Dominican missionaries were the era’s most serious students of Islamic thought

Evidence

Ramon Martí, who by 1250 was part of the team of Dominicans missionaries under Penyafort’s guidance. In that year the Dominican provincial chapter of Toledo established a school of Arabic for eight of its friars, including Ramon Martí. Martí was not only educated in Arabic and Hebrew but also studied the Talmud and works of Arabic philosophy: al-Ghazâlî, Ibn Sînâ, al-Razi, and others. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1184

Categorization

• XREF: Complicates the simple opposition-trope picture in the vault: the medieval church’s anti-Islam campaigners knew Arabic philosophy intimately — a paradox worth folding into the genealogy.