Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
THE ISLAMIC CIVILISATION IN IT’S AGE OF GLORY
Will Durant observes (The Age of Faith, pp. 179-343):
“In the Koran … are rules not only for manners and hygiene, marriage and divorce, and the treatment of children, slaves, and animals, but also for commerce and politics, interest and debts, contracts and wills, industry and finance, crime and punishment, war and peace. Mohammed did not disdain commerce … He threatened hell to lying or cheating merchants; denounced monopolists and speculators who ‘keep back grain to sell at a high rate’; and bade the employer ‘give the laborer his wage before his perspiration dries’. He prohibited the taking or giving of interest (2:275; 3:130). No reformer ever more actively taxed the rich to help the poor. Every will was expected to leave something to the poor; if a man died intestate his natural heirs were directed to give a part of their inheritance to charity (4:8) … he improved the position of woman…
“Mohammed’s ethic transcended the limits of the tribe … Distinction of rank or race, so strong among the tribes, was diminished by similarity of belief. ‘If a negro slave is appointed to rule you, hear and obey him, though his head be like a dried grape’. It was a noble conception that made one people of diverse nations scattered over the continents … Mohammed (taught) … ‘Let there be no violence in religion’. ‘If they embrace Islam they are surely directed; but if they turn their backs, verily to you belongs preaching only’. ‘Give a respite to the disbelievers. Deal you gently with them’ … ‘Kill not the old man who cannot fight, nor young children, nor women’ … ‘Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Allah loveth not aggressors’.
“… the Koran … gave to simple souls the simplest, least mystical, least ritualistic, of all creeds, free from idolatry and sacerdotalism. Its message raised the moral and cultural level of its followers, promoted social order and unity, inculcated hygiene, lessened superstition and cruelty, bettered the condition of slaves, lifted the lowly to dignity & pride, and produced among Moslems (barring the revels of some caliphs) a degree of sobriety and temperance unequaled elsewhere in the white man’s world. It gave men an uncomplaining acceptance of the hardships and limitations of life, and at the same time stimulated them to the most astonishing expansion in history.
“Civilisation is a union of soil and soul—the resources of the earth transformed by the desire and discipline of men … All these were busy in Islam … The orange tree … the Arabs introduced it to Syria, Asia Minor, Palestine, Egypt, and Spain, from which countries it pervaded southern Europe. The cultivation of sugar-cane and the refining of sugar were likewise spread by the Arabs … and were brought by Crusaders to their European states. Cotton was first cultivated in Europe by the Arabs.
“These achievements on lands largely arid were made possible by organized irrigation; here the caliphs made an exception to their principle of leaving the economy to free enterprise; the government directed and financed the maintenance of the greater canals.
“… Under Moslem rule western Asia attained a pitch of industrial and commercial prosperity unmatched by western Europe before the sixteenth century.
“The state left industry and commerce free, and aided it with a relatively stable currency. Ibn Hawqal (c. 975) describes a kind of promissory note … from the Arabic word sakk for this form of credit is derive our word check. Investors shared in financing commercial voyages or caravans … Monopolies were illegal …
“… in general the Moslem seems to have excelled the Christian in commercial morality, fidelity to his word, and loyalty to treaties signed normally, the Moslem was the soul of courtesy, humanity, and tolerance … In general Moslem society was one of excellent manners …
“If we may believe the traditions, Mohammed, unlike most religious reformers, admired and urged the pursuit of knowledge … Education began as soon as the child could speak … At the age of six some slave children, some girls, and nearly all boys except the rich (who had private tutors) entered an elementary school … Tuition was normally free … Elementary education aimed to form character, secondary education to transmit knowledge … Tuition in these colleges was free, and in some cases government or philanthropy paid both the salaries of the professors and the expenses of the students … students would travel from one end of the Moslem world to another to meet the mind of a famous teacher … When a visitor entered a Moslem city he took it for granted that he could hear a scholarly lecture at the principal mosque at almost any hour of the day.
“… The first paper-manufacturing plant in Islam was opened at Baghdad in 794 by al-Fadl, son of Harun’s vizier. The craft was brought by the Arabs to Sicily and Spain, and thence passed into Italy and France … The invention facilitated the making of books wherever it went. Yaqubi tells us that in his time (891) Baghdad had over a hundred booksellers.
“Most mosques had libraries, and some cities had public libraries of considerable content and generous accessibility. About 950 Mosul had a library, established by private philanthropy, where students were supplied with paper as well as books. Ten large catalogues were required to list the volumes in the public library at Rayy. Basra’s library gave stipends to scholars working in it … When Baghdad was destroyed by the Mongols it had thirty-six public libraries. Private libraries were numberless; it was a fashion among the rich to have an ample collection of books … princes like Sahib ibn Abbas in the tenth century might own as many books as could then be found in all the libraries of Europe combined … In a thousand mosques from Cordova to Samarkand scholars were as numerous as pillars, and made the cloisters tremble with their eloquence; the roads for of the realm were disturbed by innumerable geographers, historians, and theologians seeking knowledge and wisdom … the conquerors showed such tolerance that of the poets, scientists, and philosophers who now made Arabic the most learned and literary tongue in the world only a small minority were of Arab blood.
“… Ibn Qutaiba (828-889) was one of many Moslems, who attempted to write a history of the world … Muhammad al-Nadim produced in 987 an Index of the Sciences (Fihrist al‘ulum), a bibliography of all books in Arabic, original or translated, on any branch of knowledge … we may estimate the wealth of Moslem literature in his time by noting that not one in a thousand of the volumes that he named is known to exist today.
“… Abu-l-Hasan Ali al-Masudi, an Arab of Baghdad, traveled … He gathered his gleanings into a thirty-volume encyclopedia …Al-Masudi surveyed omnivorously the geography, biology, history, customs, religion, science, philosophy, and literature of all lands from China to France … he summarized his views on science, history, and philosophy in a Book of Information, in which he suggested an evolution ‘from mineral to plant, from plant to animal and from animal to man’.
“Algebra … owes its name to the Arabs, who extensively developed this detective science … Al-Khwarizmi contributed effectively to five sciences: he wrote on the Hindu numerals; compiled astronomical tables which, as revised in Moslem Spain, were for centuries standard among astronomers from Cordova to Chang-an; formulated the oldest trigonometrical tables known; collaborated with sixty-nine other scholars in drawing up for al-Mamun a geographical encyclopedia; and in his Calculation of Integration and Equation gave analytical and geometrical solutions of quadratic equations. This work, now lost in its Arabic form, was translated by Gerard of Cremona in the twelfth century, was used as a principal text in European universities until the sixteenth century, and introduced to the West the word algebra (al-jabr—‘restitution’, ‘completion’). Thabit ibn Qurra (826-901) … achieved fame in astronomy and medicine, and became the greatest of Moslem geometers …
“The Caliph al-Mamun engaged a staff of astronomers to make observations and records, to test the findings of Ptolemy, and to study the spots on the sun. Taking for granted the sphericity of the earth, they measured a terrestrial degree by simultaneously taking the position of the sun from both Palmyra and the plain Sinjar; their measurement gave 56²/³ miles—half a mile more than our present calculation; and from their results they estimated the earth’s circumference to approximate 20,000 miles. These astronomers proceeded on completely scientific principles: they accepted nothing as true which was not confirmed by experience or experiment. One of them, Abu’l Farghani, of Transoxiana, wrote (c.860) an astronomical text which remained in authority in Europe and Western Asia for 700 years. Even more renowned was al-Battani; his astronomical observations, continued for forty-one years, were remarkable for their range and accuracy; he determined many astronomical coefficients with remarkable approximation to modern calculations—the precession of the equinoxes at 54.5” a year, and the inclination of the ecliptic at 23º55’. Working under the patronage of the early Buwayhid ruler of Baghdad, Abu’l-Wafa … discovered the third lunar vartiation 600 years before Tycho Brahe. Costly instruments were built for the Moslem astronomers: not only astrolabes and armillary spheres, and known to the Greeks, but quadrants with a radius of thirty feet, and sextants with a radius of eighty. The astrolabe, much improved by the Moslems reached Europe in the tenth century, and was widely used by mariners till the seventeenth. The Arabs designed and constructed it with aesthetic passion, making it at once an instrument of science and a work of art.
“Even more important than the charting of the skies was mapping of the earth … Suleiman al-Tajir —i.e., the merchant —about 840 carried his wares to the Far East; an anonymous author (851) wrote a narrative of Suleiman’s journey; this oldest Arabic account of China antedated Marco Polo’s Travels by 425 years. In the same century Ibn Khordadhbeh wrote a description of India, Ceylon, the East Indies, and China, apparently from direct observation; and Ibn Hawqal described India and Africa. Ahmad al-Yaqubi, of Armenia and Khurasan, wrote in 891 a Book of the Countries, giving a reliable account of Islamic provinces and cities and of many foreign states. Muhammad al-Muqaddasi visited all the lands of Islam except Spain, suffered by countless vicissitudes, and in 985 wrote his Description of the Moslem Empire—the greatest work of Arabic geography before al-Biruni’s India.
“Abu al-Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973-1048) shows the Moslem scholar at his best. Philosopher, historian, traveler, geographer, linguist, mathematician, astronomer, poet, and physicist—and doing major and original work in all these fields … His first major work (c.1000) was a highly technical treatise — Vestiges of the Past … his attitude was that of the objective scholar, assiduous in research, critical in the scrutiny of traditions and texts (including the Gospels), precise and conscientious in statement, frequently admitting his ignorance, and promising to pursue his inquiries till the truth should emerge. In the preface to the Vestiges he wrote like Francis Bacon: ‘We must clear our minds … from all causes that blind people to the truth—old custom, party spirit, personal rivalry or passion, the desire for influence’ … In 1030 he published his masterpiece, History of India … His interest extended to nearly all the sciences. He gave the best medieval account of the Hindu numerals. He wrote treatises on the astrolable, the planisphere, the armillary sphere; and formulated astronomical tables for Sultan Masud. He took it for granted that the earth is round, noted ‘the attraction of all things towards the centre of the earth’, and remarked that astronomic data can be explained as well by supposing that the earth turns daily on its axis and annually around the sun, as by the reverse hypothesis. He speculated on the possibility that the Indus valley had been once the bottom of a sea. He composed an extensive lapidary, describing a great number of stones and metals from the natural, commercial, and medical points of view. He determined the specific gravity of eighteen precious stones, and laid down the principle that the specific gravity of an object corresponds to the volume of water it displaces. He found a method of calculating, without laborious additions, the result of the repeated doubling of a number … He contributed to geometry the solution of theorems that thereafter bore his name. He composed an encyclopedia of astronomy, a treatise on geography, and an epitome of astronomy, astrology, and mathematics. He explained the workings of natural springs and artesian wells by the hydrostatic principle of communicating vessels.
to be continued . . . . .
Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times
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