Films with: Jacquart, Danielle

Embrasser tous les savoirs. Embracing all knowledge.

This program investigates the practice of medicine during the Abbasid Caliphate, offering profiles of Al-Ma'amun's House of Wisdom, Dioscorides, Rhazes, whose Kitab al-hawi outlines an exemplary clinical approach, Avicenna, universally known for his Canon of Medicine, and Abul Qasim al-Zahrawi, the father of modern surgery. The Islamic concern with the relationship between the body and the soul is also discussed, as is the founding of hospitals, one of the great achievements of Islamic society.

DVD 2868

Éveil de l'Europe. Europe awakes.

As dissension mounted between the rival Arab dynasties in Baghdad, Cordoba, and Cairo, Christendom rallied to oppose the Muslims in Spain and Jerusalem. This program plots out the decline of the Caliphate and the acquisition of Arab knowledge by Europeans starved for Islam's intellectual riches. The rise of feudalism and papal authority, the gradual defeat of the Muslim rulers in Spain, the Seljuk usurpation of Abbisid power in the Near East, and the Crudades are explained, along with the concerted efforts of Catholic authorities to translate the vast libraries of Arab scientific and philosophical texts.

DVD 2872