Excerpt of The speech of Maulana Hazir Imam at the inauguration of the Naryn Campus, UCA.

Students of world history remind us how Central Asia, a thousand years ago, “led the world” in trade and investment, in urban development, in cultural and intellectual achievement. This was the place that leading thinkers from around the known world would look to for leadership. What were the latest breakthroughs in astronomy or mathematics, in chemistry or medicine, in philosophy or music? This was the place to find out. This region is where algebra got its name, where the earth’s diameter was precisely calculated, where some of the world’s greatest poetry was penned.

Why did this happen then? Why did it happen here? Above all, I would suggest, it was because of the quality of “openness.” By that I mean openness to new ideas, openness to change, and openness to people from many backgrounds and with a variety of gifts. The people of the cities here, even all those centuries ago, joined hands with the people of the steppes, and together they reached out to people who were far, far away.

That kind of openness can again be the key that unlocks the doors to the future. This will be true not just for people who live down the road, or others who may live over the immediate horizon, but also for people who are even farther away. They are potential partners and potential beneficiaries as we take on the great questions of our time and place: How can we best improve our schools, head off climate change, deal with natural disasters, and advance the public’s health?

How Islamic inventors changed the world

1) The story goes that an Arab named Khalid was tending his goats in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia, when he noticed his animals became livelier after eating a certain berry. He boiled the berries to make the first coffee. Certainly the first record of the drink is of beans exported from Ethiopia to Yemen where Sufis drank it to stay awake all night to pray on special occasions. By the late 15^th century it had arrived in Mecca and Turkey from where it made its way to Venice in 1645. It was brought to England in 1650 by a Turk named PasquaRoseewho opened the first coffee house in Lombard Street in the City of London. The Arabic qahwa became the Turkish kahve then the Italian caffé and then English coffee.

2) The ancient Greeks thought our eyes emitted rays, like a laser, which enabled us to see. The first person to realise that light enters the eye, rather than leaving it, was the 10^th-century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haitham.He invented the first pin-hole camera after noticing the way light came through a hole in window shutters. The smaller the hole, the better the picture, he worked out, and set up the firstCamera Obscura (from the Arab word qamara for a dark or private room). He is also credited with being the first man to shift physics from a philosophical activity to an experimental one.

3) A form of chess was played in ancient India but the game was developed into the form we know it today in Persia. From there it spread westward to Europe – where it was introduced by the Moors in Spain in the 10^th century – and eastward as far as Japan. The word rook comes from the Persian rukh, which means chariot.

4) A thousand years before the Wright brothers a Muslim poet, astronomer, musician and engineer named Abbas ibn Firnas made several attempts to construct a flying machine. In 852 he jumped from the minaret of the Grand Mosque in Cordoba using a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts. He hoped to glide like a bird. He didn’t. But the cloak slowed his fall, creating what is thought to be the first parachute, and leaving him with only minor injuries. In 875, aged 70, having perfected a machine of silk and eagles’ feathers he tried again, jumping from a mountain. He flew to a significant height and stayed aloft for ten minutes but crashed on landing – concluding, correctly, that it was because he had not given his device a tail so it would stall on landing. Baghdad international airport and a crater on the Moon are named after him.

5) Washing and bathing are religious requirements for Muslims, which is perhaps why they perfected the recipe for soap which we still use today. The ancient Egyptians had soap of a kind, as did the Romans who used it more as a pomade. But it was the Arabs who combined vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide and aromatics such as thyme oil. One of the Crusaders’ most striking characteristics, to Arab nostrils, was that they did not wash. Shampoo was introduced to England by a Muslim who opened Mohamed’s Indian Vapour Baths on Brighton Sea front in 1759 and was appointed Shampooing Surgeon to Kings George IV and William IV.

Mohamed-Indian-Vapour-Baths-on-Brighton-Sea-front

6) Distillation, the means of separating liquids through differences in their boiling points, was invented around the year 800 by Islam’s foremost scientist, Jabir ibn Hayyan, who transformed alchemy into chemistry, inventing many of the basic processes and apparatus still in use today – liquefaction, crystallisation, distillation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation and filtration. As well as discovering sulphuric and nitric acid, he invented the alembic still, giving the world intense rosewater and other perfumes and alcoholic spirits (although drinking them is haram, or forbidden, in Islam).Ibn Hayyan emphasised systematic experimentation and was the founder of modern chemistry.

Jabir-ibn-Hayyan,-who-transformed-alchemy-into-chemistry

7) The crank-shaft is a device which translates rotary into linear motion and is central to much of the machinery in the modern world, not least the internal combustion engine. One of the most important mechanical inventions in the history of humankind, it was created by an ingenious Muslim engineer called al-Jazari to raise water for irrigation. His 1206 Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices shows he also invented or refined the use of valves and pistons, devised some of the first mechanical clocks driven by water and weights, and was the father of robotics. Among his 50 other inventions was the combination lock. Irrigation was introduced by Al Jazari, a polymath, mechanical engineer, artesian, artist and mathematician. Born 1136, Upper Mesopotamia, died 1206, Cizre, Turkey.

Muslim-engineer-called-al-Jazari-to-raise-water-for-irrigation

8) Quilting is a method of sewing or tying two layers of cloth with a layer of insulating material in between. It is not clear whether it was invented in the Muslim world or whether it was imported there from India or China. But it certainly came to the West via the Crusaders. They saw it used by Saracen warriors, who wore straw-filled quilted canvas shirts instead of armour. As well as a form of protection, it proved an effective guard against the chafing of the Crusaders’ metal armour and was an effective form of insulation – so much so that it became a cottage industry back home in colder climates such as Britain and Holland.

9) The pointed arch so characteristic of Europe’s Gothic cathedrals was an invention borrowed from Islamic architecture. It was much stronger than the rounded arch used by the Romans and Normans, thus allowing the building of bigger, higher, more complex and grander buildings. Other borrowings from Muslim genius included ribbed vaulting, rose windows and dome-building techniques. Europe’s castles were also adapted to copy the Islamic world’s – with arrow slits, battlements, a barbican and parapets. Square towers and keeps gave way to more easily defended round ones. Henry V’s castle architect was a Muslim.

10) Many modern surgical instruments are of exactly the same design as those devised in the 10^th century by a Muslim surgeon called al-Zahrawi. His scalpels, bone saws, forceps, fine scissors for eye surgery and many of the 200 instruments he devised are recognisable to a modern surgeon. It was he who discovered that catgut used for internal stitches dissolves away naturally (a discovery he made when his monkey ate his lute strings) and that it can be also used to make medicine capsules. In the 13^th century, another Muslim medic named Ibn Nafis described the circulation of the blood, 300 years before William Harvey discovered it. Muslims doctors also invented anaesthetics of opium and alcohol mixes and developed hollow needles to suck cataracts from eyes in a technique still used today.

11) The windmill was invented in 634 for a Persian caliph and was used to grind corn and draw up water for irrigation. In the vast deserts of Arabia, when the seasonal streams ran dry, the only source of power was the wind which blew steadily from one direction for months. Mills had six or 12 sails covered in fabric or palm leaves. It was 500 years before the first windmill was seen in Europe. Early forms of Windmill were discovered by a hero of Alexandria in first century AD. Horizontal plane windmills were first prescribed by Ahmad Y Al Hasan in the 10 century A.D

12) The technique of inoculation was not invented by Jenner and Pasteur but was devised in the Muslim world and brought to Europe from Turkey by the wife of the English ambassador to Istanbul in 1724. Children in Turkey were vaccinated with cowpox to fight the deadly smallpox at least 50 years before the West discovered it. Wife of English Ambassador in Constantinople, Lady Mary Wortley Montague (she discovered Variolation, widely practiced in Turkey, for protection against fatal small pox.

13) The fountain pen was invented for the Sultan of Egypt in 953 after he demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes. It held ink in a reservoir and, as with modern pens, fed ink to the nib by a combination of gravity and capillary action.

14) The system of numbering in use all round the world is probably Indian in origin but the style of the numerals is Arabic and first appears in print in the work of the Muslim mathematicians al-Khwarizmi and al-Kindi around 825. Algebra was named after al-Khwarizmi’s book, Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah, much of whose contents are still in use. The work of Muslim maths scholars was imported into Europe 300 years later by the Italian mathematician Fibonacci.Algorithms and much of the theory of trigonometry came from the Muslim world. And Al-Kindi’s discovery of frequency analysis rendered all the codes of the ancient world soluble and created the basis of modern cryptology.

15) Ali ibn Nafi, known by his nickname of Ziryab (Blackbird) came from Iraq to Cordoba in the 9^th century and brought with him the concept of the three-course meal – soup, followed by fish or meat, then fruit and nuts. He also introduced crystal glasses (which had been invented after experiments with rock crystal by Abbas ibn Firnas – see No 4).

16) Carpets were regarded as part of Paradise by medieval Muslims, thanks to their advanced weaving techniques, new tinctures from Islamic chemistry and highly developed sense of pattern and arabesque which were the basis of Islam’s non-representational art. In contrast, Europe’s floors were distinctly earthly, not to say earthy, until Arabian and Persian carpets were introduced. In England, as Erasmus recorded, floors were “covered in rushes, occasionally renewed, but so imperfectly that the bottom layer is left undisturbed, sometimes for 20 years, harbouring expectoration, vomiting, the leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings, scraps of fish, and other abominations not fit to be mentioned”. Carpets, unsurprisingly, caught on quickly

17) The modern cheque comes from the Arabic saqq, a written vow to pay for goods when they were delivered, to avoid money having to be transported across dangerous terrain. In the 9^th century, a Muslim businessman could cash a cheque in China drawn on his bank in Baghdad.

18) By the 9^th century, many Muslim scholars took it for granted that the Earth was a sphere. The proof, said astronomer Ibn Hazm, “is that the Sun is always vertical to a particular spot on Earth”. It was 500 years before that realisation dawned on Galileo. The calculations of Muslim astronomers were so accurate that in the 9^th century they reckoned the Earth’s circumference to be 40,253.4km – less than 200km out. The scholar al-Idrisi took a globe depicting the world to the court of King Roger of Sicily in 1139.

19) Though the Chinese invented saltpetre gunpowder, and used it in their fireworks, it was the Arabs who worked out that it could be purified using potassium nitrate for military use. Muslim incendiary devices terrified the Crusaders. By the 15^th century they had invented both a rocket, which they called a “self-moving and combusting egg”, and a torpedo – a self-propelled pear-shaped bomb with a spear at the front which impaled itself in enemy ships and then blew up.

20) Medieval Europe had kitchen and herb gardens, but it was the Arabs who developed the idea of the garden as a place of beauty and meditation. The first royal pleasure gardens in Europe were opened in 11^th-century Muslim Spain. Flowers which originated in Muslim gardens include the carnation and the tulip.

21) Astronomy and Mathematics.

Nasir al din al Tusi. Zij il Khanil tables.

“1001” Inventions: Discover the Muslim Heritage in Our World” is a new exhibition which began a nationwide tour this week. It is currently at the Science Museum in Manchester. For more information, go to www.1001inventions.com

Zīj-i Īlkhānī (Persian: زیجِ ایلخانی‎) or Ilkhanic Tables (literal translation: “The Ilkhan Stars”, after ilkhan Hulagu, who was the patron of the author at that time) is a Zij book with astronomical tables of planetary movements. It was compiled by the Muslim astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi in collaboration with his research team of astronomers at the Maragha observatory. It was written in Persian and later translated into Arabic.

The book contains tables for calculating the positions of the planets and the names of the stars. It included data derived from the observations made over the course of 12 years in the Maragha observatory, completed in 1272.

The planetary positions of the Zij-i Ilkhani, derived from the Zijs of Ibn Al-`Alam and Ibn Yunis (ct. 10 AD), were so at fault that later astronomers, such as Shams al-Din Muhammad al-Wabkanawi (1254-1320 AD) and Rukn al-Din al-Amuli, criticized it severely.

The Zīj-i Īlkhānī set the precession of the equinoxes at 51 arcseconds per annum, which is very close to the modern value of 50.2 arcseconds

1] The book also describes a method of interpolation between the observed positions, which in modern terms may be described as a second-order interpolation scheme.

Khwarizmi: a Muslim Mathematical genius who revolutionised Algebra

After studying the works of different scholars from different eras, al Khwarizmi simplified Mathematics, taking it out of the philosophical realm and paving the way for a multitude of scientific advances.

Al Khwarizmi, a ninth century mathematician, Ichan Kala, Khiva, Uzbekistan.

Algebra is a versatile branch of mathematics and many scientists say it can define the true structure of the universe. While great human innovations such as flight and high-speed transportation are premised on algebraic equations, the modern world does not much care about its origins.

It was the 9^th-century polymath, Muhammad al Khwarizmi, who gave a definite form to the art of algebra and algorithm.

During the Middle Ages’ Translation Movement, scholars built on the works of Greek, Babylonian and Indian polymaths, introducing path-breaking scientific concepts. Since al Khwarizmi came of age in the era of great scholarly wisdom, shaped and influenced by the Golden Age of Islam, he furthered the works of many Greek and Indian polymaths. Khwarizmi’s algorithmic equations were based on the decimal system he made with the mix of Arabic and Indian letters. He developed it after studying the works of the legendary Indian astronomer Brahmagupta. Europe once relied on a complex Roman numerical system, but emulated the 1-10 decimal system five centuries later in the 15^th century.

In his book, The Arabs: A Short History, Philip Khuri, a Lebanese-American professor at Princeton and Harvard University, described Khwarizmi as “one of the greatest scientific minds of Islam and the man who influenced mathematical thought to a greater extent than any other mediaeval writer.”

Khwarizmi is widely credited for compiling the oldest astronomical tables. The scientific study of astronomy in the Golden Age of Islam began when the House of Wisdom, or the Grand Library, was founded in Baghdad between 754–775 AD under the rule of Abbasid Caliph Harun al Rashid.

Khwarizmi was also quick to develop trigonometric tables in detail including the sine functions, which were most likely extrapolated to tangentfunctions by Maslama, an Arab-Muslim astronomer. He also perfected the geometric representation of conic sections and developed the calculus of two errors, which then led him to the concept of differentiation.

The seventh Abbasid caliph, Al Mamun, ordered polymaths to measure the volume and circumference of the earth –Khwarizmi was among them. He not only participated in this, but he revised and corrected Ptolemy’s view by systemising and correcting his data for Africa and the Middle East, and as a result, produced the first map of the known world in 830 CE along with other geographers.

Besides this, Khwarizmi also wrote about mechanical devices like the astrolabe and sundials. His works became the principal textbooks used by European Universities between the 14^th and 17^th centuries.

His astronomical and trigonometric tables, revised by Maslama Al-Majriti (in the second half of 10^th century), were translated into Latin as early as 1126 by Adelard of Bath. They contained the first Muslim tables and contained not simply the sine function, but also the tangent.

The origins and life

Born in 780, his full name was Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi. He was born in Khwarizm, present-day Khiva, located in the south of the Aral Sea.

He was summoned to Baghdad by Abbasid Caliph Al Mamun, who was a patron of knowledge and learning.

Al Mamum assigned him as the court astronomer. It is from the title of his work, Hisab Al-Jabr wal Muqabalah (Book of Calculations, Restoration and Reduction), that Algebra (Al-Jabr) derived its name.

He completed most of his works in the period between 813 and 833, and died around 850.

Al-Rāzī

Persian physician
FULL ARTICLE

Al-Rāzī, in full Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Rāzī, Latin Rhazes, (born c. 854, Rayy, Persia [now in Iran]—died 925/935, Rayy), celebrated alchemist and Muslim philosopher who is also considered to have been the greatest physician of the Islamic world.

Born: c.854 Rayy Iran

Died: 925 or 935 Rayy Iran

Notable Works: “Kitāb al-Manṣūrī” “Kitāb al-ḥāwī”

One tradition holds that al-Rāzī was already an alchemist before he gained his medical knowledge. After serving as chief physician in a Rayy hospital, he held a similar position in Baghdad for some time. Like many intellectuals in his day, he lived at various small courts under the patronage of minor rulers. With references to his Greek predecessors, al-Rāzī viewed himself as the Islamic version of Socrates in philosophy and of Hippocrates in medicine.

Al-Rāzī’s two most significant medical works are the Kitāb al-Manṣūrī, which he composed for the Rayy ruler Manṣūr ibn Isḥaq and which became well known in the West in Gerard of Cremona’s 12th-century Latin translation, and Kitāb al-ḥāwī, the “Comprehensive Book,” in which he surveyed Greek, Syrian, and early Arabic medicine as well as some Indian medical knowledge. Throughout his works he added his own considered judgment and his own medical experience as commentary. Among his numerous minor medical treatises is the famed Treatise on the Small Pox and Measles, which was translated into Latin, Byzantine Greek, and various modern languages.

The philosophical writings of al-Rāzī were neglected for centuries, and renewed appreciation of their importance did not occur until the 20th century. Although he claimed to be a follower of Plato, his views differed significantly from those of later Arabic interpreters of Plato such as al-Fārābī, Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā), and Averroës (Ibn Rushd). He was probably acquainted with Arabic translations of the Greek atomist philosopher Democritus and pursued a similar tendency in his own atomic theory of the composition of matter. Among his other works, The Spiritual Physick of Rhazes is a popular ethical treatise and a major alchemical study.

history of medicine: Arabian medicine
…of the earliest figures was Rhazes, a Persian born in the last half of the 9th century near modern Tehrān,……

alchemy: Arabic alchemy

…greatest Arabic alchemist was ar-Rāzī (c. 850–923/924), a Persian physician who lived in Baghdad….…

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Al-Kindi

Philosopher

Abu Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī was an Arab Muslim philosopher, polymath, mathematician, physician and musician.

Al-Kindi was the first of the Islamic peripatetic philosophers, and is hailed as the “father of Arab philosophy”. Al-Kindi was born in Kufa and educated in Baghdad. Wikipedia

Born: Kufa, Iraq

Died: Baghdad, Iraq

School: Aristotelianism;

Parents: Isaac Ben-Sabah

Era: Islamic Golden Age

Al‑Farabi

Averroes

Ibn Sina

Muhammad ibn Zakariya al‑Razi

Jabir ibn Hayyan

Ibn al‑Haytham

Ibn Tufail

Abu Hamid Al‑Ghazali

What is Al-Kindi best known for?

Legacy. Al-Kindi was a master of many different areas of thought and was held to be one of the greatest Islamic philosophers of his time. … He is called the Philosopher of the Arabs. His books deal with different sciences, such as logic, philosophy, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy etc.

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Al Kindi

Al Kindi: The Father of Arab Philosophy (Great Muslim Philosophers And Scientists of the Middle Ages) Library Binding – Import, 8 February 2006. Find all the books, read about the author, and more.

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Buy Al Kindi: The Father of Arab Philosophy (Great Muslim …

Main interests: Philosophy, Islamic theology, logic, ethics, mathematics, physics, che…

Region: Islamic philosophy

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Al-Kindi (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

By P Adamson · 2006 · Cited by 206 — Abu Yusuf Ya’qub ibn Ishaq Al-Kindi (ca. 800–870 CE) was the first self-identified philosopher in the Arabic tradition.

Life and Works

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al-Kindi | Philosophy, Discovery, Works, & History | Britannica

Al-Kindī, the first outstanding Islamic philosopher, known as “the philosopher of the Arabs.” Al-Kindī was born of noble Arabic descent and flourished in …

Key People: Socrates Aristotle Plato Francis Bacon John Locke

Died: c.870

Related Topics: Ethics Western philosophy Metaphysics Indian philosophy Epistemo…

Books

The Philosophical Works of Al-Kindi

The Forty Chapters of Al-Kindī: Traditional Horary & Electional Astrology

De Gradibus

The medical formulary, or Aqrābādhīn

Scientific weather forecasting in the middle ages

2000

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Al-Kindi (805 – 873) – Biography – MacTutor History of Mathematics

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He was the only notable philosopher of pure Arabian blood and the first one in Islam. Al-Kindi “was the most leaned of his age, unique among his …

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Al-Kindi – New World Encyclopedia

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Al-Kindī was the only Islamic philosopher of Arab descent and is often referred to as the “Arab philosopher.” He was a forerunner of Avicenna and Averroes …

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Al-Kindi – Oxford Reference

(d. after ad 866)The earliest important Islamic philosopher, al-Kindi began the process of assimilating Neoplatonic and Aristotelian thought into the …

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al-Kindi, Abu Yusuf Ya’qub ibn Ishaq (d – Islamic Philosophy Online

Al-Kindi is notable for his work on philosophical terminology and for developing a vocabulary for philosophical thought in Arabic, although his ideas were …

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AL-KINDI, A NINTH-CENTURY PHYSICIAN … – Europe PMC

Which he lived. My proposals and conclusions are mainly based upon a study of al-Kindi’s extant scientific and philosophical writings, and on scattered.

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Buy The Philosophical Works of al-Kindi (Studies in Islamic Philosphy) (Studies in Islamic Philosophy) by Peter E. Pormann, Peter E. Pormann, Peter …

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Amazon.com: The Philosophical Works of al-Kindi (Studies in Islamic Philosophy): 9780199062805: Pormann, Peter E., Adamson, Peter: Books.

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The Silk Route

The Silk Route was a historic trade route that dated from the second century B.C. until the 14th century A.D. It stretched from Asia to the Mediterranean, traversing China, India, Persia, Arabia, Greece, and Italy. It was dubbed the Silk Route because of the heavy silk trading that took place during that period.

The Maritime Silk Road or Maritime Silk Route refers to the maritime section of the historic Silk Road that connected China, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Arabian peninsula, Somalia, Egypt and Europe. It began by the 2nd century BCE and flourished later on until the 15th century AD. The Maritime Silk Road was primarily established and operated by Austronesian sailors in Southeast Asia, Tamil merchants in India and Southeast Asia, Greco-Roman merchants in East Africa, India, Ceylon and Indochina, and by Persian and Arab traders in the Arabian Sea and beyond. The network followed the footsteps of an older maritime network, the Maritime Jade Road of Taiwan and maritime Southeast Asia, as well as the maritime spice networks of Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, India, and the Indian Ocean, coinciding with these ancient maritime trade roads by the current era.

The first Convocation of the University of Central Asia

SPEECH DELIVERED BYHis Highness the Aga Khan
LOCATION
Kyrgyz Republic (19 June 2021)
Speech by the President of the Kyrgyz Republic Mr. Sadyr Japarov
Speech by the Chairman, Board of Trustees, Shamsh Kassim-Lakha
Speech by the Prof. Dr. S. Sohail H. Naqvi
RELATED LINKS
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Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim

Your Excellency President Rahmon

Your Excellency President Japarov

Honourable Ministers

Honourable Governors

Chairman Dr Shamsh Kassim-Lakha and Members of the Board of Trustees

Rector, Deans, Faculty and Staff of the University

Parents, supporters, and distinguished guests and Graduates

It is truly a genuine pleasure for me to celebrate this milestone moment with you – the graduation of the first class of students from the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Central Asia. This event is also a very significant moment in my own life as it represents the culmination of more than two decades of effort in conceptualising, planning and building this institution with the valuable support of Patrons, Presidents and administrations of the Founding States.

On behalf of the Board of Trustees and everyone at UCA, I extend deep appreciation to the Patrons of the University, the Presidents of the Republic of Tajikistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and the Republic of Kazakhstan and their administrations for their support and for creating an enabling environment for the University to thrive and achieve its mission and goals.

It was only in 2016 and 2017 that the campuses in Naryn and Khorog welcomed their students. And here we stand today to celebrate each of you graduates; and your parents and families who contributed to your success. Each one of you is here today through your sustained hard work. You needed to develop certain qualities of character and mind to face the challenges of university learning. With these qualities, you are now empowered to seek out new opportunities with confidence. As the first graduates you will always have a special place in the history of the University. As you go forward, you will be UCA’s ambassadors, our envoys and representatives. This is a special responsibility that I am certain you will be able to fulfill admirably.

I offer my warmest congratulations to UCA’s faculty, management, staff, Trustees and the very generous donors all of whose contributions made it possible to establish quality academic programmes and beautiful residential campuses. This was not an easy task, and UCA had to navigate uncharted waters. This new university demonstrated enormous resilience in rising to the challenge posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and capably re-configured the institution to remote teaching. During this period, UCA succeeded in receiving accreditation by educational authorities in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, putting the institution on a solid academic footing.

Today’s event brings back some wonderful memories. Twenty-one years ago, I joined the Presidents of the Founding States in signing an extraordinary International Treaty that brought three countries together to establish the University of Central Asia as a single, multi-campus, regional institution of higher learning. Today’s graduation event, held simultaneously in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, is an example of the power of education and international cooperation. It is a power that can change people’s lives. It has always been the Founders’ hope that this power will come through the efforts of the class of 2021 and those which will follow, and from the research and civic engagement of the faculty.

In partnership with the Founding States, we established a type of institution that is new to Central Asia and the larger world. Planning for an original concept, and making it operational, was a complex process that involved purposeful architectural design, construction, detailed academic planning, training and recruiting faculty. All of this was accomplished in a decade, which is a fast-forward speed for most universities. The many who worked on the UCA project in the past and the University community today can take pride in this achievement and have our warmest appreciation.

However, a measure of a university’s success is the quality of the education it delivers and the careers of its graduates. This starts with the recruitment of students, for without good students, a university will never achieve excellence. A key ingredient in this story has been our open-access philosophy, enabling us to enrol students on merit alone, with the vast majority of students receiving financial support. The result is that 70 percent of our students are from small towns and rural areas, and half are women. They gained admission through a transparent and rigorous selection process and completed a demanding course of study with rigorous standards of academic integrity.

Research is the other measure of a university’s success. UCA defines itself as a “research-oriented” university. Central Asia and its mountain communities face many challenges, including the impacts of climate change, building reliant communities, alleviating poverty through quality economic growth and advancing technological innovation. These problems are analytically complex, and there are no easy solutions. The fundamental goal is to achieve levels of excellence in research, measured by global standards to bring genuine value to those we are committed to educating.

As we celebrate the first steps of a new university, we should also recall the past. Students of world history remind us how Central Asia, a thousand years ago, led the world in cultural and intellectual achievements. This region is where medicine was founded, where algebra got its name, where the earth’s diameter was precisely calculated, where some of the world’s greatest poetry was penned. This happened because the societies were open to new ideas, open to change, open to scholars and people from many backgrounds.

That kind of openness can again unlock the doors to the future, and allows us to take on the great questions of our time and place.

It is in the context of this illustrious historical background that the Trustees and I see the evolution of scholarship at this University. We accept that the revival of this tradition of high quality and relevant research in Central Asia will need to be carefully charted and will require the requisite human and material resources over an extended period of time.

UCA has made a good start. Research output by the faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences has markedly increased. And, of course, the Graduate School of Development, with its institutes, has achieved a significant presence on the Central Asian knowledge landscape and established international collaborations. The School is now collaborating with its sister institution, the Aga Khan University, in new research on maternal and child health and nutrition. I urge the faculty and students to give utmost attention to enhance the current learning and create new knowledge through research, which is a most important vector for improving the quality of life of those who live in these mountain ranges.

UCA is also a development university. And an essential aspect of this mission is its relationship with the host communities. The University is partnering with the local governments and its sister agencies in the Aga Khan Development Network to develop the host mountain towns into vibrant university communities and transform them by bringing new technology, innovation and entrepreneurship hubs. Over the coming decades, the University will expand as new areas of teaching and research emerge, and the towns that are home to UCA campuses will benefit from the new economic opportunities and attain a better quality of life.

Let me conclude by expressing again, to all of you, the deep sense of joy and gratitude I feel as we celebrate this historic day. To the graduates, I wish you a bright future. We look forward to working together with the Founding States, the Board of Trustees, the faculty and now the alumni towards the challenging and promising future of this University.

Thank you.

Facts and Details

LITERATURE AND POETRY IN THE ABBASID AND EARLY ISLAMIC PERIOD

LITERATURE IN THE EARLY ISLAMIC PERIOD

Writing and Manuscripts and under the Abassids

Literature Under the Abbasids

Arab Poetry

Poetry Under the Abbasids

Persian Influence on the Abbasids

Famous Poets from the Abbasid Period

Persian Poets

Al-Ghazali

Arabian Nights

Sultan Shahriyar, Scheherazade and Tales from Arabian Nights

LITERATURE IN THE EARLY ISLAMIC PERIOD

Antar, a popular hero that dates back to pre-Islamic times

Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr. Wrote in “A Concise History of the Middle East”: Almost every subject “is part of the literature of il the Muslim peoples. Poetry was also an important means of artistic expression, instruction, and popular entertainment. There were poems that praised a tribe, a religion, or a potential patron; some that poked fun at the poet’s rivals; others that evoked the power of God and the exaltation of a mystical experience; and still others that extolled love, wine, or sometimes both (you cannot always be sure which). [Source: Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr., “A Concise History of the Middle East,” Chapter. 8: Islamic Civilization, 1979, Internet Islamic History Sourcebook, sourcebooks.fordham.edu

“Prose works were written to guide Muslims in the performance of worship, instruct princes in the art of governing, refute the claims of rival political and theological movements, or teach any of the 1001 aspects of living from cooking to lovemaking.

Animal fables scored points against despotic rulers, ambitious courtiers, naive ulama, and greedy merchants. You probably know the popular stories that we call he Arabian Nights, set in Harun al-Rashid’s Baghdad, but actually composed by many ancient peoples, passed down by word of mouth to the Arabs, and probably set to paper only in the fourteenth century. You may not have heard of a literary figure equally beloved of the peoples of the Middle East. The Egyptians call him Goha, the Persians say he is named Mollah, and the Turks refer to him as Nasruddin Hoja.One brief story will have to suffice. A man once complained to Goha that there was no sunlight in his house. “Is there sunlight in your garden?” asked Goha. “Yes,” the other replied. “Well,” said Goha, “then put your house in your garden.”

Websites and Resources: Islam Islam.com islam.com ; Islamic City islamicity.com ; Islam 101 islam101.net ; Wikipedia article Wikipedia ; religioustolerance.org/islam ; BBC article bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam ; Patheos Library – Islam patheos.com/Library/Islam ; University of Southern California Compendium of Muslim Texts web.archive.org ; Encyclopædia Britannica article on Islam britannica.com ; Islam at Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org ; Islam from UCB Libraries GovPubs web.archive.org ; Muslims: PBS Frontline documentary pbs.org frontline ; Discover Islam dislam.org ; Islamic, Arabic and Persian Literature Islamic and Arabic Literature at Cornell University guides.library.cornell.edu/ArabicLiterature ; Internet Islamic History Sourcebook fordham.edu/halsall/islam/islamsbook ; Wikipedia article on Islamic Literature Wikipedia ; Wikipedia article on Arabic Literature Wikipedia ; Wikipedia article on Persian Literature Wikipedia ; Persian literature at Encyclopædia Britannica britannica.com ; Persian Literature & Poetry at parstimes.com /www.parstimes.com ; Islamic History: Islamic History Resources uga.edu/islam/history ; Internet Islamic History Sourcebook fordham.edu/halsall/islam/islamsbook ; Islamic History friesian.com/islam ; Islamic Civilization cyberistan.org ; Muslim Heritage muslimheritage.com ; Brief history of Islam barkati.net ; Chronological history of Islam barkati.net

Writing and Manuscripts and under the Abassids

Abbasid manuscript

Paper was introduced to the Middle East from China in the 8^th century. Gaston Wiet wrote in “Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate”: “In the meantime, the paper industry was born. After the battle of Talas [A.D. 751] in the Ili Valley at the end of the Umayyad period, a Chinese prisoner of war had been brought to Samarkand. There he began a paper industry using linen and hemp, imitating what he had seen in his own country. In 795, mention is made of the creation of the first paper factory in Baghdad. For a long time Samarkand remained the center of the industry, but, in addition to Baghdad, paper was manufactured in Damascus, Tiberias, Tripoli in Syria, Yemen, the Maghreb, and Egypt. The city of Jativa in Spain was famous for its thick, glazed paper. [Source: Gaston Wiet, “Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate,” Chapter 5: the Golden Age the Golden Age of Arab and Islamic Culture translated by Feiler Seymour University of Oklahoma Press, 1971 ó]

“After the appearance of paper, the number of manuscripts multiplied from one end of the Moslem empire to the other. This prosperous period for the publishing and selling of books was essential for cultural development. Paper was, therefore, of prime importance in the ninth century. From then on the book business was established in the Orient. However, we do not know whether the publishing was done by the author, a specialized merchant, or both at the same time. Well-stocked bookshops were often set up around the main mosque. Scholars and writers met in them, and copyists were hired there. In addition to the public libraries open to everyone, Jean Sauvaget, quoting an Arab source, spoke of “reading rooms where anyone, after paying a fee, could consult the work of his choice.”

“Readers squabbled over works copied by well-known calligraphers, whose names were scrupulously recorded in the chronicles. The main libraries had their official copyists and their appointed binders. Wealthy writers had teams of such people. As is well known from monuments and manuscripts, calligraphy was an important art in Moslem countries. The most famous of the calligraphers of the time was Ibn Muqla, who was unfortunate enough to have been the vizier of three caliphs, an honor that earned him the cruel punishment of having his right hand amputated. It is said that he attached a reed pen to his arm and wrote so well that there was no difference between the way he wrote before and after he lost his hand. ó

“Baghdad had become an intellectual metropolis, an achievement which was to overshadow the elorts made by its two rival cities, Kufa and Basra. The work of the en- thusiastic translators was only the beginning; there was a very intimate rapport between the Arab writers and Greek thought, and the attempted assimilation was often quite successful. ó

Literature Under the Abbasids

Gaston Wiet wrote in “Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate”: “The Abbasid golden age gave rise to a capable and imposing group of translators, who tried successfully to regain the heritage of antiquity. Men of letters took advantage of this substantial contribution. They entered into passionate and fruitful discussions, which were dominated by the astonishing personality of Jahiz (d.868). He is probably the greatest master of prose in all Arab literature. He was a prolific writer with a vast field of interest. In addition, his Mutazilite convictions made him a literary leader. In order to describe reality, he broke with a tradition which was bound to the past. He laid the foundations of a humanism which was almost exclusively Arab and hostile to Persian interference at the beginning, and which took on more and more Greek coloration later on. His love of knowledge and his great intellectual honesty are evident on every page of his works. Jahiz is outstanding because of his exceptional genius, his qualities of originality, and his art in handling an often cruel and sometimes disillusioned irony, in which he was more successful than any writer before him. Jahiz pushed sarcasm to the point of mocking irreverence toward Divinity, more in the style of Lucian than of Voltaire. It is due to the tremendous talent of this prodigious artist that Arabic prose became more important than poetry. [Source: Gaston Wiet, “Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate,” Chapter 5: the Golden Age the Golden Age of Arab and Islamic Culture translated by Feiler Seymour University of Oklahoma Press, 1971 ó]

House of Wisdom

“Another great writer, IbnQutaiba, ranks high, immediately after Jahiz, whom he survived by about twenty years (d.88g). He too had an intellectually curious mind which made him a grammarian, a philologist, a lexicographer, a literary critic, a historian, and an essayist. In literature, he is an advocate of conciliation, through conviction and not lassitude, and a partisan of the golden mean. His Book Of Poetry, which shows him to be a creator of the art of poetry, contains judgments of great value. ó

“Ibn Duraid is worthy of mention because of the role re- cently attributed to him by an Arab critic as creator of the Maqama, of the Seance, which will be discussed later. This philologist is one of the last contestants in a battle which, during his lifetime, interested very few men of letters, the battle against Iranophilia. ó

“Mas’udi must certainly not be neglected, not only because he was born in Baghdad but because this tireless traveler has left us a most interesting account of the history of the Abbasid caliphate. The writer of memoirs, Suli, is of interest because he speaks of events of which he was a sad and, at times, indignant witness. His contemporary, Mas’udi, says, “He reports details which have escaped others and things which he alone could have known.”

“The date of Tanukhi’s death (994) places him in the Buyid period, as does his style, but in one of his works he speaks especially of the upheaval during Muqtadir’s reign. Although it was meant to entertain, this book, written in a lively style, contains a good deal of solid judgment. Another short work consists of a series of amusing, merry stories which, if taken too seriously, might give a disturbing picture of the Baghdad bourgeoisie. It is dangerous to generalize, since the book is probably about a circle of party-goers and unscrupulous revelers. In short, reading Tanukhi is quite arnusing. ó

“It is impossible to mention all the prose writers who added to the glory of the ninth century in the Arabic language. Those who spent several years in Baghdad profited from the extraordinarily feverish atmosphere of the place. We must not omit Ya’qubi, the geographer, who left us exciting pages on the founding of Baghdad, and Ibn Hauqal who used Baghdad as the point of departure for his voyages.” ó

Arab Poetry

Diʻbil al-Khuzāʻī Arabic Praise poetry on Ali al-Ridha-Tiling-Balasar Mosque

Partly because of its association with the Qur’an and god, poetry has traditionally been considered the highest Arab-Muslim cultural form. Most of the Arab world’s most famous literary figures have been poets. They have often been regarded as men blessed or cursed with special talent denied ordinary men, in some cased from demons.

Muslim poets wrote love songs rich in betrayal and sensual imagery, usually accompanied by musical instruments. Even Muslims who are illiterate can appreciate poetry because they recite and hear the poetic verses of the Qur’an every day.

In the pre-Islamic era poets acted as storytellers, historians, judges, philosophers and counselors. With the arrival of Islam, the rich language of the Qur’an because an expression of poetry in itself. In the courts of Baghdad and Damascus, poets were held in the highest of regard. Many famous poets seemed to have had drinking and women problems.

Popular styles of poetry included: 1) theqasida, an ode that originated in pre-Islamic times with accented meters and with a single rhyme running throughout it; 2) the muwashshah, a style that emerged in the 10^th century and had a pattern of rhymes that appeared in a series of lines repeated throughout the poem. Among the most popular subjects were the exaltation of God, praise or rulers, odes to nature and romantic love and mysticism.

Poetry Under the Abbasids

Gaston Wiet wrote in “Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate”: “Under the Abbasids, there was also the social advancement of administrative secretaries, which enabled them to succeed the poets of an earlier period, who had been the only ones to earn their living in the field of letters. Thereafter the scholars, mathematicians, astronomers, astrologers, and translators of the works of Greek antiquity were supported by the first caliphs of Baghdad. [Source: Gaston Wiet, “Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate,” Chapter 5: the Golden Age the Golden Age of Arab and Islamic Culture translated by Feiler Seymour University of Oklahoma Press, 1971 ó]

“Songs and music are perhaps more important in Baghdad than in other regions of the Moslem world. There are great names in the field of theory, Farabi for example, and in composition, the Mausilis, father and son, and Ibrahim ibn Mahdi, the ephemeral caliph. During the reigns of several Abbasid caliphs, the Mausilis delighted the court of Baghdad. Ibrahim (804) had been the favorite of the caliphs Mahdi, Hadi, and Harun al-Rashid; he was the hero of some rather racy adventures. He led his musicians with a baton and was perhaps the first orchestra conductor. The great historian Ibn Khaldun wrote, “The beautiful concerts given at Baghdad have left memories that still last.” ó

Poet Council of Al-Hakim II, Caliph of Cordoba

“Several poets gave accounts of the lives of the gay blades and the tough characters who frequented the cabarets of the capital. One small work, byWashsha, contains a sketch of the worldly manners and customs of the refined class of Baghdad and is a veritable manual of the life of the dandies of the period. It also gives minute details on dress, furniture, gold and silver utensils, cushions, and curtains, with their appropriate inscnptions. ó

“Another writer, Azdi, who is reminiscent of Villon, describes the society of debauched party-goers. His poems are difficult to translate because of their truculence, their strong language, and their defiance of decent morals. We should not be too surprised at the contrast between the studious world of the translator and the medical specialists and that of the writers of licentious poetry who sang, with some talent, of pleasure and debauchery and bragged of overtly displayed corruption. ó

Persian Influence on the Abbasids

Gaston Wiet wrote in “Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate”: “Moreover, the Iranization of the empire had an influence on the way of thinking, feeling, and writing. The discovery of Sassanianantiquity and Hellenic thought at the same time added fresh impetus. In the field of literature, there was a somewhat coordinated Iranophile movement called shu’ubiya. It consisted of a reaction, not always calm or tender, against Arab domination, both political and cultural. The promoter of this anti-Arab opposition was Sahl ibn Harun, director of the Academy of Wisdom, but in all fairness it should be said that even before him there were members of the fabulous Barmekid family who were prominent during Harun al-Rashid’s reign because of their omnipotence and their tragic fate. They realized that poets played the same role as modern journalists. Poets should not, therefore, be led to oppose the regime. These great ministers were also famous for their broad tolerance; that the underlying motive was either coolness toward Islam or faithfulness to Iranian beliefs does not alter the facts. We know, for example, that a number of famous disputants among Islamic theologians, free-thinkers, and doctors of different sects met at the home of the educated and enlightened Yahya, the grandson of Barmek. [Source: Gaston Wiet, “Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate,” Chapter 5: the Golden Age the Golden Age of Arab and Islamic Culture translated by Feiler Seymour University of Oklahoma Press, 1971 ó]

Arabic and Persian poetic verses

“Thus, in ninth-century Baghdad a fertile literary center was formed which lighted the way for Arab letters. Poetry continued to be cultivated with the same care. The poets of the Abbasid period were worthy of their great ancestors of pre-Islamic times and of the Umayyad court. A list of the poets of genius would include:Bashshar ibn Burd, who died in 783, the standard-bearer of the shu’ ubiya and an erotic poet of great talent and robustness whose capabilities were rather disturbing from a religious point of view; Muti’ ibn Iyas, who died in 787 as famous for his debauchery as for his blasphemy, as skillful in praising as in attacking; Saiyid Himyari, who died in 789a more or less sincere panegyrist, who sought protection in the traditional way, who is particularly praised by the critics for his simplicity of style, and, as far as we are concerned, who escaped banality by his Shi’ite convictions, by the variety of his poetic themes, and by his artistic qualities; Abbas ibnAhnaf, who died in 808 who speaks of the “power of love,” always expressed his thoughts delicately and thus stands in opposition to the licentious poets who surrounded him, which explains his success in Spain; Abu Nuwas, who died in 8I3,the singer of the joy of living, the greatest Bacchic poet in the Arabic language, a sensual, debauched devil who became a hermit toward the end of his life and left a number of religious poems. ó

“Muti’ ibn Iyas and Abu Nuwas, two great Iyric poets, had a pronounced taste for scandal and blasphemy. It would be an exaggeration to claim that they represented fairly accurately a certain aspect of Baghdad society. Yet, the smutty tales of the Book of Songs prove that the upper bourgeoisie was hardly overcome with moral scruples. Drunkenness was common, it seems, and perhaps even more violent thrills were sought. These poems, however, should be taken into account as a reflection of a part of society which was hungry for pleasure. ó

“Our honors list also includes Muslim ibn Walid, who died in 823 author of love poems and drinking songs; Abu Tammam (843) and Buhturi (897), famous for their original odes and their anthologies of poetry; Di’bil (960), who lived in peril because he associated with robbers and wrote satires in truculent and unpolished language; Ibn Rumi (896), whose verses include philosophical ideas and a close look at reality and whose satires are fine and cruel without being vulgar; Ibn Mu’tazz (908), who was caliph for one day and paid for it with his life, who, as a poet of transition, painted the society around him, describing the caliph’s palaces in a rather delicate style, and who, in a moving poem, gave a glimpse of the future decadence of the caliphate;Ibn Dawud (9I0), leader of the school of courtly love and early ancestor of our troubadours; and, above all, the peerlessAbul-Atahiya (825), the earliest Arab philosopher-poet, who wrote of suffering in verses that proclaim the vanity of the joys of this world. The anthologies of these poets were compiled perhaps to combat theIranian spirit of the shu’ubiya in an attemptto conserve the masterpieces of the pre-Islamic period.” ó

Famous Poets from the Abbasid Period

From Confessions of Abu Nuwas

Abu Nuwas was a companion of the Baghdad Caliph Harun al-Rashid. He wrote many tributes to wine and appears to have been quite a rouge. One of his most famous lines goes: “ How can you but enjoy yourself/ When the world is in blossom,/ And wine is at hand?”

Al-Mutanabbi (915-68) is a legendary Arab poet born in Kufa whose names means “oracle.” When he was young he served as a court poet in Aleppo, Cairo, Baghdad and Shiraz. He was involved in politics and was murdered in a tribal feud by assassin who picked him out at random, not realizing he was a respected poet and sage. One of his most famous lines goes: “Not everything a man longs for is within his reach, for gust of winds can blow against a ship’s desires.”

In a tribute to his patron in Aleppo, who had just recovered from an illness, Al-Mutanabbi wrote: “Glory and honor were healed when you were healed, and pain passed from you to your enemies…Light, which had left the sun, as if its loss were a sickness in the body, returned to it…The Arabs are unique in the world in being of his race, but foreigners share with Arabs in his beneficence…It is not you alone I congragualte on your recovery; when you are well all men are well.”

Yunus Emre was a 13^th century poet who wrote about universal love, friendship and divine justice. He lived in Anatolia from about 1228 to about 1320 and was a member of a Sufi sect of Muslims. His poems were about the search of spirituality, emphasizing the soul of the individual rather than formal religion. Emre once wrote, “ We see all of mankind as one…Whoever does not look with the same eye upon all nations is a rebel against truth…God’s truth is lost on men of orthodoxy. One of his most famous couplets goes: “ God’s truth is an ocean, and dogma is a ship./ Most people don’t leave the ship to plunge into that sea.”

Persian Poets

The Persian provinces produced some of Islam’s greatest scholars and poets: Izami (died 1209), Hafez (died 1390), Saadi (died 1292) and the 10^th century Samanid figures Avicenna and Omar Khayyan. Many of great “Persian” poets and literary figures were in fact Tajiks from Central Asia. Iranians love Sufi poets.

Omar-Khayyám (1048-1123) was a Persian mathematician who enjoyed drinking and writing fatalistic poetry. He is famous in the West for his Rubiayat, or quatrains, but he was best known in his time as a mathemitican and astronomer.

Alchemy of Happiness by al-Ghazali

Omar-Khayyám wrote: “I sometimes think that never blows so red/ The Rosse as where some buried Caesar bled.” “Rubaiyat of Mar Khayyam” was a popular book in the Victorian era. Produced by an American expatriate Elihu Vedder, it was filled with images of skulls, owls and lizards set to Omar verse.

Al-Ghazali

Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (d. 1111) is one of the great poets and thinkers in Muslim history. He made great contributions to Islamic theology, philosophy, literature, science and legal scholarship. In Baghdad in 1095 he suffered a nervous breakdown due to questions about his faith that left him paralyzed and unable to speak. He went to Jerusalem and recovered by doing Sufi excercises and concluded that God could not be found in reason and rationality but was more likely to be discovered using the rituals of Sufi mystics who aimed to have a direct relationship with God. He returned to Iraq 10 years after his breakdown and wrote his masterpiece The Revival of Religious Sciences, which became the most quoted text after the Qur’an and the hadiths.

Al-Ghazali was sort of like of a Muslim equivalent of St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas: someone who wrote beautifully and was able to bring religion down to earth so that it could be understood by ordianry people. In addition to writing about deep philosophical issues he also wrote about music and what heaven is like.

In The Revival of Religious Sciences, al-Ghazali offered inights into prayer and knowledge of God and provided spiritual justification for Muslim rules on ordinary activities such as washing, eating and sleeping so that Muslims could feel they were doing something more than just following rules and that the only infallible teacher was Muhammad. Other Al-Ghazali works included The Deliverer of Error and The Incoherence of Incoherence.

On Disciplining The Soul Al-Ghazali wrote: “”If his aspiration is true, his ambition pure and his concentration good, so that his appetites do not pull at him, and he is not distracted by the hadith an-nafs (discourse of the soul meaning egotism of the soul) towards the attachments of the world, the gleams of the Truth will shine in his heart. At the outset, this will resemble a brief, inconstant shaft of lightening, which then returns, perhaps after a delay. If it returns, it may be fleeting or firm; and if it is firm (thabit), it may or may not endure for some time. States such as these may come upon each other in succession, or only one type may be present. In this regard, the stages of God’s saints (awliya) are as innumerable as their outer attributes and qualities”. (Translation by Shaykh Abdal-Hakim Murad).

Arabian Nights

From Arabian Nights: “He had the gift of understanding the language of beasts”

The most famous book in Arabic literature is Arabian Nights, a collection of stories that may have descended from an old Persian book called Thousand and One Nights. No one knows where the stories originally came or when they were first told.

The stories from Arabian Nights remain popular today. The include classical tales of adventure, magic and wealth set among exotic Eastern settings with harems, bazaars and luxurious palaces. Many people are familiar with the famous stories of Sinbad, Aladdin and Ali Babi through films and children stories without knowing anything about the originals.

The fairy tales of Arabian Nights are believed to be mostly of Persian origin. The moral fables are distinctly Arabian. The tales of animals and beasts are thought to have come from India. Others are probably of Chinese, Japanese and Egyptian origin.

In the A.D. 8^th century, the stories of Arabian Nights fame were introduced to the court of Harun al-Rashid, the Caliph of Baghdad and one the greatest rulers during the Arab Golden Age.A great patron of the arts, Harun loved the stories and storytellers flattered him by making him a central character of many of the stories, often as a ruler traveling in disguises among his subjects.

No original or authoritative copy of Arabian Nights exists. Up until the Middle Ages the stories continued to be passed on orally, with different storytellers telling different stories, and did not take their present form until around 1400 when Egyptian scholars began writing the stories down. Arabic manuscripts that have survived from this period contain about 200 stories. The Middle Easter scholar Edward Said has accused European translations of the stories as being the source of many of the stereotypes and misconceptions about Arabs and Muslims.

Sultan Shahriyar, Scheherazade and Tales from Arabian Nights

The heroine of Thousand and One Nights is Scheherazade, the daughter of a grand vizier, of a kingdom between Arabia and China. She is described as “learned, prudent and witty.” The ruler of the kingdom is Sultan Shahriyar, who is deeply in love with his wife and feels deeply betrayed by her when he witnesses her having an affair with a slave. Deeply hurt the sultan decides to take revenge on all women by having a new young women brought to him each night only to have her executed the following morning. Fed up with the sultan’s cruelty, Scheherazade hatches a plan. She tells her father to offer her and sister to the sultan. Against his own wishes the vizier acquiesces. Both sisters sleep with the sultan.

Scheherazade and Sultan Shahriyar

As the time for Scheherazade execution approaches, her sister asks her tell a story. Her plan is to tell a story until it reaches its most suspenseful point and then stop. To hear the end of the tale the sultan lets Scheherazade live another day so she can tell the end of the story. Scheherazade knows a lot of stories and she keeps this up 1001 nights. During that time she produced three sons for the sultan, who ultimately becomes convinced of her womanly virtue and ends his campaign against women and the couple lives happily ever after.

Famous stories in the West from Arabian Nights include Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and Aladdin. The famous tale of a flying carpet began when three brothers—Prince Ali, Houssain and Ahmed—peered through an ivory tube and saw that the princess they loved was dying. To get to her as quickly possible they flew on a magic carpet Lesser known stories include The Young King of the Black Isles, The Three Sisters, The Enchanted Horse and Prince Ahmen and Periebanou.

Text Sources: Internet Islamic History Sourcebook: sourcebooks.fordham.edu “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “ Arab News, Jeddah; Islam, a Short History by Karen Armstrong; A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani (Faber and Faber, 1991); Encyclopedia of the World Cultures edited by David Levinson (G.K. Hall & Company, New York, 1994). Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions” edited by R.C. Zaehner (Barnes & Noble Books, 1959); Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, The Guardian, BBC, Al Jazeera, Times of London, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated September 2018

The-Agakhan-IV-in-his-address-to-inauguration-of-Naryn-Campus

Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, 18 October 2016 – On the first day of an official visit to the Kyrgyz Republic, His Highness the Aga Khan was presented the Order of Danaker by His Excellency Almazbek Atambayev, President of the Kyrgyz Republic.

The order is the country’s highest recognition given to a foreign citizen for contributions to thestrengthening of peace, friendship and cooperation between peoples and for working towards preserving inter-ethnic harmony and the mutual enrichment of national cultures.

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Maulana Hazir Imam.

“Tolerance openness and understanding towards other people’s cultures, values and faiths are now essential to the very survival of an interdependent world.Pluralism is no longer simply an asset or a prerequisite for development, it is essential for the functioning of a civil society. Indeed it is vital to our existence. “

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“The purpose of Agakhan Trust for Culture itself was to explore ideas and develop strategies for revitalising the diverse cultural forms of the Islamic worldand to advance the humanistic vision of Islam lost in recent times”

Excerpt of the speech of Maulana Hazir Imam, 1991/06/05. Restoration of Granada.

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King Juan Carlos : 1991/06/05. Granada.

“Spain has been home to many civilizations throughout centuries and Spain is crossroads for many Cultures.”

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Excerpt speech Agakhan IV, 2013/11/27.Canada, Ottawa. Gold Medal Presentation

“Thelanguage of architecturespeaks in different idioms, but it also provides powerful connections resonating in the landscapes both urban and rural, global and local monumental, humble, secular and spiritual. An architecture of pluralism is one that will encourage us to listen to one another, to learn from one another, with a deep sense of humility, and a realisation that diversity itself is a gift of the Divine.

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International Colloquium organised by Institute of Ismaili Studies Ismaili Centre London, October 19^th2003.

“Whatever its vernacular forms, the language of art, more so when is spirituality inspired, can be an active barrier transcending medium of discourse, manifesting the debts of human spirit”. “The noble Quran,extends its principles of pluralism also to adherants of other faiths.It affirmsthat each has a direction and path to which they turn so that all shouldstrive for good works,in the belief that whosoeverthey maybe Allahwillbring them together.“

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Keynote address to the Governor General 2004, Canadian Leadership Conference “Leadership and Diversity “( Gatineau Canada) Pluralism means peoples of diverse backgrounds and interests coming together in organisations of varying types and goals for different kinds and forms of creative expression which are valuable and deserving support by government and society as a whole. The rejection of pluralism is pervasive across the globe and plays a very significant role in the breeding destructive conflicts.

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The effective world of the future is world of pluralism, that is to say a world that comprehends and ACCEPTS differences. BUT SUCH A WORLD MUST BE BASED ON A NEW INTELLECTUAL AND SPIRITUAL EQUALITY and it must be educated to see in pluralism, opportunities for growth in all areas of human endeavour. Maulana Hazir Imam.

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What knowledge societies existed in the Muslim world in the past?

The notion of a knowledge society is not new to Muslim cultures and societies.

“Did you know the concept of knowledge societies in Islam dates back to the 9^th century with the establishment of Bayt-al-Hikmah in Baghdad?”

If we judge from Islamic history, there is much to encourage us. For century after century, the Arabs, the Persians, the Turks and many other Islamic societies achieved powerful leadership roles in the world—not only politically and economically but also intellectually. Some ill-informed historians and biased commentators have tried to argue that these successes were essentially produced by military power, but this view is profoundly incorrect. The fundamental reason for the pre-eminence of Islamic civilizations lay neither in accidents of history nor in acts of war, but rather in their ability to discover new knowledge, to make it their own, and to build constructively upon it. They became the Knowledge Societies of their time.

Address by Mawlana Hazar Imam to the 2006 Convocation of the Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan (2 December 2006)

What is a knowledge society? Why will they be important in the future?

A Knowledge society’s primary resource is knowledge instead of capital and labour. It a society that creates, shares, and uses knowledge for the prosperity and well-being of its people. The World Bank and other international organizations expect that the future will increasingly be driven by the knowledge, skills, and resourcefulness of people rather than factories, land or machinery.

These organizations recommend investment in the higher education of talented men and women as a top priority in the national plans of every developing society. They have gone on to share that those societies that ignore this call will find themselves marginalized, and in an increasingly vulnerable position in the world. In contrast, those societies that work to use knowledge as a means to improve their quality of life will be influential members of what is commonly known as the “Knowledge Society”.

What knowledge societies existed in the Muslim world in the past?

The notion of a knowledge society is not new to Muslim cultures and societies. Bayt al-Hikmah, one of the first influential research centres, was established in Baghdad in the 9^th century and served a similar purpose. Its main task was to gather and study the best available sources of knowledge of the time, so that they could be used for the benefit of the state and the Ummah. Scholars gathered in Bayt al-Hikmah to study and translate philosophical and scientific works of the Greek, Roman, Persian, and Indian heritage. However, their job was not only to translate these works but also, by relating them to their Islamic heritage, to produce new knowledge.

This new knowledge was then advanced and furthered in new directions by scholarship in many institutions across the Muslim empires. One of the most distinguished was Dar al-Ilm, which was founded by Imam al-Hakim Bi’Amrillah,‘alayhi-s-salam, (Fatimid Caliph) in Cairo in 1005 and served as an academy where a variety of subjects were taught, including mathematics, philosophy, astronomy, logic, grammar, and history, as well as religious subjects such as Qur’an, the hadith, and jurisprudence. The Dar al-Ilm was equipped with a large library that included hundreds of thousands of volumes and was open to people from different religious persuasions, who were also provided with free paper, pens, ink, and inkstands for their scholarly pursuits. Mawlana Imam al-Hakim Bi’Amrillah used to attend some of the lectures himself. These examples show that knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge was central to the way Muslims across history lived and connected to the world around them.

How can we prepare for the future knowledge society?

Today, the need to become an active part of the contemporary knowledge society is urgent and critical for Muslims. Access to good education, the capacity to carry out cutting-edge research in various fields and to develop ‘New Knowledge’ is vital. To strive for knowledge and be part of the knowledge society is a responsibility that we as Muslims have inherited from our faith and our history. It is a responsibility that we must fulfil to ensure a better future for the generations to come.

How does Mawlana Hazar Imam believe Ismailis and the larger Muslim Ummah can recapture our tradition of knowledge societies?

Speech by Mawlana Hazar Imam to the 2006 Convocation of the Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan (2^nd December 2006)

….”one answer which can be shared across the whole of the Ummah is that we must become full and even leading participants in the Knowledge Society of the 21^st Century.

That will mean embracing the values of collaboration and coordination openness and partnership, choice and diversity, learning constantly to review and revise and renew what we think we know and learning how to go on learning.

The spirit of the Knowledge Society is the spirit of the Pluralism, _ a readiness to accept the other, indeed to learn from him, to see differences as an opportunity rather than a threat. “

Who Were the Saracens?

History of Sicily: Arrival of Arabs in Mazara del Vallo

By Kallie Szczepanski

Updated March 04, 2018

The Saracens were primarily Arab Muslims but also Turks or other Muslims as referred to by Christian writers in Europe during the Middle Ages. The term’s meaning evolved during its history. Saracens are members of a nomadic peoples from Sinai near the Roman province of Arabia in the early centuries CE. Moors (historical) were members of the ancient Berber people from Numidia (North Africa), who were specifically distinguished from the Arabs. Numidia was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians located in North West Africa initially originating from Algeria but later on expanding across modern day Tunisia, Libya and some parts of Morocco.

Today, the word “Saracen” is mainly associated with the Crusades, a series of bloody European invasions into the Middle East that took place between 1095 and 1291 CE. The European Christian knights who went crusading used the term Saracen to denote their foes in the Holy Land (as well as Muslim civilians who happened to get in their way). Where did this odd-sounding word come from? What does it really mean?

Meaning of “Saracen”

The precise meaning of the word Saracen evolved over time, and which people, it was applied to, also changed through the ages. To speak very generally, though, it was a term for Middle Eastern people that was used by Europeans from at least late Greek or early Roman times forward.

The word comes into English via the Old French Sarrazin, from the Latin Saracenus, itself derived from the Greek Sarakenos. The origins of the Greek term are unclear, but linguists theorize that it may come from the Arabic sharq meaning “east” or “sunrise,” perhaps in the adjective form sharqiy or “eastern.”

Late Greek writers such as Ptolemy refer to some of the people of Syria and Iraq as Sarakenoi. The Romans later held them in grudging respect for their military capabilities, but certainly classed them among the “barbarian” peoples of the world. Although we do not know exactly who these people were, the Greeks and Romans distinguished them from the Arabs. In some texts, such as that of Hippolytus, the term seems to refer to the heavy cavalry fighters from Phoenicia, in what is now Lebanon and Syria.

During the early Middle Ages, Europeans lost touch with the outside world to some extent. Nonetheless, they remained aware of Muslim peoples, particularly since the Muslim Moors ruled the Iberian Peninsula. Even as late as the tenth century, though, the word “Saracen” was not necessarily considered the same as “Arab” nor as “Moor” – the latter specifically designating the North African Muslim Berber and Arab peoples who had conquered much of Spain and Portugal.

Racial Ties

By the later Middle Ages, Europeans used the word “Saracen” as a pejorative term for any Muslim. However, there was also a racial belief current at the time that Saracens were black-skinned. Notwithstanding that, European Muslims from places like Albania, Macedonia, and Chechnya were considered Saracens. (Logic is not a requirement in any racial classification, after all.)

By the time of the Crusades, Europeans were set in their pattern of using the word Saracen to refer to any Muslim. It was considered a disparaging term by this period, as well, stripped of even the grudging admiration that the Romans had bestowed upon the Saracens. This terminology dehumanized the Muslims, which likely helped the European knights to slaughter men, women, and children without mercy during the early Crusades, as they sought to wrest control of the Holy Land away from the “infidels.”

The Muslims didn’t take this insulting name lying down, however. They had their own none-too-complimentary term for the European invaders, as well. To the Europeans, all Muslims were Saracens. And to the Muslim defenders, all Europeans were Franks (or Frenchmen) – even if those Europeans were English.

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The Intellectual Mission of the Saracens

By Edward Hungerford

If history is the study of the movements of men in relation to the forces which generate motion, and the results that flow from it, then must Saracen history offer to the student a large and varied problem.

Judged by the amount of energy displayed, the career of the Arabians was one of the most brilliant the world has seen. When we consider the time through which it endured, and the extent of territory which it covered, we cannot escape the conviction that powerful forces engendered it, and that correspondingly great results ought to be traced to it. None but a superficial observer could watch those currents of life which, from the seventh to the fifteenth century, swept to and fro over eastern Asia and around the Mediterranean through northern Africa and Spain, baptizing the islands of the great inland sea, and sprinkling the shores of Italy, without raising inquiries concerning the sources and mission of such activity.

It is an error to ascribe all this to one cause. Religion furnished leading motives. That special form of religion introduced by Mohammed consolidated and directed elements which throve in the desert before the Prophet’s day. Islam elevated and gave new form to the older Arabic faith or faiths. But Islam was, in an important sense, the outgrowth of former religious experiences. In the desert were the feeling of infinitude and the awe, of solitude. These were merged in Mohammed’s Allah. The monotheistic conception was the breath that fanned fires already kindled. Back of Islam lay Saracenism: the desert life, its religious sentiment, its passions, fury, courage. The living, active, wild, and tremendous forces of the Bedouin were intensified and disciplined under Mohammed and his followers.

How strong those forces were is demonstrated in the magnitude and duration of the movements started and maintained by them.

The relatively few thousands who came from the desert sufficed to inspire millions belonging to different nationalities, and carry them along in currents, religious, social, intellectual, which are properly called Arabic. For, although Arabian blood ran in the veins of relatively few of those who accepted Islam, or ran diluted, the civilization adopted and furthered by them was transfused with the Arabian genius. When, therefore, we speak of the intellectual mission of the Saracens, we use some degree of accuracy. They furnished the impulse to intellectual as well as spiritual and political life. To them must be accredited, in large measure, the mission which that life fulfilled.

The nature and value of the mission have been much discussed. The determination of the one and the fair estimation of the other are attended with difficulties, chief among which may be ranked that illusive haze which everywhere spreads itself over Arabian history. There is such a distance between the depths of ignorance from which the nation rose and the heights of culture to which it attained, the advance is so unlooked for and impulsive, it culminates so quickly after the upward direction has been taken, and it forms such a contrast to the intellectual quietude of surrounding nations, that the reader of history in the dark ages turns to this field with something of that admiration with which, in the later ages of Saracen supremacy, the students of the north turned from the colder climates and the coarser civilizations, in which they had been reared, to the softer airs of Moorish Spain.

The profuseness of the Arabian learning, the multiplicity of the departments into which it entered, its zeal, the enormous proportions of the resulting literature, the vast libraries, the schools, the lecture rooms with their thousands of students, the universities, the institutions devoted to special sciences, the observatories and laboratories so royally equipped, the schools of logic and grammar, the whole attractive republic of letters, in which princes mingled with the sons of tradesmen or mechanics, while court favourites vied with impoverished authors for the honours of literature, all the ardour of a great intellectual movement passing before our eyes under Oriental guise, dispose the mind to enthusiastic judgements.

To this difficulty must be added the necessity of a careful survey of the actual product of this activity, in order to determine its nature, its value, and the part it has played in the world’s progress.

More particularly, in natural science, philosophy, and mathematics, in which studies the mental powers of any people are most severely tested, and those of the Saracens were especially engaged, an independent judgment can be reached only as the result of an impartial canvass of all that was known in these departments before the period of Islam, and a comparison of that which was so known with the state of knowledge as the decline of Mohammedan power in Spain. The details of such a canvass cannot be introduced here. We must be content with general statements, endeavouring to glean out of these fields, as well as from those of poetry, the material for a just estimate of the mission of Saracen culture to the world.

Writers have differed greatly in their opinions of both the nature and value of that mission. Some, captivated by its brilliant execution, have rated the actors high among the originators of science and the contributors to culture. Others have applied a more critical judgement to the facts of history, and have held the outcome of Arabian originality in much lower esteem. The different results are referable to the standards adopted by the two classes of writers. The severer judges have brought the achievements of the Saracens to the test of progress made in theoretical and systematic science; while the more lenient judges have based their decisions on the extent to which the people carried their general and more superficial knowledge of the departments they cultivated. The points of view are so far apart that we need not be surprised at radically differing conclusions. It is not fair to test the Arabians strictly by either of these criteria. They have a claim on our admiration that does not wholly result from, and cannot be measured exclusively by, the one or the other. Nor would it be right to make up our opinion independently of the circumstances of the nation, the conditions from which it sprang into the rank of a ruling power, the period in which it made its appearance, the resources at its command, and the length of time given to develop its results.

The nation started on its scientific career empty-handed. By its peninsular location it had been largely out of reach of those great civil, religious, and intellectual currents which swept to and fro from the Persian mountains to the Mediterranean, and flowed around the borders of that sea. It came into these movements as a fresh element, bringing nothing that had previously belonged to them save the religious ideas it had borrowed from them. Yet in the possession of mental freshness it brought much, and much that was to its advantage. The Arabians were not an effete people, wearied and worn with questionings and philosophising. With them knowledge was not a stale thing. They entered a decaying empire of thought as well as of arms, bringing with them enthusiasm and hope, physical vigour and religious zeal. They had the dew of their youth.

In the then existing conditions of the world, and in view of the previous history of philosophy and science, it may be considered an open question whether the isolation of the Arabians had not prepared for them some special advantage in the race they were to run. Certainly, in other respects, they were fortunately placed for a rapid and honourable career. As conquerors they at once became heirs to the ancient seats of civilization throughout the East, Egypt, northern Africa, Spain, and the Mediterranean islands. They controlled all of the value which that civilization had left to the world. They took possession of the chief seats of learning, and were brought into immediate and commanding contact with the representatives of that learning. In the progress of their arms they met the arts of India, opened communication with China, controlled the schools of western Asia, became the lords of Alexandria and her traditions, while, although they could not conquer Constantinople, they were able to demand, and did exact, her literary treasures as a tribute. In a word, they possessed the land. When their attention was once directed to the secrets which the land held, they had the power, the will, and the energy to command their revelation. The Caliphs, moved by exaggerated notions of the value of astrology, and alchemy, as well as by that race pride which characterized them, became the enthusiastic patrons of the sciences.

Nor was the time given for the accomplishment of the nation’s mission short. From the death of Mohammed to the expulsion of the Moors of Spain was a period of eight, hundred and sixty-nine years. And if, in order to allow for the rise of literary activity at the beginning of this period and the decline at its close, we date from the year 800 to the year 1300, we have still five hundred years in which the Arabian mind had free scope to work out its results.

What, then, were the results?

The Saracens became a learned and, for those times, a refined people, having acquired whatever luxury the material arts afforded, and whatever culture was to be derived from the departments of knowledge which they cherished, and in which they may be assumed to have known the most of what antiquity had to teach, because they had access to the works of the ancients. In natural science they were the inheritors of the physics of Aristotle and Plato with the more advanced physics of Archimedes, the medicine of Hippocrates and Galen, the botany of Dioscorides, the mathematics and optics of Euclid, the astronomy of Hipparchus and Ptolemy; in a word, the sum of the knowledge of ancient Greece,—and Greece had condensed into her science that of the world. If alchemy were of later birth than other branches of the study of nature, it is yet certain that it did not take its rise among the Arabians. Their most celebrated alchemist, Geber, confesses that he received the larger share of his knowledge from the ancients, and the secrets of the science, if such it could be called, were known in Egypt three hundred years before Mohammed saw the light. In that country Diocletian is said to have broken up the colleges of the priests, and burned the books in which it was believed that they preserved their alchemistic secrets, because the revolts of the country were maintained by the silver which they were able to manufacture out of baser substances. Nor would the fact, that Diocletian attributed such mastery of the art to the Egyptian priests be any proof that it was not practiced elsewhere, but only that a suspicion existed to the effect that what was in other places eagerly sought had become a cherished possession of that mysterious fraternity. That the Egyptians were the teachers of the Arabians has, however, been inferred from the circumstance that the latter exhibit no writings on this subject and show no knowledge of it until after the conquest of the land of the Nile.

In like manner, beside the geometry of Euclid, the Arabians had their version of the Conic Sections of Apollonius of Perga, and we are not to doubt that they received the science of algebra, to which they gave its name, from Diophantus, who wrote at Alexandria before the year 400 of our era.

Since they were, thus, heirs to the science of Greece, and, indeed, of the world, we are not surprised to find the Arabians possessed of those principles of mathematics, astronomy, statics, hydraulics, optics, medicine, and alchemy which they had learned from the ancients through their Christian and Jewish teachers. They were eager pupils in sciences which they had had no part in developing, having received from their instructors the things which are sometimes set down to their credit by those who have advocated their intellectual superiority. The astronomy of Hisparchus and Ptolemy taught them the order, nature, and motions of the heavenly bodies, which it had arranged in systems of eccentrics and epicycles; the inclination of the ecliptic, and the measure of that inclination;the first two lunar irregularities; the form of the earth, and the methods of arriving at its measure. The same astronomy had discovered the precession of the equinoxes, catalogued the stars and given their relative positions for future reference. It had published astronomical tables, and had developed plain and spherical trigonometry for astronomical uses. It is not necessary to say that the principles of statics and hydraulics, together with the connected subject of specific gravity, had been propounded by Archimedes. In optics, the Greeks understood the rectilinear course pursued by unobstructed rays of light, and the equality of the angles of incidence and reflection when a ray of light falls upon a mirror; and they had deduced many of the consequences of these fundamental truths, including their application to concave and convex reflectors. Ptolemy had carefully investigated the refraction which light undergoes in passing through media of different densities, and had applied the principles thus discovered to astronomical refraction. We need not enumerate the features of medical science known to Hippocrates and Galen, nor have we occasion in alchemy to go further than the confession of Geber, that he had derived nearly all his knowledge from the ancients. The facts before us show that the Arabians possessed a valuable inheritance in the learning of the nations at whose feet they sat as pupils. Occupying the birthplaces of much of this learning, they were near the birthplaces of the rest of it, and were in condition to command their resources. As a consequence, they became learned. In like manner, they eagerly seized whatever arts had been discovered by other nations, and became refined. They learned to make paper from those who had to received that art from the Chinese; they found an explosive powder—whence our gunpowder—already at hand from China or from India; and they did not disdain to send to Constantinople for their architects. The decimal system, which is popularly credited to them, and is one of the most valuable instruments of mathematical calculation, they are known to have introduced from India. On every hand they displayed wonderful readiness of appreciation and facility of adaptation, quickly discerning and making use of advantages. We may therefore, most freely accord to them the praise of enlightenment and culture.

Did they possess a genius for science? Was the Arabian mind scientific in the sense in which the Greek mind had proved itself so, or in the sense in which the mind of Christian Europe proved itself so when, at length, the latter fell heir to the knowledge of the ancients?

If we put the question in this form, we shall find that it cannot be answered by merely enumerating the multitude of things which the Arabians knew. We must consider the use they were able to make of their knowledge. It is an essential characteristic of the scientific spirit that it not only acquaints itself with a multitude of phenomena, but arranges such phenomena in harmonious systems which display pervading laws and point to originating forces. We may have vast accumulations of facts without science, and may go on adding to the store without directly advancing science. Some master mind must come and treat the accumulations scientifically. The discovery of a new fossil species or a new mineral, or, in the present state of chemistry and astronomy, of a new metal or a new asteroid, or, in mental science, the mere noting of a hitherto unnoticed form of action, may be an entirely insignificant event. The process of fact-accumulation often goes on for a long time without any result of importance to science as such. It is not a useless process, because facts are the a, b, c, or the bricks and mortar of science, but they are not science. What we so name is the architectural thought into which the bricks and mortar of facts are wrought, and by which we secure a harmonious unification of phenomena. Of this kind of work we find little or none among the Arabians. They took the systems which were handed over to them, along with a vast amount of material which had not yet been wrought into systems, and they left all substantially as they found it. In one department and another they increased the raw material, but they did not know how to work it up. They toiled perseveringly and with self-denial, travelling to the ends of the earth, examining, collecting, studying, and observing, but they had not constructive genius. In astronomy they made numerous observations with their improved instruments, and published astronomical tables, which, as the Saracens were able to observe more closely than their predecessors, were better than those that existed among the ancients. They measured over and over again the inclination of the ecliptic, and, in order to determine the earth’s dimensions, they ascertained by careful toil the length of degrees of latitude in two different regions. But they made but one, or possibly two, new discoveries which might affect the condition of astronomical science: the motion of the sun’s apogee, detected by El Batini, and the third irregularity of the moon, by Abul Wefa. The first of these observations reflects great credit upon its author. The propriety of giving to Abul Wefa the merit of the second has been questioned, and by some of the highest, authorities denied. In view of the dispute we must leave his desert undetermined. Whether or not he detected the motion, it is remarkable that the moon’s variation, as the third irregularity is called, was lost sight of by the Arabians, if they ever knew of it. Abul Wefa did not pursue the subject, nor was the amount of the variation reduced to measure. The irregularity was so completely forgotten that when it was noticed by Tycho Brahe it was supposed to be an entirely new contribution to astronomical science. The one discovery in astronomy, therefore, which is fully conceded—that of the motion of the sun’s apogee—stands as a marked exception in all the work of the Arabian astronomers, extended over a period of five hundred years. In contrast with this result, Christian Europe had not been in possession of Greek astronomy more than three or four hundred years before the whole Hipparchan theory was revolutionized by Copernicus, while Newton’s great theory of universal gravitation was woven around the whole solar system only a century and a half later. The Saracens had complained of the unwieldiness of the Hipparchan system, but they lacked either the genius or the independence to break away from it.

Their career in other branches of science is of like character.

Into statics and hydraulics they introduced no new principle, nor were they able to move forward and establish a science of motion or dynamics. Their great physicist was El Hazen, to whose credit is to be placed the further prosecution of Ptolemy’s observations on the refraction of light, or perhaps the independent discovery of the laws of refraction; certainly the correction of one of Ptolemy’s errors. The particulars of astronomical refraction he also definitely and clearly stated, and for this deserves much of the praise bestowed on him, though the ground had already been trodden by Ptolemy. Beyond this work of El Hazen the Arabians do not seem to have contributed to the science of optics, though there was great need of a further practical knowledge of the use of lenses. Before they were through with science, and as early as the thirteenth century, we have found an Englishman, Roger Bacon, busying himself with lenses, and insisting on the importance of optical improvements for the furtherance of astronomical observations.

It is in alchemy more than anywhere else that the Arabians have the credit of new discoveries. But it is universally conceded that in their hands it never attained to the dignity of a science. In their eager search for the elixir of life and the philosopher’s stone, they were stimulated to the preparation of new compounds, some of which have proved of great utility in the arts and as instruments of science, but there was no approach to a scientific handling of facts. They are the reputed discoverers of nitric and sulphuric acid; they prepared absolute alcohol and phosphorus; they put sal-ammoniac, to nitric acid and dissolved gold; but they did not know the composition of the acids which they discovered, nor was there any system which could connect the facts. They worked away with retort and furnace and reagent through five hundred years, but alchemy was still a chaos. It is hard to understand how so learned a writer as Dr. John William Draper can declare, on the ground of Geber’s discovery of nitric acid, that his name marks an epoch in chemistry equal in importance to that of Priestley and Lavoisier. What scientific result, may be asked, followed the discovery of nitric acid, valuable as that reagent is? The discovery of oxygen by Priestley, and the decomposition of water by Cavendish, and the promulgation of the oxygen theory by Lavoisier, revolutionized chemistry. In like manner, when the same authority declares of Geber’s theory—which makes all metals to be compounded of sulphur, mercury, and arsenic—that, though erroneous, “it is not without a scientific value,” we can only accept the statement under narrow limitations.

The experience of the Arabians in philosophy repeats that which is illustrated in the natural sciences and in mathematics. In the school of logic and speculation they were learners, not originators. They devoted themselves to these studies with ardour and perseverance; they became voluminous writers. But in the whole line of philosophers, from El Kendi down to Ibn Tofail, no one is looked back to by modern students as an authority. There was no Arabian Plato or Aristotle. The Mohammedan philosophers are chiefly celebrated for their commentaries on their Greek master, whom they blindly followed. Ibn Roschd, the greatest among them and the last who attained distinction, is quoted as saying that since Aristotle no one had added anything of consequence to logic, physics, or metaphysics; thus denying any originality to the numerous speculative writers of his own faith. Mr. Renan, in his work on Averroes and Averroisin, after having, in one edition, denied any original merit to Semitic philosophy in general, characterizing it as an imitation of Greek philosophy, concedes, in another edition, ten years later, some real originality to the Arabian philosophical writers of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and grants that, as a consequence of maturer study, Ibn Roschd has rather increased than diminished in his estimation. On the other hand, Munk, after saying, that the Arabian philosophy culminated in Ibn Roschd, and that his doctrines were long current in Christian and Jewish schools, where they were both admired and combated, speaks of their author in moderate terms, as capable of being consulted with profit by modern students who would make the study of Aristotle a specialty.

Notwithstanding M. Renan’s careful concession, students will generally agree with him that the chief interest attaching to the Arabian philosophical movement rests upon that sympathy which we fed for all intellectual struggles, under whatever faith. The service of the Mohammedan scholars in this department consists not so much in the discovery of anything new as in the preservation and transmission of the old.

In the matter of poetry the case is different. The art and inspiration of verse seem to be indigenous to Arabian soil. Their poetical literature antedates Mohammed, and is a conspicuous feature of the previous times of ignorance. The development of song, among them had a national character. It was not influenced by Greek models. It was Oriental, not Western. Arabians could not have had much taste for the loftier productions of the Greek muses. Though Homer was translated, in part at least, into Syriac and Armenian, and the Arabians were aware of his rank, they did not care to possess an Arabic version. Perhaps his mythology was offensive to their strict monotheism; more likely, his whole style was discordant with the national spirit. Homer was never translated; and, as the Saracens did not read Greek, it was impossible they should understand or appreciate the beauties of the prince among Grecian poets.

In view of these facts, Arabian poetry is, in our present discussion, of peculiar interest. It gives us the working of the national mind uninfluenced by the ancient culture. Left relatively free to run its course, poetry was developed among the Saracens to such an extent that their songsters have been supposed to outnumber those of all other peoples put together. They delighted especially in lyric and didactic compositions, in the former of which their passions found luxuriant expression. To the Arabian adoration of woman, as well as to the Arabian form of verse, the student of literature traces the songs of Troubadours in the south of Europe, and of the German Minnesingers in the north. The mingling of Christians with Mohammedans, under the Moorish sway; the constant intercourse between their courts in Spain; the conquest of Toledo by the Christians, involving a still more intimate contact; the union of the courts of Barcelona and Provence, under Raymond Berenger; and the fixation of the beautiful Romance Provencal, in which the Troubadours sung, furnished the conditions under which European poetry drew its form and a portion, at least, of its chivalric spirit from Arabian sources. The poetic flame flashed from Provence throughout Europe. Sovereigns were proud to be numbered among the composers of songs, in which love and war, devotion and courage, vied for expression.

The genius of the Saracens was poetic. Our review of the question whether it was, in the higher sense of the word, scientific leads us to a negative answer. Poetry and science may be developed together. Probably the highest results of both will be found in their combination. But, strictly speaking, they were not combined among the Arabians.

We are forced to draw a distinction, too often lost sight of, between learning and science. An individual may be learned, and yet be devoid of that constructive and generalizing faculty which is central and controlling in science, and which the Greek mind possessed in large degree. This faculty has distinguished the nations of modern Europe since they came under the influence of Greek thought. A people enlightened by the accumulated knowledge of the ages preceding its existence may yet be so unproductive in the higher fields, where the power of generalization displays itself, as to compel future students of history to deny it a place among the nations conspicuous for their scientific genius. This is the case with the Saracens. They were, for their time, marvellously active and intelligent, enlightened, but not scientific.

One who reads upon this subject will meet the complaint, and nowhere more conspicuous than in the works of Dr. Draper,—to whom, more than to any one else, Americans owe their impressions of the Saracens,—that Arabian science and our obligations to it have been systematically ignored. That author distinctly attributes this to “injustice founded on religious rancour and national conceit.” The charges seem ill-founded. If religious rancour and national conceit had at any time prevented the Saracens from receiving the just acknowledgement of their merits, these causes would have operated most powerfully in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, when the antagonism between Mohammedanism and Christianity, Saracen and Latin, was perhaps as pronounced as at any time. But in those ages men who attained distinction as Christians and scholars not only studied among the Arabians of Spain, but afterwards, in their homes, made public acknowledgement of their indebtedness to them, and were loud in their praise of Mohammedan learning. The Arabian sciences, as they were termed by pre-eminence, were recognized by the best Christian minds of Europe; and the Arabian philosophers were studied, respected, and allowed to influence Christian speculations. Except, possibly in the old Spanish territory, where Moors and Christians fought hand to hand, and where the race prejudice may have perpetuated itself, “religious rancour and national conceit” have probably had little to do with the matter. So far as estimates have been unfavourable, they are quite as likely to have resulted from the application of the stricter standards which some have felt themselves compelled to apply to what must, on every hand, be conceded to be the abundant Arabian learning.

But if it is true that this people gathered a rich harvest from other nations, what is their special merit? What useful part did they play in the history of learning, and what, in this regard, has been their value?

The Saracens appeared in history at a time when the world was undergoing great and painful intellectual transformations. In the East, the Greeks and their immediate pupils had run through their active scientific career. The productive period of Greek science, with the exception, perhaps, of medicine, terminated with Hipparchus. From that time forward little was added by the ancients to systematic knowledge. At the birth of Mohammed, the light of science in the East was struggling for existence; in middle and western Europe it was extinguished among the tossing waves of political commotion. In such an intellectual crisis, the fresh Arabian mind, untutored and not to be fettered even by the restrictions of religion, was attracted by the struggling light. Eager, curious, aspiring, it discerned, or thought it discerned, the value of knowledge. The studies which science offered fell in with its fondness for nature, and that love of mystery which belongs to humanity rather than to any particular race. The passion for such studies went wherever Islam conquered. The Saracens became the custodians of the world’s learning. They reached out in every direction, gathering from all sources the ancient treasures of knowledge, and, absorbing them into the body of Arabian science, distributed them with a lavish hand over all Mohammedan territory, and even offered them to the world. The light which was beginning to flicker flamed up and attracted the gaze of the Western nations, awakening them from that intellectual slumber which followed barbarian strife.

This, briefly stated, is the history and mission of Arabian science. It was Greek science rescued from extinction, held in trust, protected, nourished, lifted aloft, delivered over to modern Europe in the breaking up of the Saracen power.

Those who assert an order in human history as determinate, though not as clearly traced, as that which pervades our material environment, and who take pleasure in searching out that order, will derive satisfaction from contemplating, at this distance of time, the appointed mission of the Saracens, as mediators between the thought of the Old World and the New. Christian students discern in other religions a not unguided searching after higher ideals. They will acknowledge that when the awe of the desert found embodiment in the worship of one God, a great step was taken in advance of the former Arabian idolatries, and the way was prepared for a beneficent service to humanity, by the establishment, on the broad basis of monotheism, of a political empire which furthered an intellectual mission. That empire, starting from China, sweeping over the plains where lie the centres of the oldest known civilizations, covering in a broad belt the north coast of Africa, and embracing rich Spanish peninsula, touched, at last, the heart of the life that was forming out of the chaotic elements of early mediæval Europe. Whatever have been the remoter results of Islam as a religion, such an empire, including many peoples, did for ancient science and letters what the earlier Roman Empire had done for Christianity. It paved the way for their preservation and diffusion. When Arabian political unity was ruptured, the republic of letters had been founded. Its unity remained unbroken. Under one language and many bonds of sympathy, those who owed allegiance to different political rulers swore fealty to the expanding culture. The pulses of literary enthusiasm throbbed and gained force as they sped along the channels so opened.

The influence of all this upon European life needs to be appreciated in order that the intellectual mission of the Saracens may be understood. Christian Europe lay between the barbarian of the north and the Saracen civilization of the south. On one side it touched the extreme of rudeness; on the other, the extreme of existing culture. It was moving toward the development of a new civilization peculiarly its own. In that development it was powerfully influenced by the forces on either side of it. The effort of Charlemagne to establish Christian schools was contemporaneous with that of Haroun El Raschid in a like direction. The Two emperors lived in friendly relations and intercourse. We have seen what advantages for such an enterprise the Saracen possessed over the Christian. Haroun was surrounded by a learning to which he had only to open the doors of his mosques. Charlemagne was struggling against an ignorance such as only long ages could dispel. When, finally, the schools of Christian Europe multiplied and took on large proportions, the more advanced scholars, dissatisfied with the meagre instruction afforded at home, attracted by the brilliant light which shone from the Saracen schools, turned their footsteps toward Spain. These men became the advocates, in Christian Europe, of a not only higher but different kind of learning from that which prevailed in the ecclesiastical establishments. They were the pioneer spirits of a broader culture.

On a still larger scale the Christian mind was brought in contact with Saracen learning through the adherents of Christianity who resided in Spain, as well as through court interchanges and protracted conflicts of arms. All along the line from Spain to Palestine, the great currents set in motion by the Crusades brought northern ignorance and enterprise into contact with Saracenic learning and refinement. Christian Europe was now emerging into its most vigorous life. The forces of Islam were beginning to wane. In the period of their decline, the service which the Old World civilization had once rendered to the awakening Arabic intellect was repaid to the awakening mind of Europe.

There is, perhaps, no better illustration of this influence of Saracen culture than that found in the Emperor Frederic II in the first half of the thirteenth century. In his Sicilian court, in the midst of a luxury and splendour which dazzled the world, Christian and Mohammedan stood on easy footing, and held unrestrained intercourse with each other. Influenced largely, no doubt, by the freedom in religious thought that had been developed among the Arabian philosophers, and of which Averroes is, to us, the traditional representative, Frederic, whose birth in 1194 dates four years before the death of Averroes, emancipated himself from the prejudices as well as some of the healthful restraints of his time, and, in the intervals of stirring wars, strove to be the introducer and representative of a new civilization, in which science, philosophy, and poetry, along with the refinements of art, should have a scope known only in Mohammedan society. His court became the wonder and scandal of Europe. His Mohammedan tendencies, exaggerated, we may not doubt, by his enemies, were a reproach. He cultivated the new sciences, was himself versed in them, and largely in their interest, we may presume, he founded the University of Naples. If it is impossible precisely to determine his influence on the intellectual life of Europe, it must be remembered how early and conspicuous was the part taken by Italy in the literary and scientific awakening which followed. The century in which Frederic flourished gave birth, soon after his death, to a Dante; the next century produced a Petrarch; the next, a Columbus; the next, a Galileo. It is worthy of note that Columbus quotes Averroes as one of the authors to whom he is indebted for suggestions which led him to faith in the existence of a new world.

The service which the Saracens rendered in science and poetry was supplemented by a similar service in the arts which they brought from the East, and of which Spain became, in a peculiar sense, the home and the centre of distribution. Her civilization, as presented in cities and cultivated farms, made her seem little less than a paradise to the northern peoples. We need not wonder that, out of the raw life of Christian Europe, men loved to wander into the fair surroundings of tile Spanish university towns; nor that, charmed alike with the sweetness of nature, the beauty of art, and the marvels of science, they went back to their coarser homes in the north wishing, and ready to suffer in securing, for their kindred the advantages of learning. In their self-denials, ostracisins, and persecutions might be found material for a chapter which would redeem them, in some measure, from the slight estimation in which they have been held, in common with all Latin Europe, where the condition of things was bad enough, but where were to be found those who pleaded for and strove after something better.

We might here close our review. But it is difficult to forego one or two suggestions, which, though they arise as after-thoughts out of this history, do, nevertheless, give to it a more than scholarly interest. In the departments of natural science and philosophy we find that the Arabian movement owed to Greece pretty much all that it ever attained. In view of present discussions over great educational problems, it is incumbent on us to note that, while the Arabian coveted Greek science, he could not be induced to acquire the language in which the science was preserved. He knew Greek thought only at second and third hand, which is nearly equivalent to saying that he did not know it at all as Greek thought. Everything was approached through a translation. The Greek genius, the spirit, which could no more express itself in a foreign tongue that could Athens be Athens if set down in the plains of the Nile, had to be clothed in Arabic forms before it could be received by the conquering Saracen. Aspiring to the utilities, the sublimities, of science, but despising the language in which these were embodied, he never caught the excursive, constructive Greek genius. Dependent from first to last on Jews and Christians for interpretations of the ancient masters, he did not breathe the air of freedom; he never climbed Olympus. So we have the remarkable spectacle of a people toiling through centuries to become by means of translations masters of a foreign learning, that might build thereon a science of their own. It is probably the only instance of such an attempt, and we must pronounce this instance a failure.

In this respect, the course of the Saracens stands in contrast with that pursued by the scholars of Christian Europe. We have seen that Italy, France, Germany, England, were stimulated to the cultivation of’ the natural sciences by the Mohamedans of Spain. But early in its history Christian learning detected the error which had been committed by the Saracens. Roger Bacon was the pioneer who, in the thirteenth century, some three hundred years before Melanethon, devoted his life to the prosecution and advocacy of a new education, of which the study of the Greek masters in their original tongue should form the basics, and in which the natural sciences should be a conspicuous feature. The Opus Majus of Bacon was scarcely more a treatise on philosophy than on pedagogy. Sound in its arguments, exalted in its enthusiasm, pleading in his tone, it was a bold push for a new intellectual order. It cost him persecution and imprisonment. But the science which finally prevailed in Europe was that for which he uttered his plea. It was founded on Greek culture. Such today is the science of the civilized world. What that of the Saracens might have become under a more thorough baptism in the Greek spirit it is impossible to say. We only know what it failed to accomplish. Possibly the Semitic mind was incapable of a larger sweep. Perhaps the Aryan mind alone has the scientific genius, as the Semitic has the religious.

A second point at which our review bears upon modern discussion is that of the relation of religion to scientific progress.

It is apparent to one conversant with the history of science and philosophy among the Mohammedans that the heights of culture actually attained were reached in spite of the restraints of Islam rather than through encouragement given by it. The religion of Mohammed, founded in opposition to liberal learning, never ceased to oppose that learning. From the time of Haroun El Raschid to that of Ibn Roschd science made headway against a religious fanaticism which manifested itself in the destruction of libraries, the burning of condemned books, the persecution of philosophers. Imprisonment, banishment, popular violence, threats of house-burning, fears of death,—to these were men exposed who cultivated the ancient learning under the rule of princes, who, actuated either by their own prejudices or by the desire of popular favor, used their influence in the interest of religious intolerance.

The zeal for science exhibited by great rulers, like El Mamson, Abd El Rhaman, and El Hakem, must not be allowed to blind our eyes to these facts. Religion, as popularly apprehended, has never been free from the fear of science. Ecclesiasticism, whether in the guise of Islam or of Christianity, trembles before the revelation of its falsehoods.

In the history of Mohammedanism we meet with an early assertion of the right of free inquiry. The impulse given to the Arab mind by conquest carried it out of the fetters of that religion in the name of which the conquests were made. The utilities of science, we might say its superstitions, conquered the superstitions of religion. But the conquest was not final. Learning succumbed at last to the demands of religious belief. The great intellectual movement ended in the downfall of science and philosophy, the supremacy of fanaticism.

On the other hand, the rise of science in Christian Europe was part of a general movement in the direction of freedom from ecclesiastical control. Men learned to distinguish between religion and the church. Then, the shackles being loosed, all truths became sacred. Nature and revelation, parts of one system, must agree in their final outcome. At first faintly visioning its goal, but apprehending it more and more clearly, this faith, firmly held by the finest Christian minds, has kept them calm among the clash of philosophies, the boasts of skeptical assault, and the fears of timorous believers. It has held the way open for the advance of science; securing for scientific investigation the support of Christians, even at the moments when they disputed doubtful conclusions. The deep conviction enunciated by Roger Bacon six hundred years ago, and held by believing scholars since, that science is the handmaid of religion, has given to the study of nature its eminent position. Such men have known that among all oscillations of opinion the ultimate truth is secure. They have been willing to wait until the combined verdict of science and religion should be declared. Whatever might become of systems, or creeds, or ecclesiasticisms, the truth of Nature would be the truth of God. Faith is not hostile to science. Want of faith expresses itself in fears and clamours. A large faith lifts inquiry into those heights where all things are seen in the light of divine unity. Without such a fundamental principle as this the two departments of study cannot go on together. Where such a basis of harmony is wanting, religion, degenerating into superstition, will, as among the Mohammedans, smother the life of science; or science, breaking loose from faith, will pursue its way to the ignoring of spiritual being.

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