Muslims in the Horizon of Thomas Aquinas, Part 3

Thomas at Naples

At Naples (1239-1244) Thomas witnessed Muslim philosophical tradition in the garb of Aristotle’s philosophy and Greek logic. The university was also known for its anti-papal tendencies due to Fredrick’s patronage.  “The studium at Naples was founded by Frederick II in 1224 to rival the papal studium at Bologna in particular. In the foundation charter of Frederick II explicitly stated that the first 1224 function of the studium was to train shrewd and intelligent men for the imperial service…it had clearly two fighting fronts, one toward the Church, the other toward Bologna.” Its anti-papal orientation can be gauged by its reactions to the papal anti-imperial decisions and policies. Lectures in the university were “suspended from 1229 to 1235 because pontifical troops invaded the Puglia. There was a temporary suspension of lectures in 1239 in retaliation for Frederick's second excommunication, but the professors of the studium pleaded with him not to close the studium altogether. When Frederick's anger abated, classes resumed on November '4, 1239, when Thomas entered the studium with other young nobles who were also oblates. In 1252 King Conrad moved the studium to Salerno, where there was already a school of medicine that dated back for centuries. In 1258 King Manfred returned it to Naples.”

Thomas did not study theology at Naples but liberal arts and philosophy; He was interested in Aristotelian natural philosophy and metaphysics at a time when students at Paris and other universities were forbidden by papal bulls to study them. Aristotelian philosophy was initially considered antithetical to the Christian faith and a tool of Muslim polemics against Christianity- that could have been one of the reasons that Fredrick encouraged translation of Aristotelian philosophy, along with Muslim commentaries, to undermine papal bulls and overly orthodox traditional tendencies. Aristotle was understood through the commentaries of the Muslim jurist, theologian, and philosopher Ibn Rushd commonly known as “commentator” in the Latin West. “Aristotle's natural philosophy into the schools in southern universities was the culture prevailing in Frederick's court in Palermo… The commentaries of Averroes were the most important single project of the early thirteenth-century translators. We do not know exactly who translated the rest of the Averroist corpus, but parts of it were in circulation by 1220 or by 1230, and these came from the pen of Michael Scot.”

Muslims and Greek Philosophy

Muslim philosophers such as Abu Nasr al-Farabi, Abu Ali Sina and theologians such as Abu Hamid al- Ghazali had closely studied Greek philosophy and acted and reacted to it. Ibn Rushd (Averrois) was heir to this long Muslim tradition and an expositor of Greco Islamic philosophical symbioses. Fredrick enthusiastically patronized Averrois’ commentaries and other Muslim scientific works. “The whole breadth of Aristotelian science, Arabic astronomy, and Greek medicine flourished in Palermo, Salerno, and Naples prior to their assimilation in northern universities.” Therefore Thomas’ early exposure to Aristotelian and Islamic philosophy was at Naples and not at Paris as commonly contended. Albert the Great and Paris University settings enhanced that experience but did not initiate it. The twelfth-century Latin Renaissance was centered in Spain and Sicily far before reaching the academic centers of France, Germany, and England.

Twelfth Century Renaissance

The European transition from the so-called Dark Ages to the Medieval Renaissance began in the twelfth century, partly due to the translation of countless philosophical and scientific Arabic manuscripts to Latin. Charles Homer Haskins, the Harvard historian of the Middle Ages, and advisor to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, noted that in Europe “A library of ca. 1100 would have little beyond the Bible and the Latin Fathers, with their Carolingian commentators, the service books of the church and various lives of saints, the textbooks of Boethius and some others, bits of local history, and perhaps certain of the Latin classics, too often covered with dust.” But the twelfth century witnessed a Latin campaign to translate books of “philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy unknown to the earlier mediaeval tradition and recovered from the Greeks and Arabs in the course of the twelfth century,” ushering in the “Twelfth Century Renaissance.”

Haskins stated that the “Renaissance of the twelfth century, like its Italian successor three hundred years later, drew its life from two principal sources. Each was based in part upon the knowledge and ideas already present in the Latin West, in part upon an influx of new learning and literature from the East. But whereas the Renaissance of the fifteenth century was concerned primarily with literature, that of the twelfth century was concerned even more with philosophy and science. And while in the Quattrocento the foreign source was wholly Greek, in the twelfth century it was also Arabic, derived from Spain and Sicily and Syria and Africa as well as from Constantinople.”

Early Muslims were heir to the Greek scientific and philosophical tradition long lost in the Western world. They also absorbed the Egyptian, Persian, Chinese and Indian traditions of knowledge, and created an Islamic synthesis in conformity with the fundamental principles of their faith. Steven P. Marrone stated “Taken in its entirety, the evolution of speculative thought in the Muslim world marked a considerable enrichment of the philosophical heritage of late Antiquity. And Arabic achievements in mathematics and natural philosophy, especially astronomy, laid the foundations for later medieval science in the West and ultimately set the stage for the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century.” E. J. Holymard observed that “During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there was a scientific renaissance in Europe, and scholars from Christian countries journeyed to Muslim universities in Spain, Egypt, Syria and even Morocco in order to acquire knowledge from their foes in religion but friends in learning. Arabic science soon began to filter through, and by the middle of the thirteenth century the trickle had become a river.”

Adelard of Bath

England’s ‘first scientist,’ Adelard of Bath, explained what he had learned from his Arab masters in these words: “From the Arab masters I have learned one thing, led by reason, while you are caught by the image of authority, and led by another halter. For what is an authority to be called, but a halter? As the brute beasts, indeed, are led anywhere by the halter, and have no idea by what they are led or why, but only follow the rope that holds them, so the authority of writers leads not a few of you into danger, tied and bound by brutish credulity.”

Haskins observed that the Muslims “with no native philosophy and science of their own, but with a marvelous power of assimilating the culture of others, quickly absorbed whatever they found in Western Asia, while in course of time, they added much from their own observation and from the peoples farther to the East. Arabic translations were made directly from the Greek, as in the case of Ptolemy's Almagest (A.D. 827), as well as from Syriac and Hebrew. Certain of the caliphs especially favored learning, while the universal diffusion of the Arabic language made communication easy and spread a common culture throughout Islam, regardless of political divisions. The most vigorous scientific and philosophical activity of the early Middle Ages lay in the lands of the Prophet, whether in the fields of medicine and mathematics or in those of astronomy, astrology, and alchemy. To their Greek inheritance, the Arabs added something of their own: observation of disease sufficiently accurate to permit of identification; large advances in arithmetic, algebra, and trigonometry, where we must also take account of Hindu contributions; and the standard astronomical tables of the Middle Ages. The reception of this science in Western Europe marks a turning point in the history of European intelligence. Until the twelfth century, the intellectual contacts between Christian Europe and the Arab world were few and unimportant.”

Muslim Spain

The Muslim Spain played a major role in this transmission process. “Spain's part was to serve as the chief link with the learning of the Mohammedan world; the very names of the translators who worked there illustrate the European character of the new search for learning: John of Seville, Hugh of Santalla, Plato of Tivoli, Gerard of Cremona, Hermann of Carinthia, Rudolf of Bruges, Robert of Chester, and the rest. Christian Spain was merely a transmitter to the North.” Haskins further observed that “when, in the twelfth century, the Latin world began to absorb this Oriental lore, the pioneers of the new learning turned chiefly to Spain, where one after another sought the key to knowledge in the mathematics and astronomy, the astrology and medicine and philosophy which were there stored up; and throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Spain remained the land of mystery, of the unknown yet knowable, for inquiring minds beyond the Pyrenees. The great adventure of the European scholar lay in the Peninsula…the lure of Spain began to act only in the twelfth century, and the active impulse toward the spread of Arabic learning came from beyond the Pyrenees and from men of diverse origins. The chief names are Adelard of Bath, Plato of Tivoli, Robert of Chester, Hermann of Carinthia, with his pupil Rudolf of Bruges, and Gerard of Cremona, while in Spain itself we have Dominicus Gondisalvi, Hugh of Santalla, and a group of Jewish scholars, Petrus Alphonsi, John of Seville, Savasorda, and Abraham ben Ezra. Much in their biography and relations with one another is still obscure. Their work was at first confined to no single place, but translation was carried on at Barcelona, Tarazona, Segovia, Leon, Pampiona, as well as beyond the Pyrenees at Toulouse, Beziers, Narbonne, and Marseilles. Later, however, the chief centre became Toledo.”

The European pursuit of Arabic and Islamic knowledge continued for the next few centuries, culminating in an insatiable philosophical and scientific curiosity in France, Italy and many other areas of Northern Europe. Haskins notes that “This Spanish tide flowed over the Pyrenees into Southern France, to centres like Narbonne, Beziers, Toulouse, Montpellier, and Marseilles, where the new astronomy appears as early as 1139 and traces can also be found of the astrology, philosophy, and medicine of the Arabs on into the fourteenth century.”

Muslim Sicily

In Italy, the cultural and philosophical revival first started in the South. Sicily had been under the Muslim rule from 902 to 1091. Additionally, Italian city-states such as Amalfi, Venice, Milan, Genoa, and Florence were in constant close relations with Muslim Spain, Sicily, North Africa, Syria, and Egypt. Their lucrative international trade with the Middle East was ongoing long before the Crusades; it flourished during the two centuries of Crusader presence in the Holy Land and continued afterward. The Italian merchants transmitted a host of skills, sciences, arts, and values to the Italian Peninsula. For instance, “Leonard of Pisa, son of a Pisan customs official in North Africa, acquired there a familiarity with Arabic mathematics which made him the leading European mathematician of the thirteenth century.”

The Sicilian contributions to the translation and transmission movement were far greater than any other Italian state. The process was not impeded by the Norman conquest of Sicily. In fact, the opposite was true; the Norman conquest of Sicily greatly enhanced and facilitated the transmission process. Haskins states that there was “one Italian land which took more direct part in the movement, namely Sicily. Midway between Europe and Africa, Sicily had been under Arab rule from 902 to 1091, and under the Normans who followed it retained a large Mohammedan element in its population. Moreover, it had many commercial relations with Mohammedan countries, while King Roger conducted campaigns in Northern Africa and Frederick II made an expedition to Palestine. Arabian physicians and astrologers were employed at the Sicilian court, and one of the great works of Arabic learning, the Geography of Edrisi, was composed at King Roger's command. A contemporary scholar, Eugene the Emir, translated the Optics of Ptolemy, while under Frederick II Michael Scot and Theodore of Antioch made versions of Arabic works on zoology for the Emperor's use. Frederick also maintained a correspondence on scientific topics with many sovereigns and scholars of Mohammedan lands, and the work of translation went on under his son and successor Manfred, while we should probably refer to this Sicilian centre some of the versions by unknown authors.”

Muslim Medium

Western Europe learned, understood, and digested much Greco-Roman science through the Muslim medium. It does not make sense that Europe, which for centuries had no or minimal contact with the Greco-Roman sciences and philosophy, suddenly woke up to understand, digest, master, and apply this sophisticated philosophical concept and scientific precincts. The Europeans needed a continuous philosophical and scientific tradition with relevant contemporary vocabulary, concepts, explanations, and understandings to make sense of an old philosophical legacy and scientific heritage. This legacy was well preserved, explained, adapted, and synthesized by Muslim cultures and traditions, as George Saliba very well demonstrates. Latin Europe received a well-preserved and cooked scientific tradition from the East, initially absorbing it as it was and then expanding upon it with the passage of time. The assimilation and expansion process left an indelible imprint upon the outcome; Haskins states that the “indebtedness of the Western world to the Arabs is well illustrated in the scientific and commercial terms which its various languages have borrowed untranslated from the Arabic. Words like algebra, zero, and cipher tell their own tale, as do 'Arabic' numerals and the word algorism which long distinguished their use as taught by al-Khwarizmi. In astronomy, the same process is exemplified in almanac, zenith, nadir, and azimuth. From the Arabic we get alchemy, and perhaps chemistry, as well as alcohol, alkali, elixir, alembic, not to mention pharmaceutical terms like syrup and gum arabic. In the field of trade and navigation, we have hazar and tariff, admiral and arsenal, and products of Mohammedan lands such as sugar and cotton, the muslin of Mosul and the damask of Damascus, the leather of Cordova and Morocco. Such fossils of our vocabulary reveal whole chapters of human intercourse in the Mediterranean. If Arabic learning reached Latin Christendom at many points, direct translation from the Greek was in the twelfth century almost wholly confined to Italy, where the most important meeting-point of Greek and Latin culture was the Norman kingdom of Southern Italy and Sicily.”

The Italian peninsula was too close to Muslim Sicily and Spain to escape Islamic influences. The Islamic bridge did help in transmitting many sciences, technologies, ideas and institutions to Italy. Transmission of Arabic manuscripts from Spain and Sicily to Southern Italy was quite easy, and “it was through Spain and Sicily that Muslim learning penetrated Latin Christendom and helped stimulate the cultural awakening of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.”

Thomas Aquinas was heir to the long Muslim philosophical legacy.