Islamic Science and the Making of Renaissance Europe

A very interesting lecture given by George Saliba, a senior distinguished visiting scholar in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress and in Columbia University.

It provides proof of the fact that indeed the Renaissance scholars of Europe were indeed copying much of the work without appropriately giving credit for it - and raises the question of why it is that 'Western' writers of the history of science also fail to give such credit - and simply call it all western - from the ancient Greeks straight to renaissance Europe via the preservation of the Arabic scholars.

The reality was that the old knowledge of the Greeks were improved vastly and added to by the Islamic scholars.

ps Arabic and Islamic are not terms used to refer to ethnicity or religion - only that it was presented in the Islamic civilisations and used the Arabic language for scholarship.

Nasruddin Tusi - the Khurasani Scholar is referred to many times.

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George Saliba, senior distinguished visiting scholar in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, presented a talk on "Islamic Science and The Making of Renaissance Europe."

Saliba's illustrated talk explored the scientific ideas that passed from the Islamic world to the European Renaissance during the 15th and 16th centuries. He showed the connection between mathematical innovations produced in the Islamic world and mathematical astronomy during the Renaissance. Saliba relied on evidence that was culled from copies of original Arabic scientific manuscripts and their Latin counterparts.

Speaker Biography: Librarian of Congress James H. Billington named George Saliba to a 10-month post as a Kluge scholar last July. Saliba is professor of Arabic and Islamic science in the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University. He received a master's degree in Semitic languages and a doctorate in Islamic sciences from the University of California at Berkeley. Saliba has been a professor at Columbia since 1979.

Reviving the Ihyaa

Dear reader,

One of the objectives of this blog is to bring to the forth the traditions of thought that existed in Khurasan and continue to exist amongst its population today ( albeit in a very quite manner). One of the major components of that tradition of thought concerned Islam.
One of the biggest thinkers in Islamic intellectual thought is Imaam Ghazali - a native of the town of Nishapour - one of the four capital cities of Khurasan.
Here is a lecture given by Abdul Hakeem Muraad aka Tim Winters, entitled "Reviving the Ihyaa" at the West London School of Islamic Studies.

CLICK HERE for the video lecture.

CLICK HERE for the more information on Imaam Ghazali

The Gulf Naming Game, the Inverted Reality & the 'Global Balkans'

Payvand's Iran News ...

10/12/07

By K. Darbandi

“ In some parts of the world, the nation state, on which the existing international system was based, is either giving up its traditional aspects, like in Europe, or as in the Middle East, where it was never really fully established, it is no longer the defining element.” (H., Kissinger, June 2007)

The Naming Game

Various branches of the U.S. armed forces have issued directives to their members to use the "Arabian Gulf" when operating in the area. This is claimed to be due to increased cooperation with Arab states of the Persian Gulf, but also to follow local laws that ban the use of "Persian Gulf". In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), consisting of seven emirates: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain, public usage of the name “Persian Gulf” is illegal. The nationalistic sensibilities of the ruling Families does not go much beyond waging this nominal jihad. The name of the body of water is most important to Arab nationalism, but what is porting by the water apparently is not a matter of national concern: UAE ports host more US Navy ships than anywhere else outside of US[1][1].

In this federation of hereditary Sheikdoms, referred to by US government as a “constitutional republic”, only 15-20 percent of the population are considered locals and enjoy some form of social security and public services, and there is no electoral system to express the ‘national’ will of the privileged citizens. The Nation is practically absent in the Nationalism of the Sheiks. The military branch of US government, however, does not have any operational directives on how to deal with the total absence of even a Saudi style electoral process in this Arab host nation. Instead, the Air Warfare Center, the leading fighter training center in the Middle East is also hosted by UAE

American universities in the region have also dropped references to "Persian Gulf" in their teaching materials.[2][2] While these institutes of higher education have shown immeasurable flexibility to adapt to the sensibilities of the ‘host’ countries, they are totally silent to the plight of the majority living in UAE: the other 80 or so percent that make the economic wheels turn in UAE, are considered so alien to the identity of this Arab ‘nation’ that can not stay in the country passed retirement age without a job; they are officially labeled ‘deportable aliens’ by UAE government. Once there is nothing left to extract of these migrant slaves, their immaturely-aged and worn out bodies will be shipped back to India, Pakistan and Srilanka to be secured by the non-existent safety nets of the country of origin. While UAE, thanks to the land carvings of prewar British has the second highest GDP per capita in the world, its million-plus guest-slaves are grossly underpaid as they are kept hostage, for their passports are held by Arab employers.[3][3] American universities in the region, affiliated with major universities in the patron-state, do graduate engineers and managers for the biggest construction boom in the world currently underway in UAE, but have not said or done much for the labor force that is employed in UAE’s construction industry.[4][4]

By law, teachers in the UAE public school systems are prohibited to utter the phrase “Persian Gulf” in classrooms, to keep the mind of the Arab children in line with a ‘national’ identity that can trace its roots to 1971; historical maps of the Gulf are desecrated to erase the ‘Persian’ word, and children in school trips are deprived of original depictions and educational documents (click here to see map).

UAE, posing as a leader in Arab National identity, was a British protectorate since 1850s, and was previously called the “Pirate Coast” by the protector, for it was the den of pirates attacking trade ships of the East India Company passing through the Hormoz! It never went through any war of independence, but through back door dealings, was granted independence by the British in 1971, along with an army of British educated officer corps. Its many ports facilities and shoreline dwarf Iraq’s Um-UlQasr, the sole port of the country of Iraq, the country of 20-plus million of Arab peoples. They fought a war of independence against the British in the 1920s, and they were rewarded with Um-UlQasr.

This unhistorical Meta-bazaar is also an unnatural society from a gender perspective: has a trait non-existent in other human societies: there exists a peculiar, abnormal disparity between the male and female population. There are less than one female for every two men in this recently formed multi-city-state. The US State department refers to UAE as a “modern, developed country”.

While playing the Naming Game, this artificial construct, a demographic paradise and a -true NDC model for Kissinger’s “Population growth & economic development”[5][5], is an exceptional example of gender-inequality, barbaric economic exploitation, one of the last states in the world devoid of an electoral system, and a vivid point of entry for US military expansion in the Gulf. The US policy towards this super-wealthy stain of inequality & inhumanity is partially summarized in the manner in which its regional institutions, from its military to its universities play the Naming Game.

Since the Gulf War of 1991, Jebel Ali port in Dubai has become crucial to the U.S. naval operations in the Persian Gulf; it is the safest liberty port in the region and the only harbor in the Gulf deep enough to berth an aircraft carrier.[6][6] And the show-case UAE army, originated by the British-educated top brass, is a major financial lubricator of the Military Industry in the United States.[7][7] The Air Warfare Center, the leading fighter training center in the Middle East is also hosted by UAE.

The Department of State describes UAE as a “a federation of seven independent emirates, each with its own ruler. The federal government is a constitutional republic, headed by a president and council of ministers. … The UAE is a modern, developed country, and tourist facilities are widely available.”

The Gulf of “Little-Big Sheiks” or ‘Filthy Pool of Toxins’

The 19^th century German dialectician-Philosopher, F. W. Hegel, was familiar with Rumi’s grapplings and spiritual struggles: the infinite struggles of the mind to settle the tension of Contradictions in the resolution of the Unity[8][8]. In one of his essays, he showed how erroneous thinking is abstract thinking, and it is indeed the way most people are driven to think. [9][9]

The prevalent utterances on both sides of the Gulf Naming Game, to some racist, to others nationalistic, are manifestations of this common, demagogic, abstract thinking: to distract people of the region from thinking in real and concrete terms. So let’s raise the question again: is this an “Arabian” or a “Persian” Gulf? To get real, let’s ask what is the real character of this Gulf? Let’s turn the Naming Game from abstraction to concreteness, flip it on its head and then play:

Why don’t we call it the “Hindu Gulf”, or the “Gulf of The Unknown Worker”? Let’s pay respects to the millions of South Asian illicitly-slaved workers in UAE and other members of Gulf Cooperative Council[10][10]; who’s going to recognize them when their drained corpses are vomited back to the subcontinent?

Let’s call it “Gulf of Central Command”, or simply the “Gulf of America”. Let’s recognize the reality of the complete occupation of this invaded body of water by the 100-plus warships and the missiles-bound nuclear submarines, the bases and Air Warface School of the US Military? But then, the old Anglo name of UAE was Pirate Coastline, so how’s about “Gulf of Captain Hook”? In this way, America’s children culture is memorialized as well.

Playing the inverted naming game, thinking of the raped Filipino domestic workers by the Arab desert princes, and evoking Khomeini’s suggestion:” Islamic Gulf” and using a Qhoran term, let’s call it: “Gulf of Thousand and One Kaniz [11][11]”! It is exotic, real and Islamic.

Ok, give me back my ‘deported aliens’ and I will bury my unknown and numerous dead in the Indian subcontinent; I promise I won’t ship my little children to ride in your camel races no more; I am sorry to have sent my daughters to work in this wretched cheap whorehouse,- call it what you want,- I will heal her wounds in my village back in Philippines if she ever makes it. I did not know…but I now figured it out: you are Big for us and Little for the Americans: let’s Call it “Gulf of Little-Big Sheiks”!

***

But who inverted the reality and invented this Naming Game? Is the Persian Chauvinist playing the artificial game too? Be warned that if you don’t, you are faced with Reality: and then you just might scream in rage from the bottom of your guts, and like the Gulf itself throw up dead dolphins and whale corpses to the shores, or you might, for a rare realistic glimpse, see this “Filthy Pool of Toxins”:

” Iranian officials and Iranians in general are very sensitive about the term "Persian Gulf" as the official and recognized name for the waterway separating Iran and the Arabian peninsula. They are upset when Arab states or journals do not cite it as such -- particularly when the term "Arab Gulf" is used. And yet a far smaller number of Iranians appear concerned that human activities could turn that object of national pride and diplomatic contention into a filthy pool of toxins.”[12][12]

Play the Naming Game and you are playing the Global Balkans game; stuck at “the turn of an alley”, or let go and travel the “Seven Cities of Love”.

From Balkh to Rum, & the Identity of the ‘Global Balkans’

Mo’ollana Jallaleddin-e-Balkhi, or Jallaleddin-e-Rumi, of Tajik origins, born in Balkh in today’s Afghanistan died a Persian immigrant in Konia, in today’s Turkey. He adored a man called Shams, from Tabriz, in Iranian province of Azerbaijan; he founded and followed a distinct interpretation of Islamic theology, the religion originated in the Arabian Peninsula. His appraisal of the Arab contribution was unprejudiced by teachings of Indian and Greek thinkers. His philosophical articulations were heavily influenced by Attar from Neishapour, from Khorosan province; he studied in Baghdad and taught in Damascus, and settled and died in Eastern Ruman territories, in western Turkey.

Transcript of the Charlie Rose show of June 15, 2007, with guests Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft.

HENRY KISSINGER: We're at a moment when the international system is in a period of change like we haven't seen for several hundred years. In some parts of the world, the nation state, on which the existing international system was based, is either giving up its traditional aspects, like in Europe, or as in the Middle East, where it was never really fully established, it is no longer the defining element. So in those two parts of the world, there is tremendous adjustment in traditional concepts.

…

BRENT SCOWCROFT[13][13]: Just to add what Henry said in historical terms. Perhaps the most troubling area in the world goes from the Balkans through the Middle East and in Central Asia.[14][14]

…

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: I call that the global Balkans, because in some ways, it's similar to the European Balkans, which were internally conflicted …

BRENT SCOWCROFT: Because national borders are eroding, because of the growth of non-state actors. It's a different kind of a world. …It's a -- it's a world where most of the big problems spill over national boundaries, and there are new kinds of actors and we're feeling our way as to how to deal with them. I think it is less policy oriented than Zbig indicated. I think it's more systemic.

…

BRENT SCOWCROFT: Yeah. And now these -- these peoples are trying to discover who they are. Their boundaries are artificial. Their historical relationships are very different from what they are -- they're trying to discover who they are and to whom they belong.

Epilogue:

This September, Jallaleddin’s 800 birthday anniversary was celebrated in several cultures and by peoples of various backgrounds and beliefs, separated by National boundaries across the ‘Global Balkans’, from Dushanbe to Damascus, and from Tehran to Tashkent.

He was neither Sunni, neither Shiite. He was not Iranian, Tajik, Turkish or Arab. He was All and None in one. Homeless & torn to shreds by the barbaric Mongol invasion, long before Nation States were ever conceived, he lived the dialectical negation of the future Nation State: he sketched a new Union, from Balkh to Basra, and from Hamadan to Heart by walking through the ocean of devastation and ruins, teaching the meaninglessness of names, and the eternal grace of Unity & Oneness.

Kissinger believes that the Nation State”was never established …and is no longer the defining element in the Middle East”. Scowcroft thinks:” Their boundaries are artificial. Their historical relationships are very different from what they are -- they're trying to discover who they are and to whom they belong.”; and Zbigniew thinks of Rumi country as ” global Balkans, because in some ways, it's similar to the European Balkans, which were internally conflicted …”

Let me ask you this: Who started the Naming Game? Do you want to play? Be a Whirling Dervish & turn it up-side-down!

I saw but One through all heaven’s starry gleaming:

I saw but One in all sea billows wildly streaming.

I looked into the heart, a waste of worlds, a sea, —

I saw a thousand dreams, —yet One amid all dreaming.

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[1][1] “UAE Ports Host More U.S. Navy Ships Than Any Port Outside The United States. The UAE provides outstanding support for the U.S. Navy at the ports of Jebel Ali - which is managed by DP World - and Fujairah and for the U.S. Air Force at al Dhafra Air Base (tankers and surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft). The UAE also hosts the UAE Air Warfare Center, the leading fighter training center in the Middle East.” (US Government: Office of the Press Secretary, February 22, 2006)

[2][2] American University of Sharjah, founded by a ruling Emir & Texas A&M, -among other American universities-, is one example/.

[3][3] Discrimination in the workplace is common, prospective employers will specify religion, nationality (and even regional origin in some cases) and also specify the gender of required candidates within job advertisements. It is very common to have different pay scales depending on nationality and gender. There are positive discrimination policies in place also that require certain roles to be filled by U.A.E nationals

[4][4] Nearly 80 percent of the UAE’s population is foreigners, and foreigners account for 90 percent of the workforce in the private sector, including domestic workers. As of May 2006, according to the Ministry of Labor, there were 2,738,000 migrant workers in the country. The UAE’s economic growth has attracted large domestic and foreign investments and the current construction boom is one of the largest in the world. Exploitation of migrant construction workers by employers, especially low-skilled workers in small firms, is particularly severe. Immigration sponsorship laws that grant employers extraordinary power over the lives of migrant workers are in part responsible for the continuing problem. (source: www.uaeprison.com)
Abuses against migrant workers include nonpayment of wages, extended working hours without overtime compensation, unsafe working environments resulting in deaths and injuries, squalid living conditions in labor camps, and withholding of passports and travel documents.

[5][5] 1974, National Security Council memorandum 200, by H. Kissinger.

[6][6] Fujairah, which faces the Indian Ocean and is connected to the Gulf coast by a modern road, would be critical to American operations were the Strait of Hormuz closed off. In addition, U.S. warplanes fly out of UAE air bases on support missions for Operation Southern Watch over Iraq, and it has prepositioned materiel on UAE soil. http://www.uaeprison.com/uae_participation.htm

[7][7] The Trucial Oman Scouts, long the symbol of public order on the coast and commanded by British officers, were turned over to the U.A.E. as its defense forces in 1971. The U.A.E. armed forces, consisting of 48,800 troops, are headquartered in Abu Dhabi and are primarily responsible for the defense of the seven emirates.

[8][8] For an excellent article on Hegel’s opinion on rumi’s thought, refer to: Cyrus Bina, M. Vaziri:” On the Dialectic of Rumi’s Discourse”,:

[9][9] Three Essays, 1793-1795, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1984

[10][10] Formed in 1981, it includes all Gulf states having shores except Iran and Iraq.

[11][11] An Arabic term for female slaves, sited in Quran. The male term for the Islamic slave is ‘Gholam’.

[12][12] Vahid Sepehri: ‘Iran: Spill, Dolphin Deaths Spark Alarm At Persian Gulf Pollution” (http://www.payvand.com/news/07/oct/1036.html)

[13][13] National Security Advisor under Bush Sr., who oversaw the 1991 Gulf war.

[14][14] Transcripts from Charlie Rose Show (July 2007). Hosts: Kissinger, Brzezinski, Scowcroft.

Celebrating Rumi: An Evening of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi's Poetry and Sufi Music with Whirling Dervishes

TITLE: Celebrating Rumi: An Evening of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi's Poetry and Sufi Music with Whirling Dervishes

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SPEAKER: Talat Sait Halman, Ahmet Ozan
EVENT DATE: 03/14/2007
RUNNING TIME: 140 minutes

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The Library's African and Middle Eastern Division and the Music Division co-sponsored a poetry and music program with the Turkish Embassy titled "Celebrating Rumi: An Evening of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi's Poetry and Sufi Music with Whirling Dervishes." This was the first of several programs which launched the UNESCO's International Year of Rumi in the United States.

Rumi who lived in the 13th century wrote poetry in Persian, which has not only survived for 800 years, but has been translated into numerous languages around the world. Talat Sait Halman, the head of the department of Turkish Literature and dean of the faculty of Humanities and Letters at Bilkent University, read from his own translation of Rumi's poetry. Ahmet Ozan, a well known performer of popular Turkish music, sang Turkish Sufi songs inspired by the works of Rumi. He was accompanied by a musical ensemble performing on traditional musical instruments, along with two whirling dervishes on the stage of the Coolidge auditorium.

Speaker Biography: Talat Sait Halman is the head of the department of Turkish literature and dean of the faculty of humanities and letters at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.

Speaker Biography: Ahmet Ozan is Turkish musician.

Rumi Lecture at Harvard by Abdulaah Suroosh

Abdulah Sorosh is one of the leading intellecutals upon the ideas of RUMI. He is an intellectual from Iran whom also is very active in the debate of Islam and modernity and its role in the state.

Here are some lectures given by him on topics such as Islam and Secularity, Rumis poetry, Religion and Modernity, and Islam and Pluralism.

More Info on Abdulah Soroosh

Influence of Zoroastrian Dualism on the modern religious and philosophic ideas of Europe

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Thomas Hyde who was studying Zoroastrian doctrines in Oxford at the end of the seventeenth century, coined the word "dualism". This was taken over by Bayle and later by Leibniz. Christian Wolff, Kant's mentor, extended its use to metaphysics, applying it to the Cartesian doctrine which views "thought and matter" as two mutually independent substances. Against this dualism, Kant, Spinoza, then later Fichte and Hegel reacted with idealism, and the positivists with materialism.

Plethon was one of the first who in his writings talked about Zoroastrian and Platonic systems and placed his Magnum Opus, the Laws, under the double patronage of Zoroaster and Plato. Among those who attempted a compromise between Christianity and Platonism - itself supposed to have been derived from Zoroasterianism, we may cite not only Bessarion, Pico della Mirandola, Marsile Ficino, and Erasmus, but also Franciscus Patricius, the editor of the larger recension of the Chaldaic Oracles, who wrote that:

Zoroaster, first of all people, almost laid the foundations, however, rough, of the Catholic Faith. (Duchesne-Guillemin, Western Response to Zoroaster, p. 4)

To the Christians, Iran had always been, above all, the homeland of the Three Wise Men who guided by a star, had come to prostrate themselves at Bethlehem. Zoroaster and the Magi used to be cited by the Apologists from Justin onwards as among those external witnesses they call upon to corroborate and justify the truth of Christianity to pagans.

H. H. Shaeder tries to find an Iranian origin for Christianity. He writes:

With the knowledge of the Avesta, there arose the temptation to search for concealed sources of primitive Christianity in the Iranian religion. (ibid., p. 16, and Goethe's Erlebnis des Ostens, p. 134)

Zoroaster’s influence in the European literature and thought can be seen in works of such imminent men as Voltaire, Diderot, Goethes, Byron, Wordsworth and Shelley.

Iran's (Khurasan's) influence on Greek Philosophy

Iran's (Khurasan's) influence on Greek Philosophy

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Greeks themselves do not hide the fact that they are heirs and successors to the Eastern sages, especially of Zoroaster. (Duchesne-Guillemin, Western Response to Zoroaster, p 70)

According to a very old tradition, Zoroaster was supposed to have instructed Pythagoras (while he visited Babylon) in philosophy, astrology, alchemy, and theurgy. (ibid., p. 4) But of course. this Zoroaster cannot be the same as the prophet of ancient Iran who, according to also very old Greek traditions, lived about 6,000 years before the death of Plato or 5,000 years before the War of Troy. (Plinius, Naturalis Historia, XXX, 21)

Plinius attributes the first tradition to Eudoxus and Aristotle and the second tradition to Hermipus (250 B.C.). He calls Zoroaster as the preacher of one of the most exalted and useful philosophies". (ibid.)We are told that the pre-Socratic thinker, Empedocles, was a pupil of the Mages. This can be corroborated by the resemblance between his dualism and the dualism inherent in the Iranian religion.

We are also told that Democritus from Abdere, the founder of the theory of atomism, and the sophist Protagoras had a Magi for their teachers, sent to their fathers expressly by King Xerxes, in order to reciprocate the excellent reception bestowed upon him in his war expedition. We are told that Democritus has taken his theory of the images and the telepathic phenomena from Iranian theosophy (Henry Charles Puech, L'Iran et la philosophie Grecque, La Civilization Iranienne). Aristotle also saw a connection between the dualism of the Magi and Plato's system.

Eisler exalts the Iranian influence and places it at the very origin of Greek philosophy and Orphism. (Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt, 1910) Reitzenstein, believes Plato to be heavily indebted to Zoroaster. He developed Eisler's views and expanded on them with the help of H. Schaeder. (Studien zum Antiken Synkretismus, 1926)

J. Bidez although more moderate in his views, still shows the historically attested contacts between the Magi and the Academy and in his book "Eos, ou Ploton et l'Orient", shows what the Greek thinkers might owe to Iranian doctrines. (Western Response, opt. cit. p. 70)

Plethon wrote a compendium on the Zoroastrian and Platonic systems. In this Magnus Opus, the Laws were placed under the double patronage of Zoroaster and Plato. (ibid. p.4)

The Greeks, attributed to Zoroaster and the Magi from an early date, the doctrine of Boundless time which had become so familiar to them. That, as Junker has rightly pointed out (Junker, Aion Vorstellung pp. 140-154), influenced their conception of the Aion. (Emile Benveniste, The Persian Religion, p. 114)

According to A. William Jackson:

"The Greeks, with their anthropomorphic idea of the Pantheon of Heaven, were struck by the ideal and spiritual nature of the Iranian conception of the God-head and divinity."

Abundant allusions in the classics prove the truth of his statement, which is also in concordance with the actual facts. It is the purity and the abstract character of the Persian celestial hierarchy that distinguishes its Pantheon so greatly from the divinities of other Aryan Nations. (A. V. William Jackson, Zoroastrian Studies, p. 37)

If we accept the statement of A. H. Mills that philosophy was introduced to Greece for the first time by Anaxagoras in 426 B.C. (A. H. Mills, Zarathustra, Philo, the Achaemenids and Israel, p. 108), then we should agree all the more about the indebtedness of Greeks to the Iranians for teaching them philosophy. Mills states that Heraclitus, who was born in Asia Minor, brought the Logos to Greece and used it for the first time in Greek philosophy.

According to Lingua Stella, quoted by Dr. Duchesne-Guillemin, Heraclitus while stressing the role of the struggle in the world, believed, nevertheless, in a Logos or a Nomos. The essence of this intelligible law was fire. This reminds us of the connection of Fire and Rta, the true order in the Indo-Iranian system. Heraclitus has been suspected for other reasons, of drawing from Iranian sources, such as scoffing at anthropomorphic images and at the bloodshed in the cult. (Western Response.)

Duchesne-Guillemin admits that undoubtedly there are striking similarities of doctrine between Iran and Greece:.

"Even leaving aside for the moment the Hellenistic period with the emergence of gnosticism, we can enumerate among these striking similarities dualism, the divinization of time, the division of world history into definite periods, the notion of a world soul, fire as a symbol of cosmic law, and the existence of ideal models of things." (ibid. p. 70)

F.M. Cornford remarks that:

Whether we accept or not, no student of Orphic and Pythagorean thought will fail to see the hypothesis of a direct influence of Persia on the Ionians in the VIth century. Between it and the Iranian religion there exists such close resemblances that we can regard both systems as expressions of the same concept of life, and use either one of them to interpret the other. (F. M. Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy, p. 176)

Henry Charles Puech states that:

Plato had, especially in his old age, many Iranian pupils. There are people who fix 6 thousand years as the interval separating Zoroaster from Plato. He says although this date seems fantastic, it is very significant. It answers one of the conceptions Iranians have about the cosmic duration. As this is 12,000 years, the advent of the Iranian prophet and the Greek philosopher marks the beginning and the end of the second half of this time. Zoroaster is considered as the precursor of Plato. Plato as the reincarnation of Zoroaster, the renovator of Zoroastrian religion, and perhaps the savior predicted by Mazdean eschatology. (H. C. Puech, opt. cit.)

Although this does not tally with Iranian tradition at all, still it shows how indebted the Academy felt towards Zoroaster and his philosophy.They must have felt great affinity between the Zoroastrian philosophy and that of Plato to consider him as a reincarnation of Zoroaster.

There is enough information about the appearance of Eudox of Cnidus in the Academy in the last part of Plato’s life, about 368 B.C. He was one of the most important elements in propagating Iranian ideas in the Academy. He was so imbued with Iranian philosophy that he could impregnate these ideas firmly in the mind of Plato and his disciples.

It was through his influence that the first generation of Platonists with firm Iranian ideas were formed. One finds this influence in two dialogues of Plato, the Epinomy and the First Alcibiad. The same kind of influence is also evident in Xenocrates, Heraclitus and Hermodores.

Aristotle, himself, at least in his youth, was under the same spell and the thinkers of his school, such as Eudemos of Rhodes who wrote about Zurvanite dualism, Cliarchus of Scles, Aristoxenes of Tarente and later bibliographer Hermippus, all of whom, were quite interested in Iran.

Plutarch also in his "Isis and Osiris" gives a very sympathetic exposition of the Iranian dualism.

Zoroaster, according to Greek tradition, patronized a series of sciences or pseudo-sciences in Greece, such as astrology, botany and alchemy. So it seems that these sciences were recognized to be originated or developed by Iranian scientists.

It is indeed very revealing that, after the conquest of the Orient by Alexander, and the permanent contact the Greeks made with Iranians, instead of making them boast about their knowledge and science, they became more and more subdued to the hegemony of the Iranians in these domains.

One can see from Diodores that with Hecateus of Abdere (320 B. C.) appears a school of thought, which believes that Pythagoras and all the first philosophers were pupils of the sages of the East. Here the Hellenists are at a loss. How could one explain the saying of Sotion (200 - 150 B.C.) who shows in his Diadoches (i.e. the line of succession of the first philosophers) quoted by Diogenes Laertes that the names of the first philosophers begin with Zoroaster and continues with such Persian names as Ostanes, Astrampsychos, Gobryas, and Pazatas. (Duchesne-Guillemin, La Religion d l' Iran Ancien, p 24-25)

To quote Dr. Duchesne-Guillemin:

Il devit notoire que Pythagore avait ete l'eleve de Zoroastre, que Platon avait visite-ou voulu visiter-les Mages de Perse etc... Ceux-ci, en autorite et en anciente, ne le cedaient pas aux sages d'Egypt, autres pretendus initiateurs de la philosophic. Sotion (200- 150) consacre a la Diodoche. c'est-a-dire a la succession ou lignee des philosophes un traite ou puisera Diogene Laerce et ou sont nommes apres Zoroastre. Ostanes, Astrampsvchos, Gobryas et Pazatas... (ibid.)

But then, under the spell of the Hellenistic School, he has to give an explanation for such a vault-face in the attitude of the Greeks. So he explains this strange phenomena thus:

La conquete de l'Orient par Alexandre et les contacts permanants qu'elle institua, modifierent les vues des Grecs sur leur passe. On voit apparaitre avec Hecate D'Abdere (320), que citera Diodore, opinion selon laquelle Pythagore et tous les premiers philosophes avaient ete a l'ecole des sages d'orient. Cette opinion etait elle-meme une invention des orientaux, un moyen pour eux de reagir contre invasion de l'hellenisme en sauvant leur superiorite. Les Grecs l'adopterent lorsque leur philosophie, delaissant la voie de la raisen, se tourna de plus en plus, a parlir du ler. Siecle avant notre ere, vers la mystique, ressucitant le pythagorisme comme une espece de religion. II devint notoire que Pythagore avait ete l'eleve de Zoroastre etc.. (ibid., p. 24)

In another place he mentions that:

Par ce contact prologe, les Grecs purent prendre plus intimement connaissance des doctrines Iraniennes. En tout cas le prestige de L'Iran s'accrut a leurs yeux. Toute une literature s'ecrivit en langue grecque pour exposer les pretendues doctrines de Zoroastre et de ses disciples, Hystaspe (vistaspa) et Ostanes (inconnu dans les source Iranians)... (Bidez-Cumont. Les Mages Hellenises)

Could not this be a sort of re-confirmation of Iranian Historians' view that Alexander translated all the Iranian books of religion and science into Greek and then destroyed the original Persian documents. Are we not justified in saying that the Greeks of post-Alexanderian age were more honest than the later historians, who for reasons of their own turned the table completely round

The Iranian influence was not only exercised through some Zoroastrian apocrypha, but it was also widely exercised through Mithraism.

According to Nelson who is an authority on Greek religion, it is indeed not so easy to clarify how this influence operated (Duchesne-Guillemin, opt. cit. p. 245-246)

The doctrines of Zarathustra brought very great and profound ideas that went to encounter the Greek thought; the unique God, elevated above everything and anything, the dualism and the combat between good and bad powers, the cult without any images or forms, the final catastrophic end of the world and finally Zurvanism.

The influence of the ideas of Iranians over Greeks were great but the way that it traversed was obscure and indirect; often it left its finger-prints not directly but through other people, who had themselves grasped the power of the Iranian thought. (ibid. p. 246)

This influence was felt even as late as the time of Khusrow I, Anushirvan, when by order of Justinian in 529 A.D. the School of Athens was closed and six of the last Platonic philosophers who resided in that school, came as refugees to Ctesiphon.

They considered Iran as their second home; because even at that very late time, the prestige of Iranian religion, wisdom and traditions had not ceased to have a great influence on the thought and imagination of the Greeks. (Henry Charles Puech, opt. cit 88)

Priscien and other Greek philosophers were interrogated by the King and it is through his demand that Priscien compiled an abridged treatise on psychology, physiology etc... for him. This was entitled: "Solution eorum de quilus dubitavi Chosroes Persarum rex". In the preface to this treatise Priscien writes these revealing words:

When I present to you this book, I have done nothing but to offer you a fruit that I have picked from your own garden. It is in the same fashion that people make sacrifice to Gods from among their own creatures. (Saeed Nafisi, Mehr Monthly Publication, first year, p. 41)