Читать книгу A Dictionary of Islam. Being a cyclopedia of the doctrines, rites, ceremonies, and customs, together with the technical and theological terms, of the Muhammadan religion онлайн

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A MUSLIM SCHOOL.

Much has been made by some writers of the liberal patronage extended to literature and science by ʿAbdu ʾr-Raḥmān and his successors as K͟halīfahs of Cordova in the Middle Ages. But there was nothing original, or Islāmic, in the literature thus patronised, for, as Professor Uerberweg remarks in his History of Philosophy, “the whole philosophy of the Arabians was a form of Aristotelianism, tempered more or less with Neo-Platonic conceptions.” The philosophical works of the Greeks and their works of medical and physical science, were translated from Greek into Arabic by Syrian Christians, and not by Arabian Muslims. Muḥammadans cannot be altogether credited with these literary undertakings.

Al-Maqqarī, in his History of the Dynasties of Spain, has an interesting notice of education in that country, in which he writes:—

“Respecting the state of science among the Andalusians (Spaniards), we must own in justice that the people of that country were the most ardent lovers of knowledge, as well as those who best knew how to appreciate and distinguish a learned man and an ignorant one; indeed, science was so much esteemed by them, that whoever had not been endowed by God with the necessary qualifications to acquire it, did everything in his power to distinguish himself, and conceal from the people his want of instruction; for an ignorant man was at all times looked upon as an object of the greatest contempt, while the learned man, on the contrary, was not only respected by all, nobles and plebeians, but was trusted and consulted on every occasion; his name was in every mouth, his power and influence had no limits, and he was preferred and distinguished in all the occasions of life.