The Transmission of Babylonian and Indian Knowledge to Islamicate Civilization

Abstract

While the reception, or appropriation, of Greek wisdom by Islamicate civilization has been studied intensively, the input of other cultures has received less attention. The paper argues, inter alia, that the Greek astronomy studied and developed in Islamicate civilization should properly be called Greco-Babylonian; and that there was a long-standing, two-way exchange with India in many fields, especially medicine and religious thought.