First paragraph: The importance of this book rests not only in its collection of key classical texts on Islamic education, but equally significant is the introduction by Cook to the book. Here, Cook made a risky but yet worthy attempt to summarize the long and nuanced histories of Islamic education in mere 26 pages. This attempt is worthy due to his conviction that the study of modern Western intellectual foundation is not possible without understanding the Muslim educational enterprise during its classical period. The phenomenal development of these Muslim traditions provided the basic foundations of the Western intellectual tradition. “Islam”, Cook asserts, “not only bridged early Greco-Hellenistic intellectualism to medieval European scholasticism but also contributed to and improved the corpus of knowledge in medicine, astronomy, philosophy, mathematics, music, architecture, cartography, and geometry. Islamic society can also be credited for conserving and transmitting large bodies of knowledge from Arabic into Latin and promulgating them throughout Europe.” For this reason, the attempt is indeed worthy and important.

First paragraph: The importance of this book rests not only in its collection of key classical texts on Islamic education, but equally significant is the introduction by Cook to the book. Here, Cook made a risky but yet worthy attempt to summarize the long and nuanced histories of Islamic education in mere 26 pages. This attempt is worthy due to his conviction that the study of modern Western intellectual foundation is not possible without understanding the Muslim educational enterprise during its classical period. The phenomenal development of these Muslim traditions provided the basic foundations of the Western intellectual tradition. “Islam”, Cook asserts, “not only bridged early Greco-Hellenistic intellectualism to medieval European scholasticism but also contributed to and improved the corpus of knowledge in medicine, astronomy, philosophy, mathematics, music, architecture, cartography, and geometry. Islamic society can also be credited for conserving and transmitting large bodies of knowledge from Arabic into Latin and promulgating them throughout Europe.” For this reason, the attempt is indeed worthy and important.