Science and Religion in Mamluk Egypt

This book helps situate a ground-breaking discovery in the history of the lifesciences: the discovery of the pulmonary transit of blood, a prerequisite for WilliamHarvey¿s fully developed theory of blood circulation three centuries later. By revealingthe social, religious, philosophical and medical contexts of this discovery, the bookilluminate the intricate ways in which science and religion interacted in the medievalIslamic world. As such, it provides a new framework with which to challenge theoft-repeated, but incorrect, assertion that science came to a standstill within theIslamic world due to religious antagonism.