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Arab Transmission of the Classics (view source)
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This article | This article analyzes the claim that Muslims 'saved' the works of Greek [[Philosophy|philosophers]] from destruction. | ||
==Introduction== | ==Introduction== | ||
The '''Arab transmission of the classics''' is a common and [[Islam and Propaganda|persistent myth]] that [[Arabic]] commentators such as Ibn Sina and [[Ibn Rushd - Averroes|Ibn Rushd]] 'saved' the work of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers from destruction. According to the myth, these works would otherwise have perished in the long [[Europe|European]] dark age between fifth and the tenth centuries, had the [[Islam|Islamic]] philosophers not preserved them by translating them into Arabic, to be passed on to the Latin philosophers in the western world after the [[Reconquista|reconquest]] of [[Spain]] from the Muslims during the twelve and thirteenth centuries.<ref>The myth persists even on 'scholarly' websites. See e.g. [http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/pabacker/history/islam.htm here]. "It was only through the transfer of Greek knowledge (including Aristotle's philosophy, Ptolemy's geography, Hippocrates' medicine) by Islam Spain that this information ''ever'' got to Western Europe." [Our emphasis]</ref> This is incorrect. It was actually the Byzantines in the East who saved the ancient learning of the Greeks in the original language, and the first Latin texts to be used were translation from the Greek, in the 12<sup>th</sup> century, rather than, in most cases, the Arabic, which were only used | The '''Arab transmission of the classics''' is a common and [[Islam and Propaganda|persistent myth]] that [[Arabic]] commentators such as Ibn Sina and [[Ibn Rushd - Averroes|Ibn Rushd]] 'saved' the work of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers from destruction. According to the myth, these works would otherwise have perished in the long [[Europe|European]] dark age between fifth and the tenth centuries, had the [[Islam|Islamic]] philosophers not preserved them by translating them into Arabic, to be passed on to the Latin philosophers in the western world after the [[Reconquista|reconquest]] of [[Spain]] from the Muslims during the twelve and thirteenth centuries.<ref>The myth persists even on 'scholarly' websites. See e.g. [http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/pabacker/history/islam.htm here]. "It was only through the transfer of Greek knowledge (including Aristotle's philosophy, Ptolemy's geography, Hippocrates' medicine) by Islam Spain that this information ''ever'' got to Western Europe." [Our emphasis]</ref> This is incorrect. It was actually the Byzantines in the East who saved the ancient learning of the Greeks in the original language, and the first Latin texts to be used were translation from the Greek, in the 12<sup>th</sup> century, rather than, in most cases, the Arabic, which were only used where Latin texts could not be found or were unintelligible. | ||
It is nevertheless true, and no myth, that the work of the Arabic commentators, particularly Ibn Rushd, had a profound influence on the scholastic philosophers of the Latin West in the thirteenth century. Aristotle's Greek is terse and difficult to understand. The work of the Arabic commentators helped in explaining and clarifying Aristotle's dense and apparently obscure thought. Thus Western intellectual tradition owes a great debt to the Arabic scholars in terms of ''understanding'' Aristotle's thought. In terms of the ''texts'', however, these would have survived had the Arabic commentators never existed. | It is nevertheless true, and no myth, that the work of the Arabic commentators, particularly Ibn Rushd, had a profound influence on the scholastic philosophers of the Latin West in the thirteenth century. Aristotle's Greek is terse and difficult to understand. The work of the Arabic commentators helped in explaining and clarifying Aristotle's dense and apparently obscure thought. Thus Western intellectual tradition owes a great debt to the Arabic scholars in terms of ''understanding'' Aristotle's thought. In terms of the ''texts'', however, these would have survived had the Arabic commentators never existed. | ||
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{{Hub4|Philosophy|Philosophy}} | {{Hub4|Philosophy|Philosophy}} | ||
{{Hub4|Golden Age|the "Golden Age"}} | {{Hub4|Golden Age|the "Golden Age"}} | ||