Chapter 18 Córdoba as a Scientific Center
In: A Companion to Late Antique and Medieval Islamic CordobaSearch for other papers by Julio Samsó in
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Abstract
Córdoba was an important scientific centre during the Umayyad period (756–1035) in which scientists were patronized by emirs and caliphs. Astrology and medicine began their development on the basis of a pre-Islamic Latin tradition soon replaced by the arrival of Eastern translations of scientific texts in Greek and other languages. Astronomy was cultivated in the ninth and tenth centuries as a result of the interest the government and the ruling classes had in astrology and it reached full maturity with Maslama ibn Aḥmad al-Majrīṭī (d. 1007) and the members of his school. Pharmacology began its development under Caliph ‘Abd al-Raḥmān iii (912–961) with the revision, made in Córdoba, of the Eastern Arabic translation of Dioscorides’ Materia Medica and, also during this period, we see the figure of one of the most important physicians of the Middle Ages: Abū l-Qāsim al-Zahrāwī (c. 936–c. 1013), author of the Taṣrīf, a great medical encyclopedia which exerted a strong influence in Medieval Europe. After the fall of the Caliphate, there was no patronage of scienc in Córdoba during the taifa period (1035–1085), but the conquest of Toledo in 1085 forced the great Toledan astronomer Ibn al-Zarqālluh to migrate to Córdoba where he was protected by the king of Seville al-Muʿtamid (1069–1091). This was the last moment in which the city shone as a scientific centre.