Robinson, Francis (1996) Knowledge, its transmission and the making of Muslim societies In: The Cambridge illustrated history of the Islamic world. Cambridge University Press.
Full text access: Open
In early Islam learning was seen as a religious duty equivalent to an act of worship. This led to minute studies of the Quran, the collection of hadiths or traditions of other sayings of the Prophet, and the compilation of a detailed corpus of legal precedent by the ulama, scholars. From the ninth century onwards muslim scholars also translated and studied Greek works in a wide range of subjects. The Sufis sought direct knowledge of God by personal experience. These two trends were largely reconciled by Al-Ghazzali, d.1111. In the modern period several reform movements have arisen to meet the challenge of western knowledge and dominance.
This is a Submitted version This version's date is: 1996 This item is not peer reviewed
https://repository.royalholloway.ac.uk/items/4a6f20a7-ff8e-08ca-ba93-958be62e3f67/2/
Deposited by Research Information System (atira) on 24-May-2012 in Royal Holloway Research Online.Last modified on 24-May-2012
To be republished in 'Islam, South Asia and the West', Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2006 forthcoming.