How the Human Arrived in Islam and Then Disappeared : From Athens to Baghdad /

How the Human Arrived in Islam and Then Disappeared : From Athens to Baghdad /

This book argues that while the concept of the human being was a Greek invention, its reinvention was Arab before it was European. Born in Greece in the fourth century BCE, this concept of the human being disappeared at the end of Late Antiquity, before reappearing in the Abbasid Near East. It was M...

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Main Author: Touati, Houari (Author)

Format: eBook

Language: English

Published: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2026.

Series: Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1 The Near and Middle East ; 195.
Middle East and Islamic Studies E-Books Online, Collection 2026.

Subjects:

Classical Studies.
Middle East and Islamic Studies.
Philosophy.

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Call Number: R930

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Table of Contents:
  • Abbreviations
  • Introduction: How the Concept of 'Human Being' Arrived in Islam and Disappeared Again - from Athens to Baghdad
  • 1 The Rational Biped: the Intersectionality of the Human Being
  • 1 The Rational Mortal Living Being
  • 2 Endowed with Science and Intelligence
  • 3 The Walking Biped Animal
  • 2 The Being with a Double Language
  • 1 What Is logos / nuṭq?
  • 2 Logos and Free Will
  • 3 Becoming Human
  • 1 Human History in the Womb
  • 2 Human Plasticity
  • 3 Education
  • 4 Character and Education
  • 5 Practical and Theoretical Virtues
  • 6 Will, Free Will, and Self-Awareness
  • 4 Women and Men Are Equally Human
  • 1 Is Hind a Human Being?
  • 2 Woman Is a Human with Her Genitals Turned Inwards
  • 3 Women Are Mutilated Males
  • 4 Women Are Equal to Men
  • 5 Humans Are Their Laughter
  • 1 Logical Laughter
  • 2 The Ticklish Animal That Laughs
  • 3 The Blood of Laughter
  • 4 From the Chest to the Spleen
  • 5 Laughter and Astonishment
  • 6 Hands That Have No Equal
  • 1 Aristotle's Hand
  • 2 Galen's Hand
  • 3 The Hand of Anaxagoras
  • 7 Human Diversity
  • 1 Humans Are Each Other's Equal
  • 2 Human Individuals
  • 3 Climate and People
  • 4 The Genetics of Diversity
  • 5 Language
  • 8 The Political Animal
  • 1 The Philology of a Formula
  • 2 Humans Are More Political than Other Animals
  • 3 Humans, Rather than Animals, Are Political
  • 9 The Capable Living Being
  • 1 The Rational Living Being
  • 2 Capacity and Power
  • 10 The End of the Human Being
  • 1 Fire on Porphyry
  • 2 An Anti-concept of the Human Being
  • 3 The Impossible Unity of the Human Being
  • 4 Final Efforts to Save the Human Being
  • Epilogue: the Impossibility of the Human Being
  • Bibliography
  • Index.