rebirth of learning in 1200s in Europe is result of Islamic scholarship of

[bobbieinok]

Moorish Spain

http://www.alphaeus.net/essays/moors.html

....

...In the Christian conquest of Spain, Europeans from all over gained access to works long forgotten or ignored by Europe. With a fervor reminiscent of the Muslims', European scholars flocked to Toledo, which served as the seat of this dissemination of Islamic knowledge (Padover 366). By the middle of the thirteenth century, much of the major Classical works and accompanying creative Arabic commentaries and scholarship was translated and already making an impact on Latin Christian scholarship, just as Islamic scholarship began to wind down (Britannica 17).

As knowledge was transmitted from madrasah to monastery, Europe entered what is called the "twelfth century renaissance." Just as Europe's population stabilized itself after Germanic invasion and later plague, she was introduced to a Greco-Syro-Persian-Hindu-Islamic wealth of knowledge which was quickly translated into Latin -- especially important was the Arabic text and commentaries on the work of Aristole which would be the seeds for an important movement called humanism (Britannica 27). This wealth of knowledge came primarily to Europe through the Moors' occupation of Spain, and their libraries and academies were the gateways to this knowledge Western Europe had not been exposed to since the Roman Empire. The "renaissance" of the 1100s was merely the precursor for the Great European Renaissance of art, science, and thought of the fifteenth century. Europe owes its rebirth in part to the extraordinary accomplishments of the Moors, their guides out of the Dark Age.


(one of the important figures in this Islamic scholarship was Averroes)

[GrumpyGreg]

1. Visiting Spain made me really aware of this.

[Drum]

2. Thanks for posting this

...truly interesting! Such things make me a little sad, and hopeful also---sad that such an exchange would appear impossible in the current world, and hopeful that it may someday be.
I enjoy hearing about these linkages in history, cultures and faiths.
Thanks again

[papau]

3. Meanwhile to the East the 300 year Ottoman horror was about to begin

with that 15th and 16th century European Renaissance as the Balkan's and Greece would learn of the "village" tax where the Ottoman's claimed the right to 5 to 8 year old boys that could be homosexually raped and brought up to be in the proper mindset of angry and not caring if they died - To be part of the Sultan's Janissaries.

The Janissaries were "hostage children" or "village tax" from Christian families. The family had no say in the matter. The Sultan wanted their sons, so he took them and trained them into "elite soldiers". There was not a limit of "one" from each family. If there were three sons of the right ages, then all three might be taken.

Of course the kids got close to "Islamic knowledge" in the process.

[bobbieinok]

7. and weren't castrati something that every court and church in Europe

wanted for their 'pure singing voices'??????

and even very young children could be executed for stealing a slice of bread in England.....and children were working at a very young age in the English mines and being sent up chimneys with a bit of fire 'encouragement' if they hesitated......these features lasted in England until at least the mid 1800s

IOW, evil is to be found in all societies

[readmoreoften]

9. Eunuchs have a long long history in Ancient Greece, Byzantium, China

There were actually three (or more) genders in these cultures. There were many, many eunuchs. Eunuchs served as secretaries to the heads of states, as masters of ceremonies, butlers, harem attendents. It was a way into the middle class. Some had the surgery performed in adult life. In most cases, impoverished mothers dashed their sons testicles against rocks so that they would be eligible for the good jobs that eunuchs were able to obtain.

[papau]

14. See link below - Eunuchs was a not a career path chosen - it was a status

that adults paid to have in their slaves.

Nicea forbade self-multilation amongst Christians, the Roman's outlawed it, the Greeks though poorly of those that allowed it - only in the far east, and later in the mid-east was it a resume winner for harem guard jobs under men who were scared of the unfaithful "wife".

And Governments did not order up children to be raped, although they did have jobs available signs out for new slaves to be made into Eunuchs.


http://www.well.com/user/aquarius/arnoldhug.htm

[papau]

11. And the English set kids on the street to starve if there was not enough

money in the house.

And today parents in the far east sell children to the sex trade.

I believe the horror need not be increased by governments - but it was during the time of the Ottoman.

[readmoreoften]

8. Homosexually raped?

You mean anally raped? Sodomized? When women are raped are they heterosexually raped? If a man is already a homosexual, and is raped, is that not homosexual rape because he was already homosexual, or is it double homosexual rape because they're both homosexuals? Is it only a heterosexual rape, if the woman is a lesbian? And just plain rape if the woman is straight?

So many questions.

[papau]

10. Read about the male 6 year olds being raped as SOP introduction

to their new world.

Not many questions - not much humor.

Homosexually raped appears to most to mean rape by the same sex - 6 year old boys raped not by the lady first grade teacher.

I am "sure" there was man-boy gay love. Feel free to attach your own terms to the village tax process.

[readmoreoften]

15. I find "homosexually raped" problematic. It's also inaccurate.

Homosexual rape could also be a woman raping another woman. I've never read about a culture that had an institution like this. And when was the last time any culture instituted a policy of women raping boys? I think we can just say "raped" here. Or even "male rape."

Of course, the village tax is abhorrent. But is it more abhorrent than the countless cultures that have normalized the concubinage of young girls? I suppose being especially outraged by a past culture's "homosexual rape" seems to elevate the importance of the bodily integrity of boys above that of girls.

I just want to point this out, because cultures that engaged in man-boy sex are seen as particularly offense, even though in most of these cultures the rape of young girls was always sanctioned.

The problem is rape and the enforced sexual slavery of anyone, particularly children, and not just boys.

[bleedingheart]

13. this is no different then what other cultures did at the time...

http://lexicorient.com/e.o/janissaries.htm

In fact the Janissaries came to be a very powerful group until disbanded.

If anything look at how the Christian monarchs of Spain treated the Jews...or how the Jews were housed in ghettos throughout Europe....no religion or group has any sort of monopoly on virtue.

[Igel]

4. Islam was no friend to Averroes.

Any more than the Catholic church was to Galileo.

"His most important original philosophical work was The Incoherence of the Incoherence (Tahafut al-tahafut), in which he defended Aristotelian philosophy against al-Ghazali's claims in The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifa), himself arguing against the earlier Aristotelian, Avicenna, that it was self-contradictory and an affront to the teachings of Islam.

"With the wave of fanaticism that swept Al Andalus at the end of the 12th century following the Almohads conquest, his high connections could not preserve him from political trouble and he was banished to an isolated place near Cordoba and closely monitored until shortly before his death (in Morocco). Many of his works in logic and metaphysics have been permanently lost in the ensuing censorship....

"In his work Fasl al-Maqāl (translated a. o. as The Decisive Treatise), Averroes stresses the importance of analytical thinking as a prerequisite to interpret the Qur'an; this is in contrast to orthodox Muslim theology, where the emphasis is less on analytical thinking but on extensive knowledge of sources other than the Qur'an."

Of course, orthodox Muslim theology wasn't innovated in the 12th century, but was already orthodox; it merely spread to Spain from points east, where learning had, alas, already mostly died on the vine.

It's amusing to note that Cordoba was one of the bits of the Roman Empire that was gained and lost in the 500s, and that the Slavic and then the Islamic invasions prevented the Empire from re-establishing itself there. Would be interesting to speculate what would have happened if in 627 AD the peace that broke out had continued for a couple of hundred years, instead of perishing under the sword.

[Hekate]

5. Spain flourished under the Moors

Jews, Muslims, Christians lived there in relative peace, and the arts and sciences blossomed.

Sadly, when the Christians finally won Spain from the Muslims that cultural high point came to an end. Jews were forced to convert -- those who would not were walked to the seashore and driven into the waves --> 1492.

Hekate

[bobbieinok]

6. I learned some about this in grad school study of German lit

in the middle ages

most people do not know the debt European scholars owed to the Muslims and Jews of Spain; the Islamic Moors apparently gave them space and some stability for learning and scholarship

[malaise]

12. I have been trying without success

for over two decades to get an Arab translated version of Aristotle's work. There is no doubt that the Europeans were introduced to Aristotle by Arabs.