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Most of the conventional literature on the focuses on tracing its influence on the development of astronomy and other sciences in the West while limiting the focus on the period from the 9th to the 13th century known as the Islamic Golden Age.

Despite the fact that most of the Islamic Astronomical texts are in Arabic and originated in what is now known geographically as the “Arab” world from the Middle East to North Africa, there is a notable scarcity of literature and historiography relating Islamic astronomy to modern Arab astronomy and sciences.

Historically from the eighth and ninth centuries, Arabic served as the scientific language of the Islamic civilisation, much like it served as the language of the religious sciences, regardless of the location where those sciences were written or studied.

Those same people may have used Syriac, Turkish, and later Persian as their primary languages at home. And yet, they mostly communicated their intellectual production – particularly the scientific portion of it – in Arabic, much like Ibn Maymun (Maimonides), who reserved Hebrew for his religious and legal works .

"It has always been easier to write and talk about 'Western'Ěýscience as the contemporary monolith leading the progress of science and its implementation in the industrial world, while the Arab counterpart seems to be either non-existent or way far behind stuck in the Islamic Golden Age"

There should be a lineage that connects these works to modern Arab scientific and intellectual production, and yet there’s still an absence of the modern Arab scientific subject from scholarship, the academic imagination and pop culture.

The study of Islamic or Arab science from an exclusively pre-modern angle and as a homogenous whole .

This could also be tied to the problematic nature of the signifier “Arab” since it’s both a geographical and linguistic marker which has manifested throughout history in different waysĚý–Ěýthe “Arab” world is a heterogenous construct that holds within it many identities with different heritages and different levels of political autonomy.

It has always been easier to write and talk about “Western” science as the contemporary monolith leading the progress of science and its implementation in the industrial world, while the Arab counterpart seems to be either non-existent or way far behind stuck in the .

In addition to these problems, it can’t be denied that the lack of research and funding in the area with the compounding political and economical restraints on the region has put the development of these sciences on hold.

It goes without saying that under capitalism, the lack of equal distribution of resources and opportunity has rendered entire nations on the receiving end of the sciences, where what is known as “underdeveloped” countries are either the experimentation lab of products or passive consumers.

Arab scientists seldom find and end up outsourcing their expertise elsewhere.

Historically, Arabic sciences were not limited by geography or language andĚýthis could extend to our view of the contemporary Arab as a subject of science.

In his paper,Ěý,ĚýJörg Matthias Determann makes the argument that Arab scientists should be seen as cosmopolitan subjects working across multiple domains scientifically and geographically.

He notes that Egyptian scientists since the 60s have contributed a great deal to astronomy by being “transnational” actors, collaborating with their peers from around the world in researching Mars and the Moon.

Thus, the idea that the Apollo programme was an "American" effort is complicated by his research. Formerly a non-aligned country, Egypt's scientists also took part in other initiatives aimed at bridging the, such as the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and the resumption of American-Chinese scientific contacts in the 1970s.

Later, researchers from Egypt and other countries compared the deserts of Mars to those in North Africa and looked for water in both. In their capacity as advisers to Qatar, Sudan, and Egypt, they promoted technological advancement throughout the Arab world and the Third World in general.

"What remains is a proper approach to Arab historiography that doesn’t leave the Arab scientists back in a pre-modern past"

Another notable Arab astronomer is the Syrian scientist , who completed her education in Syria and the American University in Beirut, and later got her PhD from the University of Cincinnati.

Shadia Al Habbal was a pioneer in her field, was appointed an editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research and is a member of the International Astronomical Unions. Her research was focused on observations of eclipse polarimetry and solar magnetic fields.

In conjunction with NASA, Habbal oversaw a team from the Hawaii Institute for Astronomy that participated in the observation of the solar corona during eclipses in 2006, 2008, and 2009. She also had a significant impact on the creation of the NASA Parker Solar Probe, which was the first spacecraft to enter the solar corona when it was launched in 2018.

Despite the prolific work of other notable names such as Farouk El-Baz, Doris Daou, and Saleh Ajeery, most research which starts with the keywords “Arab Astronomy” returns pre-modern examples.

In terms of institutes, the lists how almost every Arab country has its own observatory and institute dedicated to astronomy.

Sadly in most cases, the activities of these observatories relate to observing the Islamic Hijri calendar. The Arabic resources on the Arab Union’s website are limited to 40 books, mostly related to Islamic observations or old books that have been superseded with more contemporary knowledge.

The reliance on Western resources and news is much more prevalent, where the news articles related to astronomy are all translated from foreign news resources.Ěý

Despite the fragmentation of resources on the topic, there are active projects that are promising, the Sharjah Academy for Astronomy Space and Science Technology, since its inauguration in 2015, is actively developing astronomical sciences and supporting research in the field.

is one notable development in the region and other countries such as Qatar are establishing more space centres dedicated to astronomy.

"Arab scientists have always been part of leading missions in space"

Space has always been the world’s field to explore power, identity, and develop other sciences from quantum physics to geology.

These recent developments are promising and put the Arab region on the world’s space map, notwithstanding the fact that Arab scientists have always been part of leading missions in space.

What remains is a proper approach to Arab historiography that doesn’t leave Arab scientists stuck back in theĚýpre-modern past.

The tools for such historiography exist, with the work of postcolonial thinkers and historians, which move the discourse away from national essentialism and fleshes out a more vibrant heterogeneous history that intersects with the entire world.

Dana Dawud is a multidisciplinary artist and independent researcher, her work deals with contemporary art, philosophy and internet culture at large.Ěý