Mediaeval Muslims made stunning math breakthrough

Scotsman ^ | 22-Feb-07 | Will Dunham

[xcamel]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Magnificently sophisticated geometric patterns in mediaeval Islamic architecture indicate their designers achieved a mathematical breakthrough 500 years earlier than Western scholars, scientists said on Thursday.

By the 15th century, decorative tile patterns on these masterpieces of Islamic architecture reached such complexity that a small number boasted what seem to be "quasicrystalline" designs, Harvard University's Peter Lu and Princeton University's Paul Steinhardt wrote in the journal Science.

Only in the 1970s did British mathematician and cosmologist Roger Penrose become the first to describe these geometric designs in the West. Quasicrystalline patterns comprise a set of interlocking units whose pattern never repeats, even when extended infinitely in all directions, and possess a special form of symmetry.

"Oh, it's absolutely stunning," Lu said in an interview. "They made tilings that reflect mathematics that were so sophisticated that we didn't figure it out until the last 20 or 30 years."

Lu and Steinhardt in particular cite designs on the Darb-i Imam shrine in Isfahan, Iran, built in 1453.

Islamic tradition has frowned upon pictorial representations in artwork. Mosques and other grand buildings erected by Islamic architects throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and elsewhere often are wrapped in rich, intricate tile designs setting out elaborate geometric patterns.

The walls of many mediaeval Islamic structures display sumptuous geometric star-and-polygon patterns. The research indicated that by 1200 an important breakthrough had occurred in Islamic mathematics and design, as illustrated by these geometric designs.

"You can go through and see the evolution of increasing geometric sophistication. So they start out with simple patterns, and they get more complex" over time, Lu added.

ISLAMIC ACHIEVEMENTS

While Europe was mired in the Dark Ages, Islamic culture flourished beginning in the 7th century, with achievements over numerous centuries in mathematics, medicine, engineering, ceramics, art, textiles, architecture and other areas.

Lu said the new revelations suggest Islamic culture was even more advanced than previously thought.

While travelling in Uzbekistan, Lu said, he noticed a 16th century Islamic building with decagonal motif tiling, arousing his curiosity as to the existence of quasicrystalline Islamic tilings.

The sophistication of the patterns used in Islamic architecture has intrigued scholars worldwide.

Emil Makovicky of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark in the 1990s noticed the relationship between these designs and a form of quasicrystalline designs. Makovicky was interested in particular in an 1197 tomb in Maragha, Iran.

Joshua Socolar, a Duke university physicist, said it is unclear whether the mediaeval Islamic artisans fully understood the mathematical properties of the patterns they were making.

"It leads you to wonder whether they kind of got lucky," Socolar said in an interview. "But the fact remains that the patterns are tantalizingly close to having the structure that Penrose discovered in the mid-70s."

"And it will be a lot of fun if somebody turns up bigger tilings that sort of make a more convincing case that they understood even more of the geometry than the present examples show," Socolar said.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Something I found in a quick web search. From the Malmuk period.

[word_warrior_bob]

If Akhmad cut off three heads and Mahmoud cut off 4 heads how many severed heads would that be all together?

[aruanan]

There were brilliant medieval Islamic philosophers who rivaled those in Europe, and Baghdad was their base.

Again, the civilization in Baghdad antedated Islam by well over a thousand years. It was a center of intellectual excellence before Muhammad ever cobbled together his religion. The Jews were living in Baghdad and were part of that excellence. For that matter, the Jews and Christians were the high tech cultures of the Arabian peninsula for centuries before Muhammad was born. Islam didn't bring anything to that region, it merely took it over, including pre-existing scholastics.

[Ramius]

The map on that Assyrian site showed an indistinct area that seems to include some of the same upper mesopotamia, up into Turkey and over into Iran...

But I'm gathering that they're distinct from each other and that Kurds tended more to the east, while Assyrians were more to the west in that general region? Assyria centered on Nineveh, and Kurdistan from Mosul or so, eastward?

[Fred Nerks]

Exploring Kurdish Origins


http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/kurdish/htdocs/his/orig.html

[GoLightly]

Paper less of an issue than the pens.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for the topic xcamel, thanks to you and Jedi Master Pikachu for the ping. Not a whole-list ping, just adding to the catalog.

Islam Faces a New Era
by Munawar A. Anees
1999, Civilization Magazine

Today's Muslim world is also being betrayed by a similar intellectual passivity regarding the Internet, the dynamo of the next Renaissance. While the French fight an uphill battle to prevent English from laying siege to the French-speaking world via the Net, none of the major Muslim languages plays a major role in this huge knowledge machine. Equally conspicuous is the absence of Muslim countries from one of history's greatest scientific endeavors, the Human Genome Project. Islam is not intrinsically opposed to ideals of justice, equality, and human dignity. It is folly to assume that technological sophistication or economic prosperity need weaken, or run counter to, religious belief. Meanwhile, at some distance from the ivory tower lies the grim reality of much of the Muslim world: poverty; mass illiteracy; want of basic hygiene and primary health facilities; lack of fundamental liberties of religion and speech; little protection from state persecution.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[Prost1]

And what they fail to say is that all the captured Pedants were sent to the regional capitals and the more significant Pedants were sent to the home capital.

Nothing was discovered by the muslims. Their captured peoples, given muslim names, gave their people and "culture" its "credance".

[Antoninus]

But I'm gathering that they're distinct from each other and that Kurds tended more to the east, while Assyrians were more to the west in that general region? Assyria centered on Nineveh, and Kurdistan from Mosul or so, eastward?

Basically, I think the difference was that the Assyrians (as they're called in the above article) were largely Hellenized--though still speaking the Syriac language--city dwellers while the Kurds were "barbarians"--hearty mountaineers who had contacts with Persia and the Roman domains but were largely left alone due to the difficulty of the terrain. I don't think the author of the aritcle above was necessarily referring to the ancient Assyrians of Ninevah but to the comparatively more modern Greco-Roman "Assyrians" of Antioch and the surrounding cities.

[RobbyS]

Arab or Syriac?

[Fred Nerks]

http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html

Jewish Genetics: Abstracts and Summaries

...At the present time, it is known that Eastern European Jews have a significant Eastern Mediterranean element which manifests itself in a close relationship with Kurdish, Armenian, Palestinian Arab, Lebanese, Syrian, and Anatolian Turkish peoples. This is why the Y-DNA haplogroups J and E, which are typical of the Middle East, are so common among them...

[GoLightly]

Assyrians held much of the territory on that map at one point, cuz they had a huge empire.

http://www.keyway.ca/htm2002/ancassy.htm

This page has a lot more maps, cuz different times had different "borders" for the territory they held.

http://aina.org/maps/historic/historic.htm

[Ramius]

Excellent information. Thank you gentlemen (and/or ladies, as the situation may be).

This "internet" thing is amazing. I think it might really catch on. :-)

[timer]

In islam there is no right or wrong, only the will of ALLAH. In nazism, there is no right or wrong, only the will of HITLER. Is it not sad that they can't see that in themselves? And thus they don't understand why we are the superior predators : our democratic tradition means we cut at each other to IMPROVE ourselves, but you don't lose your head if you lose the argument, just the vote.

It's the thing with pigs that's so comical. GOD/ALLAH told them not to eat pigs. It was about trichinosis(worms in pigs that survive the HCl of the human stomach). So we thoroughly COOK ham but they'll DIE rather than eat it. It looks like there is no real hope for the arabs, the movie : Lawrence of Arabia shows why.

[Publius6961]

...this is real history, and arabic math predates mo-ham-head by at least 500 years, even though this article talks most about post 700 AD

This is real Bullpuckey.

Please, I'm all ears.
Do give me credible, non muslim references and links about the existence of "arabic" math in 100 A.D.

I can hardly wait!

*

[Publius6961]

A lot of freepers here don't seem willing to recognize that Muslims did contribute to science.

Count me among them.
Not an original thought in 1400 years.
Didn't you read the article? arab-izing names do not make them arabs; or muslim.

[Publius6961]

Both Persians, in other words subjugated by muslim arabs; You just verified what everyone else seems to already know:

Islam conquered superior cultures; adopted their already existing philosophy and science and, today, claim them as muslim.

In every instance, as the muslim grip tightened, the excellence of the previous culture stagnated and ultimately died.

By the way, why not quote us some great philosophy, mathematics, medicine and science out of islam --- say in the last 500 years, after they ran out of cultures to destroy?

[Publius6961]

Rugs from that region are renown; that at least shouldn't be contested.

Sure.
Rugs from Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of islam, hang as treasures in museums worldwide...
Persia, on the other hand, didn't know what weaving was, until the nobel-prize winners from the arabian desert showed up...

< /sarc >

[JasonC]

Wrong. The Cosmati brothers of medieval Italy had far more intricate stuff 200 years earlier. Yes they were influenced by Islamic tilings, but also by Byzantine mosaic traditions.

[gotribe]

Intentional, i.e. they didn't invent zero.