For over 700 years the international language of science was Arabic. In "Pathfinders", Jim al-Khalili celebrates the forgotten pioneers who helped shape our understanding of the world. All scientists have stood on the shoulders of giants. But most historical accounts today suggest that the achievements of the ancient Greeks were not matched until the European Renaissance in the 16th century, a 1,000-year period dismissed as the Dark Ages. In the ninth-century, however, the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, Abu Ja'far Abdullah al-Ma'mun, created the greatest centre of learning the world had ever seen, known as Bayt al-Hikma, the House of Wisdom. The scientists and philosophers he brought together sparked a period of extraordinary discovery, in every field imaginable, launching a golden age of Arabic science. Few of these scientists, however, are now known in the western world: Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, a polymath who outshines everyone in history except Leonardo da Vinci; the Syrian astronomer Ibn al-Shatir, whose manuscripts would inspire Copernicus' heliocentric model of the solar system; or the 13th-century Andalucian physician Ibn al-Nafees, who correctly described blood circulation 400 years before William Harvey; Iraqi Ibn al-Haytham who practised the modern scientific method 700 years before Bacon and Descartes, and founded the field of modern optics before Newton; or even ninth-century zoologist al-Jahith, who developed a theory of natural selection a thousand years before Darwin. The West needs to see the Islamic world through new eyes and the Islamic world, in turn, to take pride in its extraordinarily rich heritage. Anyone who reads this book will understand why.

吉姆•哈利利（Jim Al-Khalili）

大英帝国勋章（OBE）得主，伊拉克裔英国理论物理学家。现任萨里大学（University of Surrey）物理学教授、“公众科学系列”讲座首位讲席教授。2007年获得皇家学会迈克尔•法拉第科学传播奖，也是英国科学促进会的荣誉会员，曾获得英国物理学会“公众物理意识促进奖”。

生于巴格达的吉姆16岁之前在当地接受教育，也正是在这里，他从阿拉伯语老师口中首次听说了那些伟大的阿拉伯科学家和哲学家。吉姆长期致力于研究阿拉伯科学的黄金时代，希望人们能够明白，我们如今对科学的理解深受阿拉伯先贤的遗泽。