Document Analysis of “A History of Medieval Islam” by J.J. Saunders

Hebrew had never known. The Qur’an (Islam’s holy book like Bible or Torah) could not, must not be translated: the believer must hear and understand and if possible read the divine book in the original, even though Arabic were not his mother tongue. To study, illustrate and elucidate the text became a pious duty: the earliest branch of science developed by Muslims was Arabic philology, traditionally founded at Basra in the late Omayyad age. The further Islam spread among non-Arabs, the further a knowledge of Arabic spread with it. A century or so after the conquests even the Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians within the Caliphate found it convenient to speak and write Arabic. Thus to political unity was added the widespread use of a common language, which immensely facilitated the exchange of ideas. ³ The Caliphs cultivated friendly relations with the non-Muslims such as Christians. From motives of policy, the Caliphs established amicable relationships with the Jacobite and Nestorian Christians, who constituted the bulk of the people, and who during the long period of Roman rule had learnt a good deal of the science and philosophy of the Greeks. This learning, translated into Syriac, a Semitic tongue closely related to Arabic, was at the disposal of the newcomers, who were inspired and impressed by the rich and ancient culture of the region, and it was this region, and not Arabia proper, which was the birthplace of the Arabic civilization. 4

The lands under the sovereignty of the Caliphs enjoyed immunity from serious external attack for three to four centuries.

There was plenty of fighting on the frontiers and many internal revolts and disturbances, but no prolonged and ruinous barbarian assaults such as the Latin Christian West had to endure from the Vikings and Magyars. Under the shield of Pax Islamica, which may be compared with the Augustan and Antonine Peace of the early Roman Empire, the arts and sciences rose to a new and flourishing life. Not until about 1050 did this peace begin to break down: Islam was then exposed to a series of attacks from the nomads of the steppes and deserts, culminating in the dreadful Mongol explosion of the thirteenth century. ⁵ The creation of the vast Arab Empire, besides leveling barriers and abolishing frontiers, brought into existence a great free trade area, promoted safe and rapid travel, and gave tremendous stimulus to commerce.

During these four centuries (800-1200) international trade was more vigorous than at any time since the heyday of imperial Rome. Merchants from the Caliphate were found in places as far as Senegal and Canton. The hoards of Arabic coins ug up in Scandinavia reveal the brisk

³ ibid, p. 188.

⁴ ibid, pp. 188-189.

⁵ ibid, p. 189.

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exchange of goods between Northern Europe and cities of Iraq and Persia via the great rivers of Russia. The negro lands south of Sahara were drawn into the stream of world commerce. The ancient Silk Road through the oases of Central Asia which carried the products of China to the West had never been so frequented. Cities expanded, fortunes were made, a wealthy middle-class of traders, shippers, bankers, manufacturers and professional men came into being, and a rich and sophisticated society gave increasing employment and patronage to scholars, artists, teachers, physicians and craftsmen. ⁶ The pursuit of knowledge was quickened by the use of paper and the so-called ‘Arabic’ numerals were established.

Neither originated in the Islamic world, but both were widely employed by the ninth century. The manufacture of paper from hemp, rags and tree-bark seems to have been invented in China about 100 A.D., but it remained unknown outside that country until some Chinese prisoners of war skilled in the art were brought to Samarkand in 751. In 793 a paper manufactory was set up in Baghdad; by 900 the commodity was being produced in Egypt and by 950 in Spain. The Arabic numerals, despite their name, are probably Hindu, and many have reached Islam through the translation of the Siddhanta, a Sanskrit astronomical treatise, made by order of the Caliph Mansur in 773. The oldest Muslim documents employing these signs date from 870-890: the zero is represented by a dot, as has always been the case in Arabic. These innovations multiplied books and facilitated calculation, and the rich scientific literature of the next few centuries undoubtedly owes much to the Arab civilization. 7

Through here, we can see the tremendous impact of Islam during the middle age though it is not only the presence of Islam that help shaped in the propagation and expansion but it is also from the mere fact of good governance of the Caliphate which have had extended their rules and regimes. It gives a suffice satisfactions to every subordinates and people under their administration that relentlessly aspire for a supranational region. However, what seems to be the antecedence of this supranational region? Saunders opined that there are possible causes of the rise of the Arabic civilization. He later gave possible considerate peculiarities and certain notable features: 8

Islam provided a framework and a universal language, nut its only creations which possess a definitely Muslim character are Arabic grammar, law and theology. All else came from non-Muslim sources, even Arabic poetry and belles-lettres, which were

⁶ ibid, p. 189.

⁷ ibid, p. 189-190.

⁸ ibid, pp. 190-194.

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based on a literary tradition going back to pre-Islamic times, the ‘days of ignorance’ of the sixth century. 9

The biggest single influence which helped to shape it was Greek science and philosophy, but this reached it indirectly, chiefly through the medium of Syriac. ¹⁰ The work of preserving and transmitting what had already been accomplished went on among the Byzantine Greeks and the Syriac-speaking pupils in Syria, Egypt and Iraq, and when the Arabs broke into these lands most of the leading works of Greek medicine and metaphysics had been translated into Syriac by scholars of the Oriental Christian communities. The Caliphs encouraged learned Christians and Jews to turn books into the dominant language of the Empire. This translating went on for some two centuries (800-1000), at the close of which educated Muslims could read the masters of Hellenic thought in Arabic versions of Syriac translations of the Greek originals. 11

The double and simultaneous impact of Greece and India provided a powerful stimulus to the building of the Arabic civilization.

When the Abbasids moved the metropolis of Islam to Iraq, Persian scholars were given every facility to pursue their quest. At the command of Mansur, Fazari translated the Siddhanta; Ibn al-Mukaffa turned into Arabic the famous fables of Bidpai, an Indian collection of animal stories which has gone round the world, and celebrated mathematician al-Kwarizmi, from whose name the European ‘algorism’) the old term for arithmetic) was derived, founded the science of algebra (Arabic al-jabr, restoring, literally setting a bone) on the basis of Hindu mathematical achievement. Translation from Sanskrit to Arabic went on till the time of the great Persian scientist al-Biruni (973-1048), who among numerous learned works left an admirable sociological impact of Greece and India. 12

The center of Arabic intellectual life was long fixed in Iraq, the ancient hoe of culture, ‘a palimpsest (as it has been styled) on which every civilizations from the time of the Sumerians had left its trace.’ A meeting place of Hellenic and Iranian culture, it had been the heart of the old Persian monarchy and was the seat of the Caliphate from 750 to 1258. Jews and Zoroastrians, Nestorian, Monophysite and Greek Orthodox Christians, Gnostics and Manichaeans, the pagans of Harran and the strange Baptist sect of the Mandaeans, all mingled in Baghdad, capital of the Arab civilization. Perhaps in no other region of its size could such an extraordinary variety of belief and speech

⁹ this ‘days of ignorance’ is referred by the Muslim scholars of Ulamas as ‘Jahiliyah’.

¹⁰ Look for the works propelled by Islamic political thinkers and jurists i.e. Ibn Taymiyah, Muhammad Abduh and Ibn Khaldun. you will see a resemblance of Plato’s and Aristotelian’s philosophies.

¹¹ Saunders, p. 190.

¹² ibid, p. 191.

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