Ṭulayṭulah (طليطلة) or Tulitula (טוליטולה) — Was a major city of Muslim Spain (Al-Andalus), from 711 until the Christian reconquest in 1085. After its capture by Alfonso VI of Castile in 1085, it retained its prestige and became the heart of the Toledo School of Translators, where Arabic science and philosophy were rendered into Latin.
Toledo, Spain, during the 12th century, was a major center of science, philosophy, and translation in the Western world, especially during the period of Muslim (Islamic) rule and shortly after during the Christian Reconquista. Here’s a breakdown:
Toledo: A Hub of Knowledge and Translation
1. Multicultural Legacy
Toledo had been under Muslim rule from 711 to 1085. During this time, it flourished as a center of Islamic, Christian, and Jewish scholarship. After the Christian reconquest in 1085, the city retained its multilingual and multi-religious character, which helped it become a unique bridge between Islamic science and Christian Europe.
2. Language of Instruction: Arabic
Most scientific, medical, and philosophical works at the time were preserved and expanded by Arab and Muslim scholars, written in Arabic. Even Greek works of Aristotle, Galen, Ptolemy, and others had survived through Arabic translations, often with commentaries by Muslim thinkers like Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd). Much of the advanced knowledge in astronomy, medicine, mathematics, and philosophy was studied and taught in Arabic — even by non-Muslims in the region.
3. Toledo School of Translators
- Under Archbishop Raymond of Toledo, a translation movement emerged in the 12th century.
- Scholars such as Gerard of Cremona, Robert of Ketton, and Hermann of Carinthia translated hundreds of works from Arabic (and sometimes Hebrew or Greek) into Latin.
- These translations brought advanced Islamic science, philosophy, and medicine to Christian Europe, sparking what later became the European Renaissance.
Conclusion:
Toledo was essentially the “intellectual capital” of the Western world in the 12th century, where the language of high science was Arabic, and where knowledge was actively transferred from the Islamic world to Christian Europe.
It wasn’t a capital in the political sense, but in the intellectual and scientific sense, it played a crucial role in shaping Western thought.