Then, at the beginning of the ninth century, the Islamic world was fortunate in having an open-minded caliph, al-Ma‘mun, who was sympathetic to a semi-secret sect, the Mu‘tazilites, who were rationalists obsessed with reconciling the text of the Qur’an and the criteria of human reason. Al-Ma‘mun, it is said, had a dream–possibly the most important and fortunate dream in history–in which Aristotle appeared. It is as a result of this dream that the caliph decided to send envoys as far afield as Constantinople in search of as many Greek manuscripts as they could find, and to establish in Baghdad
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