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Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe

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Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal in India is also a symbol of Muslim Heritage. The Muslim Times has the best collection of articles on the theme of Muslim Heritage, which is also one of the best tools to refute Islamophobia

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times

Most of the information here is reproduced from Wikipedia, just to ensure longevity of this information.  I was happy to note today that my effort was worthwhile, as the original article has been trimmed, since I copied it almost a year ago.  More specifically, the section of Law has been taken out from the new article.

The information provided can bring the two civilizations, the East and the West together, as the division is artificial and both have drank from the same fountain!

granada (1)

Granada, Cardoba mosque and Alhambra in Spain are powerful symbols of the Muslim Heritage in Europe. How Islam Taught Medieval Christian Europe Religious and Political Tolerance

Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe were numerous, affecting such varied areas as art, architecture, medicine, agriculture, music, language, education, law, and technology. From the 11th to the 13th century, Europe absorbed knowledge from the Islamic civilization. In the early 20th century the musicologist Henry George Farmer wrote that a “growing number of scholars…recognize(d) that the influence of the Muslim civilization as a whole on medieval Europe was enormous in such fields as science, philosophy, theology, literature, aesthetics, than has been recognized.”[2] For many historians the contributions from the Islamic world have had a considerable effect on the development of Western civilization and contributed to the achievements of the Renaissance.[3] Their contributions included the rediscovery of ancient classic texts, notably the work of the Greek natural philosopher Aristotle, through retranslations and commentaries from Arabic.

We are also saving this wonderful BBC documentary by Jim Al Khalili here in the Muslim Times to ensure its longevity:

Suggested Reading: Prof. John Makdisi traces the Islamic Origins of the Common Law and Muhammad: the Light for the Dark Ages of Europe!

Contents

1 Use of the term “Islam”
2 Transmission routes
3 Classical knowledge
4 Islamic sciences
4.1 Alchemy and chemistry
4.2 Astronomy and mathematics
4.3 Medicine
4.4 Physics
4.5 Other works
5 Islamic techniques
5.1 Arts
5.2 Architecture
5.3 Institutions
5.4 Music
5.5 Technology
6 Economics
7 Education
8 Law
9 Coinage
10 Literature
11 Philosophy
12 Vocabulary
13 Notes
14 References

Use of the term “Islam”

The word “Islam” can refer either to the religion or to the whole civilization that was associated with Islam in Medieval times (see Islamic Golden Age). In this article, “Islam” is used in the meaning of a civilization and not that of a religion.

Transmission routes

Further information: Latin translations of the 12th century and Arab-Norman culture
The Tabula Rogeriana, drawn by Al-Idrisi for Roger II of Sicily in 1154, one of the most advanced ancient world maps.The points of contact between Europe and Islamic lands were multiple during the Middle Ages. The main points of transmission of Islamic knowledge to Europe were in Sicilia, and in Islamic Spain, particularly in Toledo (with Gerard of Cremone, 1114–1187, following the conquest of the city by the Spanish Christians in 1085). In Sicilia, following the Islamic conquest of the island in 965 and its reconquest by the Normans in 1091, an intense Arab-Norman culture developed, exemplified by rulers such as Roger II, who had Islamic soldiers, poets and scientists at his court. One of the greatest geographical treatises of the Middle Ages was written by the Moroccan Muhammad al-Idrisi for Roger, and entitled Kitab Rudjdjar (“Tabula Rogeriana” or “The book of Roger”).[4]

The Crusades also intensified exchanges between Europe and the Levant, with Italian City Republics taking a great role in these exchanges. In the Levant, such cities as Antioch, Arab and Latin cultures intermixed intensively.[5]

Classical knowledge

Main article: Arab transmission of the Classics to the West
Following the fall of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the Middle Ages, many texts from Classical Antiquity had been lost to the Europeans. In the Middle East however, many of these Greek texts (such as Aristotle) were translated from Greek into Syriac during the 6th and the 7th century by Nestorian, Melkites or Jacobite monks living in Palestine, or by Greek exiles from Athens or Edessa who visited Islamic Universities. Many of these texts however were then kept, translated, and developed upon by the Islamic world, especially in centers of learning such as Baghdad, where a “House of Wisdom”, with thousands of manuscripts existed as soon as 832. These texts were translated again into European languages during the Middle Ages.[1] Eastern Christians played an important role in exploiting this knowledge, especially through the Christian Aristotelician School of Baghdad in the 11th and 12th centuries.

These texts were translated back into Latin in multiple ways. The main points of transmission of Islamic knowledge to Europe were in Sicilia, and in Toledo, Spain (with Gerard of Cremone, 1114–1187). Burgondio of Pise (died in 1193), who discovered in Antioch lost texts of Aristotle, translated them into Latin.

Islamic sciences

Further information: Latin translations of the 12th century and Islamic science
Chirurgical operation, 15th century Turkish manuscript.Islam was not, however, a simple re-transmitter of knowledge from antiquity. It also developed its own sciences, such as algebra, chemistry, geology, spherical trigonometry, etc. which were later also transmitted to the West.[6][7] Stefan of Pise translated into Latin around 1127 an Arab manual of medical theory. The method of algorism for performing arithmetic with Indian-Arabic numerals was developed by al-Khwarizmi (hence the word “Algorithm”) in the 9th century, and introduced in Europe by Leonardo Fibonacci (1170–1250).[8] A translation of the Algebra by al-Kharizmi is known as early as 1145, by a certain Robert of Chester. Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen, 980-1037) compiled treaties on optical sciences, which were used as references by Newton and Descartes. Medical sciences were also highly developed in Islam as testified by the Crusaders, who relied on Arab doctors on numerous occasions. Joinville reports he was saved in 1250 by a “Saracen” doctor.[9]

Contributing to the growth of European science was the major search by European scholars for new learning which they could only find among Muslims, especially in Islamic Spain and Sicily. These scholars translated new scientific and philosophical texts from Arabic into Latin.

One of the most productive translators in Spain was Gerard of Cremona, who translated 87 books from Arabic to Latin,[10] including Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī’s On Algebra and Almucabala, Jabir ibn Aflah’s Elementa astronomica,[11] al-Kindi’s On Optics, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī’s On Elements of Astronomy on the Celestial Motions, al-Farabi’s On the Classification of the Sciences,[12] the chemical and medical works of Rhazes,[13] the works of Thabit ibn Qurra and Hunayn ibn Ishaq,[14] and the works of Arzachel, Jabir ibn Aflah, the Banū Mūsā, Abū Kāmil Shujā ibn Aslam, Abu al-Qasim, and Ibn al-Haytham (including the Book of Optics).[10]

Alchemy and chemistry

See also: Alchemy and chemistry in Islam
The chemical and alchemical works of Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan) were translated into Latin around the 12th century and became standard texts for European alchemists.[13] These include the Kitab al-Kimya (titled Book of the Composition of Alchemy in Europe), translated by Robert of Chester (1144); and the Kitab al-Sab’een, translated by Gerard of Cremona (before 1187).

Marcelin Berthelot translated some of Jabir’s books under the fanciful titles Book of the Kingdom, Book of the Balances, and Book of Eastern Mercury. Several technical Arabic terms introduced by Jabir, such as alkali, have found their way into various European languages and have become part of scientific vocabulary.

The chemical and alchemical works of Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes) were also translated into Latin around the 12th century.[13]

Astronomy and mathematics

A German manuscript page teaching use of Arabic numerals (Talhoffer Thott, 1459).See also: Islamic astronomy and Islamic mathematics
Arabic astronomical and mathematical works translated into Latin during the 12th century include the works of Muhammad ibn Jābir al-Harrānī al-Battānī and Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, including The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing, one of the founding texts of algebra;[11] and Muhammad al-Fazari’s Great Sindhind (based on the Surya Siddhanta and the works of Brahmagupta).[15]

Al-Khazini’s Zij as-Sanjari (1115–1116) was translated into Greek by Gregory Choniades in the 13th century and was studied in the Byzantine Empire.[16] The astronomical corrections to the Ptolemaic model made by al-Battani and Averroes and the non-Ptolemaic models produced by Mo’ayyeduddin Urdi (Urdi lemma), Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (Tusi-couple) and Ibn al-Shatir were later adapted into the Copernican heliocentric model. Al-Kindi’s (Alkindus) law of terrestrial gravity influenced Robert Hooke’s law of celestial gravity, which in turn inspired Newton’s law of universal gravitation. Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī’s Ta’rikh al-Hind and Kitab al-qanun al-Mas’udi were translated into Latin as Indica and Canon Mas’udicus respectively.

Fibonacci presented the first complete European account of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system from Arabic sources in his Liber Abaci (1202).[13] Al-Jayyani’s The book of unknown arcs of a sphere, the first treatise on spherical trigonometry, had a “strong influence on European mathematics”, and his “definition of ratios as numbers” and “method of solving a spherical triangle when all sides are unknown” are likely to have influenced Regiomontanus.[17]

Translations of the algebraic and geometrical works of Ibn al-Haytham, Omar Khayyám and Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī were later influential in the development of non-Euclidean geometry in Europe from the 17th century.[18][19]

European depiction of the Persian doctor al-Razi, in Gerard of Cremona’s Receuil des traites de medecine (1250-1260). Gerard de Cremona translated numerous works by Arabic scholars, such as al-Razi’s, but also those of Ibn Sina.[20][edit] Medicine

See also: Islamic medicine
Hospitals began as Bimaristans in the Islamic world and later spread to Europe during the Crusades, inspired by the hospitals in the Middle East. The first hospital in Paris, Les Quinze-vingt, was founded by Louis IX after his return from the Crusade between 1254-1260.[21] One of the most important medical works to be translated was Avicenna’s The Canon of Medicine (1025), which was translated into Latin and then disseminated in manuscript and printed form throughout Europe. It remained a standard medical textbook in Europe up until the early modern period, and during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries alone, The Canon of Medicine was published more than thirty-five times.[22] It introduced the contagious nature of infectious diseases, the method of quarantine, experimental medicine, and clinical trials.[23] He also wrote The Book of Healing, a more general encyclopedia of science and philosophy, which became another popular textbook in Europe. Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi’s Comprehensive Book of Medicine, with its introduction of measles and smallpox, was also influential in Europe. Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi’s Kitab al-Tasrif was also translated to Latin and used in European medical schools for centuries.[10][24]

Ibn al-Nafis’ Commentary on Compound Drugs was translated into Latin by Andrea Alpago (d. 1522), who may or may not have also translated (with out publication) Ibn al-Nafis’ Commentary on Anatomy in the Canon of Avicenna, which first described pulmonary circulation and which might have had an influence on Michael Servetus and Realdo Colombo if they saw it.[25]

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Physics

See also: Islamic physics
One of the most important scientific works to be translated was Ibn al-Haytham’s Book of Optics (1021), which initiated a revolution in optics[26] and visual perception,[27] and introduced the earliest experimental scientific method,[28] for which Ibn al-Haytham is considered the “father of modern optics”[29] and founder of experimental physics.[30][31] The Book of Optics laid the foundations for modern optics,[29] the scientific method,[28] experimental physics[30] and experimental psychology,[32] for which it has been ranked alongside Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica as one of the most influential books in the history of physics.[33] The Latin translation of the Book of Optics influenced the works of many later European scientists, such as Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, John Peckham, Witelo, William of Ockham, Leonardo da Vinci, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, and others.[34][35] The Book of Optics also laid the foundations for a variety of Western optical technologies, such as eyeglasses,[36] the camera,[37] the telescope and microscope, microscopy, retinal surgery, and robotic vision.[35] The book also influenced other aspects of European culture. In religion, for example, John Wycliffe, the intellectual progenitor of the Protestant Reformation, referred to Alhazen in discussing the seven deadly sins in terms of the distortions in the seven types of mirrors analyzed in De aspectibus. In literature, Alhazen’s Book of Optics is praised in Guillaume de Lorris’ Roman de la Rose[citation needed]. In art in particular, the Book of Optics laid the foundations for the linear perspective technique and the use of optical aids in Renaissance art (see Hockney-Falco thesis).[38] The linear perspective technique was also employed in European geographical charts during the Age of Exploration, such as Paolo Toscanelli’s chart which was used by Christopher Columbus when he went on a voyage to the New World.[35]

The theories of motion in Islamic physics developed by Avicenna and Avempace influenced Jean Buridan’s theory of impetus, the ancestor of the inertia and momentum concepts, and the work of Galileo Galilei on classical mechanics.[39] The work of Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī and al-Khazini on mechanics, particularly statics and dynamics, were also adopted and further developed in medieval Europe.[40]

Other works

Other Arabic works translated into Latin during the 12th century include the works of Razi and Avicenna (including The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine),[41] the works of Averroes,[24] the works of Thabit ibn Qurra, al-Farabi, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, and his nephew Hubaysh ibn al-Hasan,[42] the works of al-Kindi, Abraham bar Hiyya’s Liber embadorum, Ibn Sarabi’s (Serapion Junior) De Simplicibus,[24] the works of Qusta ibn Luqa,[43] the works of Maslamah Ibn Ahmad al-Majriti, Ja’far ibn Muhammad Abu Ma’shar al-Balkhi, and al-Ghazali,[10] the works of Nur Ed-Din Al Betrugi, including On the Motions of the Heavens,[13][44] Ali ibn Abbas al-Majusi’s medical encyclopedia, The Complete Book of the Medical Art,[13] Abu Mashar’s Introduction to Astrology,[45] the works of Maimonides, Ibn Zezla (Byngezla), Masawaiyh, Serapion, al-Qifti, and Albe’thar.[46] Abū Kāmil Shujā ibn Aslam’s Algebra,[11] and the De Proprietatibus Elementorum, an Arabic work on geology written by a pseudo-Aristotle.[13] By the beginning of the 13th century, Mark of Toledo translated the Qur’an and various medical works.[47]

Ibn Tufail’s Hayy ibn Yaqdhan was translated into Latin by Edward Pococke in 1671 and into English by Simon Ockley in 1708 and became “one of the most important books that heralded the Scientific Revolution.”[48] Ibn al-Baitar’s Kitab al-Jami fi al-Adwiya al-Mufrada also had an influence on European botany after it was translated into Latin in 1758.[49]

Islamic techniques

In the 12th century, Europe owed Islam an agricultural revolution (see Muslim Agricultural Revolution), due to the progressive introduction into Europe of various unknown fruits: the artichoke, spinachs, aubergines, peaches, apricots.[50]

Numerous new techniques in clothing, as well as new materials were also introduced: muslin, taffetas, satin, skirts. Trade mechanisms were also transmitted: tarifs, customs, bazars, magazins.

Arab-Norman art and architecture combined Occidental features (such as the Classical pillars and friezes) with typical Islamic decorations and calligraphy.[51][edit] Arts
See also: Islamic art
Numerous techniques from Islamic art formed the basis of Arab-Norman art: inlays in mosaics or metals, sculpture of ivory or porphyry, sculpture of hard stones, bronze foundries, manufacture of silk (for which Roger II of Sicily established a regium ergasterium, a state enterprise which would give Sicily the monopoly of silk manufacture for all Europe).[52]

Architecture

See also: Islamic architecture
Gothic architecture may have been influenced by Islamic architecture. According to one theory, the introduction of the pointed arch in Europe which roughly coincided with the Norman conquest of Islamic Sicily in 1090, the Crusades which began in 1096, and the Islamic presence in Spain, brought about a knowledge of this significant structural device. It is probable also that decorative carved stone screens and window openings filled with pierced stone also influenced Gothic tracery. In Spain, in particular, individual decorative motifs occur which are common to both Islamic and Christian architectural mouldings and sculpture.[53][54]

[edit] Institutions

Europe adopted a number of educational, legal and scientific institutions from the Islamic world, including the public hospital (which replaced healing temples and sleep temples)[55] and psychiatric hospital,[56] the public library and lending library, the academic degree-granting university (see Madrasah), the astronomical observatory as a research institute[55] (as opposed to a private observation post as was the case in ancient times)[57] (see Islamic astronomy), the trust institution and charitable trust (see Waqf),[58][59] the agency and aval (Hawala),[60] and a variety of other such institutions.

Music

Main articles: Arabic music and Andalusian classical music
See also: Inventions in the Islamic world
The lute was adopted from the Arab world. 1568 print.A number of musical instruments used in Western music are believed to have been derived from Arabic musical instruments: the lute was derived from the al’ud, the rebec (ancestor of violin) from the rebab, the guitar from qitara, naker from naqareh, adufe from al-duff, alboka from al-buq, anafil from al-nafir, exabeba from al-shabbaba (flute), atabal (bass drum) from al-tabl, atambal from al-tinbal,[61] the balaban, the castanet from kasatan, sonajas de azófar from sunuj al-sufr, the conical bore wind instruments,[62] the xelami from the sulami or fistula (flute or musical pipe),[63] the shawm and dulzaina from the reed instruments zamr and al-zurna,[64] the gaita from the ghaita, rackett from iraqya or iraqiyya,[65] the harp and zither from the qanun,[66] canon from qanun, geige (violin) from ghichak,[67] and the theorbo from the tarab.[68]

According to a common theory on the origins of the troubadour, a composer of medieval lyric poetry, it may have had Arabic origins. Ezra Pound, in his Canto VIII, famously declared that William of Aquitaine “had brought the song up out of Spain / with the singers and veils…” referring to the troubadour song. In his study, Lévi-Provençal is said to have found four Arabo-Hispanic verses nearly or completely recopied in William’s manuscript. According to historic sources, William VIII, the father of William, brought to Poitiers hundreds of Muslim prisoners.[69] Trend admitted that the troubadours derived their sense of form and even the subject matter of their poetry from the Andalusian Muslims.[70] The hypothesis that the troubadour tradition was created, more or less, by William after his experience of Moorish arts while fighting with the Reconquista in Spain was also championed by Ramón Menéndez Pidal in the early twentieth-century, but its origins go back to the Cinquecento and Giammaria Barbieri (died 1575) and Juan Andrés (died 1822). Meg Bogin, English translator of the trobairitz, held this hypothesis. Certainly “a body of song of comparable intensity, profanity and eroticism [existed] in Arabic from the second half of the 9th century onwards.”[71]

Another theory on the origins of the Western solfège musical notation suggests that it may have also had Arabic origins. It has been argued that the solfège syllables (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti) may have been derived from the syllables of the Arabic solmization system Durr-i-Mufassal (“Separated Pearls”) (dal, ra, mim, fa, sad, lam). This origin theory was first proposed by Meninski in his Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalum (1680) and then by Laborde in his Essai sur la Musique Ancienne et Moderne (1780).[72][73]

Technology

See also: Inventions in the Islamic world, Muslim Agricultural Revolution, and Timeline of Muslim scientists and engineers
A number of technologies in the Islamic world were adopted in European medieval technology. These included various crops;[74] Greek inventions such as the astrolabe; and a variety of original Muslim inventions, including astronomical instruments such as the quadrant (including the Quadrans Vetus, a universal horary quadrant which could be used for any latitude,[75] and the Quadrans Novus, an astrolabic quadrant)[76] and sextant, a universal astrolabe invented by Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī known as the Saphaea in Europe, the “observation tube” (without lens) which influenced the development of the telescope,[77] cobwork (tabya),[78] street lamps,[79] waste containers and waste disposal facilities for litter collection,[80] weight-driven mechanical clocks with escapement mechanisms,[81] segmental gears[82] (“a piece for receiving or communicating reciprocating motion from or to a cogwheel, consisting of a sector of a circular gear, or ring, having cogs on the periphery, or face”),[83] distilled alcohol (ethanol) described by Muslim chemists,[84] over 200 surgical instruments described in Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi’s Al-Tasrif, explosive compositions of gunpowder, the baculus used for nautical astronomy, and various other technologies. The importation of both the ancient and new technology from the Middle East and the Orient to Renaissance Europe represented “one of the largest technology transfers in world history.”[85]

The Muslim Agricultural Revolution in particular diffused a large number of crops and technologies into medieval Europe, where farming was mostly restricted to wheat strains obtained much earlier via central Asia. Spain received what she in turn transmitted to the rest of Europe; many agricultural and fruit-growing processes, together with many new plants, fruit and vegetables. These new crops included sugar cane, rice, citrus fruit, apricots, cotton, artichokes, aubergines, and saffron. Others, previously known, were further developed. Muslims also brought to that country lemons, oranges, cotton, almonds, figs and sub-tropical crops such as bananas and sugar cane. Several were later exported from Spanish coastal areas to the Spanish colonies in the New World. Also transmitted via Muslim influence, a silk industry flourished, flax was cultivated and linen exported, and esparto grass, which grew wild in the more arid parts, was collected and turned into various articles.[74] Industries established for sugar plantations,[86] ceramics, distillation technologies, clocks, mechanical hydropowered and wind powered machinery, matting, pulp and paper, perfumery, silk, sugar, water, and the mining of minerals such as sulfur and ammonia, were transferred from the Islamic world to medieval Europe.[87] Factory installations and a variety of industrial mills (including fulling mills, gristmills, hullers, paper mills, steel mills[citation needed], sugar mills may have also been transmitted to medieval Europe,[88] along with the suction pump (which also incorporated a crankshaft-connecting rod mechanism) invented by al-Jazari,[89][90] noria and chain pumps for irrigation purposes.[91] These innovations made it possible for many industrial operations that were previously driven by manual labour to be driven by machinery in medieval Europe.[92]

Economics

Main article: Islamic economics in the world
Some writers trace back the earliest stages of merchant capitalism to the Caliphate during the 9th-12th centuries, where a vigorous monetary market economy was created on the basis of the expanding levels of circulation of a stable high-value currency (the dinar) and the integration of monetary areas that were previously independent. Innovative new business techniques and forms of business organization were introduced by economists, merchants and traders during this time. Such innovations included trading companies, bills of exchange, big businesses, the first forms of partnership (mufawada in Arabic) such as limited partnerships (mudaraba) (mufawada partnership possessed features similar to those of the medieval family compagnia in Europe[93]), and the concepts of credit, profit, capital (al-mal) and capital accumulation (nama al-mal). Many of these early capitalist ideas were further advanced in medieval Europe from the 13th century onwards.[94][95][96]

Education

Main article: Madrasah
The origins of the college lies in the medieval Islamic world. The madrasah was the earliest example of a college, mainly teaching Islamic law and theology, usually affiliated with a mosque, and funded by Waqf, which were the basis for the charitable trusts that later funded the first European colleges. The internal organization of the early European college was also borrowed from the earlier madrasah, like the system of fellows and scholars, with the Latin term for fellow, socius, being a direct translation of the Arabic term for fellow, sahib.[97] Madrasahs were also the first law schools, and it is likely that the “law schools known as Inns of Court in England” may have been derived from the madrasahs which taught Islamic law and jurisprudence.[98]

If a university is assumed to mean an institution of higher education and research which issues academic degrees at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, then the Jami’ah which appeared from the 9th century were the first examples of such an institution.[97][99] The University of Al Karaouine in Fez, Morocco is thus recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest degree-granting university in the world with its founding in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri.[100] However, the madrasah differed from the medieval university of Europe in several important respects, namely that the degree took the form of a license (ijazah) which “was signed in the name of the teacher, not of the madrasa”.[101] In other words, “the authorization or licensing was done by each professor, not by a group or corporate body, much less by a disinterested or impersonal certifying body”.[102] The first colleges and universities in Europe were nevertheless influenced in many ways by the madrasahs in Islamic Spain and the Emirate of Sicily at the time, and in the Middle East during the Crusades.[99]

The origins of the doctorate dates back to the ijazat attadris wa ‘l-ifta’ (“license to teach and issue legal opinions”) in the medieval Islamic legal education system, which was equivalent to the Doctor of Laws qualification and was developed during the 9th century after the formation of the Madh’hab legal schools. To obtain a doctorate, a student “had to study in a guild school of law, usually four years for the basic undergraduate course” and ten or more years for a post-graduate course. The “doctorate was obtained after an oral examination to determine the originality of the candidate’s theses,” and to test the student’s “ability to defend them against all objections, in disputations set up for the purpose” which were scholarly exercises practiced throughout the student’s “career as a graduate student of law.” After students completed their post-graduate education, they were awarded doctorates giving them the status of faqih (meaning “master of law”), mufti (meaning “professor of legal opinions”) and mudarris (meaning “teacher”), which were later translated into Latin as magister, professor and doctor respectively.[99] The term doctorate comes from the Latin docere, meaning “to teach”, shortened from the full Latin title licentia docendi meaning “license to teach.” This was translated from the Arabic term ijazat attadris, which means the same thing and was awarded to Islamic scholars who were qualified to teach. Similarly, the Latin term doctor, meaning “teacher”, was translated from the Arabic term mudarris, which also means the same thing and was awarded to qualified Islamic teachers.[99] The Latin term baccalaureus may have also been transliterated from the equivalent Arabic qualification bi haqq al-riwaya (“the right to teach on the authority of another”).[97]

According to Professor George Makdisi and Hugh Goddard, some of the terms and concepts now used in modern universities which have Islamic origins include “the fact that we still talk of professors holding the ‘Chair’ of their subject” being based on the “traditional Islamic pattern of teaching where the professor sits on a chair and the students sit around him”, the term ‘academic circles’ being derived from the way in which Islamic students “sat in a circle around their professor”, and terms such as “having ‘fellows’, ‘reading’ a subject, and obtaining ‘degrees’, can all be traced back” to the Islamic concepts of Ashab (“companions, as of the prophet Muhammad”), Qara’a (“reading aloud the Qur’an”) and Ijazah (“license to teach”) respectively. Makdisi has listed eighteen such parallels in terminology which can be traced back to their roots in Islamic education. Some of the practices now common in modern universities which Makdisi and Goddard trace back to an Islamic root include “practices such as delivering inaugural lectures, wearing academic robes, obtaining doctorates by defending a thesis, and even the idea of academic freedom are also modelled on Islamic custom.” The Islamic scholarly system of fatwa and ijma, meaning opinion and consensus respectively, formed the basis of the “scholarly system the West has practised in university scholarship from the Middle Ages down to the present day.”[99] According to Makdisi and Goddard, “the idea of academic freedom” in universities was “modelled on Islamic custom” as practiced in the medieval Madrasah system from the 9th century. Islamic influence was “certainly discernible in the foundation of the first delibrately-planned university” in Europe, the University of Naples Federico II founded by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor in 1224.[103]

Law

Main articles: Sharia and Fiqh
Since the publication of legal scholar John Makdisi’s “The Islamic Origins of the Common Law” in the North Carolina Law Review,[98] there has been controversy over whether English common law was inspired by medieval Islamic law.[104] Several scholars have argued that several fundamental common law institutions may have been adapted from similar legal institutions in Islamic law and jurisprudence, and introduced to England after the Norman conquest of England by the Normans, who conquered and inherited the Islamic legal administration of the Emirate of Sicily (see Arab-Norman culture).[98] In his 1999 paper, Makdisi drew comparisons between the “royal English contract protected by the action of debt” and the “Islamic Aqd”, the “English assize of novel disseisin” and the “Islamic Istihqaq”, and the “English jury” and the “Islamic Lafif” in classical Maliki jurisprudence, and argued that these institutions were transmitted to England by the Normans,[98] “through the close connection between the Norman kingdoms of Roger II in Sicily — ruling over a conquered Islamic administration — and Henry II in England.”[105] Makdisi also argued that English legal institutions such as “the scholastic method, the license to teach,” the “law schools known as Inns of Court” in England (which he asserts are parallel to Madrasas in Islam) and the “European commenda” (parallel to Islamic Qirad) may have also originated from Islamic law.[98] He states that the methodology of legal precedent and reasoning by analogy (Qiyas) are also similar in both the Islamic and common law systems.[106] Makdisi claims these similarities and influences suggest that Islamic law may have laid the foundations for “the common law as an integrated whole”.[98]

Other legal scholars such as Monica Gaudiosi, Gamal Moursi Badr and A. Hudson have argued that the English trust and agency institutions in common law, which were introduced by Crusaders, may have been adapted from the Islamic Waqf and Hawala institutions they came across in the Middle East.[60][107][108] Dr. Paul Brand also notes parallels between the Waqf and the trusts used to establish Merton College by Walter de Merton, who had connections with the Knights Templar. Brand also points out, however, that the Knights Templar were primarily concerned with fighting the Muslims rather than learning from them, making it less likely that they had knowledge of Muslim legal institutions.[104]

Several legal institutions in civil law were also adapted from similar institutions in Islamic law and jurisprudence during the Middle Ages. For example, the Islamic Hawala institution influenced the development of the Avallo in Italian civil law and the Aval in French civil law.[109] The commenda limited partnership used in European civil law was also adapted from the Qirad and Mudaraba in Islamic law. The civil law conception of res judicata[98] and the transfer of debt, which was not permissible under Roman law but is practiced in modern civil law, may also have origins in Islamic law. The concept of an agency was also an “institution unknown to Roman law”, where it was not possible for an individual to “conclude a binding contract on behalf of another as his agent.”

Islamic law also introduced “two fundamental principles to the West, on which were to later stand the future structure of law: equity and good faith”[citation needed], which was a precursor to the concept of pacta sunt servanda in civil law and international law. Another influence of Islamic law on the civil law tradition was the presumption of innocence, which was introduced to Europe by Louis IX of France soon after he returned from Palestine during the Crusades. Islamic law was based on the presumption of innocence from its beginning, as declared by the caliph Umar in the 7th century.[110]

There is evidence that early Islamic international law influenced the development of European international law, through various routes such as the Crusades, Norman conquest of the Emirate of Sicily, and Reconquista of al-Andalus.[110] In particular, the Spanish jurist Francisco de Vitoria, and his successor Grotius, may have been influenced by Islamic international law through earlier Islamic-influenced writings such as the 1263 work Siete Partidas of Alfonso X, which was regarded as a “monument of legal science” in Europe at the time and was influenced by the Islamic legal treatise Villiyet written in Islamic Spain.[110][111]

A number of Islamic legal concepts on human rights were also adopted in European legal systems, including concepts such as the charitable trust, trusteeship of property, human dignity, dignity of labour[citation needed], condemnation of antisocial behavior, presumption of innocence, caring, women’s rights, privacy, juristic personality, individual freedom, equality before the law, non-retroactivity, limited sovereignty, tolerance[citation needed]. Many of these concepts were adopted in medieval Europe through contacts with Islamic Spain and the Emirate of Sicily, and through the Crusades and the Latin translations of the 12th century.[112] After Sultan al-Kamil defeated the Franks during the Crusades, Oliverus Scholasticus praised the Islamic laws of war, commenting on how al-Kamil supplied the defeated Frankish army with food:[113]

“Who could doubt that such goodness, friendship and charity come from God? Men whose parents, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, had died in agony at our hands, whose lands we took, whom we drove naked from their homes, revived us with their own food when we were dying of hunger and showered us with kindness even when we were in their power.”[113]

Coinage
The 8th century English king Offa of Mercia minted a near-copy of Abbasid dinars struck in 774 by Caliph Al-Mansur with “Offa Rex” centered on the reverse.[114] The moneyer visibly had little understanding of Arabic as the Arabic text contains a number of errors. Such coins may have been produced for reasons of ruler’s prestige, or to trade with recently developing Islamic Spain.[citation needed]
A gold dinar of the English king Offa of Mercia, a copy of the dinars of the Abbasid Caliphate (774). It combines the Latin legend OFFA REX with Arabic legends. British Museum.In Sicily, Malta and South Italy from about 913 tarì gold coins of Islamic origin were minted in great number by the Normans, Hohenstaufens and the early Angevins rulers.[115] When the Normans invaded Sicily in the 12th century, they issued tarì coins bearing legends in Arabic and Latin.[116] The tarìs were so widespread that imitations were made in southern Italy (Amalfi and Salerno) which only used illegible “pseudo-Kufic” imitations of Arabic.[117][118]

According to Janet Abu-Lughod:

The preferred specie for international transactions before the thirteenth century, in Europe as well as the Middle East and even India, were the gold coins struck by Byzantium and then Egypt. It was not until after the thirtheenth century that some Italian cities (Florence and Genoa) began to mint their own gold coins, but these were used to supplement rather than supplant the Middle Eastern coins already in circulation.[119]

Literature

Further information: Islamic literature, Arabic literature, and Persian literature
The most well known fiction from the Islamic world was The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), which was a compilation of many earlier folk tales. The epic took form in the 10th century and reached its final form by the 14th century; the number and type of tales have varied from one manuscript to another.[120] All Arabian fantasy tales were often called “Arabian Nights” when translated into English, regardless of whether they appeared in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, in any version, and a number of tales are known in Europe as “Arabian Nights” despite existing in no Arabic manuscript.[120]
“Ali Baba” by Maxfield Parrish.This epic has been influential in the West since it was translated in the 18th century, first by Antoine Galland.[121] Many imitations were written, especially in France.[122] Various characters from this epic have themselves become cultural icons in Western culture, such as Aladdin, Sinbad and Ali Baba. However, no medieval Arabic source has been traced for Aladdin, which was incorporated into The Book of One Thousand and One Nights by its French translator, Antoine Galland, who heard it from an Arab Syrian storyteller from Aleppo. Part of its popularity may have sprung from the increasing historical and geographical knowledge, so that places of which little was known and so marvels were plausible had to be set further “long ago” or farther “far away”; this is a process that continues, and finally culminate in the fantasy world having little connection, if any, to actual times and places. A number of elements from Arabian mythology and Persian mythology are now common in modern fantasy, such as genies, bahamuts, magic carpets, magic lamps, etc.[122] When L. Frank Baum proposed writing a modern fairy tale that banished stereotypical elements, he included the genie as well as the dwarf and the fairy as stereotypes to go.[123]

A famous example of Arabic poetry and Persian poetry on romance (love) is Layla and Majnun, dating back to the Umayyad era in the 7th century. It is a tragic story of undying love much like the later Romeo and Juliet, which was itself said to have been inspired by a Latin version of Layli and Majnun to an extent.[124]

Ibn Tufail (Abubacer) was a pioneer of the philosophical novel. He wrote the first Arabic novel, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (Philosophus Autodidactus), which told the story of Hayy, an autodidactic feral child, living in seclusion on a desert island, being the earliest example of a desert island story.[125][126] A Latin translation of Ibn Tufail’s Hayy ibn Yaqdhan first appeared in 1671, prepared by Edward Pococke the Younger, followed by an English translation by Simon Ockley in 1708, as well as German and Dutch translations. These translations later inspired Daniel Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe, regarded as the first novel in English.[127][128][129][130] Philosophus Autodidactus also inspired Robert Boyle to write his own philosophical novel set on an island, The Aspiring Naturalist.[131] The story also anticipated Rousseau’s Emile: or, On Education in some ways[citation needed].

There were several elements of courtly love which developed in Arabic literature. The notions of “love for love’s sake” and “exaltation of the beloved lady” have been traced back to Arabic literature of the 9th and 10th centuries. The notion of the “ennobling power” of love was developed in the early 11th century by the Persian psychologist and philosopher, Ibn Sina (known as “Avicenna” in Europe), in his treatise Risala fi’l-Ishq (Treatise on Love). The final element of courtly love, the concept of “love as desire never to be fulfilled”, was at times implicit in Arabic poetry. These elements influenced the development of courtly love in European literature, in which all four elements of courtly love were present.[132]

Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, considered the greatest epic of Italian literature, derived many features of and episodes about the hereafter directly or indirectly from Arabic works on Islamic eschatology: the Hadith and the Kitab al-Miraj (translated into Latin in 1264 or shortly before[133] as Liber Scale Machometi, “The Book of Muhammad’s Ladder”) concerning Muhammad’s ascension to Heaven, and the spiritual writings of Ibn Arabi. The Moors also had a noticeable influence on the works of George Peele and William Shakespeare. Some of their works featured Moorish characters, such as Peele’s The Battle of Alcazar and Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Titus Andronicus and Othello, which featured a Moorish Othello as its title character. These works are said to have been inspired by several Moorish delegations from Morocco to Elizabethan England at the beginning of the 17th century.[134]

[edit] Philosophy

See also: Early Islamic philosophy, Avicennism, Averroism, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, and Transmission of Greek philosophical ideas in the Middle Ages
From Islamic Spain, the Arabic philosophical literature was translated into Hebrew, Latin, and Ladino, contributing to the development of modern European philosophy. The Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, Muslim sociologist-historian Ibn Khaldun, Carthage citizen Constantine the African who translated Greek medical texts, and the Muslim Al-Khwarizmi’s collation of mathematical techniques were important figures of the Golden Age.
Averroes, founder of the Averroism school of philosophy, was influential in the rise of secular thought in Western Europe.[135]Avicenna founded the Avicennism school of philosophy, which was influential in both Islamic and Christian lands. He was a critic of Aristotelian logic and the founder of Avicennian logic, and he developed the concepts of empiricism and tabula rasa. The main significance of Latin Avicennism lies in the interpretation of Avicennian doctrines such as the nature of the soul and his existence-essence distinction, along with the debates and censure that they raised in scholastic Europe. This was particularly the case in Paris, where Avicennism was later proscribed in 1210, though the influence of his psychology and theory of knowledge upon William of Auvergne and Albertus Magnus have been noted. The effects of Avicennism in Christianity, however, was later submerged by Averroism, a school of philosophy founded by Averroes, one of the most influential Muslim philosophers in the West.[136] His works and commentaries had an impact on the rise of secular thought in Western Europe,[135] and he also developed the concept of “existence precedes essence”.[137]

Al-Ghazali also had an important influence on Christian medieval philosophers along with Jewish thinkers like Maimonides.[138] According to Margaret Smith, “There can be no doubt that Ghazali’s works would be among the first to attract the attention of these European scholars” and “The greatest of these Christian writers who was influenced by Al-Ghazali was St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), who made a study of the Islamic writers and admitted his indebtedness to them. He studied at the University of Naples where the influence of Islamic literature and culture was predominant at the time.”[139] René Descartes’ ideas from his Discourse on the Method were also influenced by al-Ghazali, and Descartes’ method of doubt was very much similar to al-Ghazali’s work.[140]

Imaginary debate between Averroes and Porphyry. Monfredo de Monte Imperiali Liber de herbis, 14th century.[141]Another influential philosopher who had a significant influence on modern philosophy was Ibn Tufail. His philosophical novel, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, translated into Latin as Philosophus Autodidactus in 1671, developed the themes of empiricism, tabula rasa, nature versus nurture,[142] condition of possibility, materialism,[143] and Molyneux’s Problem.[144] European scholars and writers influenced by this novel include John Locke,[145] Gottfried Leibniz,[130] Melchisédech Thévenot, John Wallis, Christiaan Huygens,[146] George Keith, Robert Barclay, the Quakers,[147] and Samuel Hartlib.[131]
Certain aspects of Renaissance humanism also has its roots in the medieval Islamic world, including the “art of dictation, called in Latin, ars dictaminis,” and “the humanist attitude toward classical language.”[148] There is also evidence that John Locke’s formulation of inalienable rights and conditional rulership, which were present in Islamic law centuries earlier, may have also been influenced by Islamic law, through his attendance of lectures given by Edward Pococke, a professor of Islamic studies.[149]
Notes
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  4. ^ Lewis, p.148
  5. ^ Lebedel, p.109-111
  6. ^ Lebedel, p. 109
  7. ^ Fielding H. Garrison, An Introduction to the History of Medicine: with Medical Chronology, Suggestions for Study and Biblographic Data, p. 86
  8. ^ Lebedel, p.111
  9. ^ Lebedel, p.112
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  117. ^ Cardini, Franco Europe and Islam Blackwell Publishing, 2001 ISBN 9780631226376 [2], p.26
  118. ^ Grierson, Philip Medieval European Coinage Cambridge University Press, 1998 ISBN 9780521582315 [3], p.3
  119. ^ Janet Abu-Lughod Before European Hegemony, The World System A.D. 1250-1350, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195067746 p.15
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  121. ^ L. Sprague de Camp, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy, p 10 ISBN 0-87054-076-9
  122. ^ a b John Grant and John Clute, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, “Arabian fantasy”, p 52 ISBN 0-312-19869-8
  123. ^ James Thurber, “The Wizard of Chitenango”, p 64 Fantasists on Fantasy edited by Robert H. Boyer and Kenneth J. Zahorski, ISBN 0-380-86553-X
  124. ^ “Nizami: Layla and Majnun – English Version by Paul Smith”. http://www.shirazbooks.com/ebook1.html.
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  131. ^ a b G. J. Toomer (1996), Eastern Wisedome and Learning: The Study of Arabic in Seventeenth-Century England, p. 222, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0198202911.
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  133. ^ I. Heullant-Donat and M.-A. Polo de Beaulieu, “Histoire d’une traduction,” in Le Livre de l’échelle de Mahomet, Latin edition and French translation by Gisèle Besson and Michèle Brossard-Dandré, Collection Lettres Gothiques, Le Livre de Poche, 1991, p. 22 with note 37.
  134. ^ Professor Nabil Matar (April 2004), Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Stage Moor, Sam Wanamaker Fellowship Lecture, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre (cf. Mayor of London (2006), Muslims in London, pp. 14-15, Greater London Authority)
  135. ^ a b Majid Fakhry (2001). Averroes: His Life, Works and Influence. Oneworld Publications. ISBN 1851682694.
  136. ^ Corbin (1993), p.174
  137. ^ Irwin, Jones (Autumn 2002), “Averroes’ Reason: A Medieval Tale of Christianity and Islam”, The Philosopher LXXXX (2)
  138. ^ Ormsby, Eric. “Averroes (Ibn Rushd): His Life, Works and Influence”. H-Net Review.  See also: “The Influence of Islamic Thought on Maimonides”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/maimonides-islamic/. Retrieved 2008-08-28.
  139. ^ Margaret Smith, Al-Ghazali: The Mystic (London 1944)
  140. ^ Najm, Sami M. (July-October 1966), “The Place and Function of Doubt in the Philosophies of Descartes and Al-Ghazali”, Philosophy East and West 16 (3-4): 133–41, doi:10.2307/1397536
  141. ^ “Inventions et decouvertes au Moyen-Age”, Samuel Sadaune, p.112
  142. ^ G. A. Russell (1994), The ‘Arabick’ Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 224-262, Brill Publishers, ISBN 9004094598.
  143. ^ Dominique Urvoy, “The Rationality of Everyday Life: The Andalusian Tradition? (Aropos of Hayy’s First Experiences)”, in Lawrence I. Conrad (1996), The World of Ibn Tufayl: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān, pp. 38-46, Brill Publishers, ISBN 9004093001.
  144. ^ Muhammad ibn Abd al-Malik Ibn Tufayl and Léon Gauthier (1981), Risalat Hayy ibn Yaqzan, p. 5, Editions de la Méditerranée.[5]
  145. ^ G. A. Russell (1994), The ‘Arabick’ Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 224-239, Brill Publishers, ISBN 9004094598.
  146. ^ G. A. Russell (1994), The ‘Arabick’ Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century England, p. 227, Brill Publishers, ISBN 9004094598.
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  148. ^ Makdisi, George (April-June 1989), “Scholasticism and Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 109 (2): 175–182, doi:10.2307/604423
  149. ^ Judge Weeramantry, Christopher G. (1997), Justice Without Frontiers, Brill Publishers, pp. 8, 135, 139–40, ISBN 9041102418, OCLC 219748178
  150. ^ Lebedel, p.113

References

Categories: Europe, Highlight, Muslim Heritage, MUSLIM HERITAGE

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  1. Additional References

    Attar, Samar (2007), The vital roots of European enlightenment : Ibn Tufayl’s influence on modern Western thought, Lanham: Lexington Books, ISBN 0739119893
    Badr, Gamal Moursi (Spring 1978), “Islamic Law: Its Relation to Other Legal Systems”, The American Journal of Comparative Law (The American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 26, No. 2) 26 (2 [Proceedings of an International Conference on Comparative Law, Salt Lake City, Utah, February 24–25, 1977]): 187–198, doi:10.2307/839667, JSTOR 839667
    Cardini, Franco. Europe and Islam. Blackwell Publishing, 2001. ISBN 978-0-631-22637-6
    Farmer, Henry George (1988), Historical facts for the Arabian Musical Influence, Ayer Publishing, ISBN 0-405-08496-X, OCLC 220811631
    Frieder, Braden K. Chivalry & the perfect prince: tournaments, art, and armor at the Spanish Habsburg court Truman State University, 2008 ISBN 1-931112-69-X, ISBN 978-1-931112-69-7
    Grierson, Philip Medieval European Coinage Cambridge University Press, 2007 ISBN 0-521-03177-X, ISBN 978-0-521-03177-6
    Hobson, John M. (2004), The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, ISBN 0521547245
    Lebedel, Claude (2006), Les Croisades, origines et conséquences, Editions Ouest-France, ISBN 2-7373-4136-1, OCLC 181885553
    Lewis, Bernard (1993), Les Arabes dans l’histoire, Flammarion, ISBN 2-08-081362-5, OCLC 36229500
    Mack, Rosamond E. Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300–1600, University of California Press, 2001 ISBN 0-520-22131-1, google books
    Makdisi, John A. (June 1999), “The Islamic Origins of the Common Law”, North Carolina Law Review 77 (5): 1635–1739
    Matthew, Donald, The Norman kingdom of Sicily Cambridge University Press, 1992 ISBN 978-0-521-26911-7
    Roux, Jean-Paul (1985), Les explorateurs au Moyen-Age, Hachette, ISBN 2-01-279339-8
    Watt, W. Montgomery (2004), The influence of Islam on medieval Europe, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 0748605177

    Reply

  2. Mashallah, such an extensive in-depth study! We need to read this again and again.

    On another note: The great achievement of Islamic science are clear and obvious to all genuine students of the period. What is not so clear are the reasons for the (temporary) decline. Do we have some articles that are explaining that unfortunate period?

    And what does it take for Muslims to excel again over all others in science also?

    The past achievements are already proof that Islam and science do not clash. However, again, what can we answer when our today’s opponents say: Why are no Arab / Islamic Universities in Science among the top 10, 100 ?

    (Your contributions welcome!!!)

    Reply

  3. Thank you dear brother Rafiq for your comment.

    You raise a very important question and we will find useful articles about this question. You have today made a post, 11-year Pak (Ahmadi) girl sets world record in O-level.

    God willing a great future awaits Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and Dr. Abdus Salam was the first drop of rain.

    Let me quote here from the prophecy from the writing of the Messiah, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani:

    God has informed me again and again that He will grant me great glory and will instil my love in people’s hearts. He shall spread my Movement all over the world and shall make my sect triumphant over all other sects. The members of my sect shall so excel in knowledge and insight that they will confound everyone with the light of their truth, and by dint of their arguments and signs.

    http://www.alislam.org/library/books/DivineManifestations.pdf

    Reply

  6. Pioneer Muslim Physicians
    By David W Tschanz

    In 1120, a Muslim doctor was on his way to see his patient, the Almoravid ruler of Seville. By the side of the road he saw an emaciated man holding a water jug. The man’s belly was swollen, and he was in obvious distress.

    “Are you sick?” the doctor asked. The man nodded.

    “What have you been eating?”

    “Only a few crusts of bread and the water from this jug.”

    “Bread won’t hurt you,” said the doctor. “It could be the water. Where are you getting it?”

    “From the well in town.”

    The doctor pondered a moment. “The well is clean. It must be the jug. Break it and find a new one.”

    “I can’t,” whined the man, “This is my only jug.”

    “And that thing bulging out there,” replied the doctor, pointing to the man’s midsection, “is your only stomach. It is easier to find a new jug than a new stomach.”

    The man continued to protest, but one of the doctor’s servants picked up a stone and smashed the jug. A dead frog spilled out with the foul water.

    “My friend,” the doctor said to the patient, “look what you have been drinking. That frog would have taken you with him. Here, take this coin and go buy a new jug.”

    When the doctor passed by a few days later, he saw the same man sitting by the side of the road. His stomach had shrunk, he had gained weight, and his color was back. Seeing the doctor, the man heaped praise on him.

    —attributed to Ibn Abi Usaybi’a, 13th century

    hile this demonstration of clear reasoning was taking place in Muslim Spain, medical practice in Christian Europe, hobbled by a mindset that would have seen the doctor’s work as a challenge to divine will, offered the sick little more than prayers and comfort, rather than medicine or treatments.

    In the East, the spread of Islam, beginning in the seventh century ce, sparked the assimilation of existing knowledge and its development in all branches of learning, including medicine. Arab conquerors rapidly absorbed much from their new subjects. Arabic became to the East what Latin and Greek had been to the West—the language of literature and of the arts and sciences, the common tongue of learned men from the Rann of Kutch to the French border—and the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Makkah, brought hundreds of thousands of pilgrims together each year, facilitating the exchange of ideas, knowledge and books.

    Recognizing the importance of translating Greek works into Arabic to make them more widely available, the Abbasid caliphs Harun al-Rashid and his son, al-Ma’mun, sponsored a translation bureau in Baghdad—the Bayt al-Hikmah, or House of Wisdom—starting in the late eighth century, that sent agents throughout Muslim and non-Muslim lands in search of scholarly manuscripts in every language. Rendered into Arabic, these precious documents established a solid foundation for the Muslim sciences, not the least of which was medicine.

    http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/201101/pioneer.physicians.htm

    Reply

  7. An Islamic History of Europe (full documentary; produced by BBC)

    Few other documentaries on the same theme:

    Why Copernicus work should be considered as the culmination of 500 year work of the Muslim astronomers, watch a BBC documentay, Science and Islam — the Power of Doubt:

    Reply

  8. John Davenport describing Muslim Heritage beautifully in one paragraph
    He writes in An apology for Mohammed and the Koran:

    It is in the compositions of Friar Bacon, who was born in 1214, and who learned the Oriental languages, that we discover the most extensive acquaintance with the Arabian anthors. He quotes Albumazar, Thabet-Ebu-Corah, Ali Alhacer, Alkandi, Alfraganus and Arzakeb; and seems to have been as familiar with them as with the Greek and Latin classics, especially with Avicenna, whom he calls ‘the chief and prince of philosophy.’ The great Lord Bacon, it is well known, imbibed and borrowed the first principles of his famous experimental philosophy from his predecessor and namesake Roger Bacon, a fact which indisputably establishes the derivation of the Baconian philosophical system from the descendants of Ishmael and disciples of Mohammed.

    In a short paragraph, John Davenport has very precisely identified all the links in the human intellectual evolution. Additionally, his book, that is available in Google books, is a master piece in the defense of the Prophet Muhammad, may peace be on him. Read his two page Preface and he is standing shoulder to shoulder with other great defenders of the Prophet Muhammad in the Western world, like Thomas Carlyle.

    Reply

  9. An Evolutionist centuries before Sir Charles Darwin!
    Al-Jāḥiẓ (in Arabic الجاحظ) (real name Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri) (born in Basra, 781 – December 868/January 869) was an Arabic prose writer and author of works of literature, Mu’tazili theology, and politico-religious polemics.

    In biology, Al-Jahiz introduced the concept of food chains and also proposed a scheme of animal evolution that entailed natural selection, environmental determinism and possibly the inheritance of acquired characteristics.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Jahiz

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  10. Cordoba
    Córdoba was captured in 711 by a Muslim army. In 716 it became a provincial capital, subordinate to the Caliphate of Damascus; in Arabic it was known as قرطبة (Qurṭuba). In May 766, it was chosen as the capital of the independent Muslim emirate of al-Andalus, later a Caliphate itself. During the caliphate apogee (1000 AD), Córdoba had a population of roughly 500,000 inhabitants, though estimates range between 350,000 and 1,000,000. In the 10th and 11th centuries, Córdoba was one of the most advanced cities in the world as well as a great cultural, political, financial and economic centre. The Great Mosque of Córdoba dates back to this time; under caliph Al-Hakam II Córdoba had 3,000 mosques, splendid palaces and 300 public baths, and received what was then the largest library in the world, housing from 400,000 to 1,000,000 volumes.

    Reinhardt Dozy wrote:,
    “The fame of Córdoba penetrated even distant Germany: the Saxon nun Hroswitha, famous in the last half of the 10th century for its Latin poems and dramas, called it the Jewel of the World.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%B3rdoba,_Spain

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  11. West in the dark on Muslim world’s bright ideas
    By Jim al-Khalili

    There is no such thing as Islamic science, because science is the most universal of human activities. But the means to facilitate scientific advances have always been dictated by culture, political will and wealth. What is only now becoming clear to many in the West is that during the dark ages of mediaeval Europe, incredible scientific advances were made in the Muslim world.

    Geniuses in Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus and Cordoba took on the works of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, Greece, India and China, developing ”modern” science. New disciplines emerged – algebra, trigonometry and chemistry as well as major advances in medicine, astronomy, engineering and agriculture. Arabic texts replaced Greek as the fonts of wisdom, helping shape the scientific revolution of the Renaissance. Here are some of the best discoveries of this forgotten age:

    http://www.smh.com.au/world/science/west-in-the-dark-on-muslim-worlds-bright-ideas-20101020-16uc8.html

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  13. ‘Islam was major influence on modern State Law’ – Jona Lendering
    Abdul Haq Compier writes:

    Historian Jona Lendering just republished his book ‘Vergeten erfenis. Oosterse wortels van de westerse cultuur’ (Lost Legacy. Eastern Roots of Western Culture) in which he confirms two strong suspicions of mine, namely that Islamic Law was in fact the basis for the modern State — with its fabled separation of State and Church–, and that the Greek origins of our civilisation are an artificially created myth. I differ with Lendering in his statement that Hellenism was founded in the 18th century; I see the Renaissance itself as the moment where this myth was created. Nonetheless, enjoy the summaries of some of the chapters of his book from his website Livius.org

    Islamic Law
    Islam was born in the seventh century. The faithful were less skeptical towards the quest for knowledge than the Christians. At the same time, they were a bit more skeptical about Greco-Roman culture, which resulted in the creation of a law system of their own that did not resemble earlier systems. The jurists involved demanded freedom to discuss important issues, organized themselves in madrassas, and set professional standards.

    Origins of the Modern State
    In this age of close cultural contact [the 11th-15th centuries, SC], Roman Law was reintroduced in Western Europe, but even though Medieval Law was inspired by ancient forms, it is in fact a pragmatic selection from existing traditions, which became a structuralizing element. At the same time, new elements were introduced, like the ideal of equality, which has no roots in ancient or feudal society, but is derived from Islam. The separation of Church and State, another important structuralizing element, could not be created without philosophical theories from the Islamic world.

    …

    http://www.livius.org/nl/vergeten_erfenis_summary.html

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  14. How Muslim inventors changed the world
    By Paul Vallely

    From coffee to cheques and the three-course meal, the Muslim world has given us many innovations that we in the West take for granted. Here are 20 of their most influential innovations:

    (1) The story goes that an Arab named Khalid was tending his goats in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia, when he noticed his animals became livelier after eating a certain berry.

    He boiled the berries to make the first coffee. Certainly the first record of the drink is of beans exported from Ethiopia to Yemen where Sufis drank it to stay awake all night to pray on special occasions. By the late 15th century it had arrived in Makkah and Turkey from where it made its way to Venice in 1645.

    It was brought to England in 1650 by a Turk named Pasqua Rosee who opened the first coffee house in Lombard Street in the City of London. The Arabic “qahwa” became the Turkish “kahve” then the Italian “caffé” and then English “coffee”.

    (2) The ancient Greeks thought our eyes emitted rays, like a laser, which enabled us to see. The first person to realise that light enters the eye, rather than leaving it, was the 10th-century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haitham.

    He invented the first pin-hole camera after noticing the way light came through a hole in window shutters. The smaller the hole, the better the picture, he worked out, and set up the first Camera Obscura (from the Arab word “qamara” for a dark or private room).

    He is also credited with being the first man to shift physics from a philosophical activity to an experimental one.

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

    (4) A thousand years before the Wright brothers, a Muslim poet, astronomer, musician and engineer named Abbas ibn Firnas made several attempts to construct a flying machine. In 852 he jumped from the minaret of the Grand Mosque in Cordoba using a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts.

    He hoped to glide like a bird. He didn’t. But the cloak slowed his fall, creating what is thought to be the first parachute, and leaving him with only minor injuries.

    In 875, aged 70, having perfected a machine of silk and eagles’ feathers he tried again, jumping from a mountain. He flew to a significant height and stayed aloft for ten minutes but crashed on landing — concluding, correctly, that it was because he had not given his device a tail so it would stall on landing. Baghdad international airport and a crater on the Moon are named after him.

    (5) Washing and bathing are religious requirements for Muslims, which is perhaps why they perfected the recipe for soap which we still use today. The ancient Egyptians had soap of a kind, as did the Romans who used it more as a pomade.

    But it was the Arabs who combined vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide and aromatics such as thyme oil. One of the Crusaders’ most striking characteristics, to Arab nostrils, was that they did not wash.

    Shampoo was introduced to England by a Muslim who opened Mahomed’s Indian Vapour Baths on Brighton seafront in 1759 and was appointed Shampooing Surgeon to Kings George IV and William IV.

    http://www.dawn.com/weekly/science/archive/060325/science3.htm

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  15. William Montgomery Watt
    He explains not only how Europe learnt from the Arab Muslims but also how she chose to eventually disregard and marginalize them. He writes in his book Islam: A short history

    In Western Europe before 1100 a little was known about Aristotelian logic, but not much else about Greek philosophy. After that date, however, Christian theologians became interested and studied the numerous translations from Arabic which were now being made. Among these were the philosophical works of Avicenna, including the exposition of his views by al-Ghazali, and nearly all those of Averroes. By the thirteenth century there was a vigorous intellectual movement which was soon to develop further what had been learned from the Muslims in science and philosophy, though not for a time in medicine. Of the philosophical works, the Aristotelian commentaries of Averroes probably had the greatest influence. One group of Christian thinkers was known as the Latin Averroists, but they aligned themselves with the more sceptical side of his philosophy, and were regarded as heretics by other Christian scholars. Much more important was the influence of the Aristotelianism of Averroes on theologians of the Dominican monastic order, and notably Thomas Aquinas (1226-74). The latter largely accepted the thought of Aristotle, though this had hitherto been regarded with suspicion by Christian scholars; and on this basis he produced a comprehensive philosophical and theological system which is still considered one of the fullest and best intellectual accounts of Christian belief.

    By the fourteenth century, however, the Western European outlook was beginning to change. The poet Dante (1265-1321), in his great work The Divine Comedy, at one point speaks of the philosophers and mentions Avicenna and Averroes, but at the same time he has the names of a dozen Greek philosophers, and calls Aristotle ‘the master of those who know’. By this time there were already one or two translations made directly from Greek, and the trickle became a flood after the conquest of Con¬stantinople by the Ottomans in 1453, when many Greek manuscripts were brought to the West. There then developed what can only be called a revulsion of feeling from things Arabic and Islamic. Latin Christendom completely lost awareness of all that it had been given by Islamic thinkers, seeing instead everything as having come directly from the Greeks. This virtual denial of the Islamic contribution is now urgently in need of correction.

    William Montgomery Watt. Islam: A short history. One World, 1999. 121-122.

    He further writes:

    Until about 1700 the Ottoman Empire and the Western European countries were roughly equal in military power. Even before then, however, the Europeans had been developing in ways which the Muslims were unable to follow. From the Muslims the Western Europeans had learned methods of improving sailing ships, and this ultimately enabled them to produce ships capable of crossing the Atlantic and other oceans.

    William Montgomery Watt. Islam: A short history. One World, 1999. 131.

    Reply

  16. The making of humanity
    This is a book by Robert Briffault. He writes:

    What we call science arose as a result of new methods of experiment, observation, and measurement, which were introduced into Europe by the Arabs. […] Science is the most momentous contribution of Arab civilization to the modern world, but its fruits were slow in ripening. […]

    The debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist in startling discoveries or revolutionary theories; science owes a great deal more to Arab culture, it owes its existence. The ancient world was, as we saw, pre-scientific. The astronomy and mathematics of the Greeks were a foreign importation never thoroughly acclimatized in Greek culture. The Greeks systematized, generalized and theorized, but the patient ways of investigation, the accumulation of positive knowledge, the minute methods of science, detailed and prolonged observation, experimental inquiry, were altogether alien to the Greek temperament. Only in Hellenistic Alexandria was any; approach to scientific work conducted in the ancient classical world. .What we call science arose in Europe as a result of a new spirit of inquiry, of new methods of investigation, of the method of experiment, observation, measurement, of the development of mathematics in a form unknown to the Greeks. That spirit and those methods were introduced into the European world by the Arabs.

    Greek manuscripts were collected and translated at the court of the ‘Abbassids with an ardour even more enthusiastic than that which inspired the Aurispas and Filelfos of fifteenth-century Italy. But the choice of the Arab’ collectors and the object of their interest were very different. Of the poets and historians of Greece, beyond satisfying their curiosity by a few samples, they took little account. Their object was information ; and besides the writings of the philosophers from Thales to Apollonius of Tyana, and the textbooks of medical science, it was above all to the writings of the Alexandrian Academy, the astronomy and geography of Ptolemy, the mathematical works of Euclid, Archimedes, Diophantes, Theon, Apollonius of Perga, that they devoted their attention. For speculative theories and broad generalizations they showed little aptitude, valuing as they did information for its own sake and as a means to the extension of knowledge, rather than as the basis of generalizing induction. They accepted the conclusions of the Greeks as working theories necessary to the pursuit of scientific inquiry, only venturing to criticize or modify them as the expansion of knowledge forced them to adapt them to new facts. They have been reproached with imposing a dogmatic spirit in science upon Europe. Christian Europe had little to learn in the way of dogmatism ; and those theories, such as the Ptolemaic system, the geographical doctrine of ‘ climates,’ the doctrine of alchemical transmutation, which it received from the Arabs, were not Arabic, but Greek. But the spirit in which the Arabs made use of existing materials was the exact opposite of that of the Greeks. It supplied precisely what had been the weak and defective aspect of Greek genius. For the Greeks it was in theory and generalization that the interest lay, they were neglectful and careless of fact ; the Arabian inquirers’ zeal, on the contrary, was careless of theory, and directed to the accumulation of concrete facts, and to giving to their knowledge a precise and quantitative form. What makes all the difference between fruitful, enduring science and mere loose scientific curiosity, is the quantitative as against the qualitative statement, the anxiety for the utmost attainable accuracy in measurement. In that spirit of objective researchand quantitative accuracy the whole of the vast scientific work of the Arabs was conducted. They accepted Ptolemy’s cosmology, but not his catalogue of stars or his planetary table, or his measurements. They drew up numerous new star catalogues, correcting and greatly amplifying the Ptolemaic one ; they compiled new sets of planetary tables, obtained more accurate values for the obliquity of the ecliptic and the precession of equinoxes, checked by two independent measurements of a meridian the estimates of the size of the earth. They devised for the carrying out of those observations elaborate instruments superior to those of the Greeks and exceeding in accuracy those manufactured in the fifteenth century at the famous Nuremberg factory. Each observer took up the, work independently, sought to eliminate the personal equation, and the method of continuous observation was systematically carried out—some observations extending over twelve years—at the observatories of Damascus, Baghdad, and Cairo. So much importance did they attach to accuracy in their records that those of special interest were formally signed on oath in legal form. …

    For the rest of the story go to:

    http://www.archive.org/details/makingofhumanity00brifrich

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  17. From the pen of John Davenport
    He writes in An apology for Mohammed and the Koran:

    Europe is still further indebted to Mohammedanism, for, not to mention that to the struggles during the Crusades we mainly owe the abolition of the onerous parts of the feudal Bystem, and the destruction of thoso aristocratic despotisms on the ruins of which arose the proudest bulwark of our liberties, Europe is to be reminded that she is indebted to the followers of Mohammed, as the link which connects ancient and modern literature; for the preservation, during a long reign of Western darkness, of the works of many of the Greek philosophers; and for the cultivation of some of the most important branches of science, mathematics, medicine, etc., which are highly indebted to their labours. Spain, Cassino, and Salernum were the nurseries of the literature of the age; and the works of Avicenna, Averroes, Beithar, Abzazel and others, gave new vigour and direction to the studies of those who were emerging from a state of barbarism. Their zeal in the pursuit of geographical knowledge impelled them to explore and found kingdoms even in the desert regions of Africa. Through its brightest periods, nay, even from its origin, Mohammedanism was, comparatively, favourable to literature. Mohammed himself said “that a mind without erudition was like a body without a soul; that glory consists not in wealth, but in knowledge,” and he charged his followers to seek for learning in the remotest parts of the globe.
    …
    Who has not mourned over the fate of the last remnant of chivalry, the fall of the Mussulman empire in Spain ? Who has not felt his bosom swell with admiration towards that brave and generous nation of whose reign for eight centuries, it is observed even by the historians of their enemies, that not a single instance of cold-blooded cruelty is recorded? Who has not blushed to see a Christian priesthood goading on the civil power to treat with unexampled bigotry and devilish cruelty, a people from whom they had always received humanity and protection; and to record the political fanaticism of Ximenes in consigning to the flames the labours of the philosophers, mathematicians, and poets of Cordova, the literature of a splendid dynasty of seven hundred years.

    It is in the compositions of Friar Bacon, who was born in 1214, and who learned the Oriental languages, that we discover the most extensive acquaintance with the Arabian anthors. He quotes Albumazar, Thabet-Ebu-Corah, Ali Alhacer, Alkandi, Alfraganus and Arzakeb; and seems to have been as familiar with them as with the Greek and Latin classics, especially with Avicenna, whom he calls “the chief and prince of philosophy.” The great Lord Bacon, it is well known, imbibed and borrowed the first principles of his famous experimental philosophy from his predecessor and namesake Roger Bacon, a fact which indisputably establishes the derivation of the Baconian philosophical system from the descendants of Ishmael and disciples of Mohammed.

    In reply to the almost stereotyped assertion that “Mohammedanism is in the present day an enemy to science and letters,” it has been observed, that so far from this being the truth, Islam has outstripped the enlightenment of our age by making instruction a fundamental law. Every child must be put to school in its fifth year. It is the duty of the State to instruct the citizen, that he may understand the laws he has to obey, and of the family to teach the child the means by which he may acquire his livelihood.

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  18. Greek versus the Arabs
    Robert Briffault wrote in The Making of Humanity:

    What we call science arose as a result of new methods of experiment, observation, and measurement, which were introduced into Europe by the Arabs. […] Science is the most momentous contribution of Arab civilization to the modern world, but its fruits were slow in ripening. […]

    The debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist in startling discoveries or revolutionary theories; science owes a great deal more to Arab culture, it owes its existence. The ancient world was, as we saw, pre-scientific. The astronomy and mathematics of the Greeks were a foreign importation never thoroughly acclimatized in Greek culture. The Greeks systematized, generalized and theorized, but the patient ways of investigation, the accumulation of positive knowledge, the minute methods of science, detailed and prolonged observation, experimental inquiry, were altogether alien to the Greek temperament. Only in Hellenistic Alexandria was any; approach to scientific work conducted in the ancient classical world. .What we call science arose in Europe as a result of a new spirit of inquiry, of new methods of investigation, of the method of experiment, observation, measurement, of the development of mathematics in a form unknown to the Greeks. That spirit and those methods were introduced into the European world by the Arabs.

    Greek manuscripts were collected and translated at the court of the ‘Abbassids with an ardour even more enthusiastic than that which inspired the Aurispas and Filelfos of fifteenth-century Italy. But the choice of the Arab’ collectors and the object of their interest were very different. Of the poets and historians of Greece, beyond satisfying their curiosity by a few samples, they took little account. Their object was information ; and besides the writings of the philosophers from Thales to Apollonius of Tyana, and the textbooks of medical science, it was above all to the writings of the Alexandrian Academy, the astronomy and geography of Ptolemy, the mathematical works of Euclid, Archimedes, Diophantes, Theon, Apollonius of Perga, that they devoted their attention. For speculative theories and broad generalizations they showed little aptitude, valuing as they did information for its own sake and as a means to the extension of knowledge, rather than as the basis of generalizing induction. They accepted the conclusions of the Greeks as working theories necessary to the pursuit of scientific inquiry, only venturing to criticize or modify them as the expansion of knowledge forced them to adapt them to new facts. They have been reproached with imposing a dogmatic spirit in science upon Europe. Christian Europe had little to learn in the way of dogmatism ; and those theories, such as the Ptolemaic system, the geographical doctrine of ‘ climates,’ the doctrine of alchemical transmutation, which it received from the Arabs, were not Arabic, but Greek. But the spirit in which the Arabs made use of existing materials was the exact opposite of that of the Greeks. It supplied precisely what had been the weak and defective aspect of Greek genius. For the Greeks it was in theory and generalization that the interest lay, they were neglectful and careless of fact ; the Arabian inquirers’ zeal, on the contrary, was careless of theory, and directed to the accumulation of concrete facts, and to giving to their knowledge a precise and quantitative form. What makes all the difference between fruitful, enduring science and mere loose scientific curiosity, is the quantitative as against the qualitative statement, the anxiety for the utmost attainable accuracy in measurement. In that spirit of objective researchand quantitative accuracy the whole of the vast scientific work of the Arabs was conducted. They accepted Ptolemy’s cosmology, but not his catalogue of stars or his planetary table, or his measurements. They drew up numerous new star catalogues, correcting and greatly amplifying the Ptolemaic one ; they compiled new sets of planetary tables, obtained more accurate values for the obliquity of the ecliptic and the precession of equinoxes, checked by two independent measurements of a meridian the estimates of the size of the earth. They devised for the carrying out of those observations elaborate instruments superior to those of the Greeks and exceeding in accuracy those manufactured in the fifteenth century at the famous Nuremberg factory. Each observer took up the, work independently, sought to eliminate the personal equation, and the method of continuous observation was systematically carried out—some observations extending over twelve years—at the observatories of Damascus, Baghdad, and Cairo. So much importance did they attach to accuracy in their records that those of special interest were formally signed on oath in legal form. …

    http://www.archive.org/details/makingofhumanity00brifrich

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  19. 1001 Inventions and The Library of Secrets
    Oscar-winning actor and screen legend Sir Ben Kingsley has taken the starring role in a short feature film about the scientific heritage of Muslim civilisation. The mini-movie, entitled 1001 Inventions and the Library of Secrets, accompanies a global touring exhibition that this currently open to the public at the Science Museum in London:

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  21. Mashallah!!! I am spellbound by its informative material, extensive details and length.
    May Allah reward your efforts a million trillion folds.Amen

    God Bless you. Amen

    Reply

  22. Charlemagne or Charles the Great and total lack of religious freedom

    It is important not to forget the evolution of religious freedom in the world. As those who cannot remember the past are apt to repeat it. Charles the Great expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800. The French and German monarchies descending from the empire ruled by Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor cover most of Europe. In his acceptance speech of the Charlemagne Prize, Pope John Paul II referred to him as the Pater Europae (“father of Europe”), see Wikipedia for reference.

    According to Encyclopedia Britannica:

    Charlemagne’s most demanding military undertaking pitted him against the Saxons, longtime adversaries of the Franks whose conquest required more than 30 years of campaigning (772 to 804). This long struggle, which led to the annexation of a large block of territory between the Rhine and the Elbe rivers, was marked by pillaging, broken truces, hostage taking, mass killings, deportation of rebellious Saxons, draconian measures to compel acceptance of Christianity, and occasional Frankish defeats. The Frisians, Saxon allies living along the North Sea east of the Rhine, were also forced into submission.

    “Charlemagne.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 16 Aug. 2009 .

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  23. Thanks a lot for sharing this with all folks you really recognise what you are talking approximately! Bookmarked. Please additionally discuss with my web site =). We will have a hyperlink exchange arrangement between us

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  25. It is important that Moslems and the rest of the world, especially, the West, should know of Islam’s contributions to human civilization.

    I want to know of universities, if any, in Islamic Spain.

    Reply
  27. Pingback: All right thinking people | Odespinner's Blog
  29. Pingback: Ισλαμική Ανδαλουσία: το Μυστήριο της Πτώσης ενός από τους Μεγαλύτερους Πολιτισμούς Όλων των Εποχών – Οι Ρωμιοί της Ανατολής – Greeks of the
  30. Pingback: Ισλαμική Ανδαλουσία: το Μυστήριο της Πτώσης ενός από τους Μεγαλύτερους Πολιτισμούς Όλων των Εποχών – Οι Ρωμιοί της Ανατολής – Greeks of the

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