Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/181

 al-Juzjanl, from his master's recollections. We learn that his father was governor of Kharmayta, but, after his son's birth, he returned to Bukhara, which had been the original home of his family, and it was there that Ibn Sina received his education. During his youth some Isma'ilian missionaries arrived from Egypt, and his father became one of their converts. From them the son learned Greek, philosophy, geometry, and arithmetic. This helps to remind us how the whole Isma'ilian propaganda was associated with Hellenistic learning. It is sometimes stated that the Egypt of the Fatimite age was isolated from the intellectual life of Islam at large: but this is hardly accurate; from first to last the whole of the Isma'ilian movement was connected with the intellectual revival due to the reproduction of Greek philosophy in Arabic form, less so, of course, when the Isma'ilian converts were drawn from the illiterate classes, as was the case with the Qarmatians, and when the attention of the members was engrossed with political ambitions, as was the case with the Fatimids whilst they were building up their power in Africa before the invasion of Egypt. But even under the most unfavourable conditions it seems that the da'is or missionaries regarded the spread of science and philosophy as a leading part of their duties, quite as much so as the preaching of the 'Alid claims of the Fatimite Khalif. Learning Greek and Greek philosophy from these missionaries Ibn Sina made rapid progress, and then turned to the study of