The Muslim Discovery of Europe

Abstract

I suppose that most textbooks of European history or of world history—which in European textbooks is much the same thing—contain a chapter called ‘The Age of the Discoveries’, or something of the kind, which deals with the period from the fifteenth century onwards when Western Europe set about discovering the rest of the world. My subject to-day is another and earlier discovery, in which the West European was not the explorer going forth to discover the barbarian, but the barbarian discovered by the explorer—the Muslim explorer. My purpose is to outline, very briefly, the sources, nature, and stages of growth of Muslim knowledge concerning Western Europe, first in the obscure centuries before the Crusades, then during that great offensive of Western Christendom against Islam, of which the expeditions to Palestine were the easternmost expression.

The Need of Ijtihad for Sustainable Development in Islam

“…In [7], author expressed that the exercise of independent judgment in early days produced a rich flowering of scientific activity and discovery but as soon as the gate of ijtihad was subsequently closed, a long period followed during which muslim science consisted of entirely of compilation and repetition.…”

“…Some scholars believe that gate of ijtihad was closed in thirteenth century rather than in tenth century. With reference to this, muslim scholars were on a view that this was mainly because of the belief that all the answers were already there and all that was needed to follow and obey [7]. But the movement for the revival of ijtihad began with Ibn-Taymmiyah who negated the concept of taqlid as for him taqlid was deviation from the Quran and Sunnah and was therefore an innovation, even polytheistic [5].…”

Images of Europe in Medieval Arabic Texts

“…Europa y el Islam han sido un 'Otro' respectivo fundamental en la Edad Media, en la cual vamos a centrarnos ahora, pero también lo han sido en los siguientes períodos, y por eso debemos tener presentes nuestros condicionamientos al abordar las percepciones medievales que de nosotros acuñó el ámbito araboislámico, en una larga cuenta de modeli-1 Entre otros, algunos de los cuales serán citados en este artículo, véase : Daniel, 1960;Djait, 1978;Lewis, 1982;Viguera, 1997;De Simone-Mandalà, 2002;El Cheikh, 2004;König, 2015;Hermes, 2012;Ducène, 2012;2014;Mandalà, 2010;2014. E zación de percepciones, que intencionada o espontáneamente, nos condicionan. La construcción europea está en la actualidad interesada por indagar las raíces y procesos que han conducido hasta su identidad, como resultado de una larga y compleja historia donde quedaron grabadas sus confrontaciones y su conformación frente a los 'Otros'.…”

The Political Economy of Imperialism, Decolonization, and Development

“…Europe's historical turning point began in the late feudal period when ideas and technology from the Muslim world diffused through Europe and sovereigns began to consolidate political and military power (Lewis 1982(Lewis , 1995. At this stage neither N nor S had reached the technological threshold for overseas conquest (ρ S < ρ N < ρ).…”