Transmission of Greek Philosophy Under Islam
Main article: Arab transmission of the Classics to the West See also: Early Islamic philosophy and Latin translations of the 12th centuryDuring the Middle Ages, Greek ideas were largely forgotten in Western Europe. With the fall of Rome, very few people in the West were left who knew how to read Greek. The Islamic Abbasid caliphs gathered the manuscripts and hired translators to increase their prestige. Islamic philosophers such as Al-Kindi (Alkindus), Al-Farabi (Alpharabius), Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd) reinterpreted Greek philosophies in the context of their religion. Their interpretations were later transmitted to the Europeans in the High Middle Ages, when Greek philosophies re-entered the West through translations from Arabic to Latin. The re-introduction of these philosophies, combined with the new Arabic commentaries, had a great influence on Medieval philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas.
Read more about this topic: Ancient Greek Philosophy
Famous quotes containing the words greek, philosophy and/or islam:
“Certainly for us of the modern world, with its conflicting claims, its entangled interests, distracted by so many sorrows, so many preoccupations, so bewildering an experience, the problem of unity with ourselves in blitheness and repose, is far harder than it was for the Greek within the simple terms of antique life. Yet, not less than ever, the intellect demands completeness, centrality.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“The purpose of a work of fiction is to appeal to the lingering after-effects in the reader’s mind as differing from, say, the purpose of oratory or philosophy which respectively leave people in a fighting or thoughtful mood.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Sooner or later we must absorb Islam if our own culture is not to die of anemia.”
—Basil Bunting (1900–1985)