The
Ghaznevides Mahmoud and Massoud in the first half of the eleventh
century, attracted to their Court not only Firdusi and Avicenna, but
Albyrouny, whose "Canon" became a text-book of Mohammedan science, and
who, for the range of his knowledge and the trained subtlety of his
mind, stands without a rival for his time.[14] The Spanish school, as
resulting directly in Edrisi, half Moslem, half Christian, like his
teachers, is of still more interest. One of its first traces may be
found in the Latin translation of the Arab _Almanack_ made by Bishop
Harib of Cordova in 961. It was dedicated and presented to Caliph
Hakem--one of our clearest proofs of the conscious interworking of
Catholic and Mahometan philosophy in the age of Pope Sylvester II. and
of our own St. Dunstan. A century later, on the recapture of Toledo by
Alfonso VI. (1084), an observatory was built, served by Jews and
Moslems, who had been steadily producing, through the whole of the
eleventh century, astronomical and geographical tables and dictionaries.
A whole tribe of commentators on place-names, on the climates and
constellations, and on geographical instruments was at work in this last
age of the Spanish Caliphate, and their results are brought together by
Abou Hamid of Granada and by Edrisi.
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