Speaker: Fitzroy Morrissey
Topic: Islam and the Ancient Greeks
Venue: Vinson Lecture Theatre
Time: 16:30-17:30 Friday 7 October
Talk Summary:
Between 750 and 900 AD, with the financial support of caliphs and courtiers, almost all the existing major works of the ancient world were translated into Arabic. Anong these translations were books on astrology, geometry and medicine. Yet it was works of philosophy that were prized most of all. Fitzroy Morrissey tells the story of this remarkable intellectual ‘project’ and explains how the competing philosophies of Aristotle and his teacher Plato were harmonised and transformed within the Islamic world.
Fitzroy Morrissey is a historian of the Islamic world and a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He works on the intellectual history of the Muslim world, focusing on Sufism, Islamic philosophy, Muslim views of other religions and modern Islamic thought. He is the author of A Short History of Islamic Thought (2021).