Islamic philosophy and thought and its influence upon Christian theology and European Philosophy

The Muslims captured and facilitated the development of all the intellectual accomplishments of Greece and transformed these achievements to the west before the establishment of any contact directly between the intellect of Greek and the Western mind. The influence of Muslim made the contemporary men who fell outside the Christian west to be recognized as human and also viewed as individuals of higher civilization (Bello). The origin of Islam can be traced to monotheism. Idolatry was conceived by Islam religion as its main obstacle and therefore the religion focused on subduing idolatry in the entire Arabs lands and throughout the globe. The Jewish and Christianity religions are accepted as the divine religion by the Islam Quran and this was not a challenge for Islam while spreading to West.

The Christianity religion reacted differently to the spread of Islam in West. There were people who criticized the Islam religion vehemently and therefore, they were not interested to accept this religion (Giostra). For example, Islam was considered in the De Haeresibus book by John as heresy. Islam religion was also attacked by Theophanes the Confessor who was the first Byzantine writer. In addition, Guilbert de Nogent criticized the Islam religion on the basis of pork and wine which was portrayed as a taboo in Islam. The method of experiment and observation was the main reason for the discovery of reaction time by Al-Birimi, the discovery of the formula on sensation by Al Kindi which indicated that the response of the organism is proportionate to the stimulus, and finally the findings by Ibn Haitian on optics.

The effects of the Muslim method of experiment and observation was recognized by Briffault on the West. Briffault further emphasized that the William of Normandy was followed by many Jews to England since they enjoyed his protection. Therefore, a school of science was established in Oxford where individuals such as Roger bacon managed to learn Arabic language and Arabic science which was contributed by the Oxford’s successors. No. The Muslim theologian’s impact on the West was considered secondary. There was great tension between the Christianity and Islam religions that was caused by the influence of these theologians (McMartin). The West knew the Muslim Theologians indirectly through their philosophical works and only one individual, Al Ghazali whose theology was declared directly as Western scholars.

The Muslim theology knowledge was inadequate for a long time because of two factors that contributed to the knowledge being meager. One of the factors was the information concerning Mu'tazilah and the idea that there was no information or experienced was gained from the works of the first theologian because the works were considered as secondhand. The scholar who was most affected by the nominalism of Al Ash’ari in the West was known as Occam who criticized his occasionalism and the theory of causality in order to establish the conception of divine knowledge of intuition. The translations which were done from Al Ghazali works by Gundisalvus helped to establish a relationship between the Muslim and Christian philosophers. The first scholar to initiate a public call on these translations was C.

Banker. The works of this scholar and that of E. The seminary of Salerno was established in the Naples’ Kingdom and the seminary offered various courses which included geometry, logic, music, grammar, cosmography, and rhetoric. Aristotle books and those which interpreted his philosophy were taken to Italy through the Salerno. The person who was appointed as the patron of the Muslim science was the Emperor Frederick of Sicily. The Emperor was the founder of the Naples’ seminary. The Emperor ordered the books of Aristotle to be translated into Latin. Gabriel. This was to prohibit the teachings and works of the Aristotle and his interpretations, and also the Ibn’s works, by the church. At this time, there were Western thinkers who benefited from the works of the great Muslim philosopher and they did not criticize ibn Sina and Aristotle works like other critics.