مجله تاریخ علم
سال بیست و یکم شماره 1 (پیاپی 34، بهار و تابستان 1402)

Talc as a hydrated magnesium silicate is the softest, pearly luster, heat-resistant mineral, which belongs to the clay group of phyllosilicates, with the chemical formula Mg3Si4O10(OH)2. Muslim scholars knew four different kinds of minerals as Talc, whose descriptions might correspond to micas’ phyllosilicates namely Muscovite and Kaolinite, calcium sulfate or Gypsum, and inosilicate Asbestos as well. Some metamorphic Talc-rich schists, such as steatite or soapstone have been also called Talc in Muslim mineralogist al-Tifashis’ treatise. The goal of this paper is to estimate the above-mentioned minerals from both historical and mineralogical views carefully and to determine how and why these minerals and stones have been confused with talc by some prominent Muslim scholars, looking back to ancient Greek and Latin texts.

In the middle of the 19th century, along with the widespread political, economic, and social changes, new and different forms of organization and organization around education gradually emerged in different parts of Iran. However, the what, why, and how of education are generally taken for granted in the historiographies surrounding this issue; It is as if there is only one correct way to define them, and the historical course of the emergence of what we call schools today has also been an inevitable movement from wrong methods of education to “modern,” “new,” and “correct” methods of education. Based on this assumption, it is as if new school education is completely different from the old one (Maktab), and our current schools, with a slight change, are the continuation of the same new education and training method and the legacy of Rushdieh school, resulting from the process of “translation” of Western models in local conditions. Despite this, contextual reading of the documents of this period does not indicate such a dividing line between traditional schools and modern schools. According to this issue, this article aimed at finding the relationship between modern schools and traditional schools during the years 1897 to 1901 as the years of the beginning of educational reforms. This article claims that contrary to the seemingly obvious distinction between old schools and modern schools, early modern schools are similar to “traditional schools” in many ways, and the decline of traditional forms of education and the emergence of new forms did not happen all at once; Rather, it has been the result of decades of trial and error in various forms in educational spaces all over the country.

Determining Qibla direction was one of the most popular topics in Islamic astronomy. Muslim astronomers have proposed various methods to determine Qibla, approximate or accurate. One of the most accurate methods for determining Qibla is approximate or accurate. One of the most accurate methods was the Analemma technique. This method turns the three-dimensional problem of the sphere (Earth or celestial sphere) into a two-dimensional plane through a geometrical construct to facilitate the question. In Zīj-i Yamīnī, the second oldest known Persian Zīj composed by Mūḥammad ibn Abū Naṣr al-Ḥaqāyiqī in the 12th century AD, two analemma models for the determination of the Qibla direction are proposed. In this paper, two models are first discussed and completely drawn, then they are compared with other analemma models mentioned in the works of Ḥabash al-Ḥāsib and al-Bīrūnī

At different levels of science education, attention has not been paid to the intertwining and continuity of the meaning and nature of science, to the scope of science in the philosophy and history of science, and the social and cultural conditions of its formation. Also, in the matter of the nature of science, one can logically question the nature or characteristics of non-empirical sciences. This essay examines the approaches to the nature of science with an analytical method, and from there, it leads to the approach to the continuity of science. By believing in the spectral nature of science, three problems will be solved: First, the discussion of the nature of science is not exclusive to experimental sciences; Second, it shows what is meant by saying that, for example, history or psychology are not science, in what sense are they not science on the spectrum, although they may be science in another sense on the spectrum; Third, the meaning of science in the conflict shows the possibility and impossibility of religious science, meaning in what sense is religious science possible and in what sense or senses is it impossible. Finally, correct policies must be made to teach the nature of science. In teaching the nature of science, students should be taught "verification" of science in order to deconsecrate it. The verification of science is obtained through the development of critical thinking in learners..

For a period of about 40 years leading up to 1826, the chemical formula of water was adopted to be HO, in which one atom of Hydrogen and one atom of Oxygen are composed together. In this article, the examples and discussion refer to the chemistry treatise of Dr. Khalil Aʿlam al-Dawlah which was a training resource of newly established academy of Dār al-funūn in Iran, which, according to the scientific belief of that time, the chemical formula of water was introduced as HO. Before than Dār al-funūn, it wasn`t considered any formula for water, but water was one of the four basic elements, according to the Natural Hikma`s point of view. Nowadays chemical formula of water is known as H2O. Although from a presentist point of view, the water formula in that treatise can be described as “wrong” for the time being, whatever in the present article, from the perspective of the philosophy of chemistry, an attempt has been made to show that the sentence is not so easy. The fact that the water formula has been accepted as HO for some time in the past, as a historical experience of science, recommends further reflection on the meaning of correctness or inaccuracy of a scientific proposition, as well as challenging the assurance on theory and the reliance on empirical evidence; because this false statement belonged to a theory that ironically is valid till now, and also had not shown a significant inconsistency with the empirical evidence for a long time. Finally, this paper concluded that assigning an incorrect formula for water over half a century resulted from at least a pair of mistakes that have concealed the matter from the view of experience: supposition of an incorrect principle along with misinterpretation of empirical evidence.

The Shaykhi is one of those religious sects that did not completely separate itself from the surrounding world and always considered nature as a part of what should be taken into consideration. Shaykh Aḥmad Aḥsāʾī was one of the Muslim religious scholars of the first half of the 13th AH/19th AD century and the founder of the ideas of the Shaykhi Thought, who has left numerous works on various topics of faith, theology, philosophy, and jurisprudence. Paying attention to nature and phenomena of the world and its connection with religion and Sharīʿat is obvious in different Aḥsāʾī’s opinions. He has interpreted verses of the Quran that refer to natural phenomena and has given opinions about them and some issues such as the process of human creation, and the meaning of water, sky, and air. This kind of approach to nature can be seen in the works of his students and followers such as Sayyid Kāẓim Rashtī and Ḥāj Muḥammad-Karīm Khān Kirmānī, to the extent that these people have special treatises in natural sciences such as cosmology and medicine. This article tries to express Shaykh Aḥmad’s interpretations of some of these verses, so it can help us to know more and better the opinions and worldview of a prominent religious scholar and the founder of one of the influential sects in the Qajar era, whose ideas had fans at the time of the widespread entry of the manifestations western civilizations into Persia.

ore than two centuries have passed since the introduction of modern sciences, especially the Newtonian astronomy, into the Islamic world and Iran. The historiography covering the period of opposition until widespread acceptance of modern astronomy by the Shi’ite clergy, should be persued with utmost care and meticulous examination of written evidence and material culture. This period includes the transition from the belief in the centrality and fixity of the earth, assumed not only in the Ptolemaic system but also in other cosmographies of the Islamic era, to modern cosmology. In the last few decades, historians of science have made various comments about this period. Seyyed Hossein Nasr talks about wholesale surrender of  Islamic scholars when facing Western science without launching any criticism. On the other hand, Gamini, a historian of science, maintains, by separating the mainstream Shi’ites from the Shaykhiya and the Sufis, that there were different reactions by these groups towards modern science. Unlike the Shaykhiya and Sufis, the opposition of the mainstream scholars towards modern astronomy was not due to religious dogmas, but it took place only on philosophical grounds. One of the Shi’ite ulama, who had a completely critical view of modern science, was Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn al-Kāshif al-Ghitāʾ. In his writings from the time of Constitutionalism and the following decades, he especially opposes modern astronomy and Darwin's theory of evolution. Gamini has advanced a different reading of the writings of Kashif al-Ghita. In the present article, the contentions that Gamini has expressed in recent years, especially in his new writings, regarding the confrontation of the Shi’ite ulama with modern astronomy, are challenged here. It is argued that they are either anachronistic or rely on the false assumption that the opposition of the mainstream Shi’ite scholars to modern astronomy was solely or mainly related to their philosophical considerations rather than religious objections. In addition, the incorrectness of Gamini’s assertion that Kāshif al-Ghitāʾ only objected to the evolution of humankind and was generally sympathetic towards Darwin’s theory of evolution will be shown