CHAPTER II.
PHILOSOPHY AND ARAB KNOWLEDGE
1. GRAMMATICAL SCIENCE
By Muslim scholars of the 10ih century the sciences were divided into Arab Sciences' and 'Old'- or `Non-Arab Sciences'. To the former belonged Grammar, Ethics and Dogmatics, History and Knowledge of Literature; to the latter Philosophy, Natural Science and Medicine. In the main the division is a proper one. The last-named branches are not only those which were determined the most by foreign influences, but those too which never became really popular. And yet the so called `Arab Sciences' are not altogether pure native products. They too arose or were developed in places in the Muslim empire where Arabs and Non-Arabs met together, and where the need was awakened of reflecting on those subjects which concern mankind the most, - Speech and Poetry, Law and Religion, - in so far as differences or inadequacies appeared therein. In the mode in which this came about, it is easy to trace the influence of Non-Arabs, particularly of Persians; and the part taken by Greek Philosophy in the process asserts itself in ever growing importance.
2. The Arabic language, -- in which the Arabs themselves took particular delight, for its copious vocabulary, its wealth of forms and its inherent capability of cultivation, - was peculiarly fitted to take a leading position in the world. If it is compared, for example, with the unwieldy Latin, or even with the turgid Persian, it is found to be specially distinguished by the possession of short Abstract-forms, -- a property of great service in scientific expression. It is capable of indicating the finest shades of meaning; but just because of its richly developed stock of synonyms, it offers temptations to deviate from the Aristotelian rule, - that the use of synonyms is not permissible in exact science. A language so elegant, expressive, and difficult withal, as Arabic was, necessarily invited mach examination, when it had become the polite language of the Syrians and the Persians. Above all, the study of the Koran, and the recital and interpretation of it demanded profound attention to be devoted to the language. Unbelievers, also, may have thought that they could point out grammatieal errors in the sacred Book; and therefore examples were gathered out of ancient poems and out of the living speech of the Bedouins, to support the expressions of the Koran. To these examples remarks were, no doubt, added upon grammatical accuracy in general. On the whole, the living usage formed the standard, but in order to save the authority of the Koran, it was certainly not applied without artifice. This proceeding was regarded, all the same, by simple believers, with a measure of suspicion. Masudi tells us even of some grammarians from Basra, who, when on a pleasure trip, took to going through a Koran Imperative, and for that reason(?) were soundly cudgelled by country folk engaged in date-gathering.
3. The Arabs trace their grammatical science, like so many other things, to Ali, towhom
is ascribed even Aristotle's tripartite division of speech. In reality the study began to be cultivated in Basra and Kufa. Its earliest development is involved in obscurity, for in the Grammar of Sibawaih (d 786) we have a finished system, - a colossal work --, which, like Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine in after times, could only be explained by later generations as the production of many scholars working in collaboration. We are but ill-informed even on the points of difference between the schools of Basra and Kufa. The Basra grammarians, like the school of Bagdad in subsequent times, must have conceded a great influence to Qiyas (Analogy) in the determination of grammatical phenomena, while those of Kufa allowed many idiomatic forms which diverged from Qiyas. On this ground, to mark the contrast between the Basra grammarians and those of Kufa, the former were called `the Logic people'. Their terminology differed in detail from that of the Kufaschool
. Many, whose heads had been turned by logic, in the opinion of the genuine Arabs, must have gone decidedly too far in their captious criticism of the language; but on the other side caprice was raised to the position of rule.
It was from no mere accident that the school of Basra was the first to avail itself of logical resources. Generally speaking, it was at Basra that theinfluence of philosophic doctrines first appeared, and among its grammarians were
to be found many Shiites and Mutazilites, who readily permitted foreign wisdom to influence their doctrinal teaching.
4. Grammatical science, in so far as it was not confined, to the collecting of Examples, Synonyms &c., when so determined by the subjects specially treated, was affected by the AristotelianLogic
. Even before the Muslim era, Syrians and Persians had studied thetreatise ????
with
Stoic and Neo-Platonic additions. Ibn al-Moqaffa, who at first was intimate with the grammarian Khalil (v. infra), then made accessible to the Arabs all that existed in Pahlawi of a grammatical or logical nature. In conformity therewith the various kinds of Sentences were enumerated, - at one time five, at another eight or nine, as well as the three parts of speech, - Noun, Verb and Particle. Afterwards some scholars, like Djahia, included syllogistic figures among the Rhetorical figures; and in later representations there was much disputation about Sound and Idea. The question was discussed whether language is the result of ordinance or a product of nature; but gradually the philosophic view preponderated, that it came by ordinance.
Next to Logic the influence of the preparatory or mathematical sciences falls to be noticed here. Like the prose of ordinary intercourse and the rhymes of the Koran, the verses of the poets were not only collected but also arranged according to special principles of classification, - for example, according to metre.After Grammar Prosody arose.
Khalil (f 791), the teacher of Sibawaih, to whom the first application of Qiyas to grammatical science was attributed, is said even to have created metrical science. While language came to be regarded as the national, conventional element in poetry, the notion was entertained that what was natural, and common to all populations, would be found in their metre. Thabit ibn Qorra (836-901) therefore maintained, in his classification of the sciences, that metre was something essential, and the study of metre a natural science, and therefore a branch of philosophy.
5. Grammatical science, nevertheless, limited as it was to the Arabic language, retained its peculiarities, upon which this is not the place to enter. At all events, it is an imposing production of the keenly-observing and diligently-collecting Arab intelligence, - a production of which the Arabs might wellbe
proud. An apologist of the 10th century, who was engaged in combating Greek philosophy, said: “He who is acquainted with the subtleties and profundities of Arab poetry and versification, knows well that they surpass all such things as numbers, lines and points, which are wont to be advanced in proof of their opinions, by people who idly dream that they are capable of understanding the essence of things. I cannot see the substantial advantage of things like numbers, lines and points, if, in spite of the trifling profit which may attend them, they do harm to the Faith and are followed by consequences, against which we have to invoke the help of God.” Men would not have their delight in the minutiae of their language disturbed by general philosophic speculations. Many a word-form, originating with the translators of foreign works, was held in detestation by purist Grammarians. The beautiful art of caligraphy, more decorative in its nature than constructive, like Arabic art in general, became developed in noble, delicate forms, and met with a wider expansion than scientific research into the language. In the very characters of the Arabic speech, we may still see the subtlety of the intelligence which formed them, although at the same time we may see a lack of energy, which is observable in the entire development of Arab culture.
2. ETHICAL TEACHING
1. The believing Muslim, in so far as custom did not maintain its dominion over him, had at first the Word of God and the example of His Prophet as his rule of conduct and opinion. After the Prophet's death, the Sunna of Mohammed was followed, in cases where the Koran gave no information, - that is to say, men acted and decided, as Mohammed had decided or acted, according to the Tradition of his Companions. But from the time of the conquest of countries in possession of an old civilization, demands which were altogether new were made of Islam. Instead of the simple conditions of Arab life, usages and institutions were met with there, in regard to which the Sacred Law gave no precise direction, and to meet which no tradition or interpretation of tradition presented itself. Every day added thus to the number of individual cases which had not been provided for, and yet about which one had to come to a decision, whether according to custom, or his own sense of right. In the old-Roman provinces, Syria and Mesopotamia, Roman law must have long continued to exercise an important influence.
Those jurists who attributed to their own opinion (Ray, opinio) alongside of the Koran and Sunna, a subsidiary authority to determine the law, were called `Adherents of the Ra'y'. One of them, Abu Hanifa of Kufa (t 767), the founder of the Hanifite School, becamespecially
famous. But even in Medina, before the appearance of the school of Malik (715-795), as well as in that school, a harmless though restricted deference was at first paid to the Ray. By slow degrees, however, and in the course of opposing a Ra'y which was becoming a pretext for much arbitrariness, the view gainedground, that
in everything the Tradition (hadith) respecting the Sunna of the Prophet was to be followed. Thereupon traditions were collected from all quarters, and explained - and in large numbers even forged -; and a system of criteria to determine their genuineness was formed, which, however, laid more stress upon the external evidence and the appropriateness of the traditionary material than upon consistency and historic truth. As a consequence of this development, the `people of the Ra'y', who were chiefly located in Iraq (Babylonia), were now confronted by the `Adherents of the Tradition', or the Medina school. Even Shafii (767-820), the founder of the third school of Law, who in general held to the Sunna, was numbered with the partisans of Tradition, in contradistinction no doubt to Abu Hanifa.
2. Logic introduced a new element into this controversy, viz Qiyas or Analogy. There had been, of course, stray applications of Qiyas, even in earlier times; but, to lay down Qiyas as a principle, a foundation or a source of law, - presupposed the influence of scientific reflection. Although the terms Ra'y and Qiyas may be used as synonyms, yet there is in the latter term, less suggestion of the presence and operation of individual predilection than there is in Ray. The more one grew accustomed to employ Qiyas in grammatical and logical researches, the more readily could he include this principle in the institutes of jurisprudence, whether by way of reasoning from one instance to another, or from the majority of instances to the remainder (i. e. analogically), or by way of seeking rather for some common ground governing various cases, from which the conduct proper in a particular case might be deduced (i. e. syllogistically)
.
The application of Qiyas appears to have come into use, first and most extensively, in the Hanifite school, but afterwards also in the school of Shafii, - though with a more limited range. In connection therewith, the question - whether language was capable of expressing the Universal, or could merely denote the Particular - became important for ethical doctrine.
The logical principle of Qiyas never attained to great repute. Much more emphasis was laid, - next to the Koran and the Sunna, the historic foundations of the Law -, upon the Idjma, that is, the Consensus of the Congregation of the faithful. The Consensus of the Congregation or, practically, of the most influential learned men in it, -- who may be compared to the fathers and teachers of the Catholic Church, - is the Dogmatical principle, which, contested only by a few, has proved the most important instrument in establishing the Muslim Ethical System. Theory, however, continues to assign a certain subordinate place to Qiyas, as a fourth source of moral guidance, after Koran, Sunna and Idjma.
3. The Muslim Ethical System (al-fyh) == 'the knowledge') takes into account the entire life of the believer, for whom the Faith itself is the first of all duties. Like every innovation the system at first encountered violent opposition: - commandment was now turned into doctrinal theory, and believing obedience into abstruse pursuit of knowledge: that called for protestation alike from plain pious people and from wise statesmen. But gradually the `knowing' men or men learned in the Law (ulama?,
or in the West, faqihs) were recognized as the true heirs of the prophets. The Ethical system was developed before the Doctrinal, and it has been able to hold the leading position up to the present day. Nearly every Muslim knows something of it, seeing it is part of a good religious upbringing. According to the great Church-father Gazali, `the Fiqh' is the daily bread of believing souls, while the Doctrine is only valuable as a Medicine for the sick.
We are not called upon here to enter into the minutiae of the fine-spun casuistic of the Figh. The main subject handled in it is an ideal righteousness, which can never be illustrated in all its purity in our imperfect world. We are acquainted now with its principles, and with the position which it holds in Islam. Let us merely add a brief notice of the division of moral acts which was formulated by ethical teachers. According to this classification there are:
1. Acts, the practice of which is an absolute duty and is therefore rewarded, and the omission of which is punished
2. Acts which are recommended by the Law, and are the subject of reward, but the neglect of which does not call for punishment:
3. Acts which are permitted, but which in the eyes of the Laware a matter
of indifference:
4. Acts which the Law disapproves of, but does not hold as punishable:
5. Acts which are forbidden by the Law and which demand unconditional punishment.
4. Greek philosophic enquiries have had a two-fold influence upon the Ethics of Islam. With many of the sectaries and mystics, both orthodox and heretic, an ascetic system of Ethics is found, coloured by Pythagorean-Platonic views. The same thing appears with philosophers, whom we shall afterwards meet again. But in orthodox circles the Aristotelian deliverance, -- that virtue consists in the just mean -, found much acceptance, because something similar stood in the Koran, and because, generally, the tendency of Islam was a catholic one, - one conciliatory of opposites.
More attention indeed was given to Politics than to Ethics, in the Muslim empire, and the struggles of political parties were the first thing to occasion difference of opinion. Disputes about the Imamat, i. e. the headship in the Muslim Church, pervade the entire history of Islam; but the questions discussed have commonly more of a personal and practical than a theoretical importance, and therefore a history of philosophy does not need to consider them very fully. Hardly anything of philosophic value emerges in them. Even in the course of the first centuries there was developed a firm body of constitutional law canonically expressed; but this, like the ideal system of duty, was not particularly heeded by strong rulers, - who viewed it as mere theological brooding, - while, on the other band, by weak princes it could' not be applied at all.
Just as little is it worth our while to examine minutely the numerous `mirrors of Princes', which were such favourites, in Persia especially, and in whose wise moral saws, and maxims of political sagacity, the courtly circles found edification.
The weight of philosophic endeavour in Islam lies on the theoretical and intellectual side. With the actual proceedings of social and political life they are able to make but a scanty compromise. Even the Art of the Muslims, although it exhibits more originality than their Science, does not know how to animate the crude material, but merely sports with ornamental forms. Their Poetry creates no Drama, and their Philosophy is unpractical.
3. DOCTRINAL SYSTEMS
1. In the Koran there had been given to Muslims a religion, but no system, - precepts but no doctrines. What is contrary to logic therein, - what we account for by the shifting circumstances of the Prophet's life, and his varying moods, - was simply accepted by the first believers, without asking questions about the How andWhy
. But in the conquered countries they were faced by a fully-formed Christian Dogmatic as well as by Zoroastrian and Brahmanic theories. We have laid frequent stress already upon the great debt which the Muslims owe to the Christians; and the doctrinal system has certainly been determined the most by Christian influences. In Damascus the formation of Muslim Dogmas was affected by Orthodox and Monophysiteteaching,
and in Basra and Bagdad rather perhaps by Nestorian and Gnostic theories. Little of the literature belonging to the earliest period of this movement has come down to us, but we cannot be wrong in assigning a considerable influence to personal intercourse and regular school-instruction. Not much was learned in the East at that time out of books, any more than it is to-day: more was learned from the lips of the teacher. The similarity between the oldest doctrinal teachings in Islam and the dogmas of Christianity is too great to permit any one to deny that they are directly connected. In particular, the first question about which there was much dispute, among Muslim Scholars, was that of the Freedom of the Will. Now the freedom of the will was almost universally accepted by Oriental Christians. At no time and in no place perhaps was the Will-problem - first in the Christology, but afterward in the Anthropology - so much discussed from every point as in the Christian circles of the East at the time of the Muslim conquest.
Besides these considerations which are partly of an a priori character, there are also detached notices which indicate that some of the earliest Muslims, who taught the Freedom of the Will, had Christian teachers.
A number of purely philosophic elements from the Gnostic systems, and afterwards from the translation literature, associated themselves with the Hellenistic Christian influences.
2. An assertion, expressed in logical or dialectic fashion, whether verbal or written, was called by the Arabs, generally, but more particularly in religious teaching -a
Iralam (A6ya5), and those who advanced such assertions were called Mutakallimun. The name was transferred from the individual assertion to the entire system, and it covered also the introductory, elementary observations on Method, -- and so on. Our best designation for the science of the Kalam is 'Theological Dialectics' or simply 'Dialectics'; and in what follows we may translate Mutakallimun by 'Dialecticians'.
The name Mutakallimun, which was at first common to all the Dialecticians, was in later times applied specially to the Anti-mutazilite and Orthodox theologians. In the latter case it might be well, following the sense, to render the term by Dogmatists or Schoolmen. In fact while the first dialecticians had the Dogma still to form, those who came later had only to expound and establish it.
The introduction of Dialectics into Islam was a violent innovation, and it was vehemently denounced by the party of the Tradition. Whatever went beyond the regular ethical teaching was heresy to them, for faith should be obedience, and not, - as was maintained by the Murdjites and Mutazilites -, knowledge. By the latter it was laid down without reserve that speculation was one of the duties of believers. Even to this demand the times became reconciled, for according to tradition the Prophet had said already: 'The first thing which God created was Knowledge or Reason'.
3. Very numerous are the various opinions which found utterance in the days even of the Omayyads, but especially in those of the early Abbasids. The farther they diverged from one another, the more difficult it was for the men of the Tradition to come to an understanding with them; but gradually certain compact doctrinal collections stood out distinctly, of which the rationalist system of the Mutazilites, the successors of the Qadarites, was most widely extended, particularly among Shiites. From Caliph Mamun's time down to Mutawakkil's, it even received State recognition; and the Mutazilites, who had been in earlier days oppressed and persecuted by the temporal power, now became Inquisitors of the Faith themselves, with whom the sword supplied the place of argument. About the same time, however, their opponents the Traditionalists commenced to build up a system of belief. Upon the whole there was no lack of intermediary forms between the naive Faith of the multitude and the Gnosis of the dialecticians. In contrast to the spiritualistic stamp of Mutazilitism these intermediary forms took an anthropomorphic character with regard to the doctrine of the Deity, and a materialistic character with regard to the theory of man and the universe (Anthropology and Cosmology). The soul, for example, was conceived of by them as corporeal, or as an accident of the body, and the Divine Essence was imagined as a human body. The religious teaching and art of the Muslims were greatly averse to the symbolical God-Father of the Christians, but there was an abundance of absurd speculations about the form of Allah. Some went so far as to ascribe to him all the bodily members together, with the exception of the beard and other privileges of oriental manhood.
It is impossible to .discuss in detail all the Dialectic sects, which often made their first appearance in the form of political parties. From the standpoint of the history of Philosophy it is enough to give here the chief doctrines of the Mutazilites, in so far as they can lay claim to general interest.
4. The first question, then, concerned man's conduct and destiny. The forerunners of the Mutazilites, who were called Qadarites, taught the Freedom of the human Will; and the Mutazilites, even in later times, when their speculations were directed more to theologico-metaphysical problems, were first and foremost pointed to as the supporters of the doctrine of Divine Righteousness, - which gives rise to no evil, and rewards or punishes man according to his deserts -, and, in the second place, as the confessors, or avowed supporters of the Unity of God, i. e. the absence of properties from his Essence considered per se [or the predicateless character of the essential nature of God]. The systematic statement of their doctrines must have been influenced by the Logicians (v. 1V, 2 ? 1); for even in the first half of the 10th century, the Mutazilite system began with the confession of the Unity of God, while the doctrine of God's Righteousness, announced as it is in all his works, is relegated to the second place.
The responsibility of man, as well as the holiness of God, who is incapable of directly causing man's sinful actions, had to be saved by asserting the freedom of the Will. Man must therefore be lord of his actions; but he is lord of these only, for few entertained any doubt that the energy which confers ability to act at all, and the power of doing either a good or a bad action come to man from God. Hence the numerous subtle discussions, - amalgamated with a criticism of the philosophic conception of Time -- on the question whether the power, which God creates in man, is bestowed previous to the action, or coincidently and simultaneously therewith: For, did the power precede the act, then it would either have to last up to the time of the act, which would belie its accidental character (cf. 11, 3 ? 12), or have ceased to exist before the act, - in which case it might have been dispensed with altogether.
From human conduct speculation passed on to consider the operations of nature. Instead of God and man, the antithesis in this case is God and nature. The productive and generative powers of nature were recognized as means or proximate causes; and some endeavoured to investigate them. In their opinion, however, nature herself, likeall the
world, was a work of God, a creature of his wisdom: And just as the omnipotence of God was limited in the moral kingdom by his holiness or righteousness, - so in the natural world it was limited by his wisdom. Even the presence of evil and mischief in the world was accounted for by the wisdom of God, who sends everything for the best. A production or object of Divine activity, evil is not. “God may be able, indeed,” - so an earlier generation had maintained - “to act wickedly and unreasonably, but he would not do it.” The later Mutazilites taught, on the other hand, that God has no power at all to do anything which is in this way repugnant to his nature. Their opponents, who regarded God's unlimited might and unfathomable will as directly operative in all doing and effecting were indignant at this teaching, and compared its propounders to the dualistic Magians. Consistent Monism was on the side of these opponents, who did not care to turn man and nature into creators - next to and under God - of their acts or operations.
5. The Mutazilites, it is clear from the foregoing, had a different idea of God from that which was entertained by the multitude and by the Traditionalists. This becamespecially
evident, as speculation advanced, in the doctrine of the Divine attributes. From the very beginning the Unity of God was strongly emphasized in Islam; but that did not prevent men from bestowing upon him many beautiful names following human analogy, and ascribing to him several attributes. Of these the following came gradually into greatest prominence, under the influence assuredly of Christian dogmatics: - viz.: Wisdom, Power, Life, Will, Speech or Word, Sight and Hearing. The last two of these - Sight and Hearing - were the first to be explained in a spiritual sense, or entirely set aside. But the absolute Unity of the Godhead did not appear to be compatible with any plurality of co-eternal attributes. Would not that be the Trinity of the Christians, who before now had explained the three Persons of the One Divine Being as attributes? In order to avoid this inconvenience they sought sometimes to derive several attributes out of others by a process of abstraction, and to refer them to a single one - for instance to Knowledge or Power - and sometimes to apprehend them each and all as being states of the Divine essence, or to identify them with the essence itself, in which case of course their significance nearly disappeared. Occasionally an attempt was made through refinements of phraseology to save something of that significance. While, for example, a philosopher, denying the attributes, maintained that God is by his essence a Being who knows, a Mutazilite dialectian expressed it thus: God is a Being who knows, but by means ofa knowledge
, which He himself is.
In the opinion of the Traditionalists the conception of God was in this way being robbed of all its contents. The Mutazilites hardly got beyond negative determinations, - that God is not like the things of this world, - that he is exalted above Space, Time, Movement, and so on; but they held fast to the doctrine that he is the Creator of the world. Although little could be asserted regarding the Being of God, it was thought he could be known from his works.
For the Mutazilites as well as for their opponents, the Creation was an absolute act of God, and the existence of the world an existence in time. They energetically combated the doctrine of the eternity of the world, - a doctrine supported by the Aristotelian philosophy, and which had been widely spread throughout the East.
6. We have already found `Speech' or `the Word', given as one of the eternal attributes of God; and, probably by way of conformity with the Christian doctrine of the Logos, there was taught in particular the eternity of the Koran which had been revealed to the Prophet. This belief in an eternal Koran by the side ofAllah,
was downright idolatry, according to the Mutazilites; and in opposition thereto the Mutazilite Caliphs proclaimed it as a doctrine accepted by the State, - that the Koran had been created Whoever denied this doctrine was publicly punished. Now although the Mutazilites in maintaining this dogma were more in harmony with the original Islam than their opponents, yet history has justified the latter, for pious needs proved stronger than logical conclusions. Many of the Mutazilites, in the opinion of their brethren in the faith, were far too ready to make light of the Koran, the Word of God. If it did not agree with their theories, it received ever new interpretations. In actual fact reason bad more weight with many than the revealed Book. By comparing not only the three revealed religions together, but these also with Persian and Indian religious teaching and with philosophic speculation, they reached a natural religion, which reconciled opposites. This was built up on the basis of an inborn knowledge, universally necessary, - that there is one God, who, as a wise Creator, has produced the world, and also endowed Man with reason that he may know his Creator and distinguish between Good and Evil. Contrasted with this Natural or Rational religion, acquaintance with the teaching of revelation is then something adventitious, -an
acquired knowledge.
By this contention the most consistent of the Mutazilites had broken away from the consensus of the Muslim religious community, and had thus actually put themselves outside the general faith. At first they still appealed to that consensus, - which they were able to do as long as the secular power was favourably disposed to them. That condition, however, did not last long, and they soon learned by experience what has often been taught since, - that the communities of men are more ready to accept a religion sent down to them from on high, than an enlightened explanation of it.
7. Following up this survey let us take a closer view of one or two of the most considerable of the Mutazilites, that the general picture may not be wanting in individual features.
Let us first glance at Abu-l-Hudhail al-Allaf, who died about the middle of the 9hh century. He was a famous dialectician, and one of the first who allowed philosophy to exercise an influence on their theological doctrines.
That an attribute should be capable of inhering in aBeing
in any way is not conceivable, in the opinion of Abu-l-Hudhail: It must either be identical with the Being or different from it. But yet he looks about for some way of adjustment. God is, according to him, knowing, mighty, living, through knowledge, might and life, which are his very essence; and just as men bad done even before this, on the Christian side, he terms these three predicates the Modi (wudjuh) of the Divine Being. He agrees also that hearing, seeing and other attributes are eternal in God, but only with regard to the world which was afterwards to be created. Besides, it would be easy enough for him and for others, who were affected by the philosophy of the day, to interpret these and similar expressions - such as God's `beholding' on the last day,
- in a spiritual sense, since generally they regarded seeing and hearing as spiritual acts. For example, Abu-l-Hudhail maintained that motion was visible, but not palpable, because it was not a body.
The Will of God, however, is not to be regarded as eternal. On the contrary, Abu-l-Hudhail assumes absolute declarations of Will as being different both from the Being who wills and the object which is willed. Thus the absolute Word of Creation takes an intermediate position between the eternal Creator and the transient created world. These declarations of God's Will form a kind of intermediate essence, to be compared with the Platonic Ideas or the Sphere-spirits, but perhaps regarded rather as immaterial powers than as personal spirits. Abu-l-Hudhail distinguishes between the absolute Word of Creation and the accidental Word of Revelation, which is announced to men in the form of command and prohibition, appearing as matter and in space, and which is thus significant only for this transient world. The possibility of living in accordance with the Divine word of revelation, or of resisting it, exists therefore in this life alone. Binding injunction and prohibition presuppose Freedom of Will and capability of acting in accordance therewith. On the other hand in the futurelife there are
no obligations in the form of laws, and, accordingly, no longer any freedom: everything there depends on the absolute determination of God. Nor will there be any motion in the world beyond, for as motion has once had a beginning, it must, at the end of the world, come to a close in everlasting rest. Abu-l-Hudhail, therefore, could not have believed in a resurrection of the body.
Human actions he divides into Natural and Moral, or Actions of the members, and Actions of the heart. An action is moral, only when we perform it without constraint. The moral act is Man's own property, acquired by his own exertions, but his knowledge comes to him from God, partly through Revelation, and partly through the light of Nature.
Anterior even to any revelation man is instructed in duty by Nature, and thus is fully enabled to know God, to discern Good from Evil, and to live a virtuous, honest and upright life.
8. Noteworthy as a man and a thinker is a younger contemporary of Abu-l-Hudhail's, and apparently a disciple of his, commonly called Al-Nazzam, who died in the year 845. A fanciful, restless, ambitious man, not a consistent thinker, but yet a bold and honest one, - such is the representation of him given us by Djahiz, one of his pupils. The people considered him a madman or a heretic. A good deal in his teaching is in touch with what passed among the Orientals as the Philosophy of E mpedocles and Anaxagoras (Cf. also Abu-l-Hudhail).
In the opinion of Nazzam God can do absolutely no evil thing; in fact he can only do that which he knows to be the best thing for his servants. His omnipotence reaches no farther than what he actually does. Who could hinder him from giving effect to the splendid exuberance of his Being? A Will, in the proper sense of the term, - which invariably implies a need, - is by no means to be attributed to God. The Will of God, on the contrary, is only a designation of the Divine agency itself, or of the commands which have been conveyed to men. Creation is an act performed once for all, in which all things were made at one and the same time, so that one thing is contained in another, and so that in process of time the various specimens of minerals, plants and animals, as well as the numerous children of Adam, gradually emerge from their latent condition and come to the light.
Nazzam, like the philosophers, rejects the theory of atoms (v. 11, 3 ? 12), but then he can only account for the traversing of a definite distance, by reason of the infinite divisibility of space, by postulating leaps. He holds bodily substances to be composed of `accidents' instead of atoms.And just as Abu-l-Hudhail could not conceive of the inherence of attributes in an essence, so Nazzam can only imagine the accident as the substance itself or as a part of the substance.
Thus `Fire' or `the Warm', for instance, exists in a latent condition in wood, but it becomes free when, by means of friction, its antagonist `the Cold' disappears. In the process there occurs a motion or transposition, but no qualitative change. Sensible qualities, such as colours, savours and odours, are, in Nazzam's view, bodies. Even the soul or the intellect of Man he conceives to be a finer kind of body. The soul, of course, is the most excellent part of man: it completely pervades the body, which is its organ, and it must be termed the real and true Man. Thoughts and aspirations are defined as Movements of the Soul.
In matters of Faith and in questions of Law Nazzam rejects both the consensus of the congregation and the analogical interpretation of the Law, and appeals in Shiite fashion to the infallible Imam. He thinks it possible for the whole body of Muslims to concur in admitting an erroneous doctrine, as, for instance, the doctrine that Mohammed has a mission for all mankind in contradistinction to other prophets.Whereas God sends every prophet to all mankind.
Nazzam, besides, shares the view of Abu-1-Hudhail as to the knowledge of God and of moral duties by means of the reason. He is not particularly convinced of the inimitable excellence of the Koran. The abiding marvel of the Koran is made to consist only in the fact that Mohammed's contemporaries were kept from producing something like to the Koran.
He has certainly not retained much of the Muslim Eschatology. At least the torments of hell are in his view resolved into a process of consuming by fire.
9. Many syncretistic doctrines, but all devoid of originality, have come down to us from the school of Nazzam. The most famous man, whom it produced was the elegant writer and Natural-Philosopher Djahiz (t 869), who demanded of the genuine scholar that he should combine the study of Theology with that of Natural Science. He traces in all things the operations of Nature, but also a reference in these operations to the Creator of the world. Man's reason is capable of knowing the Creator, and in like manner of comprehending the need of a prophetic revelation. Man's only merit is in his will, for on the one hand all his actions are interwoven with the events of Nature, and on the other his entire knowledge is necessarily determined from above. And yet no great significance appears to accrue to the Will, which is derived from 'knowing'. At least Will in the Divine Being is quite negatively conceived of, that is, God never operates unconsciously, or with dislike to his work.
In all this there is little that is original. His ethical ideal is `the mean', and the style of his genius is also mediocre. It is only in compiling his numerous writings that Djahiz has shown any excess.
10. With the earlier Mutazilites reflections on Ethics and Natural Philosophy predominate; with those whocome
later Logico-metaphysical meditations prevail. In particular Neo-Platonic influences are to be traced here.
Muammar, whose date cannot be accurately determined, although it may be set down as about the year 900, has much in common with those who have just been named. But he is far more emphatic in his denial of the existence of Divine attributes, which he regards as being contradictory of the absolute unity of the Divine essence. God is high above every form of plurality. He knows neither himself nor any other being, for `knowing' would presuppose a plurality in him. He is even to be called Hyper-eternal. Nevertheless he is to be recognized as Creator of the world. He has only created bodies, it is true; and these of themselves create their Accidents, whether through operation of Nature or by Will. The number of these accidents is infinite, for in their essence they are nothing more than the intellebtual relations of thought. Muammar is a Conceptualist. Motion and Rest, Likeness and Unlikeness, and so on, are nothing inthemselves
, and have merely an intellectual or ideal existence. The soul, which is held to be the true essence of Man, is conceived of as an Idea or an immaterial substance, though it is not clearly stated how it is related to the body or to the Divine essence. The account handed down is confused.
Man's will is free, and, -- properly speaking, - Willing is his only act, for the outward action belongs to the body (Cf Djahiz).
The school of Bagdad, to which Muammar seems to belong, was conceptualist. With the exception of the most general predicates, - those of Being and Becoming, it made Universals subsist only as notions or concepts. Abu Hashim of Basra (t 933) stood nearer to Realism. The attributes of God, as well as Accidents and Genus-notions in general, were regarded by him as something in a middle position between Being and Not-Being: he called them Conditions or Modes. He designated Doubt as a requisite in all knowing. A simple Realist he was not.
Mutazilite thinkers indulged in dialectic quibbling even about 'Not-Being'. They argued that Not-Being, as well as Being, must come to possess a kind of reality, seeing that it may become the subject of thought: at least man tries to think of 'Nothing' rather than not think at all.
11. In the 9th century several dialectic systems had been formed in the contest against the Mutazilites, one of which, viz, the Karramite system, held its ground till long after the 10th century. There arose, however, from the ranks of the Mutazilites a man whose mission it was to reconcile antagonistic views, and who set up that doctrinal system which was acknowledged as orthodox first in the East, and, later, throughout the whole of Islam. This was Al-Ashari (873--935), who understood how to render to God the things that are God's, and to man the things that are man's. He rejected the rude anthropomorphism of the Anti-mutazilite dialecticians, and set God high above all that is bodily and human, while he left to the Deity his omnipotence, and his universal agency. With him Nature lost all her efficaciousness; but for man a certain distinction was reserved, consisting in his being able to give assent to the works which were accomplished in him by God, and to claim these as his own. Nor was Man's sensuous spiritual being interfered with: He was permitted to hope for the resurrection of the body and the beholding of God. As regards the Koranic revelation, Ashari distinguished between an eternal Word in God, and the Book as we possess it, which latter was revealed in Time.
In the detailed statement of his doctrines Ashari showed no originality in any way, but merely arranged and condensed the material given him, - a proceeding which could not be carried out without discrepancies. The main thing, however, was that his Cosmology, Anthropology and Eschatology did not depart too far from the text of the Tradition for the edification of pious souls, and that his theology, in consequence of a somewhat spiritualized conception of God was not altogether unsatisfactory even to men of higher culture.
Ashari relies upon the revelation contained in the Koran. He does not recognize any rational knowledge with regard to Divine things that is independent of the Koran. The senses are not in general likely to deceive us, but on the other hand our judgment may easily do so. We know God, it is true, by our reason, but only from Revelation, which is the one source of such knowledge.
According to Ashari, then, God is first of all the omnipotent Creator. Farther he is omniscient: he knows what men do and what they wish to do: he knows also what happens, and how that which does not happen would have happened, if it had happened. Moreover all predicates which express any perfection are applicable to God, with the proviso that they apply to him in another and higher sense than to his creatures. In creating and sustaining the world God is the sole cause: all worldly events proceed continually and directly from him. Man, however, is quite conscious of the difference between his involuntary movements, such as shivering and shaking, and those which are carried out in the exercise of his will and choice.
12.The
most characteristic theory which the dialectic of the Muslims has fashioned, is their doctrine of Atoms. The development of this doctrine is still wrapped in great obscurity. It was advocated by the Mutazilites but particularly by their opponents before the time of Ashari. Our sketch shows how it was held in the Ashariteschool
, where partly perhaps it was first developed.
The Atomic doctrine of the Muslim dialecticians had its source, of course, in Greek Natural Philosophy; but its reception and farther development were determined by the requirements of theological Polemic and Apologetic. The like phenomenon may be observed in the case of individual Jews and among believing Catholics. It is impossible to suppose that Atomism was taken up in Islam, merely because Aristotle had fought against it. Here we have to register a desperate struggle for a religious advantage, and one in which weapons are not chosen at will: It is the end that decides. Nature has to be explained, not fromherself
but from some divine creative act; and this world must be regarded not as an eternal and divine order of things, but as a creature of transient existence. God must be thought of and spoken of as a freely-working and almighty Creator, not as an impersonal cause or inactive primeval source. Accordingly, from the earliest times the doctrine of the creation is placed at the apex of Muslim dogmatics, as a testimony against the pagan-philosophical view of the eternity of the world and the efficient operations of Nature. What we perceive of the sensible world, - say these Atomists, - is made up of passing `accidents' which every moment come and go. The substratum of this `change' is constituted by the (bodily) substances; and because of changes occurring in or on these substances, they cannot be thought of as themselves unchangeable. If then they are changeable, they cannot be permanent, for that which is eternal does not change. Consequently everything in the world, since everything changes, has come into being, or has been created by God.
That is the starting-point. The changeableness of all that exists argues an eternal, unchangeable Creator. But later writers, under the influence of Muslim philosophers, infer from the possible or contingent character of everything finite, the necessary existence of God.
But let us come back to the world. It consists of Accidents and their substrata, - Substances. Substance and Accident or Qualityare
the two categories by means of which reality is conceived. The remaining categories 'either come under the category of Quality, or else are resolved into relations, and modifications of thought, to which, objectively, nothing corresponds. Matter, as possibility, exists only in thought: Time is nothing other than the coexistence of different objects, or simultaneity in presentation; and Space and Size may be attributed to bodies indeed, but not to the individual parts (Atoms), of which bodies are composed.
But, generally speaking, it is Accidents which form the proper predicates of substances. Their number in every individual substance is very great, or even infinite as some maintain, since of any pair whatever of opposite determinations, and. these include negatives also, - the one or the other is attributable to every substance. The negative `accident' is just as real as the positive. God creates also Privation and Annihilation, though certainly it is not easy to discover a substratum for these. And seeing that no Accident can ever have its place elsewhere than in some substance, and cannot have it in another Accident, there is really nothing general or common in any number of substances. Universals in no wise exist in individual things: They are Concepts.
Thus there is no connection between substances: they stand apart, in their capacity of atoms equal to one another. In fact they have a greater resemblance to the Homoeomeries of Anaxagoras than to the extremely small particles of matter of the Atomists. In themselves they are non-spatial (without makan), but they have their position (hayyiz), and by means of this position of theirs they fill space. It is thus unities not possessing extension, but conceived of as points, - out of which the spatial world of body is constructed. Between these unities there must be a void, for were it otherwise any motion would be impossible, since the atoms do not press upon one another. All change, however, is referred to Union and Separation, Movement and Rest. Farther operative relations between the Atom-substances, there are none. The Atoms exist then, and enjoy their existence, but have nothing at all to do with one another. The world is a discontinuous mass, without any living reciprocal action between its parts.
The ancients had prepared the way for this conception by their theory, amongst other things, of the discontinuous character of Number. Was not Time defined as the tale or numbering of Motion? Why should we not apply that doctrine to Space, Time and Motion? The Dialecticians did this; and the 'skepsis' of the older philosophy may have contributed its influence in the process. Like the substantial, corporeal world, - Space, Time and Motion were decomposed into atoms devoid of extension, and into moments without duration. Time becomes a succession of many individual 'Nows', and between every two moments of time there is a void. The same is the case with Motion: between every two movements there is a Rest. A quick motion and a slow motion possess the same speed, but the latter has more points of Rest. Then, in order to get over the difficulty of the empty space, the unoccupied moment of time, and the pause for rest between two movements, the theory of a Leap is made use of. Motion is to be regarded as a leaping onward from one point in space to another, and Time as an advance effected in the same manner from one moment to another.
In reality they had no use at all for this fantastic theory of a Leap: it was a mere reply to unsophisticated questioning. With perfect consistency they had cut up the entire material world, as it moves in space and time, into Atoms with their Accidents. Some no doubtmaintained,
that although accidents every moment disappear, yet substances endure, but others made no difference in this respect. They taught that substances, which are in fact points in space, exist only for a point of time, just like Accidents. Every moment God creates the world anew, so that its condition at the present moment has no essential connection with that which has immediately preceded it or that which follows next. In this way there is a series of worlds following one another, which merely present the appearance of one world. That for us there is anything like connection or Causality in phenomena proceeds from the fact that Allah in his inscrutable will does not choose either to-day or to-morrow to interrupt the usual course of events by a miracle, - which however he is able at any moment to do. The disappearance of all causal connection according to the Atomistic Kalam is vividly illustrated by the classical instance of `the writing man.' God creates in him, -- and that too by an act of creation which is every moment renewed - first the will, then the faculty of writing, next the movement of the hand, and lastly the motion of the pen. Here one thing is completely independent of the other.
Now if against this view the objection is urged, that along with Causality or the regular succession of worldly events, the possibility of any knowledge is taken away, the believing thinker replies, that Allah verily foreknows everything, and creates not only the things of the world and what they appear to effect, but also the knowledge about them in the human soul, and we do not need to be wiser than He. He knows best.
Allah and the World, God and Man, - beyond these antitheses Muslim dialectic could not reach. Besides God, there is room only for corporeal substances and their accidents. The existence of human souls as incorporeal substances, as well as generally the existence of pure Spirits, - both of which doctrines were maintained by philosophers, and, though less definitely, by several Mutazilites, - would not harmonize properly with the Muslim doctrine of the transcendent nature of God, who has no associate. The soul belongs to the world of body.Life, Sensation, Rational endowment, are
accidents, just as much as Colour, Taste, Smell, Motion and Rest. Some assume only one soul-atom: According to others several finer soul-atoms are mingled with the bodily atoms. At all events thinking is attached to one single Atom.
13. It was not every good Muslim that could find mental repose in dialectic. The pious servant of God might yet, in another way, draw somewhat nearer to his Lord. This need, - existing in Islam at the very outset, strengthened too by Christian and Indo-Persian influences, and intensified under more highly developed conditions of civilization, - evoked in Islam a series of phenomena, which are usually designated as Mysticism or Sufism.
In this development of a Muslim order of Holy men, or of a Muslim Monkish system, the history of Christian monks and cloisters in' Syria and Egypt, as well as that of Indian devotees, is repeated. In this matter then we have at bottom to deal with religious or spiritual practice; but practice always mirrors itself in thought, and receives its theory. In order to bring about a more intimate relationship with the Godhead, many symbolical acts and mediating persons were required. Such persons then endeavoured to discover the mysteries of the symbols for themselves and to disclose them to the initiated, and to establish, besides, their own mediatory position in the scale of universal being. In particular, Neo-Platonic doctrines, - partly drawn from the turbid source of the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and the holy Hierotheos (Stephen bar Sudaili?) - had to lend their aid in this work. The Indian Yoga too, at least in Persia, seems to have exercised considerable influence. For the most part Mysticism kept within the pale of Orthodoxy, which was always sensible enough to allowa certain
latitude to poets and enthusiasts. As regards the doctrine that God works all in all, Dialecticians and Mystics were agreed; but extreme Mysticism propounded the farther doctrine that God is all in all. From this a heterodox Pantheism was developed, which made the world an empty show, and deified the human Ego. Thus the Unity of God becomes Universal Unity; his universal activity Universal Existence. Besides God, there exist at the most only the attributes and conditions of the Sufi souls that are tending towards him. A psychology of feeling is developed by the Sufi teachers. In their view, while our conceptions come to the soul from without, and our exertions amount to the externalizing of what is within, the true essence of our soul consists in certain states or feelings of inclination and disinclination. The most essential of all these is Love. It is neither fear nor hope, but Love that lifts us up to God. Blessedness is not a matter of `knowing' or of 'willing': it is Union with the loved one. These Mystics did away with the world (as ultimately they did with the human soul) in a far more thorough-going fashion than the Dialecticians had done. By the latter the world was sacrificed to the arbitrary character of God in Creation; by the former to the illuminating, loving nature of the Divine Being. The confusing multiplicity of things, as that appears to sense and conception, is removed in a yearning after the One and Beloved being. Everything, both in Being and Thinking, is brought to one central point. Contrast with this the genuine Greek spirit. In it a wish was cherished for a still greater number of senses, to enable men to get a somewhat better acquaintance with this fair world. But these Mystics blame the senses for being too many, because their number brings disorder into their felicity.
Human nature, however, always assertsherself
. Those men who renounce the world and the senses, frequently run riot in the most sensual fantasies, till far advanced in life. We need not wonder after all, that many troubled themselves very little indeed about religious doctrine, or that the ascetic morality of the Sufis often went to the other extreme.
The task of following out in detail the development of Sufism, however, belongs to the history of Religion rather than to the history of Philosophy. Besides, we find the philosophical elements which it took up, in the Muslim philosophers whom we shall meet with farther on.
4. LITERATURE AND HISTORY
1. Arabic Poetry and Annalistic were developed independently of the learning of the schools. But as time went on, Literature and Historical Composition could not remain untouched by foreign influences. A few notices, confirmatory of this statement, must suffice us here.
The introduction of Islam involved no break with the poetical tradition of the Arab race, such as had been occasioned by Christianity in the Teutonic world. The secular literature of the times even of the Omayyads handed down many wise sayings, partly taken from ancient Arabic poetry, which rivalled the preachings of the Koran. Abbasid Caliphs, like Mansur, Harun and Mamun, had more literary culture than Charlemagne. The education of their sons was not confined to the reading of the Koran: it embraced acquaintance also with the ancient poets and with the history of the nation. Poets and literary men were drawn to the courts and rewarded in princely fashion. In these circumstances, Literature underwent the influence of scholarly culture and philosophical speculation, although, in most cases, in a very superficial manner. The result is specially exhibited in sceptical utterances, frivolous mockery of what is most sacred, and gglorification of sensual pleasure. At the same time, however, wise sayings, serious reflections and mystic speculations made their way into the originally sober and realistic poetry of the Arabs. The place of the first natural freshness of representation was now taken by a wearisome play on thoughts and sentiments, and even on mere words, metres and rhymes.
2. The unpleasant Abu-l-Atahia (748-828), in his effeminate poetry, is nearly always talking about unhappy love and a longing for death. He gives expression to his wisdom in the following couplet:
“The mind guide thou with cautious hesitation:,The
sin use the best shield, Renunciation”.
Whoever possesses any faculty for appreciating life and the poetry of Nature will find little to enjoy in his worldrenouncing songs; and just as little satisfaction will be afforded him in the verses of Mutanabbi (905-965), frightfully tedious in their contents, although epigrammatic in their form. And yet Mutanabbi has been praised as the greatest Arabic poet.
In like manner people have unduly extolled Abu-l-Ala al-Maarri (973 -1058) as a philosophic poet. His occasionally quite respectable sentiments and sensible views are not philosophy, nor does the affected though often hackneyed expression of these amount to poetry. Under more favourable conditions, - for he was blind and not surpassingly rich, - this man might perhaps have rendered some service in the subordinate walks of criticism as a philologist or a historical writer. But, in place of an enthusiastic acceptance of life's duties, he is led to preach the joyless abandonment of them, and to grumble generally at political conditions, the opinions of the orthodox multitude, and the scientific assertions of the learned, without being able himself to advance anything positive. He is almost entirely wanting in the gift of combination. He can analyse, but he does not hit upon any synthesis, and his learning bears no fruit. The tree of his knowledge has its roots in the air, as he himself confesses in one of his letters, though in a different sense. He leads a life of strict celibacy and vegetarianism, as becomes a pessimist. As he puts it in his poems “all is but an idle toy: Fate is blind; and Time spares neither the king who partakes of the joys of life, nor the devout man who spends his nights in watching and prayer. Nor does irrational belief solve for us the enigma of existence. Whatever is behind those moving heavens remains hidden from us for ever: Religions, which open up a prospect there, have been fabricated from motives of self-interest. Sects and factions of all kinds are utilized by the powerful to make their dominion secure, though the truth about these matters can only be whispered. The wisest thing then is to keep aloof from the world, and to do good disinterestedly, and because it is virtuous and noble to do so, without any outlook for reward”.
Other literary men had a more practical philosophy, and could make their weight more felt in the world. They subscribed to the wise doctrine of the Theatre-Manager in Goethe's Faust: “He who brings much, will somethingbring
to many”. The most perfect type of this species is Hariri (1054-1122), whose hero, the beggar and stroller, Abu Zaid of Serug, teaches as the highest wisdom:
“Hunt, instead of being hunted;
All the
world's a wood for hunting. If the falcon should escape you, Take, content, the humble bunting: If you finger not the dinars,
Coppers still are worth the counting”.
3. The Annalistic of the ancient Arabs, like their Poetry, was distinguished by a clear perception of particulars, but was incapable of taking a general grasp of events. With the vast extension of the empire their view was necessarily widened. First a great mass of material was gathered together. Their historical and geographical knowledge was advanced by means of journeys undertaken to collect traditions, or for purposes of administration and trade, or simply to satisfy curiosity, more than it could have been by mere religious pilgrimages. Characteristic methods of research, brought to bear upon the value of tradition as a source of our knowledge, were elaborated. With the same subtlety which they displayed in Grammar, they portioned out, in endless division and subdivision, the extended field of their observation, in a fashion more truly `arabesque' than lucid; and in this way they formed a logic of history which must have appeared to an oriental eye much finer than the Aristotelian Organon with its austere structure. Their tradition, - in authenticating which they were, as a rule, less particular in practice than in theory, - was by many made equal in value to the evidence of the senses, and preferred to the judgment of the reason, which so easily admitted fallacious inferences.
There were always people, however, who impartially handed down contradictory reports, alongside of one another. Others, although exhibiting consideration for the feelings and requirements of the present, did not withhold their more or less well-founded judgment on the past, for it is often easier to be discerning in matters of history than in the affairs of the living world.
New subjects of enquiry came up, together with new modes of treatment. Geography included somewhat of Natural Philosophy, for example in the geography of climate; while
historical
composition brought within the range of its description intellectual life, belief, morals, literature and science. Acquaintance also with other lands and nations invited comparison on many points; and thus an international, humanistic or cosmopolitan element was introduced.
4. A representative of the humanistic attitude of mind is met with in Masudi, who died about the year 956. He appreciates, and is interested in, everything that concerns humanity. Everywhere he is learning something from the men he meets with: and in consequence the reading of books, which occupies his privacy, is not without fruit. But it is neither the narrow, everyday practices of life and religion, nor the airy speculations of Philosophy, that specially appeal to him. He knows where his strength lies; and up to the last, when he is spending his old age in Egypt, far from his native home, he finds his consolation, - the medicine of his soul, -- in the study of History. History for him is the all-embracing science: it is his philosophy; and its task is to set forth the truth of that which was and is. Even the wisdom of the world, together with its development, becomes the subject of History; and without it all knowledge would long since have disappeared. For learned men come and go; but History records their intellectual achievements, and thereby restores the connection between the past and the present. It gives us unprejudiced information about events and about the views of men. Of course Masudi leaves it often to the intelligent reader to find out for himself the due synthesis of the facts and the individual opinion of the author.
A successor of his, the geographer Maqdasi, or Muqaddasi, who wrote in the year 985, deserves to be mentioned with high commendation. He journeyed through many countries, and exercised the most varied callings, in order to acquaint himself with the life of his time. He is a true Abu Zaid of Serug (cf. II, 4 4 2), but one with an object before him.
He sets to work in critical fashion, and holds to the knowledge which is gained by research and enquiry, not by faith in tradition or by mere deductions of the reason. The geographical statements in the Koran he explains by the limited intellectual horizon of the ancient Arabs, to which Allah must have seen fit to adapt himself.
He describes then, sine iraet
studio, the countries and races he has seen with own eyes. His plan is to set down, in the first place, results gathered from his own experience and observation; next, what he has heard from trustworthy people; and last of all what he has met with in books. The following sentences are extracted from his characterization of himself.
“I have given instruction in the common subjects of education and morals: I have come forward as a preacher, and I have made the minaret of the mosque resound with the call to prayer. I have been present at the meetings of the learned and the devotions of the pious. I have partaken of broth with Sufis, gruel with monks, and ship'sfare with sailors. Many a time I have been seclusion itself, and then again I have eaten forbidden fruit against my better judgment. I associated with the hermits of Lebanon, and in turn I lived at the court of the Prince. In wars I have participated: I have been detained as a captive and thrown into prison as a spy. Powerful princes and ministers have lent me their ear, and anon I have joined a band of robbers, or sat as a retail-dealer in the bazaar. I have enjoyed much honour and consideration, but I have likewise been fated to listen to many curses and to be reduced to the ordeal of the oath, when I was suspected of heresy or evil deeds”.
We are accustomed at the present day to picture to ourselves the Oriental as a being who, in contemplative repose, is completely bound to his ancestral faith and usages. This representation is not quite correct, but still it agrees better with the situation which now exists than it does with the disposition of Islam in the first four centuries, for during that period it was inclined to take into its possession not only the outward advantages of the world, but also the intellectual acquisitions of Mankind.
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Author: DR. T. J. DE BOER
