"The Introduction of Arabic Learning into England"

Avrupa'daki ilmî faaliyetlerin ivme kazanması önemli ölçüde İslam medeniyetindeki ilim adamlarının meclislerinde yetişen Avrupalılar sayesinde ve bu ilim adamlarının yazdıkları Arapça kitapların Latince'ye tercümesiyle başlamıştır. Modern bilimin başlangıcı olarak gösterilen Kopernik'in güneş merkezli kainat tasavvurunun Müslüman bilim adamları ile irtibatını George Saliba Islamic science and the making of the European Renaissance ve  Rethinking the Roots of Modern Science - Arabic Manuscripts in European Libraries kitaplarında vermektedir. Avrupa'da Arapça bilen ilim adamlarının mevcudiyeti bu transferin keyfiyeti hakkında ipucu vermektedir. Arapça'dan Latince'ye yapılan tercüme faaliyeti üzerinde yoğun mesai harcayan Charles Burnett kendini "History of Islamic Influences in Europe - Avrupa'daki İslamî Tesirler Tarihi" profesörü olarak takdim etmektedir. İktibas edilecek kitap The Introduction of Arabic Learning into England, 1996 senesinde Dr. Burnett tarafından "Panizzi Lectures" serisi adı altında verilen konferansları havidir [1].

Adelard of Bath, at the beginning of his original work on the cosmos and the astrolabe (De opere astrolapsus), addressed Duke Henry, the future king Henry II, with the following words. The date is early in 1150 AD:

I thoroughly approve of the fact that the nobility of a royal race applies itself to the liberal arts. But I find it all the more remarkable that preoccupation in the affairs of government does not distract the mind from that study. Thus I understand that you, Henry, since you are the grandson of a king, have understood with the complete attention of your mind, what is said Philosophy: that states are blest either if they are handed over for philosophers to rule, or if their rulers adhere to philosophy. Since your childhood was once imbued with the scent of this reasoning, your mind preserves it for a long time, and the more heavily it is weighed down by outside occupations, the more diligently it withdraws itself from them. Hence it happens that you not only read carefully and with understanding those things that the writings of the Latins contain, but you also dare to wish to understand the opinions of the Arabs concerning the sphere, and the circles and movements of the planets. For you say that whoever lives in a house, if he is ignorant of its material or composition, its size or kind, it position or parts, is not worthy of such a dwelling. Thus, whoever has been born and brought up in the hall of the world, if he does not bother to get to know the reason behind such wonderful beauty after the age of discretion, is worthy of that hall and, if it were possible, should be thrown out. Having been asked by you frequently to do this, although I am not confident in my own strength, nevertheless, so that I may join philosophy to nobility in an example from our own age, I will attempt to fulfil you demand as far as I am able. Therefore I shall write in Latin what I have learnt in Arabic about the world and its parts. [sayfa 31-32]

Henry II was in constant contact with scholars who had been in Arabic-speaking regions and who had various degrees of competence in speaking, writing or reading the Arabic language. He would have been aware of the reputation Muslim scholars had in sciences. Adelard of Bath had acknowledged Arabs as his masters. Robert of Ketton quotes Hermann of Carinthia as claiming that al-Kindi is the reliable authority in astrology. John of Salisbury credits the Muslims as the only people to undertand geometry, which they pursue for the sake of astronomy. In 1168 Henry's party threatened that Henry would follow the religion of Nûr ad-Dîn, the Sultan of Aleppo, and become a Muslim, if the Pope did not depose Thomas Becket as archbishop of Catenbury. Perhaps this threat could have been taken more seriously at the time than modern scholars are inclined to believe. For, if we follow Adelard's words, Henry had been imbued in philosophy and curious about the studia Arabum from his very infancy. [sayfa 60]

What were the books that Daniel of Morley brought with him from Toledo? The only way to answer this question is to look at the sources of his own Philosophia. First, it is modeled very closely (and consciously) on Adelard of Bath's Natural Queations and De opere astrolapsus. Thus both the first book (on the lower worls) and the second book (on the higher world) begin with Daniel's claim that he is giving the 'doctrina Arabum' ('teachings of the Arabs') or the 'rationes Arabum' ('the logical arguments of the Arabs'), echoing Adelard's claim that the Natural Questions give the result of his investigation of the studia Arabum, whose hall-mark is reason. [sayfa 63]

One of the main things he [Roger Bacon] advocates for the new curriculum is the study of languages: Hebrew and Greek for theology, Arabic and Greek for philosophy. He does this because he finds completely unatisfactory the translations of Gerard of Cremona, Alfred of Shareshill, m,chael Scot and Hermann the German.[...]

[....]

Bacon's advocacy for learning Arabic was taken up by Ramon Llull, the indefatigable campaigner for the conversion of the Muslims. He successfully argued for the implementation of language-learning in the universites at the Concil of Vienne in 1312, where, for the first time officially, the Church ordained that lectureships in Arabic, Hebrew, Greek and 'Chaldee' (i.e., Aramaic ) should be established in each of the universities of Paris, Oxford, Salamanca and Bologna, and at the papal curia. [....] neither Bacon nor the Council of Vienne had any perceptible effect on studies of the Arabic language. The Arabic texts continued to be read in Latin translations. [sayfa 79-80]

Daniel [of Morley]'s mention of Toledo as the place where the 'quadrivium' flourished prompts Langbaine to consider the meaning of 'quadrivium' and the origins of its study, quoting Alexander Nequam, Pseudo-Boethius's De disciplina scholarium, John of Salisbury's Metalogicon, John of Basingstoke's account of Matthew Paris of St Albans, and more recent writers. Finally he adds:

One may suspect that these words trivium and quadrivium have been taken from the Arabs. For not only does Egidius de Thebaldis imply that in the preface to (his translation of) the Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy (from Arabic), when he says, 'according to quadrivial science', but also, unless the translation is faulty, Jacob Alkindi, an Arab who lived one century before Eutychius, in his work On weather forecasting, employs (the word) in the same sense in his preface, writing thus: 'Wise men knew that a man is not imbued in philosophy and does not know it before he can list weather forecasting among the subjects he knows, nor does he rise to that knowledge except after the four quadrivial sciences, which are the introduction to philosophy.'

In surmising that the term 'quadrivium' came from the Arabs, Langbaine was not unique in his time. In fact his frined, fellow book-worm and Arabist, John Selden, says mush the same. And it is with Selden's statement, which occurs in his translation and study of part of Eutychius's Arabic chronicle, concerning the patriarch of Alexandria, published in 1642 (to which Langbaine made reference in the page just quoted), that I would like to end this series of lectures. Selden wrote:

For the liberal and correctly taught sciences were formerly for a long time called by us [English] 'the studies of the Arabs' - the studia Arabum, as if called from the race and the places where they were then alone seriously cultivated. This is clear also from the preface to his Natural Questions of Adelard the monk of Bath (also called 'Athelard'), which he wrote when bringing the sciences back to England from the schools of the Arabs. [sayfa 83-84]

Charles Burnett'in 1988 tarihinde Bologno Üniversitesi'nin 900. sene-i devriyesi münasebetiyle yapılan bir seminerde , "The Introduction of Arabic Learning into British Schools (Arapça Öğreniminin Britanya Okullarına Girişi)" başlığıyla takdim ettiği tebliğde şunları söylemektedir [2]:

Arapça tetkikinin Britanya okullarına girişini üç merhaleye ayırmak mümkündür. İlk merhale matematik bilimleri ve tıp ile alakalı olup bu merhaleye Müslümanlar hem metin hem de teknik olarak katkıda bulunmuşlardır. Arapça felsefe geleneği (Arabic philosophy) XII. asrın sonundan önce Avrupa şuuruna tesir etmemiştir. İkinci merhale, Artistoteles'in tabiat felsefesi ile alakalı Arapça metinler ve Gazâlî, İbn Cebirol (Avicebron), Farabî, ve hepsinden öte İbn Sînâ felsefî eserlerini kapsamaktadır. Avrupa'da XIII. asır geniş, çok katmanlı bilgi sistemlerinin üretilmesi zamanıydı. Herşeye ihtiyaç duyulan böyle bir zamanda, İbn Rüd'ün ayrı ayrı üç sevideki Aristoteles yorumları tercüme edilmeli ve istifadeye sunulmalıydı. İbn Rüşd'ün felsefî tartışmaya girişi Britanya üzerindeki Arapça tesirin üçüncü ve son merhalesini oluşturmaktadır. [sayfa 51]

Bilinen en erken Avrupa metinleri  X. asrın bitiminden XI. asra kadar süren Arapça metin tetkiklerine dayanmaktadır. Onlar, kim olduğu bilinemeyen bir "Arap"a olan minnettarlığını ifade etmektedir. Zamanının en büyük Müslüman hocası olan Musullu Kemâleddîn b. Yûnus (v. 1242) da talebeleri arasında Hıristiyanların bulunmasıyla övünmekteydi. Talebelerinden Sirâceddin Urmevî, II. Frederick Hohenstaufen'in ev halkından birisi haline gelmiş ve onun için mantık hakkında bir kitap kaleme almıştır. [..] Ancak Arapça felsefe geleneğinin tesirinin boyutlarını en iyi şekilde mevcut Arapça metinler ve onların tercümeleri sayesinde ölçebiliriz. [sayfa 53]

Charles Burnett, "Arabic into Latin: the reception of Arabic Philosophy into Western Europe (Arapçadan Latinceye: Arapça Felsefe Geleneğinin Batı Avrupa'da Kabulü)" başlığıyla kaleme aldığı makalesinde Batı felsefesinde Arapça kaleme alınmış eserlerin oynadığı rolü belirleyebilmek için, yaklaşık XI. asırdan itibaren Latinceye terceme olunmaya başlanan Arapça felsefe eserleri üzerinde durmaktadır. Verdiği bir tabloda 1600 senesinden evvel terceme olunmuş 140 civarında kitabı listelemektedir. Bunların Avrupa'daki tesirini de iredelemektedir. Makalenin girişinde şunları yazmaktadır [3]:

Latin dünyasında Arapça konuşan felsefe hocalarının mevcudiyetine dair bazı ipuçlarına sahibiz. Bathlı Adelard (Adelard of Bath) (yetişkinlik dönemi 1116-1150) (tabiat felsefesine atıfla) kendi Arapça çalışmalarından (studia Arabica/Arabum studia) ve -muhtemelen güney İtalya ve Sicilya'da karşılaştığı- üstatlarından (magistri) bahsetmektedir. Antakya'da kozmoloji üzerine eserler kaleme alan Pisalı Stephen (Stephen of Pisa) (yetişkinlik dönemi 1127) "bir Arap"a olan minnettarlığını ifade etmektedir. Zamanının en büyük Müslüman hocası olan Musullu Kemâleddîn b. Yûnus (v. 1242) da talebeleri arasında Hıristiyanların bulunmasıyla övünmekteydi. Talebelerinden Sirâceddin Urmevî, II. Frederick Hohenstaufen'in ev halkından birisi haline gelmiş ve onun için mantık hakkında bir kitap kaleme almıştır. [..] Ancak Arapça felsefe geleneğinin tesirinin boyutlarını en iyi şekilde mevcut Arapça metinler ve onların tercümeleri sayesinde ölçebiliriz. 

Referanslar

[1] Charles Burnett, The Introduction of Arabic Learning into England, London, 1997.

[2] Charles E. Butterworth, Blake Andree Kessel (Editörler), The Introduction of Arabic Philosophy into Europe (İslâm Felsefesinin Avrupa'ya Girişi), Trc. Ömer Mahir Alper ve Ayşe Meral, İstanbul, 2001.

[3] Peter Adamson, Richard C. Taylor (Editörler), The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy (İslâm Felsefesine Giriş), Trc. M. Cüneyt Kaya, İstanbul, 2007, s. 405.