Quotes from Stephen Hirtenstein

One historian has remarked that "the process by which the learning of the Islamic world was discovered, appropriated, colonised by Western scholars, and made widely accessible by means of translation into Latin, the international language of scholarship ... was one of the turning-points in the intellectual evolution of mankind."8

The teacher is not simply an intermediary who gives out parcels of information, but is there to facilitate and confirm true understanding, to provide conditions where education can take place.

In his anguish, he prayed to God to restore his sight, and swore that if he was made able to see again he would only work with His creation and not with man's creation, for the rest of his life. After a few days his sight was restored and he kept his promise. He became a modern "wanderer", walking across America and inspiring a whole movement dedicated to the preservation of natural wilderness. As he himself said of these travels: "Going out, I discovered that I was really going in.