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THE ABBASID CALIPHS
Steve Wells - Movement of Ideas
I was taken by the explanation of the arrival of Arabic translations of Greek books into Europe. This is an example of the movement of ideas. We often tend to talk of historical periods without considering the transitions. I take it that the arrival of these books was one of the triggers which would eventually lead to the Renaissance. Perhaps in future talks these transitions could be considered - starting with the sources of ideas which led to the Renaissance.
Charlie Tramel - Caliphs
Khalid Mir asked, "...will it ever be possible to break out of this view that Islam was a mere "transmitter", a tanslator, of the classical tradition and its texts?" I would be very interested to know the answer. Does anyone have any specific examples from, say, mathematics and science (as they would be the easiest to assess objectively) of new and important results. To be clear, by 'specific' I don't mean offerings such as "they gave us algebra". What new, important result did they obtain with it? The Greeks before them solved the quadratic (geometrically) and the Italins after them solved the cubic, using the notation invented in European. (The Moslems used words.)
Khalid Mir: the Caliphs or kings and horses (camel
Surprsingly general approach. I wonder if people will ever take note of the brillaint historian of late antiquity , Peter Brown, who questioned whether scholars will ever look at Islam as a genuine religion with its own ideas and practices. Of course, the "poll tax" may have been imposed partly out of considerations of economic and/or strategic power but to not talk about the profound ideas of pluralism from within the Islamic tradition itself is surely to give too much weight to a materialist reading of history? In the same sense, will it ever be possible to break out of this view that Islam was a mere "transmitter" , a tanslator,of the classical tradition and its texts? Allama Iqbal's chapter on the spirit of muslim culture in his 'Reconstruction' suggests that Islam was actually anti-classical and in some sense closer to the modern west (a troubling thought for some, no doubt.Perhaps it is easier -and politically more feasible-to continue to link Islam to what "was"). I wonder why when it comes to Blackfriars there is a discussion of ideas but when it comes to Islam there is more of a focus on "spectacles": monarchs and the court, arabian nights and harems... Regards, Khalid Mir, 462 Chigwell Road, Woddford Gree |
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