[Avodah] Some Jewish Philosophy Is Based on Arab Thinkers

[Yitzchok Levine]

The following is from the new translation of 
RSRH's commentary on Chumash Bereishis 16:14. You 
may read Rav Hirsch's complete commentary on this 
Pasuk at http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/arab_jew_bereishis.pdf

16:14  Therefore, he called the well, Well of the 
Living One Who Sees me; it is the one between Kadesh and Bered.

In one respect — viz., the intellectual — the Arab nation occupies
a position of prominence. It developed with keen insight the idea of
God, an idea bequeathed to it by Avraham. Consider the magnitude
of the Arab influence: The ideas on the unity of God in the writings
of the Jewish philosophers — to the extent that these ideas are developed
philosophically — are based largely on the intellectual work
of Arab thinkers. They attained emunah — but they did not attain the
mitzvos.

Yitzchok Levine 
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