Chapter 1 Classical Hellenistic Scepticism as a Background to the Appearance of Scepticism in Arabic Culture and The Kuzari

Abstract

In recent decades, academic research on sceptical trends in classical Greek and Latin cultures has flourished.1 Similarly, there have been great advances made in research into sceptical trends in Christian lands in the modern era.2 However, when it comes to sceptical trends in the Middle Ages, research has yet to thrive. Despite some interesting beginnings, research into sceptical manifestations in this period is still awaiting scholars who will further enrich our understanding.3 This is particularly true of Arabic culture and its Judeo-Arabic subculture,4 which blossomed during the classical Islamic period (from the ninth to the thirteenth century), a period parallel to the European High Middle Ages.5 Judah Halevi (aka Abū al-Ḥasan al-Lāwī, d. 1141) lived and worked in the Iberian Peninsula from the end of the eleventh century to the first decades of the twelfth century. His major literary output was poetry, a genre in which he excelled and in which he gained renown in his own lifetime.6 In the last years of his life, before he carried out his planned journey to the Land of Israel, Halevi wrote his only prose work.7 This composition, whose official title is The Book of Refutation