Quotes of the Day

These days, the Arab world is too often associated only with despotism, terrorism and a rejection of all things Western. That notion is reinforced by media images of young, mainly Arab rioters setting the working-class suburbs of Paris afire. But in the center of the French capital, another view of Arab life unfolds, one that is rich, open-minded and full of achievement in astronomy, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and medicine. A fascinating show at The Institute of the Arab World, the "Golden Age of Arab Sciences," concentrates on the period between the 8th and 15th centuries, when most of Europe was struggling to emerge from the Dark Ages. As this exhibition, which runs until March, demonstrates, that's when Arab scholarship was at the height of its own Enlightenment.

The show focuses on a period when the Arab empire stretched from India to Spain and caliphs, like Al-Ma'mun in Baghdad, set up centers of learning that attracted the best minds of the age. In Baghdad, around 825, Al-Khwarizmi wrote a mathematical treatise that for the first time used the word al-jabr — algebra — to describe the process of solving equations. Three Baghdad brothers produced pioneering works in mechanical engineering. In Cordoba, under princely patronage, the 12th century thinker Ibn Rushd, also known by the medieval Latin name Averroës, reconciled Islamic religion and Aristotelian philosophy in ways that would influence the European Renaissance. While the Golden Age empire was wealthy, diverse and unified by a common language, regional politics were not always stable. The polymath Ibn Sina (980-1037) found himself out of favor — and sometimes in prison — when his patrons in Persia lost power. Still, the man called Avicenna in the West managed to write The Canon of Medicine, considered one of the most influential tomes in the history of medical science.

All this fits the exhibition's theme. Written on the wall (in French, as all the captions are) of the first room is an inscription from the Koran: "God will exalt those of you who believe, and those who are given knowledge, in high degrees." Arab astronomy, to name just one science, achieved a high degree of sophistication, inspired, in part, by religion: Muslims needed to determine accurate times for the five daily prayers, the exact location of Mecca, and the beginning and end of the holy month of Ramadan. On display are some of the oldest texts and instruments related to the study of the heavens. They were created to answer specific questions, but they also uncovered natural phenomena that helped explain celestial processes. In his Book of Fixed Stars, 10th century scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi provided exact coordinates for 1,018 stars and 48 constellations. A 14th century copy of his book imaginatively renders a constellation as two sword-wielding warriors holding the heads of recently dispatched enemies. An 11th century celestial globe from Muslim Spain also pinpoints the precise locations of the then known stars, with delightful, fine-lined engravings of humans and animals marking the signs of the zodiac.

During their occupation of Spain, Arabs invented the universal astrolabe, a mechanism that could be used in all latitudes to determine the times of sunset and sunrise as well as the precise minute of the day. The show displays one of the oldest examples, dated 1329 and signed by Ahmad Ibn al-Sarraj, an instrument maker in Syria. Though the Arabs built many observatories during the Golden Age, not many survived. But viewers can see current images of two of these amazing outdoor structures, in the Indian cities of Delhi and Jaipur, on the show's ubiquitous video screens.

Like other medieval scholars, Arabs believed that astrology was just as much a science as astronomy, and were convinced that the movement of stars and planets influenced an individual's life from birth. One of the small wonders of the show is a richly detailed horoscope, dating from 14th century Baghdad, designed for someone born under the signs of Venus and Taurus. In the middle of the paper fragment, Venus is depicted playing a lute and sitting on a bull, Taurus; along the bottom border Mars is shown as a warrior, Saturn as an old man, Jupiter as a judge and Mercury as a scribe. Another manuscript illustration from 17th century India, Astrologers Working on a Nativity, shows a procession of musicmakers and gift bearers wending their way through palace walls toward a newborn who would grow up to be the 14th century warrior Tamerlane. In the midst of the busy scene, seven astrologers consult their texts and instruments.

Although many of the era's intellectual and religious leaders didn't fully accept the tenets of astronomy, for example, they did allow Arab thinkers to pursue such expressions of free thought. The ruling Muslim caliphs financed scientific endeavors to enhance their own power and prestige. At first, scholars used the support to translate scientific classics from China, Greece, India and Mesopotamia. Soon, however, Muslim intellectuals were not content just to reproduce others' works, and began to elaborate on them, making their own important discoveries and innovations.

Muslim mathematicians took principles developed in Greece, such as Euclid's theories of numbers and geometry, and the Indian concept of zero, as the basis for developing such new disciplines as calculus and trigonometry. Of the early math books on view, the illustrated Treatise on Geometry is significant for its author, the Muslim king of Saragossa, Spain, and its date of 1080. Similarly, Arabs absorbed the theoretical concepts of Greek medicine, adding to them the idea of scientifically monitoring patients in a special place — a hospital. One page in a Treatise on Anatomy, written in Persia in 1411, details digestive organs, veins and arteries outlined on a human body. And a 1632 copy of Avicenna's Canon of Medicine delineates the basic skeletal system.

The curators have put together an imaginative collection of some 200 artifacts, lent by 33 mainly Western museums, including books, maps, quadrants, globes, musical instruments, tiles, paintings and weapons. But many of the Age's great achievements no longer exist, and can only be appreciated through images. Though the Arabs lived in a desert world, they contributed to the science of hydraulics, as recorded in miniatures, a video and a reproduction of a water-pumping system. The clever automatons they built to amuse the aristocracy are seen only in paintings. One of these, from the early 14th century, limns an elaborate drinking cup topped by a bird that rotates and whistles as the liquid is poured into the base.

The show ends with a room of Islamic ceramics traced with elegant calligraphy based on mathematical principles of proportion, and gilded and enameled glassware that required sophisticated technology to keep the brilliant colors from running together. Yet for all its treasures, the show never solves the modern puzzle of Arab science: What happened to the openness to ideas, the intellectual ferment, the spirit of innovation that created all these wonderful objects? Perhaps one day soon the Institute of the Arab World can mount a new exhibition that will help provide the answer.

• ANN MORRISON / Paris
• A show in Paris remembers the golden age of Arabic sciences