Description:

Title: "Calculating the times of prayer on islamicfinder.org."

Description: 
The popular website islamicfinder.org offers users the ability to
calculate the times of prayer for over six million locations worldwide.
It does so, however, according to six particular "calculation methods,"
each developed by a specific institution. This talk will trace the history of the method developed by the Egyptian Survey Authority, as a way of exploring the kinds of technical, legal, and representational work that have enabled the standardization of a religious practice in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Bio:
Daniel Stolz (Ph.D, Princeton University) studies the history of science and Islam since the eighteenth century, with a focus on Egypt and the late Ottoman Empire. His current book project is a history of astronomy and Islam in nineteenth-century Egypt. Daniel's article on mechanical timekeeping in Ottoman Cairo is forthcoming in the International Journal of Middle East Studies. In Spring, 2015, he is teaching "Technology and Society in the Middle East since 1850," which explores the history of transformations in the Middle East from industrialization to the so-called "Facebook Revolutions" of 2009-2011.