A review by robinwalter
Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science by Jim Al-Khalili

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.75

I read this book because I have long been fascinated by the fact that the Islamic world kept science and learning alive while Europe lumbered through  the (comparatively)  Dark Ages. Professor Al-Khalili's meticulously researched and well-presented work really showed just how BIG the debt we owe to Arabic/Islamic scientists-scholars really is. It was also fascinating to see how many of these scientists saw no intrinsic, inevitable conflict between Science and Faith. In today's world, where fundamentalists of many faiths give Faith a bad name because of their contempt for Science, it was reassuring to see that "it ain't necessarily so".