Berlin exhibition tells how science bridged faiths
A fascinating exhibition and a story I did on it. by Anli Serfontein THE extent to which today’s scientific world is still based on intercultural and interreligious scientific discourse and the translated scriptures of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars which date back nearly 1000 years is explored in an exhibition in Berlin. Devoted to the history of a millennium of encounter between cultures, the exhibition “Jews, Christians, and Muslims: Scientific Discourse in the Middle Ages 500-1500”, is curated and compiled by Dr Andreas Fingernagel, of the Austrian National Library. It seeks to show how scientists from the three Abrahamic religions during this period co- operated, influenced each other, initiated a creative process of appropriation through translations, and mutually benefited from intercultural dialogue in medicine, astrology, and astronomy, as well as philosophy, ethics, and mathematics. “The subject of the encounter between ...