The Role of the Arab-Islamic World in the Rise of the West : Implications for Contemporary Trans-Cultural Relations

This book takes a fascinating look at the role of the Arab-Islamic world in the rise of the West. It examines the cultural transmission of ideas and institutions in a number of key areas, including science, philosophy, humanism, law, finance, commerce, as well as the Arab-Islamic world's overall impact on the Reformation and the Renaissance. This book takes a fascinating look at the role of the Arab-Islamic world in the rise of the West. It examines the cultural transmission of ideas and institutions in a number of key areas, including science, philosophy, humanism, law, finance, commerce, as well as the Arab- Islamic world's overall impact on the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment. Through this survey of cultural exchange and borrowing, the book challenges received Eurocentric narratives of the rise of the West. It also offers a timely and important discussion of the implications of this shared history for contemporary trans-cultural relations Front Matter....Pages i-viii Introduction: A Thousand Years of Amnesia....Pages 1-24 The Arabs and the Italian Renaissance....Pages 25-37 Re-orienting the Reformation? Prolegomena to a History of the Reformation’s Connection with the Islamic World....Pages 38-60 The Possible Contribution of Islamic Legal Institutions to the Emergence of a Rule of Law and the Modern State in Europe....Pages 61-83 Islamic Commerce and Finance in the Rise of the West....Pages 84-115 Suppressed or Falsified History? The Untold Story of Arab-Islamic Rationalist Philosophy....Pages 116-143 A Forgotten Debt: Humanism and Education, from the Orient to the West....Pages 144-166 The Arabic-Latin Intercultural Transmission of Scientific Knowledge in Pre-Modern Europe: Historical Context and Case Studies....Pages 167-219 Way Forward: Implications for Contemporary Trans-cultural Relations....Pages 220-232 Back Matter....Pages 233-241