Istanbul Museum of the History of Islamic Science and Technology
The Istanbul Museum of the History of Science and Technology in Islam is a museum located in the Has Ahırlar Building within Gülhane Park, which opened on May 25, 2008. The museum displays various scientific and technological instruments invented by Muslim scholars between the 9th and 16th centuries, prepared by Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin, an honorary member of TÜBA (Turkish Academy of Sciences) and a professor at Frankfurt University. The museum consists of 12 sections: astronomy, clockmaking and navigation, military technology, medicine, mining, physics, mathematics and geometry, architecture and urban planning, chemistry and optics, and geography.
The museum also features the thoughts of German thinker Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on learning Islamic languages. Goethe expressed his admiration for the Arab-Islamic sources he knew as follows: "If we want to share in the fruits of these extraordinary minds, let us turn to the East, since it cannot come to us. Translations can be invaluable in drawing us in and guiding us, but... the language in these books plays the primary role as language. Who wouldn't want to know the sources of these treasures directly, without an intermediary?"
