Wonders and Rarities

During the thirteenth century, the great scholar, geographer, physician, and astronomer Zakariya al-Qazwini (1203-1283) authored what became perhaps the single most influential work of natural history in the Islamic world: a compendium of curiosities entitled 'Aja'ib al-Makhluqat wa Ghara'ib al-Mawjudat, or, loosely translated, Wonders and Rarities. Following the travels of Qazwini's book across time and place, Travis Zadeh examines how Muslim intellectuals and religious authorities conceived of the world before the discovery of the western hemisphere and the rise of heliocentrism: through the language of wonder and rarity--