Muslims Rich in Science Continuation

SCIENCE IN AL-ANDALUS
by
Paul Lunde

An outgrowth of the interest in medicine was the study of botany. The most famous Andalusian botanist was Ibn Baitar, who wrote a famous book called Collection of Simple Drugs and Food. It is an alphabetically arranged compendium of medicinal plants of all sorts, most of which were native to Spain and North Africa, which he spent a lifetime gathering. Where possible, he gives the Berber, Arabic, and sometimes Romance names of the plant, so that for linguists his work is of special interest. In each article, he gives information about the preparation of the drug and its administration, purpose and dosage. The last of the great Andalusian physicians was Ibn al-Khatib, who was also a noted historian, poet and statesman. Among his other works, he wrote an important work on the theory of contagion:

"The fact of infection becomes clear to the investigator who notices how he who establishes contact with the afflicted gets the disease, whereas he who is not in contact remains safe, and how transmitting is effected through garments, vessels, and earrings." Ibn al-Khatib was the last representative of the Andalusian medical tradition. Soon after his death, the energies of the Muslims of al-Andalus were wholly absorbed in the long costly struggle against the Christian reconquista.

Another field that interested the scholars of al-Andalus was the study of geography and many of the finest Muslim works it this field were produced there. Economic and political considerations played some part in the development of the study of geography, but it was above all their all consuming curiosity about the world and its inhabitants that motivated the scholars who devoted themselves to the description of the earth and its inhabitants. The first steps had been taken in the [Muslim] east, when "Books of Routes," as they were called, were compiled for the use of the postmasters of the early �Abbasid Caliphs. Soon, reports on faraway lands, their commercial products and major physical features were compiled for the information of the Caliph and his ministers. Advances in astronomy and mathematics made the plotting of this information on maps feasible, and soon cartography had become an important discipline in its own right.

Al-Khwarizmi, who did so much to advance the science of mathematics, was also one of the earliest scientific descriptive geographers. Basing his work on information made available through the Arabic translation of Ptolemy, al-Khwarizmi wrote a book called The form of the Earth, which included maps of the heavens and of the earth. In al-Andalus, this work was carried forward by Ibn Muhammad al-Razi - Rhazes - who died in 936, and who wrote a basic geography of al-Andalus for administrative purposes. Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Warraq, a contemporary of al-Razi, wrote a similar work describing the topography of North Africa. The wide ranging commercial relations of al-Andalus allowed the collection, from returning merchants, of a great deal of detailed information about regions as far north as the Baltic. Ibrahim ibn Yaqub, for example, who traveled widely in Europe and the Balkans in the late ninth century - he must have been a brave man indeed - left itineraries of his travels.

Two men who wrote in the 11th century collected much of the information assembled by their predecessors, and put it into convenient form. One of them, al-Bakri is particularly interesting. Born in Saltes in 1014, al-Bakri was the son of the governor of the province of Huelva and Saltes. Al-Bakri himself was an important minister at the court in Seville, and undertook several diplomatic missions. An accomplished scholar, as well as literateur he wrote works on history, botany and geography as well as poetry and literary essays. One of his two important geographical works is devoted to the geography of the Arabian Peninsula with particular attention to the elucidation of its place names. It is arranged alphabetically, and lists the names of villages, towns, wadis, and monuments which he culled from the hadith and histories. His other major work has not survived in its entirety, but it was an encyclopedic treatment of the entire world.

Al-Bakri arranged his material by country - preceding each entry by a short historical introduction - and describes the people, customs, climate, geographical features and the major cities - with anecdotes about them. He says of the inhabitants of Galicia, for example: "they are treacherous, dirty, and bathe once or twice a year even then with cold water; they never wash their clothes until they are worn out because they claim that the dirt accumulated as the result of their sweat softens their body."

Perhaps the most famous geographer of the time was al-Idrisi, "the Strabo of the Arabs." Born in 1100 and educated in Cordoba, al-Idrisi traveled widely visiting Spain, North Africa, and Anatolia, until he eventually settled in Sicily where he was employed by the Norman King, Roger II, to write a systematic geography of the world, which is still extant, and is usually known as The Book of Roger.

In it, al-Idrisi describes the world systematically following the Greek division of it into seven "climes" each divided into 10 sections. Each of the climes is mapped - and the maps are highly accurate for the time in which they were compiled. He gives the distances between major cities, describes the customs, people, products and climate of the entire known world. He even records the voyage of a Moroccan navigator who was blown off course in the Atlantic, sailed for 30 days, and returned to tell of a fertile land inhabited by naked savages. America?

The information contained in The Book of Roger was engraved on a silver planisphere, which was one of the wonders of the age. [Biography of Al-Idrisi] Al-Andalus also produced the authors of two of the most interesting travel books ever written. Both exist in good English translation. The first is by Ibn Jubair, secretary to the Governor of Granada who, in 1183, made the Hajj, and wrote a book about his journey called simply Travels. The book is in the form of a diary and gives a detailed account of the eastern Mediterranean world at the height of the Crusades. It is written in clear elegant style, and is filled with the perceptive intelligent comments of a tolerant - and often witty - man.

The most famous of all the Andalusian travelers was Ibn Battuta - the greatest tourist of his age - and perhaps of any. He went to North Africa, Syria, Makkah, Medina and Iraq. He went to Yemen, sailed down the Nile, the Red Sea, Asia Minor, and the Black Sea. He went to the Crimea and to Constantinople. He went to Afghanistan, India and China. He died in Granada at the age of 73.

It is impossible to do justice to all the scholars of al-Andalus who devoted themselves to the study of history and linguistic sciences. Both were the prime "social sciences" cultivated by the Arabs and both were brought to a high level of art in al-Andalus. For example, Ibn al-Khatib, whose theory of contagious diseases we have touched on already was the author of the finest history of Granada that has come down to us.

Ibn al-Khatib was born in 1313, near Granada, and followed the traditional educational curriculum of his time - he studied grammar, poetry, natural sciences, and Islamic law, as well, of course, as the Koran [Qur�an]. His father an important official, was killed by the Christians in 1340. The ruler of Granada invited his son to occupy the post of secretary in the Department of Correspondence. He soon became the confidant of the ruler and gained a position of great power. Despite his busy political career, Ibn al-Khatib found time to write more than 50 books on travel, medicines, poetry, music, history, politics and theology.

The achievements of Ibn al-Khatib were rivaled only by those of his near contemporary Ibn Khaldun, the first historian to seek to develop and explicate the general laws which govern the rise and decline of civilizations. His huge, seven volume history is entitled The Book of Examples and Collections from Early and Later information Concerning the Days of Arabs, Non-Arabs and Berbers. The first volume, entitled Introduction [Muqaddimah] gives a profound and detailed analysis of Islamic Society and indeed, of human society in general, for he constantly refers to other cultures for comparative purposes. He gives a sophisticated analysis of how human society evolved from nomadism to urban centers and how and why these urban centers decay and finally succumb to less developed invaders. Many of the profoundly disturbing questions raised by Ibn Khaldun have still not received the attention they should from all thinking men. Certainly anyone interested in the problems of the rise and fall of civilizations the decay of cities the complex relationship between technologically advanced societies and traditional ones should read Ibn Khaldun�s Introduction to History.

[Biography of Ibn Khaldun] Another great area of Andalusian intellectual activity was philosophy but it is impossible to do more than glance at this difficult and specialized study. From the ninth century Andalusian scholars like those in Baghdad, had to deal with the theological problems posed by the introduction of Greek philosophy into a context of Islam. How could reason be reconciled with Revelation? This was the central question.

Ibn Hazm was one of the first to deal with this problem. He supported certain Aristotelian concepts with enthusiasm and rejected others. For example, he wrote a large and detailed commentary on Aristotle�s Posterior Analects, that abstruse work on logic. Interestingly Ibn Hazm appears to have had no trouble relating logic to Islam - in fact, he gives illustrative examples of how it can be used in solving legal problems drawn from the Shari�ah. Nothing illustrates the ability of Islam to assimilate foreign ideas and acclimatize them better than Ibn Hazm�s words in the introduction to his work: "Let it be known that he who reads this book of ours will find that the usefulness of this kind of work is not limited to one single discipline but includes the Koran, hadith, and legal decisions concerning what is permissible and what is not, and what is obligatory and what is lawful."

Ibn Hazm considered logic a useful tool, and philosophy to be in harmony or at least not in conflict, with Revelation. He has been described as "One of the giants of the intellectual history of Islam," but it is difficult to form a considered judgment of a man who wrote more than 400 books, most of which have perished or still remain in manuscript.

Ibn Bajjah, whom western scholastic theologians called Avempace, was another great Andalusian philosopher. But it was Averroes - Ibn Rushd - who earned the greatest reputation. He was an ardent Aristotelian, and his works had a lasting effect, in their Latin translation, on the development of European philosophy.[Biography of Ibn Rushd] Islamic technological innovations also played their part in the legacy of al-Andalus to medieval Europe. Paper has been mentioned, but there were others of great importance - the windmill, new techniques of working metal, making ceramics, building, weaving and agriculture.
The people of al-Andalus had a passion for gardens, combining their love of beauty with their interest in medicinal plants. Two important treatises on agriculture - one of which was partially translated into Romance in the Middle Ages were written in al-Andalus. Ibn al-�Awwam, the author of one of these treatises, lists 584 species of plants and gives precise instructions regarding their cultivation and use. He writes for example, of how to graft trees, make hybrids, stop blights and insect pests and how to make floral essences and perfumes.

This area of technological achievement has not yet been examined in detail, but it had as profound an influence on medieval European material culture as the Muslim commentators on Aristotle had on medieval European intellectuals. For these were the arts of civilization, the arts that make life a pleasure rather than a burden, and without which philosophical speculation is an arid exercise.

Copyright � Aramco World. This article appeared in "Science: The Islamic Legacy." Copyright � - Explanatory text in [...] and the web version by Dr. A. Zahoor. Quotations From Famous Historians of Science :Quotations on Moorish (Islamic) Civilization Biography of Ibn Rushd Biography of Al-Razi Biography of Ibn Sina Muslim Scientists and Islamic Civilization The Arab Roots of European Medicine:
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