Seville: The first Arabic & Islamic Civilisation in Western Europe
Seville: The first Arabic & Islamic Civilisation in Western Europe
اشبيلية: اول حضارة عربية و أسلامية في اوروبا
Seville is the first capital city of a Western European country in which the Arts and the Arabic civilisation found ground to throw new roots and grow. The Arabs founded a University in Seville, where the knowledge of the world was collected, classified and taught by erudite Arab masters, before any other similar attempt in any other European country was made.
By means of this admirable work, these men managed to free the Greek- Arabic spirit from the East and acquaint it with Western Europe. The first great Neoplatonic School, built around 900 AD, declared its loyalty to the teachings of the great philosopher Empedocles and paved the way to a spiritual continuation in time. Thus is Seville of the 8th century and also in Cordoba, where the arab master Ibn Messara taught, the teachings of EMpedocles were heard for the first time. Besides, other sciences and arts such as Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, Mathematics Theory and Medicine began to spread from Seville to other Spanish and European cities.
Seville was initially regarded as an unimportant Roman city by the ARabs but around 1248 AD when it gradually fell into Christian hands, it had already evolved into a big artistic and commercial center, spiritually advanced where the Greek Arabic thought flourished. The advancement was uprecedented in Europe, and immensely important for the history of Western Europe in the Middle Ages but above all, it constituted a rich source for Renaissance.
A special and particularly gifted physiognomy was Averrois (1126 - 1198), IBN RUSHD. He was an Arabic forensic surgeon and a philosopher of Cordoba, who recapitulated the total of the Greek-Arabic philosophy and Aristotelism, in particular. He was a theologian, a physician and a jurist but above all he was a professed Aristotelist, to whom not only the preservation of the complete works of Aristotle, but also the correct interpretation of it, as well as the spreading of Aristotelian teaching over Europe, are attributed. This made Dante say "AVERROIS CHE I GRAND COMENTO FEC" , Canto IV. Averrois set the foundation stone of European philosophy after his works were translated into Latin. It is certain, of course, that a lot of Arabic historians, scientists and scholars left and inexhaustible amount of treasures behind them in Spain. In the library of Escorial in Spain one can still find papyrus and parchments of the Arabs and this has proved to be an invaluable source for a spiritual development in the Mediterranean.
Among the Arabic sources of Spain, the ones that were considered important were those of Dioscurides (phytology), the Spanish Paulus Orosius (Historia Adversus Paganos) who has written history up to the time of Honorius and Sofronius (St. Jerome, till 420 AD). The caliph Nassir had asked Roman-Constantine to send a translator to Cordoba, because there were no scholars that did translation work in Spain. Thus the monk Nikolaos arrived in Spain and translated Dioscurides from Latin into Greek. It is certain that there was scope for Latin-Arabic translation in Spain.
The translation of Baghdad of Dioscurides and others was corrected in Spain for a second time. This is the only way the excellent comprehension of the Aristotelian thought by Ibn Rushd (Averrois 1126 AD), as well as the fact that he managed to correct earlier historic texts can be explained.
As a consequence of this Greek- Latin- Arabic production the movement of the Arabic Latin translation of the Greek Arabic treasures made its appearance in Arab Spain. The Pope Silvester (999-1003 AD) was perhaps the first one that devised new symbols to replace the Arabic ones for numbers. Gerar of Tivoli, Leonardo Fibonacci, Adler of Bath, and some other Latins and Europeans started to translate the Greek-Arabic treasures from the Arabic texts. Greek scholars are interested in bridging the gap that was created in the ancient Greek texts by using Arabic texts of the first seven centuries of Islamism as a point of reference.
Nathaniel Smith maintains that the best Arabic works and books that were based on ancient Greek philosophy were in Spain in that time. The reason why the West did not get to know Ibn Khaldun and other Arabic philosophers in Spain, is that the Cardinal Kessiminis had ordered that all Arabic books should be burnt in the square of Granada, in 1499. According to the American professor, approximately a million rare books while according to other historians only 80000 were burnt. Only 261 books, which are in the Library of Escorial in Spain were saved. Consequently Seville is proven to be the first light of the Greek-Arabic Civilisation in Western Europe.
Also when the principality of the Algabites was declared as such in Sicily, in the ninth century, the Greek- Arabic civilisation flourished and continued to be alive in Sicily after the Normandic domination. Arabic sources attest that Frederick II (1215-1250) flourished in Arabic studies. There were also Arabic and Latin translators that translated the Islamic texts of various sciences, one of which was Michael Scot between 1220-1236 AD.