The present article aims to shed light on the professional activities of the historian and mathematician Sharaf al-Dīn ‘Alī Yazdī and his afar-nāmah. In so doing, two questions are addressed: (1) Did Yazdī’s expertise in mathematics influence his historical narrative? (2) Did Yazdī simply expand on Niām al-Dīn Shāmī's afar-nāmah, composed some twenty years earlier? Comparing the frequency of quantitative and qualitative data in Yazdī's and Shāmī's afar-nāmahs, the article finds that although Yazdī made an effort to incorporate quantitative data in his history, his narrative is not particularly informed by his expertise in arithmetic. This seems, at first glance, a byproduct of a predominant tradition in the Islamic-Iranian historiography, which makes extensive use of literary techniques. The comparison between the two afar-nāmahs, however, suggests that both Yazdī and Shāmī subscribed to a notion of “accuracy” which bore little resemblance to its modern counterpart manifested in quantitative precision. Finally, the article concludes that the allegation of plagiarism against Yazdī is unfounded.

The production of the mechanical clock, the printing press, and firearms in Western Europe during the Middle Ages is considered the precursor to many subsequent technological advances. This paper briefly reviews the introduction of these inventions to Iran, and the pace of their adoption in that country. Firearms were more readily accepted, but clocks and printing took a longer time to become prevalent. This paper will also examine some of the possible explanations for the contrast between the rapid spread of clocks and printing in Western Europe and the lack of their widespread adoption in Iran. This phenomenon cannot simply be attributed to scientific and technological backwardness, nor can it have been due merely to geographic or cultural differences. This underscores the significance of the overall social and economic conditions, which are in turn explored.

The fate of secular sciences in Islamic civilization has been the object of intense historical investigation. Historians have long sought to explicate the seemingly mysterious reduction of knowledge production in late medieval Islam. The present article attempts to grapple with this phenomenon by focusing on the social elements of knowledge production at the local, rather than the global level. It argues that the transmission of ancient knowledge to medieval Islam depended largely on a close cooperation among historical agents, who sought to advance various interests. The ultimate reduction of knowledge production—commonly referred to as the “decline” of sciences—was brought about by intense rivalry and the increased tension between different forms of knowledge and their representatives, which in turn hampered patterns of cooperation. The article stresses the contingent nature of the social relations that gave rise to the “decline” of sciences: the configuration of social agents, their interactions, and the final outcomes were not bound to unfold the way they did, nor did they have to follow the same path that led to emergence of modern Western science.