Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith

Experts in Islamic history and science Yossef Rapoport and Professor Emilie Savage-Smith explain the recently discovered the Book of Curiosities and the insight it offers into medieval Islamic thought.

The Book of Curiosities was unknown to modern scholars. A manuscript was discovered in 2000, and it has since been bought by the Bodleian Libraries. The unknown author guides the reader on a journey from the outermost cosmos and planets to Earth and its lands and inhabitants. Rapoport and Savage-Smith use the manuscript to re-evaluate the first four centuries of Islamic thought on astrology, geography and cartography and to look at global communication at the start of the previous millennium.
Rappoport is a reader in Islamic history at Queen Mary University of London. Savage-Smith recently retired as professor of the history of Islamic science at the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford.

Presented by Bodleian Libraries.