A high mountain rose in the north behind which the tiny sun...

A high mountain rose in the north behind which the tiny sun played hide and seek to bring forth days and nights. Beazley rightly called Cosmas' work a “systematic nonsense.” Saint Ambrose saw no profit in investigations about the earth. Science, geo­graphy, and all such pursuits were dubbed as magic art. The spherical shape of the earth and the existence of antipodes were favorite subjects of ridicule. Thus, the geography of the early centuries of the Christian era was a fascinat­ing mixture.

Perhaps it seldom represented the full amount of contemporary knowledge and was largely made up of traditional elements, Christian and classical, blended in various proportions. The first came from a literal reading of the Scriptures and other-worldly attitude of the protagonists of the Church. It appears that Christianity spread first through the urban commercial popula­tion round the Mediterranean, whose lingua franca was Greek.

It was only later on that it penetrated into the hinterland and overspread into the vast rural areas of outer provinces. Thus, Greek science received a frontal attack in its most important centers. In this refutation of earlier knowledge, interest in science and rational geographic concepts could be retained only by a hand­ful of people in Christendom. Only the Nestorians, the Monophysites, and some of their adherents kept a semblance of Greek science preserved.

During the first/seventh century there arose an epoch-making movement from the depths of the Arabian Peninsula. It was Islam. It brought about the establishment of one of the greatest empires the world has seen. The Arabs conquered a large number of peoples who were superior to them in culture. Nevertheless, the conquerors did not lose their national characteristics and subjected Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and North Africa to their ethno­graphical influences.

As soon as early conquests were over and cultural contact was established with Greek and Indian knowledge, Muslims became imbued with tremendous curiosity and took up the cause of science with enthusiasm at different centers of their culture. Early Islamic attitude to science was one of tolerance, even enlightened interest. It is evidenced by the continuance of the academy at Jundi-Shaper as a scientific center in the Muslim Empire.

Scientists from this center in Persia were welcomed at Damascus, the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate.