Science and Religion in Mamluk Egypt

This book helps situate a ground-breaking discovery in the history of the life
sciences: the discovery of the pulmonary transit of blood, a prerequisite for William
Harvey's fully developed theory of blood circulation three centuries later. By revealing
the social, religious, philosophical and medical contexts of this discovery, the book
illuminate the intricate ways in which science and religion interacted in the medieval
Islamic world. As such, it provides a new framework with which to challenge the
oft-repeated, but incorrect, assertion that science came to a standstill within the
Islamic world due to religious antagonism.

Nahyan Fancy is an Associate Professor of History at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, USA. His research interests are in the history of science and medicine in post-1200 Islamic societies, particularly the intersections of medicine, religion and philosophy.