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)

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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