科学服务于宗教:伊斯兰教的案例
David A. King,席泽宗
摘要(Abstract)：
与在人类历史上其他的宗教社会不一样,在伊斯兰世界,宗教仪式各个方面的行为藉助于科学的处置。历法的编制,具有天文定义的祈祷时间的校准、朝向麦加克尔白圣堂的祭祀方向的确定——这些至今与穆斯兰生活有关的伊斯兰传统科学的课题,每个都有可以上溯将近1400年的历史。但是中世纪伊斯兰科学家所提倡的方法和宗教律学者所倡导的方法截然不同,而我们现在关于这些方面的知识主要是根据近二十年来对穆斯林人大量文献遗产的一小部分研究结果。
关键词(KeyWords)：
基金项目(Foundation):
作者(Author): David A. King,席泽宗
参考文献(References)：
- The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd. ed., Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960 onwards: articles: Ilm al-hay'a (=astronomy); Kibla (=sacred direction) and 'Makka: As Centre of the World' (=sacred geography); 'llm al-mikat' (=astronomical time-keeping). [Survey articles.]
- A. HEINEN, Islamic Cosmology, Beirut (in commission for Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden), 1982． [Rediscovers a tradition of sacred cosmology in medieval Islam.]
- M. ILYAS, A Modern Guide to Astronomical Calculations of Islamic Calendar, Times and Qibla, Kuala Lumpur: Berita Publishing, 1984． [A modern scientific approach providing little historical information.]
- M. ILYAS, Astronomy of Islamic Times for the Twenty-first Century, London and New York: Mansell, 1988． [Contains universal tables for the prayers but little historical information.]
- E. S. KENNEDY, A Commentary upon Biruni's Kitab Tahdid al-Amakin, An 11th Century Treatise on Mathematical Geography, Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, 1973． [A key to the most important medieval treatise on mathematical geography.]
- E. S. KENNEDY, Colleagues and Former Students, Studies in the Islamic Exact Sciences, Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, 1983． [Reprints of aboout 70 articles.]
- Kennedy Festschrift: D. A. KING and G. SALIBA, eds., From Deferent to Equant: Studies in the History of Science in the Ancient and Medieval Near East in Honor of E. S. Kennedy, Annals of the New York Academy of Science 500 (1986) . [Some 35 articles by the world's leading experts.]
- D. A. KING, Islamic Mathematical Astronomy and Islamic Astronomical Instruments, London: Variorum Reprints, 1986 and 1987． [Reprints of about 40 articles, including considerable aterial on the regulation of the prayer-times and the determination of the qibla.]
- D. A. KING, 'Ibn Yunus on Lunar Crescent Visibility', Journal for the History of Astronomy 19 (1988) , pp. 155-168 [on a sophisticated set of conditions from tenth-century Cairo]; 'Ibn Yunus' Very Useful Tables for Reckoning Time by the Sun', Archive for History of Exact Science 10 (1973) , pp. 342-394 [on the corpus of tables used for time-keeping in medieval Cairo]; 'A Survey of Medieval Islamic Shadow Schemes for Simple Time-Reckoning', Oriens 32 (1990) , pp. 191-249 [on time-keeping in the folk tradition]; 'On the Orientation of the Kaaba' (with G. Hawkins), Journal of the History of Astronomy 13 (1982) , pp. 102-109 [discussion of a medieval text on the subject and a comparison with the actual alignment of. the edifice]; 'al-Khal's Qibla Table', Journal of Near Eastern Studies 34 (1975) , pp. 81-122 [detailed analysis of a highly sophisticated medieval table]; 'Astronomical Alignments in Medieval Islamic Religious Architecture', Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 385 (1982) , pp. 303-312 [the first study of the subject]; and 'The Sacred Direction in Islam...', Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 10:4 (1985) , pp. 315-328 [a survey article].
- D. A. KING, Astronomy in the Service of Islam, Basingstoke (U.K.): Variorum Reprints, in press. [Contains reprints of various articles (including some of those mentioned above), notably analyses of the earliest mathematical methods for finding the qibla and the first tables for determining lunar crescent visibility.]
- P. KUNITZSCH, The Arabs and the Stars, Northampton (U.K.): Variorum Reprints, 1989． [Reprints of articles dealing with Arabic star-names and their transmission to the West.]
- S. H. NASR, Islamic Science: An ustrated Study, London 1976． [A beautifully illustrated book which, however, virtually ignores the three topics treated m this article!]