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I wonder what the implications of this are with respect to maths / logic. IIRC the left hemisphere of the brain does more of the logical thinking, with the righ

by jurjenh 16y ago

I wonder what the implications of this are with respect to maths / logic. IIRC the left hemisphere of the brain does more of the logical thinking, with the right being more creative - does this mean that people who read / write a lot of Arabic tend to have more developed logical or analytical skills? Arabic numerals spring to mind, though they originated from India originally (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals), and algebra and trigonometry have been developed a great deal by Arabic and Persian scholars - all these are fairly fundamental to mathematics. I wonder if there is any causation due to the written language, or would it merely be correlation?

mahmud 16y ago
The development of logic in the Islamic world has little to do with the Arabic language and everything to do with Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh), and the conquest of settled, sedentary peoples in Persia, the Roman occupied Levant and Anatolia. Suddenly, Arabs found themselves heirs to great empires and custodians of far richer cultures than their own. The recent converts had to be immersed in the culture with something other than eloquent oration and rhetoric, as was the custom back in Arabia, since few of them spoke Arabic much less appreciated its word-craft. The converts themselves were running around interpreting Islam in their old, familiar ways; the Persians, subservient to their God-Kings would have idolized the new Arabs. Arab families from the inner-circle were vying for power, and old clan conflicts were beginning to threaten the new Caliphate. It was during this period of economic stability, but cultural chaos that Islamic scholars rediscovered* pockets of philosophical cults: Gnostics, Neoplatonists, Aristotelians, and various Christian offshoots, all off whom had highly developed systems of inquiry and exposition. These fringe groups were learned men who saw wisdom not only in Christian teachings, the state-sponsored religion, but also in the old teachings of sages and thinkers of antiquity. That's when Islam discovered Logic and fell in love. Unlike Rome, logic didn't threaten their religion because they believed their holly book was infallible; and the thought of man, once elevated, can only be in agreement with what God said, and if wrong, the error lay with man. The Caliphs threw scholarships at researchers and sent them digging in the books. First, it was a period of translation, followed by active search for lost Greek sources, and finally, once the attic dried, new research and development. Within 30 years of first contact, in Baghdad and Basra, Mecca and Madina; Logic, Rhetoric, Music, and Geometry were in school curricula, along with Quran. And the new students, learned in native Arabic and oblivious to translation, ran with the sciences and developed them, as any of their many indigenous crafts.

by jurjenh 16y ago

mahmud 16y ago

The development of logic in the Islamic world has little to do with the Arabic language and everything to do with Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh), and the conquest of settled, sedentary peoples in Persia, the Roman occupied Levant and Anatolia. Suddenly, Arabs found themselves heirs to great empires and custodians of far richer cultures than their own. The recent converts had to be immersed in the culture with something other than eloquent oration and rhetoric, as was the custom back in Arabia, since few of them spoke Arabic much less appreciated its word-craft. The converts themselves were running around interpreting Islam in their old, familiar ways; the Persians, subservient to their God-Kings would have idolized the new Arabs. Arab families from the inner-circle were vying for power, and old clan conflicts were beginning to threaten the new Caliphate. It was during this period of economic stability, but cultural chaos that Islamic scholars rediscovered* pockets of philosophical cults: Gnostics, Neoplatonists, Aristotelians, and various Christian offshoots, all off whom had highly developed systems of inquiry and exposition. These fringe groups were learned men who saw wisdom not only in Christian teachings, the state-sponsored religion, but also in the old teachings of sages and thinkers of antiquity. That's when Islam discovered Logic and fell in love. Unlike Rome, logic didn't threaten their religion because they believed their holly book was infallible; and the thought of man, once elevated, can only be in agreement with what God said, and if wrong, the error lay with man. The Caliphs threw scholarships at researchers and sent them digging in the books. First, it was a period of translation, followed by active search for lost Greek sources, and finally, once the attic dried, new research and development. Within 30 years of first contact, in Baghdad and Basra, Mecca and Madina; Logic, Rhetoric, Music, and Geometry were in school curricula, along with Quran. And the new students, learned in native Arabic and oblivious to translation, ran with the sciences and developed them, as any of their many indigenous crafts.