27
February 2007
The death of common sense!!
The
strange logic of Taliben or Janjaweeds of killing their own if they dont get
hold of their enemy defies basic common 
sense.
A
purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said Cheney was the target of
the attack, which Ahmadi said was carried out by an Afghan called Mullah Abdul
Rahim from Logar province.
"We
knew that Dick Cheney would be staying inside the base," Ahmadi told AP
telephone from an undisclosed location. "The attacker was trying to reach
Cheney."
"We
maintain a high-level of security here at all times. Our security measures were
in place and the killer never had access to the base," said Lt. Col. James
E. Bonner, the base operations commander. "When he realized he would not
be able to get onto the base, he attacked the local population."
Khan
Shirin, a private security guard, sobbed near the body of his relative, Farvez,
a truck driver and the representative of transport association that hauls goods
for the base. Shirin said many of the people killed were truck drivers waiting
to get inside.
Ajmall,
a shopkeeper, said the "huge" blast shook a small market where he has
a stall about 500 yards from the Bagram base. Ajmall, who goes by one name,
said those wounded were taken inside the U.S. base for treatment.
Those
killed and maimed by extremists are cared by US base that was the very target
is the basic reason behind the Rise and fall and present day Islamic apathy.
Talebin seems to have forgotten and missed the lessons from the disasters when
400 years of renaissance was nipped in the bud by the same kind of reasoning.
It is forgotten that the
Prophet Mohammad declared that 'The ink of the scholar is more precious than
the blood of the martyr.'
Failed
Islamic revolutions in Iran, Afghanistan have bewildered the Islamic world
which is going through a shock therapy at its fringes with fragmentation
process and failed nation states, foremost amongst mentioned was Afghanistan,
hypocritically representing a Taliban model of "successful" welfare
state; implementing true Islam, where women were let to die during breached
pregnancies in the absence of female doctors (which are very few), as male
doctors were prohibited to perform caesarian sections on female patients.
Is
Islam about public flogging, or hand chopping, denial of basic human rights to
women and all human beings, and above all, denial of inquiry into human thought
processes? The extremist fringe has mutilated the true picture of Islam and its
historical benevolence and patronage of culture and science. The recent tragic
experience of Islamic revolutions with Shia centric and Sunni centric
ideologies at each other's throats has now spilled over to Iraq. The two accuse
each other of revisionism with both proclaiming to be the standard-bearers of
Islam. In a full turn of events the tragedy is now being unfolded in Iraq, the
hatred of 1400-year-old schism between Shiite and Sunni Islam is devouring the
children of Islam at Godspeed. The exported revolution envisaged by 'Imam of
Iran' only produced a counter-revolution that brought the 'Sheikh of Yemen'
with its own fiery brand of orthodox Sunnis its firebrand Taleban and Wahabbi
followers ready to resist Imam's ideological export of the Iranian Shiite
revolution across the restless population of Arabian Peninsula.
Schisms
within Schisms- Little did Imam Khomieni of Iran ever realized that Akhbari
Shiites likes the ones who follow Ayatollah Sistani in Najaf may not agree to
the Usuli concepts of Iranian orthodoxy- (Akhbari a religious movement by Arab
Shiite Muslims in 17th century Iraq is opposed to the Usuli; "Akhbari
Shiism never promotes political control" on the other hand Usuli a
religious movement by Persian Shiite Muslims in 17th century Iran produced the
politically active caste of priests that is a distinctive feature of Iranian
Shiism.")
Nothing
is homogenous there are schisms within schisms, roadblocks after roadblocks the
only open road is road of blowing up the opponents. This self-imploding
phenomenon is clear indication of the death of revolutions, death never
conquers life - tolerance and progresses are two pillars through humanity have
survived through ions. The futures lies in the burial of hatred and violence,
venom cannot turn into elixir. Very few occasions in the Islamic history one
can look towards great leap forward to advancement of science and technology,
the hallmark of those centuries were tolerant and peaceful nature of the
societies.
The
fact is that the Golden Age of Islam in the first 400 years was an era, which
practiced absolutely different values, the most important being tolerance and
extension of rights to inhabitants of the conquered states. That was an era of
enlightenment that was led by scholars, scientists, and caliphs who brought
about the revival of Islamic societies from Dark Ages to a civilization that,
within a span of two hundred years, was as great, if not greater, than that of
the Byzantinians and Sasanids, the two major empires in the region.
A
true Islamic society would be a successful Islamic state. A state, which is
unable to provide its masses with basic necessities; a state, where its
citizens en masse hijack its own domestic flights to demand asylum in the West,
is a state that has failed its citizens. It is ironic that in the Golden Age of
Islam, it was the persecuted Jews and Christians who would seek refuge in
Islamic states.
A
failed state has no right to call itself an Islamic state if it has failed vis
a vis its citizens. Prosperity, health and well-being, freedom of thought and
expression (Ijtihad and Ijtima) and building of consensus are all denied in the
so-called Islamic states. The ecclesiastically-dominated societies are out on a
vendetta against mankind in the name of Islam, much like the Spanish
Inquisition, devouring and deflowering the basic moral fabric and purity of
Islamic thought process. Here we make an attempt to discover the underlying
reasons on how, from ashes of failed backward regions emerged a great
civilization, which bestowed the world with major contributions in science,
architecture and culture.
The
founding legacy of the "Golden Age" was the astonishing achievement
of Muslim scholars, scientists, craftsmen, and traders during the four hundred
years from 750 to 1150 AD. In the present milieu of intolerance, fanatical
practices and perpetual religious struggle, that era represents raison d,etre
for the preeminence of Islam in the pre-renaissance of the West. Today's
intolerance is based on heresy, fanatical Puritanism, and bigotry where modern
knowledge is scorned like, take for example, the music Internet is being banned
by Taliban as a serious encroachment on Islamic thought, th
ough
sharing of knowledge through the internet can only be a threat to a
totalitarian system like the one supported by the fundamentalists who represent
the present day graduates of "Darul Ulooms" mushrooming all over the
Islamic world and engulfing moderate reason-based Islamic thinkers. These Darul
Ulooms claim to represent real Islamic thought and movement. Such claim in
light of historical facts is devoid of the real truth. History does not support
their argument. Orthodoxy and puritanical approaches suffocated the
institutions, which fundamentally shaped four hundred years of the least
talked-about Islamic renaissance, known as the Golden Age of Islam. The present
day Darul Ulooms are directly opposite to the Darul Hukama that was at the
nucleus of the Islamic renaissance between 750-1150 AD.
The
leading lights, the scientists, the philosophers, the thinkers, of the Islamic
renaissance were all declared heretics by the then prevalent orthodoxy.
Science, logic and philosophy were considered to be disharmonious to Islam. The
fact of the matter is that preeminence of Islam, where Islam reinvigorated life
in intellectually-dead Arabian Peninsula and southern Europe, was based on
institutions like Darul Hukama (Bayt al-Hikmah House of Wisdom), founded by
Mamun-ar-Rashid in Baghdad, which housed some of the most eminent scholars of
the world belonging to different castes and creeds. At the same time, the Arab
civilization of Spain under Umayyads rivaled that of the Abbasid's in the East.
During the middle of the tenth century the rulers of Muslim Spain especially sponsored
scientific and astronomical studies with equal zeal.
The
revolution that established the Abbasids represented a triumph of the
Islamic-Hejazi elements within the empire. Nevertheless, Abbasid concern with
fostering eastern Islam made the new caliphs willing to borrow the methods and
procedures of statecraft employed by their Iranian predecessors. At Damascus,
the Umayyads had imitated Sasanid court etiquette, but at Baghdad, Persianizing
influences went deeper and aroused some resentment among the Arabs, who were
nostalgic for the legendary simplicity of human relations among the desert
Arabs of yore. Self-conscious schools of manners grew up in the new metropolis,
representing the competitive merits of the Arabs' or Persians' ancient ways.
The Iranian intellect played a conspicuous part in what was still an Arab
milieu. Regard for poetry -- the Arabs' vehicle
of
folk memory -- increased, and minds and imaginations were quickened. An amalgam
known as Islamic civilization was 
thus being forged in Baghdad in the 8th and 9th
centuries.
The
present day Darul Ulooms, with their theocratic based syllabus and equally
intense emphasis on "Perpetual Jihad", may need to look at the
essentials of the Golden Age of Islam. The reading of story of Ishaq from that
era may be good starting point for any modern day zealot, a young boy in
ninth-century Baghdad. Ishaq's story is what the "House of Wisdom"
was all about. More than a house, more than a library, more even than a palace,
the House of Wisdom was at the very center of the new ideas that flourished in
Baghdad. It was here that thousands of scholars gathered to read, to exchange
ideas, and to translate the dusty manuscripts that were brought by camel and
ship from all over the world. Ishaq could not understand why ancient words,
words from faraway places, could cause such excitement. Ishaq embarked on a
difficult journey seeking lost manuscripts. But it is what he discovers when he
returns that ignites his imagination and changes him forever.
Lyrical
prose and glorious illustrations capture the splendor of Baghdad when it was
the center of one of the world's great civilizations. They tell the story of
Ishaq's transformation from a bewildered young boy searching for understanding
to a brilliant scholar, the greatest translator of Aristotle, whose work
preserved Greek thought for civilizations to come. This story may help a modern
day "taleb" to understand the popular dynamics that led to knowledge
based renaissance that rose from Baghdad and Cordoba and led the world out of
intellectual darkness.
One
single factor that helped spread Islam and consolidate its roots in the newly
conquered regions, where the Arabs brought Islam, was the freedom of inquiry
and toleration of minorities. If Talibans of Afghanistan are a reference for
the conduct of fresh graduates from present day Darul Ulooms, these two factors
are sadly scorned by them.
The
territory then of the Muslim Empire encompassed present-day Iran, Syria, Iraq,
Egypt, Palestine, North Africa, Spain, and parts of Turkey and drew to Baghdad
peoples of all those lands in an unparalleled cross-fertilization of once
isolated intellectual traditions. Geographical unity, however, was but one
factor. Another was the development of Arabic, by the ninth century, into the
language of international scholarship as well as the language of the Divine
Truth. This was one of the most significant events in the history of ideas.
A
third important factor was the establishment in Baghdad of a paper mill. The
introduction of paper, replacing parchment and papyrus, was a pivotal advance
that had effects on education and scholarship as far reaching as the invention
of printing in the fifteenth century. It made it possible to put books within
the reach of everyone. Unlike the Byzantinians, with their suspicion of
classical science and philosophy, the Muslims were enjoined by the Prophet
Mohammad to "seek learning as far as China" -- as, eventually, they
did. In the eighth century, however, they had a more convenient source: the
works of Greek scientists stored in libraries in Constantinople and other
centers of the Byzantine Empire.
In
the ninth century the Caliph al-Mamun, son of the famous Harun al-Rashid, began
to tap that invaluable source. With the approval of the Byzantine emperor, he
dispatched scholars to select and bring back to Baghdad Greek scientific
manuscripts for translation into Arabic at Bayt al-Hikmah, "the House of
Wisdom." Bayt al-Hikmah was a remarkable assemblage of scholar-translators
who undertook a Herculean task: to translate into Arabic all of what had
survived of the philosophical and scientific tradition of the ancient world and
incorporate it into the conceptual framework of Islam.
An
example of graduates of that era is one the greatest scientists in the Islamic
world. He was the head librarian of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, the famous Librarian
and Mathematician, Abu Jafar-Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. From part of his
name, al-Khwarizmi, we got "algorism", then "algorithm".
The first great advance on the inherited mathematical tradition was the
introduction of "Arabic" numerals, which actually originated in India
and which simplified calculation of all sorts and made possible the development
of algebra. Islam required and demanded mathematics in examples such as
calculating the direction of Mecca, when the fasting day of Ramadan would be,
the time for prayer, and even who gets what!
The
Islamic law of inheritance depended on good knowledge of mathematics, e.g. when
a woman dies her husband receives one-quarter of her estate, and the rest is
divided among the children such that a son receives twice as much as a
daughter. However, if a legacy is left to a stranger, the division gets more
complicated. The law on legacies states that a stranger cannot receive more
than one-third of the estate without the permission of the natural heirs. If
some of the natural heirs endorse such a legacy but others do not, those who do
must between them pay, pro rata, out of their own shares, the amount by which
the stranger's legacy exceeds one-third of the estate. In any case, the legacy
to the stranger has to be paid before the rest is shared out among the natural
heirs. Al-Khwarizmi stated and solved such a problem: A woman dies leaving a
husband, a son and three daughters. She leaves (1/8 + 1/7) of her estate to a
stranger. Calculate the shares. [they need to divide the estate into 1120
shares before handing out the bequests].
In
the centuries following, Al-Khwarizmi and a succession of astrologers,
astronomers, mathematicians will have advanced the scope of algebra including
irrational coefficients and the laws of exponents. Al-Khwarizmi has solved the
quadratic equation by a method today known as completing the square. The Arabs
inherited from the Greeks the tradition that "god ever geometrizes"
(the legend is that a sign outside of Plato's Academy read, "let no one
ignorant of geometry enter here"), Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarazmi seems to
have been the first to explore their use systematically, and wrote the famous
Kitab al-Jabr wa-l-Muqabalah, the first book on algebra, a name derived from the
second word in his title. One of the basic meanings of jabr in Arabic is
"bonesetting," and Al-Khwarazmi used it as a graphic description of
one of the two operations he uses for the solution of quadratic equations. It
was Al-Khwarizmi who provided a number of rules for pi, for his readers to
choose from, but advises ..."an approximation, not the exact truth itself:
nobody can ascertain the exact truth of this and find the real circumference,
except the Omniscient: for the line is not straight so that its exact length
might be found. The best method here given is that you multiply the diameter by
three and one-seventh [the one we use today]; for it is the easiest and
quickest. Allah knows best!" Al- Khwarizmi algebraic notation was
rhetorical-prose (as was the mathematical notation of the Babylonians,
Egyptians, Greeks, and Indians).
The
scholars at Bayt al-Hikmah also contributed to geometry, a study recommended by
Ibn Khaldun, the great North African historian, because "it enlightens the
intelligence of the man who cultivates it and gives him the habit of thinking
exactly." The men most responsible for encouraging the study of geometry
were the sons of Musa ibn Shakir, al-Mamurl's court astronomer. Called Banu
Musa -- "the sons of Musa" -- these three men, Muhammad, Ahmad, and
al-Hasan, devoted their lives and fortunes in the quest for knowledge. They not
only sponsored translations of Greek works, but also wrote a series of
important original studies of their own, one bearing the impressive title:
Measurement of the Sphere, Trisection of the Angle, and Determination of Two
Mean Proportionals to Form a Single Division between Two Given Quantities. The
Banu Musa also contributed works on celestial mechanics and the atom, helped
with such practical projects as canal construction, and in addition recruited
one of the greatest of the ninth-century scholars, Thabit ibn Qurrah. Librarian
and mathematician Abu Jafar-Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi, as an
astrologer/astronomer, he cast a horoscope for the dying caliph (predicting he
would live for fifty years - he died ten days later); as a geographer (almanac
is an Arab word), he produced a much better world map than Ptolemy's; as a
mathematician, he is the first of note since the Silver Age of Greece.
Others
prominent in Islamic medicine were Yuhanna ibn Masawayh, a specialist in
gynecology and the famous Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi - known to the
West as Rhazes. According to a bibliography of his writings al-Razi wrote 184
works, including a huge compendium of his experiments, observations, and
diagnoses with the title al-Hawi, "The All-Encompassing." A
fountainhead of medical wisdom during the Islamic era, al-Razi, according to
one contemporary account, was also a fine teacher and a compassionate physician,
who brought rations to the poor and provided nursing for them. He was also a
man devoted to common sense, as the titles of two of his works suggest: The
Reason Why Some Persons and the Common People Leave a Physician Even If He Is
Clever, and A Clever Physician Does Not Have the Power to Heal All Diseases,
for That is Not within the Realm of Possibility.
The
poet and mathematician Omar Khayyam (c. 1100) was the author of this formula:
multiply half of the root by itself; add the product to the number and from the
square root of the sum subtract half the root. The remainder is the root of the
square. Omar Khayyam had made a pact with two fellow students, Nizam and
Hassan, that the first to make his fortune would help the other two. Nizam
became a grand vizier and fulfilled his obligation to the other two. Khayyam
turned down a high position in favor of mathematics, astronomy, and writing.
Hassan tried to climb to the top by murdering those above him [one of whom was
Nizam!!], from which evidently comes our word, "assassin". Khayyam,
born in Nishapur, Persia (now Iran), spent many years at the Isfahan
observatory as a sort of a chief astronomer working on calendar reform.
Al-Khwarizmi had solved the quadratic equation, but Khayyam graphically solved
the cubic equation x3 + ax = b2 an equation considered only very briefly (and
unsuccessfully) since Archimedes' time (3rd century BC). The cubic equation
will not be considered again until the Renaissance.
But
Omar Khayyam is more revered for the Rubaiyat (quatrains) of Omar Khayyam,
translated from Persian to English and introduced to the West in 1859 by Edward
Fitzgerald. Both Persian and Turkish had adopted the script and much of the
vocabulary of Arabic, the youngest of the Semitic tongues and language of the
Prophet; and poetry was Persian's purest form. The Rubaiyat is both spiritual
and earthy, expressing Khayyam's hedonism and cynicism.
The
scholars at the House of Wisdom, unlike their modern counterparts, did not
"specialize". Al-Razi, for example, was a philosopher and a
mathematician as well as a physician and al-Kindi, the first Muslim philosopher
to use Aristotelian logic to support Islamic dogma, also wrote on logic,
philosophy, geometry, calculation, arithmetic, music, and astronomy. Among his
works were such titles as: An Introduction to the Art of Music, The Reason Why
Rain Rarely Falls in Certain Places, The Cause of Vertigo, and Crossbreeding
the Dove.
Another
major figure in the Islamic Golden Age was Al-Farabi, who wrestled with many of
the same philosophical problems as Al-Kindi and wrote The Perfect City, which
illustrates to what degree Islam had assimilated Greek ideas and then impressed
them with its own indelible stamp. This work proposed that the ideal city be
founded on moral and religious principles from which would flow the physical
infrastructure. The Muslim legacy included advances in technology too. Ibn
Al-Haytham, for example, wrote The Book of Optics, in which he gives a detailed
treatment of the anatomy of the eye, correctly deducing that the eye receives
light from the object perceived and laying the foundation for modern
photography. In the tenth century he proposed a plan to dam the Nile. It was by
no means theoretical speculation; many of the dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts
constructed at this time throughout the Islamic world still survive.
The
Abbasids and Umayyads of Baghdad and Spain between 750-1200 led states whose
foundations were set on Prophet Mohammad's injunction that believed "Seek
learning though it be in China." And strict implementation of Prophet's
own words: "The ink of the scholar is more precious than the blood of the
martyr." It is a recognized fact that the scientific and philosophical
scholarship of the Greeks and Persians had been lost to the West but was
introduced to European intellectual life via the Islamic world in Baghdad and
Spain.
The
work of Newton would have been inconceivable without Muslim mathematics and
navigational instruments, such as the astrolabe, made possible the great
voyages of discovery by European explorers. At its peak about one thousand
years ago, the Muslim world made a remarkable contribution to science, notably
mathematics and medicine. Baghdad, in its heyday, and southern Spain built
universities to which thousands flocked. Rulers surrounded themselves with
scientists and artists. A spirit of freedom allowed Jews, Christians, and
Muslims to work side by side. The spadework done by the scholars of the House
of Wisdom provided the foundation by which the stately edifice of Islamic learning
was built. From time to time, as the world turns, something different happens,
something mysterious and astonishing. Ideas brush against one another and
sparks fly! It can happen anywhere, anytime. It happened in Baghdad a thousand
years ago. Lyrical prose and glorious illustrations capture the splendor of
Baghdad when it was the center of one of the world's great civilizations.
Philosophical inquiry was developed out of the need for precision about the
meaning of Holy Writ and for the establishment of the authenticity of the
Prophet's dicta, collected as hadiths, or sayings traditionally ascribed to
him, and recollected and preserved for posterity by his companions.
Muslims
preserved the Greek legacy, translating everything they could find from Greek
to Arabic. When Europe began to awaken in the early 2nd millennium, recognizing
that all scientific works were written in Arabic, several European universities
and schools, including those at Toledo, Narbonne, Naples, Bologna and Paris,
taught Arabic to speed up the transmission of Muslim knowledge. One of the
first Christians to see the light was a Pope, Sylvester II (Gerbert), who
introduced the Islamic astronomy and mathematics. Soon these works were
translated into Latin. Hisab was one of the first such, and it was used as a
text in Europe until the 16th century.
Baghdad,
the Fairy City of the Arabian Nights and capital of the famous Harun-ar-Rashid,
the greatest emperor of his time, had the distinction of being the foremost
centre of art and culture during medieval times. Renowned scholars and
translators, artists and scientists flocked to this great metropolis from all
parts of the world and adorned the learned assemblies of Harun and Mamun, who,
besides being celebrated scholars themselves, were the greatest patrons of
learning that the world has ever known. The caliphate of Mamun, undoubtedly
constitutes the most glorious epoch in Islamic history and has rightly been
called the "Augustan age of Islam". "The twenty years of his
reign" says Ameer Ali, "have left enduring monuments of the
intellectual development of the Muslim in all directions of thought. Their
achievements were not restricted to any particular branch of science or
literature, but ranged over the whole course of the domain of intellect; speculative
philosophy and 'belles lettres' were cultivated with as much avidity as the
exact sciences."
Cordoba
was another Great City that rivaled Baghdad. By the tenth century, Cordoba
could boast of a population of some 500,000, compared to about 38,000 in Paris.
According to the chronicles of the day, the city had 700 mosques, some 60,000
palaces, and 70 libraries -- one reportedly housing 500,000 manuscripts and
employing a staff of researchers, illuminators, and bookbinders. Cordoba also
had some 900 public baths, Europe's first street lights and, five miles outside
the city, the caliphal residence, Madinat al-Zahra. A complex of marble,
stucco, ivory, and onyx, Madinat al-Zahra took forty years to build, cost close
to one-third of Cordoba's revenue, and was, until destroyed in the eleventh
century, one of the wonders of the age. Its restoration, begun in the early
years of this century, is still under way. Before the Islamic era, Thomson in
The Muslims in Andalusia wrote, "Europe was darkened at sunset, Cordova
shone with public lamps; Europe was dirty, Cordova built a thousand baths; ...,
Cordova changed its undergarments daily; Europe lay in mud, Cordova's streets
were paved; Europe's palaces had smoke-holes in the ceiling, Cordova's
arabesques were exquisite; Europe's nobility could not sign its name, Cordova's
children went to school; Europe's monks could not read the baptismal service,
Cordova's teachers created a library of Alexandrian dimensions."
Another
leading historian Stanley Lane-Poole wrote in The Moors in Spain, "For
nearly eight centuries, under the Mohammedan rule, Spain set all Europe a
shining example of a civilized and enlightened state... To Cordoba belong all
the beauty and ornaments that delight the eye or dazzle the sight. Her long
line of Sultans form her crown of glory; her necklace is strung with the pearls
which her poets have gathered from the ocean of language; her dress is of the
banners of learning, well-knit together by her men of science; and the masters
of every art and industry are the hem of her garments. Art, literature and
science prospered as they then prospered nowhere else in Europe... Mathematics,
astronomy, botany, history, philosophy and jurisprudence were to be mastered in
Spain, and Spain alone. Whatever makes a kingdom great and prosperous, whatever
tends to refinement and civilization, was found in Muslim Spain. With Granada
fell all Spain's greatness!"
Present
day clergy rarely wants to talk about this Islamic renaissance or encourage an
inquiry into why Islam's Golden Age came to an end. What forces shifted both
political power and learning from the Islamic Empire to Christian Europe? Like
all historical trends, the explanations are complex; yet some broad outlines may
be identified, both within and without Muslim lands. With the end of the
Abbasids Caliphate and the beginning of the Turkish Seljuk Caliphate in 1057
CE, the centralized power of the empire began to shatter. Religious differences
resulted in splinter groups, charges of heresy, and assassinations.
Aristotelian
logic, adopted early on as a framework upon which to build science and
philosophy, appeared to be undermining the beliefs of educated Muslims
according to theologian Imam Ghazali turned the religious tide back to orthodox
belief. Until that time Gustav Lebon wrote that "For five to six hundred
years, general books in Arabic language and particularly on various disciplines
have been almost the only source of learning and teaching in the European universities.
And we can safely assert that in certain disciplines like medicine the
impressions of the Arabs are still at work in Europe. The medical writings of
Ibn Sina (Avicenna) have been explained about the close of the last century in
Monabiliah. Roger Bacon, Leonard, Erno Al Felquni, Raymond Lot, San Thomas, and
Azfonish X Qashqani have solely depended on Arabic Books."
The
appeal made by theologian Imam Ghazali turned the religious tide back to
orthodox belief. In a masterful philosophical argument, most clearly stated in
his book, The Destruction of Philosophy, Imam al-Ghazali declared reason and
its entire works to be bankrupt. Experience and the reason that grew out of it
were not to be trusted; they could say nothing meaningful about the reality of
Allah. Only direct intuition of God led to worthwhile knowledge. In a direct
rebuke to Al-Razi, who was a philosopher and a mathematician as well as a
physician, and al-Kindi, the first Muslim philosopher to use Aristotelian logic
to support Islamic dogma, and leading Islamic Golden Age philosopher,
Al-Farabi, who wrestled with many of the same philosophical problems as
al-Kindi and wrote The Perfect City, Imam Ghazali declared that
"Philosophy was a snare, leading the unwary to the pits of Hell". By
the time of his death in 1111, free scientific investigation and philosophical
and religious toleration were phenomena of the past. The schools in Baghdad
limited their teaching to theology. Scientific progress came to a halt. Al
Razi, Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, ibn al-Haytham and Abu Jafar-Muhammad ibn Musa
al-Khwarizmi since that edict were never again to regain familiarity to the
Muslim masses. The clergy on one hand banned reason and thinking that, on the
other, the destruction in 1256 of Baghdad wrought by the Mongol hordes served a
deathblow to all cultural and intellectual movements in the world of Islam. The
cultural treasures amassed during centuries of intellectual pursuits were
reduced to ashes. Nearly during the same period, the European Crusades (1097-1291)
assailed Islam militarily. Cordoba fell to Spanish Christians in 1236. When the
Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1256 the Islamic Empire never recovered.
Politically
and economically, the Mongol invasions were disastrous. Some regions never
fully recovered and the Muslim empire, already weakened by internal pressures,
never fully regained its previous power. The Mongol invasions, in fact, were a
major cause of the subsequent decline that set in throughout the heartland of
the Arab East. In their sweep through the Islamic world, the Mongols killed or
deported numerous scholars and scientists and destroyed libraries with their
irreplaceable works. The result was to wipe out much of the priceless cultural,
scientific, and technological legacy that Muslim scholars had been preserving
and enlarging for some five hundred years. Trade routes became unsafe. Urban
life broke down. Individual communities drew in upon themselves in feudal
isolation. Science and philosophy survived for a while in scattered pockets,
but the Golden Age of Islamic culture was at an end. It is not co-incidental
that as free scientific investigation and philosophical and religious
toleration was condemned, it became phenomena of the past. And Schools limited
their teaching to theology and external threats heightened. Scientific progress
came to a screeching halt; since publication of 'The Destruction of Philosophy'
it was only within 150 years that as a result of the European Crusades
(1097-1291) Cordoba fell to Spanish Christians in 1236 and Mongols sacked
Baghdad in 1256.
Islam
rich inheritance includes the memories of the 'House of Wisdom' in Baghdad in
early part of history where persecuted scholars from Christian and Jewish world
found refuge. In fact, the years between 900 and 1200 in Spain and Baghdad are
known as the Hebrew Golden Age, a sort of Jewish Renaissance that arose from
the fusion of the Arab and Jewish intellectual worlds. Jews watched their Arab
counterparts closely and learned to be astronomers, philosophers, scientists,
and poets. But this was a time of only partial autonomy. Jews were free to live
in the Islamic world as long as they paid a special tax to Muslim rulers. Jews
had their own legal system and social services.
It
was Baghdad's House of Wisdom that gave the Western world the thinking of
Aristotle and Plato; Islamic scholars translated their work from Greek to
Arabic and the West got to see those works after they were translated from
Arabic to Latin. Cordoba was the seat of learning in the times when west did
not know what renaissance was. Islamic renaissance started well 400 years ahead
of Western renaissance, it was a tragedy of the greatest magnitude that Islamic
renaissance lost its steam once clergy branded most of the Muslim scholars as
heretics. Zeal to kill is license to destruct and God never forgives those who
take life of innocents in the name of the Most Merciful and His Prophets. The
Muslims were at the receiving side of terror after the fall of Spain and
Baghdad. Dozy in The Moslems in Spain, wrote "Cruel and fanatical, the
Leonese rarely gave quarter; when they captured a town they usually put all the
inhabitants to the sword. Tolerance such as that accorded by the Muslims to the
Christians could not be expected of them."
And
so vanquished forever from the Spanish territory this brave, intelligent and
enlightened people, who with their resolution and labour inspired life into the
land, which the vain pride of the Goths condemned to sterility, and endowed it
with prosperity and abundance and with innumerable canals, this people whose
admirable courage was likewise, in happiness and adversity, a strong rampart to
the throne of the Caliphs, whose genius, progress and study raised in its
cities an internal edifice of light which sent its rays into Europe and inspired
it with the passion of study, and whose magnanimous spirit tinted all its acts
with an unrivalled colour of grandeur and nobility, and endowed it in the eyes
of posterity with a sort of extraordinary greatness and charming colour of
heroism which invokes the magical ages of Homer and which presents them to us
in the garb of Greek half-gods.
It
is only after clear understanding of Islam's golden era and study of the life
of its leading lights that a taleb, today would appreciate the scholarly
research more than the perpetual Klashnikov-based sectarian struggle against
its own brethren. An examination of rise and fall of the Golden Age of Islam
highlights that the era ended when free scientific investigation and
philosophical and religious toleration were considered heretic. When schools
then, like our Darul Ulooms of today, limited their teaching to theology and
shunned scientific progress and reason that the age came to a grinding halt.
The decline started as external force expedited the process.
Terror
and bloodshed in the name of Islam is the complete antithesis of Islam. Human
life has been attached the greatest of importance in the Holy Quran; to take it
away in the name of protecting the ideology and practices of the Prophet is
making a contempt of Islamic thought and principles. We were the
standard-bearers of a civilization, not the destructor, as Sideo wrote,
"During the middle ages, the Arabs alone were the standard-bearers of a
civilization. When the Arabs gained expertise in Astronomy, they paid special
attention to Mathematical sciences and gained a high degree of excellence and
they were really our teachers in this field. When we take stock of all that got
transferred from Arabic to Latin, we find that a great doorway was made in the
name of Gerbert Sylvester II, through which during the period between 970-980
AD, all those sciences he had acquired in Andalusia had entered Europe. Our
searching gaze rests on the Malikite Law, since we have had contacts with
Africa, and France had ordered its competent learned men to translate into
French the short compendium on Fiqh (jurisprudence) compiled by Ishaq bin Yaqub
(d. 1242 AD, his book titled "Kitab-e-Khalil"). For full six hundred
years his (Ibn Sina, Avicenna) works held sway over the educational
institutions of Europe. His book Al-Qanun (Canon) was translated in five
volumes and had repeated reprints, since the instruction in the universities of
France and Italy totally depended on it."
Islam
is not and was not a perpetrator of annihilation. After the Spanish takeover of
Andalusia, the entire Islamic society existing then was subjected to perpetual
holocaust for decades to uproot their practices and customs. As mentioned by H.
Kamen, in his work, The Spanish Inquisition, "As a result of his (Cardinal
Ximenes' coercive) endeavours, it is reported that on l8th December 1499 about
three thousand Moors were baptized by him and a leading mosque in Granada was
converted into a church. 'Converts' were encouraged to surrender their Islamic
books, several thousands of which were destroyed by Ximenes in a public
bonfire. A few rare books on medicine were kept aside for the University of
Alcala... (Ximenes) claimed... the Moors had forfeited all their rights under
the terms of capitulation (of Granada). They should therefore be given the
choice between baptism and expulsion... At Andarax the principal mosque, in
which the women and children had taken refuge, was blown up with
gun-powder...all books in Arabic, especially the Qur'an, were collected to be
burnt... Cardinal Ximenes was reported during his conversion campaign among the
Granada Moors in 1500 to have burnt in the public square of Vivarrambla over
1,005,000 volumes including unique works of Moorish culture."
The
war of ideas where Islamic clergy, for its own limited interests, has tried to
introduce elements of bigotry and fanaticism in mainstream Islamic thought is
not new to Muslim societies. It has made them weak and backward and if it
continues in its most dangerous form, such a schism will fragment the country
whose only reason to exist as a nation is theological unity of belief. Today,
our Darul-Ulooms are a breeding ground for sectarian terminators. Unless these
madarssas become and are redesigned on the pattern of House of Wisdom, of
Baghdad and, instead of producing human terminators, we produce men of letters
who may recognize how to respect life, the prospects of any nation are bleak.
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