The ‘Arabick’ Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century England

This text deals with the widespread interest in Arabic, during this period in English history, among Biblical scholars and theologians, natural philosophers and Fellows of the Royal Society, and others. It led to the institutionalization of Arabic studies at Oxford and Cambridge Universities where Arabic chairs were set up, and immense manuscript collections were established and utilized. 14 historians examine the extent and sources of this Arabic interest in areas ranging from religion, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, philology and alchemy to botany. Arabic is shown to have been a significant component of the rise of Protestant intellectual tradition and the evolution of secular scholarship at universities.