The Science of Music: Knowledge Production In Medieval Baghdad and Beyond

Summary

This book is a remarkable exploration of how music, mathematics, philosophy and cosmology interacted, were learned, studied, patronized and transmitted in medieval Baghdad, from the earliest translations of Greek texts through the classic works by al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and al-Urmawi, to the lesser-known works of later commentators.

Abstract 

How did the medieval Islamic intellectual tradition conceptualize and produce scientific knowledge? What can we learn about medieval Islamic civilizations from theway they examined and studied the universe? In answering these fundamental questions, Mohammad Sadegh Ansari provides a unique perspective for the study of both musicology and intellectual history. Widely considered to be an art today, music in the medieval Islamic world was categorized as one of the four branches of the mathematical sciences, alongside arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy; indeed, some philosophers and scholars of music went as far as linking music with medicine and astrology as part of an interconnected web of cosmological knowledge. This innovative book raises fascinating questions about how designating music a 'science' rather than an 'art' impacts our understanding of truth, and reconstructs a richly holistic medieval system of knowledge in the process.

Main research question

How did the medieval Islamic intellectual tradition conceptualize and produce scientific knowledge? What can we learn about medieval Islamic civilizations from theway they examined and studied the universe?

What was already known

The book draws inspiration from recent scholarship by scholars who have attempted to repurpose modern analytical lenses such as religion and secularism to study similar and yet distinct phenomena in the medieval period, Islamic and otherwise.

What or how does your research add to the field/discussion?

This book raises fascinating questions about how designating music a 'science' rather than an 'art' impacts our understanding of truth, and reconstructs a richly holistic medieval system of knowledge in the process.