DOHA—The Arab astronomers of medieval times were pioneers at the height of an Islamic golden age of science. Their scholarship of the skies was ground-breaking. It was a time when Arab mathematicians were arguably the most advanced in the world.

That nostalgic narrative, however, has overshadowed achievements that have been made in recent times, says Jörg Matthias Determann, a professor of the history of science at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar. “I’d like to counter these assumptions.”

That was the motivation that led Determann to write his recent book, Space Science and the Arab World, published in December 2017.

While the book is unlikely to convince readers that Arab nations present any real challenge to NASA’s supremacy in space exploration and science, it will open their eyes to an area of research in the Middle East that is often overlooked.

“Not many historians have looked at modern space science in the Arab world,” says Determann. “There is a huge gap in the literature. I found this field to be wide open.”

Back in 1985, the Saudi royal and astronaut Prince Sultan bin Salman became the first Arab to fly in space, orbiting Earth on the shuttle Discovery, evidence that the region had an ambition to play a role in space research. Since then, researchers mainly in the Gulf states have continued to make breakthroughs in space science.

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https://www.al-fanarmedia.org/2018/02/arab-worlds-astrological-golden-age-neednt-history/