Book review 2

LOST HISTORY; The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers and Artists by Michael Hamilton Morgan                 Published by National Geographic, 2007

History is not written by the vanquished, and so most people in the Western world have no idea of the debt owed to the great Muslim thinkers of Islam’s Golden Age for much of the knowledge that fuels the modern world. Names that were known in Europe, or sometimes not, before the Renaissance; al Biruni, al-Kindi, al-Khwarezmi, al-Jazari, al-Uqlidisi, Omar Khayyam, al-Tusi, Ibn Sina, al-Razmi, Ibn al-Haytham, al-Zahrawi, Ibn Rushd – between them they mapped the stars and planets, calculated with astonishing accuracy the circumference and diameter of the earth, understood the rotation of the earth on its axis, measured the angle of the tilt of its axis, explained eclipses, equinoxes, comets, introduced the decimal point and zero, invented the discrete disciplines of algebra, trigonometry, and chemistry (then known as alchemy), set empirical rules for the testing of drugs, noted the link between health and diet, and invented tens of surgical instruments including the scalpel and forceps. 

In many cases these Muslims were credited with their discoveries even if they were later forgotten, but in many more cases hundreds of years later Europeans were given credit for Muslim inventions and discoveries in what has become the ‘lost history’. The Muslims gained much of their learning from the Greeks and Indians whose works had been translated by scribes at the Abbasid court in Baghdad into Arabic. The initial knowledge of zero came from the brilliant Hindu mathematician Brahmagupta, whose work they refined. In those days scholars wandered from court to court and through them was this learning transmitted to Europe and the Ummayad court in Cordoba, where the Arabic texts were translated into Latin. The Europeans took this learning and half a millennia later developed it, as the Arabs had done with earlier science. Sometimes these Islamic thinkers sailed perilously close to the wind - charges of heresy were leveled much as Galileo faced from the Catholic church several hundred years later with his acceptance of heliocentrism.

The difficult question is why did it all come to an end? There is no single answer but by the 14th century, the religion that had given the freedom to think eventually became the organ of institutionalized thought that trapped, just as the medieval church had done in Europe until the 15th century Renaissance and the 18th century Age of Enlightenment. Muslims sank into intellectual apathy, falling prey to superstition, sorcery and self-serving charlatans - a decline 'foretold' by the great social historian Ibn Khaldun who wrote in the 14th century of the cyclical rise and fall of empires. With women now forming the majority of students and graduates in universities across the Islamic world, we may yet witness a new cycle in the ascendant.

NO GOD BUT GOD - THE ORIGINS, EVOLUTION AND FUTURE OF ISLAM

by Reza Aslan

Published by Arrow Books 2006 

Highly readable and exceptionally informative minus the arcane academe that often accompanies such subjects, this book should be required reading for anyone interested in more than the inane platitudes parroted by politicians and so-called experts about the Muslim world today. Reza Aslan lays out defining moments in the development of Islam, from the succession struggles immediately after the death of the Prophet to the killing of Hussein at Kerbala in 680 by the Ummayad army, which solidified ineluctably the schi’sm between the Sunni and Shi’a. He gives examples of how the Prophet gave rights to women regarding inheritance, marriage and divorce, moves that were highly unpopular among the men, and how after the death of the Prophet, such men ‘took back’ their ‘rights’ by ‘re-interpreting’ the Quran and the Prophet’s words. He describes the efforts by scholars to lay down a body of law necessary to accommodate the requirements of the growing Islamic empire, and explains the ‘Traditionalist’ and ‘Rationalist’ thinking that for a time uneasily co-existed, to the ultimate triumph of the ulema who in the 11th century succeeded in carving out for themselves the role of sole authority to interpret the Qoran and the Sunna. In a fateful move, they decided that the Quran could in no way be considered a historical document and therefore the answers to all questions that arose from now until eternity were contained within the Qoran. This decision seriously impaired critical thinking and intellectual innovation, and Islamic intellectuals from across the broad spectrum of Islamic thought have periodically questioned it, sometimes fatally. He outlines the effect colonization had on the Islamic world, from the savage retribution meted out by the British overlords after the Indian Mutiny of 1857 to the plundering of colonized countries’ natural resources to enrich the Europeans at the expense of the indigenous people, and the hypocrisy of the colonial powers for whom the ideals of enlightened governance in the form of political pluralism and democracy were in no way to be applied to their colonial subjects. He ends in the present, arguing persuasively against the simplistic notion of a ‘clash of civilizations’ in favor of a current Islamic reformation in which the West though implicated and often complicit, is a spectator.

Weddings, funerals and a controversial Soap opera.

Sana'a, Yemen 2008

Weddings are a daily occurrence in the months leading up to Ramadan when weddings do not take place. In the Islamic world, the time frame between the official marriage contract signing and the wedding may be a few days, or it may be months.  But although the contract signing is the official one, the couple do not live together until the actual celebration of it, married or not. There may be many reasons for the delay; financial, waiting for distant family members to be there at the same time, a death in the family etc.  Weddings in the Islamic world are extremely expensive affairs and Yemen is no exception;  hospitality is expected to be lavish and the whole neighborhood or community is invited, everyone must be fed and a meal is nothing without meat, qat must be procured at the very least for the males of the families involved and in the case of wealthier families, for everyone, women need clothes and the bride needs a dowry including jewelry, and everything has gone up in price including gold, qat and lamb!

Women celebrate at home and/or in special halls rented for the occasion with fancy food, shishas and qat, as well as loud music live or taped, while for the men, huge tents are erected throughout the city where they wander in and out as and when they can, gathering to chat, smoke, chew qat and dance. There is almost always an oud player. (An oud being a fretless, 11-stringed instrument shaped like an old-fashioned lute – the word lute itself coming from the Arabic – 'al-oud'.) 

Fortunately the oud player and singer who sings at weddings in my area is excellent and I am treated to a free concert every second or third week. I say fortunate, because he plays until 0315 and then the Imam takes over.