How did Islam change the lives of the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula? How did Islamic doctrine influence world civilization? What is called ‘the golden age of Islam’? These questions formed the basis of the first lecture in a series of meetings organized by the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Tatarstan dedicated to the 1100th anniversary of the adoption of Islam by Volga Bulgaria.
‘When Islam began to spread beyond the borders of the Arabian Peninsula, a lot of people were absorbed into that culture, thereby introducing some new linguistic norms into the tradition. At the same time, if we pay attention to the ancient Greek civilization, which Islam absorbed on the territory of Byzantium, it is reasonable to note the fact that Islam began to actively absorb the philosophical heritage of the ancient Greeks (Aristotle and Plato, for instance). Islam absorbed, reworked some things philosophically and looked at specific issues from the perspective of the Quran. As it began to spread across the globe, Islam absorbed the heritage that major civilizations had left behind and began to rework it. We should understand that Islamic civilization has never been preserved in narrow issues of the doctrine, but has put issues of knowledge first,’ Marat Salakhov, expert of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Tatarstan stressed during the lecture.
How did the Arabs live before Islam?
Who were the Arabs before Islam? At that time, according to Salakhov, Arabs were called only those who inhabited a small area on the Arabian Peninsula. The Middle East was predominantly Christian and pagan at that time.
The emergence of the new religion greatly changed the face of Arabia: Islam became the fateful and unifying factor in the fate of the Arabs. The Islamic world was born on the basis of Islam and subsequently grew to gigantic proportions. Before Islam, the Arab world was dominated by pagan beliefs, but foreign religions also had a great influence on the Arabs. Jewish and Christian communities coexisted peacefully alongside the Arabs.
‘There were two large civilizations near the Arabian Peninsula – the Roman and the great Persian Empire. The Arabs at that time, before Islam, were at the stage of tribalism. The tax system, the monetary system, and army – they did not have all that. Islam would bring it. The advent of Islam was a kind of impetus, not only for Arab society themselves, but also for the rest of the world. Along with the spread of Islam, which very quickly spread beyond the peninsula, the Arabic language and culture became increasingly popular,’ the lecturer explained.
When the Arabs started to go beyond their territory, they faced a diversity of cultural traditions and habits. All that was not simply adopted, but reinterpreted and transformed, based on the precepts of Islamic doctrine.
The Golden Age of Islam
With the passage of time, the Arabs under the reign of Caliph Uthman began to become familiar with maritime studies, and the first Muslim navy appeared. At that time, when Europe was beginning to forget its heritage, the Arabs were studying the experience of their predecessors, translating iconic works into the Arabic language, supplementing and revising them.
‘This time period, which began in 661 and ended in 1258, went down in history as the Golden Age of Islam. It was in 661, when the Umayyad Caliphate came to power. The Caliphate began to acquire features of classical statehood, and the capital was transferred to Damascus. The state expanded and became an empire. Islam penetrated into the remotest areas (for instance, Derbent, Spain in the VII century). The Umayyads, expanding the territory of the state, encountered rich heritage of other countries, first of all, architectural peculiarities and unusual structure of society,’ Marat Salakhov explained.
Increasing their sphere of influence, the Arabs gave Europe and the world the Canon by Ibn Sina, which was the handbook of medicine for the whole world and which is still one of the main treatises ahead of its time. The Arabs were also good at Astronomy, since it was one of the most important subjects. For instance, the Quran speaks of the celestial luminaries many times and calls for attention to them. Arab sailors, pilots and seafarers were the best and even were the part of Christopher Columbus’s crew.
‘Muslim scholars in many of their discoveries and achievements outpaced European scholars by several centuries. When the Inquisition raged in Europe, Islam supported scientific research and encouraged their scholars to make new advances. The focus on intellect, the development of medicine (Ibn Sina, after whom the medical university in France is named; Razi and his discovery of smallpox and fever; Kambur Vesim and the discovery of the tuberculosis microbe), astronomy (the Ulugbek Observatory is being built in Samarkand), physics and the organization of the pension system are only a small part of the contribution of the Muslim civilization. Muslims found out that plague spread in epidemic way, derived necessity of isolation of diseased people, organized public hospitals using money received from taxes (zakyat). The list could go on and on,’ Salakhov is convinced.
The influence that the spiritual culture of the Caliphate and the entire Muslim civilization had on world culture cannot be overestimated; it had its roots in many cultures of both the East and the West. Medicine in Europe and world geography were greatly influenced by the research of Arab scholars, and philosophers from Muslim countries gave a great boost to rationalism in European science. In mathematics, it is enough to recall the words of scholar Jacques Risler who said: ‘The teachers of mathematics in our Renaissance were Muslims’. The founder of algebra was Khwarizmi and trigonometry was Battani.
Ilmira Gafiyatullina
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