Unity and diversity in contemporary antisemitism: the Bristol-Sheffield Hallam colloquium on contemporary antisemitism

Abstract

losophers suddenly burst onto the scene again, encouraged by the new regime, but with a new philosophy – that of Aristotle. Stroumsa tells us that the Almohad prince, Abū Ya‘qūb Yūsuf (reigned 1163–84), did not exactly commission the three layers of commentaries on Aristotle from Averroes, but the same “mode” applies to Almohad law, which starts from principles rather than being case law, and radical Aristotelianism, in which the same principles have to be universally applied (therefore, for example, Ptolemy cannot base his astronomy on “ad hoc solutions for specific problems” (153)). Nevertheless, Neoplatonic aspects remain prominent among Almohad philosophers. In the earlier section of the narrative it is difficult to distinguish philosophy from mysticism, especially in the case of Ibn Masarra’s tradition which inspired Ibn al-‘Arabī, the famous Sufi (d. 1240). Despite their various approaches Jewish and Muslim philosophers had in common their “yearning for perfection, for the sublime and the transcendent” (169). Stroumsa concludes the book with comments on the introduction of this Andalusian material into Europe through Arabic-Latin translations in the twelfth century, and the continuation of Arabic and Hebrew thought in al-Andalus beyond the twelfth century, when it became mysticism. The story continues!