ABSTRACT
Philosophy continued to be cultivated during the tenth century in small groups. The Muslim students of the subject were far from being fanatical adherents of Islam, and, in philosophical discussions and even in the work of teaching, Muslims and Christians seem to have associated on equal terms. There was, of course, still a tendency for philosophy to be connected with medicine. Philosophy must have been cultivated at many centres in the Islamic world. By chance readers hear of men versed in the philosophical sciences at a small town near the south coast of the Caspian Sea. At least it was a man from this town who gave the first instruction in philosophy to a boy who later became in the opinion of many the greatest of all the philosophers writing in Arabic. The anecdote indicates that it was the direct influence of the older Islamic philosopher which led him to adopt so similar a general position in philosophy.
