Muslim Contributions to the History of Religions

Abstract

History of Religions in the West A universal, comparative history of the study of religions is still far from being written. Indeed, such a history is even hr from being conceived, because its components among the legacies of non-Western scholars have hardly been discovered. One such component, perhaps the most significant one, is the contributions made by Muslim scholars during the Middle Ages to this discipline. What is generally known and what has been documented in this field consists entirely of the contribution of Westdm scholars of religion. Even these Western scholars belong to the post-Enlightenment era of Wstern history. There is little work dealing with the history of religions which does not claim the middle of the nineteenth century CE as the beginning of this discipline. This may not be due only to the zeitgeist of the modem Wst that entails aversion, downgrading, and undermining of everything stemming from the Middie Ages; its justification may also be found in the intellectual poverty of the Christian West (Muslim Spain excluded) that spans that historical period. Although most works dealing with this field include some incidental references, paragraphs, pages, or short chapters on the contribution of the past, according to each author’s estimation, all of these studies are categorized under one of the two approaches to religion: philosophical or cubic. All of the reflective, speculative, philosophical, psychological, historical, and ethnological theories of the Greeks about the nature of the gods and goddesses and their origins, about the nature of humanity’s religion, its mison dsttre, and its function in society are described as philosophical quests for truth. It is maintained that the Greeks’ contribution to the study of religion showed their openness of mind and their curiosity about other religions and cultures ...