Animals in Islamic Philosophy: Humility to Nature and The Bounds of Humanity
Philosophers and mystics in the Islamic tradition generally seek to reconcile the innate anthropocentrism of Islamic cosmology with the Aristotelian axiom that humans are animals. Thus, animals are central to the philosophical question of human nature and the justification for an anthropocentric worldview. Animals have also been consistently used by Islamic philosophers from the 8th century to the modern era to push for an ecological ethic of humility in the face of a natural world created by God.
The Narrative of the Second Crusade: An Alteration of the Traditional Life Cycle
The new life cycle narrative created for the recruitment of second crusaders altered the typical medieval life cycle that existed outside of the crusading enterprise. This new life cycle included a biological-theological division of the different life stages such as conception, birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, middle age, old age, death, and afterlife.