The contributors to this volume are noted scholars from Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Morocco, Poland, the Soviet Union, and Spain. Each has stepped somewhat outside of his or her usual academic interest to consider how the writings of a particular Arab philosopher or of a group of Arab philosophers were introduced into a particular European university. Their essays identify the European professor or scholar who first introduced the works of an Arab philosopher into his university, speak about the works themselves, and explore what prompted the original European interest in the particular philosopher or philosophers. Thus, by explaining how medieval European universities first approached Arab philosophy, these papers contribute to the growing interest in the curriculum and general life of those important institutions.

Charles E. Butterworth, Ph.D. (1966) in political science, University of Chicago, is professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. He has published extensively on medieval Islamic political philosophy and logic, as well as on contemporary Islamic political thought.
Blake Andrée Kessel teaches in the department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland where she is writing a dissertation analyzing the tension between the demands of love and family and those of the city, as portrayed in classical Greek tragedy.