Free The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics by Iain McLean Page B

medieval political thought ). They were widely translated and studied in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
In contrast, the Church in the East had been permeated by the influence of Greek philosophers. When Islam burst upon the scene from the seventh century onward and Arabic became the lingua franca of the region, its intellectual heritage of Indian, Persian, and Greco-Alexandrian learning was taken up with astonishing enthusiasm. The translation of Greek, Syriac, Pahlavi, and Sanskrit texts into Arabic between the mid-eighth and early tenth centuries led to the flowering of Islamic philosophy between the ninth and thirteenth centuries. The Peripatetic school, which combined neo-Platonic and Aristotelian teachings, became known to the scholastic movement through Al-Kindi (801–66), Al-Farabi (870–950), and Ibn Sinna ( Avicenna , 980–1037). None the less, it is Averroës, with his concentration on the works of Aristotle , whose influence was greatest in Europe. His translations contained only limited interjections of his theological frame of reference. He attempted faithfully to reproduce the ideas of Aristotle where they were clearly stated, and elaborated on those that were ambiguous. At this time, the little that was known of Aristotle's ideas was in the process of being shaped to conform to Christian theology. The objectivity of Averroës' translations and the cogency of his commentaries allowed European scholars, confident of the integrity of his translations, to examine the ideas of Aristotle in greater depth.
Averroës' political views are contained in his commentaries on Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (he was not familiar with Aristotle's Politics ). From the Republic he concluded that, in practice, political rule would require the ability of the ruler to communicate the virtues to the differing strata comprising the community: this required the ruler to be thoroughly grounded in understanding of the virtues. He believed that the Nicomachean Ethics would serve as a foundation for the practice of politics.
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    Avicenna
    See Averroës .
     
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    Ayatollah
    Ayat Allah , a sign, a mark, an exemplar of God. This designation came into use in the twentieth century among the Imamis , or Twelvers, the majority tradition in Shiite Islam ‘Ayatollah’ denotes a religious scholar of outstanding quality and reputation. He is a mujtahid , a specialist in law who is capable of formulating independent interpretations ( ijtihad ) in legal and theological matters based on the Ja'fari school of jurisprudence. Mujtahids are ulama (recognized religious scholars). Among the Imamis , by the end of the seventeenth century and into the eighteenth century, mujtahids came to perform a more enhanced role within the Shiite ulama . A practice emerged which was accepted that all Shiites throughout their lifetime should follow the religious guidance of a mujtahid and, should the mujtahid die, to choose a successor. A mujtahid of the Imamis came to be regarded as representing the will of the Hidden Imam (the twelfth Imam), as His deputy until His return. By the early nineteenth century, a further development in the differentiation of the Shiite ulama led to the recognition of the marja' c i taqlid (source of imitation), that is, the most pre-eminent of the mujtahids . As the number of marja' c i taqlid grew, the designation Ayatollah began to be used in the twentieth century to refer to the outstanding marja' c . This particular evolution of an informal hierarchy arrived at via consensus within the Shiite ulama had the effect, amongst other things, of facilitating the accommodation of the religion to the changing times.
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    Ba'athism
    The Arab Ba'ath or Renaissance Party was founded in 1943–4 by three French-educated Syrian intellectuals: Michel Aflaq , a Greek Orthodox Christian; Salah al-Din Bitar , a