Review of Egyptology: The Missing Millennium, Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic

[elqurssan]

This study also brings to light the admiration
and honouring of scientists of past civilisations by
medieval Arab scholars with the Egyptian
Thoth/Hermes given the credit as the
originator of many of the sciences as argued by
Ibn al-Nadim. El Daly states that the findings of
Muslims on Egyptian scientific progress centuries
ago are only now being considered by
Egyptologists. He wrote:
"The pioneering work of Ursula Sezgin (1994-)
has shown
that most of the Arab knowledge of ancient
Egyptian scientific inventions is in fact based
on actual sources from pre-Islamic Egypt, sometimes
Hellenistic but some also pharaonic." (p. 119)
The final element of Egyptology discussed by El Daly is
the Egyptian kingship and administration resulting in the
general view that the Muslim understanding varied
considerably with that of the Western one
as established in an analysis of Cleopatra who was
regarded as ‘The Virtuous Scholar’ by Muslims in
comparison to the over-ambitious image portrayed in the Greco-Roman sources. He concludes his study
by summarising his main arguments which
allow him to deduce:
"It is clear from the Arabic sources that the study of ancient cultures was genuinely valued for knowledge and guidance, believing that all human history was one, albeit of different peoples living in different places…" (p. 139)
El Daly based his study on a large number of sources
ranging from the accounts of travellers and geographers
to accounts of treasure hunters and books of alchemy, most of which are
of Arabic origin and some have been carefully
translated into English. The figures provided in the
final section of the book enable the reader to fully
comprehend the extent of effort
exerted by Muslim
scholars
to grasp the Egyptian language,
culture and way of life with maps,
drawings of observations, use of
Egyptian hieroglyph alphabet and
descriptions of findings. Further, the
finely organised appendices
with summaries of the biographies of Arab
writers, books used by
Al-Idrisi and the primary
Arabic sources used by Dr El Daly himself
are nearly as interesting as the main text and
leave no question in the
minds of the readers so as to the authenticity
of El Daly’s arguments