections, Abū Isḥāq Kūbanānī’s treatise on harmonic proportion, entitles Risālat Taʾlīfīyyah, has been introduced accompanied by a critical edition and mathematical commentary.

This paper studies the establishment of modern schools during 1921-1941 in Kurdistan Province and argues that this brought about a principal cultural change. The objective of the study is to investigate the extent of the progress of this reform in the Kurdistan Province in the first part of the Pahlavi reign. The study aims to treat the role played by Reza Shah's modernisation project in this cultural development, as well as the factors contributing to the late establishment of modern schools in Kurdistan. The analytical-descriptive and qualitative approaches are employed to collect data from library sources, newspapers, articles, documents and archive. The results showes that the establishment of the central government in Iran by Reza Shah and the modern system of administration had a determining role in this process.

Medical practice was mixed, from the very beginning, with superstitious and magical concepts and methods. Even when medicine freed itself from superstition and was based on general pricniples and clinical examination, some vestiges of non-scientific methods and concepts could still be witnessed in it. Firdaws al-Ḥikma is one of the earliest medical texts of Islamic period in which some traces of non-scientific concepts and prescriptions are attested. In this article, we intend to treat the use of talismans, charms and magical methods in the medical practice. Our research shows that the author believed in the relation between astrology, the properties of living beings, and use of talismans in medicine. In this respect he was influenced by former medical schools.

The firearms were among determinant and significant factors at the time of foundation of safavid government. After the Chalderan war, the safavids became completely aware of this subject and during their reign had paid due attention to making and using cannon and guns. The present research aims to answer the following question: did the safavids made a considerable progress in the manufacturing and utilisation of firearms? This article tries to answer this question by relying upon first hand historical sources and by adopting an analytical and descriptive approach.

Abū Rūḥ Mūḥammad ibn Manṣūr Jurjānī, known as Zarrīn Dast (golden handed) wrote his Nūr al-ʿUyūn in 1087 AD/480 AH for the non-specialist and those interested in the elements of medicine without knowing Arabic. A comparison of this book with the most importants texts on ophtalmogy written before it shows that the author has based his work on Tadhkira al-Kaḥḥālīn by ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā, introducing some important changes in the general plan as well as details of Ibn ʿĪsā’s book, and adding some material form ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā’s main sources, i.e., The Book of the Ten Treatises on the Eye by Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq and the second Book of Razi’s Continens. Some parts of the book are based upon the author’s personal clinical observations. In this way he has creatd a new work, especially in the field of ocular surgery.

Al-Safīr fī al-Hayʾa is a short treatises in “Hayʾa” written in 1500 A.D. /906 AH, by Ghīyāth al-Dīn Manṣūr Dashtakī, a great scholar of Safavid period. It is important to study this treatise because in the first place, it is one of the latest “Hayʾa” books written after many other books in this subject. In the second place, it is written in the period usually considered as the period of decline of Islamic science. And finally, unlike other short “Hayʾa” books, it includes a discussion of the difficulties of Ptolemaic planetary models, with some hints to the author’s or the other scholars’ solutions. This paper studies Dashtaki’s scientific character and introduces Al-Safīr fī al-Hayʾa with a descriptive - analytical approach. A study of its contents shows that this treatise is a standard, brief, and instructional textbook based on Ptolemaic planetary models. The distinctive feature of this book is its presentation of the difficulties of Ptolemaic planetary models and the history of their solutions, apparently to persuade the scholars to study Dashtaki’s other advanced works on “Hayʾa” and getting to know his solutions.

The concept of “sphere” and its use for the description of the motions of heavenly bodies goes back to the ancient Greece. It was developed by the works of philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle and astronomers and mathematicians such as Euxoxus and Ptolemy. Philosophers and astronomers of the Islamic period extended this concpt and developed new philosophical concepts on its basis. They increased the number of the spheres from eight to nine, adding a last sphere called muḥaddid al-jihāt (the spheres which limits the directions). The idea of the simplicity of this sphere was emphasized by Ibn Sīnā and his followers, and this idea served as a basis for some philosophical-theological positions. In his commentary on Tajrīd al-ʿItiqād of Naṣir al-Dīn Ṭūsī, ʿAlī Qūshchī put into question this thesis. In this paper, we explain the concept of muḥaddid al-jihāt and we will discuss some of Qūshchī’s critiques.