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INTRODUCTION
It is in these hard times of post September 11
when Arabs and Muslims are being bashed throughout
the West that it becomes imperative to explain the
various valuable Arab contributions to the West. In
fact, unlike any other region in the entire world,
the Arab region provided the West (and the rest of
humanity) with 3 major contributions:
1. The Arabs’ Semitic ancestors in the
Fertile Crescent and Egypt produced 5 brilliant
ancient civilizations, which benefited the earliest
Western civilizations of Greece and Rome. These 5
are: the Iraqi Sumerian and Babylonian
civilizations; the Egyptian Pharaonic civilization;
the Lebanese Phoenician civilization; and the
Palestinian Canaanite civilization.
2. The 3 Semitic religions of Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam were all born in the Arab
region.
3. The Post-Islamic Arab civilization (which is
the subject of this article) contributed handsomely
to the European Renaissance.
I
Arab
Civilization before Islam
Contrary to some popular Western misconceptions
propagated by many Western "experts" and
"authorities" on the Arab world alleging that Arabs
did not have any civilization before Islam, or that
Arabs were nothing more than a collection of
nomadic warring primitive tribes, confined solely
to the Arabian Peninsula, who spent most of their
existence looking for food and water, the
historical record proves otherwise. In fact,
centuries before the birth of Islam, the Arabs had
several civilizations, not only in the Arabian
Peninsula itself, but also in the Fertile Crescent,
some of which were highly advanced with elaborate
development and culture. Although Arab civilization
before Islam might not have had a noticeable impact
on Greece and Rome, it is nonetheless important to
briefly mention here the following pre-Islamic Arab
civilizations in order to dispel this wrong
conventional Western notion that Arabs had no
civilization before the birth of Islam, were
nothing but wandering nomads, and were confined
only to the Arabian Peninsula.
1
The Kingdom
of Saba (or Sheba)
One of the earliest and most important of all
pre-Islamic Arab civilizations is the Qahtani
Kingdom of Saba or Sheba (10th century BCE –
7th century CE), which had an elaborate
civilization, legendary in its reputation of
prosperity and wealth. The Kingdom of Saba was
located in the southwestern mountainous rainy parts
of the Arabian Peninsula in what is known today as
the regions of Aseer and Yemen. Envious of its
wealth, the Romans named it “Arabia
Felix” (fortunate or prosperous Arabia).
The Sabaean capital, Ma'rib, was located near
San'a, today's capital of Yemen, which was
reportedly founded by Noah's eldest son Shem (or
"Sam" in Arabic) from whose name the word "Sami" in
Arabic or "Semitic" in English comes. In addition
to their domains in the Arabian Penisula, the
Sabaean kings controlled for a long time some parts
of the East African coast across the Red Sea where
they established the Kingdom of Abyssinia, which is
Eritrea today. It should be indicated here that the
name “Abyssinia” comes from the Arabic
word “Habashah”. One of the most famous
rulers of the Sabaeans was Queen Balgais. This
mystic Arab Queen of Sheba was well known for her
beauty, grace, wealth, charm, and splendor. She
reportedly had a famous impassioned encounter with
the Hebrew King Solomon when she took a special
trip to Jerusalem
The Sabaean Kingdom produced and traded in
spices, Arabian frankincense, myrrh, and other
Arabian aromatics. The Sabaeans excelled in
agriculture and had a remarkable irrigation system
with terraced mountains, incredible huge water
tunnels in mountains and great dams including the
legendary Ma'rib Dam, which was built around 2000
BCE. This Arab dam was considered to be one the
greatest technological wonders of the ancient
world. However, the tragic breaking of the Ma'rib
Dam around 575, as indicated in the Qur'an, was an
event of very traumatic proportions in the
collective consciousness of all Arabs at the time
and of later generations.
2
The Kingdom
of Himyar
The Arab Kingdom of Himyar (115 BCE to 525 CE),
which was also located in the southern part of the
Arabian Peninsula, had a sizable number of Arab
Christians and Arab Jews (not Hebrews). The most
prominent Arab Jew of this kingdom was King Dhu
al-Nuwas who persecuted his Arab Christian
subjects. He reportedly incinerated some of them
alive in retaliation for their persecution of Arab
Jews in neighboring Arab Christian Najran.
From their capital city, first at Zafar and
later at San'a, the powerful Himyarite kings
executed military plans which resulted in the
expansion of their domains at times eastward as far
as the Persian Gulf and northward into the Arabian
Desert. However, internal disorder and the changing
of trade routes eventually caused the kingdom to
suffer political and economic decline. In fact,
after several unsuccessful attempts, the African
Abyssinians finally invaded the Arab Himyarite
Kingdom in 525. In 570, the year Prophet Mohammad
was born, the Abyssinian governor Abraha sent an
army of elephant-borne troops in an unsuccessful
attempt to attack the city of Makkah (Mecca) and
destroy its Ka'bah. In 575 the Persians invaded
Himyar and ended the Abyssinian presence in Himyar.
But the Persians did not last long there either.
Soon thereafter Islam swept the entire Arabian
Peninsula.
3
The Nabataean
Kingdom
The Arab Nabataean Kingdom was established in
the 6th century BCE. It was located south of the
Dead Sea and along the eastern shores of the Gulf
of Aqaba in the northern parts of the Hejaz. The
Nabataeans had their capital city in Petra that was
a flourishing center of commerce and civilization.
The Nabataeans’ great achievements and culture
are still echoed in the magnificent
carved-in-the-mountains monuments they left behind.
Thousands of tourists from all over the world are
attracted every year to this Arab region to see
these monuments not only at Petra in Jordan but
also in Saudi Arabia's Mada'in Salih (i.e., Prophet
Salih who warned the Thamud Arab Kingdom to worship
Allah before the birth of Prophet Mohammad). The
small Arab neighboring Kingdoms of Ad, Thamud, and
Lihyan - all also with brilliant monuments and
achievements mentioned in the Qu'ran - came under
the Nabataean suzerainty for a while.
The Arab Nabataean Kingdom, which at its zenith
ruled much of the Syrian interior including
Damascus, later became a vassal Roman state and
eventually fell victim to European colonialism when
it was absorbed into the Roman Empire as the
"Provincia Arabia" in 195 CE. In fact, the Roman
Emperor Philip, who ruled from 244 to 249, was
ethnically an Arab from this Arab Nabataean region.
Incidentally, this Roman Emperor who was known as
"Philip the Arab", was preceded to the Palatine
Hill in Rome by a series of Arab empresses,
half-Arab emperors, and the fully Arab Elagabulus
of Emesa. It is also believed by some scholars that
Philip the Arab was really the first Roman
Christian emperor (244-249 CE) rather than
Constantine I who ruled the Roman Empire (312-337
CE) 63 years after him.
4
The Kingdom
of Tadmor (or Palmyra)
Another important Arab civilization before Islam
was the famous Kingdom of Palmyra (or Tadmor in
Arabic), which is now Hims in Syria. Although
mentioned in some history books as early as the 9th
century BCE, Tadmor became only prominent in the
3rd century BCE when it controlled the vital trade
route between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean.
The Tadmorians had a great civilization and
excelled in international trade. However, like the
Nabataeans, they eventually came under the control
of the expanding Roman imperialism by becoming
another client Arab state of Rome.
In 265 the Tadmorian Arab King Udhayna (or
Odenathus) was rewarded by the Romans to become a
vice-emperor of the Roman Empire because of his
assistance in their war against Persia. However,
King Udhayna's widow Zainab (aka az-Zabba or
Zenobia), the famous strong Arab queen wanted
nothing less for Palmyra than a complete
independence from Rome. She succeeded in
temporarily driving the Roman invaders out of most
of the Fertile Crescent and proclaimed her son
Wahballat (or Athenodorus) to be the true emperor
of a new independent Arab Palmyra. Queen Zainab's
Arabian independent spirit, however, deeply angered
the Romans and eventually resulted in the
destruction of the Tadmorian Kingdom in 273 by a
powerful force of the Roman imperial army. As part
of the Roman victory celebration, queen Zainab was
brutally taken to Rome in golden chains.
5
The Kingdom
of Kindah
Kindat al-Muluk (or the Royal Kindah) was a
famous Arab kingdom, which originated in the
southern Arabian Peninsula near Yemen's Hadramawt
region. Its capital city, al-Fau, was excavated
northeast of Najran in Saudi Arabia in 1972 by
Saudi archaeologists from King Saud University in
Riyadh. The Kingdom of Kindah became prominent
around the late 5th and early 6th centuries CE when
it made one of the earliest and successful efforts
to unite several Arab tribes under its new domain
in Najd in central Arabia.
The traditional founder and ruler of Kindah was
Hujr Akil al-Murar. However, the most renowned of
all Kindah kings was al-Harith ibn Amr, Hujr's
grandson, who extended his kingdom's domain north
by invading Iraq and temporarily capturing
al-Hirah, the capital city of the Arab Christian
Kingdom of Lakhmid. But in 529 al-Hirah was
liberated by its Christian Arabs who killed King
al-Harith along with 50 members of his family.
After al-Harith's death, the Kindah Kingdom split
up into four factions - Asad, Taghlib, Kinanah, and
Qays - each led by a prince. The famous pre-Islamic
Arab poet Imru' al-Qays (who died around 540) was
the prince of Qays. The continuing feuding between
these Arab factions, however, eventually forced the
Kindah princes by the middle of the 6th century to
withdraw to their original place in southern Arabia
next to Yemen. Nevertheless, after Islam was
established throughout the Arabian Peninsula, many
descendants of the Royal Kindah continued to hold
powerful political positions within the Islamic
state. In fact, one branch of the Royal Kindah was
even successful in gaining great political
influence in far away Arab Andalusia in the
European Iberian Peninsula.
6
The Kingdom
of Lakhmid
The Arab Christian Kingdom of Lakhmid, which
originated in the 3rd century CE, reached the
height of its power during the 6th century under
King al-Munthir III (503-554). Its domain covered
from the western shores of the Persian Gulf all the
way north to Iraq where its capital city, al-Hira,
was located on the Euphrates River near present day
Kufah. Working in close cooperation with the
Zoroastrian Persian Sasanian Empire to which the
Lakhmid Kingdom was a vassal state, al-Munthir III
raided and frequently challenged the pro-Byzantine
Arab Kingdom of Ghassan in Syria. His son King Amr
Ibn Hind was patron of the legendary Arab poet
Tarfah Ibn al-Abd and other poets associated with
the seven Mu'allaqat (the Suspended Odes") of
pre-Islamic Arabia (see "The Jahiliyyah" below).
The Lakhmid dynasty eventually disintegrated after
the death of its great Arab Christian King
an-Nu'man III in 602.
7
The Kingdom
of Ghassan
As the Lakhmid Arab Kingdom was Christian so was
its Arab neighbor to the west, the Kingdom of
Ghassan, whose capital city was Damascus. This
Syrian Ghassanid Kingdom was prominent in the 6th
century and was an ally of the Byzantine Empire. It
protected the vital spice trade route from the
south of the Arabian Peninsula and also acted as a
buffer against the desert bedouins.
The Ghassanid King al-Harith Ibn Jabalah
(reigned 529-569), who was a Monophysite Christian,
supported the Christian Byzantine Empire against
the Zoroastrian Sasanian Persian Empire and
successfully opposed the Arab Kingdom of Lakhmids,
which sided with Persians. As a result, King
al-Harith was given the title of
“Patricius” by the Byzantine emperor
Justinian.
Like the Lakhmids, the Ghassanids patronized the
arts and many literary geniuses such as al-Nabighah
al-Thubyani and Hassan Ibn Thabit. Great Arab poets
like them were frequently entertained in the royal
courts of the Ghassanid kings. After the emergence
of Islam in the 7th century, most inhabitants of
the Kingdom of Ghassan became Muslim. One of the
most prominent poets of the Kingdom of Ghassan was
Hassan Ibn Thabit. Ibn Thabit, who espoused Islam,
wrote several famous and beautiful poems in praise
of Prophet Mohammad.
8
The
Jahiliyyah (Pre-Islamic
Arabia)
Even in the period of Jahiliyyah (or "the
ignorance" of pre-Islamic Arabia 500-622) the Arabs
also had a great cultural literary civilization.
Its great classical belles letters could very
easily be compared to the best literary treasures
developed during the later golden age of the
Arab/Islamic civilization of the Abbasids and
Andalusia. The Jahiliyyah era witnessed a vibrant
golden age of Arab poetry and odes. Among the top
pre-Islamic Arab poets, whose poems are still
studied in college and pre-college curricula
throughout the Arab world, are the seven legendary
poets of the Golden Odes, known as the Seven
Mu'allaqat ("the Suspended Odes"). These seven
pre-Islamic Arab poets who belonged to different
Arab tribes included: Prince Imru' al-Qays of the
Kindah Kingdom; Tarfah (by far the greatest
pre-Islamic Arab poet); Zuhair; Labid (who became
so overwhelmed by the power and elegance of the
Qur'an that he refused to compose any poetry for
the last thirty years of his life); Antar (the
greatest cavalier warrior of pre-Islamic Arabia);
Amru' Ibn Kalthoom; and al-Harith Ibn Hillizah.
Each one of these seven great Arab poets wrote
magnificent lengthy poems accentuated with passion,
love, eloquence, courage, and sensuality. Their
seven golden odes, considered to be the greatest
literary treasure of pre-Islamic Arabia, were
accorded the highest honor by the critics of the
times in the annual poetry fair in Ukaz near
Makkah. Their works were inscribed in gold letters
and hung (or "suspended") on the door and walls of
the Ka'bah for the public to read, enjoy, and
appreciate. To these seven incomparable Jahiliyyah
Arab poets one must add the following four geniuses
in poetry: an-Nabighah al-Thubyani, Hassan Ibn
Thabit, al-Hutay'ah, and al-Khansa' (a female).
Although most of pre-Islamic Arabia during the
Jahiliyyah period was largely nomadic and tribal
where bedouin wars and conflicts were the norms
among the disunited Arab tribes and where most
people believed in pagan religions and
superstitions, the two important cities of the
Hejaz, Makkah and Ukaz, stood as shining spots in
the entire Arabian Peninsula. In fact, Makkah was
the religious, political, economic, intellectual,
and cultural center of pre-Islamic Arabia. The
Ka'bah in Makkah and Mount Arafat outside it (both
of which were later incorporated in Islam) had been
important religious sites for annual pilgrimage
centuries before the coming of Islam.
II
Arab
Civilization after Islam
Within a very short period of time after the
birth of Islam in the 7th century, the Arabs built
a vast empire that stretched from Spain and
Portugal (Andalusia) in the west all the way to the
Indian subcontinent in the east. Covering almost
half of the old known world, the Arab empire was
one and a half times the size of the Roman Empire
at its peak. Unlike earlier civilizations, the Arab
civilization dominated the Mediterranean and made
it practically an Arab lake. The Arabs occupied
Spain and Portugal in 711 and were on the verge of
engulfing all of France in 732 when Charles Martel
stopped their advances in the heart of Western
Europe in the Battle of Tours, about 100 miles
south of Paris.
Between the 7th and 15th centuries, the Arabs
established a brilliant civilization the like of
which was not contemporaneously found anywhere in
the world. However, since Islam united all Arabs
for the first time in their history, and rejected
nationalism and secularism (Islam united Arabs and
non-Arabs under the banner of Islam), Arab
civilization and Islamic civilization were one and
the same. The two could not be separated. Several
Arab powerful states were established each with its
own distinct Arab civilization. The most important
of these are the following three, the last two of
which are considered to be the Arab golden age.
These are: The Omayad State with its capital city
in Damascus (661-750); the Abbasid State with its
capital city in Baghdad (750-1258); and Arab
Andalusia (711-1492) in the European Iberian
Peninsula of Spain and Portugal (a continuation of
the Omayad State) with its capital city first in
Cordoba and later in Granada. For centuries Arab
Andalusia represented Europe's main cultural
center. Although the Arab Abbasid State of the east
and Arab Andalusia of the west existed at the same
time, they were not united because of the rivalry
between their Arab leaders.
In all of the above-mentioned three major Arab
States, Arabic was the official language and Islam
was the official religion. However, Arabs,
half-Arabs, and non-Arabs of all the three Semitic
religious faiths lived together in racial and
religious harmony. There was a great deal of
tolerance towards Christians and Jews whether they
were Arabs or not. Within all Arab/Islamic empires,
Arabs played the major role in all of the
political, economic, social, cultural, educational,
and scientific affairs. Non-Arabs were deeply
Arabized both emotionally and culturally. In short,
these three Islamic civilizations (Omayad, Abbasid,
and Andalusia) were by and large Arab.
However, after the destruction of the Arab
Abbasid State in 1258 at the hands of the Mongols
and their ruthless leader Hulagu (a crushing defeat
that the Arabs have never completely recovered
from), the Muslim Turks took over the leadership of
the Muslim world. In an affirmation of the
political unity of the Islamic nation or
“Ummah” (because Islam rejects
nationalism), the Turks established their Muslim
Ottoman State (1258-1922) with its capital first in
Bursa and later in Istanbul (Constantinople), the
former capital city of the Holy Eastern Roman
Empire (or the Byzantine Empire). It was only in
this last major Muslim Turkish State, which did not
include either Persia or Andalusia, that the Arabs
did not play a dominant role in the political or
cultural affairs of the Islamic State. Nor was
Arabic the official language of the Ottoman Empire
in its last days.
Nonetheless, inspired by numerous exhortations
of Prophet Mohammad to Muslims such as: "Seek
knowledge from the cradle to the grave"; "Search
for knowledge, even if you must go to China to find
it"; and "The ink of the scholar is more sacred
than the blood of the martyr", the Arabs excelled
in science and art and provided the world with a
brilliant and unique civilization. Arab
civilization contributed a great deal to the world
in general and to the West in particular by helping
bring about the European Renaissance, first in
Spain and Portugal and later in Italy. As will be
explained shortly, the West is immensely indebted
to the Arabs for many scientific, technological,
and artistic inventions as well as philosophical
concepts. As the contemporary Western civilization
has enlightened the world, so did the old
Arab/Islamic civilization.
However, while the brilliant ancient
civilizations of Iraq and Egypt, and the Jewish and
Christian religions that emerged from Palestine,
are all acknowledged in the West but only as a part
of what is strangely called "Western civilization",
the great Arab/Islamic civilization (like Islam
itself) that emerged from the same Arab region is
either ignored in the West or, if mentioned,
distorted and belittled by many European and
American "scholars" and "experts". In fact, these
so-called "Arabists" or "Orientalists" cannot hide
their hatred, resentment, racism, and patronizing
attitudes towards the Arabs and Islam.
[1]
Because Arab civilization - especially that of
the Abbasid State - included some contributions
from half-Arab and non-Arab Muslims as well as from
Arab Jews and Arab Christians, many American
"scholars", who like to demean or insult the Arabs,
downplay the vital Arab role in the Arab/Islamic
civilization. They argue that Arab civilization was
copied from the Greeks and/or was nothing more than
the civilization of Persians, Turks and other
non-Arab Muslims. Even the so-called American
"left" and "open-minded scholars" argue in a racist
way that Arab contribution to the Islamic
civilization was minimal. For example, the
following citation is a typical example of Western
distortion of Arab contribution to Islamic
civilization. In an address given at a symposium on
the history of philosophy of science held at Boston
University on September 22, 1994, Mr. Dirk Struik
said the following, which appeared in the American
Monthly Review, the so-called "left-wing and
socialist" periodical: "Incidentally, we often
speak of the Arabs. But these "Arabs" were
Persians, Tadjiks, Jews, Moors, etc., seldom Arabs
[My underlining]. What they had in common
was their use of the Arabic language."
[2] Also, Mr. Struik
wrongly referred to the Jews as a distinct
nationality, forgetting the elementary fact that
"Jews" are nothing but the adherents of the Jewish
faith regardless of their race or language, and
disregarding the basic fact that Arab Jews have
always existed even up to the present time. He also
wrongly implied that Moors are not Arabs,
dismissing the simple fact that Moors are indeed
Arabs. In addition, Mr. Struik even ridiculed and
belittled Arab contribution to human civilization
by saying: "...the Arabs, who were so kind [my
underlining] as to keep the torch of Greek
science ablaze to pass it over to the Europeans..."
[3]
However, unlike Mr. Struik and the many Western
"scholars" like him who distort Arab intellectual
and scientific contributions to humanity, Professor
Briffault in his book Making of Humanity simply
stated the basic facts: "Science is the most
momentous contribution of Arab civilization to the
modern world." [4] In
addition, historians Edward Burns and Philip Palph
concluded that: “The intellectual achievements
of the …[Arabs] were far superior to
any of which Christian Europe could boast before
the twelfth century." [5]
They also correctly acknowledged that: "In no
subject were the [Arabs] farther advanced
than in science. In fact, their achievements in
this field were the best the world had seen since
the end of the Hellenistic civilization."
[6] In addition, Burns
and Palph wrote that Arabs:
"…were brilliant astronomers,
mathematicians, physicists, chemists, and
physicians. Despite their reverence for Aristotle,
they did not hesitate to criticize his notion of a
universe of concentric spheres with the earth at
the center, and they admitted the possibility that
the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around
the sun... [The Arabs] were also capable
mathematicians and developed algebra and
trigonometry... [Arab] physicists founded
the science of optics and drew a number of
significant conclusions regarding the theory of
magnifying lenses and the velocity, transmission,
and refraction of light...[Arab] scientists
were the first to describe the chemical processes
of distillation, filtration, and sublimation...The
accomplishments in medicine were just as
remarkable...[The Arabs] discovered the
contagious nature of tuberculosis, described
pleurisy and several varieties of nervous ailments,
and pointed out that the disease can be spread
through contamination of water and soil."
[7]
In fact, the Arabs were the world's pioneers in
establishing the first major institutions of higher
learning. Arabs established the oldest universities
in the world. The University of Qeirawan in Fez,
Morocco was founded in 859, and the al-Azhar
Mosque-University was established in 970 in Cairo.
On the other hand, the oldest university in Europe
is the University of Bologna in Italy, which was
founded in 1088.
1
The Golden
Arab Abbasid Civilization
Arab civilization reached its golden age during
the Abbasid era (750-1258). Baghdad, the seat of
the powerful Abbasid State - which the USA brutally
and illegally occupied in 2003 - was the proud Arab
capital city and the world's major center for the
arts and sciences. Abbasid's Baghdad was not only
the largest city in the world in size, about 100
square kilometers, but was also the world's most
crowded city, containing about 2 million people.
During its heyday, Baghdad was the center of the
richest and most powerful country in the entire
world. It contained two of the world's oldest and
greatest universities, the Nizamiyah and the
Mustansiriyah.
Baghdad was also the seat of the legendary Bait
al-Hikmah or ("the House of Wisdom"), the most
widely-respected "think tank" and the major
research center in all of the vast Abbasid Empire.
From it came various important translations of
Greek and other earlier non-Arab scientific
manuscripts; major breakthroughs in many scientific
and artistic fields; and different discoveries in
various scientific fields that enriched Arab
civilization and in turn benefited the West and the
rest of the world.
Moreover, Baghdad had many banks, where the
world's first checking accounts were established,
with various branches all over the world even as
far as China; an enormous free general public
hospital; a thousand physicians; many pharmacies; a
large number of schools and higher institutions of
learning; a very well-organized postal service;
countless libraries and bookstores; an excellent
water-supply system; a comprehensive sewage system;
and a great paper mill. Even though paper was
invented in China, it was the Arabs who introduced
it to the West. The Europeans, who up to the 12th
century used only parchment for writing, learned
for the first time the art of manufacturing paper
from straw after the brutal Crusaders invaded the
Arab world. [8]
Among the great Arab inventions was the clock.
Some Arab clocks had their timepieces moved by
water, others by burning candles or mercury. A
beautiful Arab water clock was given in 807 as a
gift by the great Arab Abbasid Caliph Haroon
ar-Rasheed (786-809) to the French King Charlemagne
who was totally impressed by it. In fact, the 13th
century Abbasid Arab genius, Ibn ar-Razzaz
al-Jazari, invented impressive arrays of
water-operated monumental clocks such as the famous
automated Peacock Fountain and the Castle Water
Clock.
The Abbasid Arab leaders, or Caliphs, were the
most opulent rulers in the entire world. Their
palaces, halls, parks, and treasures were highly
ostentatious. For example when a diplomatic
Byzantine delegation arrived in Baghdad during the
reign of the Caliph al-Muqtadir (908-32), they were
highly impressed to see the outstanding treasures
in the store-chambers and the magnificent armies of
elephants caparisoned in peacock-silk brocade. The
Byzantine delegation saw Caliph al-Muqtadir arrayed
in brilliant clothes embroidered in gold and
sitting on an ebony throne which was surrounded on
both sides by nine hung collars of gems and other
fabulous jewels. [9] In
his elegant Room of the Tree, they observed:
"…a tree, standing in the midst of a great
circular tank filled with clear water. The tree has
eighteen branches, every branch having numerous
twigs, on which sit all sorts of gold and silver
birds, both large and small. Most of the branches
of this tree are of silver, but some are of gold,
and they spread into the air carrying leaves of
different colours. The leaves of the tree move as
the wind blows, while the birds pipe and sing."
[10]
In fact, the Arabs were so advanced in all of
the scientific and artistic fields over the West
that they considered the Europeans to be inferior
barbarians with uncouth manners. In a language
similar to the current racist propaganda
perpetrated by many Europeans and Americans against
non-Europeans, especially Blacks, the famous
10th-century Arab geographer/historian Abu al-Hasan
al-Mas'udi of Baghdad (died 956) wrote the
following about the Europeans:
"The peoples of the north are those for whom the
sun is distant from the Zenith... cold and damp
prevail in those regions, and snow and ice follow
one another in endless succession. The warm humour
is lacking among them; their bodies are large,
their natures gross, their manners harsh, their
understanding dull and their tongues heavy... their
religious beliefs lack solidity...those of them who
are farthest to the north are the most subject to
stupidity, grossness and brutishness."
[11]
In addition, in the 11th-century, an Arab judge
from Toledo in Arab Spain made even more racist
remarks than al-Mas'udi's about the "stupidity" of
the Europeans and their lack of civilization. He
wrote:
"…their bellies are big, their colour pale,
their hair long and lank. They lack keenness of
understanding and clarity of intelligence, and are
overcome by ignorance and foolishness, blindness
and stupidity." Even as late as the 14th century
the great Arab sociologist and philosopher, Ibn
Khaldun, made contemptuous remarks about the
Europeans. [12]
Before the European Renaissance (the start of
the current Western civilization from 1350 to
1650), most of Europe was living in the feudalism
of the Dark Ages. Europeans lived in poverty,
ignorance, hunger, diseases, violence, treachery,
squalor, and intolerance. Most Europeans lived in
mud huts with filth, practically like animals.
Dirty roadside ditches throughout Europe, filled
with stagnant water, served as public latrines.
[13] In fact, most
Europeans did not even wash their own bodies with
water for fear of damaging their skins and
health.
2
The Glorious
Arab Andalusian Civilization of
Europe
Arab entrance into Europe began with an
"invitation". The governor of an outlying province
in the Iberian Peninsula sent his daughter to
Toledo for schooling. She was supposedly under the
protection of King Rodrick (one of the Germanic
ruthless Visigoth occupying rulers in Spain) who
instead of protecting her, violated and impregnated
her. As a result, her father appealed to the Arabs
in North Africa for a redress of this injury.
[14] The Arabs complied,
and thus began almost 8 centuries of Arab
occupation and civilization in Europe's most
southwestern part. To be exact, the Arabs stayed in
Europe 781 years during which they introduced to
the West a wonderful civilization; religious
tolerance; racial harmony; public baths; and the
novel idea of cleanliness expressed in public and
personal hygiene by washing the human body with
water.
While most Westerners of the Dark Ages lived in
filth, poverty, and ignorance, the Arabs had a
brilliant civilization in Andalusia, Europe's
Iberian Peninsula. From 711, when Tariq Ibn Ziyad
landed with his Arab conquering army at Gibraltar
(so named after him from the Arabic words Jabal
Tariq or "the Mountain of Tariq"), to 1492 when the
Arab presence in Europe ended, Andalusia was the
most enlightened, civilized, racially and
religiously tolerant place in all of the West.
Before the Arabs arrived in the Iberian
Peninsula, the barbarian Germanic occupying
Visigoths viciously persecuted Spanish and
Portuguese Jews. The Arabs not only treated local
Jews with kindness and respect, but also treated
their fellow Christians with the same kindness and
tolerance that Islam called for. In fact, the
Iberian Jews welcomed the Arab conquering army as a
liberating force and joined it against the
Visigoths. [15] The
intolerant Germanic Visigoths also heavily taxed
and ruthlessly treated the poor Iberian peasants,
rendering them practically as slaves. The Arabs, on
the other hand, humanely treated the local peasants
and drastically reduced their taxation.
As early as the 10th century, the Arab
Andalusian capital, Cordoba, was a magnificent
metropolitan center of progress. The pride of the
Arabs in Europe, Cordoba had a half million people
living in it at a time when no European city could
claim a population of even 10,000. Indeed, Arab
Cordoba was the largest and most cultured city in
all of Europe. Its jewelry, leather work, woven
silk and elaborate brocades were highly prized
throughout the world. Cordoba's Arab women copyists
excelled far better than most European Christian
monks in the production of religious works. A
travelling German nun by the name of Hrosvitha, who
died in 1002, was highly impressed by Arab Cordoba.
She referred to it as "the jewel of the world". She
wrote:
"In the western parts of the globe ... there
shone forth a fair ornament ... a city well
cultured ... rich and known by the famous name of
Cordoba, illustrious because of its charms and also
renowned for all resources, especially abounding in
the seven streams of knowledge, and ever famous for
continual victories." [16]
Arab Cordoba was truly the jewel of the entire
world. In contrast to the dust and mud which would
remain familiar features of the streets of London
and Paris for 7 centuries to come, Cordoba had
miles of paved streets; street lights (even seven
hundred years later there was not so much as one
public lamp in London); 113,000 houses with
lavatories and water drainage (even poor houses had
them, something which was not found at the time in
most other European cities); 700 mosques; 300
public baths; 70 public libraries; numerous
bookstores; parks and palaces; [17]
and two major magnificent treasures unequal for
their sophistication in the known civilized
world.
The first treasure was the Great Mosque of
Cordoba, the most extraordinary religious shrine,
second in size only to the Great Mosque of Makkah.
It was completed in 976 and took 200 years to
build. This Great Mosque, which is still a major
tourist attraction in Spain today, is a vast
rectangle with a deep sanctuary divided into 19
aisles by a forest of 870 marble columns. The
interior of this marvelous religious shrine was
beautifully decorated with gold; silver; precious
stones; mosaics; colored tiles; contrasting green
and red marbles; carved plater; wall paintings;
Qur'anic calligraphy; and 8,000 oil lamps, to
provide light, hung from two hundred chandeliers.
The scent of burning aloes and the perfumed oils in
the lamps drifted through the arches of the long
naves. The Mosque's spacious seven-sided mihrab
(the prayer niche which directs worshipers toward
Makkah) was lined with gold mosaics and marbles.
Next to the mihrab stood the beautifully carved
minbar (or pulpit) with its several straight steps
for the Imam to climb up in order to give his
Friday sermon. This wonderful unique pulpit, which
took eight talented craftsmen seven years to make,
was laced with rails of gold and silver and made of
ivory, ebony, sandalwood, and citron wood.
Unfortunately, this magnificent pulpit was cut into
pieces when the Spanish Christians took over
Cordoba in 1236. Today this great mosque is the
Catholic Cathedral of Cordoba.
The second treasure in the Arab Andalusian
capital city of Cordoba was the outstanding
enormous public library. Completed around 970, this
wonderful library alone had over 440,000 books,
more than all of the books in all of France at the
time. In addition to this gigantic public library,
there were 69 other public libraries in Cordoba.
These Arab libraries had been using paper for over
200 years at a time when the few Europeans, who
could read or write, were still using animal skins
for writing.
Just outside Cordoba, in the city of al-Zahra,
the Arab ruler Abdul-Rahman III built his famous
magnificent Palace of Madinat al-Zahra. One of the
great wonders of this extraordinary Arab palace was
the Room of the Caliphs, which had a gilded ceiling
and walls of multi-colored marble blocks. On each
side of the hall were eight splendid doors, which
stood between columns of clear crystal and colored
marble, decorated with gold and ebony and inlaid
with precious stones. In the center of this
beautiful room was a large pool filled with
mercury, which produced dazzling reflections from
the walls and ceiling every time the sunrays shone
on it. When the surface of the pool was quivered,
the whole room was shot through with rays of light,
giving the impression that the room was floating
away. All experts and writers at the time agreed
that the magnificence of this Arab hall had never
been equaled anywhere in the world. [18]
After the fall of Cordoba to the Spanish
Christians, the Arabs moved their capital city to
Granada - in the south of the Iberian Peninsula -
which also became famous as an Arab center of arts
and learning. Arab Granada was also renowned for
its wealth and trade especially in silk. To
immortalize Grenada, its Andalusian Arab rulers
built the magnificent Palace of al-Hamra ("the
red") or Alhambra Palace. This unique palace has
two splendid courts, the Court of the Lions and the
Court of the Myrtles, considered to be the most
magnificent and glorious of all Arab monuments in
Spain. The Alhambra Palace, which was also an Arab
fortress, took about 100 years to build and is
today a major tourist attraction attesting to the
beauty and genius of Arab architecture. In addition
to Cordoba and Granada, Seville and Toledo also
served as the greatest houses of Arab Andalusian
knowledge. In fact, Toledo was the main center of
scientific translation from Arabic to Latin.
The Andalusian Arabs also produced several
exotic agricultural products (see
“Agriculture” below) and developed many
great manufactured products, which were all
exported to Western Europe and the rest of the
world. These industrial products include: textiles;
paper; silk; baked tile; glazed cups, dishes, and
jars which rivaled Chinese porcelain; pottery;
sugar refining; gold; silver; ruby; silk; various
crafted metals; marble; ceramics; and the
much-admired Cordovan ("cordwain")
leather-work.
The sciences that the Andalusian Arabs excelled
in and were taught at their universities, which
helped educate several generations of Western
scholars and students from all over Europe,
included: mathematics, geometry, astronomy,
physics, chemistry, architecture, optics,
meteorology, engineering, pharmacology, medicine,
biology, botany, anatomy, zoology, and philosophy.
It should also be mentioned here that Arab students
in Andalusia were the first to use the cap and gown
worn today by students all over the world during
graduation ceremony.
III
The Legacy of
Arab/Islamic Civilization and Its Impact on the
West
Thanks to Islam and Arab civilization, Arabic
has become the richest of all Semito-Hamitic
languages (so-named after Noah's two eldest sons
Sam and Ham), and one of the world's greatest
languages in history. As a major language of
scripture and civilization, Arabic has deeply
influenced several world languages both in the East
and the West such as Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Hindi,
Spanish, Portuguese, Maltese, Malay-Indonesian;
some African languages like Hausa and Swahili; and
to a lesser extent even the English language (see
below). The Arabic alphabet, which contains 28
letters (2 more letters than the English alphabet),
is now - like the Latin alphabet - one of the most
widely used alphabetic writing system in the world
used in the writing of the languages of Muslim
countries like Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
Between the 9th and 15th centuries, during the
zenith of Arab civilization, Arabic was the
international language of science to a degree which
has since never been equaled by any other language
including English. Arabic was not only the language
of the Arab people, but also the language of many
other peoples and faiths. Neither Greek, nor Latin,
nor even English has ever attained the far-reaching
unique historical dominance over human civilization
as Arabic had. Arabic was so important as the
language of science that European scholars had to
learn it as they learned Latin. Today, Arabic is
one of only six official languages of the United
Nations along with French, English, Russian,
Chinese, and Spanish. Arabic is also the
World’s fourth most popular language after
Chinese, English, and Spanish. And as the language
of the important Arab oil-producing countries,
Arabic has also achieved a prominent status in the
world of international finance and economics.
In fact, the profound impact of the Arabs and
their civilization on Western civilization can be
found in the many Arabic words that became part of
the everyday language in the West. While it is
obvious that the influence of Arabic is much
greater on Spanish and Portuguese, both of which
contain many thousands of Arabic words, than on any
other European language, at least some 4% of the
English language came from Arabic. [19]
The following is a group of words from several
scientific and cultural areas - presented in
alphabetical order - used today in English that
originally came from the Arabic language:
[aba, abelmosk, abutilon, Achernar, acrab,
admiral, adobe, afreet (or afrit), albacore,
albatross, alcalde, alcazar, alchemy, alcohol,
alcove, Aldebaran, alembic, alfalfa, alforja,
algarroba, algebra, Algol, algorism (or algorithm),
alidade, alkali, alkanet, Allah, almanac, alphabet,
Altair, amalgam, amber, ameer (or amir), aniline,
antimony, apricot, ardeb, argan, ariel, arrack,
arroba, arsenal, artichoke, assassin, atabal (or
attabal), attar, aubergine, average, azimuth, azure
...
baldachin, banana, barberry, bard (or barde),
bark, barkentine, bedouin, benzoin, berseem,
Betelgeuse, bint, bonduc, borax, buckram, bulbul,
burnoose (or burnous) ...
cable, cadi (or kadi or qadi), calabash, caliber
(or calibre), caliph, caliphate, camel, camise,
camlet, camphor, canal, candy, cane, Caph, carafe,
carat, caravan, caraway, carmine, carob, carrack,
Casbah (or Kasbah), check (from the Arabic word
"sakk"), checkmate, chiffon, cinnabar, cipher,
civet, coffee, coffer, coffle, colcothar, Copt,
cotton, crimson, crocus, cubeb, cumin, curcuma
...
dahabeah, damascene, damask (from Damascus),
damson, darabukka, Deneb, dhow, dinar, dirham, djin
(or djinn or djinni), dragoman, drub, durra ...
elixir, emir, emirate ...
fakir, fedayee (or fedayeen), fellah, fennec,
fils, Fomalhaut, fustic ...
gabelle, galingale, garble, gauze, gazelle,
genet, genie, ghibli, ghoul, Gibraltar, ginger,
giraffe, grab, guitar, gundi, gypsum ...
haik, hajj, hajji, hakim, halva (or halvah),
hamal (or hammal), hardim, harem, hashish, hazard,
hegira (or hejiara), henna, hookah, houri, howdah
...
imam, imamate, imaret ...
jar, jasmine, jebel, jerboe, jereed, jessamine,
jihad, jinn (or jinni), jubba (or jubbah), julep
...
Kaabah, kabob (or kebab), Kabyle, kafir (or
kaffir), kantar (or qantar), kaph, kat (or qat),
kef, kermes, khamsin, khan, khanjar, kismet, kohl,
Koran (or Qur'an)...
lacquer, lake, lapislazuli, latakia, leban (or
leben), lemon, lilac, lime, lute ...
magazine, Mahdi, majoon, mancus, marabout,
marcasite, marzipan, mascara, mask, massage,
mastaba, mate (as in checkmate in Chess), mattress,
mecca (after Makkah or Mecca), mezereon, minaret,
Mizar, mizen (or mizzen), mocha (from Mocha,
Yemen), mohair, monsoon, mosque, muezzin, mufti,
mullah, mummy, Muslim, muslin (from Mosul),
Mussalman (or Mussulman), myrrh ...
nabob, nacre, nadir, natron, nizam, noria,
nucha, nuchal ...
oka (or oke), olibanum, orange, Ottoman, oud
...
pandore, pistachio, pherkard, popinjay ...
qintar, quintal ...
racket, realgar, ream, rebec (or rebeck), retem,
retina, rial, ribes, Rigel, rice, risk, riyal, rob,
roc, rook, rotl...
safari, safflower, saffron, Sahara, Sahel,
sahib, saker, salam, salamoniac, salep, saloop,
saluki, sambul, santir, saphena, sash, satin,
sayyid, scallion, senna, sequin, serendipity,
sesame, shadoof (or shaduf), shaitan, shallot,
sharif, sheik (or sheikh), sherbet, sherbert,
sherif (or sheriff), shish-kebab, shrub, simoom (or
simoon), sinologue, sirocco, sirup, sloop, soda,
sofa, spinach, sudd, Sufi, Sufism, sugar, sultan,
sultana, sultanate, sumac (or sumach), sumbal (or
sumbul or sumbal), sura, Swahili, syce, syrup
...
tabby, tabla, tabor (or tabour), taffeta, talc,
talisman, tamarind, tambour, tambourine, tangerine,
taraxacum, tarboosh (or tarbush), tare, tariff,
tarragon, tazza, timbal (or tymbal), traffic,
tutty, typhoon ...
ulama (or ulema) ...
Vega, vizier ...
wadi ...
xeba, xebec ...
yashmac (or yashmak) ...
zaffer (or zaffre), zareba (or zariba), zenith,
zero, zibet (or zibeth) ...]
However, more important than the above Arabic
words are the actual scientific contributions and
foundations that the Arabs provided for the West.
As indicated earlier, the European Renaissance was
deeply indebted to the Arabs and their
civilization. From the Arabs the Europeans took the
basic scientific, technological, philosophical, and
cultural foundations that put them on top of the
world and eventually led them in their global
colonization of the non-European world, which
started with Christopher Columbus's voyage to the
Western Hemisphere in 1492. In fact, one of
Columbus's main sea navigators was an Arab Muslim
who upon sighting the land of the New World
joyfully shouted in Arabic: "Allah Akbar" (or God
is the Greatest). [20]
Indeed, as will be revealed shortly, major works
in various philosophical and scientific fields were
borrowed and/or copied from the Arabs by a number
of leading European scholars and scientists before,
during, and after the European Renaissance. The
following is a brief summary of the Arab
contribution to Western and human civilizations in
15 major scientific and artistic disciplines. Only
the top Arab and Muslim scientists (as well as some
occasional Arab Jews and Arab Christians) both from
the Abbasid and Andalusian civilizations are
mentioned in this survey.
1
Mathematics
The Arabs and Muslims contributed more to the
field of mathematics, the basic foundation of
modern civilization, than any other people in
history. To the magnificent Arab civilization the
world owes algebra, algorithm (logarithm),
arithmetic, calculus, geometry, trigonometry, the
decimal system, and the brilliant "zero". The
revolutionary "zero", which gave us what is
referred to in the West as the Arabic decimal
numeration system, did not originate in India as
some Western historians claim but was rather
developed in ancient Iraq by the Neo-Babylonians
maybe as early as 500 BCE. [21]
American mathematics Professor Karl J. Smith
indicated in his textbook, The Nature of
Mathematics, that while the ancient Indians
developed mathematical digital symbols, their
numeration system offered no advantage over other
earlier systems because it did not contain a "zero"
or use a positional system. [22]
Although the Arabs’ Semitic ancestors in
ancient Iraq developed the “zero”, it was
only through the great post-Islamic Arab
civilization that it was incorporated into the main
body of the general mathematical theory. It took
Europe almost 300 years to finally accept the
"zero" as a gift from the Arabs. The Arabic
numerals were simultaneously expressed in somewhat
two different figures or forms, one Abbasid (the
eastern style which most Arabs currently use) and
one Andalusian (the western style which is used
today in the Arab Maghrib countries of Northwest
Africa). It was this Arab Andalusian form of
numerals (i.e., 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) that the West
and the rest of the world eagerly adopted; hence
the worldwide label "Arabic numerals".
Mohammad al-Khawarizmi (780-850), the giant
genius scientist who was born and died in Abbasid
Baghdad, created modern algebra and made brilliant
contributions in the field of mathematics. In fact,
the word "algorithm" is derived from his name, and
the Arabic word al-jabr (or "algebra" in English)
comes from the title of his major work, Kitab
al-Jabr wa al-Muqabalah ("The Book of Integration
and Equation"). Served for a number of years as the
Executive Director of the prestigious "House of
Wisdom" in Baghdad, al-Khawarizmi was also the
first scientist in history to explain how passing
light through water particles creates rainbows.
Another Muslim genius in mathematics, also from
Abbasid Baghdad, is Abu Arrayhan al-Biruni
(973-1048) who was a mathematician, astronomer,
physician, physicist, chemist, geographer and
historian. He was probably the greatest scientist
in all of medieval Islam. Another great
mathematician is Naseer al-Din at-Tusi (1201-1274).
It was in the super work of at-Tusi that
trigonometry achieved the status of an independent
branch of pure mathematics, thus making it an
invention of Arabic science. At-Tusi's contribution
was to combine the results of earlier investigators
and to replace Menelaus' complete quadrilateral by
a simple triangle, thus freeing trigonometry from
spherical astronomy. [23]
Practically all of the advanced trigonometrical
work in the world during the 12th and 13th
centuries were made by Muslim mathematicians and
published in Arabic. Arabic influence in this major
scientific field did not only impact the West, but
also other parts of the world. It seemed that even
the Chinese trigonometry as used by Kuo Shouching
at the end of the 13th century was also of Arab
origin. [24]
2
Astronomy
The most important figure in this scientific
field is the Arab Abu Abdullah al-Battani (aka
Albategius: 858-929) from the Abbasid era. He was
the best-known Arab astronomer in Europe during the
Middle Ages. Al-Battani refined existing values for
the inclination of the ecliptic, for the length of
the year and of the seasons, and for the annual
precession of the equinoxes. He showed that the
position of the Sun's apogee is variable and that
the annular eclipses of the Sun are possible.
Al-Battani also improved the Greek Ptolemy's
astronomical calculations by replacing geometrical
methods with trigonometry, thus becoming the chief
responsible scientist for the first notion of
trigonometrical ratios as they are in use to the
present day. He carried out many years of
remarkably accurate observations at ar-Raqqah in
Syria. One of al-Battani's major works in astronomy
- a compendium of astronomical tables - was
translated into Spanish and was published in 1537
under the title De motu stellarum ("Our Stellar
Motion"). [25]
The Abbasid mathematician al-Biruni also made
valuable contributions in astronomy by accurately
determining the latitudes, longtitudes, geodetic
measurements, specific gravity, and the magnitude
of the earth's circumference. In addition, the
astronomer Ahmad al-Farghani published a
comprehensive treatise on astronomy from which the
famous Italian Alighieri Dante heavily borrowed
both in his Vita Nuova and his Convivio.
[26] The great Polish
astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) also
quoted several Arab scientists in his famous De
Revolutionibus Orbium Celestium - especially the
great Arab astronomer and instrument-maker
al-Zarkali (aka Arzachel) of Andalusia. Al-Zarkali
not only invented a revolutionary astrolabe and
wrote a major treatise about it that influenced the
entire astronomical sciences of the Middle Ages,
[27] but also built a
fascinating water clock capable of determining the
hours of the day and night and indicating the days
of the lunar month. [28]
3
Chemistry
The word "chemistry" itself comes from the
Arabic word alchemy (or al-Keem'ya'). There is no
bigger name in the field of Muslim chemistry than
the great alchemist Jabir Ibn Hayyan (aka Geber:
721-815), the "father of Arab chemistry" of the
Abbasid era. More than 2,000 works are attributed
to Jabir Ibn Hayyan. [29]
Many of the chemical terms used in English today
come from Ibn Hayyan: "alkali", "antimony",
"realgar" (red sulphide arsenic), and "sal-amoniac"
which he discovered. He was also the author of an
important work in chemistry on the use of manganese
dioxide in glass making; the dyeing of leather and
cloth; the waterproofing of cloth; and the
preparation of steel. When European scientists
began to turn their attention to chemistry, they
accepted Ibn Hayyan as their mentor. In 1144 the
Englishman Robert of Chester translated Ibn
Hayyan's Book of the Composition of Alchemy into
Latin, and Gerard of Cremona also made another
translation of Ibn Hayyan's other important work
Book of the Seventy. Ibn Hayyan's 17th century
English translator, Richard Russell, called him:
"Geber, the Most Famous Arabian Prince and
Philosopher". [30]
Also, the world's first explosive developed in
the field of gunpowder known as black powder -
which is a mixture of salt petre (potassium
nitrate), sulfur, and charcoal (carbon) - was
originally invented by the Arabs and not by the
Chinese [31] as it is
commonly believed in the West. The Chinese took
this invention from the Arabs, and by the 10th
century used it in their fireworks and signals. The
Arab-invented black powder was eventually adopted
by the Westerners, (during the 14th century
primarily for use in firearms), who gradually
discontinued it use in the middle of the 19th
century in favor of the guncotton (the first
smokeless powder) and other forms of
nitrocellulose. In addition, around 1304 the Arabs
invented the world's first real gun, a bamboo tube
reinforced with iron that used a charge of black
powder to shoot an arrow. [32]
4
Physics
In the fields of physics and optics, no Arab
scientist comes close to the legendary Abu Ali
al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (aka Alhazen: 965-1039) who
was born in Iraq and died in Egypt during the
golden Abbasid era. Ibn al-Haytham made the first
significant contributions to optical theory since
the time of the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy in
the 2nd century. In his book On the Burning Glass,
he revolutionarized the nature of focusing,
magnifying, and inversion of the image.
Ibn al-Haytham was the world's first scientist
to give an accurate account of vision, correctly
stating that the light comes from the object seen
to the eye, and not the other way around as was
previously believed (i.e., from the eye to the seen
object). [33] Also, In
his widely-acclaimed treatise on optics, translated
into Latin in 1270 under the title Opticae
Thesaurus Alhazeni Libri VII, this great Arab
physicist/optometrist published revolutionary
theories on reflection; refraction; binocular
vision; focussing with lenses; the rainbow;
atmospheric refraction; spherical aberration;
parabolic and spherical mirrors; and the apparent
increase in size of planetary bodies near the
Earth's horizon. In fact, so complicated and so
advanced were Ibn al-Haytham’s theories in
physics that for a long time both Western and
Eastern scientists were afraid to adopt them. But
when he was finally proven to be correct, Ibn
al-Haytham's scientific pre-eminence throughout the
world was no longer in doubt. [34]
The English Roger Bacon (1242-92) was not the only
Western scientist on optics to admit his
indebtedness to Ibn al-Haytham. Both the great
Italian Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) and the
German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) were
also deeply influenced by the scientific findings
of this Arab genius.
5
Medicine
The great Persian Muslim scientist Abu Bakr
al-Razi (aka Rhazes: 865-925) of Abbasid's Baghdad
was the greatest medical authority in the entire
Islamic civilization. His major works were
translated into Latin. A pioneering physician,
al-Razi was the first to describe pupillary
reflexes; gave the world's first account of
smallpox and measles; discovered the contagious
characters of diseases; and differentiated among
colic pain, kidney-stone pain, and the pains of the
ileus. His ten-part treatise in Arabic on clinical
and internal medicine, at-Tibb al-Mansuri that was
translated into Latin under the title Medicinalis
Almansoris, was widely influential in the West
throughout the Middle Ages. In it, he discussed
drugs; diets; skin diseases; child and mother care;
mouth hygiene; toxicology and epidemiology;
climatology and the effect of environment on
health; a regiment for preserving good health; and
general medical theories and definitions. In his
brilliant treatise on psychic therapy written in
Arabic, at-Tibb ar-Ruhani ("Psychic Therapy"), and
in his comprehensive medical encyclopedia, al-Hawi
fi at-Tibb, al-Razi provided considerable insight
into the scope, methods, and applications of the
clinical, internal, and psychiatric medicine as
well as the interpretation of the general health
precepts.
Another medical genius was Abu al-Qasim
Az-Zahrawi (aka Albucasis: 936-1013), an Arab from
the great Arab Andalusian civilization. Az-Zahrawi
is considered to be Islam's greatest medieval
surgeon who single-handedly shaped European
surgical procedures until the Renaissance. His
30-part medical encyclopedia, At-Tasrif ("The
Method"), which contained over 200 surgical medical
instruments he personally designed, was a surgical
treatise that had a tremendous influence on Western
medicine. Translated into Latin in the 12th century
by the Italian scholar Gerard of Cremona, at-Tasrif
stood for nearly 500 years as the leading textbook
on surgery in Europe, preferred for its concise
lucidity even to the great works of the classical
Greek medical authority Galen of Pergamum.
A third Muslim medical giant, from the Abbasid's
Baghdad era, is the Persian Abu Ali Ibn Sina (aka
Avicenna: 980-1037). Perhaps the most famous and
influential philosopher-scientist in all of Islam,
Ibn Sina added to al-Razi by discovering the
contagious character of disease (e.g. through
water). Ibn Sina wrote many medical volumes in
Arabic, the most important of which are the
following two, both of which were translated into
Latin. The first is Kitab ash-Shifa ("The Book of
Healing"), a vast encyclopedia that included the
science of psychology and is probably the largest
work of its kind ever written by one man. The
second is an encyclopedia by the name of al-Qanun
fi at-Tibb ("The Canon of Medicine"), the most
famous single book in the history of medicine in
both East and West. The Canon became the medical
authority not only in the Islamic world where it
was used as a major reference until the 19th
century, but also in the Western world where it was
used for more than 500 years. [35]
Arab and Muslim medical science came to a climax
in the two famous treatises on the plague by two
great Arab physicians: Ibn al-Khatib (1313-1374) of
Granada, and his contemporary Ibn Khatima. Ibn
al-Khatib who wrote more than fifty books on
different subjects, used some revolutionary medical
terms for his time in his treatise on the plague.
On the other hand, Ibn Khatima's treatise on the
plague was considered to be "far superior to all
the numerous plague tracts edited in Europe between
the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries".
[36]
The Arabs founded the world’s first
hospitals as well as travelling hospitals during
the Abbasid era. While hospitals were well
established and widespread throughout the Arab and
Muslim world as early as the 9th century, they did
not come into existence in the West until the 13th
century. As late as the 16th century medical
studies in the West were still largely based on the
findings of Arab scientists. Actually it was due to
contacts with the Arabs that medical schools began
to appear in the West. Even in the 17th century we
still find some Western scholars from France and
Germany relying on Arab medical writings rather
than on any other. [37]
6
Pharmacy and
Pharmacology
As a recognized profession, pharmacy is an
Arab/Islamic institution. Under the patronage of
the Arab Abbasid rulers around 800 CE, pharmacology
achieved the status of an independent science,
separate yet closely related to medicine. The first
privately owned and managed pharmacies in the world
(where drugs, herbs, and spices were sold) were
established in Baghdad in the early part of the 9th
century. Shortly thereafter, pharmacy shops started
to appear throughout the Muslim world.
[38]
In pharmacology (or "as-Saydalah" in Arabic),
the Arabs produced some of the best pharmacists in
the world at the time. The most famous
pharmacist/botanist was an Andalusian Arab by the
name of Ibn al-Baytar (died 1248) who wrote the
greatest of all medieval books on botany called
Collection of Simple Drugs and Food. Ibn al-Baytar
collected plants and drugs from all over the Muslim
world and described over 1,400 medical drugs and
their use. For hundreds of years, European
dispensaries relied heavily on recipes prepared by
Arab pharmaceutists and took to the West some of
the Arabic medical terms such as sirup (sharab) and
julep (gulab). [39] In
fact, Arab pharmacology in the West survived until
the early part of the 19th century. [40]
7
Zoology and
Veterinary Medicine
Depending on animals for food, war, and
transportation, the Arabs and Muslims raised the
basic interest in animal husbandry to the level of
a science. The first important comprehensive
zoological study of animals in Arabic was Kitab
al-Hayawan (Book of Animals), written by Abu Uthman
Amr Ibn Bahr al-Jahiz (776-869) from Basrah, Iraq.
Covering animals in and around Iraq with their
characteristics, this pioneering book was written
in an eloquent and interesting literary style. In
it, al-Jahiz described the various diseases that
afflict animals and their treatments. Another
important work in this field was The Uses of
Animals, written by an Arab doctor named Ibn
Bakhtishu. This 11th century book is a
comprehensive account of the medicines that could
be extracted from animals for human use.
However, the greatest medieval work in
veterinary medicine is the comprehensive work by
Abu Bakr al-Baytar of Cairo (died 1340) entitled
Kamil as-Sina'atayn. This famous work in Arabic
covers animal husbandry, birds, breeding,
horsemanship, and knighthood. In it, al-Baytar also
detailed animal diseases, the methods and drugs
used in their treatment, and the use of animal
organs in therapeutics.
Also, during the 14th century, another Arab
scientist from Egypt by the name of Kamal al-Din
ad-Damiri (died 1405) provided the world with a
brilliant work in zoology and animal husbandry
entitled Hayat al-Hayawan (The Life of Animals). In
this most comprehensive major work, al-Damiri (who
was also a philosopher/theologian) arranged and
discussed animals in alphabetical order. He listed
their characteristics, qualities, habits, and the
medical values of their organs for humans. In
addition, this brilliant work by al-Damiri along
with other Arabic texts on animals and natural
sciences - which were written over four centuries
before the famous 1859 Origins of Species by the
English Charles Darwin (1809-1882) - contained
rudimentary concepts of evolutionary theory,
including the doctrine of survival of the fittest
and natural selection. [41]
8
Agriculture
Arab Andalusia had a highly advanced system of
agricultural engineering, an elaborate irrigation
canal system, and fountains - the likes of which
was not found anywhere in Western Europe at the
time. The Arabs made the Iberian land produce more
and better crops and introduced to Europe such
exotic and valuable agricultural products as
oranges, cotton, eggplants, saffron, pomegranates,
apricots, rice, sugar cane, artichokes, peaches,
date palms, and mulberry.
The Andalusian Arabs were the leading
agricultural practitioners in all of Europe who
also developed the most advanced systems in canal
and irrigation, land drainage, and siphoning.
Thanks to them, Spain was agriculturally the
richest and most advanced country in Europe.
According to one American author, agriculture and
horticultural improvements "constituted the finest
legacies of Islam, and the gardens of Spain
proclaim to this day one of the noblest virtues of
her Muslim conquerors." [42]
The Arabs of Andalusia also produced some of the
world's finest agricultural scientists who
benefited humanity. For example, during the second
half of the 11th century, an Arab scientist from
Toledo by the name of Ibn al-Bassal wrote a
brilliant book on agriculture, which in 1955 was
edited with a Spanish translation and notes under
the title Libro de Agricultura. [43]
In addition, an Arab scientist from Seville named
Ibn al-Awwam wrote the most important agricultural
treatise during the golden age of Arab Spain in the
12th century. It was entitled Kitab al-Filahah
("Book of Agriculture") and was translated from
Arabic into both Spanish and French in the 19th
century. Ibn al-Awwam's brilliant book contained 35
chapters and covered 585 plants. It dealt with
agronomy, cattle and poultry raising, and
beekeeping; made important observations on soil,
manures, plant grafting, and plant diseases; and
covered such agricultural topics as medical plants,
farming techniques, husbandry, plant sex life,
fertilization, tillage, sharecropping, gardening,
and landscaping. [44]
9
Philosophy
and Metaphysics
Western Christian philosophy and theology owe a
great deal to Arab thinkers and philosophers. For
example, The Italian theologian St. Thomas Aquinas
(1224-74) copied liberally from the Arabic writings
of Abu al-Walid Ibn Rushd (aka Averroes: 1126-98),
the Arab Muslim genius of Cordoba who is considered
to be the greatest philosopher in all of Islam.The
Summa of St Thomas, which was considered to be the
very citadel of Western Christian theology, was
deeply influenced by the writings of Arab
philosophers, especially Ibn Rushd. The French
philosopher, Rene Descartes (1596-1650), was also
deeply influenced by Ibn Rush. Also, St. Thomas'
great Dominican's most essential doctrines were
copied practically word by word from the Arabic
work of an earlier great Turkish Muslim philosopher
by the name of Abu Nasr al-Farabi (878-950) of
Abbasid's Baghdad. [45]
In addition, Italy's greatest poet, Dante
(1265-1321), who hated Prophet Mohammad and Islam,
plagiarized his greatest work, the Divine Comedy,
by copying from the works of the mystic Arab genius
Ibn al-Arabi (1165-1240) of Arab Andalusia, and
also from Risalat al-Ghufran (The Epistle of
Forgiveness) written by the great Arab philosopher
and poet Abu al-Ala' al-Ma'arri of Syria
(973-1057). Dante's Divine Comedy's fundamental
concepts of Heaven and Hell very closely resemble
Ibn al-Arabi's account of Prophet Mohammad's ascent
to Heaven from Makkah via Jerusalem. [46]
Ironically, however, the unthankful plagiarist
Dante consigned Prophet Mohammad to the lowest
level of Hell in his Divine Comedy. On the other
hand, the Spanish mystic Ramon Llull (1235-1316)
was also highly influenced by Arabic philosophy and
Islamic mysticism produced by such Muslim mystics
as al-Hallaj (858-922) of Abbasid's Baghdad.
Actually Arab influence was so obvious on
Western philosophy that many European scholars and
theologians openly admitted their great
indebtedness to the Arabs. One of those who
admitted his gratitude to the Arabs is the Scottish
theologian John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) who was
deeply influenced in his intellectual activities by
the Fons Vitae which was originally written in
Arabic by a great Arab philosopher of Jewish faith
(not a Hebrew) from Cordoba by the name of Abu
Ayyub Ibn Gabirut "or Gabirol" (aka Avicebron:
1022-70). [47] Other
great Andalusian Arabs of Jewish faith may include
such scholars as the philosopher/poet Abu Haroon
Moussa (aka Moses Ibn Ezra: 1060-1139), and the
philosopher/physician Abu Imran Moussa Ibn Maymun
(aka Moses Maimonides: 1135-1204), the personal
physician of the great Salah ad-Din who liberated
Palestine from the Crusaders.
10
Geography
Many Arabs and Muslims made valuable
contributions in the field of geography. Abu
al-Hasan al-Mas'udi of the Abbasid era (died 956) -
a geographer, historian, and traveler - was the
author of more than twenty major voluminous works
many of which were translated into Latin. He was
the first Arab to combine history and scientific
geography in his widely acclaimed
historical-geographical encyclopedia, The Meadows
of Gold and Mines of Gems. Al-Mas'udi's
encyclopedia was one of the finest and richest
medieval sources not only in geography but also of
geographical and anthropological information.
Al-Mas'udi also wrote another 30-volume
encyclopedia on world history entitled Akhbar
az-Zaman ("The History of Time").
The Arabs who occupied Sicily, prior to its
occupation by the Normans (Vikings) in the 11th
century, made it major center of Arab sciences.
Even during the occupation by the Norman Kings,
Sicilian coins were minted with Arabic inscriptions
and Islamic dates; many of the Sicilian records
including those of the courts were written in
Arabic; and it was also fashionable for Christian
Sicilians to dress like Arabs and to speak Arabic.
[48] When the Christian
Norman King Roger II of Sicily (1130-54) needed a
compendium of the then known world, he entrusted no
other geographer in the world except a Moroccan
descendant of Prophet Mohammad by the name of
al-Sharif Abu Abdullah al-Idrisi (1100-1166), the
greatest of all Arab geographers. Al-Idrisi
produced for King Roger II not only a brilliant
construction of a celestial sphere but also a
disk-shaped map of the known world (i.e., the
world's Eastern Hemisphere), both of which were
made of solid silver. The silver map, which was one
of seventy accurate maps he produced, was based on
his encyclopedic work, The Book of Roger,
translated into Latin in Paris in 1619. After the
death of King Roger II, al-Idrisi stayed on at the
court in Palermo and wrote, for his son King
William I, another geographical treatise, The
Garden of Civilization and the Amusement of the
Soul. [49] Al-Idrisi also
wrote one of the greatest works of medieval
geography, The Pleasure Excursion of One Who is
Eager to Traverse the Regions of the World.
However, in the area of travelling and
exploration no Arab geographer achieved the fame of
the legendary Moroccan Mohammad Ibn Abdullah Ibn
Battutah (1304-1369). Ibn Battutah documented his
famous travels that covered over 75,000 miles in 28
years throughout Africa, Arabia, Persia, India and
China. In addition, the Arab geographer Hassan
al-Wazzan (aka Leo Africanus: 1485-1554) produced a
major work titled, A Geographical Historie of
Africa, which was translated into Latin around 1600
and subsequently appeared in 14 different editions.
This scholarly work by al-Wazzan served Europe
almost up to the modern times as its main source of
knowledge on Africa. [50]
11
Sociology
The Arab legendary Abdulrahman Ibn Khaldun,
sociologist and philosopher of history (1332-1406)
from Tunis, was an amazingly original genius. He
was the world's first historian to develop and
explicate the general laws that govern the rise and
decline of civilizations. Ibn Khaldun wrote many
books the most important of which is his brilliant
seven-volume encyclopedia on history and societies.
This encyclopedia's first volume is entitled
al-Muqaddimah ("Introduction"), which gives a
profound and detailed analysis of human society and
its cultural components. In it he fathered the
sciences of sociology, economics, anthropology, and
political science.
Ibn Khaldun's greatest contribution to human
civilization is found in his "positive" philosophy
of history and social evolution. It is to him that
we owe the systematic elaboration of a full-fledge
theory of sociological determinism. Ibn Khaldun's
study of the nature of society and social change,
as well as his deference to empiricism in general,
enabled him to develop "the science of
civilization" which he clearly saw as a new
science. It was a totally new science without any
parallel in the history of ancient and medieval
thoughts. Indeed, Ibn Khaldun had founded the
discipline of Sociology over 4 centuries before the
French Auguste Comte (1798-1857) who is credited in
the West with its establishment.
Ibn Khaldun called his new science Ilm al-Umran
("the science of culture"), which he defined as:
"This science ... has its own subject, viz., human
society, and its own problems, viz., the social
transformations that succeed each other in the
nature of society." [51]
Robert Flint once eulogized Ibn Khaldun as
follows: "As a theorist on history he has no equal
in any age or country until Vico [the great
Italian philosopher of history Giambattista Vico:
1668-1744] appeared, more than three hundred
years later. Plato, Aristotle and Augustine were
not his peers..." [52]
The great 20th-century British historian Arnold
Toynbee (1889-1975) stated that Ibn Khaldun has
founded: "a philosophy of history which is
undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has
ever yet been created by any mind in any time or
place." [53]
12
Literature
Not only did the West learn from the Arabs the
arts of making paper books, as indicated earlier,
but also the typically beautiful Arab art of
leather binding with its luxurious ornamentation in
"gold tooling" and its flap that folds over to
protect the front edges of a book. [54]
In addition to the thousands of Arabic words that
entered the various Western languages, especially
Spanish and Portuguese, the rich Arabic literature
itself has left some of its general imprints upon
Western literature.
Among the great works of Arabic literature that
have impacted the West is the multi-volume Alf
Laylah wa Laylah ("The Thousand and One Nights" or
"The Arabian Nights") from the golden Abbasid era
which is composed of a large collection of famous
Arab entertaining stories narrated by queen
Scheherazad to her husband Scheherayar. These
include such famous legends as "Aladdin and the
Magic Lamp", "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", and
"The Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor". The Arabian
Nights was translated early in the 18th century
into many Western languages and immediately
introduced a distinct new element to Western
fiction writing. For example, "The Voyages of
Sindbad the Sailor" became an inspiration for
Gulliver's Travels published in 1726 by the Irish
author Jonathan Swift. The Arabian Nights was also
a source of inspiration for many other Western
writers and poets. These include: the French writer
Voltaire (1694-1778) who modeled his famous work
Zadiq on it; the English Samuel Johnson (1709-84)
who was influenced by it in his Rasselas; the
English poet George Gordon Byron (1788-1824); the
English poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850); and
the Argentinean poet Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986).
[55]
In fact, the influence of Arabic literature on
Europe was so pervasive and widespread that we find
echoes of it in the Grail-saga, in the old French
romance Floire et Blanchefleur; in the allied
German Rolandslied and the French Chanson de
Rolandl and in the more famous Aucassin et
Nicolette, the name of whose male hero derives from
the Arab name Qasim. Obviously, both the oriental
tales in Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron and
Geoffrey Chaucer's Squieres Tale are of Arab
origin. Also, the Arabic apologies came to play an
important role in medieval and later Western
literature, especially the Spanish and Portuguese
literatures. For example, Arabic influence is very
clear on Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote
published in 1605. [56]
The two best-known Arab characters in English
literature are found in William Shakespeare's
Othello and The Merchant of Venice. While Othello
is an Arab with all the pride, passion, and
nobility of his own cultural identity, the Prince
of Morocco, in The Merchant of Venice, is an Arab
with a high distinction of soul and appearance
hardly matched by the Western characters against
whom he was pitted. [57]
Moreover, Professor H. A. R. Gibb indicated that
Arabic poetry contributed in some measure to the
rise of the new poetry of Europe [58],
especially the Provencal troubadours whose poetry
and music owed so much to the Arabs. Arab poetry
was cultivated in the court of Alfonso the Wise of
Castille and of the Norman kings and of Frederick
II of Sicily. The Arab poet Shushtari provided
literary themes to many Western writers such as St.
John of the Cross and Ramon Lull. The Arabic poetry
of ghazal ("love and romance"), especially as
reflected in the idealized legendary love passion
of Qays and Layla, left a profound mark on the
Western love lyrics of many European writers such
as the French communist poet Louis Aragon
(1897-1982). [59]
Also, the love traditions of Jamil and Umar made
their way into the French Provencal courtly love
whereby the Arabic word TaRiBa became TRoBar and
TRouBadour. The great Arabic literature of the
genius Abu Mohammad Ibn Hazm of Cordoba (994-1064),
especially his chivalric love in Dove's Necklace,
deeply influenced the French writer Andre Le
Chapelain's The Art of Courtly Love, published in
1185. [60]
In fact, we find Arabic and Islamic influences
and elements in the works of many other and more
recent European authors and poets such as in the
English author William Beckford's (1760-1844)
Vathek, published in 1786; in the English author
Daniel Defoe's (1660-1731) Robinson Crusoe, whose
inspiration clearly came from the beautiful Arab
novel Hayy Ibn Yaqzan ("Living, Son of Awake")
written by the great Arab Andalusian
philosopher/physician Mohammad Ibn Tufayl
(1109-85); in the German poet Johann Goethe's
(1749-1832) West-ostlicher Divan, published in
1819; and in the works of other great German poets
of the 19th century such as August Platen
(1796-1835) and Friedrich Ruckert (1788-1866).
[61]
13
Music
Even though orthodox Islam does not approve of
music, it was with the advent of Islamic mysticism,
such as Sufism, that the Arabs and Muslims began to
develop a great deal of musical art, especially for
religious observation. A talented Arab musician by
the name of Zaryab (died 850), who moved from
Baghdad to settle in Andalusia, established
Europe’s first conservatory in Cordoba. Zaryab
became a great singer, lute player, and music
teacher. The influence of the Arab music on
European music can also be found in the musical
instruments the Arabs invented and/or introduced to
the West. For example, in 942, the Arabs introd |
