Readings

Cordoba

1. Chejne,A.G. Muslim Spain: Its’ History & Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1974: 162-181 | Download Chejne, pp. 162-181
2. Burgel, J.C. “Ibn Tufayl and his Hayy ibn Yaqzan: A Turning Point in Arabic Philosophical Writing” of The Legacy of Muslim Spain, Vol. 2. Edited S.K. Jayyusi. Brill Academic Press, 1994: 830-846 | Download Burgel, pp. 830-846
3. Kocache, Riad. The Journey of the Soul: the Story of Hai bin Yaqzan as told by Abu Bakr Muhammad bin Tuful. London: The Octagon Press, 1982: vi-62. | Download "Hai Bin Yaqzan"
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4. Heath, Peter. “Knowledge” in of The Lliterature of Al-Andalus. Edited by Maria Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000: 96-125. | Download "Knowledge"
5. Bendiner, Elmer. The Rise and Fall of Paradise. New York: Putnam Press, 1983: 187-209. | Download Bendiner, pp. 187-209
6. Hillenbrand, Robert. “The Ornament of the World: Cordoba as a Cultural Centre” of. The Legacy of Muslim Spain, Vol. 1. Edited by S.K. Jayyusi. Brill Academic Press, 1994: 112-135. | Download Hillenbrand, pp. 112-135
7. Lapidus, Ira. “Spanish Islamic Civilization” of A History of Islamic Societies 2nd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002: 309-319. | Download Lapidus, pp. 309-319
8. Ruthven, Malise with Azim Nanji. Historical Atlas of Islam. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004: 66-69. | Download Historical Atlas of Islam, pp. 66-69
9. Website: The Great Mosque of Cordoba

Baghdad

1. Ruthven, Malise with Azim Nanji. “Expansion of Islam to 750” of Historical Atlas. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2004: 36-37.
2. Lapidus, Ira. “Baghdad” of A History of Islamic Societies 2nd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002: 56-66.
3. Nabia Abbott, Two Queens of Baghdad. Saqi Books, 2001: 1-18; 137-169; 236-264. | Download "Two Queens of Baghdad"
4. Sabra, A.I. “The Scientific Enterprise” of The World of Islam: Faith, People, Culture. London: Thames & Hudson, 1991: 181-200. | Download The Scientific Enterprise, pp. 181-200
5. Hitti, Philip. “The Golden Prime of the Abbasids” of History of the Arabs: Revised 10th Edition. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002: 297-362. | Download Hitti, pp. 297-362
6. McNeill William, and Marilyn R. Waldman. “Tanukhi: From Ruminations and Reminiscences” of The Islamic World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984, 85-110. | Download McNeill, pp. 85-110
7. Ernst, Carl. “Islam and Science” of Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003: 151-162.

Summary

The religion that the Prophet Muhammad preached provided his followers an ethical and moral vision for leading a life of righteousness. By the time of his death in 632, loyalty to Muhammad and Islam also provided an important means for forging solidarity among various Arab tribes who had previously been engaged in petty rivalries and wars against each other. In the eighth and ninth centuries, this social and political solidarity, unifying Arabs, became the backbone of a new Arab empire that stretched from Spain in the west to Central Asia and northwestern India in the east. Initially in the new empire, Islam was the religion of the Arab ruling class, a badge of solidarity and superiority. Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians, who were subjects of new Arab rulers, could maintain their religious practices provided they paid jizya, a tax in tribute in lieu of military service. If non-Arabs converted to Islam, they became mawali, or clients of Arab tribes, thus acknowledging Arab superiority. Over the course of time, however, the discriminatory attitude to non-Arab converts was challenged as the religion was interpreted in much richer and inclusive ways, often tinged with strong mystical hues. Notwithstanding the Arabocentric tendencies in its early history, Arab Islamic civilization came to draw upon the institutions and cultures that already existed in the Middle East, including the rich heritage of the Byzantine-Christian and Persian Sassanian civilizations. Many nomadic Bedouin Arabs were integrated into urban communities inhabiting new cities and towns established by Arab rulers. The Arabic language was transformed into a cosmopolitan language which was used far beyond the geographic borders of Arabia as a language of administration, religion, literature and science. Professor Maria Rosa Menocal writes, “The virtue of this Arab-Islamic civilization (in this as in other things not so unlike the Roman) lay precisely in its being able to assimilate and even revive the rich gifts of earlier and indigenous cultures, some crumbling, others crumbled, even as it was itself being crafted. The range of cultural yearning and osmosis of the Islamic empire in this expansive moment was as great as its territorial ambitions: from the Roman spolia that would appear as the distinctive capitals on the columns of countless mosques to the Persian stories that would be known as The Thousand and One (or Arabian) Nights, from the corpus of translated Greek philosophical texts to the spices and silks of the farthest East. Out of this acquisitive confrontation with a universe of languages, cultures, and people, the Umayyad [Arabs], who had come pristine out of the Arabian desert, defined their version of Islam as one that loved its dialogues with other traditions.” (The Ornament of the World, pp. 21-22)

The pluralistic nature of early Islamic civilization was well reflected in the various cultures and traditions represented in the great cities that were built by Muslim rulers and dynasties. Muslim cities such as Cairo, Timbuktu, and Fatehpur Sikri were characterized by plurality which was evident not just in their religious landscapes but also in the arts and the sciences they sponsored. The readings in this Session examine Arab Islamic civilization as it developed in two urban contexts: Baghdad and Cordoba. Founded in 762 by Abu Jafar al-Mansur as the capital of the Abbasid empire, the city of Baghdad was originally called Madinat as-Salaam, the City of Peace. The city reached the apex of its power and reputation in the ninth century when, under the rule of the caliphs al-Mahdi and Harun al-Rashid, it became one of most important economic, political and cultural capitals of the world. One of the highpoints in Baghdad’s intellectual life was the Bait al-Hikmah, “The House of Wisdom,” founded by the Caliph Maimun in 830. This institution housed hundreds of manuscripts in Greek, Persian, Sanskrit and Syriac many of which translated into Arabic. In some instances, the original texts of important classical works such as Galen’s Anatomical Procedures have since been lost and only the Arabic translation survives. Arab scholars, Muslim and non-Muslim, affiliated to this institution did not merely translate works of Western classical antiquity but provided significantly new and original ideas of their own. When the scholarly treatises of these Arab scholars were translated into Latin in the twelfth century they became the basis of a renaissance in Europe, specifically in Arab Spain or al-Andalus.

The city of Cordoba, known as the “bride of al-Andalus,” was first made into the administrative, political, military and cultural capital of Arab Spain by the Umayyad ruler Abd al-Rahman I in 756. By the first half of the tenth century, in the reign of Abd al-Rahman III (d.956), its inhabitants numbered half a million including Muslims, Christians and a considerable number of Jews. Although the vast majority of its population was of Spanish origin, a number of Berbers from North Africa lived there as well. In comparison to other European cities of the time, Cordoba was remarkably clean. Its streets well-paved and lighted with its residents well-supplied with water. News of the grandeur of its buildings, its markets and its vibrant cultural life spread far and wide, reaching even Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, a cloistered nun in Saxony, who called the city “the world’s ornament.” Cordoba was, above all, an intellectual center symbolized by its many libraries. As a result of the patronage of the Caliphs and the city’s economic elite, the city was home to a large group of scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, representing different fields of learning such as medicine, philosophy, geography, astronomy and mathematics. The Caliphal library, containing over 400,000 volumes, was constantly growing out of space as new books were added, so that its premises had to be moved five times. Witnesses recount that on one of these moves, it took five days to transport the books on poetry alone! Cordoba’s Caliphal library was ranked alongside the libraries of Abbasids in Baghdad and the Fatimids in Cairo as one of the three great libraries in the Muslim world.

The flowering of Cordoba and al-Andalus was made possible by the commingling of languages, religions, foods, clothing, music, songs, styles of architecture within multi-religious and multi-ethnic environment in which many people were bilingual in Arabic, Hebrew, and local Hispano-Latin dialects. Although there were periods in Cordoba’s history when religious disputes broke out between communities and non-Muslim populations, particularly Christians, suffered discrimination, yet these instances were exceptional for, overall, Cordoba’s rulers tended to tolerate religious and cultural diversity. Certainly in comparison to their European counterparts, they were exemplary in their treatment of religious minorities. Under these favorable circumstances, it is hardly surprisingly that Cordoba became the center of a brilliant Jewish renaissance promoted by the numerous Jewish intellectuals, poets and philosophers, many of whom had accepted Arabic as their language of thought and culture. Miguel Cruz Hernandez observes that “Cultural coexistence of this kind was made possible by religious and legal principles that were far-reaching in their implications even though they were often transgressed in practice. The Andalusian experience was an exceptional moment in history, probably unique in its own time and rarely matched in any other. It’s most worthy, notable and creative nature was that co-habitation and coexistence were based on religious and legal principles. Our own era, which prides itself on the liberalism and universality of its ideas, offers few examples to match it.” (Unesco Courier, December 1991)

Guiding Questions

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1. What conditions in Baghdad encouraged such a vast array of discoveries and inventions? What information do the readings provide about the social and cultural life of Baghdad during its heyday as the capital city of the Abbasid empire?
2. In your opinion, what have been the five most important scientific developments that took place under the auspices of Arab Islamic civilization? How have they impacted our world today?
3. At a Medieval Islamic Scholars seminar held at SMU in May 2005, this question was posed: Why was there such an abundance of inventions and discoveries attributed to Muslims in Medieval times but not today? How would you answer this question?
4. Discuss the role and influence of the Lady Zubaidah on the political and social life of her time and the power she exerted in Baghdad and beyond. In what ways does religious culture impact her status and role in society?
5. Describe the cooperative mixing of cultures in Cordoba. What cultural, economic and political characteristics about Spain during this time period encouraged the different cultures to thrive and collaborate?
6. How did the intellectual and cultural experiences of Muslim Spain help bring about the Renaissance?
7. Could the Cordoba experience happen in the world today? What conditions would be necessary? Explain.