/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.22714718]

What education would scholars during the islamic golden age have? What subjects, texts and thinkers would they study?

[Anonymous No.22715670]

Anything that they took from the Arabs is a good start so Aristotle. This isn’t my subject but if u can get your hands on “ SORCERY OR SCIENCE? Contesting Knowledge and Practice in West African Sufi Texts” it’s introduction and chapter 1 provides a good base on where to look.

Hopefully this helps

[Cuckold Pete No.22715830]

>>22714718
*Aristotle
*Galens works especially commentaries on Hippocrates (if you search them up, most Galen commentaries only exist in Arabic with the Greek original having been long snce lost)
*Hippocrates
*Avecinna

[Cuckold Pete No.22715864]

>>22714718
Buy this edition from the Great Books.

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Books-Western-World-Hippocrates/dp/B000GUOUH8

It's a great collection of medical stuff but they could have included a few Avicenna essays maybe.

[Anonymous No.22715904]

>>22714718
They knew Aristotle better than most people know themselves.

[Anonymous No.22716271]

>>22714718
Subjects of classical islamic education in general was islamic law, mathematics, astrology and medicine I believe. I might miss a few but these were the most important.

[Anonymous No.22716385]

>>22714718
To become a scholar, you must study Arabic grammar and morphology, then memorize the Qur'an typically by puberty, and then study a school of Islamic law and aqeedah. After that, scholars would specialize or spread thin,

Those into philosophy would read the Aristotle and the Platonics, read commentaries on them and refute them

Some would go into medicine, reading Galen and contemporary works by both Muslims and Dhimmi

Some would go further into Islamic studies, specializing into exegesis, hadith, comparative law and religion etc.

Most scholars would study all these at once

[Anonymous No.22716414]

>>22716385
cont.

You would find Muslim scholars on various sides of the spectrum taking sides in their reading the Greeks.

The Peripatetics championed Aristotle and his commentators, Al-Ghazali would famously write against them, despite clearly being influenced by them. Ibn Rushd would in turn refute Al-Ghazali's refutation, synthesizing Islam and Aristotelianism, which the Christians picked up from him.

Sufi mystics would typically be inclined to the Neoplatonics and Middle Platonics. The Zahirite scholar Ibn Hazm preferred Epicurus due to his own literalism and empiricsm despite Epicurus being an atheist.

Ibn Taymiyyah, the orthodox theologian, would famously say regarding "Greek logic" that one of lesser intelligence would find no benefit from it, and one of intelligence would find no need of it, which is a medieval form of the midwit meme

Unfortunately, I couldn't find much on their thoughts on Heraclitus

[Anonymous No.22716435]

>>22716385
>>22716414
It’s funny how both in Islam and Christianity you have the Platonic/Aristotelian divide with Platonists preferring a more mystical emanationist understanding and Aristotelians preferring a rational account focusing on the “attractive” side of God

[Anonymous No.22716459]

>>22716435
Christianity came forth from Middle Platonism, its theology was crystalized by Neoplatonists, and further evolved as they read more Aristotle, surviving through Arab manuscripts

Medieval Muslim scholars recognized Christianity as a religion changed by philosophy, particularly Neoplatonism, indentifying the Trinity as analogous to the Platonic triad. They observed Shia philosophers as falling into the same mistakes Christians made, which made Platonism fall out of favour in Sunni Islam

[Anonymous No.22716498]

>>22716414
>Unfortunately, I couldn't find much on their thoughts on Heraclitus
To be fair, I don't think medieval scholars really picked up on Heraclitus. No one really knew about him until he was "rediscovered" during the Enlightenment because there are no original texts of Heraclitus remaining, just fragments and testimonia

[Anonymous No.22716527]

>>22716459
Well the Trinity is there from the earliest Christians and in the New Testament in an embryonic form, it just gets developed with Greek philosophical terminology as the rise of “heresies” spawns a need for theological precision in the Christian church. This gets codified into an orthodoxy which is so terminologically precise that it seems to bear little resemblance to the thought of the early Christians, but according to the council fathers they were just clarifying what was implicit in the scriptures and tradition that was handed down to them.

I wouldn’t take Muslim critiques of Christianity too seriously for obvious reasons

[Anonymous No.22716536]

>>22716498
I think some contrarian Muslim scholars argued for the Sophists against Plato despite much of their writings were not preserved at their times.

We know early Pauline Greek theologians quoted Heraclitus independently. It could just be that Greeks, who translated the manuscripts, just weren't that interested in the Pre-Socratics as much as the Platonics and Aristotle

[Anonymous No.22716562]

>>22716527
>Well the Trinity is there from the earliest Christians
I couldn't find any Pre-Nicene Christian writing referring to the Holy Spirit as a person of God, it does not exist in the NT, even the Apochrypha. When I ask Christians, who I assume to be better read in their own religion, they too fail to find any.

If you read Paul and John, you get the sense that maybe the Arians were closer in theology to them instead of the Proto-Orthodox. Paul says "The head of every man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God" and in John, Jesus calls the Father "My God"

>I wouldn’t take Muslim critiques of Christianity too seriously for obvious reasons
Muslim polemics against Christianity was much more rigorous compared to its counterpart. When reading Aquinas, you can just tell he has never met a Muslim in his entire life. And John of Damascus doesn't seriously engage with Muslim theology

[Anonymous No.22716593]

>>22716536
They knew about him in the late Roman Empire for sure, but his works were probably lost around the Fall of Rome. Textual meta-analysis didn't become prominent till the late Renaissance when all the scholars came together and were like "wow they sure quote this guy Heraclitus a lot, but we don't have any full texts from him, so let's assemble all his quotations into a short work"

[Anonymous No.22716617]

>>22716562
Exceprt from Ibn Taymiyya's The True Answer to Those Who Have Corrupted the Religion of Christ (died 1328):
The point here is that the Christians have no successive transmission from Christ concerning the texts of these Gospels, and neither successive transmission nor fragmentary units for most of their laws.... Muslims, on the other hand, have for the Qur'an and their laws a successive transmission which is evident and well-known as to their general and particular applications.

The creed, which is the basis of their faith, their praying to the east, their permission of pork and omission of circumcision, their glorification of the cross and use of pictures in their churches and other practices -none of these are transmitted from Christ, nor is there a mention of them in the Gospels..."

[Anonymous No.22716694]

>>22716562
I don’t want to be offensive, but (assuming you are a Muslim) you appear to have imbibed the annoying tendency of your co-religionists to quotemine the Bible in order to prop up your point. This is particularly objectionable because you will also claim that all scriptures apart from the Qu’ran have been corrupted; and so your argument is basically invincible because any quote which looks to be in support of your view is held up as potentially authentic, whereas all others are declared to be corrupted.

Taking the New Testament as a whole, Jesus is clearly supposed to be divine (in some way) nor is it much of a stretch to conclude that the Spirit of God is likewise divine just as the spirit of a man is part of him.

You won’t find any statements to the effect that “the Holy Spirit is a person of God” because the terminology of person (hypostases) was a conciliar innovation intended to clarify the rather nebulous doctrine found in the New Testament.

God the Father being the head of Christ (which was said by Paul) could indeed be interpreted in an Aryan fashion, but it could also be interpreted in the Trinitarian fashion of the Father being the monarch of the Godhead. One could then quote anti-Aryan statements in the New Testament such as “the word was God”.

The point is to eke out a holistic doctrine which synthesises these various quotes and not to pick them out individually.

I claim that the idea of the Trinity deriving from Plato’s tripartite theory of soul is just silly. They have nothing in common other than the number 3 and the word logos. But they use the word logos to mean something entirely different. For Plato logos is the rational part of man, thymos is his emotional part, and Eros is his part relating to desire. This, as should be obvious, has nothing to do with the Trinity as conceived by Christians.

The Trinity derives from Christians doing their best to extract a coherent doctrine from the New Testament in line with what they believed to be their apostolic tradition.

Christian critiques of Islam are almost always bound to be worthless too. For obvious reasons: people choose these religions out of tribalism for the most part, and their criticisms of other religions are just attempts to justify themselves.

[Anonymous No.22716734]

>>22714718
Read carefully in this order while fasting and abstaining: Plato (Everything especially Timaeus), Aristotle (Physics, Metaphysics), Plotinus (Enneads), Proclus (Elements), ibn Arabi (Fusus Al-Hikam)
You are now fully ascended and schizopilled. Enjoy conversing with the spirits.

[Anonymous No.22716747]

>>22716694
I don't believe John's Gospel to be in the least bit authentic, but I have conceded that for my point. In the Christian's point of view, where the NT is incorruptible and preserved, there are certain things that conflict with Islam, of course. But even in that point of view, the Trinity is indefensible. It is not from Scripture, which is the point of Ibn Taymiyya >>22716617

>the terminology of person (hypostases) was a conciliar innovation
Rewording what I said earlier, is there any indication in the NT whatsoever that the Holy Spirit is divine in any way like Jesus is protrayed in the NT?

>The point is to eke out a holistic doctrine
I get what the conception of Trinity is getting at, but Occam's razor compels us to assume that the simplest explanation is the likeliest. It is simpler that instead of Trinity being an unspoken doctrine for centuries before Nicea, it is actually that the NT is in interal disagreement with regards to theology as it is with the events of Jesus' life, due to the fact that it was written by differing groups of men who weren't inspired

>people choose these religions out of tribalism
In Islamic theology, one cannot believe just because it is doctrine. One must be sure of the religion, and of the rivers of sureness is Logic. Christians do not justify the Trinity with Logic, because it is illogical in its own nature. Are they even sure in their own theology, or are they just taking a 'leap of faith'?

[Anonymous No.22716872]

>>22716747
(On where the Trinity/Holy Spirit is in the Bible)
I’m far from a great scholar on these matters, but I believe its ultimate root is in the Hebrew phrase “ruach ha kodesh” which shows up in the Hebrew Bible (like in the Psalms) frequently, Hebrew for “the Holy Spirit” or spirit (ruach) of holiness (ha kodesh), resting upon and inspiring various of the prophets.

Now, in an incredibly interesting and significant fact of both linguistics and the history of religion, the ruach ha kodesh (רוח הקודש) of Hebrew scripture becomes the rūḥ al-qudus (روح القدس) in the Arabic of the Quran, referring to God’s means of strengthening and inspiring Jesus several times.

However, I don’t really come down on any side in this debate. A part of me does heavily respect the lucid, clear, clean and simple monotheism of the Quran. I’m not quite at the cliched level of “all religions are one,” but I am at the more modest pluralist view that they are from a same central core of revelation (which is indeed the view of Islam, at least about the other Abrahamic faiths … that they all came from the same one God, except distortion, tahrif, happened to the earlier faiths and Islam is more pristine and undistorted through having a single passed down unaltered text of divine revelation, the Quran).

[Anonymous No.22716957]

>>22714718
In the Madrasah system, a boy would have come in already knowing how to read and write Arabic letters He would then study the following:

>Arabic morphology
The bane of every Arabic student and "mother of the sciences." The standard work was al-Jurjani's Avamil and Ibn Malik's Alfiyye

>Arabic grammar
The classic text on linguistics in the Mongol period was Jami's commentary on Ibn Hijab. It's technically a book of syntax but covers such things as proto-semiotics and other goodies.

>Logic
Aristotelian logic had been dumped in the trash a long time ago. Avicennan logic was the way and the standard beginner textbook was (still is) al-Abhari's Isaghuji (I had to memorize this when I was a student) and then either move on to more sophisticated books. These include Mullah Faneri's commentary on the Isaghuji and so forth.

>Mathematics
There were dozens of math textbooks on any given era and few really stand out as worth naming, but it was seen as an important disicpline. You couldn't study Islamic law if you didn't know your geometery.

>Composition and Rhetoric
al-Taftazani's series of books were and are still the gold standard.

>Articles of faith
There are a bunch of creed works, the Sunnis, Shia, and Ismaili assasinas all had their own creed. For Sunnis your looking at al-Taftazani's commentary on the creed of al-Nasafi. Both the Shia and the Ismaili assassins would be reading al-Tusi, he was an Ismaili before becoming a regular Twelver Shia and later disowned the book he wrote for the assasins (although they still teach it lol).

>Philosophy
al-Abhari wrote a nice little textbook summary of Avicenna and throughout the years dozens of commentaries were written on it. Each school of philosophy ended up having their own commentary on this textbook as a textbook intro to their own school. Nowadays, Mullah Sadra's one is the most popular. It's probably the most accessible intro to his thought too.

>Islamic Law
Different schools had their canon of texts which would have included introductory textbooks to canonical books.

>Sufism
There's a bunch and again it differs on the school. Everyone here saying the al-Fusus al-Hikam of Ibn Arabi are wrong. There's no way a beginner would be reading a book like that. It's a hard read and very dense. Usually, introductory books of Sufism were just outlining definitions and some general guidance for the student.


All of the people saying Aristotle and Plato are wrong. They weren't part of a basic education and both were overshadowed and replaced by Avicenna. Only archaic scholars ever bothered reading Aristotle after that point and although Plato had his fans he wasn't widely taught.

>>22716385
The distinction between secular and Islamic studies didn't exist and anyone born after the 9th century had little reason to read or refute Aristotle, he was already dead by that point.

[Anonymous No.22717050]

>>22716459
>They observed Shia philosophers as falling into the same mistakes Christians made
Can you list some things considered a shared platonic/shiite error from a sunni POV?

[Anonymous No.22717058]

The Arabs practiced first-cousin marriages for so long they made themselves retarded.

Its amazing people dont bring up how inbred they are lol

[Anonymous No.22717195]

>>22717058
Their dumbass sects made them retarded too, in the golden age muslims studied everything they were genuine scholars, if they continued that way modern day Islam would be looking very different