Studies in a Mosque - The Search For Mecca

184 STUDIES IN A MOSQUE.
doctrines of the Koran, to those who virtually rejected
the Koran altogether. There were moderate Muslim
schoolmen, extreme Muslim schoolmen, and philo-
sophers who were not Muslims at all—but these were
few ; and all alike owed their theories to Greek books.
As early as the second 'Abbasy Khalif's reign (760 a.d.
circ), the passion for translation from the Grreek had
begun with a rendering of Euclid ; and later on
El-Mamiin appointed official translators of Aristotle.
Aristotle was the staple authority ; but the works of
the Alexandrian school, especially Porphyry's Isagoge,
and Ptolemy's Almegist, held a high place in the
general esteem. And soon a very considerable
number of Grreek writers were done into Arabic and
devoured with avidity by a multitude of Mohammadan
students.
It is astonishing how little we know of the details
of this vehement study of Greek among the Arabs
and Persians. It seems hardly credible that the vast
number of works composed by the Arabian school of
philosophy should have been almost wholly swept
away by the overwhelming reaction to orthodoxy
which succeeded the transitory enthusiasm for reason
and culture. Yet even of the great names that shine
out of the dry pages of the Eastern annalists, as lights
in a dark world, we know very little at first-hand.
We hear of the mathematical and astronomical (rather
astrological) labours of El-Kindy, and his neo-
Pythagorean view of the universe. Schmolders has
published an iutroduction to Aristotle by El-Faraby
the ideal philosopher of the chroniclers ; of the great