Science and Islam in The Times

Ehsan Masood's Science and Islam was mentioned by Ziauddin Sardar in The Times at the weekend:

'Science and Islam: A History (Icon Books) gives a viable answer to this question. Masood's eminently readable survey of science in Islam fills many gaps in [Jonathan Lyons'] The House of Wisdom by providing the social and political context in which discoveries took place. It ends with a string of observations. Science in Muslim cultures, Masood suggests, lacked a social and institutional base. Scientists did not work in universities but in or near palaces attached to wealthy patrons; and much research did not qualify for funding from charitable and social sources such as waqfs, the pious foundations. Funding depended on individual rulers and scientific discovery suffered when rulers died or had other worries.'

See the full piece here.