Description

Title: Notes on the Isocratic Legacy and Islamic Political Thought: The Example of Education

By: James R. Muir

Date: 2001

Abstract: The legacy of Isocrates may constitute one such point of departure, which will help us to understand the relation between two traditions, the classical Greek and the Islamic. The dominance of the Isocratic legacy in Western education is well established and widely known among historians, classicists and political philosophers, although awareness of it has only just begun to surface among educationists. Similarly, the Isocratic legacy to education (and the rich tradition of Arabic Platonism in philosophy) has influenced Islamic thought, though in ways that are still not yet well understood. The intention of this paper is to suggest that a modified form of the Isocratic educational tradition is a fundamental component of Islamic political thought, namely, Islamic educational thought.