History, language, and the sciences in medieval Spain

The intense involvement of the Jews in science in medieval Iberia was affected by various historical settings and factors, which partly conditioned the production of knowledge by Jews there between the tenth and the fifteenth centuries. There has always been some desire to relate the production of knowledge to history rather than discussing it in a vacuum. Early attempts to explain the Jewish involvement in the sciences in medieval Spain saw it as part of a struggle between Enlightenment and obscurantism. Later these forces were replaced by Pietism versus Averroism. Many have attempted to situate intellectual history within the framework of overarching processes such as the (sometimes unexamined) concept of the Reconquista and the movement of Jews between Muslim and Christian Spain.