RedWine
01-09-2006, 11:11 AM
Was the Golden age of Islam a reality or a myth?
First Part
Paris -- As Baghdad burnt, her libraries were ransacked and her books flung into the river Tigris so that a passage had been made through that thick deep torrent. The ink of scholars and the blood of martyrs stained the river.Baghdad was the first among equals; the fabled Islamic cities of lore, during the fabled golden age. Over the centuries, she had held at bay the encroaching Arabian Desert and instead transformed into an oasis of knowledge, tolerance and peace where generations of scholars flocked to her centers of learning.
Baghdad's vicious destruction didn't transpire in the last, rather recent, invasion but some seven hundred fifty years ago when the Mongol horde finally succeeded in the capture of the capital of Islam.
History is a little blurred on how Hulagu, the leader of the Mongols, dispatched the Caliph of Islam, the universally acknowledged leader of the Ummah. A story passed down that Hulagu toyed with the Caliph for a while, dining with him and discussing theology and pretending merely to be his guest. Another narrates that the Caliph was locked in his treasury and was brought gold rather than food. When the Caliph protested that he could not eat gold, Hulagu asked why he hadn't spent his treasury on providing for his army and defense to which the Caliph cried "That was the will of God".
In response Hulagu replied, "What will happen to you is the will of God, also," leaving him among the treasure to starve. The last history states that Hulagu, fearful of spilling the sacred blood, wrapped the Caliph in carpets and had horses gallop on him. Unlike Karbala, where Yazid mercilessly sprinkled the bluest of bloods, that of the grandson of the Prophet, on the desert plains, at least the Mongols were polite enough not to let the pedigreed blood from the lineage of Banu Abbas to be spilled. They made sure to avoid the possible wrath of God as their counsels advised that holiest of the blood be soaked in the thick silk forms of the Caliphs flamboyant carpets.
The traumatic scar of the deeds perpetuated towards the capital and the sovereign of Islam persists to such an extent that in a book on Arab cultural identity, published in the 1950s, a Syrian government official is quoted as saying that had the Mongols not destroyed the libraries of Baghdad, Arab science would have produced the atom bomb long before the West. The Golden Age of Baghdad, Cordoba and Islam's cities is widely considered to have been wiped clean by the Mongol devastation and Spanish Reconquista. The catastrophic devastation and the foreign horde conveniently provide history with a date to mark the end of the flowering of the Islamic Renaissance. But what if there is more to the tragedy of the end than merely foreign invasion, what if the answers are deeper within the Islamic world? Sapere aude, dare to know, defined the Enlightenment with an inspiring vision and compelling argument that truth alone can set us free.
Pluralism of ideas and the prosperity of any land are intertwined. Freedom of minds and skill of intellect to 'think the unthinkable' is how humanity progressed; when minds are incarcerated, nothing endures. Renaissance within all three monolithic religions was built around norms of a free mind; renaissance was about literature, architecture, arts and chiseling of marble to exquisite forms. David could only have been created by a "free" Michelangelo's labour of love; an enslaved mind cannot be an artist nor a creator. An enslaved man can be a revolutionary and many an enslaved peoples have helped changed the world, but their minds were free; they accepted death instead of compromise with totalitarian or dogmatic despotism.
From the earliest days, the Umayyads wanted to be seen as intellectual rivals to the Abbasids, and for Córdoba to have libraries and educational institutions to rival Baghdad. Although there was clear rivalry between the two powers, freedom to travel between the two Caliphates was allowed, which helped spread new ideas and innovations over time. The historian Said Al-Andalusi wrote that the Caliph Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Rahman had collected libraries of books and patroned men to study medicine and "ancient sciences".
Later Al-Mustansir (Al-Hakam II) vastly improved this by importing philosophical volumes as well as varying series of books on diverse subjects, including medicine and music from the East to his new university and libraries in Córdoba. Under his reign, Córdoba had become one of the world's most important cities for medicine and philosophical debate. One of the most significant contributions made in Al-Andalus was to the advancement of theological philosophy. To see knowledge without ownership of any creed and expand knowledge to new frontiers was the creed of this Islamic Golden Age; something that has sadly been lost.
The Golden Age of Islam shared much of the ideals and values, and this shared inheritance is typified by the great Islamic philosopher, Ibn 'Arabi. He was a Muslim at a time when the southern half of Spain had been deeply 'arabised' and islamicised by over 5 centuries of Muslim rule. Here in 'al-Andalus' the three creeds of Judaism, Christianity and Islam flourished and Arabic was their common tongue; this lavish and elegant world has left us powerful reminders in monuments such as Alhambra in Granada, and the Great Mosque at Cordoba.
Ibn 'Arabi was part of a global and tolerant Muslim society that had learnt to accept and build on the contribution of other races and religions. The great classics of Greek literature, particularly Aristotle and Plato, were translated (first into Arabic and then Latin) and studied alongside the great Prophets of the Abrahamic relgions. In this glorious milieu, Ibn 'Arabi carefully crafted his beliefs in the primordial nature of love and considered Prophets and saints powerful explainers of this sublime essence.
Mohiyoddin Ibn 'Arabi, founder of the School of the Oneness of Being, was chased out of Cairo for writing love poems to a fourteen-year-old girl. For example, while living in Egypt he published his Interpreter of Desires, a book of poems celebrating his love for a young girl he met while circumambulating the Kaaba in Mecca. The clergy smelled blasphemy; lbn 'Arabi hurriedly isolated himself to Syria where he further outraged the clergy by writing the Interpreter of the Interpreter, in which he defends his erotic-mystical ambiguities with dazzling scholasticism - when Love is declared the equivalent or perhaps superior of religion; and the human beloved becomes a Witness (shahed).
First Part
Paris -- As Baghdad burnt, her libraries were ransacked and her books flung into the river Tigris so that a passage had been made through that thick deep torrent. The ink of scholars and the blood of martyrs stained the river.Baghdad was the first among equals; the fabled Islamic cities of lore, during the fabled golden age. Over the centuries, she had held at bay the encroaching Arabian Desert and instead transformed into an oasis of knowledge, tolerance and peace where generations of scholars flocked to her centers of learning.
Baghdad's vicious destruction didn't transpire in the last, rather recent, invasion but some seven hundred fifty years ago when the Mongol horde finally succeeded in the capture of the capital of Islam.
History is a little blurred on how Hulagu, the leader of the Mongols, dispatched the Caliph of Islam, the universally acknowledged leader of the Ummah. A story passed down that Hulagu toyed with the Caliph for a while, dining with him and discussing theology and pretending merely to be his guest. Another narrates that the Caliph was locked in his treasury and was brought gold rather than food. When the Caliph protested that he could not eat gold, Hulagu asked why he hadn't spent his treasury on providing for his army and defense to which the Caliph cried "That was the will of God".
In response Hulagu replied, "What will happen to you is the will of God, also," leaving him among the treasure to starve. The last history states that Hulagu, fearful of spilling the sacred blood, wrapped the Caliph in carpets and had horses gallop on him. Unlike Karbala, where Yazid mercilessly sprinkled the bluest of bloods, that of the grandson of the Prophet, on the desert plains, at least the Mongols were polite enough not to let the pedigreed blood from the lineage of Banu Abbas to be spilled. They made sure to avoid the possible wrath of God as their counsels advised that holiest of the blood be soaked in the thick silk forms of the Caliphs flamboyant carpets.
The traumatic scar of the deeds perpetuated towards the capital and the sovereign of Islam persists to such an extent that in a book on Arab cultural identity, published in the 1950s, a Syrian government official is quoted as saying that had the Mongols not destroyed the libraries of Baghdad, Arab science would have produced the atom bomb long before the West. The Golden Age of Baghdad, Cordoba and Islam's cities is widely considered to have been wiped clean by the Mongol devastation and Spanish Reconquista. The catastrophic devastation and the foreign horde conveniently provide history with a date to mark the end of the flowering of the Islamic Renaissance. But what if there is more to the tragedy of the end than merely foreign invasion, what if the answers are deeper within the Islamic world? Sapere aude, dare to know, defined the Enlightenment with an inspiring vision and compelling argument that truth alone can set us free.
Pluralism of ideas and the prosperity of any land are intertwined. Freedom of minds and skill of intellect to 'think the unthinkable' is how humanity progressed; when minds are incarcerated, nothing endures. Renaissance within all three monolithic religions was built around norms of a free mind; renaissance was about literature, architecture, arts and chiseling of marble to exquisite forms. David could only have been created by a "free" Michelangelo's labour of love; an enslaved mind cannot be an artist nor a creator. An enslaved man can be a revolutionary and many an enslaved peoples have helped changed the world, but their minds were free; they accepted death instead of compromise with totalitarian or dogmatic despotism.
From the earliest days, the Umayyads wanted to be seen as intellectual rivals to the Abbasids, and for Córdoba to have libraries and educational institutions to rival Baghdad. Although there was clear rivalry between the two powers, freedom to travel between the two Caliphates was allowed, which helped spread new ideas and innovations over time. The historian Said Al-Andalusi wrote that the Caliph Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Rahman had collected libraries of books and patroned men to study medicine and "ancient sciences".
Later Al-Mustansir (Al-Hakam II) vastly improved this by importing philosophical volumes as well as varying series of books on diverse subjects, including medicine and music from the East to his new university and libraries in Córdoba. Under his reign, Córdoba had become one of the world's most important cities for medicine and philosophical debate. One of the most significant contributions made in Al-Andalus was to the advancement of theological philosophy. To see knowledge without ownership of any creed and expand knowledge to new frontiers was the creed of this Islamic Golden Age; something that has sadly been lost.
The Golden Age of Islam shared much of the ideals and values, and this shared inheritance is typified by the great Islamic philosopher, Ibn 'Arabi. He was a Muslim at a time when the southern half of Spain had been deeply 'arabised' and islamicised by over 5 centuries of Muslim rule. Here in 'al-Andalus' the three creeds of Judaism, Christianity and Islam flourished and Arabic was their common tongue; this lavish and elegant world has left us powerful reminders in monuments such as Alhambra in Granada, and the Great Mosque at Cordoba.
Ibn 'Arabi was part of a global and tolerant Muslim society that had learnt to accept and build on the contribution of other races and religions. The great classics of Greek literature, particularly Aristotle and Plato, were translated (first into Arabic and then Latin) and studied alongside the great Prophets of the Abrahamic relgions. In this glorious milieu, Ibn 'Arabi carefully crafted his beliefs in the primordial nature of love and considered Prophets and saints powerful explainers of this sublime essence.
Mohiyoddin Ibn 'Arabi, founder of the School of the Oneness of Being, was chased out of Cairo for writing love poems to a fourteen-year-old girl. For example, while living in Egypt he published his Interpreter of Desires, a book of poems celebrating his love for a young girl he met while circumambulating the Kaaba in Mecca. The clergy smelled blasphemy; lbn 'Arabi hurriedly isolated himself to Syria where he further outraged the clergy by writing the Interpreter of the Interpreter, in which he defends his erotic-mystical ambiguities with dazzling scholasticism - when Love is declared the equivalent or perhaps superior of religion; and the human beloved becomes a Witness (shahed).