A myth-shattering view of the Islamic world's myriad scientific innovations and the role they played in sparking the European Renaissance. Many of the innovations that we think of as hallmarks of Western science had their roots in the Arab world of the middle ages, a period when much of Western Christendom lay in intellectual darkness. Jim al- Khalili, a leading British-Iraqi physicist, resurr…
‘Look! All the paths are closed!’ Hanan tells me, pointing at the pattern made by the grounds of the coffee we have just drunk from small white cups decorated with a blue eye. She continues to lament while turning her cup in her right hand: ‘Everything is closing down, everything is dark. There is no hope! There is nothing good coming. There isn’t even a small path!’ It is…