Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
APPENDIX 1
ART AND MORALITY
Vulgar aestheticism, with its base in
erotic art, forms a very serious obstacle in the way of moral progress. Coming
into conflict with the genuinely-moral yearnings, it exerts a profound immoral
influence if it is permitted to hold sway, even as it is exerting on a
progressively more and more damaging scale among the Westernised human
societies—especially in the countries of origin, where vulgar pursuit of
aestheticism is assuming alarming proportions day by day leading the affected
communities headlong to ultimate spiritual and moral destruction.
Now, while the Holy Qur’an itself
affirms the aesthetical value and prescribes aesthetical duties, as we have
recorded elsewhere in this book,[1]
it is with the same vehemence opposed to the immoralisation of the aesthetical
pursuit. Indeed, it lends the entire weight of its philosophy of life firmly to
the principle that the aesthetical value cannot stay pure unless it is wedded
to the highest spiritual and moral considerations. It is convinced that
aestheticism based on sensuousness is the mother of all moral ills and
spiritual perversions.
Behind this attitude of the Qur’an,
which has withstood the test of history, there is its scheme of values wherein
the gradation is: (1) Religion; (2) Morality; (3) Knowledge; (4) Art.[2]
This gradation of values emerges when
we consider, in the first instance, the oft-repeated Qur’anic expression:
“those who possess Faith and practise the Virtues.”
(2:25; etc.—mentioned 49 times).
Here ‘religion’ forms the highest
value, and next to it stands ‘morality’.
Then, in the following verse,
‘religion’ stands first and ‘knowledge’ stands second:
“… Allah will exalt those of you who possess Faith and
those who are endowed with Knowledge …” (58:11).
However, because, according to the Qur’anic
philosophy of life, Faith is meaningless without the possession of sound
Morality, which makes religion and morality twins, as inthe previously-quoted verse, the gradation
finaly deducible from the above verses is: Religion, Morality, Knowledge.
As for the pursuit of the Beautiful, the Qur’anic
standpoint is:
a.That pursuit can be undertaken both
ways: good and evil; and hence it should always be treated in terms of
morality. Thus we are told:
“Lo! We have made that which is on the earth
an ornament (i.e., source of beauty) thereof (i.e., with reference to the life
on it, which is related to sensuous pleasure—both refined and vulgar) that We
may try them (i.e.,the human beings): which of them is best in conduct (with
respect to their aesthetical pursuit wherein the test is whether they indulge
in vulgarity and indecency or adopt in that respect the highest moral
standards).” (18:7).
b.All sensuous vulgar pursuit in the
aesthetical domain is from the Devil and should, therefore, be avoided:[3]
“Lo! he (i.e., the Devil) commands indecency and
abomination …” (24:21).
And the holy Book has reminded us
that it is the mission of the Devil to employ beauty for misleading mankind,
in as much as he had proclaimed at the dawn of Creation:
“… I verily shall employ Beauty for them (i.e., the
human beings) in the earth (i.e., based on the earthly environment, inducing them to the love of sensuous pleasure and to
the adoption, for that purpose, of the materialistic and hedonistic approach to
Art), and shall mislead them all,—except such as are your perfectly devoted
servants.” (15:39-40).
Thus, the aesthetical pursuit has, in
the very nature of the case, to be subordinated always to the demands of
morality, whereby alone the moral tone and social health of the human beings
can be ensured.
[2] Only such cultures as are pessimistic in outlook and stand
consequently in need of dopes, can reasonably idolise Art and give it a status
higher than that of Morality or Religion or Knowledge in their gradation of
values. Indeed, they are in need of employing momentary ‘contemplation of the
beautiful’ as an escape from the sense the of misery and the consequent agony
to which the pessimistic outlook on life gives rise. This cannot be possible in
the case of the Qur’anic philosophy of life which upholds vigorously an
optimistic outlook and regards pessimism as nothing less than Infidelity: Kufr
(12:87).
[3] For certain direct commands relating to this problem, refer to
24:31, 60; etc.
Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
THE ISLAMIC CIVILISATION IN IT’S AGE OF
GLORY
“… Christians and Moslems
intermarried freely; now and then they joined in celebrating a Christian or
Moslem holiday, or used the some building as church and mosque … Clerics and
laymen from Christian Europe came in safety and freedom to Cordova, Toledo, or
Seville as students, visitors, travelers.
“… Cordova … extraordinary general prosperity … streets were paved, had
raised side walks, and were lighted at night; one could travel for ten miles by
the light of street lamps, and along an uninterrupted series of buildings … was
the focus and summit of Spanish intellectual life, though Toledo, Granada, and
Seville shared actively in the mental exhilaration of the time. Moslem
historians picture the Moorish cities as beehives of poets, scholars, jurists,
physicians, and scientists; al-Maqqari fills sixty pages with their names.
Primary schools were numerous, but charged tuition; Hakam II added twenty-seven
schools for the free instruction of the poor. Girls as well as boys went to
school; several Moorish ladies became prominent in literature or art. Higher
education was provided by independent lecturers in the mosques; their courses
constituted the loosely organized University of Cordova, which in the tenth and
eleventh centuries was second in renown only to similar institutions in Cairo
and Baghdad. Colleges were established also at Granada, Toledo, Seville,
Murcia, Almeria, Valencia, Cadiz. The technique of paper-making was brought in
from Baghdad, and books increased and multiplied. Moslem Spain had seventy libraries;
rich men displayed their Morocco bindings, and bibliophiles collected rare or
beautifully illuminated books … Scholars were held in awesome repute in Moslem
Spain, and were consulted in simple faith that learning and wisdom are one.
“… Abu Muhammad Ali ibn Hazm
(994-1064), besides serving as vizier to the last Umayyads, was a theologian
and historian of great erudition. His Book of Religions and Sects, discussing
Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and the principal varieties of Mohammedanism,
is one of the world’s earliest essays in comparative religion … Maslama ibn
Ahmad (d.1007), of Madrid and Cordova, adapted the astronomic tables of
Khwarizmi to Spain … Ibrahim al-Zarqali (c.1029-87) of Toledo made an
international name by improving astronomical instruments; Copernicus quoted his
treatise on the astrolabe; his astronomical observations were the best of his
age, and enabled him to prove for the first time the motion of the solar apogee
with reference to the stars; his ‘Toledan Tables’ of planetary movements were
used throughout Europe. Abul Qasim al-Zahrawi (936-1013), physician to
Abd-er-Rahman III, was honored in Christendom as Abulcasis; he stands at the
top of Moslem surgeons; his medical encyclopedia, al-Tasrif included three
books on surgery which, translated into Latin, became the standard text of
surgery for many centuries. Cordova was in this period the favorite resort of
Europeans for surgical operations.
“… Cairo, Alexandria, Jerusalem,
Baalbek, Aleppo, Damascus, Mosul, Emesa, Tus, Nishapur, and many other cities
boasted of colleges; Baghdad alone had thirty in 1064. A year later Nizam
al-Mulk added another: the Nizamiya; in 1234 the Caliph Mustansir founded still
another, which in size, architecture, and equipment surpassed all the rest; one
traveler called it the most beautiful building in the city. It contained four
distinct law schools, in which qualified students received free tuition, food,
and medical care, and a monthly gold dinar for other expenses; it contained a
hospital, a bath-house, and a library freely open to students and staff. Women
probably attended college in some cases, for we hear of a Shaikha—a lady
professor—whose lectures … drew large audiences (c.1178) … Muhammad
al-Shahrastani, in a Book of Religions and Sects (1128) analyzed the leading
faiths and philosophies of the world, and summarized their history; no
contemporary Christian could have written so learned and impartial a work.
“Europe knows Persian Poetry chiefly
through Omar Khayyam. … His Algebra, translated into French in 1857, made
significant advances both on al-Khwarizmi and on the Greeks; its partial
solution of cubic equations has been judged ‘perhaps the very highest peak of
medieval mathematics’. Another of his works on algebra (a manuscript in the
Leiden Library) studied critically the postulates and definitions of Euclid. In
1074 the Sultan Malik Shah commissioned him and others to reform the Persian
calendar. The outcome was a calendar that required a day’s correction every
3770 years—slightly more accurate than ours …
“Jalal-ud-Din Rumi (1201-1273) … wrote
several hundred poems. The shorter ones, collected in his Divan or Book of
Odes, are marked by such depth of feeling sincerity, and richness, yet
naturalness, of imagery as place them at the top of all religious poetry
composed since the Psalms. Jalal’s main work, the Mathnawi-i-Ma‘nawi (Spiritual
Couplets), is a … religious epic outweighing in bulk all the legacy of ‘Homer’.
“The Moslems continued, in this
period (1057-1258), their unchallenged ascendancy in science. In mathematics
the most signal advances were made in Morocco and Azerbaijan; we see here again
the range of Islamic civilization. In 1229 Hasan al-Marraqushi (i.e., of
Marraqesh) published tables of sines for each degree, and tables of versed
sines, arc sines, and arc cotangents. A generation later Nasir ul-Din al-Tusi
(i.e., of Tus) issued the first treatise in which trigonometry was considered
as an independent science rather than an appendage to astronomy; his Kitab
shakl al-qatta remained without a rival in its field until the De Triangulis of
Regiomontanus two centuries later. Perhaps Chinese trigonometry, which appears
in the second half of the thirteenth century, was of Arabic origin.
“The outstanding work of physical
science in this age was the Kitab Mizan al-hikmah … written about 1122 by …
Abu’l Fath al-Khuzini. It gave a history of physics, formulated the laws of the
lever, compiled tables of specific gravity for many liquids and solids, and
proposed a theory of gravitation as a universal force drawing all things
towards the centre of the earth. Water wheels … were improved by the Moslems;
the Crusaders … introduced them into Germany.
“In 1081 Ibrahim al-Sahdi of Valencia
constructed the oldest known celestial globe, a brass sphere 209 millimeters
(81.5 inches) in diameter; upon its surface, in forty-seven constellations,
were engraved 1015 stars in their respective magnitudes. The Giralda of Seville
(1190) was an observatory as well as a minaret; there Jabir ibn Aflah made the
observations for his Islah al-Majisti, or Correction of the Almagest (1240).
The same reaction against Ptolemaic astronomy marked the works of Abu Ishaq
al-Bitruji (Alpetragius) of Cordova, who paved the way for Copernicus by
destructively criticizing the theory of epicycles and eccentrics through which
Ptolemy had sought to explain the paths and motions of the stars.
“The age produced two geographers of
universal medieval renown. Abu Abdallah Muhammad al-ldrisi was born at Ceuta
(1100), studied at Cordova, and wrote in Palermo, at the behest of King Roger
II of Sicily, his Kitab al-Rujari (Roger’s Book). It divided the earth into
seven climatic zones, and each zone into ten parts; each of the seventy parts
was illustrated by a detailed map; these maps were the crowning achievement of
medieval cartography, uprecedented in fullness, accuracy, and scope. Al-ldrisi,
like most Moslem scientists, took for granted the sphericity of the earth.
Rivaling him for the honor of being the greatest medieval geographer was Abu
Abdallah Yaqut (1179-1229) … he completed his Mu‘jam al-Buldan (1228)—a vast
geographical encyclopedia which summed up nearly all medieval knowledge of the
globe. Yaqut included almost everything—astronomy, physics, archaeology,
ethnography, history, giving the co-ordinates of the cities and the lives and
works of their famous men. Seldom has any man so loved the earth.
“Botany, almost forgotten since
Theophrastus, revived with the Moslems of this age. Al-ldrisi wrote a herbal,
but stressed the botanical rather than merely the medicinal interest of 360
plants. Abu’l Abbas of Seville (1216) earned the surname of al-Nabati, the
Botanist, by his studies of plant life from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. Abu
Muhammad ibn Baitar of Malaga (1190-1248) gathered all Islamic botany into a
vast work of extraordinary erudition, which remained the standard botanical
authority till the sixteenth century, and marked him as the greatest botanist
and pharmacist of the Middle Ages. Ibn al-Awan of Seville (1190) won a like
pre-eminence in agronomy; his Kitab al-Falaha (Book of the Peasant) analyzed
soils and manures, described the cultivation of 585 plants and fifty fruit
trees, explained methods of grafting, and discussed the symptoms and cures of
plant diseases. This was the most complete treatment of agricultural science in
the whole medieval period.
“In this as in the preceding age the
Moslems produced the leading physicians; of Asia, Africa, and Europe. They
excelled especially in ophthalmology … Operations for cataract were numerous.
Khalifah ibn abi-Mahasin of Aleppo (1256) was so confident of his skill that he
operated for cataract on a one-eyed man. Ibn Baitar’s Kitab al-Jami’ made
medicinal-botanical history; it listed 1400 plants, foods, and drugs, 300 of
them new; analyzed their chemical constitution and healing power; and added
acute observations on their use in therapy. But the greatest name in this acme
of Moslem medicine is Abu Marwan ibn Zuhr (1091-1162) of Seville, known to the
European medical world as Avenzoar. He was the third in six generations of
famous physicians, all of one family line, and each at the top of his
profession. His Kitab al-Tasir, or Book of Simplification of Therapeutics and
Diet, was written at the request of his friend Averroes, who (himself the
greatest philosopher of the age) considered him the greatest physician since
Galen. Ibn Zuhr’s forte was clinical description; he left classical analyses of
mediastinal tumors, pericarditis, intestinal tuberculosis, and pharyngeal
paralysis. Translation of the Tasir into Hebrew and Latin deeply influenced
European medicine.
“Islam led the world also in the
equipment and competence of its hospitals. One founded by Nurud-din at
Damascus in 1160 gave free treatment and drugs during three centuries: for 267
years, we are told, its fires were never extinguished. Ibn Jubayr, coming to
Baghdad in 1184, marvelled at the great Bimaristan Adadi, a hospital rising
like some royal palace along the bank of the Tigris: here food and drugs were
given to the patients without charge. In Cairo, in 1285, Sultan Qalaun began
the Maristan al-Mansur, the greatest hospital of the Middle Ages.
Within a spacious quadrangular
enclosure four buildings rose around a courtyard adorned with arcades and
cooled with fountains and brooks. There were separate wards for diverse
diseases and for convalescents; laboratories, a dispensary, outpatient clinics,
diet kitchens, baths, a library, a chapel, a lecture hall, and particularly
pleasant accommodation for the insane. Treatment was given gratis to men and
women, rich and poor, slave and free; and a sum of money was disbursed to each
convalescent on his departure, so that he need not at once return to work. The
sleepless were provided with soft music, professional story-tellers, and
perhaps books of history. Asylums for the care of the insane existed in all the
major cities of Islam.
“… Mohammedanism produced its
greatest theologian, the Augustine and the Kant of Islam. Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
was born at Tus in 1058 … wrote his most influential book— Tahafut at-Filasifa
(The Destruction of Philosophy). All the arts of reason were turned against
reason. By a ‘transcendental dialectic’ as subtle as Kant’s … seven centuries
before Hume, al-Ghazali reduced reason to the principle of causality, and
causality to mere sequence … In his Ihya Ulum al-Din (Revival of the Sciences
of Religion) he expounded and defended his renovated orthodoxy with all the
eloquence and fervour of his prime; never in Islam the sceptics and the
philosophers encountered so vigorous a foe …
“Abu Bekr (Europe’s Abubacer) ibn
Tufail (1107-1185) … found time to write, among more technical works, the most
remarkable philosophicalromance in
medieval literature (Hayy ibn Yaqzan). It took its title from Ibn Sina, and
(through Ockley’s English translation in 1708) may have suggested Robinson
Crusoe to Defoe.
“… known to Islam as Abu al-Walid
Muhammad ibn Rushd(1126-1198), and
to medieval Europe as Averroes—the most influential figure in Islamic
Philosophy … In 1169 Averroes was appointed chief justice of Seville; in 1172
of Cordova … His work in medicine has been almost forgotten in his fame as a
philosopher: he was, however, ‘one of the greatest physicians of his time’, the
first to explain the function of the retina, and to recognize that an attack of
smallpox confers subsequent immunity. His encyclopedia of medicine (Kitab
al-Kulliyat fil tibb), translated into Latin, was widely used as a text in
Christian universities … he added several works of his own on logic, physics,
psychology, metaphysics, theology, law, astronomy and grammar … Maimonides followed
in Averroes’ steps in seeking to reconcile religion and philosophy. In
Christendom the Commentaries (of Averroes), translated into Latin from Hebrew,
fed the heresies of Siger de Brabant, and the rationalism of the School of
Padua, and threatened the foundations of Christian belief. St. Thomas Aquinas
wrote his Summae to stem this Averroistic tide; but he followed Averroes in the
method of his Commentaries, in divers interpretations of Aristotle … Roger
Bacon marked Averroes next to Aristotle and Avicenna, and added … ‘The
philosophy of Averroes today (c.1270) obtains the unanimous suffrage of wise
men’.
“The influence of Islam on Europe was
varied and immense.”
