A01=Peter E. Pormann
Aeschylus
al-F r b
al-Kind
Allah
Arabic
Aristophanes
Aristotle
Author_Peter E. Pormann
Avicenna
Caliphate
Category=NHC
Category=QRAX
Category=QRP
Classical Civilisation
Classics
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Euripides
forthcoming
Galen
Graeco-Roman
Greek
Herodotus
Hesiod
Hippocrates
Homer
Ibn Rushd
Iliad
Iran
Islam
Islamic Medicine.
Islamic Philosophy
Islamic Republic of Iran
Koran
Latin
Menander
Ottoman Empire
Pindar
Plato
Qur n
Roman
Sappho
Sophocles
Sultan
Thucydides
Umayyad
Product details
- ISBN 9781509573523
- Publication Date: 09 Oct 2026
- Publisher: Polity Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Did you know that the Quran contains Greek stories; that medieval Muslims produced a rich literature on sexology, based in part on Greek sources; or that the Islamic Republic of Iran is partially modeled on Plato's Republic?
Muslim civilisation constantly engaged with the Graeco-Roman heritage in fascinating ways. This book shows how Islam was born in a Hellenised world and examines the profound engagement with classical art, philosophy, theology and science that resulted. The Abbasid Caliphate's translation of key Greek texts into Arabic even influenced the language's grammar and literature: courtiers recited Homer, with one Ottoman Sultan even visiting Troy to admire the graves of the heroes of the Iliad. Pormann shows how this legacy endures today, with classical scholarship shaping modern debates about the Quran both among modernists and fundamentalists. We can thus trace a line from Homer to al-Qaida.
Anybody interested in understanding the intellectually fruitful relationship between the Islamic civilization and the classical inheritance of the Graeco-Roman world will find rich pickings in this erudite and wide-ranging account.
Muslim civilisation constantly engaged with the Graeco-Roman heritage in fascinating ways. This book shows how Islam was born in a Hellenised world and examines the profound engagement with classical art, philosophy, theology and science that resulted. The Abbasid Caliphate's translation of key Greek texts into Arabic even influenced the language's grammar and literature: courtiers recited Homer, with one Ottoman Sultan even visiting Troy to admire the graves of the heroes of the Iliad. Pormann shows how this legacy endures today, with classical scholarship shaping modern debates about the Quran both among modernists and fundamentalists. We can thus trace a line from Homer to al-Qaida.
Anybody interested in understanding the intellectually fruitful relationship between the Islamic civilization and the classical inheritance of the Graeco-Roman world will find rich pickings in this erudite and wide-ranging account.
Peter E. Pormann is Professor of Classics & Graeco-Arabic Studies at the University of Manchester. His previous books include Medieval Islamic Medicine, and, with Peter Adamson, The Philosophical Works of al-Kind.
