Science and adab in Islam. Palatial spaces for knowledge

Abstract

The first Arab philosophers assume the ideal of Humanitas and adopted the Ancient wise men as scientific, educational and cultural models. They were aware that the “sciences of the Ancients” (al-’Ulum al-awā‘il) were the common heritage of humanity and that the ultimate goal of knowledge was the philosophy, which allowed attaining (rational) knowledge of God. Adab, in its initial and broader definition, designated the education, understood similarly as Greek Paideia and Latin Humanitas. Scientific knowledge was an essential part of that education restricted to the elite (like the Paideia). Muslim rulers from the Umayyad period and especially since the ninth century, assume the education, the cultivation of the sciences and the philosophy as well as promoting the arts as the essential pillars of its policy and its legitimacy as sovereigns righteous and perfect. They created institutions linked to knowledge in their palaces; In the absence of clearly defined architectural typologies, descriptions of written sources can help us in identifying potential spaces for practice and safeguarding of knowledge in the Andalusian palaces preserved.