# 234: Reading and Writing
Story behind the Passage
Did you ever wonder why we usually say “children learn to read and write” in school? We do not say “write and read.” And the reason for this is very easy: reading comes first. It has taken me almost three years to figure out how central reading is for human learning — even for civilization. “Literacy,” the ability to read and make sense of the reading, is something that humans have learned throughout millennia. And now, we are missing this ability in so many areas of life. I do not just mean “books” — but I also mean books.
The book In the House of Wisdom by Al-Khalili came to my mind when I thought about reading today. For me, a house full of books is a house in which I feel at home. And a head full of books is a head that has knowledge stored to do something with. It is just such a pity that so many people who have entire libraries in their heads which are immeasurable do not get to have a say in society. I am not saying, they have to. It is up to each and everyone to decide what to do with one’s knowledge. If you decide to pass it on to students, that is valuable. If you decide to keep it to yourself, that is valuable because it enriches your life. I just wonder how much of a difference it would make if only the learned ones came to “power” — or at least more of them.
In the House of Wisdom really gave me pleasure and excitement because it talks about the roots of wisdom and the origins of science and scholarship in the “Arab World.” I am using this general term because I do not want to go into geographic details now. Whenever I think of the Arab World as the cradle of science, I also think of the book The Physician. Maybe I should blog about this book at some other point. The point I want to make today is simply that reading comes first. Reading empowers you to learn almost anything. It is that easy. Just remember how many people are still illiterate and what a “handicap” it is in society. And how much they thrive if they then learn it! For me, the same happens when I learn a new language on a level that allows me to access more “complicated” texts. Really, there are no complicated or easy texts if you really want to read them. Still, what I mean is that there is usually a basic level that you have to attain in order to then build on it and teach yourself more skills.
My Learnings
“Was aber die Anzahl der Fachgebiete angeht, in denen er Hervorragendes leistete, so kann er in jeder Hinsicht mit al-Biruni mithalten.“ / “As far as the number of academic fields is concerned in which he contributed incredible things, he can, by any means, keep up with al-Biruni.” The man which al-Khalili is talking about here is Ibn Khaldun. Actually, I first learned about him during a visiting research stay in Palestine. I never went into him deeply but I have always kept in mind how powerfully my professor there talked about him and how much the students knew about his contributions. At the same time, I wondered, no, I got frustrated about, the fact that we in the “West” never learn about these people. They really set the foundation of the university, just like the people in the Italy of the Middle Ages. But we hardly ever read about them in school and elsewhere.
The reason why I am linking all this to the topic of reading is simple: In each and every story you read about the great minds of history, you will also learn how much they read and how this reading shaped their intellectual journey from the very beginnings to the sophisticated level they achieved. Again, even Rob, the protagonist of The Physician, talks a lot about how he not only read but wrote about the things he learned about the human body. In all these cases, reading comes first, obviously. And every author will tell you the same thing: if you want to write books, including fiction, you have to read, read, read… For writers, reading is not only about knowledge gain, it is about inspiration and creativity — two concepts which are very difficult to define. For me, reading, in adidtion, is almost everything: it gives me access to deeper truths of humanity that cannot be seen on the surface.
That might sound spooky.
But it is true.
In the truest sense of the term.
So, reading for me is also a motivation. When it comes to Ibn Khaldoun, I do not just want to read the translations of his works. At some point, I want to be able to access the original sources and to also read the secondary sources written in Arabic about him and about his thinking from writers in the present. There have to be scholarly contributions in languages other than English that can change our thinking tremendously. If we do not look for them — we will not find them. Just like people who do not look for wisdom will not find it. They might find many other things which give them pleasure and even learning. But books do not simply open themselves up to you. You have to open the pages and read.
It is that simple.
Reflection Questions
1) How much do you know about the intellectual history of other parts of the world?
2) When you learn foreign languages — what is your aim, usually? Reading, writing, speaking, or all of these?
3) Do you think that “universal scholars” with deep knowledge in more than two academic fields can still exist in the so-called in our age of “knowledge explosion”?