But also - I am finalizing the section on philosophy and the way it was used in the USSR for propaganda purposes, and it's super interesting how they used Arabic philosophy.
Avicenna, for example, was from present-day Uzbekistan. So promoting him did several things: 1) affirmative action; 2) political favor with modern Arabic allies; 3) showing that all of the peoples of the Soviet Union had progressive philosophers in their past.
Peter Turchin has an interesting section about influence of Arabic philosophy on Soviet ideology, especially a concept of "asabiya", introduced by an Arabic thinker (whose name I of course forgot), meaning basically the level of social cohesion. Soviets of course got it wrong, as they believed you can force the cohesion on people.
@kravietz Thank you for that! I'll look for it. :)