Knowledge Triumphant – The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam – Franz Rosenthal

Abstract:

“Civilizations tend to revolve around meaningful concepts of an abstract nature which more than anything else give them their distinctive nature,” Rosenthal begins his study, introducing his subject; this concept is, for Islamic civilization, knowledge, { ilm. The audacity of the undertaking is stunning; because, in essence, I regard Knowledge Triumphant as Rosenthal’s response to Ibn Huldun’s Muqaddima: the latter aimed at describing and analyzing the motor of world history, or actually, Islamic history; Rosenthal responded by claiming to have identified knowledge as the”