The Arabo-Oriental Syncretism: Praxis of Philosophy, Avicenna and Beyond

The Arab culture with Abbasid Baghdad (۷۵۰-۱۲۵۸) as epicenter had embarked upon rendering the scientific, philosophical and literary legacy of its neighbor civilizations (Greco-Hellenistic, Syriac, Persian and Indian, chiefly) into Arabic in individual as well as official capacities under the banner of Baghdad’s Bait al-Hikmah. It was here that the wisdom corpus of the Schools of Nisibis and Edissa, the Academy of Jundishapur, the Library of Alexandria, the Imperial Library of Constantinople, and the academic depository of Buddhist Balkh was transformed into Arabic. The translation movement associated with itself a number of prolific translators such as Yaqub Al-Kindi (۸۰۱-۹۷۳), Hunain Ibn Ishaque (۸۰۹-۸۷۳), Ishaque Ibn Hunain (۸۳۰-۹۱۰), Thabit Ibn Qarra (۸۲۶-۹۰۶), Bakhtoshu Ibn Jibril (d. ۹۷۰), Abu Bishr Matta Ibn Yunus (d. ۹۴۰), and Qusta Ibn Luqa (۸۲۰-۹۱۲), among many others. Major Greco-Hellenistic scientific, mathematical, medical and philosophical texts (i.e. Galen, Euclid, Ptolemy, Theophrastus, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Simplicius, Brahamgupta, Aryabhatta, Charaka, Chanakya, etc) were translated, studied and commented upon in this period under the encouraging patronage of the Abbasid Caliphs al-Mansur (r. ۷۵۴-۷۷۵), Al-Rashid (r. ۷۸۶-۸۰۹) and Mamun (r. ۸۱۳-۸۳۳). This trend was facilitated by the encounter with Syraic Christians who maintained a rich, long-standing intellectual tradition of their own, had established Greek learning long before the arrival of the Muslims, and were often called upon to translate these texts from Greek and Syraic into Arabic. It was a historic moment for the Arab-Muslim orient to get initiated into a methodological enquiry on a plethora of cognitive and interpretative domains not confined to ontology, epistemology, natural theology, ethics, scholasticism, etc, but extended to mathematics, physics, astronomy, medicine and other empirical disciplines.

کلیدواژه ها:

The Arabo-Oriental ، Syncretism ، Praxis of Philosophy ، Avicenna ، Beyon