Islamic
Contributions to the West
Rachida
El Diwani
Professor of Comparative Literature
Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt
Fulbright Visiting Specialist, Oct 22 – Nov 12, 2005
Lake Superior State University
Sault Ste. Marie, MI 49783
I.
Introduction
II.
Islamicization
of the West.
III.
Islamic
achievements in science.
A. Introduction:
Unwillingness to recognize Islamic achievements.
B.
Scientific
method and rationalism.
C. Humanism, philosophy, scholasticism.
D. Mathematics
E.
Astronomy
F.
Medicine
G. Material culture
1.
commerce and
seafaring
2.
Agriculture
and Minerals
3.
the arts
of “gracious living”
·
Industry
·
Architecture
·
Music
·
Books
·
Urban
organization
IV.
The spread of
Islamic culture into Europe
V.
Conclusion
·
Recognizing
the others
Islamic
Contributions to the West
Rachida
El Diwani
Professor of
Comparative Literature
Alexandria University, Alexandria,
Egypt
Fulbright Visiting
Specialist, Oct 22 – Nov 12, 2005
Lake Superior State University
Sault Ste. Marie, MI 49783
I.
Introduction
In this talk I would like to give an idea
about the cultural contribution of the Islamic civilization to the West, the
Islamic origins of modern science and civilization and the ascendancy of the
Islamic science and learning for about 600 years in the world.
Therefore I’ll talk about the beginning of
the Islamicization of the West, of the Influence of Muslims on Western
philosophy, rationalism, experimental method, sciences, commerce, material life
and arts of gracious living.
II.
Islamicization
of the West.
“Islamicization of the West”, I will use this word for the diffusion and
assimilation of Islamic culture in the West. This is distinct from Islamization
which means the conscious acceptance and implementation of the ideal Islamic
cultural patterns by non-Muslims and nominal Muslims. Islamicization is
sociologically similar to, though not identical with, Westernization subject to
the limits and conditions of imitative- innovative social change.
The Islamicization of the Medieval West, occurred, first, during the
period ending around the middle of the eleventh century before systematic
translations from Arabic into Western languages began; secondly during the age
of Arabic translations coinciding with the little Renaissance of the twelfth to
the seventeenth centuries; and third, during the Catholic-Protestant
Reformation and Renaissance of the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries.
The very presence of Muslims on Western soils (Spain, Sicily)
was creating a complex situation. On the one hand, Islamic civilization on
Western land was allowing a different way of living and thinking much superior
to that one existing in the rest of Europe. On
the other hand, it was giving bad feelings to the Christians towards those
Muslims inhabiting Latin neighboring countries.
The transformation of the West during these centuries until the
sixteenth, passed through several stages of contact and conflict with Islamic
culture. The West resorted to various strategies vis-à-vis “the problem of
Islam” (R.W. Southern, Western Views of Islam). Until about the
end of the eleventh century, the Western views of ideal Islam and its cultural
and military triumphant civilization were fostered by sheer ignorance,
fanaticism, hatred toward Islam and the Muslims, Biblical exegesis, and
relative intellectual and physical isolation. This led to the expected apogee
of Western Zealot type response: the Crusades of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. The extensive contacts with the superior Islamic culture and Muslims
during the Crusades ushered in a new era in Western self-consciousness, and
awakened responses to Islamic culture. The highest intellectual achievements of
the West during these two centuries, twelfth and thirteenth, comprised the
imitation of Islamic science and learning. Universities were found in the West
patterned on the Muslim universities to assimilate the new knowledge made
available by translations of the works in Arabic and, to a lesser extent, of
Greek classics which have been superseded by the Muslims.
III.
Islamic
achievements in science.
A. Introduction: Unwillingness to recognize Islamic
achievements.
Many European scholars who approach the subject of
Arab contributions to science and philosophy do it with prejudice against the
Arabs. Even some of those who praise them do so grudgingly, Carra de Vaux in
his chapter “Astronomy and mathematics’, in Legacy of Islam felt
compelled to begin by disparaging the Arabs. He said: “we must not
expect to find among the Arabs the same powerful genius, the same gift of
scientific imagination, the same “enthusiasm”,
the same originality of thought that we
have among the Greeks. The Arabs are before all else the pupils of the Greeks,
their science is a continuation of Greek science which it preserves,
cultivates, and on a number of points develops and perfects.” This is what
Carra de Vaux began by saying on the Arabs but a moment later he elaborated and
conceded that: “the Arabs have really achieved great things in science; they
taught the use of ciphers (sc. Arabic numerals), although they did not invent
them, and thus became the founders of the arithmetic of every day; they made
algebra an exact science and developed it considerably and laid the foundations
of analytical geometry; they were indisputably the founders of plane and
spherical trigonometry which, properly speaking, did not exist among the
Greeks. In astronomy they made a number of valuable observations.”
The Arabs, with a great open mind went through a gigantesque translation
movement from Greek, Indian, and Syriac. Al Ma’mum, the Abbassid Khalif, had
founded at the beginning of the ninth century “the house of Wisdom” (bayt el
Hikmah) especially for translations. The Arabs assimilated these works of the
ancient and developed them. Philosophy, Mathematics, Astronomy and Medicine
were the first subjects to attract the interest of Muslims.
B. Scientific method and rationalism.
The scientific or inductive method of inquiry was the greatest boon the
Islamic culture had bestowed upon the West. Muslim thinkers were using the
inductive method in their scientific investigation in different fields. AlRazi
and Ibn al Haitham expounded particularly this method. Ibn Hazm, in his studies
of logic emphasized sense-perception as a source of knowledge. Later Ibn
Taymiyah, refuting the Aristotelian logic showed that induction was the only
form of reliable inference.
It was the method of observation and experiment which led Al-Biruni to
the discovery of reaction time, al-Kindi to the formula that sensation is a
response of the organism proportionate to the stimulus, and Ibn Al Haitham to
his findings in optics.
Briffault, in The Making of Humanity, (London, 1928, pp. 200-201)
wrote: “the debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist in startling
discoveries of revolutionary theories; science owes a great deal more to Arab
culture, it owes its existence.”
The ancient world was pre-scientific. The
astronomy and mathematics of the Greeks were a foreign importation never thoroughly
acclimatized in Greek culture. The Greeks systematized, generalized, and
theorized, but the patient ways of investigation, the accumulation of positive knowledge,
the minute methods of science, detailed and prolonged observation and
experimental inquiry were altogether alien to the Greek temperament. Only in
Hellenistic Alexandria was any approach to scientific work conducted in the
ancient classical world. What we call science arose in Europe
as a result of a new spirit of inquiry, of new methods of investigation, of the
methods of experiment, observation, and measurement, of the development of
mathematics in a form unknown to the Greeks. That spirit and those methods were
introduced into the European world by the Arabs.
C. Humanism, philosophy, scholasticism.
Muslim
philosophy influenced Western thought in several ways. It mainly initiated in
the West the humanistic movement and helped the Western scholastics in
harmonizing philosophy with faith.
Muslims
gave a humanist bend to the Western mind. They revealed to the West that
outside the prevailing catholic church it was not all darkness and barbarism
but immense wealth of knowledge. Before any direct contact between the Greek
intellect and the Western mind was established, Arabs had captured and further
developed all the intellectual achievements of Greece. It was also due to their
influence that men outside the Christian West began to be considered as human
and even possessors of higher civilizations.
Long before the Crusades, an Islamic rationalism, had existed in Muslim
Spain and Muslim Sicily on Western soil and had been radiating from there to
banish the Christian –Western “ Dark Age”. The Muslim idealistic rationalists
precede the Jewish and Christian scholastics. Latin Christendom was borrowing
and assimilating Islamic ideological culture, directly from original Arabic
sources and the Latin translations of the works of Al- Ghazali, Al kindi, Al
Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd and others. Indirectly also through the translated
works of Jewish scholastics (Maimonides) who had come even under deeper Islamic
influences (G. Sarton, An Introduction to History of Science,
1:626, 694, 701).
It is
now an established fact of the history of science that the Christian
scholastics did borrow from the Islamic philosophy (E.Gilson, History of
Christian philosophy in the Middle Ages; – sheriff, M.M. (Ed) A History
of Muslim Philosophy.; G.Sarton, An Introduction to
History of science. St. Albert and St. Thomas were among the
great imitative- innovative assimilators of Islamic ideological culture.
Sorokin cited the theory of knowledge of St.
Thomas as an example of “a European variety of
Platonic- Aristotelian idealistic rationalism” (Social and Cultural
Dynamics, 2:99, 97ff). Reverend Hammond proved by placing in
parallel columns passages from their works that St. Thomas plagiarized the ideas as well as
the phraseology of Al Farabi concerning the theory of knowledge, and other
ideas. (R. Hammond, The philosophy of al Farabi and its
influence on Medieval thought). Sarton said St. Thomas “was deeply influenced
by Muslim philosophy… chiefly by Al- Ghazali and Ibn Rushd, but his own point
of view was fundamentally opposed to Averroism… The aim of his life was to
reconcile Aristotelian and Muslim knowledge with Christian theology”. (Introduction,
2: 914f).
Philosophy and science were considered, in the
West, up to the fifteenth century, as antagonistic to religion. Hence the
teachings of Aristotelianism and Averroism were banned, Bruno was burnt, Kepler
was persecuted and Galileo forced to retract. By harmonizing faith with reason
Muslim thinkers made possible for themselves and for Europe,
an unhampered development.
The Renaissance finally could install Aristotle
on the throne of philosophy. Montgomery Walt expresses an interesting idea
about the origin of the extreme love and admiration Europe
had for Aristotle and the Classical thought in general. This phenomenon can be
considered as another Islamic contribution to the Western culture. It is
because Europe wanted to assert itself
distinctly from the Islamic civilization that it assigned to Aristotle a
central position in philosophy and science.
The main philosophical influence
on the Christian thought at this period was Avicenna and Averroes, the two
Muslim philosophers commenting Aristotle and building their philosophical
systems on or against the Greek philosopher. Aristotle presented to the
Christian scholars the opportunity to escape from the Muslim thought as such.
Aristotle belonging to the classical past (Greek and Roman) of Europe was a positive complement to the Muslim sciences
towards which the Christian scholars had turned to acquire their knowledge.
Montgomery Watt says: “the purely negative activity of turning from Islam,
especially when so much was being learnt from Arab sciences and philosophy
would have been difficult, if not impossible, without a positive complement,
the positive complement was the appeal to Europe’s classical past” (The Influence of Islam on Medieval
Europe, p.79). Because Europe was
reacting against Islam it exaggerated its dependence on its Roman and Greek
heritage and belittled the influence of the Muslim one.
John Wycliffe (d. 1384), “the Morning star” of
the Reformation called for a reform of the church, by imitation of the Muslims,
but certainly without expressing his idea explicitly. (Sarton, Introduction,
3: 1346-50). He began a new era by pointing inwards at Christians and their own
deficiencies as an explanation for their lack of success compared to the
Muslims’ one. He believed the cause of Muslims’ success was their religion
which sanctioned worldly pursuits, self-will and secular dominion. The success
of Christendom depended on its development like the Muslims’, for Wycliffe said
“Opposites are dissolved by their opposites”. (Southern, pp. 77-83; Sarton, 3:
1346-50).
The fifteenth century experienced continued
Islamicisation of the West and a variety of responses to the challenge of
Islamic culture. John of Segovia, a Spanish cardinal (d. 1458), advocated
peaceful communication with the Muslims. At the other end was Jean Germain (d.
1461), a French bishop, interested in rallying Christendom to a sense of its
own identity, preached a return to crusader militarism; above all, he hated
those Christians- merchants and others, in increasing numbers- who traveled in
Islam and came back with scruples and criticisms of the Christian faith. Unlike
John of Segovia, he feared the contamination of discussion. (Southern, p.97).
By that time the Islamised Turks had seized power in the Muslim world under the
Ottoman dynasty. They had taken over the Balkans, Constantinople and were
reaching the outposts of Western Europe.
Then
came Martin Luther (d. 1546) after Wycliffe and others and claimed that there
can be no solution to the problem of Islam until Christian reformation was
completed. He strove to eliminate asceticism, monasticism, celibacy,
mendicants, the domination of the church, the cult of saints and holy days, the
indissolubility and sacredness of marriage. He even admitted polygamy as lawful. He taught the sanctity of
all work and rejected the notion of some works as holy. He emphasized the ethic
of worldly success. (Southern, p. 104-7). Like Wycliffe, Luther rebelled
against ecclesiastical authoritarianism and stressed the importance of
individual reasoning and conscience as necessary to conduct independent study
either to see God or to develop science and philosophy as was so well
demonstrated by the success of the Islamic culture. Luther’s opponents were not
wrong when they accused him of imitating Islamic tenets.
The
works of St. Albert, St. Thomas and Roger Bacon represent
basically a tremendous will to conquer learning primarily by borrowing from the
Muslims. The Western myth of Roger Bacon as the founder of the experimental method
has been exploded (Sarton, An Introduction, 2:952-67; Briffault, The
Making of Humanity ) though it remains to this day esoteric knowledge.
Bacon was a student and agent of diffusion in Europe
of the well established scientific method of the Muslims. Bacon abandoned the Bible
as an instrument for understanding the role of Islam in the World; he opposed
the militant and zealot responses of the Crusades and Western obscurantism. He
was convinced of the importance of learning Arabic and the Muslim sciences and
philosophy as the only way to true knowledge for Christian Europe. (Southern, Western
Views, pp 52-64). Even if Roger Bacon, like other medieval Western
scholars, did not acknowledge his Islamic borrowings, part V of his Opus
Majus is almost a copy of The Optics of Ibn al Haitham
(d. 1039) (Southern, pp56-7). Bacon was one of the most outspoken agents of
diffusion of Islamic culture in the West; for this he was imprisoned during the
last fifteen years of his life.
The career of Frederic II, the semi-Muslim
Hohenstaufen Emperor of Rome (1215-1250) exemplifies the Western Christian pre-
Reformation ideological and institutional obstacles to Islamicization. He
patronized translations of Arabic books and popularized them, established the
first medieval Western university at Naples, and
others at Messina and Padua. He introduced advanced Muslim medicine
in the school of Salerno. Pope Gregory IX called him an
anti- Christ and stirred revolts against him. Repeatedly excommunicated,
vanquished, baffled, betrayed, harassed, disheartened, embittered by long years
of strife and daily peril, Frederic II capitulated to the Pope and departed
from Italy
on a Crusade. In Jerusalem,
this strangest of Crusaders, was received by Sultan Al Malik Al Kamil, as an honored
friend. Discussing with the knowledgeable Sultan, mathematics and sciences, as
well as the folly of men who like darkness rather than light, Frederic II
exclaimed: “Happy Sultan who knows no pope” (Briffault, p.214). These were
prophetic words pointing at the Christian institutional obstructions to
Islamicisation. The concept of an anti- Christ was shifting from the Prophet Muhammad
to Western Islamicisers and, at the hands of the Protestant reformers, to the Popes.
D. Mathematics
The first important name in mathematics is
that of AL-khwarismi, known to the Latin scholars as Algorismus; from his name
is derived the technical term “algorism” and he is the founder of the science
of “Algebra”. Alkhawarismi was followed by many famous mathematicians, like AlKindi,
AlSarakhsi, the three sons of Shakir Ibn Musa, the “Banu Musa”, Alhazen, the
Brethren of Purity, etc…
The achievements of Islamic mathematics can
be summarized as follow: the Muslims developed number theory in both its
mathematical and metaphysical aspects. They generalized the concept of number
beyond what was known to the Greeks. They devised new methods of numerical
computation reaching their height with Alkashani in the eighth/fifteenth
centuries. They also dealt with numerical series, decimal fractions, and
similar branches of mathematics connected with numbers.
They
systematized and developed the science of algebra, preserving always its links
with geometry. They continued the work of the Greeks in solid and plane
geometry and developed trigonometry, both plane and solid, working up accurate
tables for the functions and discovering many trigonometric relations. This
science, cultivated previously in conjunction with astronomy, was perfected and
made into an independent science for the first time by Nasir al Din al Tusi in
his famous Figure of the Sector, which represents major achievements in medieval
mathematics. Muslims, above all, developed the "Arabic numbers" and
thus made easier all the dealings done previously with the roman numbers
encouraged to go beyond the mathematical operations and opened the mathematical
horizons with the invention of the zero.
E. Astronomy
In Astronomy Muslims continued the Greek
tradition while making extensive use of the knowledge of the Persians and
Indians and integrated this new astronomical system into the Islamic world view.
The several new features of Islamic astronomy include, besides all the
refinements made in the Ptolemaic system, the star catalogue of Ulugh Beg,
which was the first new catalogue since the time of Ptolemy, and the
replacement of the calculus of chords by the calculus of sires and
trigonometry. The Muslim astronomers also modified the general system of the
Alexandrians in two important aspects. The first modification was to abolish
the eight spheres which Ptolemy had hypothesized to communicate the diurnal
movement to each of the heaven; the Muslims substituted a single starless
heaven at the confines of the universe, above the heavens of fixed stars, which
in undergoing diurnal motion carried all the heavens with it. The other
modification, which had a greater significance for the philosophy of sciences,
involved a change in the nature of the heavens. The abstract heavens of the
Greeks were transformed into a solid body.
The
Islamic astronomy continued to correct the mathematical shortcomings of the
Ptolemaic model, but it did not break the bounds of the closed Ptolemaic
system, which was so intimately tied to the medieval world view.
Later Muslim astronomers criticized
various aspects of Ptolemaic astronomy, and Al Biruni knew of the possibility
of the motion of the earth around the sun and an elliptic rather than circular
motion of the planets. But none of them did, nor could they, take the step to break
with the traditional worldview, as was to happen during the Renaissance in the
West, because that would have meant not only a revolution in astronomy, but
also an upheaval in the religious, philosophical and social domains.
As
long as the hierarchy of knowledge remained intact in Islam, and sciences
(scientia) continued to be cultivated in the bosom of wisdom (Sapientia), a
certain “limitation” in the physical domain was accepted in order to preserve
the freedom of expansion and realization in the spiritual domain. The wall of
cosmos was preserved in order to guard the symbolic meaning which such a
walled-in-vision of the cosmos presented to most of mankind. For The great majority of men, it was
difficult to conceive of the sky as some incandescent matter whirling in space
and at the same time as the throne of God. And so, despite all the technical
possibility, the step toward breaking the traditional world view was not taken,
and the Muslims remained content with developing and perfecting the
astronomical system that had been inherited from the Greeks, Indians and
Persians, and which became fully integrated into the Islamic world view.
F. Medicine
Islamic medicine is one of the most famous and
best known facets of Islamic civilization, being one of the branches of science
in which the Muslims most excelled. The Muslim physicians were studied in the
West until the 19th century. In the East, despite the rapid spread
of Western medical education, Islamic medicine continues to be studied and
practiced on a minor scale.
Islamic school of medicine which came into
being early in the history of Islam is of great significance first for its
intrinsic value, secondly because it has always been closely allied with the
other sciences, and especially philosophy.
The wise man or Hakim, who has been throughout
Islamic history the central figure in the propagation and transmission of
sciences, has usually been a physician. The fact that both the sage and the
physician are called Hakim shows the relationship between the two. Many of the
best known philosophers and scientists in Islam, such as Avicenna and Averroes,
were also physicians. The same thing holds true for the Jewish philosophers in
the world of Islam. Maimonides besides being a great thinker was also the
physician to Saladin.
The first generations of Muslims
were having a simple medicine based on what became to be known as the Medicine
of the Prophet (Tibb an-Nabi). Islam, as a guide for all aspects of human life,
was concerned with the general principles of medicine and hygiene. Several
verses of the Quran deal with medical questions of a very general
order. There are also many sayings of the Prophet dealing with health,
sickness, hygiene, and many questions related to the field of medicine. Their
guidance has determined many of the Muslims dietary and hygienic habits.
To this typically Islamic medicine were
integrated the Hippocratic and Galenic traditions of Greek medicine with the
theories and practices of the Persians and Indians, within the general world
view of Islam. It is therefore synthetic in nature, combining the observational
and concrete approach of the Hippocratic school with the theoretical and
philosophical method of Galen and adding to the already rich Greek tradition
the theories and experiences of the Persian and Indian physicians. The Islamic
medicine was seeking the concrete causes for individual phenomena rather than
the general causes sought by the Peripatetic “natural philosophy.”
With medical texts of Greek, Pahlavi and
Sanskrit origin translated into Arabic, and a sound technical vocabulary firmly
established, the ground was prepared for the appearance of those giants whose
work have dominated Islamic medicine ever since: Al Tabari, Rhazes, Ali ibn al
Abbas, Avicenna, Averroes, Mesue Senior (yuhanna ibn Masawaih), Mesue Junior
(Masawaih al Marindi) and many others.
The
Muslim physicians taught their science in schools, mosques and hospitals. There
were the theoretical teaching and the practical one. The hospitals were very
cared for and all the sick persons were admitted and were receiving all the
care needed, plus clean and new clothes
and enough money to live with until they were able to resume working.
It
would be too long to speak about all the sciences the Muslims developed:
History, Geography, Cosmography and Cosmology, the sciences of man, the city
planning, Engineer architecture, Arts, etc…
Arts and sciences in Islam are based on the
idea of Devine Unity, which is the heart of Islamic Revelation. Just as all
genuine Islamic arts provide the plastic forms through which one can
contemplate the Divine Unity manifesting itself in multiplicity, so do all
Islamic sciences reveal the unity of Nature, which is an image of the unity of
the Divine Principle. `
G. Material culture
1. Commerce and Seafaring
Arab presence in Sicily and Spain from the eighth century onward and the
European presence in the Levant during the two
centuries of the Crusades had led to a certain adoption by Western Europeans of
many features of Islamic culture. We should add to these relations those
resulting from the trade and commerce Arabs had been carrying out throughout
the lands under Islamic domination and far beyond these frontiers.
The Arabs in the West wanted the material
luxuries to which they had been accustomed in Damascus, and the local inhabitants, admiring
the Arabs, wanted to share as far as possible the external aspects of their
life. Traders were coming from the East with manufactured goods, incense,
spices and all the niceties giving a flavor for daily life. They were bringing
back from Europe raw materials, slaves, iron
and timber.
The
sharing of material culture is observed also in techniques connected with
shipbuilding and seafaring. The Arabs invented the lateen sail, despite its
Western name, in the lateen caravel. The principle of the lateen sail was
adopted by European shipbuilders and once developed made possible the
construction of larger ships capable of crossing the Atlantic
for the voyages of discovery. They also discovered the mariner’s compass, the portolans
or nautical charts, etc… It was from the Arabs that Europeans gained a wider
and more precise geographical knowledge. The Arab scholar Al Idrissi (1100-66)
under the patronage of Roger II of Sicily,
produced a complete description of the world as then known to the Muslims. He
set out the fruits of his travels from Asia to England in a series of seventy maps
accompanied by written description comprising what is known as “the book of
Roger”. Up to the twelfth century, men still thought that the whole world,
apart from Europe, belonged to the Muslims, to
judge from the writing of William of Malmesbury.
2. Agriculture and Minerals
Arabs were having a prosperous agriculture in
the lands where agriculture was possible. They certainly raised the level of
agriculture in a country like Spain
where they introduced ways of conserving and distributing water. Evidence for
this is the large number of Spanish words pertaining to irrigation techniques
which have been derived from Arabic, ex: acequia, irrigation ditch; alberca,
articial pool; aljibe, cistern; noria, irrigating wheel or draw well; arcaduz,
water conduit or bucket; azuda, Persian wheel; almatriche, canal; alcantarilla,
bridge, sewer; atarjea, small drain; atanor, water pipe; alcorque, hollow round
the base of a tree to hold water, etc… besides this evidence from language, the
actual forms of wheels still used in Spain were invented in the Middle East
where they are found today.
The Arabs introduced into Spain their
crops: among others were the sugar-cane, rice, oranges, lemons, aubergines,
artichokes, apricots and cotton. For all these even the English words came
originally from Arabic.
The
mineral wealth of Spain
was fully exploited: Iron, Copper, cinnabar from which mercury was extracted,
gold, precious and semi-precious stones were sought and collected.
3. The Arts of “Gracious Living”
·
Industry
This
wide variety of materials from agriculture and mining was used by the Arabs of
Spain to enhance the pleasure of life. There were various industries producing
luxury goods. Among the products were gorgeous textiles in wool, linen and silk.
The ceramic industry, the manufacturing of Crystal, the handicraft of fine metal, of
jewellery, of carving ivory and wood, of leather work, book-biding, etc… were
highly developed.
·
Architecture
The
glorious buildings called “Moorish” constituted the framework of this life of
luxury. The evidence of the Spanish language shows that the Arabs were
responsible for many improvements and refinements in building techniques. The
words for “architect” and “mason” are from Arabic, “alarife” and “albanil”. So
also are the following; alcazar, castle; alcoba, bedroom; azulejo, tile; azotea
, roof terrace; baldosa, fine paving tile; aldaba, door-knocker, etc…
·
Music
The
Arabs invented or improved many types of instrument. The Arabic names of the
lute, guitar, rebec and naker show their Arabic origin. The actual Arabic
singing and playing was spread by the troubadours. The Morris dancers of England (or
Moorish dancers) perform with a hobby-horse and bells and are reminiscent of
the Arab minstrels:
·
Books
Familiarity with books was one part of
“gracious living”. The use of paper made easier the possession of books. The
Arabs developed the manufacturing of paper invented by the Chinese. Its use
spread into Western Europe through Spain
and Sicily.
·
Urban
organization
The “gracious living” of the Arabs of Spain
was essentially urban living and presupposes the existence of cities where law
and order is preserved and people living together in peace. It is not
surprising therefore to find in Spanish number of words of Arabic origin
dealing with municipal administration and the control of commercial activity
like, alcalde (mayor), alcaid (governor of a fortress), the zalmedina
(magistrate), zoco or azoguejo (market) etc…
IV.
The spread
of Islamic culture into Europe.
The
Islamicisation of intellectual culture in Spain as early as the ninth century
was described by Alvaro, a contemporary Cordovian bishop: “the Christians love
to read the poems and romances of the Arabs: theologians and philosophers.
Alas! All talented young Christians read and study with enthusiasm the Arab books;
they gather immense libraries at great expense; they despise the Christian
literature as unworthy of attention. They have forgotten their language. For
everyone who can write a letter in Latin to a friend, there are a thousand who
can express themselves in Arabic with elegance, and write better poems in this
language than the Arabs themselves”. (R.W. Southern, p.21).
There
have been many discussions of the relationship of Arabic and European elements
in the sphere of poetry (Sir Hamilton Gibb, The Legacy of Islam),
notably in respect of Provençal poetry and the troubadours (from the Arabic
word mutrebeen). The popular poetry formed the connecting link between Spain and Provence,
since singers moved between Muslim and Christian territories.
This refinement of life gradually spread
northwards from Spain and Sicily. The experiences
of the Crusaders in Islamic lands doubtless contributed something to the spread
of Arab culture in Western Europe.
V.
Conclusion
The notion of “the miracle of Arabic science”
circulated most unfortunately by Sarton, the Historian of medieval science, is
false. The explanation of the “phenomenon” of the sudden birth of Islamic
science lays down in the living Islamic ethos of those times; its dogmas and
its gamut of culture; the all- pervading Islamic law which forged strong bonds
of social co-operation among the Muslims, and between the Muslims and
non-Muslims, citizens and resident aliens of the vast Islamic society of
bewildering religious, ideological, national, racial and linguistic diversity.
This Islamic ethos in action rekindled the dying embers of the pre-Quranic
ancient sciences and world-wide civilization. The Muslims absorbed the best in
the existing sciences and civilizations consistent with Islam and developed
them, thanks to the intensely developed Islamic consciousness and conditioning,
based on a remarkable Islamic system of education. There was great flexibility
in horizontal and vertical mobility of people as nationalistic and hedonistic
evils were held in check. Prerequisites for science and civilization were there:
invention and innovation based on original thought; social mindedness and
utilitarianism of individual efforts as well as in the organization of state
and its educational and other programs; political stability, the rule of law
and constitutionalism. All these mechanisms and conditions are necessary for
the genesis, development, diffusion and application of science and technology.
These mechanisms operate only in a cultural and political milieu of propitious
dogmas, laws, values, cosmological doctrines, attitudes and efforts, all of
which existed in the progressive period of medieval Islamic civilization.
I would like to emphasize the Islamic origins
of modern science and civilization, and the ascendancy of Islamic science and
learning in the world for more than 600 years (eighth to thirteenth centuries
AD/second to seventh AH at least).
The West has generally maintained a conspiracy
of silence regarding its medieval rejuvenation through Islamicization (the
imitative-innovative assimilation of Islamic culture by non-Muslims - Islamization
being the adoption of ideal Islamic culture and religion in the behavioral
culture).
In more recent times a large number of Western
scholars, together with Muslim scholars writing in Western languages, have been
bringing out the diffusion of Islamic science, philosophy, and other aspects of
Islamic culture in medieval West.
However, such researches have not
been incorporated in the Western education system and culture, in the manner
and to the extent necessary for fostering the proper appreciation of the ideal
and historical patterns of Islamic culture. Therefore the West portends and
strives for Westernization of the Muslim world because of what is considered to
be the backwardness of contemporary Muslim behavioral culture pattern and the
denyial of the existence and validity of ideal Islamic culture pattern.
Therefore we can see the reactionary Muslim responses through polemics, xenophobia,
historical romanticism, zealotism, fanaticism, extremism, even terrorism. Which
are in fact a far cry from the creative adaptation indispensable for
contemporary rejuvenation.
The
consequences of the denial, falsification and neglect of this historical fact
have been extremely serious: the denigration of Islam in the eyes of Muslims
and non-Muslims; the identification of Islam and its culture with ignorance and
backwardness and of “modernity” and progress with Western civilization; the
creation of xenophobia and arrogance in Western mind, and the perpetration of
ideological and politico- economic Western imperialism against Muslim people;
the imposition of an inferiority complex among Western educated “modern”
Muslims, and the bitter social and political cleavages between the “modern” and
the “traditional” Muslim elites.
This
fact of medieval Islamicization of the West needs to be fully researched,
accepted and incorporated in specialized works and in the teaching materials of
schools and colleges around the world. The consequences of this will be far
reaching in understanding the socio-cultural rejuvenation and modernization of
the developing nations, in building up a genuine and universally acceptable
theory of social action, and in ridding sociology of ethnocentrism; in removing
the burdens of historical romanticism and apologetics imposed upon the
underdeveloped nations and suppressed minorities as a reaction to the cultural
arrogance of nations and ethnic groups which are highly developed today but had
their own dark ages at some other time and in promoting international
understanding and co-operation for development and world peace.
References
[1] Arnold, T.,
Guillaume, A, (ed) The Legacy of Islam, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1931.
[2] Briffault, The
Making of Humanity, London,
1928.
[3] Eaton, Gai,
Islam and the Destiny of Man, Kuala Lumpur, Islam Book Trust, 1994.
[4] Hunke, Sigrid, Le Soleil d’Allah brille
sur l’Occident, Abbin Michel, Paris, 1963.
[5] Imamuddin, S.M, Some Aspect of the
Socio-Economic And culture History of Muslim Spain,
711-1492, Leiden,
E.J. Brill.
[6] Montgomery Watt, The Influence of Islam
Medieval Europe, Edinburg,
Univ, press, 1972.
[7] Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, Science And
Civilization In Islam, ABC International group, inc, Chicago, 2001.
[8] Sarton, G., Introduction to History of
science, Baltimore,
the Williams and Wilkingsco, 1927-28, 3 vols.
[9] Sharif, M.M.(ed), A History Of Muslim
Philosophy, Wiesbaden,
Otto Harrass Ovitz, 1966, 2 vols.
[10] Southern, R.W, Western Views of Islam In
The Middle Ages, Cambridge,
Mass.1962.
[11] Abstracta Islamica (classified
list of books and articles on Islamic Subjects).
[12] Index Islamicus, (supplement
to the Revue des Etudes Islamiques).
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