Scholars who focus on Islam and Science face at least three common challenges—historiographical, conceptual and classificatory. Historiographically, the double specters of Orientalism and Islamophobia have impeded scholarly and public engagement with Islam and Science. This is exacerbated by normative and essentialist time-space associations of Islam and Science with the classical period and the Middle East which narrowly skew scholarship towards the Abbasid Golden Age. Secondly, there remain unresolved conceptual tensions between the use of terms such as Islamicate science versus Islamic science as well as science, religion, philosophy and the occult. Lastly, an acute challenge is one of classification at the global and trans-regional versus local and/or subaltern levels, as well as between elite scientific ideas and artisanal practice. The interventions made by critical indigenous studies in the history of science are relevant to this conversation.

To respond to these shared challenges, the Islam and Science in Afro-Eurasia virtual workshop convenes graduate students, faculty, postdoctoral fellows, librarians, and curators to debate concepts and develop shared methodologies for research and teaching in Islam and Science. Participant expertise traverses a range of fields including History, History of Science, Islamic Studies, Science & Technology Studies, Religious Studies and Islamic Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Subaltern Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Art History. Participants collaborate to develop alternative narratives to the Golden Age narrative of Islamic science, both for their scholarship as well as for public audiences, based in the study of complex and multi-directional interchange and continuities across Afro-Eurasia.

The workshop has two intended outcomes. 1) It builds and strengthens a collaborative community of scholars who work on Islam & Science in Africa, Europe and Asia, including a dedicated listserv. 2) The participants develop curricular approaches that represents the broadest geography of Islam and Science inclusive of regions outside the Middle East. Towards this end, another possible outcome is to solicit input for developing a digital humanities resource charting the circulation of practitioners, texts and objects of Islam & Science across Afro-Eurasia, in the long-term.