As part of a collaboration between the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and History of Science Museum, Oxford, for an exhibition titled ‘Lines of Faith: Astronomy and the Art of the Astrolabe in the Islamic World’, an astrolabe-making workshop was conducted by Assistant Professor Taha Yasin Arslan, head of the Department of the History of Technology at our institute, Dr Stephen Johnston (exhibition curator), and Dr Silke Ackermann, director of the History of Science Museum. Afra Akyol and Beyza Topçuoğlu, two research assistants at our Department of the History of Technology, joined them as workshop assistants.
Participants from several countries and from different disciplines personally experienced the stages of astrolabe-making process. Additionally, they had the opportunity to examine replicas -made by Dr Arslan- of a couple astrolabes from Europe and the Islamic World. Using these astrolabes as examples, Dr Arslan and Dr Ackermann further discussed the similarities and differences of the scientific knowledge between different cultures.
