The influence of Hadith Studies in keeping the Islamic World ‘Backward’

Before I begin this post I want to make a little excuse for my posts of the last few weeks in particular and this one. I have been dissatisfied with many of them but have been unable or unwilling to edit them properly because of carpal tunnel syndrome. For the same reason I'm taking a week off after this post to allow my wrist to recover.

That's a fairly provocative post title and it also signals that I'm now going to link the studies that originated with the time of Muhammad and the political ideas that first circulated then (but carried on into modern times) with modern times under ideological and other domination by the West. So really this is about how certain strands of Islam have proved not to be useful in moving beyond a mediaeval mind-set to face modern realities.

Modern Islamic thinkers are generally concerned to deemphasise the legal importance of the Hadith and Qur’an to the extent they have been used to inhibit the use of ijtihad (legal reasoning). Notable exceptions to this recent understanding of Islam as a moral rather than a legal/constitutional force include the recent Iranian, al-Qaeda and Taliban ideologies although some of these ideologies are in dialogue with modernity as they must be.

Debate will continue as to how literally or how interpretively to deal with questions in Islam using very old sources of ‘law’ in much the same way there continues to be legal debate in the West concerning ‘activism’ among judges. Al-Shafi’i and Ibn Hanbal were early exponents of the literalist camp in early Islam. They held that the Hadith ought to cover matters not explicit in the Qur’an thus obviating the need for excessive interpretation. In response to this approach, which tends to have resulted in excessive legalism, modern scholars note the emphasis which the prophet himself placed on principles rather than formalised details.

Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab and Saudi Arabia

Wahhab lived from 1703 to 1791 in Central Arabia and he began a movement of religious revivalism and moral reform there. He received his earliest Hanbali clerical training in Eastern Arabia and more in the Hijaz, Syria and Iraq. He opposed the Enlightenment values that the Ottomans, who controlled parts of Arabia, had taken on.

He gave his personal bay’a to an Emir of the House of Sa’ud in 1744 and called himself Shaykh and the Emir, Imam. His descendents thus took the surname ash-Shaykh and continued to have an important relationship with the Sa’udi family which became the royal family of Saudi Arabia. His views are certainly in the Ahl al-Hadith tradition of Ibn Hanbal and Ibn Taymiyya. He opposed superstition and idolatry, which he saw as involved in the veneration of saints and their tombs; even the most sacred sites at Mecca and Medina were over-venerated in his view. Again, he followed Ibn Taymiyya in Salafiyya atavism. The upshot of that was that an ideal and true Islam could only be discovered in emulation of the main players in 7^th Century Arabia. He tended to overlook some of the flaws of these men and women and exaggerate their virtues. He opposed all non-Muslims and also Sufi and Shi’a Muslims, which he saw as idolatrous and/or manipulative, even more narrow-mindedly than Ibn Taymiyya. His ideas were also arguably quite derivative of Ibn Taymiyya rather than in any sense original and he regularly narrowly interpreted and selectively quoted from Taymiyya's work. This self-proclaimed Shaykh who inspired ‘modern’ Saudi Arabia essentially combined a tribal world view with patterns of puritanical Hanbali Islam that Saudi oil wealth has helped to export to much of the rest of the Islamic world today.

The Saudis ruled when they were able with the support of the Wahhabi Shaykh family from the time of that first agreement on. They were suppressed at various times by Ottoman troops at one time under the command of the Albanian, Muhammad ‘Ali, who ruled Egypt. Saudi rule has now been continuous in Saudi Arabia since ‘Abd al-'Aziz as-Sa'ud with the aid at first of a mere 40 odd warriors began to reassert his control in the early 20^th century, shortly before the finding of large quantities of oil in the territory. To date all of the kings who have succeeded him have been his sons (as is the current crown prince). The regime’s legal system was generally opposed to the use of ijtihad and its philosophy may be best described by itself on the occasion of the state’s 60^th Anniversary as a kingdom in London’s The Times as “progress without change”. Material progress has occurred along with no change permitted to attitudes or behaviour in any material respect according to the lights of the regime and its supporting clerics. Obviously this regime stance is a purely fantasist one. Attitudes are indeed changing as are behaviours. While no parties are allowed the Muslim Brothers are permitted to operate there and the Saudi regime has given substantial financial support to the Brethren in other Islamic countries arguably in order to destabilise those countries. The trial of Qutb which led to his execution apparently raised the support he received from Saudi Arabia. While attitudes and behaviour in private may be changing, public behaviour with which the regime does not agree remains dangerous. The problem for the general population remains that the regime’s oil wealth means it does not require the support of its people in the form of tax, one of the major reasons people usually give for justifying asking for representation in government.

Shura, Nasiha, Jihad and Authority

The next two Islamic concepts I will now consider briefly (shura and nasiha) bear on both whether a ruler (or political system) should be consultative and whether it should be answerable in any way to anybody. To that extent, they can be seen as the basis for a form of Islamic constitutional democracy. The third concept, jihad, bears on questions of the international law of peace and war. It may be viewed as the basis for a theory of 'the just war' comparable with the Western theories. I won't write much about the developments in the political theory surrounding these concepts now but I hope I will be able to later.

Shura (originally meaning consultation) is a concept that was developed in the writings that I discussed in the last post that may be compared with democracy or at least the basis of a form of constitutional monarchy. It has been generally accepted that consultation with the community of believers is enjoined by the Qur’an with regard to some matters. Scholars have extrapolated from that a Qur’anic principle of consultation. Advice provided during the consultation was never made binding, however, so a Qur’anic democratic principle has not been extrapolated. A consultative rather than legislative pattern in both the naming and activities of modern Islamic parliaments reflects the value accorded to Shura (rather than democracy).

Nasīha is another Qur’anic concept that has been further developed originally meaning both advice and sincerity. While Shura is a process of putting ideas for discussion by an ultimate decision-maker, Nasīha is the earlier process of qualified advisors giving advice to the decision-maker. The idea developed was that the decision-maker ought to be given the truth as the advisor sees it regardless of the consequences for the advisor (i.e. telling truth to power). In this sense, the earliest Caliphs consulted relatively widely. Again, there was no compulsion on the decision-maker to follow the advice. Pious Muslims see it as a duty, therefore, to tell the truth to power.

Jihad means essentially effort and can also be extended to mean holy war. In most cases, scholars determined that the jihad called for in the Qur'an is to be interpreted today as commanding an internal struggle against worldly temptations. The Qur’an does not generally use the word jihad in the sense of holy war according to the generally accepted interpretation.

Symbolically, Islam has used a number of things to represent a ruler's authority. They include the seal ring (khatam), the mantle/cloak (burda) especially if once worn by Muhammad, the sceptre (qadib) and mention in Friday prayers (in the khutba) and on coinage (sikka).

There is relatively little written by Shi’a jurists in the area of political theory until the 19^th Century. The jurists arguably began writing then because of the contemporary end of the successful Shi’a Persian Safavid regime which had supported the jurists financially (as Ja’fari law required). As a result, the area was a relatively free field of endeavour available for the exploration of such clerics as the Ayatollah Khomeini and his immediate antecedents. I'll be discussing what those theories were in a later post.

Imama, Ummah and Caliphate

Two ideas much discussed in political theory were and are the ideas of ummah (community) and imama (leadership) and this discussion occurred firstly in the context of the Sunni/Shi’a split; a split in ideas and realities of both community and leadership. The word ummah does not inherently imply either a religious or a political community, it simply means community. The first political ummah organised by Muhammad included non-Muslims. The usual Arabic word for a religious community (although it can also be used, like ummah, to mean nationality) is milla. The Caliphate (as an ideal form of leadership) came to have its special appeal in today's more atavistic times in the Islamic world.

The idea of appropriate leadership was informed very early by the Sunni/Shi’a split. Muhammad’s son-in-law and cousin, ‘Ali, and then 'Ali's descendents, were authorised to replace Muhammad as a holy leadership family by Muhammad and the Qur’an according to the branch of Islam that became known as the Shi’a. The orthodox Muslims often led by Aisha, Muhammad’s young wife, and now called Sunnis, however, disputed this initially political assertion of authority although they did also choose the first Caliphs based on their status as members of Muhammad’s Quraysh tribe. ‘Ali, himself, eventually accepted the appointment of the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, and is known to have given him advice. Nevertheless a Shi’a opposition to the early Caliphs remained which eventually formulated the idea that the family of Muhammad beginning with ‘Ali should be leaders of the Islamic community and could also be prophets. This last point especially added a definite religious dimension to Shi’a leadership theory which Sunni Caliphs, however pious, did not possess in Sunni theory. A group of Shi’a known as Khawarij further split from the Shi’a when ‘Ali, upon eventually becoming Caliph, failed to interest himself in finding and prosecuting the assassin responsible for the murder of ‘Uthman, his immediate predecessor in the role. He was occupied at the time with asserting the rule of law and order in the Caliphate, however, and soon died himself at the hands of the Khawarij themselves. ‘Ali’s family again accepted another new Sunni Caliph who established himself as the first Umayyad Caliph upon ‘Ali’s death (and the new Caliph’s near death, also at the hands of the Khawarij). On this occasion, however, they imposed a condition for their support (that ‘Ali’s son Husayn would be the next Caliph). When the first Umayyad died and his son became Caliph thus beginning an Umayyad dynasty, Husayn went to war against the new Caliph for the Shi’a principle. He was killed in this new civil war at Karbala in around 680. This allegedly self-less sacrifice and martyrdom thus established the religious credentials of the Shi’a brand and it left the living Shi’a with a sense of guilt at allowing the death to happen.

The Umayyads now thus established became the new model for Quraysh Sunni Islamic dynastic rule (with continuing Shi’a and Khawarij opposition) which the ‘Abbasid Caliphs, who had relied on Shi'a and Khawarij support while in opposition to the Umayyad Caliphs, later also followed. The split was formalised from around 660.

The Arab history books were thus written from the Sunni viewpoint (as history tends to be written by the winners). The one exception to Sunni rule of Caliphates was the period of Fatimid rule of a Shi’a Caliphate centred on Egypt and North Africa from the 10^th to the 12^th Centuries.

The theories of leadership on both sides, Sunni and Shi’a, reflect this unequal history. Piety was a highly regarded leadership quality on both sides but the Shi’a theory gave an emphasis to willingness to become a martyr as a leadership quality which the Sunni theory didn’t. The ability to maintain law and order was perhaps the most highly valued quality. The theories can be essentially pieced together from discussions of the merits of potential Caliphs throughout that history. Appropriate leadership, for the Sunni and Shi’a theorists, had thus been decided by both the history and the religious requirements of Caliphates.

Succession processes were also discussed. In the Shi’a tradition, the Imam (being the overall chief Shi'a Muslim in this context - Imam can also simply mean the local leader of a prayer group) nominated his successor (from among ‘Ali’s family, of course). The Sunni ideal tradition was more geared towards some form of election by the people, as had arguably occurred with at least the first four Caliphs. Once dynasties began to form, the theory began to be more untenable as an expression of the ideal reality.

Although the Khawarij still exist, they are a much less significant group in Islamic history and leadership theory having never formed a Caliphate themselves. They alone opined that any Muslim could be a Caliph provided he or she was pious and followed the best examples regardless of any tribal pedigree. They were also alone in reasoning that a Caliph should be removed violently as required to maintain the religious purity of the rule of the Caliphate.

The first Sunni jurist and theorist I will consider, Abu Jusuf (d. 798), was a major disciple of Abu Hanifa. He was a chief judge (Qadi) in the time of the ‘Abbasid Caliph, Harun ar-Rashid. His book of government principles, Kharāj, discussed the duties of leadership in the context of an ‘Abbasid concern to return to moral principles and the ideal of moderation that it was thought had been left behind by at least the most recent Umayyad Caliphs. Abu Jusuf stressed the value of the pursuit of a sense of justice as central to good leadership and thus set a trend which other jurists took up. The maintenance of a just legal system could thus rehabilitate a leader regardless of how he had arrived in power. This effectively suited his ‘Abbasid masters because it made just dynastic rule feasibly Islamic (provided ‘Abbasid rulers could live up to their promise of just rule) while shafting what had been generally regarded as the manifestly unjust Umayyad dynasty.

A major opposing strand in Sunni political thinking began with the jurist, Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (750 – 855). He led a school of thought known as Ahl al-Hadith and is famous for proposing to his students that they keep strictly out of the game of politics and of massaging the political egos of the powerful and politicians. He also rated the ability to maintain community harmony and unity over either the justness or legitimacy of the rule of a ruler thus lending support to particularly authoritarian forms of government. He thought essentially that any ruler could be acceptable provided his subjects could freely practice Islam. These kinds of ideas which valued community unity above all were popular with many scholars who came after Ibn Hanbal. His school of thought produced Ibn Taymiyyah (see below and in later posts for more details) and the 18^th Century thinker Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (also discussed later), whose ideas, in principle, form the basis for the modern state of Saudi Arabia. The group tended to seek answers to all problems in the example of the Prophet based on the Hadith, hence their name, People of the Hadith, but also in examples of the Prophet’s Companions and some of the earliest Caliphs.

Arkoun suggests that the failure of Muhammad’s political example to materialise into a succeeding successful and undivided religious polity led to the question of authority assuming a great importance the only answer to which appeared to be the Qur’an and Hadith. The certainty of the merit of returning to earlier models of the Shi’a also ensured the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979's success, he suggests. He suggests further that the Sunni tradition generally has been to accept no combined political-religious authority despite the ideal rule proposed by the Hanbali School in particular.

Mawardi (d. 1058) was a Shafi’i jurist and government advisor. He wrote Al-Akham as-Sultaniyya (Rules or Judgment of the Political Authority) and Adab ad-Dunya wa ad-Din (Etiquette of the World and Religion). Based on these works, he was probably the most political of the jurists. He had the idea that the people ought to at least be consulted in the choice of their leader or even choose their leader. Nevertheless, true choice was a mere ideal for Mawardi; as he recognised its essential unreality in his contemporary political circumstances, he settled for consultation. He formally approved of the system of the three Caliphates of his own time on the condition that they all remained at peace with one another. The second title above was concerned with harmonising the morals of religion with those of the world and its politics.

Ghazali (d. 1111) was also a Shafi’i jurist (at first) although he is also known as a major Sufi thinker and mystic, a theologian and for his polymathic abilities. He worked for the Saljuq dynasty and wrote Advice to the Kings (Nasihat al-Muluk, written in Persian despite the Arabic title), his only known work in Persian. The Saljuqs sought to justify Sunnism in a time when the Shi’a Fatimid Caliphate sought to win the hearts and minds of the Sunni subjects of the Saljuqs. His focus was on law and order but also on justice.

Ibn Hanbal’s ideas were expanded upon by the Damascene Hanbali jurist, Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya (1263 – 1328). He disagreed with Ibn Hanbal both on unjust rule being permissible and on jurists keeping out of politics. He lived while the Mongols and Mamluks were in power and oppressing their populations. However he finally agreed with Ibn Hanbal that the greater values were still law and order, Islam being able to be practiced and community unity. In fact, he stressed the point that leaders were to continue to be obeyed as long as they permitted Islam to be freely practiced. He was apparently well educated in Greek methods of logic which he used with success to further his own arguments.

In line with his school’s atavistic style, he, too, strictly referred all actions back to the Qur’an and the Sunna for confirmation of their acceptability. He was intolerant of the Shi’a, ‘Alawites, Christians, Jews, those who venerated ‘saints’ excessively and Sufis. He was also strictly Salafi, meaning he referred only to the Qur’an, the Prophet and the Companions of the Prophet for examples of how to live and make law.

Thus we can see that essentially "academic but pious" lawyers willingly played an occasional role in providing timely political advice for good government to rulers especially in the area of succession and the duty to rule well. The less temporal word for leadership, imama, was usually employed rather than the more temporal word, khilafa, related as it is to the temporal term, khalifa (Caliph), meaning both deputy and successor. They thus sought to clothe the raw power of their leaders with idealised legitimacy as required.

The concept of bay’a, originally apparently meaning simply a contract of sale, was useful in this regard. ‘Representative’ subjects of the sovereign came to be called before the sovereign to give him formal ‘assent’ to rule (and commit to his rule) by means of a handshake (the bay'a).

Meanwhile, the temporal Caliphates were never features of Islam which were timeless, far-reaching or long-lasting in the way certain Islamists today who aim for a united world Caliphate suggest that they were. Members of today’s Hizb ut-Tahrir, for example, seem to regard the period between the time of the Prophet and the 20^th century official end of the Ottoman ‘Caliphate’ as an unbroken period of paradise on earth under a united Caliphate. They were actually rulerships based on the temporary acquisition of power over a territorial sphere by formally Islamic rulers at least as much as on perfect religious rule. The Caliphate in the central Islamic lands actually ended in 1258 when the Mongols sacked Baghdad. Following this, family members of the last ‘Abbasid Caliph were co-opted as mere figureheads by Mamluk rulers of mainly Egypt until around 1517. The ‘Caliph’ thus chosen was formally prayed for each Friday at khutba in Mamluk lands but his likeness did not appear on Mamluk coinage. The term ‘Caliph’ was also sometimes used by local rulers after the fall of the ‘Abbasids at Baghdad such as in Sudan and West Africa but not systematically and only accepted locally as a synonym for an Islamic king or Emir. Several major Islamic rulers deliberately chose not to adopt the title because of the competition such a high title might promote in much the same way the grand title of Emperor as opposed to king might in the West. The king of Morocco goes some small way to calling for the status of Caliph without taking this risk of naming himself Caliph by styling himself ‘Commander of the Faithful’, a styling adopted by most of what I will call the ‘true’ Caliphs, whose rule ended in 1258.

The Ottoman Sultans and Emperors saw no need to use the title "Caliph" while the Empire was strong. In 1517 the empire had consumed the territory of the Mamluks and their ‘Caliphs’ without taking any interest in the Caliphs of the Mamluks themselves, though they did take with them a mantle reputed to have been worn by Muhammad that had been worn by those "Caliphs" on ceremonial occasions. Over the long period of Ottoman rule, only two Sultans actually used the title, ‘Abdül Hamid I (r. 1774 – 1789) and ‘Abdül Hamid II (r. 1876 – 1909). Mehmed II and Selim I (who conquered the Mamluks) may also have used the title to justify their conquests of other Islamic lands.

‘Abdül Hamid I was clearly seeking to promote common Muslim feeling in his large empire as he fought Arab nationalism and sought to promote the unpopular measures of modernisation, opening of markets to the West and relative non-discrimination against Christian minorities, while Muhammad 'Ali (formally his inferior) was being relatively successful in his Arab Ottoman province of Egypt. In between the two ‘Abdül Hamids, Selim III found another way to gain Islamic credibility (he took control of the Holy Shrines of the Hijaz) and so never apparently felt the need to use the title, Caliph.

The title availed ‘Abdül Hamid II little however as he was soon deposed by republican, Atatürk. Following ‘Abdül Hamid’s deposition, ‘Abdul Mejid II was briefly ‘elected’ a figurehead Caliph before the position was finally abolished by the Turkish Republic in 1924. Following this, the Sharif of Mecca claimed the title but it lapsed upon his death in the 1930s and has not been re-used by either the Saudi royal family or the family of the Sharif. The title was never used on Ottoman coinage.

So the Caliphate has not proved to be either wonderful or continuous. Interestingly, the Caliphate movement seems strongest on the Indian sub-continent where there never has been a ruling Caliph. Arab rulers have tended to not be interested in the title with the exception of King Farouk of Egypt who was first deposed by Nasser before his infant son, appointed in his place, was also deposed.

Political Thought in Early Islam

There were three main classes of political thinker in the Islamic world before modern times who have left records: advisors to rulers (whether formally appointed or not), philosophers and jurisprudents. Some of the men (for there weren’t any women to speak of) belonged to more than one (especially to the first two) or even all three of these classes at the same time and in so doing transcended the ideological boundaries of any one of them in their thinking. Advisors to rulers and Islamic jurisprudents nevertheless ostensibly advised in terms of Islam but the ideas of philosophers tended to be based more on Greek philosophical methods and less on either practical or even Islamic advice.

Jurists provide the most Islamic examples of political thought although many of the most pious ones early on decided that they, themselves, should not participate in the ‘dirty’ world of practical politics by clearly formulating political ideas. They nevertheless often did have a role in government (as a class - as judges) from the earliest times. In the 9^th Century there was some discussion of political theory but it really began in earnest in the 11^th Century. They naturally drew on the two major sources of Islamic law, the Qur’an and Hadith, which did not contain much on government (although the Hadith contained more than the Qur’an). Both of the sources tended to provide general ethical principles from which rules of government nevertheless might perhaps be deduced. When jurists later made those deductions (and wrote specialist works on government) they became, in effect, "pious" advisors to rulers.

The pioneer among the philosophers was al-Farabi (who became noted even in the West) in the 10^th Century. Al-Kindi had earlier hinted about this subject. Much of the philosophy was in the form of works not of political theory but rather out of which we can today discern political ideas. The philosophers tended to be least in favour with the rulers (even less than the Greek philosophers had been with their own ruling class) in part due to their tendency to abstraction. One of al-Farabi’s works, for example, concerned the ideal city (rather than the ideal ruler or Caliphate). Today we can understand al-Farabi’s ideal city as a microcosm of the ideal Caliphate much as we may also understand St Augustine’s City of God to have potentially had wider political application in Christendom.

The works from advisors that we have today tend to be in the form of rules or guidelines for being a good ruler and could take the direct approach (similar to that taken by Machiavelli in his “The Prince”) or be in fable or allegory form. Kalila wa Dimna (discussed earlier) is a good example with Kalila (as the name, meaning “crown”, implies) representing wise advice and Dimna (again as the name, meaning rubbish, implies) “rubbish” advice. The writer interestingly makes the king a noble lion and the two eponymous advisors (viziers) jackals (perhaps obliquely also commenting on the nature of political advising itself). In this genre, which began to be prominent in the late Umayyad period, Persian historical examples and Indian or Persian fables are used as much as Arab or Islamic ones.

In my next posts I want to concentrate on some of the specific ideas that are still discussed in the same terms within Islam today. In the next post I will consider the idea of the ummah (community) and that of imama (leadership). In discussing terms and concepts like these I hope I can persuade people that they are not necessarily the threatening concepts they are sometimes made to seem when they are discussed by especially Islamist thinkers today (and inevitably distorted in the naturally uninformed Western dialogue).

Other Art and Architecture

As the new culture borrowed from its milieu in most of the other areas that I've discussed in earlier posts, so too with other art and architecture the early Muslims were influenced by the art and architecture (and its exponents) that (and who) already existed in the region they occupied. We know, for example, that an 8^th Century Arab poet raved about a Sasanian palace (now a ruin) at Taq Kisra in Iran. Islam required that certain adjustments be made, however, so that an Islamic style developed along the lines required. The architecture and decoration of the Mosque, for example, were necessarily unique in their orientation, in the absence of depictions of animals and in the decorative application of Qur’anic verses (naturally in Arabic script), geometric patterns and heavenly garden motifs.

The building of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus in the early 8^th century to be the most magnificent in the Islamic world in its day (partly by Byzantine craftspeople), for example, both continued the local use of the dome and yet is an early example of the uniquely Islamic use of the decorative garden theme from the outside and the plan of the Mosque followed the plan of Muhammad’s house (and Mosque) in Medina. Materials clearly used symbolically to emphasise the importance of the Mosque included gold and other precious materials already used for similar purposes before the advent of the Islamic Era. The minaret used for the call to prayer was built later in several iterations and the Mosque is, typically, co-located with a major souk.

Other major Mosques that show the variety of styles according to region and time period include the Ibn Tulun, Nasir Muhammad, al-Azhar, Rifa’i and Sultan Hasan Mosques in Cairo, the Qairawan Mosque in Tunisia, the Qarawiyyin Mosque in Morocco, the Samarra and Kasimiyyah Mosques in Iraq, the Quwwat ul-Islam Mosque in Delhi with its famous Qutb Minar Minaret, the Shah Mosque in Iran (with its famous muqarnas work) and other Iranian Mosques, the Sultan Ahmad Mosque in Turkey and other Mosques in central Asia and Moorish Spain.

Other arts were influenced by the extensive trading networks of the Arabs as well as the rulings of various religious scholars. Figural depiction of animals and humans is often frowned upon but it is by no means absent from secular buildings such as palaces. Music also was ruled upon differently depending on where one was and the purpose to which it was put. Even the alleged prohibition rule on the depiction of Muhammad has not actually been an all-time hard and fast rule in all of Islamic history in all places.

And with great material success, great art and architecture has been achieved in the Islamic world probably often despite the admonition of brave clerics that the ostentation was something that smacked of the sin of pride in the things of this world. The Taj Mahal (the Place of Mahal), the mausoleum devoted to the memory of Mahal, a wife of a secular ruler of India, and Al-Hambra palace in Spain are classic examples along with the mosques of the extraordinary beauty for which that sin of pride has arguably been responsible. Many decorated Qur'ans also rival the famous Bibles produced in the Western monasteries and the arts associated with the decoration of carpets and china ware are also rightly regarded as superlative expressions of a confident and flourishing civilisation.

Both Scientists and Artists of the Arabic Language

Again, I've mentioned in earlier posts how study of the Arabic language was important for the religious sciences (as historiography was) but I want to now consider how a religious scientific imperative led on to a kind of "secular" science and indeed in this case to the development of the art of the Arabic language.

The artistic use of Arabic for poetry did develop into a religious form but secular poetry and prose creative writing also continued. A number of works were produced in the form of fables and the classic popular serial story (complete with story arcs) was the so-called "Arabian Nights" (or, in Arabic, A Thousand Nights and a Night - alf layla wa layla). Political and other treatises were also written and I will especially consider them in posts on the political ideas and ideals of Islam.

I might as well now telegraph that I will shortly spend quite a few posts on Islamic political ideas of this period and then extending into the modern period partly because they are in a sense the one thread that in some sense has survived strongly in the Arab and Islamic world in the face of and in dialogue with modernity while other sciences (if we can consider politics a science) may have taken to mere imitation and adaptation of the Western science that, as I have suggested, came to be superior to Eastern science for reasons that aren't completely clear to me. I think part of the reason that science faltered (relatively) in the East was that traditional religious forces that saw it as a threat gained the upper hand in the society for political reasons (that I may be able to discuss in my political discussion) in a way that they ultimately didn't in the West (or at least haven't yet). I'd like to think that scientists of the East and West are now beginning to reach the stage of mutual and shared advancement, however. We shall see if the mainstream ideas of modernising Islam will be able to advance a mutual knowledge project or whether other forces (in either the East or West) will restrict it.

The sciences of the Arab language included grammar, philology, lexicography, prosody, rhetoric and literary criticism. The first reason for the blossoming of these sciences was, of course, the need, as far as Muslims were concerned, to fully understand the sources of Islam (including the Qur’an and the Hadith). Arabic also needed to become a different language quite suddenly as it quite suddenly became the language of both an Empire and learning and the changes required considerable scientific thought. The Arabs and others could also be said to have understandably taken a renewed interest in Arab culture (and therefore its language) once it appeared to have inspired so powerful a religious and political force.

With regard to Arabic grammar, its rules were established by 800 CE. The two formative grammarians were al-Khalil Ibn Ahmad (d. 791) and Sibawayh (d. 799). Three of the main early schools of grammar roughly in order of appearance were the Basra, Kufa and Baghdad Schools (all in southern or central Iraq). Grammar thus then was able to become the basis for the learning of both "secular" logic and "religious" jurisprudence. Ibn Malik (d. 1274) finally set the rules to verse in 1,000 verses and the attempt to do this type of thing was made by others also, verse presumably being the easiest thing to memorise in a time before printed books in either the Arab world or the West became common.

Early word lists were produced along with works about pre-Islamic life in Arabia which gave them a useful context. This led to further collations and finally phonological (e.g. a work by al-Khalil Ibn Ahmad, the first Arabic dictionary) and then alphabetical dictionaries from the 10^th Century (e.g. the works of Ibn Durayd (d. 933) and al-Zamakhshari (d. 1144)). Thesauruses and works on alleged common grammatical errors were also written in the early part of the Islamic Era.

The classic discoverer/founder/systematiser of Arabic poetic metre forms (so the founder of Arabic prosody) was also al-Khalil Ibn Ahmad, who found there were 16 metre types.

The poetry of Muslim Arabs was influenced by the traditional pre-Islamic poetry, which I discussed in a very early post. Oratory was also practiced especially on political and ethical themes in the new Islamic culture.

There is a development of the style of literature between the Umayyad (661 to 750) and 'Abbasid (post 750) periods. Poetry especially continued to reflect tribal allegiances and political and religious differences in the Umayyad period. Examples include the writings of the Khawarij and works by al-Akhtal (d. 710), al Farazdaq (d. 730) and Jarir (d. 730). Love poetry continued to be written then and the influence of Medina and the so-called “Hijazi School” on poetry was still strong. ‘Umar Ibn Abi Rabi’a (d. 711) of the Hijazi School and Jamil Buthayna (d. 701) of the ‘Udhri School contributed to this form of poetry. Southern Iraq and Arabia more generally also contributed Rajaz and other forms of poetry in this period.

Three ‘schools’ of poetry are distinct in the ‘Abbasid period, namely the modernist, the neo-classical and the school of philosophical poetry. The modernists included Bashshar (d. 783), Abu Nuwas (d. c. 810), Abu al-‘Atahiya (d. 825), ‘Abbas Ibn al-Ahnaf (750 – 809), Abu Tammam (d. 845) and Ibn al-Rumi (9^th Century). Al-Mutanabbi (d. 965) was a stand-out among the neo-Classical poets and al-Ma’arri (d. 1057) stands out in the writing of philosophical poetry. While this was occurring, developments were also occurring in the Muwashshah poetry of Muslim Spain under the continuation of the Umayyad dynasty there.

Works of prose of special note include Kalila wa Dimna by Ibn al-Muqaffa’ (d. 757), Kitab al-Bukhala’ and Kitab al-Hayawan by al-Jahiz (d. 869), Kitab al-Aghani by al-Isfahani (d. 967) and al-Maqamat by al-Hamadhani (d. 1009). The mystical literature included notable works by Rabi’a (717 – 801), al-Hallaj (d. 922), Ibn al-Farid (d. 1235) and Ibn al-‘Arabi (d. 1240). Finally, the 1001 Nights provides a good example of Arabic popular literature with a moral message that borrowed from and adapted stories first told in other local cultures (such as Persian and Indian cultures). Many of these kinds of work contributed to the development of the political ideas that I'll be getting into shortly.

The Geographers

As mentioned in an earlier post, an understanding of geography was firstly necessary to enable Muslims to work out the direction of prayer. The actual pilgrimage to Mecca also promoted travel for Muslims not close at hand to the site and guidebooks were necessary for the journeys to Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem among other pilgrimage sites. A degree of geographic learning was also required to make the histories discussed in the last post meaningful and also in order to trade in, send mail over, administer and continue to control a large Empire. A final motivation for geographical learning was simply a sense of curiosity and adventure that was promoted by Islam itself and appears also to have been a feature of the early Arab psychology.

The idea of travelling as a scholar was developed initially in order that Hadith could be collected from the inhabitants of various regions and the Sufi movement also produced seekers of truth willing to travel in order to seek it from wise ones not living locally. Ibn Khaldoun, for example, followed the by-his-time long tradition of travelling in order to seek religious and other knowledge. Ibn Battuta, his contemporary from whom he had heard traveller's tales that he had at first thought were exaggerations, is a classic case of a geographical scholar of note and travelled further than any other. He also wrote about his travels and the people, local features and styles of government and thinking he noticed (among other things) for the benefit of others. His work thus falls mainly into the categories of satisfying a sense of curiosity and adventure and 'mind broadening' but even it could potentially be and conceivably was put to other uses.

Firstly, the Arabs translated geographical and astronomic works of Greek-speaking geographers such as Ptolemy of Alexandria and Marinus of Tyre. The 9^th Century also saw the beginnings of original work in Arabic including astronomical, ethnographic, regional literary anthologies and historical work. The state officials Ibn Khurdadhbeh (d. c. 912), al-Ya’qubi (d. c. 900) and Qudama Ibn Ja’far (d. c. 932) all produced early works. Al-Istakhri (d. 952), Ibn Hawqal (d. c. 989 or later) and al-Maqdisi (d. c. 1000) all produced geographical work including maps.

The work of al-Maqdisi of Jerusalem, who also travelled fairly extensively, covered a wide variety of themes concerning the Islamic world of the time and surrounding countries. Al-Biruni (d. c. 1050 or later) wrote especially about the climates at various locations and degrees of latitude. Al-Mas’udi (d. 956) wrote an encyclopaedic combined work of history and geography. Al-Idrisi, who lived in both Morocco and Norman Sicily, wrote on world geography with various detailed maps in the 12^th Century. Yaqut (d. 1229) wrote a major geographical dictionary including especially place-name listings.

Arab sea captains such as Ahmad Ibn Majid (d. 1500) also contributed geographical works that aided navigation in the Indian Ocean.

Al-Harawi (d. 1215), who lived in Palestine and Syria, wrote a guide book for religious and general tourists (both Christian and Muslim).

Muslim al-Jarmi (mid 9^th Century) and Harun Ibn Yahya (9^th and early 10^th Centuries) wrote works based on their experiences in captivity outside the Muslim world and Abu Hamid of Granada (1080 – 1170) wrote of his experience as a merchant which included experiences in Hungary. Ibn Fadlan, Abu Dulaf and Ibrahim of Tortosa (a Jew from Muslim Spain) all wrote of their experiences as envoys in the 10^th Century. Ibn Fadlan had been appointed by an ‘Abbasid Caliph as Muslim envoy to the Bulgars and wrote accounts of the Khazars and Russians. Ibrahim was an envoy of the Spanish Umayyad caliph at Cordoba to central Europe. Abu Dulaf travelled to central Asia.

Nasir ibn Khusraw, born in Afghanistan, also wrote in neo-Persian of his travels in the 11^th Century. Ibn Butlan (d. 1038) was an Arab Christian traveller and physician whose account of his travels from Baghdad through Syria and Anatolia we have in the form of a letter written to a friend in Baghdad.

Two major works by pilgrims to Mecca from the West of the then Arab world concerning the experience of the pilgrimage and side-trips are the works of Ibn Jubayr (d. 1217 - he recounted his travels from Spain to Mecca and back via Sicily) and Ibn Battuta (d. 1377). Ibn Battuta appears to have travelled as extensively as any Arab of the pre-modern period in Africa and Asia both within and beyond the Muslim world (including to the coast of China and to Greek Orthodox Constantinople) and wrote about it all in his great work. Finally, Ibn Khaldoun wrote of his own travels in his memoirs.

History and Historiography Again

I've discussed historiography as an aspect of religious science but I also want to discuss it as a 'secular' science that has contributed to the writing of Arab history even until today. I say 'secular' because I want to emphasise that its religious origins make it impossible to consider it as a science divorced in every way from the religious impulse. Nevertheless, attempts were made to achieve a method that reflected worldly epistemological concerns precisely in order that it might support the religion of the historiographer in the hope that the religion was the true revealed religion.

Ibn Khaldoun, who lived in the 14^th Century, has been regarded as the greatest Arab-Islamic historian of the the pre-modern era (or at least the latest serious one). However, as mentioned in earlier posts, histories were quite important from the very beginning of the Islamic Era, firstly as a means of reliably authenticating Hadith transmission. The life of the prophet himself is among the earliest subjects of biographical history. One form of history that in a significant sense formed its basis was the Arab genealogy that had preceded the Islamic Era. The early Islamic conquests were also historically attested by Islamic as well as non-Islamic writers in and beyond the Islamic world. The origin of the Arabs was also considered religiously relevant history and world history (from Adam on) was an early historical interest. At-Tabari, living in the late 9^th and early 10^th Centuries, produced a famous version of such a global and comprehensive history.

Historical schools developed in Medina, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere and regional histories and histories of cities were produced (as I've mentioned before). History thus became quite varied in its subjects but was nevertheless often based on the same model of biography and validated with the same scholarly genealogy (borrowing a method from Hadith scholarship which in turn owed something to pre-Islamic methods).

Al-Mas’udi’s famous 10^th Century history was both thematic and encyclopaedic and also drew upon the author’s extensive travel experience. Al-Ya’qubi (9^th Century) and Miskawayh (10^th Century) were also notable early historians.

Ibn Khaldoun produced the great Introductions (Muqaddima) to History. His historiography is potentially a culturally satisfying model for explaining history for the Arabs and Islamic groups today. The essence of his theory is that certain triggers have inexorably led to a cycle of civilisations and that environment (along with religious revelation) plays a role in the different regional forms of civilisation. In particular, he examined the role of both the cities and the uncivilised Bedouin desert-dwellers in this process in the Arab and Islamic worlds.

The Mathematicians, Physicists and Astronomers

The Hellenistic traditions, beginning with Euclid, Ptolemy and Archimedes, were continued by the Arabs and in the Muslim world in arithmetic, algebra, geometry, physics and astronomy.

Maths

Works in the field of arithmetic were translated from Sanskrit (but mainly Greek) and the Arabs borrowed the novel Indian concept of zero and used a then-novel base ten (decimal) Indian numeral system. Algebra (al-Jabr) was a new Arabic branch of mathematics popularised by Muhammad Ibn Musa al-Khwarasmi (d. 850) after whom the algorithm was also named.

Physics

Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen to the West), who lived in Iraq and Egypt in the 11^th Century and possibly also the 10^th Century and was translated into Latin for study in the West, developed the study of light (optics). The Sons of Musa, who worked in Baghdad, produced an illustrated 9^th Century work of mechanical engineering. Al-Jazari, working in northern Iraq and northern Syria, produced an important illustrated 14^th Century work. Al-Farabi of Baghdad and Syria produced a major work of musicology (properly considered as an element of physics) in the 10^th Century. Ibn al-Munajjim (10^th Century) and al-Armawi (13^th Century), both of Baghdad, also produced works of musicology.

Astronomy and Observatories

The first Arab-Islamic observatories date to the early 9^th Century. At-Tusi (d. 1274) and Shirazi (d. 1311) were important for their practical application of astronomy. Much of the development occurred in Iran and Central Asia. Development of astronomy continued in the Ottoman period in the 16^th and 17^th Centuries and Arab astronomy was important to the work of Copernicus, who was the first (but only in the West) to propose an end to Ptolemy's Geocentric model of the Cosmos in favour of the still limited but at least improved Heliocentric one later supported by the further observations of Galileo.

The Doctors, Pharmacists and Biologists

The Doctors

Galan’s teachings, the School of Alexandria, the Indian medical tradition as transferred North into the Indus region and the Gundishapur School of western Iran and Iraq were influential. Translations from Syriac to Arabic began in the Umayyad period and the works of Galen and other works were translated at the Bayt al-Hikma discussed in earlier posts (from both Syriac and eventually the original Greek).

The head of the Bayt was himself a Christian Arab physician from al-Hira, a site of pre-Islamic learning and civilisation.

Hunayn (besides his role as head of the Bayt al-Hikma) also wrote original medical works. His major contribution to medicine was to eye anatomy, disease and treatments.

Ar-Razi was a physician, administrator, medical teacher, medical author and philosopher who lived in Iran and Baghdad in the 9^th and early 10^th Centuries. He made major lasting contributions in clinical care, nutrition and several other areas of medicine. His students included at least several from China and his medical works were translated into Latin for European students.

Avicenna, a 10^th and 11^th Century physician and philosopher from Bukhara and eastern Iran, earned the title “prince of physicians”. His interests and areas of contribution included anatomy and psychology. A work of his was a valued Western European medical textbook until as late as the 18^th Century.

Ibn an-Nafis of Damascus, who lived in the 13^th Century, described pulmonary blood circulation.

Other scholars such as Nafis’s Christian colleague, Ibn al-‘Ibri, and Ibn al-Jazzar of Tunisia (who worked on the digestive system) made further contributions.

In surgery, Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, who lived in Islamic Spain in the 10^th and 11^th Centuries and was known in the West as Abulkassis, made contributions to the development of surgical procedures and instruments.

The Pharmacists

The area of pharmacy consisted mainly of the recognition and use of healing plants and other substances and followed the translated work of Galen and Dioscurides. Ar-Razi, Avicenna and Ibn Wafid al-Idrisi made early contributions (9^th to 12^th Centuries) and Ibn al-Bitar made a 13^th Century contribution. The latter’s work both consolidated and added to all of the earlier works (from Galen’s on).

The Biologists

Aristotle’s work of zoology was influential. Arab and Muslim scientists (and scientists in the Muslim world) produced works on plants and zoology from the 9^th to the 13^th Centuries.