The Golden Age of the Polymath, An Islamic Perspective
Humanities cuts announced by the Government. Are we surprised? A
reinforcement of a Government committed to robbing us of our
‘intellect’. The government is insistent on narrowing down our
abilities through increased specialization and
vocationalisation. It wants to develop incurious producers whose
sole purpose is to add direct foreseeable revenue to our
economy. It is this contemporary thinking that leads us to
compartmentalise our skills, ‘doctor’ or ‘lawyer’, ‘artist’ or
‘banker’. What happened to Polymaths who were standard in the
Golden Age? Definition; A person who excels in or is an expert a
significant number of different subject areas. The concept was
coined during a period where numerous great thinkers excelled in
multiple fields of the arts and science, As an accomplished Leon
Battista Alberti said(1404–1472) “a man can do all things if he
will.” In early Islamic civilization there was no single
authority that controlled the educational system