Blog Post #2

Many Middle-Eastern philosophers left a lasting influence on the West in many ways. Due to the fact that the West has been predominantly Christian, the influence of the Middle-Eastern philosophers is rather subtle. Eventually, the thoughts and theories of Middle Eastern thinkers made their way into the concepts we still learn and study.
Early in the life of Christianity, Plato was more heavily favored over Aristotle. Christians at the time found many of Aristotle’s writings hard to reconcile with their very dogmatic brand of Christianity. The harsh tenants of Christianity at the time prevented the spread of Aristotle’s ideas. But it would be our friends in the Muslim Middle-East who would be able to pair their faith with the teachings of Aristotle. The Middle-East’s study of Aristotle eventually made it into the West and Western philosophy.
Perhaps the most interesting influence of the Middle-East on contemporary thinking is the primitive use of psychological treatment by the Muslim prodigy Avicenna. Avicenna was known to have implored a wide range of both physical and psychological treatments for ailments. He would often scare patients, and he would treat what we know call depression with music or reading. The revolutionary use of psychological treatment as early as 1037 is an astounding achievement.
Psychological treatment before the foundations of psychology had even been laid is impressive, but the Middle-East’s contributions to current ideas go beyond the bounds of soft science. Islam has a history that is more accepting of science than the early Christian Church. Many Muslim philosophers and theologians valued science unlike the Christians of the day. Muhammad even advocated the study of science, along side that of Theology. Some Muslim thinkers even theorized that science and religion were both means to the same end, meaning that science and religion both ended at the same truth. The idea that science and theology could compliment one another is an idea that eventually influenced Christian and other Western thinkers. The idea that religion and the sciences were not at odds with one another is an idea that continues to influence contemporary thinkers.