The Introduction of Arabic Philosophy into Europe Charles E. Butterworth and Blake A. Kessel, eds. New York: E. J. Brill, 1994, 149 pp.

Abstract

During the first three decades of this century, a lively debate
emerged in western academic circles regarding the extent of the
Arab-Islamic influence on western civilization. Certain scholars
rejected the idea that the West had been influenced in any significant
manner by the classical Arab-Islamic civilization (ninth to twelfth
centuries CE). Barnes, in The Intellectual History of Mankind, argues
that there is nothing in Islamic teachings or history that encouraged
the pursuit of learning and scholarship. Thus, he claimed, one cannot
speak of any "Islamic contribution" to western civilization. Sevier, in
his The Psychology of the Mussa/man, goes further and argues that
one cannot even speak of an "Arab" civilization, because all of the
knowledge and scholarship produced in the classical age of Islam
were due to Syrian, Jewish, Hindu, and Persian efforts. It naturally
follows that all talk of any Arab influence on the West is superfluous.
Other scholars presented counterarguments and took the position
that the Arab-Islamic influence on western civilization was very significant.
Briffault, in The Making of Humanity, credits classical Islamic
scholarship with producing the intellectual concepts and methods that
were the indispensable preludes to the European renaissance. Sarton,
in his Introduction to the History of Science, argues that the impact of
Hindu and Chinese cultures on the West can be totally disregarded
without seriously impairing one's ability to understand the postmedieval
progress of the West. But if the Arab-Islamic impact were to
be discounted, then the story of this progress would become confused
and unintelligible  ...