Live Breaking News & Updates on Martin Wainwright|Page 3

Stay updated with breaking news from Martin wainwright. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.

Opinion | The Muslims Who Inspired Spinoza, Locke and Defoe


April 5, 2021, 3:14 p.m. ET
Credit.Illustration by Arsh Raziuddin/The New York Times
In this age of anxiety, anger and contestations between the West and the Islamic world, many epoch-shaping stories of intellectual exchanges between our cultures are often forgotten.
A powerful example comes from literature. Millions of Christian, Jewish and Muslim readers across the world have read that famed tale of the man stranded alone on an island: “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe, the 18th-century British pamphleteer, political activist and novelist.
Few know that in 1708, 11 years before Defoe wrote his celebrated novel, Simon Ockley, an Orientalist scholar at Cambridge University, translated and published a 12th-century Arabic novel, “Hayy ibn Yaqzan,” ....

United Kingdom , Czech Republic , John Stuart Mill , Judah Loew , George Keith , Martin Wainwright , Ibn Tufayl , Edward Pococke Jr , Defoe Robinson Crusoe , Baruch Spinoza , Abul Walid Muhammad Ibn Rushd , John Locke , Robinson Crusoe , Hayy Ibn Yaqzan , John Milton , Daniel Defoe , Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , Mustafa Akyol , Ibn Rushd , Simon Ockley , Cambridge University , Cato Institute , Abu Bakr Muhammad , Edward Pococke , Islamic Spain , Rabbi Jonathan Sacks ,