The MUSA Workshop is organized in collaboration with CEIAS, Paris & the Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge, and will be held at Trinity College, University of Cambridge.
​One session is devoted to South Asian Muslims & the History of Science & Techniques. The narrative locating the birth of modern science in the European ‘scientific revolution’ of the 16th and 17th centuries has long been challenged. Many, like Joseph Needham on China or Seyyed Hossein Nasr on the Muslim world, have highlighted that other parts of the world were, at particular times in history, more advanced technologically than Western Europe. To disprove Western claims of superiority, the role of Muslims in the preservation of Greek knowledge or in mathematical and technological innovation is often contrasted to the situation in medieval Europe. What about South Asia? How have South Asian Muslims – whether erudite or illiterate, princely counsels or craftsmen – taken part in knowledge production, not as isolated inventors, but as persons both inscribed in a social setting and yet connected much beyond it? More information.