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Post by wraggy on Jun 10, 2012 4:52:21 GMT
I was wondering if any one has watched any of the documentary series East to West, aired on SBS in Australia. I watched episode 4 on the Muslim Renaissance last night (recorded). They mentioned the collapse of the West and the loss of knowledge and mentioned that there was no dark age in the East. I cannot recall any mention of the Byzantine empire. The documentary was produced by Professor Bekir Karliga and Bahcesehir University, Istanbul. They also mentioned how the West recovered the learning of the Greeks from the Muslims in Cordoba in Spain but I cannot recall them mentioning how the Muslims came to possess the works of the Greek natural philosophers in the first place. I am aware of the contribution of Islamic world to medieval natural philosophy. I have not long finished reading Lindbergs' Beginning of Western Science 2nd Ed where he has updated almost every page and included more information on Babylonian and the Islamic contribution. Has anyone seen the doco? And if you did, what did you think of it? . Here is a link to where you can see some of the Documentary www.sbs.com.au/documentary/program/911This six-part series tells the story of the birth and flourishing of civilisation in the Middle East and its huge influence on the West.
From the foundation of science, monotheism, commerce, justice, civil rights and artistic expression - look Eastward.
The series contends that history that starts from an ancient Greek perspective distorts the true path of civilisation. For crucial phases in world history, the political, economic and cultural centre was the Middle East.
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Post by himself on Jun 10, 2012 17:49:24 GMT
<i>I cannot recall them mentioning how the Muslims came to possess the works of the Greek natural philosophers in the first place.</i> That's a mystery all right. The West did not "recover" the learning of the Greeks from anywhere. For the most part, they never had it. The Romans had not bothered to translate it, and knowledge of Greek in the West decayed when the muslims conquered the Med and cut off Greek from Latin Europe. However, an effort was begun in Ostrogothic Italy by Boethius, and his translations of Aristotle, which became known as the Old Logic, formed the basis of learning in the cathedral schools. Similarly, Jaques of Venice brought Aristotle to Mt. St.-Michel directly from Byzantium; and William of Moerbeke from Byzantine Sicily. Sylvain Gougenheim has written a book, the precis of which is that the Cordoban connection, while important, was not all-important, as the same books were available in Byzantium in the original Greek and without the translation errors accumulated on the journey from Greek to Syriac to Arabic. His book is available in French and German, but I am still waiting for an English edition. www.amazon.com/Aristote-au-Mont-Saint-Michel-French-Edition/dp/2020965410/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339349953&sr=1-1An irony: the works of the faylasuf enjoyed greater reputation and circulation in the Latin West than in the House of Submission, where they were always viewed with grave suspicion. Edward Grant writes that all the faylasuf fell at one time or another under official censure. (Al-Kindi, for example, was publicly caned and his library confiscated.) Toby Huff notes the important difference between a study of nature that is institutionally embedded in a society and one that is pursued by solitary individuals. www.amazon.com/The-Rise-Early-Modern-Science/dp/0521529948/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339350404&sr=1-1A further irony: the age of Islamic natural philosophy came to an end with the Turkish and Mongol invasions. |
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Post by wraggy on Jun 11, 2012 2:52:03 GMT
I was hoping that some of the Aussies on this forum may have seen the Doco as it was on the Australian SBS channel.
Mr. O"Neill, you did not get a look at it by any chance?
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Post by eckadimmock on Jun 11, 2012 21:59:39 GMT
I didn't see it, but noticed this review in the SMH: www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/write-stuff-leads-us-into-the-light-20120608-201e0.htmlApparently Islam "granted" Europe the renaissance: "We might contemplate those findings while digesting the story of how Islam granted Europe its Renaissance, from which we still draw sustenance." Of course, the beastly Christians tore everything down in the Cordoba Utopia and achieved nothing between the fall of Rome and the renaissance. |
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Post by sandwiches on Jun 12, 2012 10:17:35 GMT
One of the most subjective, distorted areas of history - e.g. this recent correspondence in the Guardian: www.guardian.co.uk/global/2012/may/15/lettersGuardian Weekly Letters, 18 May 2012Even for an utterly inexpert person in history, I am well aware that the darkness that subdued most of Europe during the Middle Ages was brought about by the fundamentalism of a faith craving for power and domination: Christianity. It was thanks to the lifeline that the Muslim world had kept with the ancient classics that the Renaissance broke though the darkness of a feudal EuropeLaura Martin
Seville, Spainwww.guardian.co.uk/global/2012/may/29/letters?newsfeed=trueGuardian Weekly Letters, 1 June 2012With her gratuitous side-swipe at the Christian church as the "cause" of the fall of the Roman empire, Laura Martin (Reply, 18 May) reveals not that she is "an utterly inexpert person in history" but completely ignorant of history.While no one doubts the importance and influence of Islamic scholarship in the "revival" of European learning, it was undoubtedly the influence of Byzantine Christian scholars fleeing the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 that actually sparked the Renaissance in northern ItalyAn equally measured account of the role of the Christian church in the scholarship of late antiquity and the medieval period (with due acknowledgement of the importance of Islamic scholarship) is given in John (sic) Hannam's fascinating God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations for Modern Science (Icon Books, 2009).Brendan Byrne Mitcham, South Australia |
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Post by James Hannam on Jun 12, 2012 14:19:24 GMT
John is my identical twin who wrote the Aussie edition of God's Philosophers.
;D
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Post by unkleE on Jun 12, 2012 23:10:55 GMT
John is my identical twin who wrote the Aussie edition of God's Philosophers. ;D Does John have special skill in editing out long words so us colonials can read it??  |
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