Mr Julio César Cárdenas Arenas

Julio César Cárdenas Arenas is a PhD Candidate in Religious Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain.  He is also a MA Candidate in Islamic Culture at the Islamic University of Madinah, Saudi Arabia. His work focuses on comparative theology, medieval philosophy and Semitic philology.

Ḥunaīn ben Isḥāq, Aristotle and Plato Figures according to Medieval Arabic Sources

A historiographical study of Ḥunaīn ben Isḥāq (ܩܚܣܝܐ ܪܒ ܢܝܢܢܘܚ) as a translator is presented, along with Plato (أفلاطون ) and Aristotle (أرسطو ) as philosophers and their works in Greek and Arabic languages from three medieval Arabic-language sources: Ibn al-Nadim’s Kitāb al-Fihrist, Ibn Abi Uṣaībi’a’s 'Uīūn al-anbā' fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibā' and Al-Shahrastānī’s Al-Milal wa al-niḥal.

The paper shows the three fundamental processes for the emergence Islamic thought: translation, commentary, and terminological and gnoseological reformulation in which Greek and Eastern Christian thinkers were “Islamized” in their Arabic biographies.