more on Arabic treatment of Aristotle

From Brian Tierney, Western Europe in the Middle Ages: 300-1475, 6th ed.:

...Muslim thinkers also sought to recover the heritage of Greek metaphysics. Between 750 and 1000 all the major works of Aristotle were translated into Arabic, along with various Neoplatonic treatises and commentaries. As the translations appeared, Muslim thinkers turned to the task of reconciling all the new knowledge with the revealed truths of Islamic religion. A pioneer in this was work was Al-Kindi (d. ca. 870) who associated Muslim religious teachings with a Neoplatonic philosophy. It was more difficult to assimilate Aristotelian philosophy into a framework of Islamic thought, primarily because of the lack of a creator-god in Aristotle’s system. Nonetheless, Aristotelian studies flourished. The three most famous names from the tenth century onward are al-Farabi (d. 950), Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (d. 1036), and Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (d. 1198). Al-Farabi wrote extensive commentaries on Aristotle that made the writings of the Greek philosopher more accessible to Arabic-speaking people. Avicenna was an eclectic scholar who wrote in many fields and drew on both Aristotelian and Neoplatonic sources. Averroes insisted vigorously on the validity of Aristotle’s teachings, even when they seemed to conflict with the Muslim faith. He enjoyed a distinguished career as a judge at Cordoba, but was finally denounced and disgraced near the end of his life. After his death, the attempt to wed Islamic religion with Greek philosophy effectively came to an end in the Arab world. But the works of these last three Muslim masters became of immense importance in the development of medieval Western philosophy once they had been translated into Latin in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. (244)

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the only works of Aristotle that continued to be known in the West were the elementary logical treatises translated by Boethius. Aristotle’s works survived by Byzantine manuscripts and they were used in the West from the thirteenth century onward. But the first knowledge of the lost works of Aristotle came from Muslim sources. It was through contact with the Arab world that Western Christians eventually recovered the heritage of Greek philosophy. (411)

Tierney discusses some of the metaphysical beliefs and discussions of Aristotle and the Arab philosophers, but nothing really on rhetoric. It appears, though, that Muslims had similar struggles that Christians had: how to incorporate a pagan philosopher into a monotheistic paradigm. It also appears that the philosophy of these Muslims had an impact on Western philosophy in the twelfth and thirteenth century.

By the way, the textbook that I cited in the previous post has the defense of Jacqueline Felicie, a woman doctor who refused to wed and who was brought to court for practicing without a licence (because she couldn't go to the university that granted licences) in 1322. She lost her case, but it's interesting to me that she got to defend herself in court against male medical faculty. I can bring this to class next week if anyone wants to read it. It's about 2 pages or so. There is also an excerpt from Christine De Pizan's The Book of the City of Ladies, which Dr. Tolar Burton mentioned in class today, as well as a few other primary documents about women in Medieval Europe.