The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization
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Overview
For centuries following the fall of Rome, western Europe was a
benighted backwater, a world of subsistence farming, minimal literacy,
and violent conflict. Meanwhile Arab culture was thriving, dazzling
those Europeans fortunate enough to catch even a glimpse of the
scientific advances coming from Baghdad, Antioch, or the cities of
Persia, Central Asia, and Muslim Spain. T here, philosophers,
mathematicians, and astronomers were steadily advancing the frontiers of
knowledge and revitalizing the works of Plato and Aristotle. I n the
royal library of Baghdad, known as the House of Wisdom, an army of
scholars worked at the behest of the Abbasid caliphs. At a time when the
best book collections in Europe held several dozen volumes, the House
of Wisdom boasted as many as four hundred thousand.
Even
while their countrymen waged bloody Crusades against Muslims, a handful
of intrepid Christian scholars, thirsty for knowledge, traveled to Arab
lands and returned with priceless jewels of science, medicine, and
philosophy that laid the foundation for the Renaissance. I n this
brilliant, evocative book, Lyons shows just how much "Western" culture
owes to the glories of medieval Arab civilization, and reveals the
untold story of how Europe drank from the well of Muslim learning.
while their countrymen waged bloody Crusades against Muslims, a handful
of intrepid Christian scholars, thirsty for knowledge, traveled to Arab
lands and returned with priceless jewels of science, medicine, and
philosophy that laid the foundation for the Renaissance. I n this
brilliant, evocative book, Lyons shows just how much "Western" culture
owes to the glories of medieval Arab civilization, and reveals the
untold story of how Europe drank from the well of Muslim learning.
The remarkable story of how medieval Arab scholars made dazzling
advances in science and philosophy-and of the itinerant Europeans who
brought this knowledge back to the West.
FRESH PERSPECTIVE ON ARABS AND THE WEST: In today's climate of conflict and unrest, Jonathan Lyons's book describes a time when Muslim scholars shared profound treasures of knowledge with Christian counterparts.
INTREPID SCHOLAR-ADVENTURERS: Lyons tells the stories of men like Adelard of Bath and Michael Scot - Christians whose thirst for learning sent them thousands of miles from Northern Europe to the courts and libraries of Arabia and Moorish Spain, to return with vital advances in science, geography, and medicine.
HISTORY OF KNOWLEDGE THROUGH HISTORY OF PLACE: The House of Wisdom traces how the great Greek thinkers were preserved during the 1500 years of darkness in Europe, and how much global cooperation was involved in the Renaissance.
MODERN, INFORMED AUTHOR: Lyons spent many years in Iran and Indonesia, covering the Muslim world for Reuters. His expertise about the past is rooted in his experience of the present.
Sophisticated and thoughtful...In The House of Wisdom, Jonathan Lyons shapes his narrative around the travels of the little-known but extraordinary Adelard of Bath, an English monk who traveled to the East in the early 12th century and learned Arabic well enough to translate mathematical treatises into English.... Mr. Lyons's narrative is vivid and elegant.
Jonathan Lyons tells the story of the House of Wisdom, the caliphs who supported it and the people who worked there, at a riveting, breakneck pace.
Lyons capably delineates the fascinating journey of this knowledge to the West, highlighting a few key figures, including Adelard of Bath, whose years spent in Antioch paid off grandly in bringing forth his translations of Euclid and al-Khwarizmi; and Michael Scot, science adviser and court astrologer to Frederick II, who translated Avicenna and Averroes
This is a refreshing book, one that discovers, or rediscovers, common ground between Islam and Christendom, a historical survey that reminds us that civilizations can converse as well as clash.
- Title: The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization
- Author: Jonathan Lyons
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Press
- Print Publication Date: 2011
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 272
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781608191901, 9781608190584, 1608190587, 1608191907
- Resource ID: LLS:9781608191901
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T15:19:54Z
Jonathan Lyons served as an editor and foreign
correspondent-mostly in the Muslim world-for Reuters for more than
twenty years. He is now a researcher at the Global Terrorism Research
Center and a Ph.D. candidate in the sociology of religion, both at
Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.