"ORTHODOXY", ANCIENT SCIENCES, POWER, AND THE MADRASA ("COLLEGE") IN AYYUBID AND EARLY MAMLUK DAMASCUS ITS HISTORICAL DESCRIPTIONS AND HISTORIOGRAPHICAL INTERPRETATIONS Sonja BRENTJES Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin The dominant modern picture of the history of science in Islam claims as one of its main features an anti-philosophical attitude of the so-called orthodox Muslim scholars. The perhaps most prominent text arguing in favor of this evaluation is I. Goldziher’s paper Die Stellung der alten islamischen Orthodoxie zu den antiken Wissenschaften. The diagnosed anti-philosophical attitude is interpreted as one of the decisive factors for what is perceived as the decline of sci- entific studies at the latest after the 13th century when compared with their productivity and re- sults during the so-called Islamic Renaissance of the 9th and 10th centuries. 1 A second factor contributing to the alleged decline closely connected with the anti-philoso- phical attitude is seen in the emergence of the madå ris (plural of madrasa; “colleges“). These madå ris are understood as the central locus for training legal scholars and later judges and as institutes with formalized curricula at the exclusion of both the ancient sciences and kalå m (“ra- tional“ theology). The classical book presenting this opinion is G. Makdisi’s The Rise of Colle- ges. At least four more factors are held responsible for the alleged decline: • the dichotomy between the ancient "rational" sciences and the religious and legal discipli- nes with their "ancillaries" of Arabic philology which is said to have existed from the very beginning until the late Middle Ages; • the marginal relevance of the ancient sciences for the central concerns of the Muslim world; • the rejection of innovation as a positive value for the Muslim society and the insistence on social practice based on authoritative learning; and • the replacement of philosophy by the canon of religious duties as the ideal of salvation. 1 A variant of this thesis can be found, for instance, in the first paragraph Begriff und Stellung der Wissenschaften im Islam in G. Endress’ survey, 1987.