“Muslims believe in an all-encompassing unit of man and nature. To them there is no fundamental division between the spiritual and the material while the whole world, whether it be the earth, sea or air, or the living creatures that inhabit them, is an expression of God’s creation.”(Aga Khan IV, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, 13 April 1984)
"......The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation - in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters...."(Aga Khan IV, Kampala, Uganda, August 22 2007)
"....in Islam, but particularly Shia Islam, the role of the intellect is part of faith. That intellect is what seperates man from the rest of the physical world in which he lives.....This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives. Of that I am certain"(Aga Khan IV, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, August 17th 2007)
"Of the Abrahamic faiths, Islam is probably the one that places the greatest emphasis on knowledge. The purpose is to understand God's creation, and therefore it is a faith which is eminently logical. Islam is a faith of reason"(Aga Khan IV, Spiegel Magazine interview, Germany, Oct 9th 2006)
The above quotes and excerpts are 4 of 72 taken from:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/327comprehensive-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv.html
Why the Paranormal is Normal
By Deepak Chopra
Washington Post Blog
July 21st 2008
In general, it's fair to say that the popular belief in the paranormal falls outside the official picture of reality. The official picture is grounded in science, rationalism, and materialism. It takes a definition of "natural," after all, before "supernatural" can exist. God was natural in the medieval world, and thus miracles, healings, apparitions of the Virgin Mary, stigmatics, and so on, were considered natural. At the moment, it doesn't matter how many people believe in the supernatural. Until the official picture changes, astrology is bogus, astronomy is legitimate.
Ghosts are bogus, apparitions of the Virgin Mary are -- well, that's the rub. Religious people are allowed to cling to a different model of reality, tolerated by the official gatekeepers but not believed in. This gives rise to the curious phenomenon of religious scientists, who manage to hold on to two totally conflicting worldviews at the same time.
Any of us can hold conflicting viewpoints at the same time -- it's called compartmentalization. If the various compartments are tight enough and separated by thick walls, a whole range of phenomena can be believed in without making them consistent. I can imagine a cell biologist who is Catholic, has seen a UFO, reads the astrology column in the newspaper, and hopes to go to Heaven when he dies. It would be far better, however, to promote a consistent worldview, one that allows the walls to come down so that official reality might open up to unofficial reality. And vice versa, since popular belief in certain kinds of totally unproven folk cures, for example, can do harm, just as the official insistence on pharmaceuticals and surgery does its own brand of harm at times.
The only consistent worldview that I've ever discovered places all phenomena, natural and supernatural, on the ground of consciousness. The noted Australian neurologist Sir John Eccles pointed out a truth that materialists, including both scientists and ordinary people, don't remotely grasp. There is no sight or sound 'out there' in the world, Eccles declared, no touch or taste, no beauty or ugliness, no sensation of light or objects. All these things are created in subjectivity, which is to say, they exist only in consciousness. The fact that your hand seems solid is an illusion. A neutrino passes through the entire Earth without encountering an obstacle. Every atom in your hand is 99.9999% empty space. Measured in proportion, the distance between the electrons and nucleus of an atom is greater than the distance between the Earth and the sun. At the next level of reality, atoms disappear into energy waves and then into pure potential, the ghostly state of so-called virtual reality. Only perception makes a hand solid. and perceptions are interlinked to create the world you and I inhabit, so that color, light, sound, smell, solidity, etc. all fit together.
In my view, paranormal events are neither fringe nor unreal. They are simply things not yet admitted into consciousness by our official belief system. Reality has this curious habit of keeping certain things under wraps until the human mind is willing to look at them, and then all at once they appear, changing the world when they do. Germs and gravity were once waiting in the wings but now stand center stage. In ancient India, astrology was center stage and now has retreated again, for the coming and going of phenomena works both ways.
Even so, consciousness never retreats. In the darkest ages, people know that they are aware, and from that basic premise they create a personal reality, and when enough individuals agree, then collective reality comes about. Trying to base common reality sheerly on material objects has been wildly successful in the West, but that means little about ultimate reality, which transcends individuals and groups. In the ultimate reality there is only pure consciousness, which can be conceived of as the modeling clay or box of paints that Nature provides, adding the simple instruction: Use as you please.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/deepak_chopra/2008/07/why_the_paranormal_is_normal_1.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
385)"1001 Inventions:Discover the Muslim Heritage in our World";Quotes of Noble Quran, Prophet Muhammad, Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III and Nasir Khusraw.
"From the seventh century to the thirteenth century, the Muslim civilizations dominated world culture, accepting, adopting, using and preserving all preceding study of mathematics, philosophy, medicine and astronomy, among other areas of learning. The Islamic field of thought and knowledge included and added to much of the information on which all civilisations are founded. And yet this fact is seldom acknowledged today, be it in the West or in the Muslim world, and this amnesia has left a six hundred year gap in the history of human thought"(Aga Khan IV, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA, 1996)
"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order. Even in the Ayeh of Noor, divine is referred to as the natural phenomenon of light and even references are made to the fruit of the earth. During the great period of Islam, Muslims did not forget these principles of their religion. (Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952, Karachi, Pakistan)
"In fact this world is a book in which you see inscribed the writings of God the Almighty"(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet)
Chapter 21, Verse 30: Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together before We clove them asunder, and of water fashioned every thing? Will they not then believe?(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
"One hour of contemplation on the works of the Creator is better than a thousand hours of prayer"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
This is a book recommendation which showcases the intimate relation between Religion and Science in Islam and is therefore most appropriate to highlight on my blog:
Experience a thousand years of missing history! Learn about a lost age of Muslim innovation and invention! Discover the Muslim origins of many Western discoveries!
Brought to you by the makers of http://www.muslimheritage.com/, 1001 Inventions is a unique UK based educational project that reveals the rich heritage that the Muslim community share with other communities in the UK, Europe and across the World.
1001 Inventions is a non-religious and non-political project seeking to allow the positive aspects of progress in science and technology to act as a bridge in understanding the interdependence of communities throughout human history.
1001 Inventions consists of a UK and world wide travelling exhibition, a colourful easy to read book, a dedicated website and a themed collection of educational posters complementing a secondary school teachers' pack and a curriculum enrichment programme.Discover Muslim Heritage in our World in seven conveniently organised zones: home, school, market, hospital, town, world and universe.
Introduction:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=308
Discoveries relating to the Universe:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=289
Discoveries relating to the World:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=288
Discoveries relating to the Town:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=287
Discoveries relating to the Hospital:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=286
Discoveries relating to the Market:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=285
Discoveries relating to the School:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=284
Discoveries relating to the Home:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=240
From Saudi Aramco World Magazine:
Rediscovering Arabic Science:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200703/rediscovering.arabic.science.htm
The Astrolabe: A User's Guide:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200703/the.astrolabe.a.user.s.guide.htm
The Third Dimension:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200703/the.third.dimension.htm
Natural Remedies of Arabia:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200605/natural.remedies.of.arabia.htm
The Scholar's Supernova:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200604/the.scholar.s.supernova.htm
The Art and Science of Water:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200603/the.art.and.science.of.water.htm
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order. Even in the Ayeh of Noor, divine is referred to as the natural phenomenon of light and even references are made to the fruit of the earth. During the great period of Islam, Muslims did not forget these principles of their religion. (Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952, Karachi, Pakistan)
"In fact this world is a book in which you see inscribed the writings of God the Almighty"(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet)
Chapter 21, Verse 30: Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together before We clove them asunder, and of water fashioned every thing? Will they not then believe?(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
"One hour of contemplation on the works of the Creator is better than a thousand hours of prayer"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
This is a book recommendation which showcases the intimate relation between Religion and Science in Islam and is therefore most appropriate to highlight on my blog:
Experience a thousand years of missing history! Learn about a lost age of Muslim innovation and invention! Discover the Muslim origins of many Western discoveries!
Brought to you by the makers of http://www.muslimheritage.com/, 1001 Inventions is a unique UK based educational project that reveals the rich heritage that the Muslim community share with other communities in the UK, Europe and across the World.
1001 Inventions is a non-religious and non-political project seeking to allow the positive aspects of progress in science and technology to act as a bridge in understanding the interdependence of communities throughout human history.
1001 Inventions consists of a UK and world wide travelling exhibition, a colourful easy to read book, a dedicated website and a themed collection of educational posters complementing a secondary school teachers' pack and a curriculum enrichment programme.Discover Muslim Heritage in our World in seven conveniently organised zones: home, school, market, hospital, town, world and universe.
Introduction:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=308
Discoveries relating to the Universe:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=289
Discoveries relating to the World:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=288
Discoveries relating to the Town:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=287
Discoveries relating to the Hospital:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=286
Discoveries relating to the Market:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=285
Discoveries relating to the School:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=284
Discoveries relating to the Home:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=240
From Saudi Aramco World Magazine:
Rediscovering Arabic Science:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200703/rediscovering.arabic.science.htm
The Astrolabe: A User's Guide:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200703/the.astrolabe.a.user.s.guide.htm
The Third Dimension:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200703/the.third.dimension.htm
Natural Remedies of Arabia:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200605/natural.remedies.of.arabia.htm
The Scholar's Supernova:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200604/the.scholar.s.supernova.htm
The Art and Science of Water:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200603/the.art.and.science.of.water.htm
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
Monday, July 14, 2008
384)John Templeton's legacy of humility, a man of science and religion; Quotes of Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III and Albert Einstein.
"......The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation - in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters...."(Aga Khan IV, Kampala, Uganda, August 22 2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives. Of that I am certain"(Aga Khan IV, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, August 17th 2007)
"In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that revealed through the Holy Prophet (s.a.s.) and that which man discovers by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers. Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation"(Aga Khan IV, AKU, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)
"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order. Even in the Ayeh of Noor, divine is referred to as the natural phenomenon of light and even references are made to the fruit of the earth. During the great period of Islam, Muslims did not forget these principles of their religion. Alas, Islam which is a natural religion in which God's miracles are the very law and order of nature drifted away and is still drifting away, even in Pakistan, from science, which is the study of those very laws and orders of nature.……Islam is a natural religion of which the Ayats are the universe in which we live and move and have our being………..The God of the Quran is the one whose Ayats are the universe……"(Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952, Karachi, Pakistan)
"Islamic doctrine goes further than the other great religions, for it proclaims the presence of the soul, perhaps minute but nevertheless existing in an embryonic state, in all existence in matter, in animals, trees, and space itself. Every individual, every molecule, every atom has its own spiritual relationship with the All-Powerful Soul of God"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God. "(Albert Einstein, circa 1950)
Templeton's Legacy of Humility
By David Waters
July 10th 2008
Billionaire investor John Templeton, who died Tuesday at age 95, might have had more money than God, but he knew better than to mistake wealth for wisdom.
"We should admit that no human being has ever known one percent of the infinity of God. We are terribly ignorant," Templeton told me in 2002.
Humility is a wonderful trait in a billionaire, or any person of faith. How do we find more of it? Templeton spent a good deal of his fortune trying to figure that out.
The Wall Street Legend was the first and only billionaire I ever met. I interviewed him in his hometown, Winchester, Tenn., better known as the birthplace of Dinah Shore.
I wanted to ask him for a stock tip. He wanted to talk about science and religion. Just my luck.
"When new discoveries are made about science, do we not merely discover more about God?" he said. "All of nature reveals something of the Creator."
I've always thought so. Like Templeton, I've never thought of science and faith as rivals. Science can tell us how, faith can tell us why. Science deals with facts, faith deals with truths.
But I didn't grow up in the shadow of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, which pitted religion against science a mere four counties east of where Templeton was being raised in the Cumberland Presbyterian church.
Templeton said he was fascinated by the trial, but he was equally enthralled by the natural wonders around him. He began to wonder Why couldn't God create an evolving universe that operated on both physical and spiritual laws.
After he made his fortune, he set out to make a contribution. In 1987, he established the John Templeton Foundation to encourage the use of scientific methods to discover more about the spiritual realm. Foundation grants are being used to study such virtues as forgiveness, gratitude and humility.
What Templeton wanted more than money was meaning. What he wanted more than certainty was wisdom -- knowledge tempered by humility.
"I grew up as a Presbyterian," he told Business Week in 2005. "Presbyterians thought the Methodists were wrong. Catholics thought all Protestants were wrong. The Jews thought the Christians were wrong. So what I am financing is humility. I want people to realize you shouldn't think you know it all."
That's more valuable than any stock tip.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2008/07/the_billionaires_search_for_hu.html
From the Economist magazine
July 17th 2008
Excerpt:
But most of all Sir John went long on God. As a lifelong Presbyterian with a devout and curious mind, he reckoned that the market price of the creator of the universe was probably 1% of its actual value. The crowd might have lost interest in this underrated stock, so dully and unerringly recommended by theologians and priests down the centuries, but Sir John bought it up on the firm expectation of stellar future earnings. Indeed the divine, he once said, if approached in a humble spirit of inquiry, might turn out to be 3,000 times more than people imagined it was.
Love and money
The Templeton Foundation, set up in 1987 and now endowed with $1.5 billion, was another sort of growth fund, monitoring God’s performance in various religions and seeking proofs of divine agency in every branch of science, from chemistry to astrophysics. Scholars helped by Sir John’s money investigated whether prayer and health were connected, whether water was fine-tuned to promote life, whether purpose guided the universe. (Intelligent Design was embraced, then abandoned.) The Templeton prize, a neat $1m, was awarded for individual achievement in “life’s spiritual dimension”. Sir John made sure it surpassed the Nobel prizes, in which spirituality was ignored. His asset might be infinite, but he meant to build it up, doing whatever he could to “help in the acceleration of divine creativity”.
Sir John revered thrift and had a horror of debt. His parents had taught him that in small-town Tennessee, instilling it so well that in his white-columned house in the Bahamas, overlooking the golf course, he still cut up computer paper to make notebooks. But he made an exception for love, which needed spending. You could give away too much land and too much money, said Sir John, but never enough love, and the real return was immediate: more love. The Institute for Unlimited Love, founded with his money, was set up to study this dynamic of the spiritual marketplace. His own charity, though, was harder-edged. On earth a free capitalist system was the only way to enrich the poor. No safeguards were needed: an unethical enterprise would fail, “if not at first, then eventually.”
Critics of Sir John considered him a God-obsessed right-winger. It was noted that, for all his selflessness, he fled to the Bahamas and took British citizenship in 1968 to avoid American taxes. Yet Sir John gave his money to individuals, not governments. And, with his restless, buoyant curiosity, he resisted pigeonholing. Interviewers found that they were peppered with questions and keenly listened to, and to the end the analysis was sharp: in 2003 Sir John foresaw the housing crash, and pronounced the stockmarket “broken”.
From his sofa decorated with butterflies (“None of us know what’s going to happen after we die, any more than that caterpillar knows”), he continued to yearn for the reconciliation of science and religion. And in the mornings he took to the sea again, striding against the flow.
http://www.economist.com/obituary/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=11745591
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives. Of that I am certain"(Aga Khan IV, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, August 17th 2007)
"In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that revealed through the Holy Prophet (s.a.s.) and that which man discovers by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers. Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation"(Aga Khan IV, AKU, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)
"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order. Even in the Ayeh of Noor, divine is referred to as the natural phenomenon of light and even references are made to the fruit of the earth. During the great period of Islam, Muslims did not forget these principles of their religion. Alas, Islam which is a natural religion in which God's miracles are the very law and order of nature drifted away and is still drifting away, even in Pakistan, from science, which is the study of those very laws and orders of nature.……Islam is a natural religion of which the Ayats are the universe in which we live and move and have our being………..The God of the Quran is the one whose Ayats are the universe……"(Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952, Karachi, Pakistan)
"Islamic doctrine goes further than the other great religions, for it proclaims the presence of the soul, perhaps minute but nevertheless existing in an embryonic state, in all existence in matter, in animals, trees, and space itself. Every individual, every molecule, every atom has its own spiritual relationship with the All-Powerful Soul of God"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God. "(Albert Einstein, circa 1950)
Templeton's Legacy of Humility
By David Waters
July 10th 2008
Billionaire investor John Templeton, who died Tuesday at age 95, might have had more money than God, but he knew better than to mistake wealth for wisdom.
"We should admit that no human being has ever known one percent of the infinity of God. We are terribly ignorant," Templeton told me in 2002.
Humility is a wonderful trait in a billionaire, or any person of faith. How do we find more of it? Templeton spent a good deal of his fortune trying to figure that out.
The Wall Street Legend was the first and only billionaire I ever met. I interviewed him in his hometown, Winchester, Tenn., better known as the birthplace of Dinah Shore.
I wanted to ask him for a stock tip. He wanted to talk about science and religion. Just my luck.
"When new discoveries are made about science, do we not merely discover more about God?" he said. "All of nature reveals something of the Creator."
I've always thought so. Like Templeton, I've never thought of science and faith as rivals. Science can tell us how, faith can tell us why. Science deals with facts, faith deals with truths.
But I didn't grow up in the shadow of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, which pitted religion against science a mere four counties east of where Templeton was being raised in the Cumberland Presbyterian church.
Templeton said he was fascinated by the trial, but he was equally enthralled by the natural wonders around him. He began to wonder Why couldn't God create an evolving universe that operated on both physical and spiritual laws.
After he made his fortune, he set out to make a contribution. In 1987, he established the John Templeton Foundation to encourage the use of scientific methods to discover more about the spiritual realm. Foundation grants are being used to study such virtues as forgiveness, gratitude and humility.
What Templeton wanted more than money was meaning. What he wanted more than certainty was wisdom -- knowledge tempered by humility.
"I grew up as a Presbyterian," he told Business Week in 2005. "Presbyterians thought the Methodists were wrong. Catholics thought all Protestants were wrong. The Jews thought the Christians were wrong. So what I am financing is humility. I want people to realize you shouldn't think you know it all."
That's more valuable than any stock tip.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2008/07/the_billionaires_search_for_hu.html
From the Economist magazine
July 17th 2008
Excerpt:
But most of all Sir John went long on God. As a lifelong Presbyterian with a devout and curious mind, he reckoned that the market price of the creator of the universe was probably 1% of its actual value. The crowd might have lost interest in this underrated stock, so dully and unerringly recommended by theologians and priests down the centuries, but Sir John bought it up on the firm expectation of stellar future earnings. Indeed the divine, he once said, if approached in a humble spirit of inquiry, might turn out to be 3,000 times more than people imagined it was.
Love and money
The Templeton Foundation, set up in 1987 and now endowed with $1.5 billion, was another sort of growth fund, monitoring God’s performance in various religions and seeking proofs of divine agency in every branch of science, from chemistry to astrophysics. Scholars helped by Sir John’s money investigated whether prayer and health were connected, whether water was fine-tuned to promote life, whether purpose guided the universe. (Intelligent Design was embraced, then abandoned.) The Templeton prize, a neat $1m, was awarded for individual achievement in “life’s spiritual dimension”. Sir John made sure it surpassed the Nobel prizes, in which spirituality was ignored. His asset might be infinite, but he meant to build it up, doing whatever he could to “help in the acceleration of divine creativity”.
Sir John revered thrift and had a horror of debt. His parents had taught him that in small-town Tennessee, instilling it so well that in his white-columned house in the Bahamas, overlooking the golf course, he still cut up computer paper to make notebooks. But he made an exception for love, which needed spending. You could give away too much land and too much money, said Sir John, but never enough love, and the real return was immediate: more love. The Institute for Unlimited Love, founded with his money, was set up to study this dynamic of the spiritual marketplace. His own charity, though, was harder-edged. On earth a free capitalist system was the only way to enrich the poor. No safeguards were needed: an unethical enterprise would fail, “if not at first, then eventually.”
Critics of Sir John considered him a God-obsessed right-winger. It was noted that, for all his selflessness, he fled to the Bahamas and took British citizenship in 1968 to avoid American taxes. Yet Sir John gave his money to individuals, not governments. And, with his restless, buoyant curiosity, he resisted pigeonholing. Interviewers found that they were peppered with questions and keenly listened to, and to the end the analysis was sharp: in 2003 Sir John foresaw the housing crash, and pronounced the stockmarket “broken”.
From his sofa decorated with butterflies (“None of us know what’s going to happen after we die, any more than that caterpillar knows”), he continued to yearn for the reconciliation of science and religion. And in the mornings he took to the sea again, striding against the flow.
http://www.economist.com/obituary/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=11745591
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
383)An interesting off-topic diversion, an article on "Islamism and Democracy" by Joshua Muravchik; quotes of Aga Khan IV.
Excerpts from this artcicle:
"Further we must ask if Shari'ah is compatible with empiricism,which is the essential quality of democracy. Empiricism rests on recognition of the imperfection of human knowledge. This means that our conclusions are always susceptible to change based upon new information. If Shari'ah is taken as the rule of God, and if its content is regarded as revealed and fixed, then there is little room for empiricism."
"Among the issues that need to be addressed to help move the Muslim world toward greater freedom and democracy are the rights of women and of minorities, including non-Muslims; the acceptance of diversity and the acknowledgement of the provisional nature of knowledge; the increase of learning made possible by a free flow of ideas and information. Islamism seems the least likely path to such goals."
Islamism and Democracy
By Joshua Muravchik
What do Islamists want? What is their point?
Much of their presentation revolves around their opposition to existing dictatorial, corrupt, unresponsive regimes. Well, fine. Most of the regimes of the Middle East fit that damning description, and opposition to those regimes is much to be desired.
But what does that have to with Islamism? Why, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood? Why not the Anti-Corruption Brotherhood? Why not the Responsive Government Brotherhood? Why not the Democratic Brotherhood (and Sisterhood)? Does Islamism imply greater freedom and democracy?
It is natural for groups that are excluded from office to call for elections. This was the constant demand of Lenin’s Bolsheviks. But as soon as they seized power they canceled the results of the one free election that Russia had held, and they never permitted another, instead imposing a dictatorship that made the preceding, czarist autocracy seem like a gentle idyll.
Islamist groups constitute the largest opposition force in most Middle Eastern countries, which makes it tempting for liberal oppositionists to ally with them. But before they do that, the liberals would be wise to assess the sincerity of Islamist claims to be fighting for democracy. How should we do that?
We might begin by considering the places where Islamists have already taken power. The examples begin with the Islamic Republic of Iran and include the Taliban in Afghanistan, the al-Bashir regime in Sudan, and Hamas in Gaza. Each of these regimes has been anything but democratic. Moreover, foreign Islamists were not notably outspoken in criticism of the dictatorial practices of these regimes. Although it is not in power, Hizbullah in Lebanon has also shown its contempt for democracy, using its arms to force political results.
It may be argued that, in contrast, Turkey’s AKP has governed democratically. But there are questions about the extent to which the AKP, despite its strong Islamist roots, is still to be considered Islamist. And even if it is, the AKP, won power in an established democratic context, guaranteed by the military, making it doubtful that the party has any choice but to preserve democracy.
If the practices of Islamists in power offer little encouragement about their democratic intentions, we might also examine their theory. The most common expression of Islamist goals is fidelity to Shari’ah. But this already exists in the law of many Middle Eastern states. The Egyptian constitution, for instance, makes Shari’ah “the main source” of law. Is that insufficient? If so, there is the Saudi Arabia where Shari’ah is the law. Whatever one may say of the virtues of the Saudi political system, it would be hard to argue that it constitutes a model of democracy. Indeed, although many dictatorships have claimed falsely to be democracies, the Saudi monarchy makes no such claim. As for freedom, there are few regimes on earth where individual autonomy is less respected or more constrained than in Saudi Arabia.
The broader question is whether Shari’ah is in any sense compatible with democracy. Shari’ah, we are told, is God’s law, and if Shari’ah is advanced as a political program, then it means that the state should rest on the sovereignty of God. But the essence of democracy is the sovereignty of the people. The two cannot easily be reconciled. Since Shari’ah does not set down answers to all questions, perhaps it would be possible to construct a political system in which Shari’ah is supreme, while the citizens may decide any issues not addressed fully in Shari’ah. Such hybrid sovereignty would constitute a highly attenuated democracy.
Further we must ask if Shari’ah is compatible with empiricism, which is the essential quality of democracy. Empiricism rests on recognition of the imperfection of human knowledge. This means that our conclusions are always susceptible to change based upon new information. If Shari’ah is taken as the rule of God, and if its content is regarded as revealed and fixed, then there is little room for empiricism.
Perhaps Islamism means something different. Perhaps its essence is to call Muslims back to a deeper, more faithful observance of Islam. This may be admirable as a project of private evangelization. But as a political program entailing state action, it is surely the enemy of freedom, and probably of democracy, too. (One wonders, in any event, why individuals would appoint themselves to enforce God’s law upon others. Is He so weak that He needs their help?)
The Muslim world lags behind all others in the progress of democracy. Among countries with Muslim majorities, fewer than twenty percent are ruled by freely elected governments, as compared to more than 75 percent of the non-Muslim countries. Among the issues that need to be addressed to help move the Muslim world toward greater freedom and democracy are the rights of women and of minorities, including non-Muslims; the acceptance of diversity and the acknowledgement of the provisional nature of knowledge; the increase of learning made possible by a free flow of ideas and information. Islamism seems the least likely path to such goals.
Finally, there is the question of peace. Peace provides by far a more conducive environment for freedom and democracy than war or intense conflict. Even the most free and democratic societies have infringed these during times of war. The United States imprisoned dissenters in World War One, interned Japanese Americans in World War Two, and has in some respects curtailed the rule of law in the war against terrorism. In the Muslim world, the sense of being locked in battle with enemies has been used often by dictatorial regimes to justify repressive measures. Friendly relations with the outside world are perhaps a prerequisite for the movement of the Islamic countries to greater freedom and democracy. Yet the very essence of Islamist ideology is the notion of conflict between the Muslims and the non-Muslims. On this score, too, Islamism seems the ideology least conducive to the growth of freedom and democracy in the Muslim world.
Paper delivered to the annual conference of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, Washington, DC, May 14, 2008.
Fast forward to the future: related:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/04/469another-off-topic-gem-unholy.html
Mowlana Hazar Imam's, His Highness the Aga Khan's, thoughts on pluralism, diversity, theocratic and secular states, empiricism and the two types of knowledge available to human beings:
"The inability of human society to recognize pluralism as a fundamental value constitutes a real handicap for its development and a serious danger for our future…. Recognize the fact that human society is essentially pluralist, and that peace and development require that we seek, by every means possible, to invest in and enhance, that pluralism."(Extract from the speech by His Highness the Aga Khan at the Prince Claus Fund's Conference on Culture and Development, Amsterdam, Holland, September 7, 2002)
"But I think the more over-riding issue is the issue of theocracy versus secular state, and I think that at this point in time, the vast majority of countries within the Muslim world have recognized the difficulty of a theocratic state, and these difficulties are due to many different forces in these countries. But also, the pluralism within Islam. Because if you create a theocratic state, automatically you are saying there must be an interpretation which is the state interpretation of the faith…..What we are talking about are states that want to have modern forms of government but where the ethics of Islam remain the premises on which civil society is built. And I think that's where we see this — to me very exciting —effort to maintain the ethics of Islam, but in a modern state. And I think when we're talking about the ethics of Islam, it's easier to have civil society institutions built on the ethics of the faith, than a theocratic state in the full form."(His Highness the AgaKhan, interview with The Globe and Mail, Canada, January 30, 2002)
"An institution dedicated to proceeding beyond known limits must becommitted to independent thinking. In a university scholars engage both orthodox and unorthodox ideas, seeking truth and understanding wherever they may be found. That process is often facilitated by an independent governance structure, which serves to ensure that the university adheres to its fundamental mission and is not pressured to compromise its work for short-term advantage. For a Muslim university it is appropriate to see learning and knowledge as a continuing acknowledgement of Allah's magnificence"(Aga Khan IV, Speech, 1993, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan)
"In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that revealed through the Holy Prophet (s.a.s.) and that which man discovers by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers"(Aga Khan IV, 16 March 1983, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan)
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
"Further we must ask if Shari'ah is compatible with empiricism,which is the essential quality of democracy. Empiricism rests on recognition of the imperfection of human knowledge. This means that our conclusions are always susceptible to change based upon new information. If Shari'ah is taken as the rule of God, and if its content is regarded as revealed and fixed, then there is little room for empiricism."
"Among the issues that need to be addressed to help move the Muslim world toward greater freedom and democracy are the rights of women and of minorities, including non-Muslims; the acceptance of diversity and the acknowledgement of the provisional nature of knowledge; the increase of learning made possible by a free flow of ideas and information. Islamism seems the least likely path to such goals."
Islamism and Democracy
By Joshua Muravchik
What do Islamists want? What is their point?
Much of their presentation revolves around their opposition to existing dictatorial, corrupt, unresponsive regimes. Well, fine. Most of the regimes of the Middle East fit that damning description, and opposition to those regimes is much to be desired.
But what does that have to with Islamism? Why, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood? Why not the Anti-Corruption Brotherhood? Why not the Responsive Government Brotherhood? Why not the Democratic Brotherhood (and Sisterhood)? Does Islamism imply greater freedom and democracy?
It is natural for groups that are excluded from office to call for elections. This was the constant demand of Lenin’s Bolsheviks. But as soon as they seized power they canceled the results of the one free election that Russia had held, and they never permitted another, instead imposing a dictatorship that made the preceding, czarist autocracy seem like a gentle idyll.
Islamist groups constitute the largest opposition force in most Middle Eastern countries, which makes it tempting for liberal oppositionists to ally with them. But before they do that, the liberals would be wise to assess the sincerity of Islamist claims to be fighting for democracy. How should we do that?
We might begin by considering the places where Islamists have already taken power. The examples begin with the Islamic Republic of Iran and include the Taliban in Afghanistan, the al-Bashir regime in Sudan, and Hamas in Gaza. Each of these regimes has been anything but democratic. Moreover, foreign Islamists were not notably outspoken in criticism of the dictatorial practices of these regimes. Although it is not in power, Hizbullah in Lebanon has also shown its contempt for democracy, using its arms to force political results.
It may be argued that, in contrast, Turkey’s AKP has governed democratically. But there are questions about the extent to which the AKP, despite its strong Islamist roots, is still to be considered Islamist. And even if it is, the AKP, won power in an established democratic context, guaranteed by the military, making it doubtful that the party has any choice but to preserve democracy.
If the practices of Islamists in power offer little encouragement about their democratic intentions, we might also examine their theory. The most common expression of Islamist goals is fidelity to Shari’ah. But this already exists in the law of many Middle Eastern states. The Egyptian constitution, for instance, makes Shari’ah “the main source” of law. Is that insufficient? If so, there is the Saudi Arabia where Shari’ah is the law. Whatever one may say of the virtues of the Saudi political system, it would be hard to argue that it constitutes a model of democracy. Indeed, although many dictatorships have claimed falsely to be democracies, the Saudi monarchy makes no such claim. As for freedom, there are few regimes on earth where individual autonomy is less respected or more constrained than in Saudi Arabia.
The broader question is whether Shari’ah is in any sense compatible with democracy. Shari’ah, we are told, is God’s law, and if Shari’ah is advanced as a political program, then it means that the state should rest on the sovereignty of God. But the essence of democracy is the sovereignty of the people. The two cannot easily be reconciled. Since Shari’ah does not set down answers to all questions, perhaps it would be possible to construct a political system in which Shari’ah is supreme, while the citizens may decide any issues not addressed fully in Shari’ah. Such hybrid sovereignty would constitute a highly attenuated democracy.
Further we must ask if Shari’ah is compatible with empiricism, which is the essential quality of democracy. Empiricism rests on recognition of the imperfection of human knowledge. This means that our conclusions are always susceptible to change based upon new information. If Shari’ah is taken as the rule of God, and if its content is regarded as revealed and fixed, then there is little room for empiricism.
Perhaps Islamism means something different. Perhaps its essence is to call Muslims back to a deeper, more faithful observance of Islam. This may be admirable as a project of private evangelization. But as a political program entailing state action, it is surely the enemy of freedom, and probably of democracy, too. (One wonders, in any event, why individuals would appoint themselves to enforce God’s law upon others. Is He so weak that He needs their help?)
The Muslim world lags behind all others in the progress of democracy. Among countries with Muslim majorities, fewer than twenty percent are ruled by freely elected governments, as compared to more than 75 percent of the non-Muslim countries. Among the issues that need to be addressed to help move the Muslim world toward greater freedom and democracy are the rights of women and of minorities, including non-Muslims; the acceptance of diversity and the acknowledgement of the provisional nature of knowledge; the increase of learning made possible by a free flow of ideas and information. Islamism seems the least likely path to such goals.
Finally, there is the question of peace. Peace provides by far a more conducive environment for freedom and democracy than war or intense conflict. Even the most free and democratic societies have infringed these during times of war. The United States imprisoned dissenters in World War One, interned Japanese Americans in World War Two, and has in some respects curtailed the rule of law in the war against terrorism. In the Muslim world, the sense of being locked in battle with enemies has been used often by dictatorial regimes to justify repressive measures. Friendly relations with the outside world are perhaps a prerequisite for the movement of the Islamic countries to greater freedom and democracy. Yet the very essence of Islamist ideology is the notion of conflict between the Muslims and the non-Muslims. On this score, too, Islamism seems the ideology least conducive to the growth of freedom and democracy in the Muslim world.
Paper delivered to the annual conference of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, Washington, DC, May 14, 2008.
Fast forward to the future: related:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/04/469another-off-topic-gem-unholy.html
Mowlana Hazar Imam's, His Highness the Aga Khan's, thoughts on pluralism, diversity, theocratic and secular states, empiricism and the two types of knowledge available to human beings:
"The inability of human society to recognize pluralism as a fundamental value constitutes a real handicap for its development and a serious danger for our future…. Recognize the fact that human society is essentially pluralist, and that peace and development require that we seek, by every means possible, to invest in and enhance, that pluralism."(Extract from the speech by His Highness the Aga Khan at the Prince Claus Fund's Conference on Culture and Development, Amsterdam, Holland, September 7, 2002)
"But I think the more over-riding issue is the issue of theocracy versus secular state, and I think that at this point in time, the vast majority of countries within the Muslim world have recognized the difficulty of a theocratic state, and these difficulties are due to many different forces in these countries. But also, the pluralism within Islam. Because if you create a theocratic state, automatically you are saying there must be an interpretation which is the state interpretation of the faith…..What we are talking about are states that want to have modern forms of government but where the ethics of Islam remain the premises on which civil society is built. And I think that's where we see this — to me very exciting —effort to maintain the ethics of Islam, but in a modern state. And I think when we're talking about the ethics of Islam, it's easier to have civil society institutions built on the ethics of the faith, than a theocratic state in the full form."(His Highness the AgaKhan, interview with The Globe and Mail, Canada, January 30, 2002)
"An institution dedicated to proceeding beyond known limits must becommitted to independent thinking. In a university scholars engage both orthodox and unorthodox ideas, seeking truth and understanding wherever they may be found. That process is often facilitated by an independent governance structure, which serves to ensure that the university adheres to its fundamental mission and is not pressured to compromise its work for short-term advantage. For a Muslim university it is appropriate to see learning and knowledge as a continuing acknowledgement of Allah's magnificence"(Aga Khan IV, Speech, 1993, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan)
"In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that revealed through the Holy Prophet (s.a.s.) and that which man discovers by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers"(Aga Khan IV, 16 March 1983, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan)
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
382)Looking back to the concentrated knowledge of the historic Fatimid period to inform and improve the practice of our Faith: excerpts of Aga Khan IV
"Education has been important to my family for a long time. My forefathers founded al-Azhar University in Cairo some 1000 years ago, at the time of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. Discovery of knowledge was seen by those founders as an embodiment of religious faith, and faith as reinforced by knowledge of workings of the Creator's physical world."(Aga Khan IV, 27th May1994, Cambridge,Massachusets, U.S.A.)
"A thousand years ago, my forefathers, the Fatimid imam-caliphs of Egypt, founded al-Azhar University and the Academy of Knowledge in Cairo. In the Islamic tradition, they viewed the discovery of knowledge as a way to understand, so as to serve better God's creation, to apply knowledge and reason to build society and shape human aspirations"(Aga Khan IV, Speech, 25th June 2004, Matola,Mozambique.)
"The legacy which I am describing actually goes back more than a thousand years, to the time when our forefathers, the Fatimid Imam-Caliphs of Egypt, founded Al-Azhar University and the Academy of Knowledge in Cairo. For many centuries, a commitment to learning was a central element in far-flung Islamic cultures. That commitment has continued in my own Imamat through the founding of the Aga KhanUniversity and the University of Central Asia and through the recent establishment of a new Aga Khan Academies Program."(Aga KhanIV, "The Peterson Lecture" on the International Baccalaureate,Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 18 April 2008)
"That quest for a better life, among Muslims and non-Muslims alike, must lead inevitably to the Knowledge Society which is developing in our time. The great and central question facing the Ummah of today is how it will relate to the Knowledge Society of tomorrow.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."(Aga Khan IV, Speech, 2nd December 2006, AKU,Karachi, Pakistan)
"The second great historical lesson to be learnt is that the Muslim world has always been wide open to every aspect of human existence.The sciences, society, art, the oceans, the environment and the cosmos have all contributed to the great moments in the history of Muslim civilisations. The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation"(Closing Address by His Highness Aga Khan IV at the "Musée-Musées" Round Table Louvre Museum, Paris, France, October 17th 2007)
"In this context, would it not also be relevant to consider how, above all, it has been the Qur'anic notion of the universe as an expression of Allah's will and creation that has inspired, in diverse Muslim communities, generations of artists, scientists and philosophers? Scientific pursuits, philosophic inquiry and artistic endeavour are all seen as the response of the faithful to the recurring call of the Qur'an to ponder the creation as a way to understand Allah's benevolent majesty. As Sura al-Baqara proclaims: 'Wherever you turn, there is the face of Allah'.The famous verse of 'light' in the Qur'an, the Ayat al-Nur, whose first line is rendered here in the mural behind me, inspires among Muslims a reflection on the sacred, the transcendent. It hints at a cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"(Aga KhanIV,Speech, 2003, London, U.K.)
“Parts of the Ummah are concerned about the relationship between Muslims and the contemporary knowledge society, which is now principally rooted in the West. It is my deepest conviction, my deepest conviction, that we must make that knowledge society our own, in keeping with the Alid tradition towards the intellect, but always doing so within the ethics of our faith. Thus, I have sought from my Jamat your Nazrana of time and knowledge.”(Aga Khan IV, Paris, France, July 11th 2007)
"Our religious leadership must be acutely aware of secular trends, including those generated by this age of science and technology. Equally, our academic or secular elite must be deeply aware of Muslim history, of the scale and depth of leadership exercised by the Islamic empire of the past in all fields"(Aga Khan IV, 6th February 1970, Hyderabad, Pakistan)
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
"A thousand years ago, my forefathers, the Fatimid imam-caliphs of Egypt, founded al-Azhar University and the Academy of Knowledge in Cairo. In the Islamic tradition, they viewed the discovery of knowledge as a way to understand, so as to serve better God's creation, to apply knowledge and reason to build society and shape human aspirations"(Aga Khan IV, Speech, 25th June 2004, Matola,Mozambique.)
"The legacy which I am describing actually goes back more than a thousand years, to the time when our forefathers, the Fatimid Imam-Caliphs of Egypt, founded Al-Azhar University and the Academy of Knowledge in Cairo. For many centuries, a commitment to learning was a central element in far-flung Islamic cultures. That commitment has continued in my own Imamat through the founding of the Aga KhanUniversity and the University of Central Asia and through the recent establishment of a new Aga Khan Academies Program."(Aga KhanIV, "The Peterson Lecture" on the International Baccalaureate,Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 18 April 2008)
"That quest for a better life, among Muslims and non-Muslims alike, must lead inevitably to the Knowledge Society which is developing in our time. The great and central question facing the Ummah of today is how it will relate to the Knowledge Society of tomorrow.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."(Aga Khan IV, Speech, 2nd December 2006, AKU,Karachi, Pakistan)
"The second great historical lesson to be learnt is that the Muslim world has always been wide open to every aspect of human existence.The sciences, society, art, the oceans, the environment and the cosmos have all contributed to the great moments in the history of Muslim civilisations. The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation"(Closing Address by His Highness Aga Khan IV at the "Musée-Musées" Round Table Louvre Museum, Paris, France, October 17th 2007)
"In this context, would it not also be relevant to consider how, above all, it has been the Qur'anic notion of the universe as an expression of Allah's will and creation that has inspired, in diverse Muslim communities, generations of artists, scientists and philosophers? Scientific pursuits, philosophic inquiry and artistic endeavour are all seen as the response of the faithful to the recurring call of the Qur'an to ponder the creation as a way to understand Allah's benevolent majesty. As Sura al-Baqara proclaims: 'Wherever you turn, there is the face of Allah'.The famous verse of 'light' in the Qur'an, the Ayat al-Nur, whose first line is rendered here in the mural behind me, inspires among Muslims a reflection on the sacred, the transcendent. It hints at a cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"(Aga KhanIV,Speech, 2003, London, U.K.)
“Parts of the Ummah are concerned about the relationship between Muslims and the contemporary knowledge society, which is now principally rooted in the West. It is my deepest conviction, my deepest conviction, that we must make that knowledge society our own, in keeping with the Alid tradition towards the intellect, but always doing so within the ethics of our faith. Thus, I have sought from my Jamat your Nazrana of time and knowledge.”(Aga Khan IV, Paris, France, July 11th 2007)
"Our religious leadership must be acutely aware of secular trends, including those generated by this age of science and technology. Equally, our academic or secular elite must be deeply aware of Muslim history, of the scale and depth of leadership exercised by the Islamic empire of the past in all fields"(Aga Khan IV, 6th February 1970, Hyderabad, Pakistan)
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
381)WATER, Life's Little Essential: Quotes of Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III and Fatimid Shia Ismaili Muslim cosmologist-philosopher Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani
"Tarkib' is composition as in the compounding of elements in the process of making more complex things, that is, of adding together two things to form a synthesis, a compound. Soul composes in the sense of 'tarkib'; it is the animating force that combines the physical elements of the natural universe into beings that move and act. Incorporating is an especially apt word in this instance. It means to turn something into a body, as in 'composing'. But it is actually the conversion of an intellectual object, a thought, into a physical thing. Soul acts by incorporating reason into physical objects, the natural matter of the universe and all the things composed of it"(Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani,10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971CE, from the book, 'Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani: Intellectual Missionary', by Paul Walker).
"......The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation - in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters...."(Aga Khan IV, Kampala, Uganda, August 22 2007)
"The Quran very often refers to nature as a reflection of Allah's power of creation and says: Look at the mountains, look at the rivers, look at the trees, look at the flowers all as evidence of Allah's love for the people whom He has created. Today I look at this environment and I say that I beleive that Allah is smiling upon you, may His smile always be upon you"(Aga Khan IV, Khorog, Tajikistan, May 27th 1995)
"Education has been important to my family for a long time. My forefathers founded al-Azhar University in Cairo some 1000 years ago, at the time of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. Discovery of knowledge was seen by those founders as an embodiment of religious faith, and faith as reinforced by knowledge of workings of the Creator's physical world."(Aga Khan IV, 27th May1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)
"Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation"(Aga Khan IV, AKU, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)
"Islamic doctrine goes further than the other great religions, for it proclaims the presence of the soul, perhaps minute but nevertheless existing in an embryonic state, in all existence in matter, in animals, trees, and space itself. Every individual, every molecule, every atom has its own spiritual relationship with the All-Powerful Soul of God"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order."Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952)
The above are 7 quotes and excerpts are taken from Blogpost Four Hundred:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
WATER: Life's Little Essential
by Peter Tyson
Everybody knows that liquid water is necessary for life, at least as we know it. But just why exactly?
A friend of mine once had a poster on his office wall that asked at the top in big letters "WHY IS THE SKY BLUE?" I first saw the poster from a distance, and my initial reaction was to snicker slightly, thinking "Everybody knows why the sky is blue." The rest of the poster proved to be the perfect rejoinder, for beneath that simple question lay row upon row of complex equations, originally published by Albert Einstein in 1911, that described in mathematical terms precisely why the sky is blue.
When I looked beneath the surface of it, the question that opens this article elicited a similar effect: I was surprised by how much I didn't know about why water is thought necessary for life. Once I learned the particulars, it became clear why planetary scientists on the lookout for life on Mars and elsewhere in the solar system are on the lookout for water.
Of the essence
So why is liquid water the sine qua non of life as we know it? Liquid water may sound redundant, but planetary scientists insist on using the qualifier, for solid or vaporous water won't do. The biochemical reactions that sustain life need a fluid in order to operate. In a liquid, molecules can dissolve and chemical reactions occur. And because a liquid is always in flux, it effectively conveys vital substances like metabolites and nutrients from one place to another, whether it's around a cell, an organism, an ecosystem, or a planet. Getting molecules where they need to go is difficult within a solid and all too easy within a gas—vapor-based life would go all to pieces.
And why is water the best liquid to do the job? For one thing, it dissolves just about anything. "Water is probably the best solvent in the universe," says Jeffrey Bada, a planetary scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. "Everything is soluble in water to some degree." Even gold is somewhat soluble in seawater. (Before you get any ideas about extracting gold from the oceans, I should add that, according to Bada, the value of dissolved gold in a metric ton of seawater comes to about $0.0000004).
Water plays another key role in the biochemistry of life: bending enzymes. Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions, making them occur much faster than they otherwise would. To do their handiwork, enzymes must take on a specific three-dimensional shape. Never mind how, but it is water molecules that facilitate this.
Black sheep of the liquids
Water's ability to so succesfully further the processes of life has a lot to do with just how unusual a fluid it is. Not long ago, if I had to guess, I would have said that water is about as normal a liquid as they come. In fact, despite its ubiquity and molecular simplicity, H2O is abnormal in the extreme.
For starters, while other substances form liquids, precious few do so under the conditions of temperature and pressure that prevail on our planet's surface. In fact, next to mercury and liquid ammonia, water is our only naturally occurring inorganic liquid, the only one not arising from organic growth. It is also the only chemical compound that occurs naturally on Earth's surface in all three physical states: solid, liquid, and gas. Good thing, otherwise the hydrological cycle that most living things rely on to ferry water from the oceans to the land and back again would not exist. As science journalist Philip Ball writes in his informative book Life's Matrix: A Biography of Water, "This cycle of evaporation and condensation has come to seem so perfectly natural that we never think to remark on why no other substances display such transformations."
Compared to most other liquids, water also has an extremely large liquid range. Pure water freezes at 0°C (32°F) and boils at 100°C (212°F). Add salt and you can lower the freezing temperature; natural brines are known with freezing points below -50°F. Add pressure and you can raise the boiling temperature; deep-sea vent waters can reach over 650°F. Water also has one of the highest specific heats of any substance known, meaning it takes a lot of energy to raise the temperature of water even a few degrees.
Water's broad liquid range and high heat capacity are good things, too. They mean that temperatures on the Earth's surface, which is more than two-thirds water, can undergo extreme variations—between night and day, say, or between seasons—without its water freezing or boiling away, events that would throw a big wrench into life as we know it. As it is, the oceans serve as a powerful moderating influence on the world's climate.
Liquid water has yet another unusual property that means the difference between life and essentially no life in cold regions of the planet. Unlike most other liquids when they freeze, water expands and becomes less dense. Most other frozen liquids are denser than their melted selves and thus sink. If it sank, ice, being unable to melt because of the insulating layer of water above it, would slowly fill up lakes and oceans in cold climates, making sea life in those parts of the world a challenging prospect.
Waterless life
Could life as we don't know it have gotten a start without water? Some planetary scientists have suggested that on certain very cold planetary bodies liquid ammonia might serve in place of water to incubate life. But even though it's the most common non-aqueous solvent, liquid ammonia would seem to have several other things going against it as a medium for life. Its liquid range is small, only about 30 degrees. Also, when it freezes, it sinks, and we know what that would do.
Some have suggested that oceans of methane or other hydrocarbons on places like Saturn's moon Titan could also serve the purpose. But, again, we're talking temperatures so low that chemical reactions as we know them could only proceed at a glacial pace. "At minus 150 degrees," says Bada, "most of the reactions that we think about in terms of being important in the origin of life probably wouldn't take place over the entire age of the solar system." Moreover, compounds like amino acids and DNA would not be soluble in these other liquids. "They would just be globs of gunk," Bada says.
For these and other reasons, liquid water is still the Holy Grail for planetary scientists, who, based on what they know today, consider it likely that liquid water is essential to all life, terrestrial and extra-. Says Neil de Grasse Tyson, an astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, "Given that life on Earth is so dependent on water, and given that water is so prevalent in the universe, we don't feel that we're going out on a limb to say that life would require liquid water."
Just as a blue sky requires blue light to scatter far more than all the other colors in the visible light spectrum—which, of course, is why the sky is blue. Well, that's the simple answer anyway.
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
"......The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation - in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters...."(Aga Khan IV, Kampala, Uganda, August 22 2007)
"The Quran very often refers to nature as a reflection of Allah's power of creation and says: Look at the mountains, look at the rivers, look at the trees, look at the flowers all as evidence of Allah's love for the people whom He has created. Today I look at this environment and I say that I beleive that Allah is smiling upon you, may His smile always be upon you"(Aga Khan IV, Khorog, Tajikistan, May 27th 1995)
"Education has been important to my family for a long time. My forefathers founded al-Azhar University in Cairo some 1000 years ago, at the time of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. Discovery of knowledge was seen by those founders as an embodiment of religious faith, and faith as reinforced by knowledge of workings of the Creator's physical world."(Aga Khan IV, 27th May1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)
"Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation"(Aga Khan IV, AKU, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)
"Islamic doctrine goes further than the other great religions, for it proclaims the presence of the soul, perhaps minute but nevertheless existing in an embryonic state, in all existence in matter, in animals, trees, and space itself. Every individual, every molecule, every atom has its own spiritual relationship with the All-Powerful Soul of God"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order."Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952)
The above are 7 quotes and excerpts are taken from Blogpost Four Hundred:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
WATER: Life's Little Essential
by Peter Tyson
Everybody knows that liquid water is necessary for life, at least as we know it. But just why exactly?
A friend of mine once had a poster on his office wall that asked at the top in big letters "WHY IS THE SKY BLUE?" I first saw the poster from a distance, and my initial reaction was to snicker slightly, thinking "Everybody knows why the sky is blue." The rest of the poster proved to be the perfect rejoinder, for beneath that simple question lay row upon row of complex equations, originally published by Albert Einstein in 1911, that described in mathematical terms precisely why the sky is blue.
When I looked beneath the surface of it, the question that opens this article elicited a similar effect: I was surprised by how much I didn't know about why water is thought necessary for life. Once I learned the particulars, it became clear why planetary scientists on the lookout for life on Mars and elsewhere in the solar system are on the lookout for water.
Of the essence
So why is liquid water the sine qua non of life as we know it? Liquid water may sound redundant, but planetary scientists insist on using the qualifier, for solid or vaporous water won't do. The biochemical reactions that sustain life need a fluid in order to operate. In a liquid, molecules can dissolve and chemical reactions occur. And because a liquid is always in flux, it effectively conveys vital substances like metabolites and nutrients from one place to another, whether it's around a cell, an organism, an ecosystem, or a planet. Getting molecules where they need to go is difficult within a solid and all too easy within a gas—vapor-based life would go all to pieces.
And why is water the best liquid to do the job? For one thing, it dissolves just about anything. "Water is probably the best solvent in the universe," says Jeffrey Bada, a planetary scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. "Everything is soluble in water to some degree." Even gold is somewhat soluble in seawater. (Before you get any ideas about extracting gold from the oceans, I should add that, according to Bada, the value of dissolved gold in a metric ton of seawater comes to about $0.0000004).
Water plays another key role in the biochemistry of life: bending enzymes. Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions, making them occur much faster than they otherwise would. To do their handiwork, enzymes must take on a specific three-dimensional shape. Never mind how, but it is water molecules that facilitate this.
Black sheep of the liquids
Water's ability to so succesfully further the processes of life has a lot to do with just how unusual a fluid it is. Not long ago, if I had to guess, I would have said that water is about as normal a liquid as they come. In fact, despite its ubiquity and molecular simplicity, H2O is abnormal in the extreme.
For starters, while other substances form liquids, precious few do so under the conditions of temperature and pressure that prevail on our planet's surface. In fact, next to mercury and liquid ammonia, water is our only naturally occurring inorganic liquid, the only one not arising from organic growth. It is also the only chemical compound that occurs naturally on Earth's surface in all three physical states: solid, liquid, and gas. Good thing, otherwise the hydrological cycle that most living things rely on to ferry water from the oceans to the land and back again would not exist. As science journalist Philip Ball writes in his informative book Life's Matrix: A Biography of Water, "This cycle of evaporation and condensation has come to seem so perfectly natural that we never think to remark on why no other substances display such transformations."
Compared to most other liquids, water also has an extremely large liquid range. Pure water freezes at 0°C (32°F) and boils at 100°C (212°F). Add salt and you can lower the freezing temperature; natural brines are known with freezing points below -50°F. Add pressure and you can raise the boiling temperature; deep-sea vent waters can reach over 650°F. Water also has one of the highest specific heats of any substance known, meaning it takes a lot of energy to raise the temperature of water even a few degrees.
Water's broad liquid range and high heat capacity are good things, too. They mean that temperatures on the Earth's surface, which is more than two-thirds water, can undergo extreme variations—between night and day, say, or between seasons—without its water freezing or boiling away, events that would throw a big wrench into life as we know it. As it is, the oceans serve as a powerful moderating influence on the world's climate.
Liquid water has yet another unusual property that means the difference between life and essentially no life in cold regions of the planet. Unlike most other liquids when they freeze, water expands and becomes less dense. Most other frozen liquids are denser than their melted selves and thus sink. If it sank, ice, being unable to melt because of the insulating layer of water above it, would slowly fill up lakes and oceans in cold climates, making sea life in those parts of the world a challenging prospect.
Waterless life
Could life as we don't know it have gotten a start without water? Some planetary scientists have suggested that on certain very cold planetary bodies liquid ammonia might serve in place of water to incubate life. But even though it's the most common non-aqueous solvent, liquid ammonia would seem to have several other things going against it as a medium for life. Its liquid range is small, only about 30 degrees. Also, when it freezes, it sinks, and we know what that would do.
Some have suggested that oceans of methane or other hydrocarbons on places like Saturn's moon Titan could also serve the purpose. But, again, we're talking temperatures so low that chemical reactions as we know them could only proceed at a glacial pace. "At minus 150 degrees," says Bada, "most of the reactions that we think about in terms of being important in the origin of life probably wouldn't take place over the entire age of the solar system." Moreover, compounds like amino acids and DNA would not be soluble in these other liquids. "They would just be globs of gunk," Bada says.
For these and other reasons, liquid water is still the Holy Grail for planetary scientists, who, based on what they know today, consider it likely that liquid water is essential to all life, terrestrial and extra-. Says Neil de Grasse Tyson, an astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, "Given that life on Earth is so dependent on water, and given that water is so prevalent in the universe, we don't feel that we're going out on a limb to say that life would require liquid water."
Just as a blue sky requires blue light to scatter far more than all the other colors in the visible light spectrum—which, of course, is why the sky is blue. Well, that's the simple answer anyway.
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
380)City of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islam in Spain, EXCERPTS, PART 5
SCIENCE IN AL-ANDALUS
Written by Paul Lunde
Illustrated by Michael Grimsdale
The Medieval Christians of Spain had a legend that Roderick, the last king of the Visigoths, was responsible for unleashing the Arab invasion of the Iberian Peninsula because, in defiance of his plighted word, he unlocked the gates of an enchanted palace he had sworn not to tamper with. As far as the West was concerned, the Arab invasion did unlock an enchanted palace. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire, Vandals, Huns and Visigoths had pillaged and burned their way through the Iberian Peninsula, establishing ephemeral kingdoms, which lasted only as long as loot poured in, and were then destroyed in their turn. Then, without warning, in the year 711, came the Arabs -- to settle, fall in love with the land and create the first civilization Europe had known since the Roman legions gave up the unequal fight against the barbarian hordes.
Spain first prospered under the rule of the Umayyads, who established a dynasty there after they had lost the caliphate in the East to the Abbasids. At first, the culture of the Umayyad court at Córdoba was wholly derivative. Fashions, both in literature and dress, were imitiative of those current in the Abbasids’ newly founded capital of Baghdad. Scholars from the more sophisticated lands to the east were always assured of a warm reception at the court of Córdoba, where their colleagues would listen avidly for news of what was being discussed in the capital, what people were wearing, what songs were being sung, and -- above all -- what books were being read.
Islamic culture was pre-eminently a culture of the book. The introduction of paper from China in 751 gave an impetus to learning and an excitement about ideas which the world had never before known. Books became more available than they had been even in Rome, and incomparably cheaper than they were in the Latin West, where they continued to be written on expensive parchment. In the 12th century, a man sold 120 acres of land in order to buy a single Book of Hours. In the ninth century, the library of the monastery of St. Gall was the largest in Europe, boasting 36 volumes. At the same time, that of Córdoba contained 500,000. The cultural lag between East and West in the Middle Ages can be attributed partly to the fact that the Arabs had paper, while the Latin West did not.
It took much more than paper to create an intellectual and scientific culture like that of Islamic Spain, of course. Islam, with its tolerance and encouragement of both secular and religious learning, created the necessary climate for the exchange of ideas. The court of Córdoba, like that of Baghdad, was open to Muslims, Jews and Christians alike, and one prominent bishop complained that young Christian men were devoting themselves to the study of Arabic, rather than Latin -- a reflection of the fact that Arabic, in a surprisingly short time, had become the international language of science, as English has today.
Islamic culture in Spain began to flourish in earnest during the reign of ‘Abd al-Rahman II of Córdoba, as Arabic spread increasingly among his non-Muslim subjects, especially in the cities, leading to a great flowering of intellectual activity of all kinds.
In a courtly society, the tastes and predilections of the ruler set the tone for society at large, and ‘Abd al-Rahman II, passionately interested in both the religious and the secular sciences, was determined to show the world that his court was in no way inferior to the court of the caliphs at Baghdad. To this end, therefore, he actively recruited scholars by offering handsome inducements to overcome their initial reluctance to live in what many in the lands of the East considered the provinces. As a result, many scholars, poets, philosophers, historians and musicians migrated to Al-Andalus, and established the basis of the intellectual tradition and educational system, which made Spain so outstanding for the next 400 years.
Another result was that an infrastructure of public and private libraries, mosques, hospitals and research institutions rapidly grew up and famous scholars in the East, hearing of these amenities, flocked to the West. They in turn attracted students of their own; in the Islamic world it was not at all unusual for a student to travel thousands of miles to study at the feet of a famous professor.
One of the earliest of these scholars was ‘Abbas ibn Firnas, who died in the year 888 and who, had he lived in the Florence of the Medici, would have been a “Renaissance man.” He came to Córdoba to teach music, then a branch of mathematical theory, but—not a man to limit himself to a single field of study -- soon became interested in the mechanics of flight. He constructed a pair of wings, made out of feathers in a wooden frame, and attempted to fly -- anticipating Leonardo da Vinci by some 600 years.
Luckily, ‘Abbas survived, and, undiscouraged, turned his mind to the construction of a planetarium in which the planets actually revolved -- it would be extremely interesting to know the details of the gearing mechanism. It also simulated such celestial phenomena as thunder and lightning and was, of course, a wild success. Next ‘Abbas turned to the mathematical problems involved in the regularity of the facets of certain crystals and evolved a formula for manufacturing artificial crystals.
It must be remembered that a knowledge of the achievements of men like ‘Abbas has come to us purely by chance. It has been estimated that today there are 250,000 Arabic manuscripts in western and eastern libraries, including private collections. Yet in the 10th century, private libraries existed which contained as many as 500,000 books. Literally millions of books must have perished, and with them the achievements of a great many scholars and scientists whose books, had they survived, might have changed the course of history. As it is, even now, only a tiny proportion of existing Arabic scientific texts has been studied, and it will take years to form a more exact idea of the contributions of Muslim scientists to the history of ideas.
One of the fields most assiduously cultivated in Spain was natural science. Although Andalusian scholars did not make contributions as fundamental as those made by their colleagues in the East, those that they did make had more effect on the later development of science and technology, for it was through Spain and the scholars of Al-Andalus that these ideas reached the West.
No school of translators comparable to the House of Wisdom of al-Ma’mun existed in Spain, and Andalusian scholars seem not to have interested themselves in the natural sciences until the translations of the House of Wisdom reached them.
Interest in mathematics, astronomy, and medicine was always lively, however, because of their obvious utility -- mathematics for commercial purposes, computation of the rather complicated Islamic laws of inheritance, and as a basis for measuring distances. Astronomy was useful for determining the times of prayer and adjusting the calendar, and the study of medicine needed no apology. The introduction of the new Aristotelian ideas, however, even in Arab dress, aroused a certain amount of suspicion in the conservative West, and it was some time before public opinion would accept that Aristotelian logic did not conflict with the revelation of Islam.
Part of the suspicion with which certain of the ideas emanating from the scholars of the Abbasid court were viewed was due to an inadequate distinction between sciences and pseudo-sciences. This was a distinction which the Muslims made at a much earlier date than western scholars, who, even during the Renaissance, tended to confound astronomy with astrology, chemistry with alchemy. Ibn Hazm, a leading Andalusian scholar of the 11th century and staunchly conservative, was very outspoken on this point. People who advocated the efficacy of talismans, magic, alchemy, and astrology he calls shameless liars. This rational approach did much to make Islam preeminent in the natural sciences.
The study of mathematics and astronomy went hand in hand. Al-Khwarizmi’s famous book entitled The Calculation of Integration and Equation reached Al-Andalus at an early date, and became the foundation of much later speculation. In it, Al-Khwarizmi dealt with equations, algebraic multiplication and division, measurement of surfaces and other questions. Al-Khwarizmi was the first to introduce the use of what he called “Indian” and we call “Arabic” numerals. The exact method of transmission of these numerals—and the place-value idea which they embodied—is not known, but the symbols used to represent the numbers had slightly different forms in eastern and western Islam, and the forms of our numerals are derived from those used in Al-Andalus. The work of al-Khwarizmi, which now only survives in a 12th-century Latin translation made in Spain, together with a translation of Euclid’s Elements, became the two foundations of subsequent mathematical developments in Al-Andalus.
The first original mathematician and astronomer of Al-Andalus was the 10th century’s Maslama al-Majriti. He had been preceded by competent scientists—men like Ibn Abi ‘Ubaida of Valencia, who in the ninth century was a leading astronomer, and the emigré from Baghdad, Ibn Taimiyyah, who was both a well-known physician and an astronomer—but al-Majriti was in a class by himself. He wrote a number of works on mathematics and astronomy, studied and elaborated the Arabic translation of Ptolemy’s Almagest and enlarged and corrected the astronomical tables of al-Khwarizmi himself. He compiled conversion tables, in which the dates of the Persian calendar were related to hijri dates, so that for the first time the events of Persia’s past could be dated with precision.
Al-Zarqali, known to the Latin West as Arzachel, was another leading mathematician and astronomer who flourished in Córdoba in the 11th century. He combined theoretical knowledge with technical skills, and excelled at the construction of precision instruments for astronomical use. He built a waterclock capable of determining the hours of the day and night and indicating the days of the lunar month. He contributed to the compilation of the famous Toledan Tables, a highly accurate compilation of astronomical data. His Book of Tables, written in the form of an almanac (almanac is an Arabic word meaning “climate,” originally indicating the stations of the moon) contains tables which allow one to find on what day the Coptic, Roman, lunar and Persian months begin; others give the position of the various planets at any given time; still others allow prediction of solar and lunar eclipses. He also compiled valuable tables of latitude and longitude; many of his works were translated, both into Spanish and into Latin.
Still another luminary was al-Bitruji (the Latin scholars of the Middle Ages called him Alpetragius), who developed a new theory of stellar movement and wrote the Book of Form in which it is detailed.
The influence of these astronom- ical works was immense. Today, for example, the constellations still bear the names given them by Muslim astronomers—Acrab (from ‘aqrab, “scorpion”), Altair (from al-ta’ir, “the flyer”), Deneb (from dhanb, “tail”), Pherkard (from farqad, “calf”)—and words such as zenith, nadir and azimuth, all still in use today, recall the works of the Muslim scholars of Al-Andalus.
But the Muslim science par excellence was the study of medicine. Interest in medicine goes back to the very earliest times. The Prophet himself stated that there was a remedy for every illness, and was aware that some diseases were contagious.
The great contribution of the Arabs was to put the study of medicine on a scientific footing and eliminate superstition and harmful folk-practices. Medicine was considered a highly technical calling, and one which required long study and training. Elaborate codes were formulated to regulate the professional conduct of doctors. It was not enough to have a mastery of one’s subject in order to practice medicine. Certain moral qualities were mandatory. Ibn Hazm said that a doctor should be kind, understanding, friendly, good, able to endure insults and adverse criticism; he must keep his hair short, and his fingernails as well; he must wear clean, white clothes and behave with dignity.
Before doctors could practice, they had to pass an examination, and if they passed they had to take the Hippocratic oath, which, if neglected, could lead to dismissal.
Hospitals were similarly organized. The large one built in Córdoba was provided with running water and baths, and had different sections for the treatment of various diseases, each of which was headed by a specialist. Hospitals were required to be open 24 hours a day to handle emergency cases, and could not turn any patient away.
Muslim physicians made many important additions to the body of medical knowledge which they inherited from the Greeks. Ibn al-Nafis, for example, discovered the lesser circulation of the blood hundreds of years before Harvey, and ideas of quarantine sprang from an empirical notion of contagion.
Another example is Ibn Juljul, who was born in Córdoba in 943, became a leading physician by the age of 24 (he began his studies of medicine at 14) and compiled a commentary on the De Materia Medica of Dioscorides and a special treatise on drugs found in Al-Andalus. In his Categories of Physicians, composed at the request of one of the Umayyad princes, he also presents a history of the medical profession from the time of Aesculapius to his own day.
During the 10th century, Al-Andalus produced a large number of excellent physicians. Several went to Baghdad, where they studied Greek medical works under the famous translators Thabit ibn Qurra and Thabit ibn Sinan. On their return, they were lodged in the government palace complex at Madinat al-Zahra. One of these men, Ahmad ibn Harran, was placed in charge of a dispensary which provided free medical care and food to poor patients.
Ibn Shuhaid, also known as a popular doctor, wrote a fundamental work on the use of drugs. He -- like many of his contemporaries -- recommended drugs only if the patient did not respond to dietary treatment, and said that if they must be used, simple drugs should be employed in all cases but the most serious.
Al-Zahrawi, who died in 1013, was the most famous surgeon of the Middle Ages. He was court physician of al-Hakam II, and his great work, the Tasrif, was translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona and became a leading medical text in European universities in the later Middle Ages. The section on surgery contains a number of illustrations of surgical instruments of elegant, functional design and great precision. It describes lithotrites, amputations, ophthalmic and dental surgery and the treatment of wounds and fractures.
Ibn Zuhr, known as Avenzoar, who died in 1162, was born in Seville and earned a great reputation throughout North Africa and Spain. He described abscesses and mediastinal tumors for the first time, and made original experiments in therapeutics. One of his works, the Taysir, was translated into Latin in 1280 and became a standard work.
An outgrowth of the interest in medicine was the study of botany. The most famous Andalusian botanist was Ibn Baitar, who wrote a famous book called Collection of Simple Drugs and Food. It is an alphabetically arranged compendium of medicinal plants of all sorts, most of which were native to Spain and North Africa, which he had spent a lifetime gathering. Where possible, he gives the Berber, Arabic, and sometimes Romance names of the plant, so that for linguists his work is of special interest. In each article, he gives information about the preparation of the drug and its administration, purpose and dosage.
The last of the great Andalusian physicians was Ibn al-Khatib, who was also a noted historian, poet, and statesman. Among his other works, he wrote an important work on the theory of contagion: “The fact of infection becomes clear to the investigator who notices how he who establishes contact with the afflicted gets the disease, whereas he who is not in contact remains safe, and how transmitting is effected through garments, vessels, and earrings.”
Ibn al-Khatib was the last representative of the Andalusian medical tradition. Soon after his death, the energies of the Muslims of Al-Andalus were wholly absorbed in the long, costly struggle against the Christian reconquista.
Another field that interested the scholars of Al-Andalus was geography, and many of the finest Muslim works in this field were produced there. Economic and political considerations played some part in the development of this field of study, but it was above all their all-consuming curiosity about the world and its inhabitants that motivated the scholars who devoted themselves to the description of the earth and its inhabitants. The first steps had been taken in the East, when “books of routes,” as they were called, were compiled for the use of the postmasters of the early Abbasid caliphs. Soon, reports on faraway lands, their commercial products and major physical features were compiled for the information of the caliph and his ministers. Advances in astronomy and mathematics made the plotting of this information on maps feasible, and soon cartography became an important discipline in its own right.
Al-Khwarizmi, who did so much to advance the science of mathematics, was also one of the earliest scientific descriptive geographers. Basing his work on information made available through the Arabic translation of Ptolemy, al-Khwarizmi wrote a book called The Form of the Earth, which included maps of the heavens and of the earth. In Al-Andalus, this work was carried forward by Ibn Muhammad al-Razi, who died in 936, and who wrote a basic geography of Al-Andalus for administrative purposes. Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Warraq, a contemporary of al-Razi, wrote a similar work describing the topography of North Africa. The wide-ranging commercial relations of Al-Andalus allowed the collection, from returning merchants, of a great deal of detailed information about regions as far north as the Baltic. Ibrahim ibn Ya‘qub, for example, who traveled widely in Europe and the Balkans in the late ninth century -- he must have been a brave man indeed -- left itineraries of his travels.
Two men who wrote in the 11th century collected much of the information assembled by their predecessors and put it into convenient form. One of them, al-Bakri, is particularly interesting. Born in Saltes in 1014, al-Bakri was the son of the governor of the province of Huelva and Saltes. Al-Bakri himself was an important minister at the court in Seville and undertook several diplomatic missions. An accomplished scholar as well as litérateur, he wrote works on history, botany and geography as well as poetry and literary essays. One of his two important geographical works is devoted to the geography of the Arabian Peninsula, with particular attention to the elucidation of its place names. It is arranged alphabetically, and lists the names of villages, towns, wadis and monuments which he culled from the hadith and histories. His other major work has not survived in its entirety, but it was an encyclopedic treatment of the entire world.
Al-Bakri arranged his material by country -- preceding each entry by a short historical introduction -- and describes the people, customs, climate, geographical features and the major cities, with anecdotes about them. He says of the inhabitants of Galicia, for example: “They are treacherous, dirty and bathe once or twice a year, even then with cold water; they never wash their clothes until they are worn out because they claim that the dirt accumulated as the result of their sweat softens their body.”
Perhaps the most famous geographer of the time was al-Idrisi, “the Strabo of the Arabs.” Born in 1100 and educated in Córdoba, al-Idrisi traveled widely, visiting Spain, North Africa and Anatolia, until he eventually settled in Sicily. There he was employed by the Norman king Roger ii to write a systematic geography of the world, which is still extant, and is usually known as The Book of Roger.
In it, al-Idrisi describes the world systematically, following the Greek division of it into seven “climes,” each divided into 10 sections. Each of the climes is mapped—and the maps are highly accurate for the time in which they were compiled. He gives the distances between major cities and describes the customs, people, products and climate of the entire known world. He even records the voyage of a Moroccan navigator who was blown off course in the Atlantic, sailed for 30 days, and returned to tell of a fertile land to the west inhabited by naked savages.
The information contained in The Book of Roger was engraved on a silver planisphere, which was one of the wonders of the age.
Al-Andalus also produced the authors of two of the most interesting travel books ever written. Each exists in good English translation. The first is by Ibn Jubair, secretary to the governor of Granada who, in 1183, made the Hajj, and wrote a book about his journey, called simply Travels. The book is in the form of a diary, and gives a detailed account of the eastern Mediterranean world at the height of the Crusades. It is written in clear, elegant style, and is filled with the perceptive, intelligent comments of a tolerant -- and often witty -- man.
The most famous of all the Andalusian travelers was Ibn Battuta -- the greatest tourist of his age, and perhaps of any. He went to North Africa, Syria, Makkah, Medina and Iraq. He went to Yemen, sailed down the Nile, the Red Sea, Asia Minor, and the Black Sea. He went to the Crimea and to Constantinople. He went to Afghanistan, India and China. He died in Granada at the age of 73.
It is impossible to do justice to all the scholars of Al-Andalus who devoted themselves to the study of history and linguistic sciences. These were the prime “social sciences” cultivated by the Arabs, and both were brought to a high level of art in Al-Andalus. For example, Ibn al-Khatib, whose theory of contagious diseases we have touched on already, was the author of the finest history of Granada that has come down to us.
Ibn al-Khatib was born in 1313, near Granada, and followed the traditional educational curriculum of his time -- he studied grammar, poetry, natural sciences and Islamic law, as well, of course, as the Qur’an. His father, an important official, was killed by the Christians in 1340. The ruler of Granada invited the son to occupy the post of secretary in the department of correspondence. He soon became the confidant of the ruler and gained a position of great power.
Despite his busy political career, Ibn al-Khatib found time to write more than 50 books on travel, medicine, poetry, music, history, politics and theology.
The achievements of Ibn al-Khatib were rivaled only by those of his near contemporary Ibn Khaldun, the first historian to seek to develop and explicate the general laws which govern the rise and decline of civilizations. His huge, seven-volume history is entitled The Book of Examples and Collection from Early and Later Information Concerning the Days of Arabs, Non-Arabs and Berbers. The first volume, entitled Introduction, gives a profound and detailed analysis of Islamic society and indeed of human society in general, for he constantly refers to other cultures for comparative purposes. He gives a sophisticated analysis of how human society evolved from nomadism to urban centers, and how and why these urban centers decay and finally succumb to less developed invaders. Many of the profoundly disturbing questions raised by Ibn Khaldun have still not received the attention they should from all thinking people. Certainly, anyone interested in the problems of the rise and fall of civilizations, the decay of cities, or the complex relationship between technologically advanced societies and traditional ones should read Ibn Khaldun’s Introduction.
Another great area of Andalusian intellectual activity was philosophy, but it is impossible to do more than glance at this difficult and specialized study. From the ninth century, Andalusian scholars, like those in Baghdad, had to deal with the theological problems posed by the introduction of Greek philosophy into a context of Islam. How could reason be reconciled with revelation? This was the central question.
Ibn Hazm was one of the first to deal with this problem. He supported certain Aristotelian concepts with enthusiasm and rejected others. For example, he wrote a large and detailed commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analects, that abstruse work on logic. Interestingly, Ibn Hazm appears to have had no trouble relating logic to Islam -- in fact, he gives illustrative examples of how it can be used in solving legal problems, drawn from the body of Islamic law. Nothing better illustrates the ability of Islam to assimilate foreign ideas and acclimatize them than Ibn Hazm’s words in the introduction to his work: “Let it be known that he who reads this book of ours will find that the usefulness of this kind of work is not limited to one single discipline but includes the Qur’an, hadith and legal decisions concerning what is permissible and what is not, and what is obligatory and what is lawful.”
Ibn Hazm considered logic a useful tool, and philosophy to be in harmony, or at least not in conflict, with revelation. He has been described as “one of the giants of the intellectual history of Islam,” but it is difficult to form a considered judgment of a man who wrote more than 400 books, most of which have perished or still remain in manuscript.
Ibn Bajjah, whom western scholastic theologians called Avempace, was another great Andalusian philosopher. But it was Averroës -- Ibn Rushd -- who earned the greatest reputation. He was an ardent Aristotelian, and his works had a lasting effect, in their Latin translation, on the development of European philosophy.
Islamic technological innovations also played their part in the legacy that Al-Andalus left to Medieval Europe. Paper has been mentioned, but there were others of great importance -- the windmill, new techniques of working metal, making ceramics, building, weaving and agriculture. The people of Al-Andalus had a passion for gardens, combining their love of beauty with their interest in medicinal plants. Two important treatises on agriculture -- one of which was partially translated into Romance in the Middle Ages, were written in Al-Andalus. Ibn al-‘Awwam, the author of one of these treatises, lists 584 species of plants and gives precise instructions regarding their cultivation and use. He writes, for example, of how to graft trees, make hybrids, stop blights and insect pests, and how to make floral essences and perfumes.
This area of technological achievement has not yet been examined in detail, but it had as profound an influence on Medieval European material culture as the Muslim commentators on Aristotle had on Medieval European intellectuals. For these were the arts of civilization, the arts that make life a pleasure rather than a burden, and without which philosophical speculation is an arid exercise.
Paul Lunde, an independent scholar who divides his time between Seville and Cambridge, England, researches and writes about the Middle East. His most recent book is Islam: Culture, Faith and History (2001, Dorling Kindersley).
Michael Grimsdale, one of Britain’s foremost illustrators, paints portraits, animals, sports and travel themes in a variety of media. Widely collected and exhibited, his paintings have also appeared in advertising, books and magazines.
http://www.islamicspain.tv/Islamic-Spain/index.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
Written by Paul Lunde
Illustrated by Michael Grimsdale
The Medieval Christians of Spain had a legend that Roderick, the last king of the Visigoths, was responsible for unleashing the Arab invasion of the Iberian Peninsula because, in defiance of his plighted word, he unlocked the gates of an enchanted palace he had sworn not to tamper with. As far as the West was concerned, the Arab invasion did unlock an enchanted palace. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire, Vandals, Huns and Visigoths had pillaged and burned their way through the Iberian Peninsula, establishing ephemeral kingdoms, which lasted only as long as loot poured in, and were then destroyed in their turn. Then, without warning, in the year 711, came the Arabs -- to settle, fall in love with the land and create the first civilization Europe had known since the Roman legions gave up the unequal fight against the barbarian hordes.
Spain first prospered under the rule of the Umayyads, who established a dynasty there after they had lost the caliphate in the East to the Abbasids. At first, the culture of the Umayyad court at Córdoba was wholly derivative. Fashions, both in literature and dress, were imitiative of those current in the Abbasids’ newly founded capital of Baghdad. Scholars from the more sophisticated lands to the east were always assured of a warm reception at the court of Córdoba, where their colleagues would listen avidly for news of what was being discussed in the capital, what people were wearing, what songs were being sung, and -- above all -- what books were being read.
Islamic culture was pre-eminently a culture of the book. The introduction of paper from China in 751 gave an impetus to learning and an excitement about ideas which the world had never before known. Books became more available than they had been even in Rome, and incomparably cheaper than they were in the Latin West, where they continued to be written on expensive parchment. In the 12th century, a man sold 120 acres of land in order to buy a single Book of Hours. In the ninth century, the library of the monastery of St. Gall was the largest in Europe, boasting 36 volumes. At the same time, that of Córdoba contained 500,000. The cultural lag between East and West in the Middle Ages can be attributed partly to the fact that the Arabs had paper, while the Latin West did not.
It took much more than paper to create an intellectual and scientific culture like that of Islamic Spain, of course. Islam, with its tolerance and encouragement of both secular and religious learning, created the necessary climate for the exchange of ideas. The court of Córdoba, like that of Baghdad, was open to Muslims, Jews and Christians alike, and one prominent bishop complained that young Christian men were devoting themselves to the study of Arabic, rather than Latin -- a reflection of the fact that Arabic, in a surprisingly short time, had become the international language of science, as English has today.
Islamic culture in Spain began to flourish in earnest during the reign of ‘Abd al-Rahman II of Córdoba, as Arabic spread increasingly among his non-Muslim subjects, especially in the cities, leading to a great flowering of intellectual activity of all kinds.
In a courtly society, the tastes and predilections of the ruler set the tone for society at large, and ‘Abd al-Rahman II, passionately interested in both the religious and the secular sciences, was determined to show the world that his court was in no way inferior to the court of the caliphs at Baghdad. To this end, therefore, he actively recruited scholars by offering handsome inducements to overcome their initial reluctance to live in what many in the lands of the East considered the provinces. As a result, many scholars, poets, philosophers, historians and musicians migrated to Al-Andalus, and established the basis of the intellectual tradition and educational system, which made Spain so outstanding for the next 400 years.
Another result was that an infrastructure of public and private libraries, mosques, hospitals and research institutions rapidly grew up and famous scholars in the East, hearing of these amenities, flocked to the West. They in turn attracted students of their own; in the Islamic world it was not at all unusual for a student to travel thousands of miles to study at the feet of a famous professor.
One of the earliest of these scholars was ‘Abbas ibn Firnas, who died in the year 888 and who, had he lived in the Florence of the Medici, would have been a “Renaissance man.” He came to Córdoba to teach music, then a branch of mathematical theory, but—not a man to limit himself to a single field of study -- soon became interested in the mechanics of flight. He constructed a pair of wings, made out of feathers in a wooden frame, and attempted to fly -- anticipating Leonardo da Vinci by some 600 years.
Luckily, ‘Abbas survived, and, undiscouraged, turned his mind to the construction of a planetarium in which the planets actually revolved -- it would be extremely interesting to know the details of the gearing mechanism. It also simulated such celestial phenomena as thunder and lightning and was, of course, a wild success. Next ‘Abbas turned to the mathematical problems involved in the regularity of the facets of certain crystals and evolved a formula for manufacturing artificial crystals.
It must be remembered that a knowledge of the achievements of men like ‘Abbas has come to us purely by chance. It has been estimated that today there are 250,000 Arabic manuscripts in western and eastern libraries, including private collections. Yet in the 10th century, private libraries existed which contained as many as 500,000 books. Literally millions of books must have perished, and with them the achievements of a great many scholars and scientists whose books, had they survived, might have changed the course of history. As it is, even now, only a tiny proportion of existing Arabic scientific texts has been studied, and it will take years to form a more exact idea of the contributions of Muslim scientists to the history of ideas.
One of the fields most assiduously cultivated in Spain was natural science. Although Andalusian scholars did not make contributions as fundamental as those made by their colleagues in the East, those that they did make had more effect on the later development of science and technology, for it was through Spain and the scholars of Al-Andalus that these ideas reached the West.
No school of translators comparable to the House of Wisdom of al-Ma’mun existed in Spain, and Andalusian scholars seem not to have interested themselves in the natural sciences until the translations of the House of Wisdom reached them.
Interest in mathematics, astronomy, and medicine was always lively, however, because of their obvious utility -- mathematics for commercial purposes, computation of the rather complicated Islamic laws of inheritance, and as a basis for measuring distances. Astronomy was useful for determining the times of prayer and adjusting the calendar, and the study of medicine needed no apology. The introduction of the new Aristotelian ideas, however, even in Arab dress, aroused a certain amount of suspicion in the conservative West, and it was some time before public opinion would accept that Aristotelian logic did not conflict with the revelation of Islam.
Part of the suspicion with which certain of the ideas emanating from the scholars of the Abbasid court were viewed was due to an inadequate distinction between sciences and pseudo-sciences. This was a distinction which the Muslims made at a much earlier date than western scholars, who, even during the Renaissance, tended to confound astronomy with astrology, chemistry with alchemy. Ibn Hazm, a leading Andalusian scholar of the 11th century and staunchly conservative, was very outspoken on this point. People who advocated the efficacy of talismans, magic, alchemy, and astrology he calls shameless liars. This rational approach did much to make Islam preeminent in the natural sciences.
The study of mathematics and astronomy went hand in hand. Al-Khwarizmi’s famous book entitled The Calculation of Integration and Equation reached Al-Andalus at an early date, and became the foundation of much later speculation. In it, Al-Khwarizmi dealt with equations, algebraic multiplication and division, measurement of surfaces and other questions. Al-Khwarizmi was the first to introduce the use of what he called “Indian” and we call “Arabic” numerals. The exact method of transmission of these numerals—and the place-value idea which they embodied—is not known, but the symbols used to represent the numbers had slightly different forms in eastern and western Islam, and the forms of our numerals are derived from those used in Al-Andalus. The work of al-Khwarizmi, which now only survives in a 12th-century Latin translation made in Spain, together with a translation of Euclid’s Elements, became the two foundations of subsequent mathematical developments in Al-Andalus.
The first original mathematician and astronomer of Al-Andalus was the 10th century’s Maslama al-Majriti. He had been preceded by competent scientists—men like Ibn Abi ‘Ubaida of Valencia, who in the ninth century was a leading astronomer, and the emigré from Baghdad, Ibn Taimiyyah, who was both a well-known physician and an astronomer—but al-Majriti was in a class by himself. He wrote a number of works on mathematics and astronomy, studied and elaborated the Arabic translation of Ptolemy’s Almagest and enlarged and corrected the astronomical tables of al-Khwarizmi himself. He compiled conversion tables, in which the dates of the Persian calendar were related to hijri dates, so that for the first time the events of Persia’s past could be dated with precision.
Al-Zarqali, known to the Latin West as Arzachel, was another leading mathematician and astronomer who flourished in Córdoba in the 11th century. He combined theoretical knowledge with technical skills, and excelled at the construction of precision instruments for astronomical use. He built a waterclock capable of determining the hours of the day and night and indicating the days of the lunar month. He contributed to the compilation of the famous Toledan Tables, a highly accurate compilation of astronomical data. His Book of Tables, written in the form of an almanac (almanac is an Arabic word meaning “climate,” originally indicating the stations of the moon) contains tables which allow one to find on what day the Coptic, Roman, lunar and Persian months begin; others give the position of the various planets at any given time; still others allow prediction of solar and lunar eclipses. He also compiled valuable tables of latitude and longitude; many of his works were translated, both into Spanish and into Latin.
Still another luminary was al-Bitruji (the Latin scholars of the Middle Ages called him Alpetragius), who developed a new theory of stellar movement and wrote the Book of Form in which it is detailed.
The influence of these astronom- ical works was immense. Today, for example, the constellations still bear the names given them by Muslim astronomers—Acrab (from ‘aqrab, “scorpion”), Altair (from al-ta’ir, “the flyer”), Deneb (from dhanb, “tail”), Pherkard (from farqad, “calf”)—and words such as zenith, nadir and azimuth, all still in use today, recall the works of the Muslim scholars of Al-Andalus.
But the Muslim science par excellence was the study of medicine. Interest in medicine goes back to the very earliest times. The Prophet himself stated that there was a remedy for every illness, and was aware that some diseases were contagious.
The great contribution of the Arabs was to put the study of medicine on a scientific footing and eliminate superstition and harmful folk-practices. Medicine was considered a highly technical calling, and one which required long study and training. Elaborate codes were formulated to regulate the professional conduct of doctors. It was not enough to have a mastery of one’s subject in order to practice medicine. Certain moral qualities were mandatory. Ibn Hazm said that a doctor should be kind, understanding, friendly, good, able to endure insults and adverse criticism; he must keep his hair short, and his fingernails as well; he must wear clean, white clothes and behave with dignity.
Before doctors could practice, they had to pass an examination, and if they passed they had to take the Hippocratic oath, which, if neglected, could lead to dismissal.
Hospitals were similarly organized. The large one built in Córdoba was provided with running water and baths, and had different sections for the treatment of various diseases, each of which was headed by a specialist. Hospitals were required to be open 24 hours a day to handle emergency cases, and could not turn any patient away.
Muslim physicians made many important additions to the body of medical knowledge which they inherited from the Greeks. Ibn al-Nafis, for example, discovered the lesser circulation of the blood hundreds of years before Harvey, and ideas of quarantine sprang from an empirical notion of contagion.
Another example is Ibn Juljul, who was born in Córdoba in 943, became a leading physician by the age of 24 (he began his studies of medicine at 14) and compiled a commentary on the De Materia Medica of Dioscorides and a special treatise on drugs found in Al-Andalus. In his Categories of Physicians, composed at the request of one of the Umayyad princes, he also presents a history of the medical profession from the time of Aesculapius to his own day.
During the 10th century, Al-Andalus produced a large number of excellent physicians. Several went to Baghdad, where they studied Greek medical works under the famous translators Thabit ibn Qurra and Thabit ibn Sinan. On their return, they were lodged in the government palace complex at Madinat al-Zahra. One of these men, Ahmad ibn Harran, was placed in charge of a dispensary which provided free medical care and food to poor patients.
Ibn Shuhaid, also known as a popular doctor, wrote a fundamental work on the use of drugs. He -- like many of his contemporaries -- recommended drugs only if the patient did not respond to dietary treatment, and said that if they must be used, simple drugs should be employed in all cases but the most serious.
Al-Zahrawi, who died in 1013, was the most famous surgeon of the Middle Ages. He was court physician of al-Hakam II, and his great work, the Tasrif, was translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona and became a leading medical text in European universities in the later Middle Ages. The section on surgery contains a number of illustrations of surgical instruments of elegant, functional design and great precision. It describes lithotrites, amputations, ophthalmic and dental surgery and the treatment of wounds and fractures.
Ibn Zuhr, known as Avenzoar, who died in 1162, was born in Seville and earned a great reputation throughout North Africa and Spain. He described abscesses and mediastinal tumors for the first time, and made original experiments in therapeutics. One of his works, the Taysir, was translated into Latin in 1280 and became a standard work.
An outgrowth of the interest in medicine was the study of botany. The most famous Andalusian botanist was Ibn Baitar, who wrote a famous book called Collection of Simple Drugs and Food. It is an alphabetically arranged compendium of medicinal plants of all sorts, most of which were native to Spain and North Africa, which he had spent a lifetime gathering. Where possible, he gives the Berber, Arabic, and sometimes Romance names of the plant, so that for linguists his work is of special interest. In each article, he gives information about the preparation of the drug and its administration, purpose and dosage.
The last of the great Andalusian physicians was Ibn al-Khatib, who was also a noted historian, poet, and statesman. Among his other works, he wrote an important work on the theory of contagion: “The fact of infection becomes clear to the investigator who notices how he who establishes contact with the afflicted gets the disease, whereas he who is not in contact remains safe, and how transmitting is effected through garments, vessels, and earrings.”
Ibn al-Khatib was the last representative of the Andalusian medical tradition. Soon after his death, the energies of the Muslims of Al-Andalus were wholly absorbed in the long, costly struggle against the Christian reconquista.
Another field that interested the scholars of Al-Andalus was geography, and many of the finest Muslim works in this field were produced there. Economic and political considerations played some part in the development of this field of study, but it was above all their all-consuming curiosity about the world and its inhabitants that motivated the scholars who devoted themselves to the description of the earth and its inhabitants. The first steps had been taken in the East, when “books of routes,” as they were called, were compiled for the use of the postmasters of the early Abbasid caliphs. Soon, reports on faraway lands, their commercial products and major physical features were compiled for the information of the caliph and his ministers. Advances in astronomy and mathematics made the plotting of this information on maps feasible, and soon cartography became an important discipline in its own right.
Al-Khwarizmi, who did so much to advance the science of mathematics, was also one of the earliest scientific descriptive geographers. Basing his work on information made available through the Arabic translation of Ptolemy, al-Khwarizmi wrote a book called The Form of the Earth, which included maps of the heavens and of the earth. In Al-Andalus, this work was carried forward by Ibn Muhammad al-Razi, who died in 936, and who wrote a basic geography of Al-Andalus for administrative purposes. Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Warraq, a contemporary of al-Razi, wrote a similar work describing the topography of North Africa. The wide-ranging commercial relations of Al-Andalus allowed the collection, from returning merchants, of a great deal of detailed information about regions as far north as the Baltic. Ibrahim ibn Ya‘qub, for example, who traveled widely in Europe and the Balkans in the late ninth century -- he must have been a brave man indeed -- left itineraries of his travels.
Two men who wrote in the 11th century collected much of the information assembled by their predecessors and put it into convenient form. One of them, al-Bakri, is particularly interesting. Born in Saltes in 1014, al-Bakri was the son of the governor of the province of Huelva and Saltes. Al-Bakri himself was an important minister at the court in Seville and undertook several diplomatic missions. An accomplished scholar as well as litérateur, he wrote works on history, botany and geography as well as poetry and literary essays. One of his two important geographical works is devoted to the geography of the Arabian Peninsula, with particular attention to the elucidation of its place names. It is arranged alphabetically, and lists the names of villages, towns, wadis and monuments which he culled from the hadith and histories. His other major work has not survived in its entirety, but it was an encyclopedic treatment of the entire world.
Al-Bakri arranged his material by country -- preceding each entry by a short historical introduction -- and describes the people, customs, climate, geographical features and the major cities, with anecdotes about them. He says of the inhabitants of Galicia, for example: “They are treacherous, dirty and bathe once or twice a year, even then with cold water; they never wash their clothes until they are worn out because they claim that the dirt accumulated as the result of their sweat softens their body.”
Perhaps the most famous geographer of the time was al-Idrisi, “the Strabo of the Arabs.” Born in 1100 and educated in Córdoba, al-Idrisi traveled widely, visiting Spain, North Africa and Anatolia, until he eventually settled in Sicily. There he was employed by the Norman king Roger ii to write a systematic geography of the world, which is still extant, and is usually known as The Book of Roger.
In it, al-Idrisi describes the world systematically, following the Greek division of it into seven “climes,” each divided into 10 sections. Each of the climes is mapped—and the maps are highly accurate for the time in which they were compiled. He gives the distances between major cities and describes the customs, people, products and climate of the entire known world. He even records the voyage of a Moroccan navigator who was blown off course in the Atlantic, sailed for 30 days, and returned to tell of a fertile land to the west inhabited by naked savages.
The information contained in The Book of Roger was engraved on a silver planisphere, which was one of the wonders of the age.
Al-Andalus also produced the authors of two of the most interesting travel books ever written. Each exists in good English translation. The first is by Ibn Jubair, secretary to the governor of Granada who, in 1183, made the Hajj, and wrote a book about his journey, called simply Travels. The book is in the form of a diary, and gives a detailed account of the eastern Mediterranean world at the height of the Crusades. It is written in clear, elegant style, and is filled with the perceptive, intelligent comments of a tolerant -- and often witty -- man.
The most famous of all the Andalusian travelers was Ibn Battuta -- the greatest tourist of his age, and perhaps of any. He went to North Africa, Syria, Makkah, Medina and Iraq. He went to Yemen, sailed down the Nile, the Red Sea, Asia Minor, and the Black Sea. He went to the Crimea and to Constantinople. He went to Afghanistan, India and China. He died in Granada at the age of 73.
It is impossible to do justice to all the scholars of Al-Andalus who devoted themselves to the study of history and linguistic sciences. These were the prime “social sciences” cultivated by the Arabs, and both were brought to a high level of art in Al-Andalus. For example, Ibn al-Khatib, whose theory of contagious diseases we have touched on already, was the author of the finest history of Granada that has come down to us.
Ibn al-Khatib was born in 1313, near Granada, and followed the traditional educational curriculum of his time -- he studied grammar, poetry, natural sciences and Islamic law, as well, of course, as the Qur’an. His father, an important official, was killed by the Christians in 1340. The ruler of Granada invited the son to occupy the post of secretary in the department of correspondence. He soon became the confidant of the ruler and gained a position of great power.
Despite his busy political career, Ibn al-Khatib found time to write more than 50 books on travel, medicine, poetry, music, history, politics and theology.
The achievements of Ibn al-Khatib were rivaled only by those of his near contemporary Ibn Khaldun, the first historian to seek to develop and explicate the general laws which govern the rise and decline of civilizations. His huge, seven-volume history is entitled The Book of Examples and Collection from Early and Later Information Concerning the Days of Arabs, Non-Arabs and Berbers. The first volume, entitled Introduction, gives a profound and detailed analysis of Islamic society and indeed of human society in general, for he constantly refers to other cultures for comparative purposes. He gives a sophisticated analysis of how human society evolved from nomadism to urban centers, and how and why these urban centers decay and finally succumb to less developed invaders. Many of the profoundly disturbing questions raised by Ibn Khaldun have still not received the attention they should from all thinking people. Certainly, anyone interested in the problems of the rise and fall of civilizations, the decay of cities, or the complex relationship between technologically advanced societies and traditional ones should read Ibn Khaldun’s Introduction.
Another great area of Andalusian intellectual activity was philosophy, but it is impossible to do more than glance at this difficult and specialized study. From the ninth century, Andalusian scholars, like those in Baghdad, had to deal with the theological problems posed by the introduction of Greek philosophy into a context of Islam. How could reason be reconciled with revelation? This was the central question.
Ibn Hazm was one of the first to deal with this problem. He supported certain Aristotelian concepts with enthusiasm and rejected others. For example, he wrote a large and detailed commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analects, that abstruse work on logic. Interestingly, Ibn Hazm appears to have had no trouble relating logic to Islam -- in fact, he gives illustrative examples of how it can be used in solving legal problems, drawn from the body of Islamic law. Nothing better illustrates the ability of Islam to assimilate foreign ideas and acclimatize them than Ibn Hazm’s words in the introduction to his work: “Let it be known that he who reads this book of ours will find that the usefulness of this kind of work is not limited to one single discipline but includes the Qur’an, hadith and legal decisions concerning what is permissible and what is not, and what is obligatory and what is lawful.”
Ibn Hazm considered logic a useful tool, and philosophy to be in harmony, or at least not in conflict, with revelation. He has been described as “one of the giants of the intellectual history of Islam,” but it is difficult to form a considered judgment of a man who wrote more than 400 books, most of which have perished or still remain in manuscript.
Ibn Bajjah, whom western scholastic theologians called Avempace, was another great Andalusian philosopher. But it was Averroës -- Ibn Rushd -- who earned the greatest reputation. He was an ardent Aristotelian, and his works had a lasting effect, in their Latin translation, on the development of European philosophy.
Islamic technological innovations also played their part in the legacy that Al-Andalus left to Medieval Europe. Paper has been mentioned, but there were others of great importance -- the windmill, new techniques of working metal, making ceramics, building, weaving and agriculture. The people of Al-Andalus had a passion for gardens, combining their love of beauty with their interest in medicinal plants. Two important treatises on agriculture -- one of which was partially translated into Romance in the Middle Ages, were written in Al-Andalus. Ibn al-‘Awwam, the author of one of these treatises, lists 584 species of plants and gives precise instructions regarding their cultivation and use. He writes, for example, of how to graft trees, make hybrids, stop blights and insect pests, and how to make floral essences and perfumes.
This area of technological achievement has not yet been examined in detail, but it had as profound an influence on Medieval European material culture as the Muslim commentators on Aristotle had on Medieval European intellectuals. For these were the arts of civilization, the arts that make life a pleasure rather than a burden, and without which philosophical speculation is an arid exercise.
Paul Lunde, an independent scholar who divides his time between Seville and Cambridge, England, researches and writes about the Middle East. His most recent book is Islam: Culture, Faith and History (2001, Dorling Kindersley).
Michael Grimsdale, one of Britain’s foremost illustrators, paints portraits, animals, sports and travel themes in a variety of media. Widely collected and exhibited, his paintings have also appeared in advertising, books and magazines.
http://www.islamicspain.tv/Islamic-Spain/index.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
379)City of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain, EXCERPTS, PART 4
CLASSICAL AND ISLAMIC LEARNING ENTERS EUROPE
Learning Evolves in Europe
In the 1100s, there was a new desire for learning that developed in Europe, especially in the towns.
Farming was improving. Trade began to grow. So, towns along trade routes also expanded.
Growing towns needed skilled artisans and merchants, and stronger governments. They needed systems of law and people to keep records. Schools began to educate the sons of wealthy merchants in more worldly subjects; church learning was not enough. With the entry of newly translated books from Spain and Italy, the quality of learning was gradually advancing.
Philosophy Meets Faith
Philosophy means “love of wisdom” in Greek. Aristotle, Plato, and other famous Greek philosophers wrote and taught about reason, moral teachings, and human behavior.
Jews, Christians, and Muslims share the important set of ideas set forth by Greek thinking. Philosophers of all three faiths have discussed how Greek ideas could be melded with the teachings of their scriptures.
They have written about the links between God-given reason and God-given revelation and faith. People have spent their entire lifetime thinking, writing, and teaching about such philosophical questions as how humans can balance the urge to question with the necessity to believe.
If the House of Wisdom had not preserved in Arabic classical works of Greek and other ancient philosophers and scientists, they may have been lost to Europeans. Muslims translated the works, wrote comments and explanations, and added their own ideas.
The Spanish Muslim, Ibn Rushd, and the Jewish thinker, Maimonides, commented on Aristotle. They both were born and worked in Islamic Spain. Other Muslim philosophers -- such as al-Kindi, Ibn Sina (Avecinna, the medical writer), and al-Ghazzali -- had also written about faith and reason. Their works were translated into Latin. They stimulated Christian scholars to discuss reason and faith.
The similarity of thought and ideas of Islam and Judaism with Christianity gave way to meaningful translations and commentaries from such great thinkers as Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas was a scholar of the 12th century. He wrote a famous work on this subject, called the Summa Theologica. It contains ideas from Greek and Arab/Muslim thinkers. Europeans and Muslims alike were attracted to Aristotle and Plato's ideas.
Most importantly, the work of philosophers -- whether Greek, Muslim, Jewish, or Christian -- offered solutions, which opened the way to scientific thought. They made it acceptable to investigate the natural world, draw conclusions about it, and attempt to discover the laws of nature.
Learning Transforms Higher Education
The entry of new learning into Europe had a huge effect on higher education. Students and scholars wanted to study these important new works. So, they eagerly sought out teachers who had read them.
Europe developed colleges as centers for teaching and research in medicine, law, mathematics, astronomy, and physics. Universities in Paris, France, and Oxford and Cambridge, England, were founded. A college at Bologna specialized in law. Another at Salerno taught new Arabic medical knowledge.
Changes in knowledge opened up new ways of thinking among educated Europeans. Volumes of ancient wisdom, new learning, and literature filled libraries. This historic period is known as the Renaissance, or "rebirth."
Learning and the Renaissance
The discovery of classical and Arabic learning set off the search for works “lost” after the fall of Rome. During the Renaissance, European scholars re-explored these works and brought a fresh perspective on the past. They put aside the rigid, narrow thinking of the Middle Ages. They found ways to build a better life and future, using these ideas.
A group of philosophers, called humanists, improved the teaching of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and even Arabic. Their discovery of Greek and Latin writings led them to travel, discuss, and debate.
Despite changes taking place in universities, new knowledge reached only the tiny group of Europeans who attended college. However, Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1450 set off an explosion of literature and learning.
Together with paper-making technology -- which entered Europe through Islamic Spain -- book production became much easier and cheaper. Books became trade goods sold on expanding trade routes all over Europe.
Wealthy customers -- often merchants and aristocrats -- bought scientific books to add to their libraries. Scientific books -- translated from Arabic two centuries earlier in Spain -- now became available in print.
Authors with Latinized Arabic names appeared in newly printed books on such subjects as medicine, astronomy, agriculture, metallurgy, and meteorology. They included Avecinna (Ibn Sina), Geber (Jaber), Averroes (Ibn Rushd), and many others.
Most of the works, which influenced teaching at European universities in the 1200s, now had an even greater impact. During the next 300 years, some of these books continued to be printed and re-printed.
New Age of Discovery
The work of these Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars centuries earlier sparked a new age of discovery in Europe.
The Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries resulted from the transfer of knowledge five centuries before. Developments in scholarship and education leading to the Renaissance also played an important role. And, in turn, the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution brought about the Industrial Revolution.
It took more than a few people in one part of the world to bring about the changes leading to the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution. History proves that exchanges among many cultures over a very long period of time contributed to modern inventions and scientific understanding. Ultimately, it is the result of humanity's desire and cooperation to preserve and pass on knowledge from one generation to the next.
http://www.islamicspain.tv/Islamic-Spain/index.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
Learning Evolves in Europe
In the 1100s, there was a new desire for learning that developed in Europe, especially in the towns.
Farming was improving. Trade began to grow. So, towns along trade routes also expanded.
Growing towns needed skilled artisans and merchants, and stronger governments. They needed systems of law and people to keep records. Schools began to educate the sons of wealthy merchants in more worldly subjects; church learning was not enough. With the entry of newly translated books from Spain and Italy, the quality of learning was gradually advancing.
Philosophy Meets Faith
Philosophy means “love of wisdom” in Greek. Aristotle, Plato, and other famous Greek philosophers wrote and taught about reason, moral teachings, and human behavior.
Jews, Christians, and Muslims share the important set of ideas set forth by Greek thinking. Philosophers of all three faiths have discussed how Greek ideas could be melded with the teachings of their scriptures.
They have written about the links between God-given reason and God-given revelation and faith. People have spent their entire lifetime thinking, writing, and teaching about such philosophical questions as how humans can balance the urge to question with the necessity to believe.
If the House of Wisdom had not preserved in Arabic classical works of Greek and other ancient philosophers and scientists, they may have been lost to Europeans. Muslims translated the works, wrote comments and explanations, and added their own ideas.
The Spanish Muslim, Ibn Rushd, and the Jewish thinker, Maimonides, commented on Aristotle. They both were born and worked in Islamic Spain. Other Muslim philosophers -- such as al-Kindi, Ibn Sina (Avecinna, the medical writer), and al-Ghazzali -- had also written about faith and reason. Their works were translated into Latin. They stimulated Christian scholars to discuss reason and faith.
The similarity of thought and ideas of Islam and Judaism with Christianity gave way to meaningful translations and commentaries from such great thinkers as Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas was a scholar of the 12th century. He wrote a famous work on this subject, called the Summa Theologica. It contains ideas from Greek and Arab/Muslim thinkers. Europeans and Muslims alike were attracted to Aristotle and Plato's ideas.
Most importantly, the work of philosophers -- whether Greek, Muslim, Jewish, or Christian -- offered solutions, which opened the way to scientific thought. They made it acceptable to investigate the natural world, draw conclusions about it, and attempt to discover the laws of nature.
Learning Transforms Higher Education
The entry of new learning into Europe had a huge effect on higher education. Students and scholars wanted to study these important new works. So, they eagerly sought out teachers who had read them.
Europe developed colleges as centers for teaching and research in medicine, law, mathematics, astronomy, and physics. Universities in Paris, France, and Oxford and Cambridge, England, were founded. A college at Bologna specialized in law. Another at Salerno taught new Arabic medical knowledge.
Changes in knowledge opened up new ways of thinking among educated Europeans. Volumes of ancient wisdom, new learning, and literature filled libraries. This historic period is known as the Renaissance, or "rebirth."
Learning and the Renaissance
The discovery of classical and Arabic learning set off the search for works “lost” after the fall of Rome. During the Renaissance, European scholars re-explored these works and brought a fresh perspective on the past. They put aside the rigid, narrow thinking of the Middle Ages. They found ways to build a better life and future, using these ideas.
A group of philosophers, called humanists, improved the teaching of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and even Arabic. Their discovery of Greek and Latin writings led them to travel, discuss, and debate.
Despite changes taking place in universities, new knowledge reached only the tiny group of Europeans who attended college. However, Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1450 set off an explosion of literature and learning.
Together with paper-making technology -- which entered Europe through Islamic Spain -- book production became much easier and cheaper. Books became trade goods sold on expanding trade routes all over Europe.
Wealthy customers -- often merchants and aristocrats -- bought scientific books to add to their libraries. Scientific books -- translated from Arabic two centuries earlier in Spain -- now became available in print.
Authors with Latinized Arabic names appeared in newly printed books on such subjects as medicine, astronomy, agriculture, metallurgy, and meteorology. They included Avecinna (Ibn Sina), Geber (Jaber), Averroes (Ibn Rushd), and many others.
Most of the works, which influenced teaching at European universities in the 1200s, now had an even greater impact. During the next 300 years, some of these books continued to be printed and re-printed.
New Age of Discovery
The work of these Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars centuries earlier sparked a new age of discovery in Europe.
The Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries resulted from the transfer of knowledge five centuries before. Developments in scholarship and education leading to the Renaissance also played an important role. And, in turn, the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution brought about the Industrial Revolution.
It took more than a few people in one part of the world to bring about the changes leading to the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution. History proves that exchanges among many cultures over a very long period of time contributed to modern inventions and scientific understanding. Ultimately, it is the result of humanity's desire and cooperation to preserve and pass on knowledge from one generation to the next.
http://www.islamicspain.tv/Islamic-Spain/index.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
378)City of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain, EXCERPTS, PART 3
THE HERITAGE OF LEARNING PASSES TO MUSLIM CIVILIZATION
Centers of Learning
The spread of Islam extended the Arabic language across Afro-Eurasian lands, from Central Asia to the Atlantic.
Just as the Greeks, Romans, and Persians had done under their rule, Muslim governments established centers of learning. At these centers, they would collect and translate scientific, literary, and philosophical works.
Among the most famous effort was the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma in Arabic). Khalifah al-Ma’mun established this center in 870 C.E. in Baghdad.
Al-Hunayn, a Christian scholar, led a great effort to collect and translate available knowledge. Emissaries were sent out to purchase books from wherever they could be found. They included works in the library at Jundi-Shapur, as well as all the great traditions.
Invention of Paper
Around the time the House of Wisdom was founded, a new technology helped to advance the spread of knowledge: paper-making.
In the early 700s, the Chinese invention of paper arrived in the Muslim countries of Southwest Asia. Suddenly, making books became cheaper and easier. While parchment was a good writing material, it was made from expensive animal skins. Papyrus was cheap, but not very durable. In comparison, paper could be made from cotton, linen and other plant fibers, or even from old rags.
In the growing cities of Muslim lands, people bought, wrote, and collected books more than ever before. Instead of having just a few copies of an existing work, more could be produced. This increased production improved chances that the work would not be lost to history.
Books and paper-making spread westward across Africa to Al-Andalus, or Islamic Spain. Another technology that spread with paper-making was the use of water-power to pound fiber. The result: libraries in Muslim lands grew to thousands of volumes -- even though books were still copied by hand!
Growth of Knowledge
Muslims, Jews, and Christians took part in the growth of learning and culture in eastern and western Muslim lands.
The cities in western Muslim lands -- including Córdoba, Toledo, Seville and Granada -- shared in this book and scholarship exchange. Scholars in different places using the same book corresponded with each other. They shared thoughts and ideas. Their efforts allowed for the growth of knowledge between cities.
There also were other key factors advancing knowledge growth. Trade, travel, and migration sped up this process. Increased wealth also fueled this knowledge growth. What's more, the use of Arabic language and Islamic law across a wide territory proved critical.
It was, indeed, a very dynamic period of learning. The House of Wisdom became a translation center, library, museum, and institute for scholars. There, scholars copied, studied, and discussed books from every angle.
What's more, Baghdad’s scholars worked with scientific ideas everywhere -- in courts, palaces, streets, homes, and bookshops. They tested them by measuring, experimenting, and traveling. In time, they developed a large body of new knowledge, adding to the wisdom of ancient times.
Faith and Knowledge Growth
One important concern -- which would be shared across religious boundaries -- was the question of how these ancient ideas fit in with Islamic teachings. If scriptures were a revelation from God and contained all wisdom, as they believed, was it permitted to look to other sources of knowledge?
Numerous scholars wrestled with this issue. But they generally reached agreement that faith or belief and reason or independent investigation are not just permitted, but encouraged. God created human beings with the capacity to think and reason. Like other human abilities, it could be used for good and evil.
This important balance between faith and reason would be explored for centuries. It would be passed on through the work of Muslim, Jewish, and later Christian philosophers and scientists.
This shared understanding among the Abrahamic faiths put into place one of the cornerstones of modern science. And, the scholars of Al-Andalus played an important role in its formation and transmission.
Institutionalized Learning Grows
Educational institutions such as schools, universities, and libraries spread across the network of Muslim cities. Mosques offered classes in reading Arabic. Meanwhile, the wealthy employed tutors in their homes or palaces.
From the 800s to the 1100s, major Muslim cities established formal schools and colleges. There were also several already-existing important universities for teaching and research.
For example, there was a college in Córdoba attached to the Umayyad caliphate. In Baghdad, the Seljuk Turks established the Mustansiriyyah. And, the Fatimid rulers founded Cairo’s famous al-Azhar University.
Traveling students -- including young European scholars -- came to these colleges. They learned Arabic. They also transmitted important ideas and styles of song, poetry, and new foods once they returned home.
Muslim-ruled territories in Spain and Sicily became centers of Muslim learning and culture. These Mediterranean lands within Europe served as links to the East.
Contacts during times of both war and peace brought Christian Europe information about an advanced way of life -- luxury goods, music, fashions -- and the learning available in Al-Andalus. Curious scholars -- including Church officials -- traveled to Al-Andalus to learn about these things firsthand. They wanted to see the libraries filled with books in Arabic on many important and useful subjects.
Groups of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars sat down together to translate these works from Arabic to Latin, with the support of certain Christian rulers. This translation effort mirrored the one at the House of Wisdom in Jundi-Shapur centuries earlier.
Practical Uses of Knowledge
During the 1100 and 1200s, Latin translations of Arabic books fostered changes in Europe’s schools and growing cities. Books about mathematics -- including algebra, geometry and advanced arithmetic -- introduced Arabic numerals. Yet, it took another 200 years before Arabic replaced Roman numerals in Europeans’ everyday life.
North African and Italian merchants' use of Arabic numerals enabled them to spread among merchants, who also did their own bookkeeping, or accounting. Meanwhile, other books brought knowledge about astronomy -- contributions from Greek, Persian, and Arabic sources.
Geography, maps, and navigational instruments allowed Europeans to see the world in a new way. These navigational instruments included: the astrolabe, the quadrant, the compass, and the use of longitude and latitude to create accurate maps and charts. (Calculating longitude at sea came in later centuries.)
Medical books -- especially by Ibn Sina, al-Razi, and al-Zahrawi -- and some classical Greek works, lifted the cloud of superstition over illness. What's more, descriptions of diseases and cures, surgery, and pharmacy -- the art of preparing medicines -- helped develop a medical profession in Europe.
Modern writers Francis and Joseph Gies summarize the importance of translation work taking place in Spain after the Christian conquest of Toledo in 1085:
"It was the Muslim-Assisted translation of Aristotle followed by Galen, Euclid, Ptolemy, and other Greek authorities and their integration into the university curriculum that created what historians have called "the scientific Renaissance of the12th century." Certainly the completion of the double, sometimes triple translation (Greek into Arabic, Arabic into Latin, often with an intermediate Castilian Spanish … ) is one of the most fruitful scholarly enterprises ever undertaken. Two chief sources of translation were Spain and Sicily, regions where Arab, European, and Jewish scholars freely mingled. In Spain the main center was Toledo, where Archbishop Raymond established a college specifically for making Arab knowledge available to Europe. Scholars flocked thither … By 1200 "virtually the entire scientific corpus of Aristotle" was available in Latin, along with works by other Greek and Arab authors on medicine, optics, catoptrics (mirror theory), geometry, astronomy, astrology, zoology, psychology, and mechanics."
http://www.islamicspain.tv/Islamic-Spain/index.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
Centers of Learning
The spread of Islam extended the Arabic language across Afro-Eurasian lands, from Central Asia to the Atlantic.
Just as the Greeks, Romans, and Persians had done under their rule, Muslim governments established centers of learning. At these centers, they would collect and translate scientific, literary, and philosophical works.
Among the most famous effort was the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma in Arabic). Khalifah al-Ma’mun established this center in 870 C.E. in Baghdad.
Al-Hunayn, a Christian scholar, led a great effort to collect and translate available knowledge. Emissaries were sent out to purchase books from wherever they could be found. They included works in the library at Jundi-Shapur, as well as all the great traditions.
Invention of Paper
Around the time the House of Wisdom was founded, a new technology helped to advance the spread of knowledge: paper-making.
In the early 700s, the Chinese invention of paper arrived in the Muslim countries of Southwest Asia. Suddenly, making books became cheaper and easier. While parchment was a good writing material, it was made from expensive animal skins. Papyrus was cheap, but not very durable. In comparison, paper could be made from cotton, linen and other plant fibers, or even from old rags.
In the growing cities of Muslim lands, people bought, wrote, and collected books more than ever before. Instead of having just a few copies of an existing work, more could be produced. This increased production improved chances that the work would not be lost to history.
Books and paper-making spread westward across Africa to Al-Andalus, or Islamic Spain. Another technology that spread with paper-making was the use of water-power to pound fiber. The result: libraries in Muslim lands grew to thousands of volumes -- even though books were still copied by hand!
Growth of Knowledge
Muslims, Jews, and Christians took part in the growth of learning and culture in eastern and western Muslim lands.
The cities in western Muslim lands -- including Córdoba, Toledo, Seville and Granada -- shared in this book and scholarship exchange. Scholars in different places using the same book corresponded with each other. They shared thoughts and ideas. Their efforts allowed for the growth of knowledge between cities.
There also were other key factors advancing knowledge growth. Trade, travel, and migration sped up this process. Increased wealth also fueled this knowledge growth. What's more, the use of Arabic language and Islamic law across a wide territory proved critical.
It was, indeed, a very dynamic period of learning. The House of Wisdom became a translation center, library, museum, and institute for scholars. There, scholars copied, studied, and discussed books from every angle.
What's more, Baghdad’s scholars worked with scientific ideas everywhere -- in courts, palaces, streets, homes, and bookshops. They tested them by measuring, experimenting, and traveling. In time, they developed a large body of new knowledge, adding to the wisdom of ancient times.
Faith and Knowledge Growth
One important concern -- which would be shared across religious boundaries -- was the question of how these ancient ideas fit in with Islamic teachings. If scriptures were a revelation from God and contained all wisdom, as they believed, was it permitted to look to other sources of knowledge?
Numerous scholars wrestled with this issue. But they generally reached agreement that faith or belief and reason or independent investigation are not just permitted, but encouraged. God created human beings with the capacity to think and reason. Like other human abilities, it could be used for good and evil.
This important balance between faith and reason would be explored for centuries. It would be passed on through the work of Muslim, Jewish, and later Christian philosophers and scientists.
This shared understanding among the Abrahamic faiths put into place one of the cornerstones of modern science. And, the scholars of Al-Andalus played an important role in its formation and transmission.
Institutionalized Learning Grows
Educational institutions such as schools, universities, and libraries spread across the network of Muslim cities. Mosques offered classes in reading Arabic. Meanwhile, the wealthy employed tutors in their homes or palaces.
From the 800s to the 1100s, major Muslim cities established formal schools and colleges. There were also several already-existing important universities for teaching and research.
For example, there was a college in Córdoba attached to the Umayyad caliphate. In Baghdad, the Seljuk Turks established the Mustansiriyyah. And, the Fatimid rulers founded Cairo’s famous al-Azhar University.
Traveling students -- including young European scholars -- came to these colleges. They learned Arabic. They also transmitted important ideas and styles of song, poetry, and new foods once they returned home.
Muslim-ruled territories in Spain and Sicily became centers of Muslim learning and culture. These Mediterranean lands within Europe served as links to the East.
Contacts during times of both war and peace brought Christian Europe information about an advanced way of life -- luxury goods, music, fashions -- and the learning available in Al-Andalus. Curious scholars -- including Church officials -- traveled to Al-Andalus to learn about these things firsthand. They wanted to see the libraries filled with books in Arabic on many important and useful subjects.
Groups of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars sat down together to translate these works from Arabic to Latin, with the support of certain Christian rulers. This translation effort mirrored the one at the House of Wisdom in Jundi-Shapur centuries earlier.
Practical Uses of Knowledge
During the 1100 and 1200s, Latin translations of Arabic books fostered changes in Europe’s schools and growing cities. Books about mathematics -- including algebra, geometry and advanced arithmetic -- introduced Arabic numerals. Yet, it took another 200 years before Arabic replaced Roman numerals in Europeans’ everyday life.
North African and Italian merchants' use of Arabic numerals enabled them to spread among merchants, who also did their own bookkeeping, or accounting. Meanwhile, other books brought knowledge about astronomy -- contributions from Greek, Persian, and Arabic sources.
Geography, maps, and navigational instruments allowed Europeans to see the world in a new way. These navigational instruments included: the astrolabe, the quadrant, the compass, and the use of longitude and latitude to create accurate maps and charts. (Calculating longitude at sea came in later centuries.)
Medical books -- especially by Ibn Sina, al-Razi, and al-Zahrawi -- and some classical Greek works, lifted the cloud of superstition over illness. What's more, descriptions of diseases and cures, surgery, and pharmacy -- the art of preparing medicines -- helped develop a medical profession in Europe.
Modern writers Francis and Joseph Gies summarize the importance of translation work taking place in Spain after the Christian conquest of Toledo in 1085:
"It was the Muslim-Assisted translation of Aristotle followed by Galen, Euclid, Ptolemy, and other Greek authorities and their integration into the university curriculum that created what historians have called "the scientific Renaissance of the12th century." Certainly the completion of the double, sometimes triple translation (Greek into Arabic, Arabic into Latin, often with an intermediate Castilian Spanish … ) is one of the most fruitful scholarly enterprises ever undertaken. Two chief sources of translation were Spain and Sicily, regions where Arab, European, and Jewish scholars freely mingled. In Spain the main center was Toledo, where Archbishop Raymond established a college specifically for making Arab knowledge available to Europe. Scholars flocked thither … By 1200 "virtually the entire scientific corpus of Aristotle" was available in Latin, along with works by other Greek and Arab authors on medicine, optics, catoptrics (mirror theory), geometry, astronomy, astrology, zoology, psychology, and mechanics."
http://www.islamicspain.tv/Islamic-Spain/index.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
377)City of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain, EXCERPTS PART 2
WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS AND THE CLASSICAL TRADITION
Ancient Wisdom
Science developed in ancient cultures over time. People observed the world around them, studied the night skies, and developed an accurate calendar. They studied the human body and discovered medicines to cure illnesses. Practices such as counting and measuring developed into the science of mathematics.
The wisdom of ancient cultures passed along in different ways among varying cultures. For example, Chinese, Indian, Babylonian, and Egyptian cultures are among the few societies that made important discoveries and wrote them down.
Classical Learning
In the Mediterranean region, many cultures contributed to what historians call “classical” learning. Greek thinkers wrote about mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy -- or the study of wisdom. And, a Greek academy called the School of Athens became a famous center of learning.
In Egypt, Ptolemy wrote an important work about geography and the solar system. The Romans absorbed Greek sciences. They excelled in literature, politics, history, and engineering. Books from Greek and Roman sources -- along with the heritage of ancient wisdom from farther east -- formed the foundation for later cultures.
Greek, Roman, Chinese, African, and Indian traditions of learning grew during the Classical Period, from around 1000 B.C.E. to around 500 C.E. During this time, understanding of the natural world of plants, animals, and earth grew. Theoretical knowledge such as mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy also expanded.
Alexander the Great built an empire that helped to spread Greek ideas and develop contacts among civilizations. Scientific knowledge led to advances in engineering and architecture, producing remarkable monuments and buildings. Religious and philosophical ideas, and literature -- such as poetry, drama, and prose -- explored problems and expressed ideas of beauty.
As the classical civilizations declined, the institutions that preserved their knowledge did, too. However, the Royal Library of Alexandria in Egypt, and another in the ancient Greek city of Pergamum survived for many centuries.
Wisdom and Learning Move East
The fall of the Roman Empire signaled a time of decline and loss in culture that lasted for centuries. As Christianity spread in Roman territory, the Empire split into eastern and western parts.
The Latin, or western, part suffered invasions and unrest. People built castles defended by knights to protect themselves. Monks in monasteries or other church centers maintained what little learning and books were left from Roman times.
In the East, the Byzantines remained strong. They continued trade with other eastern lands. They also continued to preserve Greek learning. However, the growing power of the Church over learning and ideas caused many scholars to flee to the east toward Persia.
The Royal Academy of Jundi-Shapur especially welcomed the Christian scholars who fled there. It was at the academy that learning from India, Babylonia, the Hebrews, Greece, and even distant China came together: With the help of Persian kings, people who gathered and taught at Jundi-Shapur translated, copied, and discussed many books.
During the 600s, the Byzantines also fell into wars with Persia. Eventually, both empires lost much or all of their territory to a third new ruling group: the Muslims.
A Pan-Faith Tradition of Learning
The rise of Islam in the 6th century resulted in the formation of a new empire and world civilization. The Muslims rapidly expanded their territory from humble beginnings in Arabia. And, by the 700s, the Muslims governed lands stretching from Spain to the borders of China.
There is an old story that Muslims destroyed the famous library of Alexandria out of ignorance of its value. However, Islamic teachings place a high value on learning. Historians agree that early Muslims were very open to accepting the religions and cultural heritage of lands newly under their rule.
Since then, the tale has been proven false. In fact, the library had been destroyed centuries earlier. What's more, the Abbasid Muslim rulers ordered translations to be made of the works at Jundi-Shapur and other places. They left the Academy of Jundi-Shapur intact and later added to its treasures.
This translation and preservation effort is an important example of religious and cultural cooperation: Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together to help translate these books into Arabic.
During this time, Muslims also were introduced to Indian mathematics, including Hindi numerals called Arabic numerals today. Literature, music, and decorative arts were part of this exciting period of cultural exchange as well. India brought fantastic fables, fairy tales, and stories to Jundi-Shapur, which even had knowledge from as far away as China.
http://www.islamicspain.tv/Islamic-Spain/index.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
Ancient Wisdom
Science developed in ancient cultures over time. People observed the world around them, studied the night skies, and developed an accurate calendar. They studied the human body and discovered medicines to cure illnesses. Practices such as counting and measuring developed into the science of mathematics.
The wisdom of ancient cultures passed along in different ways among varying cultures. For example, Chinese, Indian, Babylonian, and Egyptian cultures are among the few societies that made important discoveries and wrote them down.
Classical Learning
In the Mediterranean region, many cultures contributed to what historians call “classical” learning. Greek thinkers wrote about mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy -- or the study of wisdom. And, a Greek academy called the School of Athens became a famous center of learning.
In Egypt, Ptolemy wrote an important work about geography and the solar system. The Romans absorbed Greek sciences. They excelled in literature, politics, history, and engineering. Books from Greek and Roman sources -- along with the heritage of ancient wisdom from farther east -- formed the foundation for later cultures.
Greek, Roman, Chinese, African, and Indian traditions of learning grew during the Classical Period, from around 1000 B.C.E. to around 500 C.E. During this time, understanding of the natural world of plants, animals, and earth grew. Theoretical knowledge such as mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy also expanded.
Alexander the Great built an empire that helped to spread Greek ideas and develop contacts among civilizations. Scientific knowledge led to advances in engineering and architecture, producing remarkable monuments and buildings. Religious and philosophical ideas, and literature -- such as poetry, drama, and prose -- explored problems and expressed ideas of beauty.
As the classical civilizations declined, the institutions that preserved their knowledge did, too. However, the Royal Library of Alexandria in Egypt, and another in the ancient Greek city of Pergamum survived for many centuries.
Wisdom and Learning Move East
The fall of the Roman Empire signaled a time of decline and loss in culture that lasted for centuries. As Christianity spread in Roman territory, the Empire split into eastern and western parts.
The Latin, or western, part suffered invasions and unrest. People built castles defended by knights to protect themselves. Monks in monasteries or other church centers maintained what little learning and books were left from Roman times.
In the East, the Byzantines remained strong. They continued trade with other eastern lands. They also continued to preserve Greek learning. However, the growing power of the Church over learning and ideas caused many scholars to flee to the east toward Persia.
The Royal Academy of Jundi-Shapur especially welcomed the Christian scholars who fled there. It was at the academy that learning from India, Babylonia, the Hebrews, Greece, and even distant China came together: With the help of Persian kings, people who gathered and taught at Jundi-Shapur translated, copied, and discussed many books.
During the 600s, the Byzantines also fell into wars with Persia. Eventually, both empires lost much or all of their territory to a third new ruling group: the Muslims.
A Pan-Faith Tradition of Learning
The rise of Islam in the 6th century resulted in the formation of a new empire and world civilization. The Muslims rapidly expanded their territory from humble beginnings in Arabia. And, by the 700s, the Muslims governed lands stretching from Spain to the borders of China.
There is an old story that Muslims destroyed the famous library of Alexandria out of ignorance of its value. However, Islamic teachings place a high value on learning. Historians agree that early Muslims were very open to accepting the religions and cultural heritage of lands newly under their rule.
Since then, the tale has been proven false. In fact, the library had been destroyed centuries earlier. What's more, the Abbasid Muslim rulers ordered translations to be made of the works at Jundi-Shapur and other places. They left the Academy of Jundi-Shapur intact and later added to its treasures.
This translation and preservation effort is an important example of religious and cultural cooperation: Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together to help translate these books into Arabic.
During this time, Muslims also were introduced to Indian mathematics, including Hindi numerals called Arabic numerals today. Literature, music, and decorative arts were part of this exciting period of cultural exchange as well. India brought fantastic fables, fairy tales, and stories to Jundi-Shapur, which even had knowledge from as far away as China.
http://www.islamicspain.tv/Islamic-Spain/index.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql)(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
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