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It is true that Muslim centers preserved some ancient Greek learning, but you overestimate this phenomenon and your depiction of the christianized Roman Empire

It is true that Muslim centers preserved some ancient Greek learning, but you overestimate this phenomenon and your depiction of the christianized Roman Empire destroying the classical tradition is inaccurate caricature. The reason we prize Muslim traditions for preserving Aristotle, for example, is not because the the Roman Empire post-Constantine had no interest in Greek learning, it is because Byzantine thought favored the rival (Neo-)platonism instead. The importance of Ancient Greek literature in the Byzantine Empire is readily evident from things like Homer remaining a cornerstone of Byzantine education all the way through the first millennium, and Christian polemicists starting to write in Attic Greek instead of the Koine. If you want to see just how much of the Greek tradition was preserved in the Christian world, and not the Muslim world, simply visit the Classical Philology section of any university library and look at the manuscript sources (including, yes, monastery copies) of any Oxford Classical Texts or Bibliotheca Teubneriana edition of Greek writers.

teleforce 6y ago
I think you are the one who are incorrectly underestimating the contribution of Muslim empires and civilization in preserving ancient Greek learning and books. The Muslim centers are not only preserving ancient Greek learning and books, they are cherishing and enriching them for several hundreds years [1]. To them these ancient Greek books are equivalent of modern days da Vinci's paintings that can be weight in gold, literally no kidding. At the time, if you are doing translation of any Greek texts you can get paid by the weight of the translation in gold equivalent! Please tell me at any other time this is happening in any part of human history or even now. It's also reported that at one time, Abbasid Caliph Al-Ma'mun was demanding an original copy of the Ptolemy's Almagest book as the condition of a truce between Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Empire. This is really something big because based on the saying of Muhammad that prophesizes any Muslim leader who can defeated and conquered Byzantine Empire (Constantinople) is the best leader ever. He basically abandoning this potential privilege title because of an original copy of Ptolemy's book. If you think he is too weak to defeat Byzantine and resorting to lame truce, please think again. He basically conquered and subjugated entire modern day Afghanistan for good, and only a few legendary leaders that even managed to do that including your beloved Alexander the Great. For the record, the mighty British Empire and USA did not manage to do just that. Al-Ma'mun is also the founder of the "House of Wisdom" where Al-Khwarizmi was the first director of the center and his name is very familiar because apparently the "algebra" and "algorithm" words were derived from his book title and his names, respectively. Because of his contribution to science one crater in the moon (Almanon) is named after him[2]. Believe it or not, according to some of modern historians, the extreme love for knowledge of the Abbasid Empire was partly blamed on the downfall of the Abbasid Empire at the expense of Islamic spirituality. This perhaps mainly due to the Islamic teaching that says after you're dead there are only three things that can increase you deeds in the hereafter. Firstly your God fearing children, secondly your donated and lively wealth for charity (waqaf) and thirdly your contributions to the knowledge that are beneficial to other people. [1]How Modern Science Came Into The World, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt45kddd https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt45kddd [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ma%27mun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ma%27mun
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  We were not talking about whether the Muslim world appreciated Greek thought, we were talking about how much the Muslim world preserved Greek works otherwise unavailable. Regardless of your boasting of Muslim scholarship, many more Greek works have come down to use in manuscripts copied down in the Christian world. It is only a comparatively few works that we must credit the Muslim world with preserving. Again, go look at the manuscript sources for all those OCT and Teubner editions.
  - teleforce 6y ago
    Please check this article on the Benedict abbot or Peter the Venerable who was during his time in charged of more than 600 monasteries [1]. In the article it's mentioned that he summoned the monks to not only translate Arabic works he found in Toledo to Latin, but also Arabic translations of otherwise lost classical Greek texts. If this not the proof of Muslim Empire and scholars greatly help preserving Greek texts then I don't know what is. As you probably know that the renaissance era was started from the fall of Toledo into the Spaniard's hands. Just for the sake of arguments, even if the Cristian world have most of their copies, are having the back up copies by the Muslim world really help preserving the books when there was no Google Drive around? At least we probably can agree that these Muslim scholars were not only appreciating but they were also cherishing the Greek books just like we are cherishing the PlayStation 5 not only appreciating it. For them it is part of their religious duty to contribute and spread the knowledge regardless they were from India, China or Greek. You need to understand that these scholars not only preserved the book but they cherished them. It's given fact that you only keep what you value and cherish, and by nature human are selective hoarders. Without the ransack of Baghdad by the Mongol where the rivers turned blue/black by the ink of the thrown and demolished books it's probably not an exaggeration to say that we probably living in Mars by now. The fact that the lesser backup copies in Toledo, Spain that fell into the European hands essentially initiated the knowledge revolutions or renaissance as they called it today. [1]https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/12/27/these-are-monks-who-still-preserve-ancient-texts-around-world https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/12/27/these-are-m...
    - 6y ago

teleforce 6y ago

I think you are the one who are incorrectly underestimating the contribution of Muslim empires and civilization in preserving ancient Greek learning and books. The Muslim centers are not only preserving ancient Greek learning and books, they are cherishing and enriching them for several hundreds years [1]. To them these ancient Greek books are equivalent of modern days da Vinci's paintings that can be weight in gold, literally no kidding. At the time, if you are doing translation of any Greek texts you can get paid by the weight of the translation in gold equivalent! Please tell me at any other time this is happening in any part of human history or even now. It's also reported that at one time, Abbasid Caliph Al-Ma'mun was demanding an original copy of the Ptolemy's Almagest book as the condition of a truce between Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Empire. This is really something big because based on the saying of Muhammad that prophesizes any Muslim leader who can defeated and conquered Byzantine Empire (Constantinople) is the best leader ever. He basically abandoning this potential privilege title because of an original copy of Ptolemy's book. If you think he is too weak to defeat Byzantine and resorting to lame truce, please think again. He basically conquered and subjugated entire modern day Afghanistan for good, and only a few legendary leaders that even managed to do that including your beloved Alexander the Great. For the record, the mighty British Empire and USA did not manage to do just that. Al-Ma'mun is also the founder of the "House of Wisdom" where Al-Khwarizmi was the first director of the center and his name is very familiar because apparently the "algebra" and "algorithm" words were derived from his book title and his names, respectively. Because of his contribution to science one crater in the moon (Almanon) is named after him[2]. Believe it or not, according to some of modern historians, the extreme love for knowledge of the Abbasid Empire was partly blamed on the downfall of the Abbasid Empire at the expense of Islamic spirituality. This perhaps mainly due to the Islamic teaching that says after you're dead there are only three things that can increase you deeds in the hereafter. Firstly your God fearing children, secondly your donated and lively wealth for charity (waqaf) and thirdly your contributions to the knowledge that are beneficial to other people. [1]How Modern Science Came Into The World, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt45kddd https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt45kddd [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ma%27mun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ma%27mun

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
We were not talking about whether the Muslim world appreciated Greek thought, we were talking about how much the Muslim world preserved Greek works otherwise unavailable. Regardless of your boasting of Muslim scholarship, many more Greek works have come down to use in manuscripts copied down in the Christian world. It is only a comparatively few works that we must credit the Muslim world with preserving. Again, go look at the manuscript sources for all those OCT and Teubner editions.
- teleforce 6y ago
  Please check this article on the Benedict abbot or Peter the Venerable who was during his time in charged of more than 600 monasteries [1]. In the article it's mentioned that he summoned the monks to not only translate Arabic works he found in Toledo to Latin, but also Arabic translations of otherwise lost classical Greek texts. If this not the proof of Muslim Empire and scholars greatly help preserving Greek texts then I don't know what is. As you probably know that the renaissance era was started from the fall of Toledo into the Spaniard's hands. Just for the sake of arguments, even if the Cristian world have most of their copies, are having the back up copies by the Muslim world really help preserving the books when there was no Google Drive around? At least we probably can agree that these Muslim scholars were not only appreciating but they were also cherishing the Greek books just like we are cherishing the PlayStation 5 not only appreciating it. For them it is part of their religious duty to contribute and spread the knowledge regardless they were from India, China or Greek. You need to understand that these scholars not only preserved the book but they cherished them. It's given fact that you only keep what you value and cherish, and by nature human are selective hoarders. Without the ransack of Baghdad by the Mongol where the rivers turned blue/black by the ink of the thrown and demolished books it's probably not an exaggeration to say that we probably living in Mars by now. The fact that the lesser backup copies in Toledo, Spain that fell into the European hands essentially initiated the knowledge revolutions or renaissance as they called it today. [1]https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/12/27/these-are-monks-who-still-preserve-ancient-texts-around-world https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/12/27/these-are-m...
  - 6y ago