Ancient and Mediaeval Science 29 



mediaeval traditions was partly due to the fact that Arabic studies were 

 considered a part of Oriental studies. The Arabists were left alone or 

 else in the company of other orientalists, such as Sanskrit, Chinese or 

 Malay scholars. That was not wrong but highly misleading. It is true 

 the network, our network, included other Oriental elements than the 

 Arabic or Hebrew, such as the Hindu ones to which reference has 

 already been made, but the largest part for centuries was woven with 

 Arabic threads. If all these threads were plucked out, the network 

 would break in the middle. 



Much in the field of orientalism is definitely exotic as far as we are 

 concerned, but the religious Hebrew traditions and the scientific Arabic 

 ones are not exotic, they are an integral part of our network today, they 

 are part and parcel of our spiritual existence. The Arabic side of our 

 culture cannot even be called Eastern, for a substantial part of it was 

 definitely Western. The Muslim Ibn Rushd and the Jew MAiMONmES 

 were born in Cordova within a few years of one another (1126, 1135); 

 al-Idrisi (XII-2), born in Ceuta, flourished in Sicily; Ibn Khaldun 

 (XIV-2), was a Tunisian; Ibn Battltta (XIV-2), a Moroccan. The list 

 of Moorish scientists and scholars is a very long one. Spain is proud 

 of them but without right, for she treated them, like a harsh stepmother, 

 without justice and without mercy. 



The Arabic culture^^ is of a singular interest to the student of human 

 traditions in general, to those whose greatest task it seems to them is 

 the rebuilding of human integrity in the face of national and inter- 

 national disasters, because it was, and to some extent still is, a bridge, 

 the main bridge between East and West. It is through that bridge that 

 the Hindu numerals, sines and chess, and the Chinese silk,^^ paper, and 

 porcelain reached Europe. Latin culture was Western, Chinese culture 

 was Eastern, but Arabic culture was both, for it extended all the way 

 from the Maghrib al-aqsa' to the Mashriq al-aqsa.^^ Latin culture 

 was Mediterranean and Atlantic, Hindu culture was bathed in the 

 Indian Ocean, Far Eastern culture in the Pacific; the Arabic sailors, 

 however, were as ubiquitous in all the oceans of the Middle Ages as the 

 English are in those of to-day. The Latin and Greek cultures were 

 Christian, Hebrew culture was Jewish, Eastern Asia was Buddhist; the 

 Arabic culture was primarily but not exclusively Islamic; it was stretched 

 out between the Christianism of the West and the Buddhism of the East 

 and touched both. 



Christendom was born in the Near East, its cradle being near the 

 cradle of its predecessor, Israel, and not very far from that of their oflF- 



^ The word "culture" is used here and further on instead of science or knowl- 

 edge in order to give more generality to my statements, a generality which is not 

 needed for my argument but is too interesting to be abandoned. 



^ Silk was the first Chinese gift to reach Europe (before the Christian era), yet 

 the art of producing silk and of using it was very largely transmitted by the Arabs. 

 T. F. Carter: Invention of printing (p. 88, New York 1925; Isis, 8, 361-73; 19, 

 426). 



^That is, from the Far West to the Far East, both terms having then an 

 absolute meaning which they have lost. 



