1) Which are the causes and the results of the Hellenization of Islam? Discuss the width and the breath of Islamic science.
The process of Hellenization accelerated after 749 when the "Abbasids came to power. The "Abbasid caliphs had no intention of remaining in Damascus. The Islamic Empire was being transformed from a warrior aristocracy into a centralized state. This bureaucracy could not be staffed by the warriors who made up the conquering armies, and the caliphs had no alternative but to make use of educated Persians and Christians, who were recent converts to Islam. The Persian and Christian influences were the cause of the Hellenization of Islam.
It is also important to note that there were Islamic science influences emanating from India in the east; some of these were the long-term result of the earlier Hellenization of India. .
3) Discuss the role of Gerbert of Aurillac (Sylvester II) in the transmission of Islamic scientific learning and traditions in the West. .
It is customary to concentrate on Gerbert's role as one of the initiators of intellectual contact between Islam and Latin Christendom. His fame rests on his contribution to the mathematical quadrivium, and here the connection with Islam was critical. When Gerbert crossed the Pyrenees into the northeastern corner of Spain in 976 to study with Atto, there can be no doubt that his purpose was to master the mathematical sciences, which were apparently more highly cultivated there (by the proximity of Islam) than anywhere else north of the Pyrenees.
4) Analyze and evaluate the role of Grosseteste in the study of Aristotle, his philosophy and development of a scientific method in the Middle Ages.
Robert Grosseteste's commentary on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, was one of the earliest efforts to deal seriously with Aristotle's scientific method. Grosseteste was also familiar with Aristotle's Physics, Metaphysics, Meteorology, and biological works; he reveals their influence in his commentary on the Physics and in a series of short treatises on various physical subjects.
