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Danishmand Khan Shafi‘a Yazdi (1578–1657), a Mughal courtier, commissioned the French doctor Francois Bernier to translate the philosophy of Descartes and Pierre Gassendi, and the anatomic discoveries of William Harvey and Jean Pecquet, into Persian. Indeed, Danishmand Khan was famous in the Mughal court for being fascinated by "European sciences" ('ilm-i ahl-i farang) and had vast libraries of "Frankish books."

Unfortunately, Bernier's translations were not circulated and were lost after the khan's death.

How much of an impact could these Persian translations of the best of Europe's seventeenth-century philosophy and anatomy make in India and the Middle East?
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