START OF EDUCATION IN THE WORLD THROUGH ISLAM

From the very earliest days of Islam, the issue of education has been at the forefront at the minds of the Muslims. The very first word of the Quran that was revealed to Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was, in fact, “Read”. Prophet Muhammad ﷺ once stated that “Seeking knowledge is mandatory for all Muslims.” With such a direct command to go out and seek knowledge, Muslims have placed huge emphasis on the educational system in order to fulfill this obligation placed on them by the Prophet ﷺ.

Throughout Islamic history, education was a point of pride and a field Muslims have always excelled in. Muslims built great libraries and learning centers in places such as Baghdad, Cordoba, and Cairo. They established the first primary schools for children and universities for continuing education. They advanced sciences by incredible leaps and bounds through such institutions, leading up to today’s modern world.

Interest Towards Education

Today, education of children is not limited to the information and facts they are expected to learn. Rather, educators take into account the emotional, social, and physical well-being of the student in addition to the information they must master. Medieval Islamic education was no different. The 12th century Syrian physician al-Shayzari wrote extensively about the treatment of students. He noted that they should not be treated harshly, nor made to do busy work that doesn’t benefit them at all. The great Islamic scholar al-Ghazali also noted that “prevention of the child from playing games and constant insistence on learning deadens his heart, blunts his sharpness of wit and burdens his life. Thus, he looks for a ruse to escape his studies altogether.” Instead, he believed that educating students should be mixed with fun activities such as puppet theater, sports, and playing with toy animals.

The First Education

Ibn Khaldun states in his Muqaddimah, “It should be known that instructing children in the Qur’an is a symbol of Islam. Muslims have, and practice, such instruction in all their cities, because it imbues hearts with a firm belief (in Islam) and its articles of faith, which are (derived) from the verses of the Qur’an and certain Prophetic traditions.”

A miniature from the Ottoman period of students and their teacher

The very first educational institutions of the Islamic world were quite informal. Mosques were used as a meeting place where people can gather around a learned scholar, attend his lectures, read books with him/her, and gain knowledge. Some of the greatest scholars of Islam learned in such a way, and taught their students this way as well. All four founders of the Muslim schools of law – Imams Abu Hanifa, Malik, Shafi’i, and Ibn Hanbal – gained their immense knowledge by sitting in gatherings with other scholars (usually in the mosques) to discuss and learn Islamic law.

Some schools throughout the Muslim world continue this tradition of informal education. At the three holiest sites of Islam – the Haram in Makkah, Masjid al-Nabawi in Madinah, and Masjid al-Aqsa in Jerusalem – scholars regularly sit and give lectures in the mosque that are open to anyone who would like to join and benefit from their knowledge. However, as time went on, Muslims began to build formal institutions dedicated to education.

From Primary to Higher Education

Dating back to at least the 900s, young students were educated in a primary school called a maktab. Commonly, maktabs were attached to a mosque, where the resident scholars and imams would hold classes for children. These classes would cover topics such as basic Arabic reading and writing, arithmetic, and Islamic laws. Most of the local population was educated by such primary schools throughout their childhood. After completing the curriculum of the maktab, students could go on to their adult life and find an occupation, or move on to higher education in a madrasa, the Arabic world for “school”.

The Registan complex in Samarkand, Uzbekistan contains three madrasas in the same square

Madrasas were usually attached to a large mosque. Examples include al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt (founded in 970) and al-Karaouine in Fes, Morocco (founded in 859). Later, numerous madrasas were established across the Muslim world by the great Seljuk vizier, Nizam al-Mulk. At a madrasa, students would be educated further in religious sciences, Arabic, and secular studies such as  medicine, mathematics, astronomy, history, and geography, among many other topics. In the 1100s, there were 75 madrasas in Cairo, 51 in Damascus, and 44 in Aleppo. There were hundreds more in Muslim Spain at this time as well.

These madrasas can be considered the first modern universities. They had separate faculties for different subjects, with resident scholars that had expertise in their fields. Students would pick a concentration of study and spend a number of years studying under numerous professors. Ibn Khaldun notes that in Morocco at his time, the madrasas had a curriculum which spanned sixteen years. He argues that this is the “shortest [amount of time] in which a student can obtain the scientific habit he desires, or can realize that he will never be able to obtain it.”

When a student completed their course of study, they would be granted an ijaza, or a license certifying that they have completed that program and are qualified to teach it as well. Ijazas could be given by an individual teacher who can personally attest to his/her student’s knowledge, or by an institution such as a madrasa, in recognition of a student finishing their course of study. Ijazas today  can be most closely compared to diplomas granted from higher educational institutions.

Education and Women

Throughout Islamic history, educating women has been a high priority. Women were not seen as incapable of attaining knowledge nor of being able to teach others themselves. The precedent for this was set with Prophet Muhammad’s own wife, Aisha, who was one of the leading scholars of her time and was known as a teacher of many people in Madinah after the Prophet’s ﷺ death.

Later Islamic history also shows the influence of women.  Women throughout the Muslim world were able to attend lectures in mosques, attend madrasas, and in many cases were teachers themselves. For example, the 12th century scholar Ibn ‘Asakir (most famous for his book on the history of Damascus, Tarikh Dimashq) traveled extensively in the search for knowledge and studied under 80 different female teachers.

Women also played a major role as supporters of education:

The University of al-Karaouine in Fes, Morocco was founded by Fatima al-Fihri in 859

• The first formal madrasa of the Muslim world, the University of al-Karaouine in Fes was established in 859 by a wealthy merchant by the name of Fatima al-Fihri.
• The Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid’s wife, Zubayda, personally funded many construction projects for mosques, roads, and wells in the Hijaz, which greatly benefit the many students that traveled through these areas.
• The wife of Ottoman Sultan Suleyman, Hurrem Sultan, endowned numerous madrasas, in addition to other charitable works such as hospitals, public baths, and soup kitchens.
• During the Ayyubid period of Damascus (1174 to 1260) 26 religious endownments (including madrasas, mosques, and religious monuments) were built by women.

Unlike Europe during the Middle Ages (and even up until the 1800s and 1900s), women played a major role in Islamic education in the past 1400 years. Rather than being seen as second-class citizens, women played an active role in public life, particularly in the field of education.

Modern Education

The tradition of madrasas and other classical forms of Islamic education continues until today, although in a much more diminshed form. The defining factor for this was the encroachment of European powers on Muslim lands throughout the 1800s. In the Ottoman Empire, for example, French secularist advisors to the sultans advocated a complete reform of the educational system to remove religion from the curriculum and only teach secular sciences. Public schools thus began to teach a European curriculum based on European books in place of the traditional fields of knowledge that had been taught for hundreds of years. Although Islamic madrasas continued to exist, without government support they lost much of their relevance in the modern Muslim world.

Today, much of the former Ottoman Empire still runs education along European lines. For example, what you are allowed to major in at the university level depends on how you do on a certain standardized test at the end of your high school career. If you obtain the highest possible grades on the test, you can study sciences such as medicine or engineering. If one scores on the lower end of the spectrum, they are only allowed to study topics such as Islamic sciences and education.

Jameah Darul Uloom

Al Azhar University

 Despite the new systems in place in much of the Muslimworld, traditional education still survives. Universities such as al-Azhar, al-Karaouine, and Darul Uloom in Deoband, India continue to offer traditional curricula that bring together Islamic and secular sciences. Such an intellectual tradition rooted in the great institutions of the past that produced some of the greatest scholars of Islamic history and continues to spread the message and knowledge of Islam to the masses.

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The Unrivalled Fact: The Palestinian (1800 - 2014)

One of the most jarring and important events of recent Islamic history has been the Arab-Israeli Conflict. This conflict is multifaceted, complex, and is still one of the world’s most problematic issues in international relations. One aspect of this conflict is the refugee problem that began in 1948, with the creation of the State of Israel. Over 700,000 Palestinians became refugees that year, in what is known as the “Nakba”, which is Arabic for catastrophe. 

Background

In the 1800s, a new nationalistic movement was born in Europe. Zionism was a political movement advocating the creation of a Jewish state. Many Jews believed having their own state was necessary in the face of discrimination and oppression by Europeans. After debating where to create this new state should exist at the First Zionist Congress in 1897, the Zionist movement decided to aim at creating their state in Palestine, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire. The sultan/caliph of the Ottoman Empire, Abdülhamid II, refused to accept this, even in the face of a 150 million British pound payment proposed by Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, in exchange for ownership of Palestine.

Palestine 1946 to 2011

The door would open for Zionism  however, after the First World War. During the war, Britain captured Palestine from the Ottomans in 1917. At around the same time, the British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, issued a declaration to the Zionist movement promising British support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.

After the war, Palestine became a League of Nations mandate under British control in 1920. Since it was under British control, the Zionist movement heavily advocated the emigration of European Jews to Palestine. The result was an exponential rise in the number of Jews living in Palestine. According to British census data, in 1922, there were 83,790 Jews in Palestine. By 1931, it was 175,138. And by 1945, the number had jumped to 553,600 people. In 25 years, Jews had gone from 11% of the total population to 31%.1

Naturally, the reaction from the Palestinian Arabs was less than enthusiastic. Tension between new Jewish settlers and native Palestinians erupted on numerous occasions.  Eventually, the British decided by the 1940s that they could no longer control the territory, and decided to end the mandate of Palestine and leave the country.

UNO and Israeli Brutality 

The left map shows the Jewish-majority areas in the Mandate of Palestine. The right map illustrates the UN Partition Plan.

Seeing the coming end of British control over Palestine, and the inevitably conflict between the Arabs and the Jews, the newly-created United Nations took up the issue in 1947. It came up with a plan known as the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. The plan advocated the creation of two states in what has historically been known as Palestine. One for Jews, known as Israel, and one for Arabs, Palestine.2

While the Jews in Palestine accepted the plan with enthusiasm, the Arabs vehemently rejected it. In their view, it took away land that had been a historically Muslim Arab land since the Crusades and gave it to the new Jewish minority in the country. Tensions rose again between the two sides.

In the midst of this rising tension, Britain declared an end to the Mandate of Palestine, and withdrew from the country on May 14th, 1948. That day, the Zionist movement in Palestine declared the establishment of a new country, Israel. The following day, the neighboring Arab countries declared their rejection of the declaration and invaded Israel.

Without going into the details of the war itself, the result of the 1948 war was an enormous increase in the size of Israel. The resulting state was much larger than the state proposed by the United Nations, capturing approximately 50% of the proposed Arab state.

Distribution of the Palestinians

Perhaps the largest human impact of the 1948 War was the expulsion of much of the Palestinian population. Within the borders of the new State of Israel, there had been close to 1,000,000 Palestinian Arabs before the war. By the end of the war in 1949, between 700,000 and 750,000 of them had been expelled.3 Only 150,000 remained in Israel.

Palestinian refugees in 1948

Refugees are always an unfortunate side-effect of war. Throughout history, groups of people had fled to escape fighting and conquest. What makes the Palestinian refugees of 1948 unique, however, iswhy they became refugees. Since this is still very much a real conflict today, historians analyzing the causes of the Palestinian exodus are heavily influenced by politics and international relations. Historians (including Israeli historians) have however defined a few key reasons for the exodus:

Palestinians on the Stake:                                               Many Palestinians left because due to fear of Israeli attacks and atrocities. These fears were not unwarranted. On April 9th, 1948, about 120 Israeli fighters entered the Palestinian town of Deir Yassin, near Jerusalem. 600 villagers were killed.4 Some died defending the city in battle against Israeli forces, while others were killed by hand grenades thrown into their homes, or executed after being paraded through the streets of Jerusalem.

Naturally, once word of this massacre spread throughout Palestine, Palestinians feared the worst from the Israelis. In many cases, entire Palestinian villages fled Israeli advances, hoping to avoid the same fate as Deir Yassin. Some Israeli groups, such as Yishuv, accelerated this feeling through psychological warfare intended to intimidate Palestinian towns into surrendering or fleeing. Radio broadcasts were aired in Arabic, warning Arab villagers that they could not stand up to Israeli advances, and resistance was futile.

Attack of Israeli Forces:  
                                         Fear was the main motivating factor for refugees early in the war. As the war dragged on through 1948, however, deliberate Israeli expulsion became more popular. As the Israelis conquered more and more territory, their forces became more thinly spread throughout the country. As a result, many newly-conquered villages were forcibly emptied by Israeli forces.

Notable examples of this were the cities of Lydda and Ramla, near Jerusalem. When they were conquered in July of 1948, Yitzhak Rabin signed an order expelling all Palestinians from the two towns, amounting to between 50,000 and 70,000 people.5 Israeli forces bused some of them to the Arab front lines, while others were forced to walk, only being allowed to take with them whatever they could carry. This expulsion alone accounted for about 10% of the total Palestinian expulsion in 1948.

Support of Arab Forces:

                                             In some cases, the Arab armies from neighboring countries, particularly Jordan, encouraged Palestinian towns to evacuate. One possible reason for this was that to provide an open battlefield without civilians in the crossfire. In any case, many Palestinian civilians left their homes under direction from Arab armies, hoping to return soon after the inevitable Arab victory, only to become refugees in neighboring countries.

End Of War :

A Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus, Syria in 1948.

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War created a massive refugee problem in the Middle East. Over 500 towns and cities throughout Palestine were completely depopulated during this time. The 700,000+ refugees from these towns became an economic and social burden on neighboring countries and the West Bank, Palestinian land under Jordanian authority. In 1954, Israel passed the Prevention of Infiltration Law. It allowed the Israeli government to expel any Palestinians who managed to sneak back to their homes in what was now Israel. It also allowed the government to expel any internally displaced Palestinians still within Israel if they sought to return to their homes.

Today, the right of return is still a major problem that has yet to be solved by peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. The forcible expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 proved to be a problem that continues to last even after the lives of the original refugees draw to a close in the early 2000s.



#JUST BELIEVE GENTLEMAN !

Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi – The Pioneer of Modern Surgery

Al Zahrawi

1. Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi, also known in the West as Albucasis, was an Arab Muslim physician and surgeon who lived in Al-Andalus. Wikipedia
3. Born: 936 AD, Medina Azahara, Spain
4. Died: 1013                                                                                       
5. Books: Al-Tasrif

It has often been stated on this website that the Muslim period of Spain’s history (also known as al-Andalus) was a Golden Age of Islamic civilization and society. Harmony between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism prevailed, great advancements were made in the sciences, and wealth and stability were the rule rather than the exception.

One of the great figures of Muslim Spain was Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, Islam’s greatest medieval surgeon. He revolutionized how surgery was performed by inventing new methods and tools to help heal patients. His thirty-volume encyclopedia of medicine was used as a standard text for medicine throughout Europe for centuries. The impact he had on how medicine was practiced was truly revolutionary.

Background

Al-Zahrawi lived during most powerful period of the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba. He was born in 936 and died in 1013, and served the Umayyad Caliph al-Hakam II and the military ruler, al-Mansur. Throughout his life, al-Zahrawi was a court physician, having been patronized by the rulers of al-Andalus and recognized for his medical genius. He served in such a capacity as a doctor for over 50 years.

Unlike many doctors and hospitals in the “modern” world today, al-Zahrawi insisted on seeing patients regardless of their financial status. By seeing a wide variety of patients every day and recording his treatment of them, he left behind a very valuable text of medical knowledge that he called al-Tasrif.

Book: Al-Tasrif

A page from the original al-Tasrif written by al-Zahrawi in the 900s

His encyclopedia of medicine is divided into 30 volumes. Each one of which dealt with a different aspect of medicine. He discussed how to diagnose diseases in one of the early volumes. He noted that a good doctor should always rely on his own observation of the patient and his/her symptoms instead of simply accepting what the patient says – a practice still employed by doctors today.

Al-Zahrawi takes a holistic approach to medicine. Not only does he discuss how to treat diseases, he describes how to prevent them. He dedicates parts of his books to discussing what foods should be avoided, how to maintain a healthy diet, and how to use food as part of a treatment plan. He particularly notes the effects of alcohol on the body. He states:

“[Alcohol causes] general weakness of most of the nerves of the body, difficulties in articulation, weakness of voluntary movements, arthralgias, gout, etc.. disturbances of the liver which causes tumors and obstructions which is a definite cause of ascites and general ill health”1

Surgery

His most influential volume of al-Tasrif is the 30th, the one dedicated to surgery. In it, he explains in detail how to perform certain surgeries to cure certain ailments. He insists in it that all surgeons must first be very well versed in general medicine, anatomy, and even the writings of philosophers who studied medicine.

Al-Zahrawi pioneered many of the procedures and materials still used in operating rooms today. He was the first to use catgut as the thread for internal stitches. Catgut is a thread made from the lining of the intestines of animals. It is the only material that can be used for stitches and still be absorbed by the body, preventing the need for a second surgery to remove internal stitches. He invented many tools necessary for modern surgery. He was the first to use foreceps in childbirth, greatly decreasing the mortality rate of babies and mothers. He performed tonsillectomies with the same tongue depressors, hooks, and scissors used today. He used concealed knifes to cut into patients without making them apprehensive  He used both local and oral anesthesia in order to reduce the pain patients experienced during surgery. He performed mastectomies  removing a woman’s breast if she had breast cancer, a procedure still done today. He described how to set bone fractures, amputate limbs, and even how to crush bladder stones. To describe all his “firsts” in medicine would take a book of its own.

An early inhaler invented by al-Zahrawi. At the top is the original Arabic while the Latin translation is at the bottom.

Despite his immense knowledge and ability, he always refused to do risky or unknown surgeries that would be stressful physically and emotionally for the patient. He believed in the importance of human life and sought to extend it as long as possible. His precedent was a prime example for effective bedside manner that all doctors should exhibit.

Legacy

Al-Tasrif made its way from al-Andalus throughout the Muslim and Christian worlds. Over the course of centuries, it was translated into Latin and other European languages. Thus, many of the procedures he pioneered were given names that do not indicate that he originated them. For example, the “Walcher position” of childbirth and the “Kocher method” for fixing dislocated shoulders were invented by al-Zahrawi but credited to later European physicians.

Regardless of credit, al-Zahrawi’s contributions to medicine and particularly surgery were revolutionary for his time. Without the procedures and tools that he pioneered, surgery today may still be a barbaric guessing game. His abilities and his consistent recording of procedures helped advance medicine for centuries, and we are still in debt to his genius.


#JUST BELIEVE GENTLEMAN !

Al-Khawarizmi and Modern Math

Modern theoretical mathematics is a complex and abstract field. It frustrates and annoys secondary school students in math classes, but also provides the basis for all the technological wonders we enjoy today. Without the incredible mind of a 8th century Muslim mathematician, al-Khawarizmi, the world of math today would look vastly different.

Muhammad al-Khawarizmi was born in 780 AD in Khorasan, a province in the east of Persia, right on the legendary ancient Silk Road between China and Rome. Goods were not the only commodity traded on the Silk Road. Knowledge of the East and the West traveled on this legendary path, and a young al-Khawarizmi benefited greatly from it. When the Abbasid Caliph, al-Ma’mun established the House of Knowledge in Baghdad in 832, he called al-Khawarizmi to the city personally. Al-Ma’mun believed in rationalism, and had a simply daunting task for al-Khawarizmi: prove the existence of Allah, through the complexity and beauty of mathematics.

Al-Khawarizmi, like many of his colleagues, got to work translating ancient Greek and Indian texts. The knowledge of giants such as Pythagoras, Euclid, and Brahmagupta was the pedestal this new generation of scholars would stand on. But al-Khawarizmi’s contributions only begin with translation of Greek and Hindu texts.  From the great Indian book on math, The Opening of the Universe, al-Khawarizmi adopts the idea of the zero as a number. This opened up a whole new world of mathematical possibilities and complexities.

Using the old Roman numeral system made advanced math next to impossible. With a number system that goes from 0 to 9, al-Khawarizmi is able to develop fields such as algebra, which he initially used to calculate Muslim inheritance laws. He builds more on the geometry of the Greeks, and develops the basic ideas many high school math students can recognize today.

But his real issue remains with the number zero. It cannot be proven to exist using math. The old Indian texts insist zero divided by zero equals zero. But al-Khawarizmi knows that any division by zero is impossible. Eventually he comes to the conclusion that the zero must simply be accepted without being proven. Furthermore, he reports to the Caliph al-Ma’mun that belief in Allah is the same: it cannot be proven using science, but must be accepted on faith in the religion. Al-Khawarizmi was as much a philosopher as he was a mathematician.

In addition to math, he writes a compendium on geography that lists the latitude and longitude of 2,400 cities around the world. He also writes books on the astrolabe, sundials, and even the Jewish calendar. For 700 years after his death, European mathematicians cite him in their works, referring to him as “Algorismi”. The modern word for a complex mathematical formula, algorithm, is derived from his name. His legacy lives on, even if the modern world that he helped build has all but forgotten of his contributions.

#JUST BELIEVE GENTLEMAN !

5 Muslim Inventions That Changed The World

Coffee

About 1,600,000,000 cups of coffee are consumed every day around the world. Billions of people rely on it as part of their daily routines. And yet, very few people are aware of the Muslim origins of this ubiquitous drink.

According to the historical record, in the 1400s coffee became a very popular drink among Muslims in Yemen, in the southern Arabian Peninsula. Legend goes that a shepherd (some say in Yemen, some say in Ethiopia) noticed that his goats became very energetic and jumpy when they ate beans from a particular tree. He had the courage to try them himself, noticing they gave him an energy boost. Over time, the tradition of roasting the beans and immersing them in water to create a sour yet powerful drink developed, and thus, coffee was born.

Roasted coffee beans

Regardless of whether or not the story of the shepherd ever really happened, coffee found its way from the highlands of Yemen to the rest of the Ottoman Empire, the premier Muslim empire of the 15th century. Coffeehouses specializing in the new drink began to spring up in all the major cities of the Muslim world: Cairo, Istanbul, Damascus, Baghdad. From the Muslim world, the drink found its way into Europe through the great merchant city of Venice. Although it was at first denounced as the “Muslim drink” by Catholic authorities, coffee became a part of European culture. The coffeehouses of the 1600s was where philosophers met and discussed issues such as the rights of man, the role of government, and democracy. These discussions over coffee spawned what became the Enlightenment, one of the most powerful intellectual movements of the modern world.

From a Yemeni/Ethiopian shepherd to shaping European political thought to over 1 billion cups per day, this Muslim innovation is one of the most important inventions of human history.

Algebra

While many secondary school students struggling through math classes may not particularly appreciate the importance of algebra, it is one of the most important contributions of the Muslim Golden Age to the modern world. It was developed by the great scientist and mathematician, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khawarizmi, who lived from 780 to 850 in Persia and Iraq.

The title page of al-Khawarizmi’s book

In his monumental book, Al-Kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr wa-l-muqābala (English: The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing), he set forth the basic principles of algebraic equations. The name of the book itself contains the word “al-jabr”, meaning “completion”, from which the Latin word algebra is derived. In the book, al-Khawarizmi explains how to use algebraic equations with unknown variables to solve real-world problems such as zakat calculation and inheritance division. A unique aspect of his reasoning for developing algebra is the desire to make calculations mandated by Islamic law easier to complete in a world without calculators and computers.

Al-Khawarizimi’s books were translated into Latin in Europe in the 1000s and 1100s, where he was known as Algoritmi (the word algorithm is based on his name and his mathematical works). Without his work in developing algebra, modern practical applications of math, such as engineering, would not be possible. His works were used as math textbooks in European universities for hundreds of years after his death.

Degree-Granting Universities

Speaking of universities, that is also an invention made possible by the Muslim world. Early on in Islamic history, mosques doubled as schools. The same people who led prayers would teach groups of students about Islamic sciences such as Quran, fiqh (jurisprudence), and hadith. As the Muslim world grew however, there needed to be formal institutions, known as madrasas, dedicated to the education of students.

The University of Karaouine in Fes

The first formal madrasa was al-Karaouine, founded in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri in Fes, Morocco. Her school attracted some of the leading scholars of North Africa, as well as the land’s brightest students. At al-Karaouine, students were taught by teachers for a number of years in a variety of subjects ranging from secular to religious sciences. At the end of the program, if the teachers deemed their students qualified, they would grant them a certificate known as an ijaza, which recognizes that the student understood the material and is now qualified to teach it.

These first degree-granting educational institutes quickly spread throughout the Muslim world. Al-Azhar University was founded in Cairo in 970, and in the 1000s, the Seljuks established dozens of madrasas throughout the Middle East. The concept of institutes that grant certificates of completion (degrees) spread into Europe through Muslim Spain, where European students would travel to study. The Universities of Bologna in Italy and Oxford in England were founded in the 11th and 12th centuries and continued the Muslim tradition of granting degrees to students who deserved them, and using it as a judge of a person’s qualifications in a particular subject.

An Ottoman mehter band

Military Marching Bands

Many students who attended high schools and universities in the Western world are familiar with the marching band. Made up of a group of a few hundred musicians, a band marches onto a field during an sporting event to entertain the audience and cheer on the players. These school marching bands developed from the use of marching military bands during the Gunpowder Age in Europe that were designed to encourage soldiers during battle. This tradition has its origins in the Ottoman mehter bands of the 1300s that helped make the Ottoman army one of the most powerful in the world.

As part of the elite Janissary corps of the Ottoman Empire, the mehter band’s purpose was to play loud music that would frighten enemies and encourage allies. Using enormous drums and clashing cymbals, the sounds created by a mehter band could stretch for miles. During the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans throughout the 14th -16th centuries, mehter bands accompanied the fearsome Ottoman armies, who seemed almost invincible even in the face of huge European alliances.

Eventually, Christian Europe also caught on to the use of military bands to frighten enemies. Legend has it that after the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683, the retreating Ottoman army left behind dozens of musical instruments, which the Austrians collected, studied, and put to their own use. Armies all over Europe soon began implementing marching military bands, revolutionizing the way war was fought in Europe for centuries.

Cameras

It’s hard to imagine a world without photography. Billion dollar companies like Instagram and Canon are based on the idea of capturing light from a scene, creating an image from it, and reproducing that image. But doing so is impossible without the trailblazing work of the 11th century Muslim scientist, Ibn al-Haytham, who developed the field of optics and described how the first cameras work.

The basic principle of a pinhole camera

Working in the imperial city of Cairo in the early 1000s, Ibn al-Haytham was one of the greatest scientists of all time. To regulate scientific advancements, he developed the scientific method, the basic process by which all scientific research is conducted. When he was put under house arrest by the Fatimid ruler al-Hakim, he had the time and ability to study how light works. His research partially focused on how the pinhole camera worked. Ibn al-Haytham was the first scientist to realize that when a tiny hole is put onto the side of a lightproof box, rays of light from the outside are projected through that pinhole into the box and onto the back wall of it. He realized that the smaller the pinhole (aperture), the sharper the image quality, giving him the ability to build cameras that were incredibly accurate and sharp when capturing an image.

Ibn al-Haytham’s discoveries regarding cameras and how to project and capture images led to the modern development of cameras around the same concepts. Without his research into how light travels through apertures and is projected by them, the modern mechanisms inside everyone’s cameras would not exist.


#JUST BELIEVE GENTLEMAN !

ABU HAMID MUHAMMAD BIN IBN  MUHAMMAD AL-GHAZALI AL-SHAFI   (RH)

Imam Al-Ghazzali's Unique Contribution to Sufism

"If all the knowledge of the world were lost,
I could revive it with lhya-ul-Uloom." ---Abu Mohammed Quzrani

   No writer on Sufism should forget to pay due tribute and homage to the distinguished role which Imam Al-Ghazzali of Iran played in the history of Islam and Sufism.
   In the history of Islam, Imam Abul Hamid Al-Ghazzali of Iran is unanimously recognized as perhaps its greatest scholar, author, and foremost thinker. During the Middle Ages, his authority as interpreter of the Qur'anic verses in the light of his spiritual investigation of the underlying hidden wisdom of Qur'an was almost unsurpassed and unchallenged. His unique contribution to Islamic thought and behavior was the reconciling adjustment of his intuitive insight into the Qur'anic dicta with the Vedantic, Greek, Neo-Platonic and Buddhist metaphysical speculation and philosophies touching on mysticism.
   Imam AI-Ghazzali's reputed work Keemie-e-Sa'adat (The Alchemy of Happiness) is a scholarly masterpiece, unparalleled on the esoteric experiences of Sufism. Apart from being a devoted scholar and orthodox theologian, he was a rationalist who dived deep into the mystical sea underlying the spirit of the Holy Qur'an. His most famous work Ihya-ul-Uloom-ud-Din (The Revival of the Spiritual Sciences) is a treasury of Sufistic principles, practices and characteristics which are followed by all the great Sufi dervishes of the world.

His Brief Life Story

   Imam Al-Ghazzali was born in Tus (Khorasan) in 1058 A.D. He lost his father when very young. His father at his death had entrusted him and his younger brother to a friend for their education and upbringing. The dutiful friend invested all their inheritance on their education.
   Imam Ghazzali learned theology from Ahmed Bin Mohammed Raz Kazi and Abu Nasir Ismail of Jarjan, In those days the method of instruction was by oral lectures and students had to preserve them by notes to commit by heart. As Imam Ghazzali was returning home with his precious notes, they were looted on the way by the robbers. When he approached the leader of the robbers entreating him with tearful eyes to return his notes, the thieves only laughed and said: "What have you learned and what knowledge have you acquired when on the toss of a mere piece of paper you find yourself blank." These remarks deeply hurt Ghazzali and, on reaching home, he started learning all things by memory and did this for full 3 years.

His Early Education
   He then proceeded to Nishapur to perfect his theological knowledge at the feet of Imam-ul-Harmain who was a master mind of his time. The teacher found in him a scholar of extraordinary intelligence and wisdom and used to call him "an ocean of learning." He appointed him as his own deputy in his reputable school. When his teacher died, Al Ghazzali was only 28, but he had earned high reputation as a brilliant scholar, author and preceptor.
   Now the famous Wazir, Nizam-ul-Mulk, invited him to the great seat of Islamic learning--the Nizamia University of Baghdad--and made him its principal. Here he attained worldwide prominence by coming in contact with various religious scholars, masters and intellectual giants of his day. His powers of advocacy and supreme knowledge won him the hearts of both the rich and the poor. The kings offered him the seat by their side and the streets were decorated as he passed through them. By the age of 34, Al-Ghazzali's reputation had reached its pinnacle; his freethinking lectures were preserved in many volumes by scholars and intellectuals.

Becomes a Sufi

   But now a great change suddenly overtook him and it was the love and search for truth which seized him tightly. He renounced office, honor and rank. "True knowledge must be sought" became a phantom that seized him day and night. He writes: "From the age of 20 up to the age of 50, I met all classes of philosophers, thinkers, theologians, Sufis and heretics and tried to understand their viewpoints with an open mind. This made me to break with the bonds of canonical laws and ritualism. I now felt a keen desire to study logic, philosophy, ethics and other allied subjects."

   "I came to the conclusion that the followers of Islam incorrectly consider that philosophical and logical discussion undermines Islam and, therefore, their antagonism to these sciences was unwarranted. I thought that the great injury caused to Islam by this attitude was that many principles of philosophy which were self-evident and proved by irrefutable argument and intellectual discussion when asserted to be antagonistic to Islam, made them who believed in those philosophic truths to doubt Islam itself. So these friends of Islam really proved to be its enemies."
   Thereafter the Socratic way of insistence on Truth and inquiry became the method of treatment by this great theologian and he put religion of Islam on a scholastic basis, emphasizing upon the fact that the tenets of philosophy were not antagonistic to the religion of Islam. But the fanatics fought tooth and nail against all such statements of Al-Ghazzali, branding them as heresies. He was, however, strictly adamant in his views and boldly declared that "genuine religion demands at the outset a thoroughly ethical life. The mind must be thoroughly cleansed of all evil tendencies to become a true Muslim. Purification of behavior and conduct (Tazkiya-e-Ikhlaaq) was the first step." Endowed with the knowledge of various religions and countries, he deeply pondered over the ethical and moral values, critically analyzed them and started explaining the esoteric import of the verses of the Holy Qur'an, supporting his interpretations with the Traditions of the Prophet (sas), and thereby opened quite a new venue of thought in the spiritual life of the people.
   This sudden change in the thought of Al-Ghazzali smashed all the shackles and trammels of the scriptures which, since his childhood, had warped his clear understanding and made him a rebel against mere canonical and ritualistic religion followed and preached by the orthodox Ulema. He found that mere theology and its discussion could not give him the peace of mind nor the glimpse of real Truth. His attention was thus riveted on Tasawwuf (Sufism) wherein he found the achievement of true peace of mind and consolation. He therefore dived deep into the mystical writings of great Sufis like Bayazid Bastami, Junaid and Shibli and came to the conclusion that this knowledge of Sufism must be practiced at any cost. This made him bid good-bye at one stroke to all the high offices, honors and riches. He donned a woolen blanket and renounced all attachments to the world. And thus Imam Al-Ghazzali became a Sufi dervish at the age of 38.

Al-Ghazzali Praises Sufism

   Let us now see what the great Imam has to say about the Sufistic path, in his candid and heartfelt Confessions of Al-Ghazzali:

   "I saw that in order to understand Sufism thoroughly one must combine theory with practice. The aim which the Sufis set before them is as follows: To free the soul from the tyrannical yoke of the passions, to deliver it from its wrong inclinations and evil instincts, in order that in the purified heart there should only remain room for Allah and for the invocation of His holy name."

   But without a clear path of practice, Al-Ghazzali undertook an exhaustive study of the great books on Sufism:

   "As it was easier to learn their doctrine than to practice it, I studied first of all those of their books which contain it: The Nourishment of Hearts, by Abu Talib of Mecca, the works of Harethel Muhasibi, and the fragments which still remain of Junaid, Shibli, Abu Yezid Bustami and other leaders (whose souls may Allah sanctify). I acquired a thorough knowledge of their researches, and I learned all that was possible to learn of their methods by study and oral teaching. It became clear to me that the last stage could not be reached by mere instruction, but only by transport, ecstasy, and the transformation of the moral being…I saw that Sufism consists in experiences rather than in definitions, and that what I was lacking belonged to the domain, not of instruction, but of ecstasy and intuition."
   Al-Ghazzali’s heart and mind were cast into a sea of conflicting intentions and emotions:
   "Coming seriously to consider my state, I found myself bound down on all sides by these trammels. Examining my actions, the most fair-seeming of which were my lecturing and professorial occupations, I found to my surprise that I was engrossed in several studies of little value, and profitless as regards my salvation.

Reconsiders His Knowledge

   He was forced to face his true motives, and made this astonishingly honest appraisal of his life’s work to that time:
   "I probed the motives of my teaching and found that, in place of being sincerely consecrated to God, it was only actuated by a vain desire of honor and reputation. I perceived that I was on the edge of an abyss, and that without an immediate conversion I should be doomed to eternal fire. In these reflections I spent a long time."
   Despite his extraordinary knowledge and station of learning, Al-Ghazzali was torn by anxiety and self-doubt:
   "Still a prey to uncertainty, one day I decided to leave Baghdad and to give up everything; the next day I gave up my resolution. I advanced one step and immediately relapsed. In the morning I was sincerely resolved only to occupy myself with the future life; in the evening a crowd of carnal thoughts assailed and dispersed my resolutions. On the one side the world kept me bound to my post in the chains of covetousness, on the other side the voice of religion cried to me, "Up! Up! thy life is nearing its end, and thou hast a long journey to make.
   In fact his confusion and struggle became so great that he that lost the power of speech:

   "Thus I remained, torn-asunder by the opposite forces of earthly passions and religious aspirations...Allah caused an impediment to chain my tongue and prevented me from lecturing. Vainly I desired, in the interest of my pupils, to go on with my teaching, but my mouth became dumb. The silence to which I was condemned cast me into a violent despair; my stomach became weak; I lost all appetite; I could neither swallow a morsel of bread nor drink a drop of water."

Ultimately Turns to Almighty Allah for Guidance:

   "Finally, conscious of my weakness and the prostration of my soul, I took refuge in Allah as a man at the end of himself and without resources. "He who hears the wretched when they cry" (Qur’an, xxvii: 63) deigned to hear me; He made easy to me the sacrifice of honors, wealth, and family…
   At last I left Bagdad, giving up all my fortune...I then betook myself to Syria, where I remained for two years, which I devoted to retirement, meditation, and devout exercises. I only thought of self-improvement and discipline and of purification of the heart by prayer in going through the forms of devotion which the Sufis had taught me."
   His absence from his home brought pleas from his family which tore at his heart, and he decided to return home to them, but with a firm resolve and intention:
   "I meant, if I did return, to live there solitary and in religious meditation; but events, family cares and vicissitudes of little changed my resolutions and troubled my meditative calm. However irregular the intervals which I could give to devotional ecstasy, my confidence in it did not diminish; and the more I was diverted by hindrances, the more steadfastly I returned to it. Ten years passed in this manner."

Sufism The One True Way

   He then sums up his life of a most exhaustive and devoted study of Allah and His Islam, with these words:
   "During my successive periods of meditation there were revealed to me things impossible to recount. All that I shall say for the edification of the reader is this: I learnt from a sure source that the Sufis are the true pioneers on the path of God: that there is nothing more beautiful than their life, nor more praiseworthy than their rule of conduct, nor purer than their morality.
   "The intelligence of thinkers, the wisdom of philosophers, the knowledge of the most learned doctors of the law would in vain combine their efforts in order to modify or improve their doctrine and morals; it would be impossible. With the Sufis, repose and movement, exterior or interior, are illumined with the light which proceeds from the central Radiance of Inspiration. And what other light could shine on the face of the earth ? In a word, what can one criticize in them?

   "From the time that they set out on this path, revelations commence for them. They come to see in the waking state angels and souls of prophets; they hear their voices and wise counsels. By means of this contemplation of heavenly forms and images they rise by degrees to heights which human language cannot reach, which one cannot even indicate without falling into great and inevitable errors."

   For those who condemn or deride the life and practices of the Sufis, Imam Al-Ghazzali offers this advice:

   "But behind those who believe comes a crowd of ignorant people who deny the reality of Sufism, hear discourses on it with incredulous irony, and treat as charlatans those who profess it. To this ignorant crowd the verse applies: "There are those among them who come to listen to thee, and when they leave thee, ask of those who have received knowledge, 'What has he 'just said?" There are they whose hearts Allah has sealed up with blindness and who only follow their passions".

   Allaho Alim!

   It was during the period of seclusion and search that he wrote his remarkable work lhya-ul-Uloom which resuscitated Islam which had become merely a set of rituals and ethical rules under the domination of the orthodox Ulema. His indomitable will and devoted work earned him the title of Hujjat-ul-Islam (the proof of Islam) and the charges leveled against him that he did not follow the scriptures and canonical laws, that he accepted the rules of philosophy and followed them and thus lowered the dignity of ritual and canonical laws of Islam were all leveled to dust

Contents of lhya-ul-Uloom-ud-din

   Book I Worship (Ibadat): (1) The nature of knowledge (Ilm); (2) The foundation of faith (Aqayid); (3) The inward meaning of purification (Taharat); (4) The inward meaning of prayer (Namaz,) (5) The inward meaning of alms-giving (Zakat); (63 The inward meaning of pilgrimage (Hajj); (7) On reciting of Holy Qur'an (Tilawat-e-Qur'an); (8) Recollections and prayers (Zikar-wa-Dua); (9) Orisons at fixed times (Wazaif).
   Book II Personal Conduct (Agelanti): (1) Ordinances relating to eating and drinking; (2) Rules relating to marriage; (3) Ordinances relating to earning livelihood; (4) Lawful and unlawful things; (5) Rules relating to association with people; (6) Solitude; (7) On travel; (8) Ordinances relating to religious music (Sama or Quwwali); (9) On counseling; (10) Living of the prophets.
   Book III Deadly Sins (Mohlikaat): (1) Wanderings of the wavering heart; (2) Discipline of self; (3) Sensuality of tongue and carnality; (4) Vices flowing from speech; (5) Malice, envy and anger; (6) Evils of the world; (7) Evils of wealth and avarice; (8) Evils flowing from covetous high ranks and hypocrisy; (9) Evils of arrogance and conceit; (10) Errors flowing from deception.
   Book IV The Path of Deliverance (Najaat): (1) Conversion; (2) Fortitude & Gratitude: (3) Fear of Allah and faith in His mercy; (4) Poverty & self-denial; (5) Trust & belief in One God; (6) Love of God, yearning, intimacy & satisfaction; (7) Path of truthfulness & sincerity; (8) Contemplation & self-examination; (9) Meditation; (10) Constant remembrance of death.
   Emphasizing the necessity of his work, Iman Ghazzali says: "The theologians (fuqiha) have not dealt with the vagaries of the Path, the obstacles which lie in the spiritual itinerary and how they are to be overcome in order to gain high spiritual experience, purgation, illumination and the ultimate vision of God.