Spain. Departing from the example of him who burned the Alexandrian library, and from the traditionary tendencies of Mahometans in all ages, the Arabs of Bagdad, Cairo, and Cordova indulged in a period of enlightenment and of intellectual activity. This period was chiefly inaugurated by Almamun, the son of Harun-al-Raschid, and seventh of the Abbasside Caliphs at Bagdad (a.d. 810), who “invited the Muses from their ancient seats. His ambassadors at Constantinople, his agents in Armenia, Syria, and Egypt, collected the volumes of Grecian science; at his command they were translated by the most skilful interpreters into the Arabic language; his subjects were exhorted assiduously to peruse these instructive writings; and the successor of Mahomet assisted with pleasure and modesty at the assemblies and disputations of the learned.” “The age of Arabian learning continued about five hundred years till the great irruption of the Moguls, and was coeval with the darkest and most slothful period of European annals.”[1] It was during the twelfth century that the Arabs of Cordova became the schoolmasters of the “schoolmen,” and poured a flood of learning into Europe. The chief of them was the great Ibn-Raschid (A.D. 1120-1198), whose name was Latinised into Averroes. Besides other philosophical works, he wrote 'Commentaries' on all the principal works of Aristotle, and these were translated into Latin and published abroad. Averroes knew no Greek, and his commentaries were made upon the existing Arabic versions of Aristotle; but he
- ↑ Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’ chap. lii.
