Museum of the History of Islamic Science and Technology

Museum of the History of Islamic Science and Technology, located in the Has Ahırlar Building within Istanbul’s Gülhane Park, was opened in 2008 under the leadership of Professor Dr. Fuat Sezgin. The museum displays artifacts and scale models documenting the contributions of Islamic civilization to science and technology between the 9th and 16th centuries. Within a total exhibition area of 3,500 square meters, 585 instruments, devices, models, and replicas have been prepared based on ancient manuscripts and original sources.

^{Museum of the History of Islamic Science and Technology (}Republic of Türkiye Istanbul Governorship⁾

The establishment of the Museum of the History of Islamic Science and Technology is rooted in the decades-long research and pioneering work of Professor Dr. Fuat Sezgin, a historian of Islamic science. In the 1980s, Professor Sezgin began producing scale models of scientific instruments developed in the Islamic world at the Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science at the University of Frankfurt. This initiative gained new momentum with a proposal by then Minister of Culture and Tourism Atilla Koç to establish a similar museum in Istanbul.

After years of planning beginning in 2005, the museum, housed in the historic Has Ahırlar Building within Gülhane Park in Istanbul, was opened to the public on 24 May 2008. Since its founding, the museum has aimed to systematically and visually present the scientific heritage of Islamic civilization and demonstrate that the history of science constitutes a unified and interconnected structure.

^{Astrolabes (}Republic of Türkiye, Istanbul Governorship⁾

The museum is housed architecturally within the historic Has Ahırlar Building from the Ottoman period. This structure was built adjacent to the palace walls within Gülhane Park, located on the historic peninsula. Originally used to house the horses of the Ottoman sultan and his close circle, the building has been transformed into a museum space dedicated to showcasing scientific and cultural heritage. The museum spans a total exhibition area of 3,500 square meters and consists of two floors.

The upper floor features a planetarium hall and exhibits on astronomy, timekeeping technology, navigation, military technology, and medicine. The lower floor houses models and replicas related to mining, physics, mathematics and geometry, urban planning and architecture, optics, chemistry, and geography.

^{Interior of the Museum of the History of Islamic Science and Technology (}Governorship of Istanbul, Republic of Türkiye⁾

Outside the museum, the Ibn Sina Botanical Garden, opened in 2013, displays 26 medicinal plants described in Ibn Sina’s al-Qanun fi’t-Tibb, alongside a replica of the world map drawn under the direction of the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun in the 9th century. This section attracts visitors with tangible examples of the history of medical botany.

In terms of its contribution to the history of science, the museum serves as a bridge between East and West, making visible the scientific legacy that Islamic civilization contributed to human history. The museum documents and presents, through models and scale replicas, the inventions, discoveries, and theories developed by Islamic scholars between the 9th and 16th centuries, offering an educational and accessible approach to this period of scientific productivity.