Islam It's also
our history

02

Arab
Legacy

The Arab-Andalusian &
Arab-Sicilian Legacy

The Muslim conquest of Spain from 732 onwards led to eight centuries of Islamic presence in Western Europe. Whether under its rule or, as in Sicily, under Christian domination, Islam left a deep and lasting mark on every domain of knowledge which spread throughout Europe.

Arab Legacy

Expansion during the Umayyad Caliphate, 661 - 700

Andalusia

From the Umayyad conquest of Spain, a civilization was born marked by Convivencia, the peaceful coexistence of three cultures: Islamic, Christian and Jewish.

Yet coexistence did not mean equality, nor was there any guarantee that the system would endure. Christians and Jews were dhimmis, protected subjects under Islam with specific rights and duties guaranteed and commanded by the Caliphate. Boabdil handed over Granada to the Spanish royal family (historical image of 1882) The slow process of Christian Reconquest, which began soon after the Islamic conquest itself and would continue until the fall of Granada, the last Muslim bastion on Spanish soil, in 1492, would ultimately eradicate the Islamic presence in western Christendom. However, the expulsion of Muslims after the Reconquest of Spain did not erase the Islamic presence in Spain, be that in architecture, philosophy, terminology or many other fields. For even the next step in the development of Spain and Portugal, becoming masters of navigation and seafaring colonial empires is inextricably linked to the Muslim astrolabe and advances in cartography.

Sicily

Like Andalusia, Sicily, taken from Byzantine rule by Muslims coming up from North Africa, and later by the Normans, was the crucible of an original Berber-Arab-Norman and Islamic-Christian culture. The island even saw the development of a distinctive local variety of Arabic, which would be the ancestor of the present-day Maltese language. Lords of the islands in the 11th century, the Christians – first under the Normans and then, from the end of the 12th century, under the Hohenstaufens of Germany – respected Muslims, included them in their administration and adopted many of their usages and customs. Sicily continued to live under a tolerant and open system, which a unique personality, Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250) turned into an art of living. A polyglot sovereign with a curious and open mind, Frederick, the djellaba-wearing emperor, single-handedly symbolized this formidable moment in Convivencia Sicilian-style.

Agriculture Architecture

Astronomy, Cartography, Navigation and Optics Medicine

Astronomy, Cartography, Navigation and Optics

The Islamic golden age brought forth some of the most helpful inventions and fundamental discoveries which greatly helped the advancement of the sciences worldwide. The caliphates founded the first centers of knowledge and brought together the best scholars from the realm to study and collaborate. Apart from their own scientific achievements, the Islamic centers of knowledge, notably Bagdad, Cairo and Cordoba, were very influential in spreading scientific information from the east to the west. It was in effect here, that the foundations for Europe’s success in the following centuries was made. For without the mathematical, cartographical and navigational advancements no Spaniard, French, British or Dutch would have ever reached a distant shore in search of trade, knowledge or conquest.

Astronomy & Navigation Whether it was the measurement of the circumference of Earth by Al-Biruni, the creation of Hakimitic planet boards by Ibn Yunus, incredible discoveries were made by Arabic scholars that would revolutionise the world and how humans could perceive it. Astrolabe In 858 the astronomer Al-Battani was born. In his field of research the scholar made considerable progress. He determined the solar year to be 365 days, 5 hours, 46 minutes and 24 seconds long. With his calculation, he was out by 2 minutes and 22 seconds. He produced tables of the sun and the moon, which were more accurate than the ones, which Copernicus used several centuries later. Because of this achievement he was often cited by Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Riccioli and his findings also keenly studied and used by Kepler and Galileo in their own scientific explorations. Amongst the most important of these discoveries was the invention of the Astrolabe. It was developed by the astronomer Muhammad Al-Fazari, considered a pioneer of Islamic astronomy. He made Indian texts accessible to the Muslim world and constructed the astrolabe therefrom. Muslim scholars ascribed the astrolabe over 1000 different uses. It was used in astronomical research, to ascertain the correct time for prayer and the position of the Qibla to do so and many more. The most important use however was in navigation. By using the north as a reference, the sailors could find out their exact position in relation to a star and calculate the Azimuth, (An arab word meaning the path) and thus the direction in which they needed to sail. Dutch Sailing Book This skill was, as mentioned previously, absolutely paramount for the creation of Europe’s maritime empires.

Optics In 965 AD, the physicist and astronomer Ibn al-Haytham was born. His experiments on optics were of great importance. He was the first to present a new approach in this subject area. His analysis began with the human eye. He recognized the importance of the lens in the eye and the suitability of curved glass surfaces for optical magnification. He manufactured first reading stones of glass and was able to correct his ageing eyesight. As the inventor of the magnifying glass, he most likely inspired Roger Bacon to invent wearable glasses. On the basis of this invention, he gave some theses in regard to the refraction of light, as well as the magnitude of the moon, which is the same on the horizon and also on the zenith. He also calculated the height of the atmosphere, due to his observations of sunsets in work Liber de munde et coelo coined the Christian West. The practical implications of the invention of the glasses are easy to prove. Glasses corrected the eyesight of ageing craftsmen and therefore extended the working life of the population and gave a huge burst to every economy where glasses were introduced.

Medicine

“Medicine is the science, from which one learns the states of the human body … in order to preserve good health when it exists, and restore it when it is lacking” (Ibn Sina)

According to a hadith, a transmission of the Prophet Muhammad, it was said that God did not let down any disease without a cure. With this optimistic attitude, the Arabian scholars approached medicine and the discovery of modern cures and treatments. The medical sciences at the time flourished in the Muslim world, especially in the Abbasid Caliphate where many scholars had been assembled, schools and hospitals built and where all sciences were fostered. The Muslim world also benefited from a transfer of knowledge from the east. In this Islamic golden age the foundations of modern medicine were made, at a time where nothing of equal could be found in Europe.

The father of clinical and experimental medicine, the so called Hippocrates of the Arabs, Al-Razi, was born in 864 in Persia, befittingly on the silk road, and later settled in Bagdad. He wrote numerous books on medicine, which were in use, both in eastern and western medicine for a long time. As one of the first doctors, he approached health holistically, stating that the practitioner should also be a good “soul doctor”. Consequently he was the first doctor to conduct research on mental illnesses. He approached many problems empirically and conducted many experiments that lead to new insights. His method of preservation of the body had a huge influence on the European world and lasted until the eighteenth century. Another prominent milestone in the development was in 872, when Ahmad ibn Toloun established a hospital in Cairo that featured a department for mental diseases. Soon medical services were extended to even more people when in 880 Sinan ibn Thabit ibn Qurra developed a mobile hospital to reach rural and Bedouin areas.

A revolutionary man in the field of surgery was Al-Zahrawi also known as Abdulcasis, who was born in 936 in Cordoba. The success of his many surgeries is based on the use of new superior surgical tools, adapted especially for specific tasks and of Al-Zahrawi’s own design. He sought to distribute his knowledge and wrote the first illustrated book on surgery – Kitab al-Tasrif – On Surgery and Instruments, which provided a detailed, step-by step guide on how to build his tools and how to use them for each specific surgery. In the 12th century Gerard of Ceremona translated the book al-Tasrif into Latin. In the European Middle Age, Al-Zahrawi's work served as the main source of medicine for nearly 5 centuries and shaped the knowledge of doctors and surgeons. Abulcasis blistering a patient in the hospital at Cordoba

Sicilian Arabic Language Mathematics

Sicilian Arabic Language

The Muslim conquest put the conquerors in contact with outstanding civilizations – Greek, Persian, Hindu – which it unified under a single rule and a single administrative language, Arabic. In the court of the caliphs, libraries were constructed and a major translation project covering scientific work and Greek philosophy was undertaken. This tradition continued in Spain and especially Sicily, from the 11th century under the aegis of Christian princes. It was when accompanied by Averroès’ commentaries that Aristotle made his mark on European medieval universities where his teachings became the cornerstone of philosophical and theological thought. Nevertheless, Muslim sages were not satisfied with merely translating ancient scholars; they innovated furthered innovation in every area of science, astronomy, medicine and mathematics.

The Koran was translated into the main European languages, chairs of Turkish and Arab studies were founded in European universities, grammar books and dictionaries multiplied and the first printing press using Arabic characters was created in Italy in 1586, one and a half centuries before Constantinople!

Lastly, Turkish, Persian and Arabic literary works exerted a certain influence on European literature. Examples would be the collections of poems included in the generic term form (derived from Persian) of the diwan, which Goethe used in his ‘Divan occidental-oriental’ (1819) and, of course, the world-famous A Thousand and One Nights, the collection of popular Arabic tales of Persian origin, translated for the first time by Antoine Galland at the onset of the 18th century, of which the literary, theatrical, musical and cinematic adaptations would be prolific.

Mathematics - The invention of algebra

Mathematic had an enormous influence on the scientific development and becomes ever more significant, even for our present life. It is in many areas the elementary language and poses an absolute core of research and technology. Much of the essential insights of the modern era come from the Arab world, for it was much advanced in all fields of modern sciences. Only a few may be aware that we owe these useful discoveries to Muslim scholars and inventors. Negative numbers, irregular numbers, law of sines, decimal numbers, linear and quadratic equations where all introduced by Arabic scholars, often stemming from Baghdad’s House of Wisdom.

Al-Khwarizmi is one of the most prominent and important Muslim scholars, whose discoveries have shaped the world. Al-Khwarizmi was a geographer and cartographer, but he produced his most influential work in the field of mathematics. His relevance was such that even today his name is omnipresent in its latinised form Algoritmi. His work from 830, al-Kitāb al-muḫtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-ğabr wa-ʾl-muqābala - The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing, was a milestone in the advancement of mathematics and the sciences. He discovered and inserted the number 0 and also decimals into the Arabic numerical system and thus into all modern numerical systems, drew up arithmetic rules on which today's algebra is based and was the first to solve linear and quadratic equations, thereby elevating Mathematics took a whole new dimension. In the 12th century, this book was translated into Latin as Algoritmi de numero Indorum by Robert of Chester and thereby extended the substantial of Al-Khwarizmi’s work from the Middle East to Europe. Daniel of Morley, an English scholastic, philosopher and astronomer traveled in 1145 to Cordoba to learn mathematics and astronomy and returned to Oxford, thereby bringing modern mathematics to England. Adelard of Bath followed suit. Leonardo of Pisa, known as Fibonacci, heavily relied on Al-Khwarizmi’s work for his mathematical theories in his book Liber Abaci. It is known that Fibonacci was introduced to mathematics, especially to idian-arabian numerals, in Bejaia Algeria around 1192.

The Arab world was the scientific center of the world, holding more books, scholars and researchers than any other region of the world, with the exception of China maybe. It was here where the first western Universities were also founded, in Fez in Algeria and Cairo in Egypt, but most prominently, the house of wisdom of Baghdad. It was here that the Islamic Golden Age was forged, where Al-Khwarizmi first studied and later taught and from where modern sciences slowly made their way to Europe.

Charlemagne Music

France and the Muslim World

Harun-Charlemagne - julius köckert, 1864, Maximilianeum foundation, München Mathematic had an enormous influence on the scientific development and becomes ever more significant, even for our present life. Due to their superior craftsmanship, many objects from the Islamic realm were highly sought after in Europe. Albrecht Dürer - Emperor Charlemagne and Emperor Sigismund Like the crowning mantle of Roger II in Sicily, many other objects came to be regalia of European Kings and nobility, thereby immediately expressing prestige. Muslim craftsmanship thus became highly sought after expensive trade items. Amongst the most prevalent items carried by European nobleman was the Olifant, a hunting horn made out of Ivory and adorned with beautiful carvings.

These objects thus often became linked with the intellectual and cultural leaders of Europe at the time and therefore often also a part of higher culture. Charlemagne King of the Franks was the most prominent admirer of Islamic Items and assembled many at his court. He established the Carolingian – Abbasid Alliance with the ruler Harun al-Rashid and even though the alliance was short lived, they exchanged envoys and gifts frequently. Charlemagne therefore not only was in the possession of a much cherished hunting Olifant, many blades of Damascus steel, but also a real Elephant called Abul Abbas. From this first cultural exchange, many others followed and we discover sufi scripts in Francian churches, the horseshoe arc in the cathedral in Aachen and many other Islamic elements that enriched Francian life and culture.

La turquerie en france

Ottoman Legacy