Reinscribing Al-Andalus and its sciences: Transnationalism in service to a regionalized Arab–Islamic scientific legacy at Granada's Parque de las Ciencias

Abstract

The Science Park (Parque de las Ciencias) in Granada, Spain, has been host to various exhibitions of differing sizes—ranging from small exhibits to an entire pavilion—about the history of Arab–Islamic science, with a particular focus on the scientific thought and its development in Al-Andalus (or medieval ‘Muslim Spain’). This transnational scientific legacy is not often featured in science museum content around the world, despite its foundational role in the development of European sciences. For example, the Pavilion of Al-Andalus and Science, which was open from 2008 to 2016, allowed for a clear analysis of not only the universalist discourse of the sciences but also the transnational, supranational, regional and localized representations of scientific knowledge, paradigms and processes. To explore the distinctions between these framings, I review the organizational objectives of the pavilion's creator, the Fundación El Legado Andalusí, and the content of the Museum of Al-Andalus and the Sciences located on the second floor of the pavilion. The analysis focuses on several key aspects: the balance between the number of Andalusi scholars and the other Arab thinkers mentioned; the references to multiple geopolitical frames; the ways in which Andalusi scientific knowledge and contributions are interwoven into the wider Arab–Islamic history of science; and the centring of local and regional knowledge, practices, styles and techniques. The conclusions of the study are two-fold: (1) a transnational history of science can (a) reinforce a universalist discourse of science, while simultaneously (b) engaging a framework in which this scientific content and legacy can be localized; and (2) scientific knowledge and practice, like science communication, are invariably affected by other dominant forces when social, cultural and political factors beyond the realm of science are involved in the production and representation of science.

1. Introduction

The history of science incorporated into museums forms an integral part of science communication and popularization. Its importance in the process of developing scientific understanding alongside ‘how scientists work, why they value new knowledge, and how their work impacts society’ is becoming recognized globally (Good, 2024: 279). Although the biographies of scientists from different places might not parallel one another, the universality of the science they produce and the paradigms in which they work constitute a globally accepted framework, distinct from the seemingly more socially, culturally and politically influenced social sciences and the humanities. The history of science weaves together scientific facts—traditionally imagined as objective; the human practices of the scientists who produce them; and the politics of history and memory involved in this production and the creation of exhibits. Science communication of the history of science in science centres and museums tends to highlight this universality of the sciences. In this process, it often obscures the societal influences involved in the production of both science and science communication, including any national or local emphasis that a museum has.

Considering these contrasting scales—global universality versus local particularity—this article addresses a specific period in the history of science represented at the Science Park (Parque de las Ciencias) in Granada, Spain. The Arab‒Islamic history of science is often neglected in explanations of science and in historical narratives of scientific thought, as are other marginalized epistemologies, including but not limited to African, Asian and indigenous ways of knowing (Dawson et al., 2024: 2). Even within scholarly discussion, Eurocentric considerations of scientific thought still map a direct intellectual lineage between ancient Hellenistic and later European thinkers, with no reference to the development of science during the medieval period outside Europe (see Yuan, 2022 as an example). As such, the Arab‒Islamic scientific history, despite its foundational role in European science and present-day contributions to contemporary everyday life, is generally omitted from the content in many science museums around the world (from personal communication with Ahmed Salim in 2024). In the case of the Muslim history of science, ¹ exhibits are usually presented as temporary content, instead of creating permanent exhibitions about the topic or integrating this history into other related scientific content. Thus, representations of medieval Muslim science—including scientist biographies, pointed scientific examples or general scientific discussion ² —tend to be set apart temporally and spatially from other scientific representations within museums.

In Spain, the introduction of this content into museums followed a substantial surge in national academic research about the Muslim period after the end of the fascist dictatorship in 1975. Consequently, the politics of these histories—that of Al-Andalus, Catholic Spain and the fascist dictatorship (1939‒1975)—continues to be evident in representations of the Arab-Islamic history of science. Nevertheless, in its relatively short ‘permanent’ run, the Pavilion of Al-Andalus and Science at the Granada Science Park provided a distinct example of the ways in which a transnational history of science that crosses contemporary borders has also been nationalized or localized. The pavilion's contents presented the scientific contributions of Andalusi scholars to the broader wealth of scientific knowledge developed from the 8th to the 15th centuries—where Andalusí is the term used for inhabitants of Al-Andalus, the medieval Islamic territory of the Iberian Peninsula.

The introduction of this history into science museum content around the world has been slow. For various reasons, this process is often analysed within the frame of social justice, when it is regarded as content that diversifies world views of science and the people who share ways of being that correspond to these views. Like the strong presence of ‘scientific temper’ in Indian science communication—a ‘scientific approach to problem-solving, while rejecting irrational and extra scientific beliefs’ (Kankaria and Chakraborty, 2024: 3)—the Pavilion of Al-Andalus and Science was a space that allowed for reflexivity and democratization. Visitors could examine their cognitive biases regarding: (1) the remainders of the Islamic past, (2) the versions of history prevalent in everyday Spanish life (e.g., those disseminated during the dictatorship), and (3) the past they share with the growing Muslim population in Spain. Furthermore, similarly to the integration of indigenous ways of knowing into museum science communication, the pavilion facilitated the interrogation of the ‘power asymmetries of “non-Western” and “Western” science communication (and science) practices, approaches and values’ (Finlay et al., 2021: 4). However, unlike these examples, categorizing this case as ‘the Arab‒Islamic history as a potential tool for decolonisation’ becomes complicated by the history itself and, accordingly, by the place it holds in contemporary Spanish collective memory. Thus, addressing the presentation of this history in southern Spain through a social justice or decolonial approach alone would assume a strict adherence to marked geopolitical boundaries. ³ It underestimates the very complexity that the pavilion narrative attempted to question, complicate and even collapse—the complexity of navigating borderland ethnicity and identity at the edges of a supranational geopolitical entity (Herzfeld, 2019). While a more in-depth discussion of these points is beyond the length—although not the scope—of this article, it references much larger cultural debates that cannot be left out of an ethnographic or theoretical understanding of the pavilion space.

Universal representations of science and the knowledge exchange involved in the scientific discoveries throughout the pavilion are salient. They tend to appear in narratives about the benefit of science for all of humanity; a transnational aspiration to increase all forms of knowledge, including scientific knowledge; science as a multicultural and multi-ethnic production; and, in particular, the history of Arab‒Islamic science as a tool to promote cooperation, dialogue, solidarity and connection between different peoples that share this transnational history (El Legado Andalusí, 2010d, 2010e). This broader context of Arab‒Islamic science and the scholarship of Arab scientists allowed for an underlying framework throughout the pavilion, into which the work of Andalusi thinkers ⁴ was interwoven. This view was embedded in both the pavilion's contents and the objectives of the organization that created it, La Fundación El Legado Andalusí (the ‘Andalusi Legacy Foundation’). However, a distinctly regional—at times local—motif is far more prevalent. This regional positioning is not necessarily antagonistic towards the nation, but centres on Andalusia, the southernmost region in Spain, due to the much longer history of the Muslim period in the south compared to the rest of the Iberian Peninsula. ⁵

2. The scientific history of the Arab–Islamic Empire, Al-Andalus, and their European legacy

Because the legacy of Muslim science is relatively unknown in certain academic circles and among the general public, an extremely brief summary of the medieval period and its sciences is appropriate. As the Arab‒Islamic Empire spread throughout Asia and Africa in the 8th century, new centres of knowledge that emerged following the Muslim conquest began collecting vast amounts of scholarship—scientific and otherwise—from all corners of the empire (Zadeh, 2011: 21‒26). By 750 CE, the empire extended from what is now Uzbekistan in the east to the Iberian Peninsula in the west. Muslim rulers built libraries and study centres, such as the House of Wisdom (bayt al-hikma) in Baghdad, where scholars of various faiths collected and translated ancient Greek, Persian, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Chinese and possibly even Western European knowledge (Bennison, 2009: 89). Many of these scholars then commented, elaborated on and produced their own contribution to this monumental body of work during the medieval period and shared this scholarly production with others across the empire. The movement of people, new products, ideas and inventions spread along trade routes, which carried this information in both directions (Abattouy, 2012: 167‒180).

After coming under Muslim rule in 711 CE, intellectuals throughout Al-Andalus actively participated in this collection, production and transfer of knowledge, which continued for almost eight centuries, although the territory was gradually reduced by Catholic invasions from the north over time (Burnett, 1992). Like the House of Wisdom, translation centres such as those in Toledo were fundamental in the sharing of this consolidated knowledge. At these centres, people of diverse backgrounds translated these scientific insights from Arabic back into Latin. These translations then spread throughout the European continent, providing a foundation upon which European scholars elaborated (El Legado Andalusí, 2010f). Many of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields we study and work in today continue to have remainders of these scientific contributions in their paradigms, processes, knowledge and tools (Glick et al., 2005). The regional Fundación El Legado Andalusí in Andalusia, Spain, actively seeks to educate the public about this scientific legacy.

3. Organizational objectives and the El Legado Andalusí Foundation

The El Legado Andalusí Foundation, based in Granada, Spain, is a public entity originally established to organize multiple exhibitions that would introduce a cultural and historical dimension into local activities planned for the Alpine World Ski Championships in 1996 (from an interview with Marina ⁶ , El Legado Andalusí employee, on 21 May 2013). Under the leadership of Granadan lawyer Jeronimo Paez, the foundation organized 12 exhibitions in 1995 ⁷ based on the historical legacy of Al-Andalus, many of which provided the base materials and historical objects for subsequent reiterations. The topics relevant to this discussion that were included in the initial exhibitions—along with their later corresponding Science Pavilion areas—were ‘The Water and Agriculture of Al-Andalus’ (hydraulics and agronomy), ‘Al-Andalus and the Mediterranean’ (geography and navigation, among others), ‘The Scientific Legacy of Al-Andalus’ (multiple scientific disciplines), and ‘Houses and Palaces of Al-Andalus’ (architecture and constructive technologies) (El Legado Andalusí, 2025c).

Together with three similar exhibitions organized during the postponed sporting event in 1996, the foundation adopted a particular philosophy for these exhibitions that formed its organizational objectives and continues to shape its cultural output, including the dissemination of this historical scientific legacy (El Legado Andalusí, 2025b). Among these objectives, a local, regional and national focus is considerably perceptible. Specifically, the foundation aims to disseminate and highlight ‘the historical role that Spain and Andalusia has played’, and in the process, to form a ‘cultural bridge between the West and the East’ (El Legado Andalusí, 2025f). Thus, one of its goals is to spotlight Spain's contributions—framed as national contributions—to a historical tradition of knowledge production and exchange across a territory that now traverses current geopolitical boundaries.

As a transnational heritage shared between what are imagined as bounded ‘cultures’, this geographical area stretches from Spain (and Europe) to Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa, as well as many countries from which scholars gathered knowledge during the Arab‒Islamic past—effectively extending from China to Spain to Central and South America. However, like the term ‘Muslim Spain’, ⁸ this first objective overlooks the national and regional connotations attached to the name, Spain (that of the nation-state) and to Andalusia (that of the autonomous region), thus directly associating the Islamic history of the Iberian Peninsula and its vast legacy with present-day Spain and Andalusia. ⁹ Spain, as the territorial entity that we know today, was unified under one crown upon the capture of Granada, which ended the Muslim period and produced the expulsion of the Jewish population in 1492 CE and the Muslim population throughout the following century (Barrios Aguilera, 2002; García Arenal and Wiegers, 2013). The nation-state of Spain came into being through shifting borders within the Iberian Peninsula as the Muslim territories were slowly conquered over eight centuries, followed by political processes lasting well into the 18th century that eventually consolidated the nation-state (Díaz-Andreu, 2002: 135; Núñez and Tortella, 2009).

Following the Ski Championships, the El Legado Andalusí Foundation shifted its focus to promoting and disseminating this Andalusi past through a tourism and international cooperation lens. By 1997, it had established historically based regional cultural routes and cross-border cultural itineraries across which later exhibitions and knowledge sharing of research about Al-Andalus have been transmitted (El Legado Andalusí, 2025d, 2025e). By continuing to build on these networks for three decades, the foundation's objectives promote the international knowledge sharing that has formed part of the universality of science discourse. They aim to recover this shared history to establish a foundation upon which these countries can foster a rapprochement and solidarity between them to build a more humane world (El Legado Andalusí, 2025f), echoing positive views of the value of shared scientific knowledge.

Despite this transnational framing, one objective of the foundation pointedly underscores the local‒regional dimensions of its exhibitions: ‘the recuperation of the knowledge of the civilization of Al-Andalus and the dissemination of its cultural legacy as an integral part of the hallmarks of our identity’ (El Legado Andalusí, 2025f). Although this objective does not specify which identity is implied—the regional or the national—the objects and the information boards that are typically included in the foundation's exhibitions make it clear that ‘our identity’ refers primarily to an Andalusian identity. Yet by extension, a Spanish identity—one rooted in a territorial and ecological ontology of the region—is also understood. This local situatedness is similar to practices at other museums that have attempted to include local dimensions or indigenous world views in their content (Bisanti, 2012; Lee et al., 2020).

At the Pavilion of Al-Andalus and Science, several prominently centred scientific examples that established this rootedness included: Andalusi building techniques and the science behind specific decorative styles such as glazed tilework (i.e., azulejos ¹⁰ and alicatado ¹¹ ) common in private residences and heritage sites throughout Spain, especially in the south (see Dias Martins, 2025 for an example of tilework in the Alhambra); or the biology and ecology of silkworms (i.e., the caterpillar Bombyx mori) introduced by the Muslims to Spain, coupled with the textile science behind Andalusi silk making (Barrigón, 2022: 42; Pozo Felguera, 2019), where many Granadans have memories of collecting these caterpillars as children. In science museum exhibitions outside of Spain that highlight the Arab‒Islamic history, the science behind these contributions from the Arab territories to the ‘West’ through Al-Andalus generally include objects, customs, food or practices that are common throughout Europe and North America, such as the introduction of domes, vaults and arches to engineering; coffee to our daily consumption practices; or cataract and other medical surgeries (FSTC, 2010). The El Legado Andalusí Foundation exhibitions tend to either present contributions that are specific to everyday life in Spain or contributions from Andalusi scholars, while also incorporating more widespread global examples. In this way, each of the foundation's organizational objectives later filtered into the Pavilion of Al-Andalus and Science at the Granada Science Park, as they have continued to do in its reiterations in small exhibit formats since its closure in 2016.

4. The Pavilion of Al-Andalus and Science at the Granada Science Park

Like the El Legado Andalusí Foundation, Granada's Science Park was inaugurated in 1995 and is managed by the regional government (the Junta de Andalucía), together with a number of other governmental and educational institutions. As the most visited museum in Andalusia, the Granada Science Park features seven permanent exhibition pavilions, as well as many of the typical museum spaces found worldwide, including an astronomical observatory, a biodome, a butterfly conservatory and an auditorium (Parque de las Ciencias, 2025). As in other science museums, the auditorium at the Science Park hosts forums and conferences that provide an arena for the ‘confrontation of ideas between actors engaged in reflection’ necessary in the process of critical knowledge building ‘on matters in which science raises genuine problems for society’ (Schiele, 2018: 21‒22). As the auditorium is located relatively close to the former site of the Pavilion of Al-Andalus and Science, it has been the site of discussions referencing the scientific thought of the Muslim period and its capacity to address contemporary societal issues. For example, during various panels at the Meeting of Social Communication and Journalism that I attended in April 2012, such references emerged unexpectedly in the discourse.

The Pavilion of Al-Andalus and Science filled one of the seven pavilions, ¹² covering two floors comprising 4500 square metres of floor space. It brought together much of the scientific content and many of the objects present in the foundation's previous 29 exhibitions. Inaugurated in 2008, ¹³ both floors of the pavilion, with approximately 22 rooms or display spaces, were dedicated to presenting the shared transnational history of the Arab‒Islamic period, focusing specifically on the global transmission of knowledge, the production of scientific insight, and the contributions that Muslim period scholars, thinkers and inventors of the past made to the sciences. The lower level housed varied types of display spaces ranging from an introduction to the pavilion to a bookstore and a smaller version of the ‘Al-Andalus and Science’ exhibition, which had been hosted elsewhere in the Science Park from 2004 to 2008. This smaller exhibition provided the foundation for some of the content on the upper floor, where the Museum of Al-Andalus and the Sciences was located. The museum consisted of 11 thematic spaces that grouped together scientific disciplines that are considered to be interconnected today. These included rooms were dedicated to (1) astronomy, (2) geography and navigation, (3) physics, chemistry, alchemy, optics and mechanics, (4) hydraulics, (5) agricultural sciences, botany and pharmacology, (6) medicine, zoology and veterinary sciences, (7) other techniques and the arts, (8) architecture and constructive technologies, (9) a games and maths area, (10) metallurgy, and (11) an activity centre titled ‘To Know More’. Each space featured a variety of display cases containing scientific objects and models, large moving models, explanation boards about contributions made in each of the sciences, televisions playing videos providing more in-depth information on the science behind specific objects, and interactive computers featuring both the pavilion game ¹⁴ and additional educational content. Over its almost eight years of operation, the pavilion hosted 888,000 visitors, averaging more than 100,000 visitors each year (El Legado Andalusí, 2025a). The educational and public reception of the exhibition was positive (El Ideal, 2023). Yet, as with many complex and contested histories, the politics of this history surfaced periodically in the educational tours and workshops run by pavilion instructors (for further discussion and analysis, see McIlwraith, 2018: 157‒209).

Since its closure, the pavilion's information boards and objects have continued to appear in downsized exhibitions throughout the city, the region and the Arab world. One such exhibition, which I visited in June 2019 in Granada, ¹⁵ was titled ‘The Sciences in Al-Andalus’ and reproduced a significant part of the pavilion's second floor. Furthermore, a new reiteration of the pavilion reopened as a temporary exhibition at the Granada Science Park in May 2024. At the time of writing, this exhibition is still open and likely includes the same content from the original smaller exhibition that was set up in a different building at the Science Park from 2004 to 2008, before being incorporated into the pavilion (Parque de las Ciencias, 2024). Throughout its iterations, the pavilion's content provided a clear and multifaceted array of examples illustrating the transnational, regional and local dimensions embedded in the scientific material.

5. Regional and local content within a transnational historical framework

Between the two floors of the pavilion, the original smaller version of the exhibition presented a more unequivocal focus on the local dimension. However, for this article, I limit my discussion to the museum on the second floor. The most clear-cut method of understanding the extent of this regionalization of scientific representations is to consider which scholars, inventors and thinkers were mentioned throughout the museum's content and their origins. The museum alone incorporated mentions of 56 scientists from Al-Andalus compared to 37 scientists from the wider Arab‒Islamic territories. Without including the Ancient Greek thinkers and others mentioned in the exhibits, this split indicated approximately 18% more references to Andalusi scientists.

Most of the scholars mentioned from the wider Arab‒Islamic territories were generally well known in the Western world. They included scholars such as al-Khwarizmi—the 9th-century House of Wisdom mathematician and creator of algebra (Gowers et al., 2009: 736; Rashed, 2015: 83–87); al-Biruni—the 11th-century Persian polymath (Siddiqi, 1991; Stowasser, 2014); and al-Jazari—the 12th-century Turkish mechanical inventor (Romdhane and Zeghloul, 2009; Yassi, 2017). There was also a mixture of Andalusi scientists. They included well-known thinkers, such as Ibn Firnas—the 9th-century polymath who was the first to attempt flight (Anderson, 2024) and al-Zarqali (or Azarquiel in Latin)—the 11th-century astronomer from Toledo (Boutelle, 1968; Comes and Comes, 2009). There were also relatively unknown figures, such as Ibn al-Kammad—a 12th-century Sevillian astronomer, student of al-Zarqali, and author of a book on astronomical obstetrics, Kitab Mafih al-Asrar (Chabás and Goldstein, 2015), and Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi—an 11th-century engineer who wrote The Book of Secrets that described ingenious devices from Al-Andalus (Torres-Garrido et al., 2019). For comparison, the original smaller exhibition mentioned above, from which the second-floor museum was developed, contained 79% more regional references (n = 19), with only 16% of these being other Arab scholars (n = 4). However, even with this more commensurate transnational‒regional balance of scholars, the regional and local presence was still palpable in the museum.

Moving beyond numbers, the transnational movement of scientific knowledge, people, objects and products of this historical period effortlessly conveys the idea of the universal without explicitly entering into this discourse. The emphasis on transmission and translation in the explanations about the sciences and objects presented in the cases and videos throughout the museum reminded visitors of the global journey that scientific knowledge undertook across vast geographical areas. These explanations repeatedly referenced the translation and merging of Greek, Persian, Mesopotamian and autochthonous knowledge through the Arab‒Islamic study centres and their subsequent translation and transmission through Al-Andalus into Europe (El Legado Andalusí, 2010b, 2010d).

The inclusion of this transmission into Europe introduced an intermediary contemporary scale, which we can refer to as the supranational (Montgomery, 2021). This supranational scale, together with the regional and national dimensions, is delineated in the El Legado Andalusí Foundation's philosophy and objectives. While the Arab, African, Asian and Hispanic states are connected through this past at a transnational level, Spain now forms part of the European Union, a distinct geopolitical entity from the transnational. Repeating this transmission narrative throughout the museum superimposed the transnational scale of the past onto the supranational scale of the present. At the same time, it reinforced how the Arab‒Islamic history of science was also inherently linked to Europe's legacy of scientific innovation.

Additionally, the interweaving of the transnational with the regional and/or local was most pronounced on the information boards. Many of the boards provided short biographical paragraphs about individual scientists, as other authors in this journal have addressed (Good, 2024; Zhao and Liu, 2022). The boards often began by outlining biographical fragments about Arab scholars and their contributions in a particular field, and then incorporated mentions, biographies and the works of Andalusi scholars into the narrative when available. The Andalusi scholars included both scholars acclaimed around the world and lesser known scholars of importance in their respective fields during the medieval Muslim period. For example, the board titled ‘Eminent Physicians’ (El Legado Andalusí, 2010g) first highlighted the work of the Persian physician Al-Razi (known as Rhazes in Latin), followed by that of four other Andalusi physicians. It summarized Al-Razi's extensive body of work, which included more than two hundred treatises, and referenced his work categorizing other physicians, hospitals and doctor‒patient relations, together with his calculations and writing about measles and smallpox (Adamson, 2021: 152‒172; Pormann, 2013; Tibi, 2006). Following this, the board discussed four notable Andalusi physicians: Ibn Rushd (known as Averroes), Maimonides, Ibn Djuldjul and Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar), all of whom were among the most important physicians in both Al-Andalus and the wider Arab‒Islamic Empire (see Chandelier, 2018: 158‒176 on Averroes; Rudavsky, 2010: 1‒18 on Maimonides; Ibn Juljul and Khal (2023) for Ibn Juljul's thoughts on the work of other physicians; and McVaugh et al., 2019: 168‒203 for an example of Avenzoar's work). Yet, the work of the most influential Andalusi physician across the empire, al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis), was reserved for the ‘Surgery & Ophthalmology’ board and filled the entire surgery section (El Legado Andalusí, 2010c). A number of the boards also contained whole paragraphs discussing Andalusi contributions alone, and either listed their many contributions and works or explained certain scientific processes connected to their work in-depth.

Certain sections, due to the type of science involved, had a strictly regional or local focus. For example, in the ‘Hydraulics’ section, all of the objects and the accompanying information board referred to the water infrastructure that is still commonly found in Andalusia today. The information board summarized a selection of devices and processes related to water capture, distribution and use, including the extraction of underground water from aquifers using qanats, the movement of water and irrigation, hydraulic mills, and the synthesis of autochthonous infrastructural elements with those imported from elsewhere. Given the extensive literature on this topic, this regional focus is unsurprising. ¹⁶ The board also addressed the arabismos—Spanish words with Arabic etymology—that are still used for the various elements of these systems, such as acequia (as-saqiya in Arabic, or cisterns), aljibe (al-yibb, or irrigation channels) and alberca (al-birka, or reservoir) (El Legado Andalusí, 2010h).

Other sections in the museum, such as ‘Metallurgy’ and ‘Architecture and Constructive Technologies’, were almost completely dedicated to local and regional styles and techniques that were imported during or stemmed from the Muslim period. These examples elaborated on mining around the medieval Iberian Peninsula (Cressier and Canto García, 2008; Gutiérrez Soler, 2008), carpentry and carved plaster (Almagro, 2007), rammed earth walls and gates (Azuar Ruíz, 2005), the use of polychrome carpentry (Cardell et al., 2009), and construction techniques using stone (León-Muñoz, 2018). Finally, in the ‘Agricultural Sciences, Botany and Pharmacology’ section, all six models that depicted agriculture and its hydraulic systems were local Andalusi examples from the province of Granada. ¹⁷ The first showed the agricultural system around the salt flats of La Malahá in the province of Granada. The other five were all located in the city of Granada, with two showing the agricultural area around the now non-existent Palace of the Genil and the other three showing the development of the Generalife (gardens) of the Alhambra (see Duarte Rodrigues and Toribio Marín, 2020, on the distinctive development of Renaissance and Baroque Iberian gardens, influenced by the Arab‒Islamic past). While some of these examples may be shared with neighbouring countries, such as architectural styles or agricultural practices in Morocco or Portugal (Batista and Reimão Costa, 2020), broader transnational similarities in specific fields often reflect the legacies of early and late modern colonialism.

6. The transnational legacy of Al-Andalus: Is it a universal or a backdrop for the regional recovery of a difficult past?

The name of the Pavilion of Al-Andalus and Science inherently alluded to a focus on Al-Andalus, and, by association, a regional or national dimension. However, the pavilion, with its museum on the second floor, evidently made a significant shift away from the almost strictly regional focus of the original exhibit. Yet, these examples from the second-floor museum continue to demonstrate how the universals of science, framed as a transnational history of science, can still allow for a privileging of regionalized and/or localized representations of the sciences. The history of Al-Andalus in Spain continues to be a ‘difficult’ past (Macdonald, 2009), where for centuries, it was excised from the Spanish national narrative. For centuries, Al-Andalus was imagined as having been outside the nation-state and outside of Europe, and its inhabitants were viewed as rightfully expelled in the context of European colonial expansion. The El Legado Andalusí Foundation, with its exhibitions and the pavilion, has worked for decades to change the hard separation of contemporary geopolitical borders and reclaim this past. Despite the localized frameworks in which the foundation worked, its cultural production at the pavilion, which was firmly rooted in transnationalism, insisted on a more balanced characterization of the epistemological parallels between Arab and Andalusi scientists than the foundation had previously presented. Yet, the scientific examples, the groupings of scientific disciplines and the guiding objectives communicated a regional focus. Thus, despite the assumption of universal science, scientific knowledge and practice, like science communication, continue to be affected by other dominant forces when social, cultural and political factors beyond the realm of science are involved. This is true for the history of science as much as it is for any narratives of the past, present or future.