Abū Hāmid al-Gharnātī (c. 1080-1170)
“In a book, there is no knowledge, there is only writing that guides us to knowledge. It only becomes knowledge when you harbor it in your memory, for knowledge is the attribute of the wise man.”
- From Abū Hāmid’s Exposition of some of the Wonders of the West, in Ibn Fadlān and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travelers in the Far North, translated by Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone (Penguin Classics, 2012).
