Pathfinders

From the back of the book:

For over 700 years, the international language of science was Arabic. In Pathfinders, Jim Al-Khalili celebrates the forgotten, inspiring pioneers who helped shape our understanding of the world during the golden age of Arabix science, including Arabic physicist Ibn Al-Haytham, who practiced the modern scientific method over half a century before Bacon; al-Khwarizmi, the greatest mathematician of the medieval world; and Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, a Persian polymath to rival Leonardo da Vinci.