Arabism

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Arabism, which took up the impulses of the Academy of Gondishapur, prematurely brought the consciousness soul and the associated intellect to development, but not through man's own inner effort, but as if through a kind of revelation. Thus one could come to the knowledge of the outer nature, but the spiritual world remained closed. If it had not been for the flourishing Mohammedanism that curbed this impulse, man would have been cut off from his further spiritual development altogether.

Arabism and the consciousness soul

„Arabism is, on the one hand, a premature development of the consciousness soul. Through the soul-life working too early in the direction of the consciousness-soul, it offered the possibility of a spiritual wave pouring in from Asia through Africa, Southern Europe, Western Europe, which filled certain European people with an intellectualism which was not allowed to come until later; Southern and Western Europe received spiritual impulses in the seventh, eighth centuries which should not have come until the age of the consciousness-soul.

This spiritual wave could awaken the intellectual in man, but not the deeper experience through which the soul dives into the spirit-world. Now, when man in the fifteenth to the nineteenth century brought his faculty of knowledge into activity, he could only submerge himself to a depth of soul in which he had not yet encountered the spiritual world. The Arabism that entered European intellectual life kept the discerning souls away from the spirit world. It brought - prematurely - the intellect to bear, which could only grasp external nature.

And this Arabism proved to be very powerful. Whoever was seized by it, an inner - for the most part quite unconscious - arrogance began to seize the soul. He felt the power of intellectualism; but he did not feel the inability of the mere intellect to penetrate reality. So he abandoned himself to the outer sensuous reality which presented itself to man through itself; but he did not even think of approaching the spiritual reality.“ (Lit.:GA 26, p. 245f)

If it had not been for the flourishing Mohammedanism which dampened this impulse, man would have been cut off from his further spiritual development altogether. In this attenuated form, Arab culture was by all means an important cultural ferment for Europe.

„It was once the blessing of Europe that Arabic, Moorish culture spread over southern Europe. For that time it was fully entitled to that which, however, has now become ahrimanic.“ (Lit.:GA 159, p. 242f)

Arabism and Aristotelian science

„The inner content of Mohammedanism is essentially based on simple monotheistic ideas, which are limited to a divine fundamental being, whose nature and form one does not particularly investigate, which one does not fathom, but in whose will one surrenders, which one believes. That is why this religion is created to evoke an enormous trust in this will, which leads to fatalism, to willless surrender. This is why it was possible for these tribes to extend Arab domination over Syria, Mesopotamia, North Africa to the empire of the Visigoths in Spain in just a few human ages, so that already at the turn of the 7th to the 8th century the Moors spread their rule there and put their own culture in place of the Visigothic one.

Thus something completely new and different poured into European culture. In the spiritual, religious sphere, this Arab culture had only a simple content, which founded certain powers in the soul, but did not generate many ideas, did not particularly engage the spirit. This spirit was not filled with thinking about dogmas, about angels and demons and so on. But if the spirit was not filled with this, it was filled with what the Christian-Germanic tribes lacked at that time: with external scientificity. Here we find all those sciences developed, such as medicine, chemistry, mathematical thinking. The practical spirit that had been brought to Spain from Asia now found activity in seafaring and so on. It was brought over at a time when a spirit without science had founded its empire there. The Moorish cities became places of serious, scientific work: we see there a culture that anyone who knows it can only admire, of which a Humboldt said: "This breadth, this intensity, this sharpness of knowledge is without precedent in the history of civilisation." These Moorish scholars are full of foresight and profundity, and not only adopted Greek science like the Teutons, but pre-formed it. Aristotle also lived on among these, but among the Arabs the true Aristotle as the father of science, revered with great foresight. It is interesting to see how what was pre-formed in Greece, the Alexandrian culture, lived on there, and thus we have touched on one of the strangest currents in human intellectual life. The Arabs provided the foundations for objective science. This first flowed from there into the Anglo-Saxon monasteries in England and Ireland, where the old energetic Celtic blood lived. It was peculiar to see what a lively intercourse was initiated between them and Spain, and how there, where profundity and the ability to think existed, science revived through the mediation of the Arabs.

And it is a strange phenomenon when we see further that the Arabs, who at first took possession of the whole of Spain, were soon outwardly defeated in the battle of Poitiers in 732 by the Franks under Charles Martell. But the spiritual power of the Arabs remains invincible, and just as Greek learning once conquered Rome, so Arab learning conquers the West, confronting the victorious Germanic tribes. Now, when science, which is needed to widen the field of vision for commerce and world traffic, comes into being, when urban culture arises, we see that it is Arabic influences that assert themselves here, entirely new elements that flow in here and try to adapt themselves to the old ones.“ (Lit.:GA 51, p. 132ff)

Arabism and logic

„Logic is applicable to all worlds, but it can be applied directly only in relation to the physical world. So logic is absolutely bound to its instrument, to the physical brain, when it appears as human logic; purely conceptual thinking could never have come into the world without descending further into the sensuous world. You see, the formation of logical thinking is connected with the loss of the old clairvoyant perception; man has really had to buy logical thinking with this loss. He must again acquire the clairvoyant vision in addition to logical thinking. In later times man will acquire imagination in addition, but logical thinking will remain with him. First the human brain had to be created, man had to step out into the physical world. The head had first to be completely formed, like the ether head, so that this brain could be in the human being. Only then was it possible for man to descend into the physical world. In order to save the spiritual, however, the time had to be chosen when the last impulse towards purely mechanical, purely external thinking had not yet been given. If the Christ had appeared a few centuries later, then he would have come too late, so to speak, then humanity would have descended too far, it would have become too entangled with thinking, it would no longer have been able to understand the Christ. Before the last impulse the Christ had to appear, then the religious-spiritual current could still be saved as a current of faith. And then the last impulse could be given, which pushed man's thinking down to the lowest point, so that the thoughts were completely bound, banished to physical life. This was given by the Arabs and Mohammedans. Mohammedanism is nothing but a special episode in this Arabism, for in its passing over to Europe it gives the last influence to purely logical thinking, which cannot rise to higher, spiritual things.“ (Lit.:GA 105, p. 193)

Arabism and the science of the physical world

„The Arabs received what they have from Mohammed. Mohammed introduced science permeated only by the laws of the physical plan. The Christian monks got inspiration from the Moors. Although the Moors were repulsed by political power, monotheism, which entails a deepening of physical science, came to Europe through the Moors and led to a purification of Christianity from everything pagan. Through Christianity, the emotional life of the people was led to the Kama-Manas. Through Mohammedanism the mind, the spirit, was led down from spiritual life to the abstract comprehension of purely physical laws.“ (Lit.:GA 92, p. 18)

The influence of Arabism on Europe

„What one must bear in mind when considering European development up to the 9th century is that two phenomena clearly appear before the historically observant eye. One is the gradual decline of the Roman Empire and all that was connected with it; the other, however, is that at the same time oriental living conditions are blossoming. We see that in the Orient, far beyond the areas bordered by the Roman Empire to the East, cultural blossom is developing, albeit external, material cultural blossom. In other words, these countries, which the Roman Empire bordered on - one cannot even say that it bordered on them in its cultural flowering, but which it nominally encompassed - these countries are developing a brilliant material cultural flowering. Without this material cultural flowering, which developed on the periphery of the Roman Empire, it would have been impossible that later, when Mohammedanism blossomed, when Arabism asserted itself in the historical development, this Arabism was able to claim a large part of the world for itself in such a brilliant way up to the time of the 8th and 9th centuries. We can see that up to the 8th and 9th centuries Arab rule under the spiritual banner of Mohammed spread as far as Spain, but that in other directions European life also came into clear connection with everything that rose up as a cultural flowering around it. What the Arabs achieved, who then became the enemies of Europe, in Spain, in Sicily, from the Orient, had to be rooted in wealth, in brilliant material conditions. Only this made it possible for the Arabs to carry out such brilliant deeds of conquest. Where does this phenomenon come from, which is more closely connected than one might think with what happened in Europe up to the 9th century? Where does this phenomenon come from, that on the one hand the Roman Empire is declining, and on the other hand the Oriental being is experiencing a brilliant upswing and is having an extraordinary effect on the Occident? For it not only had an effect through its conquest, it had an extraordinary spiritual effect. One would not believe how much of what the Arabs, partly through the Greek education that they themselves had first adopted, which they interwove with their own being, has had an effect on the European Occident.

This European Occident, through the way it developed up to the 9th century, has not only one current in it. All of us, insofar as we participate in the formation of the Occident, have two clear currents within us. It is quite wrong to believe that only the one, Christian current has spread in the Occident; spiritually, what came from the Arabs has spread in the Occident. The way of thinking, the way of imagining, has penetrated deeply from Arabia into European conditions. In what the man of today - I do not mean the man who is afflicted with the humanities, but the man of general education - thinks about fate, about the order of nature, about life in general, there are the most manifold Arab thoughts, right down to the peasant's head. And if you take many of the things that dominate the minds of today, you will find that they contain Arabic thoughts.

What, among many other things, can be said to be characteristic of this Arab way of thinking that spread to Europe? It can be said to be particularly characteristic that this Arab way of thinking is, first of all, subtle, abstract, does not like the concrete, and therefore prefers to view all world and natural relations in abstractions. Alongside this is a development of the imagination that is not merely flourishing, but voluptuous. Just think of what develops alongside the sober, abstract way of thinking, which even shows itself in artistic Arabertism, in terms of fantasy about a kind of paradise, about a kind of beyond, with all the joys transferred from the sensual into this beyond. These two things running side by side: sober, materialistic observation of the conditions of nature and the world, on the one hand, and lavish fantasy life on the other hand, of course, in deadening and in becoming clever, is something that has been propagated right up to the present day. For if one wants to bring up something of the spiritual world today, yes, if one gives it in the form of fantasy, then people still go for it. Then they need not believe in it, but can accept it as a figment of the imagination. They put up with that, because besides that they want what they call real, genuine. But it has to be sober, it has to be dry, it has to be abstract.

These two things, which live as a second current in the soul life of Europe, have essentially come with Arabism. Arabism has been suppressed in many respects by war, but this type of conception has penetrated deeply into European life, especially into southern, western and central European life, and to a lesser extent into eastern European life; but even there, at least into what is called "education", it has penetrated to some extent. So that Christianity, which is quite different in regard to these things, had to struggle with these opposing ideas. If we want to understand Europe's development up to the 9th century, we must not disregard the fact that such Arab thoughts penetrated into Europe. One would not believe how much in Europe is actually close to Turkishness, close to Mohammedan culture in the thoughts that Europeans have about life, destiny and so on.“ (Lit.:GA 180, p. 284ff)

„It is only in the Renaissance period that science wakes up again. What was inspired by Greece and Rome becomes Arab wisdom, the spirit of Mohammedanism. Arabism then spread from Spain across Europe. This science is great in everything that relates to the immediate sensual. The science which in the most eminent sense became the stimulus for European science, which influenced Bacon and Spinoza, it springs from Spanish Arabism, it comes from Spain. But it cannot rise above a pantheism that cannot arrive at concrete spiritual beings. Arabism did not reach the concrete; it ascended to the sensuous human being, but what one saw above it was only an abstract divine unity of which one does not know what it is. A poor and comfortable view of the world! One has no knowledge of the spirit when it is summed up in a unity. Therein lies the poverty of pantheism.“ (Lit.:GA 104a, p. 91)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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