Literary Analysis Essay on House of Wisdom Book

Introduction

Western historians' traditional view on the culture of Europe was that it had directly descended from classical Greek and Rome civilizations. This theory explains that the work of ancient authors most of which was in Latin and other in Greek was kept by the church after the Roman empire had fallen and re-emerged centuries later as a strong inspiration source in later middle ages where it was reborn. Few people can deny the strong influence that classical thought had on European thinking. Until just recently, the works of Greek dramatists and Thucydides homers work, work of Horace and Virgil among many others were part of every educated Europeans background culture.

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However, in science, the situation is very much different. In the 16th century after the twelfth century CE (Hijra), the writings of scholars like al-Ghazali, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and al-Bargnani were translated from Arab into Latin and it became esteemed and very well known in Western Europe. The studies of Aristotle were soon to become the primary influence of the thought of Europe. Aristotle's work was translated from Arabic with the commentaries of Rushd and Sina to the middle ages Europeans. The reviews are as significant as the work of Aristotle in the formation of European philosophical and scientific thought. Other works of science that had been translated originally from Greek to Arabic in the earlier centuries were all now also translated into Latin (Faruqi, 452). Most of these works were however from the Hellenistic periods and even though they had been written in Greek most of the authors came from the countries of eastern and near east Meditteranean. European writers over the centuries have been deeply grateful to the Rome and Greece masterpieces in literature, and most of them have been made to believe that Roman and Greek foundations were very influential to western civilization. This although, is not the case when it comes to technology and science.

The permanent theory of the Muslim-Christian enmity has been for a long time explored by Historians. It blooms in the Tora Bora caves and also in parts of the American academy. In Jonathan Lyons "House of Wisdom book," a clear and a well-written book which delves into the mysteries and all the musty corners to show how Arabic science moved in the world of Latin in the mid-ages and aided in the civilization of the rude Latin society. In this fascinating book, the author reveals an unknown period in our history. During the early medieval periods and the dark ages, the West of Europe had sunk to a bottomless pit of stagnation and ignorance. The philosophical and philosophical achievements made by the ancient world had been forgotten. Europeans had a hard time telling time or knowing when their Easter holidays were happening. Lyon argues on how the contact with the vibrant and intellectual Islamic world helped in removing ignorance out of Europe through using crusades (Lamb, 65).

Lyon tells about how mathematical, astronomical, geographical, navigational, financial, chemistry, gardening, architectural and engineering advances by the Arabs were passed into Europe through Spain, Sicily and crusader kingdoms which set ground and paved the way for the research in advances in science in the 17th and 16th centuries. The idea infiltration has left its traces in our language, algebra, algorithm, alcohol and the bright stars of Aldebaran and Betelgeuse Arabic naming. Under Baghdad Caliphs and later the Muslim Spain rulers, Arab philosophers and scientists rediscovered the great ancient Greece thinkers, and they then subjected them to thorough analysis. They also took their lessons from the traditional vibrations of Hindu India. While at the time Europe was cowered by narrowly minded misery, the Islamic leaders were open to many ideas and they also tolerated religious minorities and produced remarkable advances in astronomy, math, science and other fields of science (Kalin, 79).

With the Roman Empire fall in west Europe lost touch of much of its classic inheritance and became very isolated and was prone to invasions by the Byzantine Arabic Empire which had still kept most of its ancient learning. Jonathan Lyon narrates how the early medieval Christianity was not able to accurately measure the time of day for their monastically offices or even fix Easter dates while dogmatic hierarchy and scripture schemes left very little for natural science to measure. The influence of Aristotle was only confined to the logic and rhetoric of schools. Isidore, a bishop from Seville, exclaimed the idea of the earth being flat. On the other side, when Iraq was conquered by Arabs in the seventeenth century AD, they discovered living schools of learning natural science, medicine, Indian astronomy and mathematics and classical Greek civilization which had come in the path of Iran(Lamb, 76). Reasoning systematically forced out because of Muslim legal philosophy in favor of the prophets conduct and life precedents brought a new inquiry field in ancient cosmology and geography. In AD762 after Baghdad was founded, a library was instituted by Abbasid Caliphs and set a team of translators at Beit al-Hikma, which is translated to the title of Lyons book the "House of Wisdom."

Jonathan Lyons begins by contrasting vividly. In 1109, ten years after sacked Christians to put Muslims in Jerusalem, eastern Christians, and Muslims to the sword, a well-born scholar is known as Adelard of Bath departed for Antioch with a purpose of not killing Muslims but to investigate Arab studies(studia arabum). As it is often in the biography of the middle ages, some facts were made to work hard, and some scholars who were not Lyons doubted if Adelard fulfilled his quest of mastering Arabic. Nevertheless, Adelard is thought to have participated in the translation of the Arabic Euclid system of geometry, Al-Khwarizmi astronomical table elements and was also involved in composing of his original works like the usage of the Astrolabe. Adelard is perceived by Lyons as their first science man (Lamb, 129). This achievement was the pride of England Arabic learning and according to suddenly remarks in this passage where King Henry II enthusiasts in their quarrel about Thomas Becket posed a threat to the king when they claimed they would convert to Islam.

This book is very clearly written and contains marks of many years of thorough research as a reader one is left questioning about what happening to the vitality sap of the Islamic world. How did the Arabs lose their spirit of inquiring and questioning? What brought the Arab world to the current miserable state it is in and how did the world of Arabs surrender mainly to the west? I wish the author of the book had provided a brief outline on some of the questions which go beyond the books' scope.

Works Cited

Faruqi, Yasmeen Mahnaz. "Role of Muslim Intellectuals in the Development of Scientific Thought." Jurnal Ilmiah Peuradeun3.3 (2015): 451-466.

Kalin, Ibrahim. "Three views of science in the Islamic world." God, Life, and the Cosmos. Routledge, 2017. 65-98.Lamb, Connie. "The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization." Comparative Civilizations Review 67 (2012): 135.