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In Memoriam: A. I. Sabra (June 8, 1924 – December 18, 2013) Gül A. Russell
a
a
Department of Humanities in Medicine, College of Medicine, Texas A&M University Health Science Center, Bryan, TX, USA Published online: 31 Mar 2015.
Click for updates To cite this article: Gül A. Russell (2015) In Memoriam: A. I. Sabra (June 8, 1924 – December 18, 2013), Journal of the History of the Neurosciences: Basic and Clinical Perspectives, 24:2, 193-198, DOI: 10.1080/0964704X.2014.998521 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0964704X.2014.998521
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
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Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 24:193–198, 2015 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0964-704X print / 1744-5213 online DOI: 10.1080/0964704X.2014.998521
In Memoriam: A. I. Sabra (June 8, 1924 – December 18, 2013) GÜL A. RUSSELL
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Department of Humanities in Medicine, College of Medicine, Texas A&M University Health Science Center, Bryan, TX, USA
I learned of A. I. Sabra, in search of Ibn al-Haytham (Latin Alhazen, d. 1040) upon discovering his importance in Polyak’s monumental Vertebrate Visual System. He was an obvious choice for the “Dialogue on Vision” that I was organizing at University College London between scientists and historians. Unable to participate, he came instead to the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine to talk—a very tall, amiable man with light blue eyes and a marvelous sense of humor. This marked the beginning of a warm relationship, with increasing admiration on my part through the years. Our last meeting, as it transpired, was on his award of the Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society in 2005. Prior to the announcement, he had “unofficially” informed me with obvious delight. On both occasions the subject was Ibn al-Haytham, the most influential figure in the history of visual optics between Ptolemy and Descartes, to whom Sabra had devoted most of his life. Abdelhamid Ibrahim Sabra, or “Bashi” as he was affectionately known among his colleagues and students, was one of the most distinguished, yet unassuming, historians of science of the second half of the twentieth century. In a career encompassing more than five decades of scholarship and teaching, he left an enduring legacy. Born into a Coptic family of “humble background” in Tanta, Egypt, he attended a local Coptic school. After a scholarship to the University of Alexandria to study philosophy, he was sent by the Egyptian Government to the London School of Economics, where he studied philosophy of science under Karl Popper, receiving a PhD in 1955. In the same year, he married a fellow philosophy student, Nancy Sutton, and moved with her back to Egypt to teach at the University of Alexandria. In 1962, returning to England, Sabra accepted the position of a Senior Research Fellow at the Warburg Institute of the University of London, with a year off as a visiting Associate Professor at Princeton (1964–1965). In 1972, he joined the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University, where he remained, serving as chair for a term, until his retirement in 1996 as Emeritus Professor. He was also a member of the National Academy of Science. Sabra gained immediate international acclaim with the publication of his book, Theories of Light from Descartes to Newton (1967), based on his doctoral dissertation. The reviewers were unanimous in their appraisal of the “unprecedented precision and completeness of his treatment of the origins of physical optics” (Steffens, 1971, p. 55). “Never before a historian with Sabra’s knowledge, insights, analytic and linguistic skill tackled the seventeenth century as the subject of a book length study . . . [it is] a touchstone for all” Address correspondence to Gül A. Russell, Department of Humanities in Medicine, College of Medicine, Texas A&M University Health Science Center, TAM HSC Clinical Building 1, 8441 State HWY 47, Suite 1400, Bryan, TX 77807, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
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(Straker, 1970, p. 1075). Twenty years later, it was reasserted in peer reviews with its revised second printing. This was not a survey. The optical theories of Fermat, Hooke, Pardies, and Huygens were all presented but were interpreted as they relate to Descartes, revealing the pervasiveness of his “new” ideas prior to Newton. Sabra had uniquely shown the value of conceptual and philosophical analyses for the historical investigation of science, immeasurably increasing our understanding of optics of the period (Straker, 1970). N. R. Hanson once stated that philosophy without history is empty, and history without philosophy has no meaning. Sabra, “masterfully” blending both, had produced “meaningful history” (Steffens, 1971, p. 57) and “carried to a high plane of sophistication . . . the most important book on seventeenth-century optics ever to have appeared . . . and must be proclaimed as the authoritative treatment of optics in the seventeenth century (Westfall in Sabra, 1981, book cover). This “masterful blending” of historical research and analysis—textual, contextual, methodological—remained a characteristic feature of Sabra’s scholarship. Sabra was trained at intellectually vibrant milieus by “distinguished, inspiring faculty” who taught him philosophy and logic in Alexandria; then at the London School of Economics, “a series of lectures by Karl Popper on Einstein immediately focused” him “on the philosophy of science” (Sabra, 2005, p. 2). Popper guided Sabra’s development in the history of optics and encouraged him to study the history of Arabic science. Subsequently Sabra dedicated his edition of Ibn al-Haytham’s Optics to Popper, along with his previous teacher, Abu’l-‘Elâ Afîfî, at the University of Alexandria, as an acknowledgement of their influence on his intellectual development. Upon returning to Egypt, he had immediately set himself the task of translating into Arabic Popper’s Poverty of Historicism (1959), followed by Sarton’s Ancient Science and Modern Civilization (1960a). Years later, in reply to a query, he responded: “As a student of Popper, I think that every sentence should end with a question mark” (Langerman, 2014, p. 310). During the period between 1959–1965, Sabra was proceeding already on two levels. He was editing and translating texts (Aristotle’s Syllogistics and Posterior Analytics into Arabic), and exploring history and philosophy of science through Greek, as well as major Islamic figures in astronomy and mathematics. Most significantly, he became inspired by Ibn al-Haytham (d. 1040) under the influence of Mus..t afâ Naz.îf (d. 1971), a retired physics professor at the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo Fuad University, who had published a two-volume comprehensive study (1942–1943), based on the Arabic original of the Optics (Kit¯ab al-Man¯az.ir). Ibn al-Haytham was known in the West through Medieval Latin translations and Risner’s 1572 printed edition, with misleading interpretations. Naz.îf’s work had hardly been used and was noted only by few scholars (Sarton, 1943; Schramm, 1963). Acknowledging his debt, Sabra later praised Naz.îf’s work “as the best and most important study in any language . . . a model of clear and objective analysis” (Sabra, 1989b, p. xiii). Nazif did not, however, have Sabra’s unique combination of skills and background. The seed transplanted from Egypt took hold in London to determine Sabra’s career. Through brilliant scholars, such as Otto Kurz, Frances Yates, and P. C. Walker, whom he encountered during his 10 years (1962–1972) at the Warburg Institute, Sabra “learned the meaning of historical research” (Sabra, 2005, p. 2). They already knew the importance of the Latin Alhazen. Ernst Gombrich had written in his Art and Illusion that “Alhazen . . . taught medieval West the distinction between sense, knowledge, and inference, all of which come into play in perception” (1960, p. 13). With his continuous encouragement, Gombrich
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played a decisive role in Sabra’s decision to embark on the monumental task of editing and translating the whole seven books of the Optics, Kit¯ab al-Man¯az.ir (Sabra, 1989b, p. xv). He had already written in Arabic on the “Developments of Theories of Light: from Ibn al-Haytham to the Present Time” (1960b). This was now followed by a comparative “Explanation of Optical Reflection and Refraction: Ibn al-Haytham, Descartes, Newton” (1964) and “Ibn al-Haytham’s criticism of Ptolemy’s Optics” with a partial translation of the extant Arabic copy (1966). Sabra took Ibn al-Haytham to a high order of rigorous scholarship within the context of history of science, based on a meticulously edited text from all the extant manuscripts, and in an accurate English translation made accessible “the most original work of Arabic science that had entered European thought” (Sabra, 2003b, p. 136). Sabra came to realize that Ibn al-Haytham’s initial plan to rectify what was missing in Ptolemy’s Optics turned into “a revolutionary project,” a new direction through an exhaustingly comprehensive investigation of modes of vision by rectilinear propagation, reflection, and refraction of light rays (not visual rays), point correspondence in image formation (through the tunics and humors of the eye), and psychology of perception (including what Ibn al-Haytham called: “errors of vision”). In effect, Ibn-al-Haytham was “reshaping and redirecting the whole discipline of optics as an experimental and mathematical theory of visual perception” (Sabra, 2003b, p. 138). The Optics belonged “as much to the history of Latin medieval and early modern science as it did to the history of science in medieval Islam” (Sabra, 1989b, p. xv). Sixteenth and seventeenth-century natural philosophers and mathematicians, including Snell, Kepler, Descartes, and Huygens “made significant use of its sophisticated mathematical treatment of optical problems” (Sabra, 1989b, p. xv). After the publication of the Theories of Light, the expectation was that Sabra would continue onto the nineteenth century. Instead, he turned to history of science in Arabic that seemed, with hindsight, “almost inevitable” (Sabra, 2005, p. 1). He had become, through Ibn al-Haytham, increasingly concerned with the broader questions of intercultural transmission of scientific knowledge, which he “eventually came to understand as an act of appropriation, . . . the creative process of making your own something not originally your invention” (Sabra, 2005, p. 1). As he explained: [This was] nowhere exemplified so clearly as in the case of the Arabic science, which Sarton’s Introduction [1927, I. ii.] has put squarely on the map of history of science . . . . [It] was initiated as a result of wholesale acquisition by means of Arabic translation of Greek science, philosophy and medicine — an astounding project beginning in the middle of the 8th century under Abbasid rule in Iraq, and lasting more than two hundred years . . . . Much of what had been Arabized from Greek, and also from Sanskrit and Persian, or originally composed in Arabic during more than three hundred years, were rendered into Latin in Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries and later. Furthermore, the agents of these two inter-cultural transmissions of scientific and philosophic knowledge were Christians, Sabians, Muslims, and Jews. (Sabra, 2005, p. 2) He further argued that “the place Arabic science occupies in the general history of science and in the civilization where it emerged and developed are distinct yet intimately interconnected” (1996a, p. 225). Serving on the editorial board, he incorporated studies of
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Islamic figures into the Biographical Dictionary of Science (DNB) in addition to Ibn alHaytham. Like his contemporary A. C. Crombie with medieval “science,” the questions Sabra raised in major ground-breaking studies challenged the accepted views about Arabic “science.” At the same time with rigorous analysis and logic, he adamantly refused facile attributions, generalizations, anachronisms, and what he amusingly called the “moslem precursoritis.” With Ibn al-Haytham’s Optics, Sabra also set an authoritative standard on critical editing and translating premodern scientific works. To remain close to the author’s intent, he kept his historian’s hand from any attempt to improve the style, to enhance the phraseology, or to alter the original, as others have done (Sabra, 2003b). With a rare sensitivity to the subtleties of meaning, he lucidly defined the shifting nuances in the usage of terms and concepts (e.g., “image”) within a single text, as well as across time, comparing Greek, Arabic, and Latin as distinct from the modern (Russell, 2000). He provided an annotated commentary with a meticulously worked out scholarly apparatus for others to interpret within a proper historical context. Sabra was able to complete Books I–III of the Optics on direct vision, and Books IV– VI on reflection and image formation in mirrors (which includes the “Alhazen problem”). Book VII, however, was left incomplete due to Sabra’s ill health and death. It is in this book that Ibn al-Haytham experimentally manipulated the role of incidental and refracted rays in image formation in the eye, fully recognizing the uniqueness of his discovery that “all that sight perceives is perceived by refraction (in’it¯af )” (Sabra, 2003b, p. 137) (not known to his Greek and Arabic predecessors). Nonetheless, this achievement alone would have earned him an unquestionable place in history of science. Among his numerous awards, what pleased Sabra most was the George Sarton Medal (2005) in recognition of his “special field.” Named after the founder of the history of science as a discipline in the United States, designed by Bern Dibner and donated by the Dibner Fund, the Medal has been awarded annually since 1955 to an outstanding historian of science selected from the international community for lifetime scholarly achievement. “First in Egypt, later in the United Kingdom, and finally in the United States, A. I. Sabra had upheld the highest standards of historical work” (Livesey, 2005, p. 3). In his acceptance speech, Sabra recalled “one of Sarton’s ‘old-fashioned’ opinions about scholars and scholarship,” that was shared with both Galen and Ibn al-Haytham. “Inspired by an expression he found in Galen, Ibn al-Haytham, in a well known autobiography, characterised a life entirely devoted, like his own, to intellectual pursuit, as a ‘sort of madness’ (d¸arb min al-junûn)” (Sabra, 2005). Galen had actually used the words entheos and manikos in his Methodo Medendi. Sabra preferred Sarton’s “close rendering in less alarming English, that such scholars as ‘you and me’ are not ‘professionals’ but ‘enthusiasts’” (Sabra, 2005, p. 3). A perfect match for his eleventh-century model, Bashi was an “enthusiast” par excellence, with a legacy in history of science that will keep a dialogue with time.
Selected Publications by A. I. Sabra Selected from more than 70 articles and 13 books in history of science for relevance to The Journal of the History of Neurosciences readers. For other aspects of Sabra’s scholarship and full list of publications, see: Rageb and Sabra (2013); Langermann (2014); and http:// www.people.fas.harvard.edu/∼sabra/PDF/publications05.pdf.
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Sabra AI (1959): Uqm al-Madhab al-T¯ar¯ıkh¯ı. Arabic Translation of Karl Popper’s Poverty of Historicism. Alexandria, Munsha’¯at al-Ma‘¯arif. Sabra AI (1960a): Al-‘ilm al-qad¯ım wa ’l madaniyya ’l-h.ad¯ıtha. Arabic Translation of Gerge Sarton’s Ancient Science and Modern Civilization. Cairo, Franklin Publications. Sabra AI (1960b): Tatawwur al-nazariyyat fi ‘ilm al-daw min ibn al-Haytham ila ‘l-waqt alhadir [Developments of Theories of Light: From Ibn al-Haytham to the Present Time]. Cairo, Publications of the Egyptian Scientific Association. Sabra AI (1964): Explanation of optical reflection and refraction: Ib al Haytham, Descartes and Newton. In: Actes du Xe Congrès International d’Histoire des Sciences. Ithaca 26, VIII-2, IX, 1962. Paris, pp. 551–554. Sabra AI (1966): Ibn al-Haytham’s criticism of Ptolemy’s Optics. Journal of the History of Philosophy 4: 145–149. (Includes an English translation of the section in Ibn al-Haytham’s treatise, al-Shuk¯uk `al¯a Bat.lamy¯us, dealing with Ptolemy’s Optics). Sabra AI (1967): Theories of Light from Descartes to Newton. London, Oldbourne. Sabra AI, Shehaby N (1971): Ibn al-Haytham’s al-Shukuk ‘ala Batlamyus = Dubititationes in Ptolemaeum, or Aporiae Against Ptolemy (in Arabic). Cairo, Dar al-Kutub. Sabra AI (1978): Sensation and inference in Alhazen’s Theory of Visual Perception. In: Machamer PK, Turnbull RG, eds., Studies in Perception: Interrelations in History of Philosophy and Science. Columbus: State University Press, pp. 160–185. Sabra AI (1981): Theories of Light from Descartes to Newton. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition. Sabra AI (1982): Ibn al-Haytham’s lemmas for solving the “Alhazen’s Problem.” Archive for History of Exact Sciences 26: 299–324. Sabra AI (1987a): Appropriation and subsequent naturalization of Greek Science in medieval Islam: A preliminary statement. History of Science 25: 223–243. Reprinted 1996. In: Rageb JF, Rageb SP; Livelsey S., eds., Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: Conference Proceedings on PreModern Science. Leiden, EJ Brill, pp. 3–27. Sabra AI (1987b): Psychology versus mathematics: Ptolemy and Alhazen on the “Moon Illusion.” In: Grant E, Murdoch JE, eds., Mathematics and Its Application to Science and Natural Philosophy in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of Marshall Clagett. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 217–247. Sabra AI (1989a): Form in Ibn al-Haytham’s Theory of Vision. Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 5: 115–140. Sabra AI (1989b): The Optics of Ibn al-Haytham. Books I–III: On Direct Vision. English Trans. and Commentary. Vol. I: Text, vii-ix+367; Vol. II: Introd., Commentary, Arabic-Latin Glossaries, Concordance, Indices, vii-cx+246. London, The Warburg Institute. Sabra AI (1996a): Appropriation and subsequent naturalization of Greek Science in Medieval Islam. History of Science 25: 223–243. Sabra AI (1996b): Ibn al-Haytham’s al-Shukuk ‘ala Batlamyus = Dubititationes in Ptolemaeum, or Aporiae Against Ptolemy (in Arabic). Cairo, Dar al-Kutub, 2nd edition with annotations. Sabra AI (1996c): Situating Arabic science: Locality versus essence. Isis: An International Journal Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences 87: 654–670. Sabra AI (1998): One Ibn al-Haytham or two?: An exercise in reading the bio-bibliographical sources. Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 12: 1–50. Sabra AI (2003a): Ibn al-Haytham’s revolutionary project in optics: The achievement and the obstacle. In: Hogendijk JP, Sabra AI, eds., The Enterprise of Science in Islam: New Perspectives. Cambridge, MA and London, Cambridge University Press, pp. 85–118. Sabra AI (2003b): Review of Mark Smith: Alhazen’s Theory of Visual Perception: A Critical Edition with English Trans. and Commentary, Bks I–III (2001). Isis 94(1): 136–138. Sabra AI (2005): Sarton Medal Award Acceptance Speech at the History of Medicine Society Meeting, November 5, Minneapolis, Minnesota (PDF). Sabra AI (2007): The “Commentary” that saved the text: The hazardous journey of Ibn al-Haytham’s Arabic Optics. Early Science and Medicine 12: 117–133.
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Related Works Gombrich EH (1960): Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. London, AW Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts. London/New York, Princeton University Press. Langermann T (2014): IN MEMORIAM: Abdelhamid Ibrahim Sabra 1924–2013. Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 21: 309–312. Livesey S (2005): Citation read on the award of the Sarton Medal (November 5) at the History of Science Society Banquet, Minneapolis, Minnesota (PDF). Naz.¯ıf M (1942–43): Al-H. asan ibn al-Haytham: Buh. u¯ thuhu wa-kash¯ufuhu al-bas. ariyya: His Optical Studies and Discoveries [in Arabic]. Cairo, Nuri Press. Rageb FJ, Sabra A (2013): In memoriam. AI Sabra (1924–2013). Suhayl 12: 181–204. Russell GA (2000): The Optics of Ptolemy: Passions Aroused in the Groves of the Academe. Isis: An International Journal Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences 91(3): 554–561. Sarton G (1927–48): Introduction to the History of Science. 3 vols. See: From Homer to Omar Khayyam. Vol I. Part 2 (1927; 1931). Washington, DC, The Carnegie Institution of Washington, Williams & Wilkins Co Sarton G (1943): Review of Nazif Bey M: Al-Hasan ibn al-Haitham: His optical studies and discoveries. Isis 34: 217–218. Schramm M (1963): Ibn al-Haythams Weg zur Physik. Wiesbaden, F. Steiner. Steffens HJ (1971): Review of Sabra AI (1967) Theories of light from Descartes to Newton. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 22: 55–57. Straker S (1970): Theories of light. From Descartes to Newton. A. I. Sabra. Science 170: 1074–1076.
Journal of the History of the Neurosciences: Basic and Clinical Perspectives Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/njhn20
In Memoriam: A. I. Sabra (June 8, 1924 – December 18, 2013) Gül A. Russell
a
a
Department of Humanities in Medicine, College of Medicine, Texas A&M University Health Science Center, Bryan, TX, USA Published online: 31 Mar 2015.
Click for updates To cite this article: Gül A. Russell (2015) In Memoriam: A. I. Sabra (June 8, 1924 – December 18, 2013), Journal of the History of the Neurosciences: Basic and Clinical Perspectives, 24:2, 193-198, DOI: 10.1080/0964704X.2014.998521 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0964704X.2014.998521
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
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Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/termsand-conditions
Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 24:193–198, 2015 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0964-704X print / 1744-5213 online DOI: 10.1080/0964704X.2014.998521
In Memoriam: A. I. Sabra (June 8, 1924 – December 18, 2013) GÜL A. RUSSELL
Downloaded by [Stockholm University Library] at 19:08 10 August 2015
Department of Humanities in Medicine, College of Medicine, Texas A&M University Health Science Center, Bryan, TX, USA
I learned of A. I. Sabra, in search of Ibn al-Haytham (Latin Alhazen, d. 1040) upon discovering his importance in Polyak’s monumental Vertebrate Visual System. He was an obvious choice for the “Dialogue on Vision” that I was organizing at University College London between scientists and historians. Unable to participate, he came instead to the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine to talk—a very tall, amiable man with light blue eyes and a marvelous sense of humor. This marked the beginning of a warm relationship, with increasing admiration on my part through the years. Our last meeting, as it transpired, was on his award of the Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society in 2005. Prior to the announcement, he had “unofficially” informed me with obvious delight. On both occasions the subject was Ibn al-Haytham, the most influential figure in the history of visual optics between Ptolemy and Descartes, to whom Sabra had devoted most of his life. Abdelhamid Ibrahim Sabra, or “Bashi” as he was affectionately known among his colleagues and students, was one of the most distinguished, yet unassuming, historians of science of the second half of the twentieth century. In a career encompassing more than five decades of scholarship and teaching, he left an enduring legacy. Born into a Coptic family of “humble background” in Tanta, Egypt, he attended a local Coptic school. After a scholarship to the University of Alexandria to study philosophy, he was sent by the Egyptian Government to the London School of Economics, where he studied philosophy of science under Karl Popper, receiving a PhD in 1955. In the same year, he married a fellow philosophy student, Nancy Sutton, and moved with her back to Egypt to teach at the University of Alexandria. In 1962, returning to England, Sabra accepted the position of a Senior Research Fellow at the Warburg Institute of the University of London, with a year off as a visiting Associate Professor at Princeton (1964–1965). In 1972, he joined the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University, where he remained, serving as chair for a term, until his retirement in 1996 as Emeritus Professor. He was also a member of the National Academy of Science. Sabra gained immediate international acclaim with the publication of his book, Theories of Light from Descartes to Newton (1967), based on his doctoral dissertation. The reviewers were unanimous in their appraisal of the “unprecedented precision and completeness of his treatment of the origins of physical optics” (Steffens, 1971, p. 55). “Never before a historian with Sabra’s knowledge, insights, analytic and linguistic skill tackled the seventeenth century as the subject of a book length study . . . [it is] a touchstone for all” Address correspondence to Gül A. Russell, Department of Humanities in Medicine, College of Medicine, Texas A&M University Health Science Center, TAM HSC Clinical Building 1, 8441 State HWY 47, Suite 1400, Bryan, TX 77807, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
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(Straker, 1970, p. 1075). Twenty years later, it was reasserted in peer reviews with its revised second printing. This was not a survey. The optical theories of Fermat, Hooke, Pardies, and Huygens were all presented but were interpreted as they relate to Descartes, revealing the pervasiveness of his “new” ideas prior to Newton. Sabra had uniquely shown the value of conceptual and philosophical analyses for the historical investigation of science, immeasurably increasing our understanding of optics of the period (Straker, 1970). N. R. Hanson once stated that philosophy without history is empty, and history without philosophy has no meaning. Sabra, “masterfully” blending both, had produced “meaningful history” (Steffens, 1971, p. 57) and “carried to a high plane of sophistication . . . the most important book on seventeenth-century optics ever to have appeared . . . and must be proclaimed as the authoritative treatment of optics in the seventeenth century (Westfall in Sabra, 1981, book cover). This “masterful blending” of historical research and analysis—textual, contextual, methodological—remained a characteristic feature of Sabra’s scholarship. Sabra was trained at intellectually vibrant milieus by “distinguished, inspiring faculty” who taught him philosophy and logic in Alexandria; then at the London School of Economics, “a series of lectures by Karl Popper on Einstein immediately focused” him “on the philosophy of science” (Sabra, 2005, p. 2). Popper guided Sabra’s development in the history of optics and encouraged him to study the history of Arabic science. Subsequently Sabra dedicated his edition of Ibn al-Haytham’s Optics to Popper, along with his previous teacher, Abu’l-‘Elâ Afîfî, at the University of Alexandria, as an acknowledgement of their influence on his intellectual development. Upon returning to Egypt, he had immediately set himself the task of translating into Arabic Popper’s Poverty of Historicism (1959), followed by Sarton’s Ancient Science and Modern Civilization (1960a). Years later, in reply to a query, he responded: “As a student of Popper, I think that every sentence should end with a question mark” (Langerman, 2014, p. 310). During the period between 1959–1965, Sabra was proceeding already on two levels. He was editing and translating texts (Aristotle’s Syllogistics and Posterior Analytics into Arabic), and exploring history and philosophy of science through Greek, as well as major Islamic figures in astronomy and mathematics. Most significantly, he became inspired by Ibn al-Haytham (d. 1040) under the influence of Mus..t afâ Naz.îf (d. 1971), a retired physics professor at the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo Fuad University, who had published a two-volume comprehensive study (1942–1943), based on the Arabic original of the Optics (Kit¯ab al-Man¯az.ir). Ibn al-Haytham was known in the West through Medieval Latin translations and Risner’s 1572 printed edition, with misleading interpretations. Naz.îf’s work had hardly been used and was noted only by few scholars (Sarton, 1943; Schramm, 1963). Acknowledging his debt, Sabra later praised Naz.îf’s work “as the best and most important study in any language . . . a model of clear and objective analysis” (Sabra, 1989b, p. xiii). Nazif did not, however, have Sabra’s unique combination of skills and background. The seed transplanted from Egypt took hold in London to determine Sabra’s career. Through brilliant scholars, such as Otto Kurz, Frances Yates, and P. C. Walker, whom he encountered during his 10 years (1962–1972) at the Warburg Institute, Sabra “learned the meaning of historical research” (Sabra, 2005, p. 2). They already knew the importance of the Latin Alhazen. Ernst Gombrich had written in his Art and Illusion that “Alhazen . . . taught medieval West the distinction between sense, knowledge, and inference, all of which come into play in perception” (1960, p. 13). With his continuous encouragement, Gombrich
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played a decisive role in Sabra’s decision to embark on the monumental task of editing and translating the whole seven books of the Optics, Kit¯ab al-Man¯az.ir (Sabra, 1989b, p. xv). He had already written in Arabic on the “Developments of Theories of Light: from Ibn al-Haytham to the Present Time” (1960b). This was now followed by a comparative “Explanation of Optical Reflection and Refraction: Ibn al-Haytham, Descartes, Newton” (1964) and “Ibn al-Haytham’s criticism of Ptolemy’s Optics” with a partial translation of the extant Arabic copy (1966). Sabra took Ibn al-Haytham to a high order of rigorous scholarship within the context of history of science, based on a meticulously edited text from all the extant manuscripts, and in an accurate English translation made accessible “the most original work of Arabic science that had entered European thought” (Sabra, 2003b, p. 136). Sabra came to realize that Ibn al-Haytham’s initial plan to rectify what was missing in Ptolemy’s Optics turned into “a revolutionary project,” a new direction through an exhaustingly comprehensive investigation of modes of vision by rectilinear propagation, reflection, and refraction of light rays (not visual rays), point correspondence in image formation (through the tunics and humors of the eye), and psychology of perception (including what Ibn al-Haytham called: “errors of vision”). In effect, Ibn-al-Haytham was “reshaping and redirecting the whole discipline of optics as an experimental and mathematical theory of visual perception” (Sabra, 2003b, p. 138). The Optics belonged “as much to the history of Latin medieval and early modern science as it did to the history of science in medieval Islam” (Sabra, 1989b, p. xv). Sixteenth and seventeenth-century natural philosophers and mathematicians, including Snell, Kepler, Descartes, and Huygens “made significant use of its sophisticated mathematical treatment of optical problems” (Sabra, 1989b, p. xv). After the publication of the Theories of Light, the expectation was that Sabra would continue onto the nineteenth century. Instead, he turned to history of science in Arabic that seemed, with hindsight, “almost inevitable” (Sabra, 2005, p. 1). He had become, through Ibn al-Haytham, increasingly concerned with the broader questions of intercultural transmission of scientific knowledge, which he “eventually came to understand as an act of appropriation, . . . the creative process of making your own something not originally your invention” (Sabra, 2005, p. 1). As he explained: [This was] nowhere exemplified so clearly as in the case of the Arabic science, which Sarton’s Introduction [1927, I. ii.] has put squarely on the map of history of science . . . . [It] was initiated as a result of wholesale acquisition by means of Arabic translation of Greek science, philosophy and medicine — an astounding project beginning in the middle of the 8th century under Abbasid rule in Iraq, and lasting more than two hundred years . . . . Much of what had been Arabized from Greek, and also from Sanskrit and Persian, or originally composed in Arabic during more than three hundred years, were rendered into Latin in Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries and later. Furthermore, the agents of these two inter-cultural transmissions of scientific and philosophic knowledge were Christians, Sabians, Muslims, and Jews. (Sabra, 2005, p. 2) He further argued that “the place Arabic science occupies in the general history of science and in the civilization where it emerged and developed are distinct yet intimately interconnected” (1996a, p. 225). Serving on the editorial board, he incorporated studies of
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Islamic figures into the Biographical Dictionary of Science (DNB) in addition to Ibn alHaytham. Like his contemporary A. C. Crombie with medieval “science,” the questions Sabra raised in major ground-breaking studies challenged the accepted views about Arabic “science.” At the same time with rigorous analysis and logic, he adamantly refused facile attributions, generalizations, anachronisms, and what he amusingly called the “moslem precursoritis.” With Ibn al-Haytham’s Optics, Sabra also set an authoritative standard on critical editing and translating premodern scientific works. To remain close to the author’s intent, he kept his historian’s hand from any attempt to improve the style, to enhance the phraseology, or to alter the original, as others have done (Sabra, 2003b). With a rare sensitivity to the subtleties of meaning, he lucidly defined the shifting nuances in the usage of terms and concepts (e.g., “image”) within a single text, as well as across time, comparing Greek, Arabic, and Latin as distinct from the modern (Russell, 2000). He provided an annotated commentary with a meticulously worked out scholarly apparatus for others to interpret within a proper historical context. Sabra was able to complete Books I–III of the Optics on direct vision, and Books IV– VI on reflection and image formation in mirrors (which includes the “Alhazen problem”). Book VII, however, was left incomplete due to Sabra’s ill health and death. It is in this book that Ibn al-Haytham experimentally manipulated the role of incidental and refracted rays in image formation in the eye, fully recognizing the uniqueness of his discovery that “all that sight perceives is perceived by refraction (in’it¯af )” (Sabra, 2003b, p. 137) (not known to his Greek and Arabic predecessors). Nonetheless, this achievement alone would have earned him an unquestionable place in history of science. Among his numerous awards, what pleased Sabra most was the George Sarton Medal (2005) in recognition of his “special field.” Named after the founder of the history of science as a discipline in the United States, designed by Bern Dibner and donated by the Dibner Fund, the Medal has been awarded annually since 1955 to an outstanding historian of science selected from the international community for lifetime scholarly achievement. “First in Egypt, later in the United Kingdom, and finally in the United States, A. I. Sabra had upheld the highest standards of historical work” (Livesey, 2005, p. 3). In his acceptance speech, Sabra recalled “one of Sarton’s ‘old-fashioned’ opinions about scholars and scholarship,” that was shared with both Galen and Ibn al-Haytham. “Inspired by an expression he found in Galen, Ibn al-Haytham, in a well known autobiography, characterised a life entirely devoted, like his own, to intellectual pursuit, as a ‘sort of madness’ (d¸arb min al-junûn)” (Sabra, 2005). Galen had actually used the words entheos and manikos in his Methodo Medendi. Sabra preferred Sarton’s “close rendering in less alarming English, that such scholars as ‘you and me’ are not ‘professionals’ but ‘enthusiasts’” (Sabra, 2005, p. 3). A perfect match for his eleventh-century model, Bashi was an “enthusiast” par excellence, with a legacy in history of science that will keep a dialogue with time.
Selected Publications by A. I. Sabra Selected from more than 70 articles and 13 books in history of science for relevance to The Journal of the History of Neurosciences readers. For other aspects of Sabra’s scholarship and full list of publications, see: Rageb and Sabra (2013); Langermann (2014); and http:// www.people.fas.harvard.edu/∼sabra/PDF/publications05.pdf.
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Sabra AI (1959): Uqm al-Madhab al-T¯ar¯ıkh¯ı. Arabic Translation of Karl Popper’s Poverty of Historicism. Alexandria, Munsha’¯at al-Ma‘¯arif. Sabra AI (1960a): Al-‘ilm al-qad¯ım wa ’l madaniyya ’l-h.ad¯ıtha. Arabic Translation of Gerge Sarton’s Ancient Science and Modern Civilization. Cairo, Franklin Publications. Sabra AI (1960b): Tatawwur al-nazariyyat fi ‘ilm al-daw min ibn al-Haytham ila ‘l-waqt alhadir [Developments of Theories of Light: From Ibn al-Haytham to the Present Time]. Cairo, Publications of the Egyptian Scientific Association. Sabra AI (1964): Explanation of optical reflection and refraction: Ib al Haytham, Descartes and Newton. In: Actes du Xe Congrès International d’Histoire des Sciences. Ithaca 26, VIII-2, IX, 1962. Paris, pp. 551–554. Sabra AI (1966): Ibn al-Haytham’s criticism of Ptolemy’s Optics. Journal of the History of Philosophy 4: 145–149. (Includes an English translation of the section in Ibn al-Haytham’s treatise, al-Shuk¯uk `al¯a Bat.lamy¯us, dealing with Ptolemy’s Optics). Sabra AI (1967): Theories of Light from Descartes to Newton. London, Oldbourne. Sabra AI, Shehaby N (1971): Ibn al-Haytham’s al-Shukuk ‘ala Batlamyus = Dubititationes in Ptolemaeum, or Aporiae Against Ptolemy (in Arabic). Cairo, Dar al-Kutub. Sabra AI (1978): Sensation and inference in Alhazen’s Theory of Visual Perception. In: Machamer PK, Turnbull RG, eds., Studies in Perception: Interrelations in History of Philosophy and Science. Columbus: State University Press, pp. 160–185. Sabra AI (1981): Theories of Light from Descartes to Newton. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition. Sabra AI (1982): Ibn al-Haytham’s lemmas for solving the “Alhazen’s Problem.” Archive for History of Exact Sciences 26: 299–324. Sabra AI (1987a): Appropriation and subsequent naturalization of Greek Science in medieval Islam: A preliminary statement. History of Science 25: 223–243. Reprinted 1996. In: Rageb JF, Rageb SP; Livelsey S., eds., Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: Conference Proceedings on PreModern Science. Leiden, EJ Brill, pp. 3–27. Sabra AI (1987b): Psychology versus mathematics: Ptolemy and Alhazen on the “Moon Illusion.” In: Grant E, Murdoch JE, eds., Mathematics and Its Application to Science and Natural Philosophy in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of Marshall Clagett. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 217–247. Sabra AI (1989a): Form in Ibn al-Haytham’s Theory of Vision. Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 5: 115–140. Sabra AI (1989b): The Optics of Ibn al-Haytham. Books I–III: On Direct Vision. English Trans. and Commentary. Vol. I: Text, vii-ix+367; Vol. II: Introd., Commentary, Arabic-Latin Glossaries, Concordance, Indices, vii-cx+246. London, The Warburg Institute. Sabra AI (1996a): Appropriation and subsequent naturalization of Greek Science in Medieval Islam. History of Science 25: 223–243. Sabra AI (1996b): Ibn al-Haytham’s al-Shukuk ‘ala Batlamyus = Dubititationes in Ptolemaeum, or Aporiae Against Ptolemy (in Arabic). Cairo, Dar al-Kutub, 2nd edition with annotations. Sabra AI (1996c): Situating Arabic science: Locality versus essence. Isis: An International Journal Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences 87: 654–670. Sabra AI (1998): One Ibn al-Haytham or two?: An exercise in reading the bio-bibliographical sources. Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 12: 1–50. Sabra AI (2003a): Ibn al-Haytham’s revolutionary project in optics: The achievement and the obstacle. In: Hogendijk JP, Sabra AI, eds., The Enterprise of Science in Islam: New Perspectives. Cambridge, MA and London, Cambridge University Press, pp. 85–118. Sabra AI (2003b): Review of Mark Smith: Alhazen’s Theory of Visual Perception: A Critical Edition with English Trans. and Commentary, Bks I–III (2001). Isis 94(1): 136–138. Sabra AI (2005): Sarton Medal Award Acceptance Speech at the History of Medicine Society Meeting, November 5, Minneapolis, Minnesota (PDF). Sabra AI (2007): The “Commentary” that saved the text: The hazardous journey of Ibn al-Haytham’s Arabic Optics. Early Science and Medicine 12: 117–133.
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Related Works Gombrich EH (1960): Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. London, AW Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts. London/New York, Princeton University Press. Langermann T (2014): IN MEMORIAM: Abdelhamid Ibrahim Sabra 1924–2013. Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 21: 309–312. Livesey S (2005): Citation read on the award of the Sarton Medal (November 5) at the History of Science Society Banquet, Minneapolis, Minnesota (PDF). Naz.¯ıf M (1942–43): Al-H. asan ibn al-Haytham: Buh. u¯ thuhu wa-kash¯ufuhu al-bas. ariyya: His Optical Studies and Discoveries [in Arabic]. Cairo, Nuri Press. Rageb FJ, Sabra A (2013): In memoriam. AI Sabra (1924–2013). Suhayl 12: 181–204. Russell GA (2000): The Optics of Ptolemy: Passions Aroused in the Groves of the Academe. Isis: An International Journal Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences 91(3): 554–561. Sarton G (1927–48): Introduction to the History of Science. 3 vols. See: From Homer to Omar Khayyam. Vol I. Part 2 (1927; 1931). Washington, DC, The Carnegie Institution of Washington, Williams & Wilkins Co Sarton G (1943): Review of Nazif Bey M: Al-Hasan ibn al-Haitham: His optical studies and discoveries. Isis 34: 217–218. Schramm M (1963): Ibn al-Haythams Weg zur Physik. Wiesbaden, F. Steiner. Steffens HJ (1971): Review of Sabra AI (1967) Theories of light from Descartes to Newton. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 22: 55–57. Straker S (1970): Theories of light. From Descartes to Newton. A. I. Sabra. Science 170: 1074–1076.
