THE TRANSMISSION OF LEARNING

In the early days the Latin West knew the Arabs only as conquerors and marauders. From the seventh to the ninth Christian century, Muslim invasions and raids in the Mediterranean basin (to which, rightly or wrongly, Pirenne attributes the function of breaking up its old economic and cultural unity), brought Christendom face to face with the warlike and destructive aspect of Islam. It was not until the second phase, when the Arab onslaught had passed its zenith, and these two religious and political worlds began to have contacts other than those of war, that the West became aware of the high level of culture and learning achieved by the ‘Saracens’ in their own domains. Envoys and individuals travelling for business reasons or as pilgrims were the first to bring news to Europe of the existence of Muslim culture and science. But above all it was the collective contact between Arab Islamic and Christian communities in the areas of mixed population on the borders between the two worlds that revealed to Christendom the wealth of cultural attainments of which the Arabs were now the depositaries, the promoters and the transmitters. A famous and much-quoted passage from the works of Alvaro of Cordova bears witness to the interest felt by Mozarabic circles in ninth-century Spain for Arab literature, including its poetry, ornate prose and epistolography; but from our point of view this is merely an isolated phenomenon. What impressed the West in the intellectual achievements of the Arabs was the role of mediators of Greek philosophy and science which they had assumed, and the impulse they had imparted to the various branches of learning.