Science in Islam

Science in Islam

Islamic science was in its prime during the European Middle Ages, between the 9th and the 13th centuries, particularly in the brilliant period of the Abbasid caliphate from the 9th century to the 11th. A considerable degree of education and scientific knowledge existed on many levels of Islamic society. At the time of the Crusades, for instance, the Islamic knights could read and write, skills which were exceptional among their Western opponents. However, the encouragement of science and art was mainly the province of the courts, from the caliphate in Baghdad down to the residences of local governors and minor regional potentates. Many a second-tiered ruler made his court an important center of science and art, the best example being the Spanish taifa rulers of the 11th century. All the major philosophers and scientists of the Islamic world spent at least some time at such a court. They not only received money from open-minded and interested rulers, but were often appointed as their political advisers.


The sciences of Islam, particularly the so- called exact or natural sciences in the widest sense, had from time immemorial taken as their unquestioned authorities (together with the religious sources of the Koran and the Hadiths) the writers of Greek antiquity, more particularly the philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, to whom every scientist referred in one way or another. Another authority was the physician Galen. Contrary to what is generally thought in the West, where the achievements of Arab and Persian science are seen as consisting almost exclusively in the preservation and transmission of the inheritance of classical antiquity, these scholars adopted an intellectually original and independent approach to the texts of antiquity; the Greek inheritance was not simply copied and read, but revised, brought into line with the requirements of Islamic culture (and religion), supplemented, and expanded.


A striking feature is the universal erudition of Islamic scientists. The thinkers of the early period were almost all trained physicians and recognized medical authorities. They were also skilled astronomers, and developed complex philosophical systems based largely on the natural sciences, but they also tried to reconcile and interrelate religion and science, not a contradiction in terms in the Islamic concept of reason. Many of them also produced travel writings and autobiographies, and experimented with alchemy, particularly in the manufacturing of precious metals. In each of these areas they wrote a great deal and compiled extensive collections, taught students, gave lectures,and enriched the libraries of their princely patrons. Many scientific terms and names of plants and spices reached the European languages by way of Arabic or Persian. These words include alchemy, algebra, alcohol, amulet, caliber, carat, chemistry, cipher, elixir, magazine, mummy, sugar, talisman, and zenith. Expansion of the trade and travel routes of the Islamic world also ensured the extensive distribution of scholarship and written works.



Philosophy and the caliph’s dream

Philosophy and all the other sciences received their first major boost under the scholarly Caliph al-Mamun (813—833) and his direct successors. Al-Mamun made the rationalistic faith of the Mutazilites the state religion, allowing philosophy to free itself from its subservience to theology. This encouraged an interest in the thinking of classical antiquity by announcing that a dignified old man had appeared to him in a dream, identified himself as Aristotle, and that he had expounded the nature of good on a basis of philosophical doctrine (rather than divine revelation).The first major philosopher of Islam was al-Kindi (c. 800—870), a descendant of a distinguished family, who took Platonic thinking as his point of departure, argued for the acceptance of causality, and also wrote over 200 works on subjects ranging from philosophy, medicine, mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, and music. He was also politically influential as the tutor of princes at the court of Caliph al-Mutasim, where he introduced arithmetic using Indian numerals. Al-Farabi (C. 870—950), who bore the honorific title of ”second teacher” (that is to say, second only to Aristotle) and was active at the court of the Hamdanids of Aleppo, combined Aristotelian thinking with neo-Platonism, and confidently stated that philosophy held the primacy over theology. In his book, The Model State, he sets out the pattern of an ethical and rational ideal state, ruled by a philosopher king who also has some of the characteristics of an Islamic prophet.


One of the most important Islamic polymaths was lbn Sina of Bukhara (C. 980—1037), known in the West as Avicenna. He worked to compile a detailed collection of all the knowledge of his time, wrote works on philosophy, astronomy, grammar, and poetry, and was regarded as one of the most outstanding physicians of his day. He also wrote a remarkable autobiography, and held important political offices at various princely courts. In his major work, The Book of the Cure (of the Soul), he combines metaphysics and medicine with logic, physics, and mathematics. His compendium of medicine was regarded as a standard work in Europe as well as the Islamic countries until the early modern period. Avicenna’s contemporary al-Biruni (973—1048),who came by adventurous ways to the court of the Ghaznavids Mahmud and Masud, and
remained bound to it for the rest of his life in a curious love-hate relationship, proposed strong links between philosophy and astronomy in his book Gardens of Science. He accompanied Mahmud of Ghazna on Indian military campaigns, and wrote a cultural history of the Indian world.


Ibn Tufail (c. 1115—1185), who enjoyed the protection of the Almohads, was an original thinker. His work, The Living One, Son of the Watcher (God), tells the story of an Islamic Robinson Crusoe who is cast up on a desert island, where he comes to an understanding of the world and the nature of the One God through natural reason alone.


Philosophy in Islam reached its peak with lbn Rushd (c. 1126—1198), who was also under the protection of the Almohads,and became known in the West as Averroes. As an uncompromising champion of Aristotle, he supported the idea of the eternal existence of the world and the cosmos, which had no beginning; in his doctrine they were created by God, but developed according to their own laws. The intuitive mind, Aristotle’s nous, was a purely intellectual entity to Averroes, operating on the souls of men from outside, and he therefore rejected ideas of the continued existence and immortality of individual souls. He came into violent conflict with Islamic orthodoxy, had to face many tribunals and hearings, and often survived only because he enjoyed the protection of the Almohad rulers. The doctrine of the eternity of the world and its existence without beginning reached the West as “Latin Averroism” (its outstanding proponent was Siger of Brabant at the Sorbonne in Paris), and it was contested by the most important European thinker of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas, who himself was strongly influenced by Aristotelianism of the kind proposed by Averroes. In the Islamic world, however, orthodox and dogmatic theology clearly gained the upper hand over philosophy.


The natural sciences: astronomy, physics, and medicine

Islamic science’s special interest in astronomy was derived from the traditions inherited from old oriental religious communities, such as the Parsees, and in particular the Sabaeans of ancient Mesopotamia, whose center was in the north of Iraq and who were largely absorbed by Islam in the 11th century. Under Hellenistic influence their original Babylonian cult of the heavenly bodies had given way to monotheism, but they still retained ancient oriental knowledge of the mathematical calculation of the course of the planets. Such calculations fascinated Islamic scientists because, under Greek influence, they developed a concept of the divine architect of the universe as a great mathematician and geometrician who kept everything in order by the operation of precisely calculable laws. Astronomy and astrology were closely connected in this system of thought, and the calculation of favorable conjunctions became a politically influential field of knowledge. All the important philosophers, and many rulers, took an interest in astronomy, calculated the courses of the stars and the dimensions of the earth, forecast the weather, and predicted the state of the water supply — calculations that served very practical purposes.


The Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, for instance, made use ofthe knowledge ofthe astronomer and physicist lbn al-Haitham or Alhazen (965—after 1040), who was required to calculate the amount of water in the Nile for agricultural purposes. Alhazen is regarded as the greatest physicist of the Middle Ages, and was outstanding for his work on optics, in which he described refractions of light in calculating the earth’s distance from the stars. Al-Biruni, mentioned above, drew up very precise measurements of the earth, constructed a great globe, and made remarkable progress in the understanding of the rotation of the earth and the force of gravity. The phenomena of solar and lunar eclipses could be very precisely calculated at this time. Many astrolabes and astronomical charts, once the property of rulers well versed in astronomy, have been preserved. Outstanding among such rulers was Ulugh Beg (1 394—1449), the grandson of Timur, whose residence was in Samarqand.ln 1428/29 he had a huge observatory built with a sextant for calculating the height of the sun, and with the aid of expert astronomers, drew up the most precise astronomical charts of the Middle Ages.


Medicine was at first very closely linked to philosophy, and every Islamic thinker who was also a doctor developed theories about mankind from both a medical and a philosophical viewpoint. Hunayn ibn lshaq (808—873), an Arab Christian, had studied with Arab and Byzantine scholars and doctors, and became the most important translator into Arabic of the medical writings of classical antiquity, particularly the works of Galen. Everywhere he went on his long journeys he collected the texts of classical authors, translated them, compared them, and then wrote commentaries on them. His meticulous methodology allowed for the compilation of a medical canon with a standardized vocabulary that became the basis of medical training in the Arab countries; he himself was an excellent eye specialist, and wrote compendia describing his own medical methods. The independent-minded Persian Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865—925),also known as Rhazes in the West, organized hospitals in Baghdad and Rayy, compiled a collection of clinical cases, and thus created a great medical encyclopedia. He communicated the knowledge that it contained in his own extensive teaching activities. He championed the liberation of medical and scientific thinking from the dogmas of religion, made many experiments in alchemy, and described the symptoms of smallpox. Interestingly, he called the philosopher Socrates the “true imam” of reason, since so far, to his way of thinking, the prophets had done nothing but sow discord among mankind.


The medical schools in the Islamic world made great progress in the fields of pharmacology, infectious disease, therapeutics, and above all the treatment of eye disorders; around the year 1000 they were already successfully operating on cataracts, and also knew a great deal about the circulation of the blood, which is shown in many illustrations. Finally, the physician lbn an-Nafis discovered pulmonary circulation through his understanding of the impermeability of the membrane of the heart. Many Islamic rulers founded large hospitals that took patients from all walks of life and nursed them around the clock. There were also special hospitals for the” care of lunatics,” with trained staff.


The compendia of lbn lshaq, Rhazes, Avicenna, and other scholars reached Europe by way of southern Italy and Andalusia. Avicenna’s Canon Medicinae, in particular, became a major textbook of Western medical schools. Arab physicians thus not only handed on the knowledge of classical antiquity, but were the direct forerunners of medical progress in Europe from the Renaissance.

Literature in Islam

Literature


As in many cultures, literature, in the classical centuries of Islam, mostly in Arabic and Persian, was a major source of inspiration for the arts. Most of it was highly secular in mood and subject matter, although, especially in the case of Persian lyrical poetry, mystical thoughts and attitudes can be clearly detected, just as poetry itself had an impact on the symbolism of mystical writing. The ways in which literature inspired the acts can be discussed in three different ways.


The first, and most obvious one, is iconographic. Literary subjects inspired artists working in many different media (ceramics. wall painting, metalwork, even textiles), while, from the 12th century onward, book illustration became a significant artistic activity. The variety of genres illustrated was considerable and only a few of the most significant examples follow. The Maqamcat (Assemblies) of al-Hariri of Basra (1054—1122), is remarkable for brilliant use of the Arabic language to recount the adventures of its cunning hero, Abu- Zaid. The illustrations of the various manuscripts, executed over a period of a century and a half, aimed to depict the stories involved, and, through them, the urban milieu in which they were supposed to have taken place. The epic Shahname (King’s Book), composed by the Persian poet Firdausi (d. 1020) around the year 1000, consists of a heroic and largely mythical history of Iran from the time of Creation to the beginning of Islam. Its many stories of kings, warriors, battles. feasts, and love lent themselves to illustrations, of which hundreds have survived from the end of the 13th century onward. Most of them exhibit a dramatic mood and a high(y symbolic rendering. The Indian animal fables Kalila wa—Dimoa (Kalila and Dimna), translated in the 8th century from Persian into Arabic by Ibn al-Muqaffa, are in fact a “Mirror of Princes” used for the moral and political edification of rulers, but they contain wonderful anecdotes, which arc illustrated in Persian as well as Arabic manuscripts. And, as a final example, one most mention Persian lyrical poetry, especially the beautiful romances known as the Khamsa (Qoinret) composed c. 1200 by the poet Nizami (d. 1209), From the end of the 14th century, these were often illustrated, as were also, hot mote rarely, the poems of the Persian Hafez (d. 1389). Histories were occasionally illustrated, although, for the most part, they hardly qualify as literature; several examples exist of illustrations provided for the moralizing stories of the mystic poet Saadi (1219—1292). Enormous variations exist between these texts and the ways in which they were illustrated, As a general rule, imagery was created which directly reflected the written content hot, over the centuries, complex relationships developed between images relating to different texts. Most of this iconography was restricted to books until fairly lace in the 17th century, and, except for the epic stories of the Shahoame, there is little evidence that it was used in wall painting or in other forms of decoration. Altogether, although not as varied nor as huge as the repertoires found in Christian, Buddhist, or Hindu arc, the primarily secular vocabulary of Islamic painting provides examples illustrating a vast range of historical, legendary, and romantic events.


The second way in which literature inspired the arcs is more interesting than a simple recital of topics. As early as the last decade of the 12th century (at least insofar as preserved examples are concerned), literary works were used to express messages other than simply the illustration of a story. Many manuscripts were provided with frontispieces and dedications intended to reflect the glory of ruling princes. They could also be used as lessons in statesmanship, and, in many instances, served as ways co recollect. and to interpret, contemporary events through

references to past heroes. Satire could also be a feature, as in 13th-century Arabic, some 15th-century Iranian manuscripts, and, especially, from the 17th century onward, in the depiction of individuals. It is possible to argue that, as literature inspired paintings, it also used

paintings to make itself more immediately responsive to the pressures of any one time. Painting permitted constant aggiornamento, and thus the continuing relevance of literature.

The deep involvement of both Persian and Arabic speakers in their literature affected art in yet another way. As early as the 9th century, debates and discussions arose on literatary topics, the qualities of poets or writers, and the hierarchy of the genres they used. Literary criticism became the subject of theoretical analysis, and, of endless debates. Some of this analysis, such as that of al-Jurjani in the 11th century dealing with semantics or with metaphors and their psychological effect, or of Ibn al-Rami in the 15th century aiming to define beauty by describing ideal women, can be used to understand art. Just as with philosophy and the natural sciences, it is unlikely that many of these often abstruse theories of literature were commonly held or even known to the general public. Their existence in written works is, however, certain, and through them it is possible to imagine the critical climate within which art was created.


A word should, finally, be added about a literary genre which, mostly, emerged after the 15th century, and, apparently, was restricted to the Iranian world. As exemplified by Safavid artists like Qadi Ahmad, Dust Muhammad, and Sadiqi Beg, the artist’s autobiography is the most important factor for understanding Persian painting. Such personal artistic statements became particularly common in the Moghul period in India, where the memoirs of rulers, like the Babur-name (Book of Babur), in which the emperor Babur recounts the story of his life and his opinions on nearly everything, are essential in constructing the framework within which the arts can be understood.

Islamic attitudes to art

Islamic attitudes to art

Over the centuries, many different attitudes toward the arts came to light within the vast Islamic world and it is altogether impossible to talk of a single set of principles that determined the course of artistic development. But it is possible to argue that Islam’s initial

revelation, the Koran, contains passages anU points of view on which attitudes to the arts could be, and often were, based. Many of them acquired different interpretations over the centuries and it should some day be possible to sketch out a history of their use.

There are, first of all, references to categories of manufacture and of construction. One set of examples involves concrete and unique items, all of which relate to Solomon, the King-Prophet whose patronage of works of art was legendary and whose artisans were usually the no less legendary jinns. He ordered the making of a fountain of molten brass, a Muslim adaptation of the celebrated Brazen Sea in Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, as described in the Old Testament (Koran 34. 12). Then, the jinns manufactured for him maharib (pl. of mihrab), statues, cooking vessels, and tableware (34. 13). The word mihrab reappears several times in the Koran; it had several meanings before becoming attached primarily to a niche in the back of the mosque, about which more will be said further on. Essentially it means a place of honor, but it is difficult to’ know exactly what was meant in the context of this passage. The interesting point about some of these items made by the jinns is that they arc very practical, almost of daily use, and could be related to the great originality of later Islamic art which developed a devotion to the beautification of common objects: plates, ewers, candlesticks, pen boxes, and so forth. Just as Solomon had done, it was proper to give attention to one’s man-made surroundings.

Another passage dealing with Solomon is more complicated. In order to test the Queen of Sheba, and ultimately to demonstrate his superiority over her, Solomon orders the construction of a sarh covered with or built of slabs of glass or of crystal (27. 45). The exact meaning of the word sarh is the subject of much controversy and it may be easier to think of it as some sort of constructed space, without trying to be more precise. The peculiarity of whatever it is that Solomon built is that it is supposed to be interpreted by the Queen of Sheba as a body of water, as something different from what it really is. The pious implications of the story need not concern us here, but what is important is that a work is manuflsctured in order to create an illusion of reality. Two aspects of the story are pertinent to Islamic attitudes toward the arts, in parrsal contradiction with each other. One is that a work of art is something to wonder about, to be amazed by; it belongs to the category of wondrous things that became known as the ajaib (pl. of ajib, “wonderful” or “astonishing”), a term used constantly to praise manufactured items of all sorts. The other implication is that a work of art is a falsehood, a lie, because it gives you the impression of something that it is not. It can be seen, therefore, as reprehensible, and some Muslim thinkers, even in our own time, continue to argue this point.


Individual passages such as this one will continue to be studied and discussed for various interpretations regarding the values, and even the validity, of art in Islamic culture. But one issue dominates all discussions of Muslim attitudes toward the arts: the reptesentation of living beings. In the Koran itself, there is no formal statement opposing such representations and there is a general consensus that what can be called the Muslim “aniconism” (as opposed to iconoclasm,” implying the violent destruction of images, something which happened only rarely, and mostly in later times) was a reluctance to use such images in the face of the rich religious imagery found in the Mediterranean area and Iran or, later, India and Central Asia. Initially this reluctance was social and psychological rather than ideological, but, over the centuries, it acquired intellectual and theological justification, and used various Koranie passages an doctrines to do so. There was, in particular, the passage which relates how Jesus gave life to the effigy of a bird as a miracle showing that Cod alone has the power to bestow life (3. 47—49). The unique omnipotence of God is an essential feature of Islam and one of irs corollaries is the absolute opposition to idols (for instance 6. 74). The artistic representation of life was seen as idolatry and eventually considered sinful by most theologians. According to many traditions, artists would be expected, on the day of the Last Judgment, to put life into their creation and to be tossed into the fire of hell when they fail to do so.

This prohibition was, of course, loosely applied, and many a treatise argued matters differently. Yet, it did affect Islamic art in several ways. The faith itself could not be expressed through images and, thus, piety had to find other ways to be shown visually, sr least in more formal art; one way, as has been argued by many, was through writing and the promotion of calligraphy to a sort of sacred art form. Another effect may well have been the importance taken by secular arts, especially artisanal ones, during centuries when, almost everywhere else, religious art dominated. And, perhaps mote importantly, sacred writings did not become a continuous source of inspiration for attists. There are exceptions, no doubt, especially after the 13th century and in the Iran-influenced world, or in folk art. But they are, for the most part, tare, and the expression of the faith did not form s major aspect of Islamic art outside architecture and calligraphy.


Two last themes affecting Islamic art from the very beginning deserve mention. One is the very vivid, visual, and often very precise, descriptions of Paradise, with its gardens, fountains, and pavilions. It is possible that these descriptions and evocations had an almost immediate impact on the decorative arts of the Muslims and some have argued that the mosaic decoration of the Great Mosque in Damascus of the early 8th century included a represenration of that Muslim Paradise. And Paradise is forcefully evoked in the gatdens of 17th-century Mughal India. Whether or nor the theme has always been present when scholars saw it is a matter of debate, but its existence throughout Islamic art is certain. Then, more recently, some architects sod urban designers from the Muslim world have argued that, by making man his vice-regent on earth, a central theme of the Koran, God has entrusted the earth to man. As a result, the preservation of nature in a healthy state is parr of the Muslim message, and several attempts have been made in recent years to design houses, urban complexes, even whole cities in terms of respect for the environment as inspired by the faith.

Art and Culture in the Islamic World

Art and Culture in the Islamic World

The presence of art — that is to say, of techniques beautfying man’s surroundings and of the evaluation of things made or built by and for society or individuals — is generally assumed for all coltores. And in each place this art has been affected by ideological, social, religious, historical, or geographical constraints; this explains why individual civilizations have artistic traditions which differ from each other. Islamic culeore is, of course, no exception, and this chapter will elaborate on a few of these constraints.

Firstly, there are the complex ways in which Islamic culture recognized, accepted, or rejected the historical past in inherited or conquered regions. A second constraint consists of features imposed or implied by the new faith; although interpreted differently over the centuries, these are altogether permanent and constant characteristibs of Islamic civilization. The special aae of the mosque, which was not technically a requirement of the faith at its inception but which became a constantly evolving requirement and sign of Muslim presence, is a third example of a particularly Islamic development and constraint. The last two constraints that developed derived from particularly original features of Islamic culture. One is the encounter of the new faith with the ancient philosophy of classical Greece, and with the mathematics, technology, and natural sciences available in the Mediterranean world in late antiquity, in Iran, in India, and even in China. This occurred first in Baghdad, the center of Muslim thought and rule, and then expanded slowly and eventually, nearly everywhere in the region. The other is the character of the literature created in the Islamic world. Like all literatures of this time, it was meant both to edifr and to please. In the forms it developed in Iran from the 12th century onwards, it was a literature of universally effective lyricism and had a considerable impact on the arts.


Muslim thought and the literature of Muslim lands are but two of several social and cultural constraints influencing the arts: possibly the only ones which have affected the whole Muslim world. Other constraints, for instance

Early Arabian art

Islam was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad in western Arabia in the early 7th century. Later Muslim historiography defined this peri as a “time of ignorance” (the jahilsya), in the primary sense of a spiritually unenlightened period, but also as a time of relatively limited cultural achievement. This was always, however, with the exception of poetry, which became an exemplar both for its themes and for its forms. ‘Whether western Arabia was indeed at this time in a state of cultural and artistic poverty is a matter of some debate. Few artistic remains are directly connected with the area, and only the site of al-Faw in Saudi Arabia has been excavated, partly at least. Luxury and other manufactured items, such as they existed, were, for the most part, imported from elsewhere, primarily Egypt and the Mediterranean, but also India, which was much involved in the Arabian trade. Architecture was hardly present in terms of major monuments, but the societies of western Arabia, nomadic and settled, did possess spatial concepts, as illustrated by a rich vocabulary dealing with boundaries between different kinds of places and with permanent or ephemeral sacred enclosures. And the Kaaba in Mecca, which became the holiest spot in Islam, the direction (qibla) towards which all Muslims pray and the goal of the pilgrimage (haj)) is a pre-Islamic sanctuary that had been used for centuries by pagan tribes. Although occasionally modified, its basic shape was the same; before Islam, the practice of covering it with an expensive cloth accent its use as a shrine for idols and a focus for all the religions of the Arabian Peninsula.

Other parts of the vast Arabian world had an often brilliant artistic history. Nor much is left of it in Yemen, except for remote temples and spectacular irrigation works used to control the flow of an often unpredictable water supply. Medieval sources often described the tall buildings of that land, and the memory of their sculpted decoration, for instance roaring lions on top of buildings, entered the realm of myth and fantasy. The most spectacular and best-known pre-Islamic Arabian cultures were those of the Nabaraeans, centered on Petra in Jordan, and of Palmyra, farther north; both are now celebrated tourist attractions.


These Arab kingdoms left a major architectural tradition, strongly influenced by Hellenistie and Roman imperial models and practices, and, especially in Palmyra, impressive sculpture in temples and, above all, neeropolises. Even though the remains of Nabataean and Palmyran art must have been even more spectacular in the Middle Ages than they are today, there is practically no acknowledgment of the existence of that art in medieval Islamic written sources and very little in artistic remains. Here and there for instance in the sculpture of the Umayyad palace of Qasr al-Hair al-Gharbi in the Syrian steppe — the impact of neighboring Palmyra is clear and some have argued that certain features of early Islamic representational art — deeply drilled eyes in sculpture and lack of facial expression in paintings — should be related to the styles and techniques of these early Arabian kingdoms. But, outside of the obvious example of Qasr al-Hair al-Gharbi, the relationship, while nor impossible, is difficult to demonstrate. It seems, then, proper to eunelude that the great and original Arabian cultures that developed in the north of the Arabian Peninsula, between Syria and Iraq, under the aegis of the Hellenisrie and Roman empires, were indeed barely present, if not wilfully obliterated, in the collective memory of traditional Islam.


This is not so in the instance of two tribal Arabian kingdoms, those of the Lakhmids and the Ghassanids, which flourished during the centuries before Islam in the steppe borderlands of Iraq, Syria, and Palestine, respectively. They are usually remembered for their role as client states of Byzantium and Sassanian Iran, protecting each empire from the other. However they were also significant cultural entities of their own with a considerable impact on the following centuries, if not necessarily during their flowering in the 5th and 6th centuries. The Lakhmid palace of Khawarnaq in southern Iraq remained as a monument of fabled luxury even in much later Persian poetry. The first steps towards a differentiated Arabic script took place under the aegis of the same dynasty, while the Ghassanids sponsored the construction of many building in Syria, one of which, an audience hall, still stands in Rusafa, in the northern Syrian steppe, and includes an inscription in Greek celebrating the king al-Mundhir.


Altogether, the Arabian past seems to have played a relatively small
role in the development of Islamic art, especially if forms are considered exclusively. Its importance was greater in the collective memories it created and in the Arabic vocabulary for visual identification it provided for future generations. It is, of course, true that the vast peninsula has not been as well investigated as it should be and that surprises may well await archeologists in the future. At this stage of scholarly knowledge, however, it is probably fair en say that Islam’s Arabian past, essential for understanding the faith and its practices, and the Arabic language and its literature, is not as important for the forms used by Islamic art as the immensely richer world, from the Atlantic Ocean to Central Asia. Taken over by Islam In the 7th and 8th centuries. Even later, after centuries of independent growth, new conquests in Anatolia or India continued to bring new local themes and ideas into the mainstream of Islamic art. It is only today, inline with national aspirations for traditions related to a land as much as to a culture, that interest in the pre-Islamic monuments of Arabian history has increased.

The rock tombs of Petra, Jordan
Petra was one of the most important regions in the ancient Arabian cultural area,and from the 4th century B.C. was at the center of the old Arabian kingdom of the Nabataeans,who made it a flourishing commercial market,and controlled a large part of the”lncense Road.” They thus profited from the trade between the Greeks, Medes, Persians, and Egyptians, and set up many depositories to protect their goods. In the 2nd century b.c. they extended their rule to Syria and Palestine, but were defeated in AD. 106 by the emperor Trajan, and the area became a province of the Roman Empire. Characteristic evidence of Nabataean culture exists in the multistory temples and tombs built into the rock walls of Petra, and in Aramaic inscriptions on stones. Petra lay forgotten for a long time, and was not rediscovered by archeologists until the beginning of the tsth century.

Donate for encourage Now

“Oriental despotism” forms of government in the region

Stela of an ancient Arabian deity
Tunis, Bardo Museum


The period in which the population of Arabia was polytheistic in Islam, is called the “time of ignorance.” The ancient Arabian pantheon contained a great number of gods and goddesses, and worship of the heavenly bodies — the sun, moon, and evening star — was originally a major part of the religion. In Mecca, the moon god Hubal was venerated as the god of the city, as a tribal god, and as “lord of the house” (that is, the Kaaba(. Three female deities were also worshipped: al-Uzza (Venus, or the evening star), al-Lat (the moon goddess), and Manat (the goddess of fate). They were also called “daughters of Allah,” that is, the greatest god. Muhammad’s struggle against ancient Arabian polytheism went through severa

“Oriental despotism” forms of government in the region

The “irrigation states,” a term u6d for the early advanced civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, had in common, as the earliest development of a logical concept of the stare, the form of government described by K. A.Wittfogel as “Oriental despotism.” Many institutions found in early Islamic kingdoms can be interpreted as descended from and succeeding ancient oriental forms of government and administration. This is especially true of the centralized rule of the caliphs, more particularly in the caliphate of the Abbasids.


These states shared a common interest in the extensive exploitation of water and the local inundations that left the fertile mud of the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Tigris behind when they receded. Artificial irrigation by canals rivers and the system left behind of dam-building under the centralized administration, were pre-conditions of the prosperous agrarian culture that went hand in hand with such methods. The basis of the economy of these states was self-sufficiency, social division of labor and the performance of compulsory services, and technical progress, rapid at first, later stagnating to an increasing extent, particularly in the development of tools.


Within these states, the outcome was the construction of central cities, protected by the army, with strict urban administration, and large markets in which to trade goods such as pottery and craft products were bought and sold, while rigorous police supervision guaranteed public order and the security of commercial dealings. Class societies developed on the basis of small patriarchal family and professional distinctions, and thus urban and middle classes and upper classes formed. Urban administration was the task of professional civil servants organized in a strict and official hierarchy of well-defined areas of responsibility: in essence a fully fledged bureaucracy. Administration and legislation were centralized and a precisely adjusted system of taxation governed the distribution of goods, and there was constant expansion of the supply and exploitation of cultivated plants, although the keeping of livestock was hardly practiced at all, and was essentially the prerogative of the ruling class.


Political rule was based on theocratic foundations: the sovereign was sacrosanct because of his supposed function of mediating with the divine powers, which he demonstrated at the celebration of urban religious events, through the ceremonial calendar, and as a leader in war. He was usually regarded as the son in the divine hierarchy, and in line with ideas of religious absolutism, his rule was considered cosmic law. God-kings or priest-kings ruled the Egyptians and Sumerians. Divine worship in temples and the presence of palaces made the capitals of these kingdoms national centers. The temples also served as granaries for the storage of provisions, and goods were often directly distributed by the administrative staff of the temple, an office which increased their power. Luxury surrounded rulers, magnificent buildings, and an increasingly complex court ceremonial. As a result, they became more and more remote from the common people, while their bodyguards and close advisers gained increasing political power. A strictly organized army, quartered in barracks and divided into infantry and cavalry (or the drivers of war chariots), provided the ruler with a military fighting power that could be mobilized at any Lime to enforce his claims to dominion.


Early ideas and innovations in the sciences inclined strongly toward their practical and technological aspects: hydraulic engineering, the development of weapons of war, mathematics, geometry, astronomy, medicine, and magic were the subjects of predominant or sole interest. Common features of the states ruled by oriental despotism were economic prosperity, usually considerable, together with ever-increasing stagnation in the field of social policy.

Donate for encourage Now

The Arab cultural area — ancient Arabia and its cultural development

The Arab cultural area — ancient Arabia and its
cultural development


The Arabian Peninsula has a long tradition of settlement, although research into the subject has only just begun, since archeologists have excavated relatively few sites. Ancient Arabian culture is best documented in the Hadramawt and the rbst of the Yemen, and in the south Arabian Peninsula, where mighty buildings or their ruins and the sites of fortresses testif’ to the splendor of the ancient Arabian Mina kingdom (4th—ist centuries B.C.) with its center of Qatnawu, Qatabanian kingdom (5th—lat centuries B.C.), and Sabaean kingdom (10th century B.C.—3td century AD.). Traces of early civilizations can also be found in the Arabian Peninsula that reveal influences from the Fertile Crescent.


The Arabian Peninsula comprises an area of 1.2 million square miles (3 million square kilometers), but it was, and still is, only sparsely populated because of its vast areas of desert. In the north, ancient Arabia shared a border with Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), and in the south it met the Indian Ocean. Monsoon rain from the sea fell on the mountain ranges in the south of the peninsula, making the Yemen and Oman fertile regions which have been permanently settled since very early times: the mountain slopes here were tercaced and supplied with water by highly developed irrigation systems, and as a result extensive arable farming could develop. In the desert, on the other hand, there arc only a few isolated fertile oases with date palms and sparse grazing for the nomads’ herds. Rainfall is also very irregular above the mountains in the south, and there are prolonged periods of drought.


From early times, consequently, there was a great gulf between the sedentary, prosperous Arabs of the south and the impoverished seminomsds of the desert, although the latter profited by the through traffic of caravans. The pcosperous southern Arabs fitted out merchant ships, made good use of the monsoon winds, and engaged in flourishing foreign trade, particularly with the Malabar coast of India, the Mesopotamian kingdoms to the northeast, and the kingdom of Egypt in the northwest (fitsc mentioned in the records in 2100 B.c.). The goods tcaded wete chiefly spices and incense. The camel catavans of the “Incense Road,” as it is called, which had ttading intersections distributed over the entice Arabian Peninsula, also brought a certain prosperity to the semi- nomadic caravan traders, certain desert cities and oases, and so to the northern regions. Arabia thus became the hub of trade between east and west at an early period, and exerted significant influence on the cultural development of the Mediterranean area.


In the 6th centory B.C., Arabia was regarded as part of the Persian kingdom of the Achaemenid dynasty, which founded the province of Arabiya in 539 B.C. Thereafter, southern Arabia saw the rise of a great number of kingdoms, most of them on the western coast. On the border with Palestine lay the kingdom of the Nabaraeans of Petra, whose cultural wealth was founded on trade; art was in its prime there between the 4th century B.C. and the 1st century AD. When the region was annexed by the Roman Empire in 106, it achieved great prosperity under the relatively mild rule of its Roman overlords. The best-known example is probably the semi-independent kingdom of Palmyra, although it overestimated its power when in the 3rd century, under Queen Zenobia, it challenged Rome and was crushed by the emperor Aurelian. After profiting from the extension and improvement of the trade routes carried our by the Roman administration, Arabia found itself increassngly positioned between two hostile fronts, as the great powers of Rome, and later Byzantium, opposed their adversaries, the newly strengthened Persian kingdoms of the Sassanians and Parthians.


After the 4th and 5th centuries AD, a certain military stalemate set in. Both great powers — Byzantium and the Sassasian Persians — were anxious to create buffer states ruled by Arab vassals, who w’ to perform military service for their overlords, in exchange for cultural independence under their protection. On the Persian side, those involved were the Lakhmida, with Hira, their capital, near Kufa, and on the Byzantine side, the Christian Ghassanids, with their capital Basra. The Arab tribes on both sides learned a great deal about the techniques of warfare and fortification from these great powers, and acquired knowledge that would be of significance later on for the military successes of Muhammad and early Islam.


Donate for encourage Now

Islam-World religion and Cultural Power

Literally, Islam means “devotion to God,” more specifically to Allah, the One God. Those who practice such devotion and submit themselves to the will of Allah, are Muslims.
The profession of belief in the One God and in Muhammad as his Prophet, to whom God has revealed his message for mankind — as it is described in the’ Koran, the holy book of Islam — unites Muslims throughout the world. Obedience to the five main duties, or “pillars” of Islam, and the use of classical - Arabic for all religious purposes, form the religious bond of the Muslim community. Islam means being aware of the omnipresence of God, in whose hands human beings place themselves and in whose mercy they trust, knowing God to be just and compassionate. Mankind is capable of acting for itself only if God wills oc allows such action. Islam is the youngest world religion (although it actually regards itself as a revival of an ancient monotheistic religion that had existed from very ancient times). Its early success and the speed with which it spread even ‘to non-Arab cultures immediately after the death of Muhammad, make it unique in religious history. Within the bond of a common religion, many distinctive local, cultural and ethnic features developed quite early, since Islam constantly absorbed ele- nts of the cultures it had conquered or converted. There were also recurrent episodes of religious schism, the most important and far-reaching being the split between Shiites and Sunnis. To that extent, Islam may be described as “diversity wrihin unity.” Between the Maghreb in the west, parts of China and Southeast Asia in the east, the entire Arab and Persian area, and parts of northern Africa • the south, as well as an increasingly strong presence in Europe, Islamic culture is a combination of unity and variety, which keeps it dynamic and alive, ping it a prominent position among the religions and cultures of the world

Donate for encourage Now