History of Islamic Origins of Western Education

Nakosteen has drawn from German, Persian, Arabic, English, and French sources as well as his own understanding of the Eastern and Western cultures gained from living and studying in both. As a result, the reader can form an over-all picture of the contributions of Islamic scholarship to the Western world, particularly through the development of European universities during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Professor Nakosteen's major research examines the following basic questions: Through what channels and to what extent did classical scholarship - Greco-Hellenistic, Syriac-Alexandrian, Zoroastrian, and Indian - reach the Muslims? What cumulative and creative additions, modifications, or adaptations of this classical learning took place in the hands of Muslim scholars and schoolmen from the eighth through the eleventh centuries? Through what channels and to what extent did the results of classical scholarship so preserved, enriched, and enlarged by the Muslims reach the Western world, mainly during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries? Finally, what were some of the basic contributions of the transmission of Muslim learning to the expansion and reconstruction of the West European curriculum, particularly on levels of higher and professional education?