FUSTAT
The city of Fustat (Misr al-Fustat), capital of
Islamic Egypt, was founded in 642 CE by ‘Amr ibn al-‘As when the Arabs
conquered Byzantine Egypt during the reign of the caliph ‘Umar. The city was
located on the eastern shore of the Nile, just below the Delta, close to the
ancient Roman fortress of Babylone (Qasr
al Sham‘for the Arabs). It controlled the passageway south of the Delta. To the
east of the city stands the Muqattam, a tabular mountain of white limestone stretching
from the north to the south; some of its lower protuberances have allowed an
urban occupation, such as the Citadel (al-Qal‘a,or
Qal‘at al-Gabal),
the
plateau of Istabl ‘Antar (‘Amal Fawq). At its foundation the city was divided
into plots (khitta, khitat), which the emir ‘Amr shared out to the tribes and
clans. The center of the city was allotted to the People of the Banner (ahl al-raˆya): This is where the first
mosque on African ground was erected, known still today as the mosque of ‘Amr.
The real extent and density of the city
founded by ‘Amr ibn al-‘As are but imperfectly known, and therefore one cannot
appreciate its true importance. At the time of its foundation, the territory
of Fustat extended between the vast lake
known as Birkat al-Habash in the
south to the khittat al-Hamraˆ al-quswaˆ where the Yashkur
were settled in the north, that is, from the present area of Basatıne to that of Sayyida Zaynab. This
would represent a north-south extension of slightly more than 4.5 km. Fustat
soon turned into a metropolis. The excavations of the Istabl ‘Antar plateau
have revealed that the southern quarters of the town were densely built during
the first centuries after its foundation. However, the city went through many variations
throughout its history, with important territorial changes, such as extensions,
recesses, and changes of location, in an area now completely absorbed by the
modern metropolis.
Throughout the twentieth century, the site
of Fustat was excavated by various archaeological
missions. The first excavations, carried out by Aly
Bahgat,
were published in collaboration with Albert Gabriel in 1921. In the same area,
important excavations were also carried out by George T. Scanlon and Wladyslaw
Kubiak (1964–1980), and later by Mutsuo Kawatoko. These investigations have
revealed living quarters of the first Fatimid century, some belonging to a
well-to-do class (Bahgat), others to a humbler part of the population
(Scanlon). The excavations of the French Institute located in the southern part
of the town were the first to reveal layers pertaining to the foundation of the
Arab city, as well as a vast
necropolis
of the eighth and tenth centuries.
Few of the Fustaˆt monuments have survived.
The most ancient one is the ‘Amr mosque, but it has been widened and
transformed many a time, making its original state hardly discernible. The
latest restorations have probably disfigured it permanently. The istabl ‘Antar excavations revealed the
most ancient plan of a mosque in Egypt, as well as many mausolea belonging to
the same period (that is, between ad 750
and
765). The Nilometer (Miqyas)at the
southern tip of the Roda island (Rawda)
is a particular kind of monument, reconstructed in 861 and used for measuring
the high waters of the Nile. The mosque of Ibn Tulun is probably the most
impressive monument of Fustat that can still be admired. It was inaugurated in 879
and witnesses the importation of the Mesopotamian Samarra art to Egypt. Two
aqueducts have partially survived: parts of the aqueduct supplying Ibn Tulun
palatial residence on Gabal Yashkur, with water coming from the lake of Birkat al-Habash,
can
still be seen, as well as its saqıya.
The other one, known as ‘‘the Saladin wall,’’ crossed the ruins of Fustat and reached the foot of the citadel
northeast of the city. One may also add five aqueducts dating
from
the eighth to eleventh centuries, found in the excavations of Istabl ‘Antar.
Most of the monuments of Fustat still to be seen are funeral
constructions, their position in the cemetery, as well as their function,
having spared them from destruction. One may mention the mausolea of Sab‘ Bana t and that of Hadra ˆ al-Sharıfa in the southern part
of the city, built in the begining of the eleventh century, Ikhwa ˆtYuˆsuf
(1125–1150), the Imam Shafi‘ı reconstructed in 1211 in the cemetery of Qarafa.
One may add numerous other mausolea to the list, many of which have been
altered during their history, such as Sayyida ‘Atıˆka and Muhammad
al-Ga‘farıˆ
(1122); Sayyida Ruqayya (1133); Umm Kulthum (1122); Yahyaˆal-Shaˆbihıˆ(1150);
al-Hasawatı (1150); and Fa tima Khatu ˆn (1283). Various churches, as well as
the synagogue of Old Cairo, have a
complex
architectural history and also suffered from poor restoration. They should be
added to this list.
Today, unlike the medieval city of Cairo,
Fustat offers a scattered architectural heritage, difficult to preserve, a
situation that does not reflect the grandeur of its history.
Further
Reading
Bahgat, A., and A. Gabriel.Fouilles
d’al-Foustaˆt. Paris, 1921.
Casanova, P.Essai de
Reconstitution Topographique de la
Ville d’al-Foustaˆt, MIFAO, 35,
Le Caire, 1919.
Creswell, K.A.C.The Muslim
Architecture of Egypt. 2 vols.,
Oxford UP, 1952–1959.
Denoix, S.De´crire Le Caire.
Fustaˆt-Misr d’apre `s Ibn
Duqmaˆq et Maqrıˆzıˆ. IFAO, 1992.
———. ‘‘Les premiers sie`cles
arabes.’’ In Le Caire, ed.
A. Raymond, 57–145. Paris:
Citadelles & Mazenod, 2000.
Fuad Sayyed, A., and R.-P.
Gayraud. ‘‘Fustaˆt-Le Caire a `
l’e ´poque fatimide.’’ InGrandes
Villes Me´diterrane´ennes
du Monde Musulman Me´die´val, ed.
J-Cl. Garcin, 135–
156. Rome: EFR, 2000.
Gayraud, R-P.Fustaˆt aux Origines
du Caire: Les Fouilles
d’Istabl ‘Antar, IFAO, Le Caire
(a ` paraıˆtre).
Kubiak, W.Al-Fustat: Its
Foundation and Early Urban
Development. Cairo: AUC Press,
1987.
Kubiak, W., and G. T.
Scanlon.Fustaˆt Expedition Final
Report. Vol. 2: Fustaˆt-C., ARCE,
1989.
Raymond, A.Le Caire. Paris:
Fayard, 1993.
Williams, C.Islamic Monuments in
Cairo: A Practical
Guide, 4th ed. AUC Press, 1993.
GANJ-I SHAKAR, FARID AD-DIN
A prominent Sufi master of the Chishti order
in India, Farid ad-Din was born in Kahtwal, a village close to Multan (Punjab)
around 1175 CE, to a family that had immigrated to the region from Kabul.
Receiving his early religious education (particularly in mysticism) from his
mother, Farid ad-Din also attended a madrasa attached to a mosque in Multan. It
was
there
that he is believed to have met Qutb ad-Din Bakhtiyar Khaki, a prominent Sufi
master from Delhi who initiated him into the Chishti order, an order that was
rapidly becoming one of the most powerful Sufi fraternities in northern India.
According to hagiographic accounts of his life, Farid ad-Din quickly became
renowned in Chishti circles for his
ascetic
practices, such as hanging upside in a well for 45 while meditating and
praying. He also became famous for his fasts through which he is believed to have
attained the power of turning stones into sugar; hence, his epithet Ganj-i
Shakar (the treasure house of sugar). His asceticism was so extreme that even his
own wives and children had to endure severe austerities and restrictions on his
account.
In keeping with early Chishti tradition,
Farid adDin considered association with rulers to be detrimental to a life
devoted to inculcating spiritual values. Hence he rejected land grants or gifts
from rulers,
preferring
to rely on gifts from devotees as a means of maintaining himself and his
disciples. His mistrust of government and politics was so intense that he eventually
decided to abandon Delhi and the political
turmoil
of a capital city to settle in Ajodhan, a small, remote settlement on the
Sutlej River in the Punjab. As Farid ad-Din’s fame spread throughout the region
and pilgrims flocked to Ajodhan, it was eventually
renamed
Pakpattan (the ferry of the pure), presumably because devotees could board the
metaphorical ferry of salvation, piloted by Farid ad-Din, at this location. On
Farid ad-Din’s death in 1265, a shrine complex developed around his tomb in
Pakpattan. As an important north Indian pilgrimage center, Pakpattan continues
to attract devotees of all religious
faiths,
who come here to seek Farid ad-Din’s blessings and his intercession so that
their prayers may be answered.
Farid ad-Din played an instrumental role in
the expansion of the Chishti order in north India by training several prominent
disciples who eventually were responsible for consolidating the order’s
authority in important cities and towns. Most prominent among them was Nizam
ad-Din Awliya, the famous Chishti master of Delhi, whom he met in 1257, only a few
years before his death. Shaykh Salim Chishti of Fatehpur Sikri, on account of
whom the Chishti order attained great influence in the Mughal court in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, was also one of his spiritual descendants. Although
Farid ad-Din taught his disciples classical Sufi texts, he himself is not
believed to have left behind any important treatise. Oral tradition attributes
to Farid ad-Din numerous poems and verses in local north Indian vernaculars,
such as Panjabi and Hindawi (the earliest form of Urdu-Hindi), suggesting that
he attempted to spread Sufi ideas among ordinary people by composing mystical
folk poetry. A few scholars also believe that the poems ascribed to a Shaykh
Farid ad-Din and incorporated into the Adigranth,the
scripture of the Sikh community may also have been composed by Farid ad-Din
(Ganj-i Shakar), although there is no consensus on this issue.
Further
reading
Nizami, K.A.The Life and Times of
Shaikh Farid ad-Din
Ganj-i Shakar. Aligarh, 1955
GENGHIS KHAN
Genghis Khan (Mongolian: Chinggis; 1167–1227
CE) was the founder of the Mongolian world empire. Most of the information
about his life is derived from the anonymous and partly mythical Mongolian source
known as The Secret History of the
Mongols, compiled probably around 1228. Born as Temu¨jin to a minor
chieftain in northeastern Mongolia, the future Genghis Khan went through hard
times as a youth. When Temu¨jin was just nine, his father Yesugei was poisoned
by an enemy tribe. Yesugei’s supporters abandoned Temu¨jin’s family to its
fate. Gradually, Temujin managed to attract supporters from other clans and
tribes, who became hisno¨ko¨rs (followers, comrades) and began to assert his
authority over his clan and over the neighboring Turco-Mongol tribes.
He
advanced by forging alliances with influential leaders, then discarding them
after they had served their turns. During his rise to power he attacked and executed
his ‘‘sworn brother,’’ Jamuqa, and his first patron, Ong Khan. In 1184, Temujin
was enthroned the khan of his tribe, the Mongols, and in 1206, an assembly of
the Mongol tribes (quriltai) proclaimed him as Genghis Khan, the harsh or
universal khan,
ruler
of all the Mongols. Soon after the quriltai, Genghis Khan began his conquests.
First, he turned to China, starting by attacking the Xi Xia dynasty in northwestern
China in 1207 and reducing it into a tributary state in 1209. In 1211, Genghis
Khan turned against the Jin dynasty that had ruled in Manchuria and northern
China, and in 1215, he conquered its
capital
in present-day Beijing. Then his attention was drawn westward. In 1218, he
overran the Central Asian empire of the Qara Khitai, which had been briefly
ruled by one of his old enemies in Mongolia, Kuchlug (Gu¨chu¨lu ¨g). This
conquest brought Genghis Khan face to face with the empire of the Khwarazm Shah,
the strongest ruler in the eastern Islamic world. Khwarazm’s massacre of a
group of merchants who served as Genghis Khan’s messengers in 1218 furnished a
pretext for a long and bloody campaign against the Khwarazm Shah (1219–1224),
in which
the
great Transoxianan cities of Bukhara and
Samarqand were fiercely sacked, Khurasanian cities were razed to the ground,
and millions of Muslims were slaughtered. Moreover, the neglect and ruin of
Iran’s
irrigation
system during the Mongol invasion inflicted long-term damages on Iranian
agriculture. The Mongol troops chased the fleeting Khwarazm Shah to the Caspian
Sea, and his son to the Indus. Returning to Mongolia on the road to the north
of the Caspian Sea, Genghis Khan’s generals also conquered vast tracts of
Russia. Genghis Khan’s last campaign was
the
final subjugation of the Xi Xia dynasty in 1227, during which the great
conqueror died.
Genghis Khan died ruling over the territory
between northern China and the Caspian Sea. Yet a part from this spectacular
military success, he also
laid
institutional foundations for an empire that continued to expand for several
generations. One of his main achievements was the reorganization of the army:
he retained the traditional decimal units (often, one hundred, one thousand,
and ten thousand men) but eliminated its connection to the tribal system. Tribes
(or their remnants) were divided among the
different
units, which were headed by Genghis Khan’s loyal no¨kers. They replaced the
former tribal elite and became a focus of loyalty and identification. This
disciplined and mobile army was also armed with
an
ideology, according to which Heaven entrusted Genghis Khan with the mission of
world dominion, their blessing demonstrated by his spectacular success.
Genghis Khan also created a law system for
his people, known as the Yasa (jasaq), the exact form and contents of which are
still debated among scholars. He also established a juridical system, which
benefited
from
his former decision to adopt the Uighur script for writing the Mongolian
language. Genghis Khan borrowed administrators and administrative techniques
from the states that came under his control,
making
use of different ethnic groups, such as Khitans, Uighurs, Khwarazmians, and
Chinese. The combination of the newly organized army, the unprecedented amount
of devastation it created, and Mongol willingness to learn from their subjects
were among the main reasons for Genghis Khan’s success.
Despite his tolerant attitude toward Islam
and religions in general, Genghis Khan’s violent invasion into the Muslim
world, and his heirs’ extermination of the ‘Abbasid caliphate, earned him the
reputation of an
archenemy
of Islam. However, with the Islamization of the Mongols in Iran and later in
southern Russia and Central Asia in the late thirteenth to mid-fourteenth centuries,
Genghis Khan became the revered father of and a source of political legitimacy
to several Muslim dynasties in the Turco-Iranian world. The Genghisid principle,
according to which only descendants of Genghis can bear the title of khan,
remained valid in
Muslim
Central Asia until the nineteenth century, and the Yasa a scribed to him
influenced the legal and political systems of the Uzbeks, Mughals, and
Ottomans. While in the modern Arab world Genghis Khan is usually portrayed as a
villain, the Turco-Iranian world gives more credit to his heroic achievements.
Further
Reading
Anonymous. Shengwu qingzheng lu
[Record of the Personal Campaigns of the Holy Warrior], ed. Wang Guowei.
InWang Guowei yi shu. Shanghai
1983. Vol. 13; translation of part 1 inHistoire des Campagnes de Gengis Khan.
Ed. and trans. P. Pelliot and L.
Hambis. Leiden, 1951,
vol. 1.
Ibn al-Athı¯r, ‘Izz al-Dı¯n
‘Alı¯.Al-Ka¯mil fı¯al-ta’rı¯kh. 13 vols.
Beirut, 1966,.
Juwaynı¯, ‘Ala ¯’ al-Dı ¯n ‘AOˆ
a¯’-malik. Ta’rı¯kh-i
Jaha¯n-Gusha¯.
Ed. M. M. Qazwı¯nı¯. 3 vols.
London, 1912–1937;History
of World Conqueror. Trans. J.A.
Boyle. Rpt. Manchester, 1997.
Ju ¯ zja ¯nı¯, Minha ¯j al-Dı
¯n.T¸ abaqa ¯t-i Na ¯O`
irı ¯. Ed. W. Nassau
Lees. Calcutta, 1864.
———, ed. A. Habibi. Kabul,
1342–1344/1963–1964.
2 vols;T¸ abaka ¯t-i Na ¯O`
irı ¯. Trans. H. G. Raverty. 2
vols.
London, 1881–1899.
De Rachewiltz, I., transl. and
annot.The Secret History of
the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic
Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Brill, 2004.
Rashı¯d al-Dı¯n, FaA
˜
lalla ¯h Abu¯ al-Khayr.Ja¯mi‘
al-tawa¯rı¯kh.
Ed. B. Karı¯mı¯. 2 vols. Tehran,
1338/1959.
Jami’u’t-tawarikh [sic]
Compendium of Chronicles. 3 vols.
Trans. W.M. Thackston. Cambridge,
MA, 1998–1999.
Studies
Allsen, Thomas T. ‘‘The Rise of
the Mongolian Empire and
Mongolian Rule in North China.’’
InThe Cambridge
History of China, Vol. 6. Eds. H.
Franke and
D. Twitchett, 321–413. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994.
De Rachewiltz, Igor.‘‘The Title
¥inggis Qan/Qa’an Reconsidered.’’ In Gedanke und Wirkung. Festschrift zum 90.
Geburstag von Nikolaus Poppe.
Wiesbaden: Harrasowich, 1989, 281–298.
McChesney, Robert D.Central Asia:
Foundations of
Change. Princeton, 1996.
Morgan, David O.The Mongols.
Oxford: Blackwell, 1986.
———.Medieval Persia. London:
Longman, 1988.
Ratchnevsky, Paul.Genghis
Khan—His Life and Legacy.
Trans. T.N. Haining. Oxford:
Blackwell, 1991.
GENIZA
Definition, Collection, and
Contents
Jews in the lands of Islam deposited damaged
sacred books in repositories calledgenizaorgenizahprior to giving them a proper
ritual burial in their cemeteries. Sacred books primarily those with the name
of God written upon them were treated with the same respect as the human body
and were never simply thrown away. In time, this respect accorded to sacred books
was extended to written documents in general, nearly all of which contained the
name of God due to the numerous blessings, invocations, and eulogies that were
a part of epistolary convention. We know of genizas only in the lands of the
Arabic speaking world. In Cairo, genizas have been found at a Karaite synagogue,
in the Basatine cemetery, and at the Ben Ezra synagogue in Old Cairo (called
Fustat in
the
Middle Ages). The largest of these repositories, which is commonly referred to
as the ‘‘Cairo Geniza,’’ was the one at the Ben Ezra synagogue. The contents of
the Cairo Geniza were transferred to European and American libraries in the
late nineteenth century.
The
only geniza documents remaining in Egypt are those excavated in the 1980s by
the Egyptian Department of Antiquities from three sites in the Basatine cemetery.
Genizas As a Source for Jewish
History and Culture
The contents of the Cairo Geniza, which date
largely to the years 1000–1300 CE, are of central importance for the information they
provide about the history of the local
Jewish communities of medieval Egypt, the Jewish communities of Palestine and
North Africa, and their relations with communities elsewhere in the Near East.
Marriage contracts between Rabbanite and Karaite couples (with special provisions
relating
to
religious practice), charity lists containing the names of both Rabbanite and
Karaite contributors and recipients, and business documents all provide evidence
for extensive social and economic relations between Rabbanite and Karaite communities,
in spite of their doctrinal and ritual differences. The Cairo Geniza also
yields materials to write the social and
institutional
history of major Jewish institutions of law and higher learning in Mesopotamia.
Our knowledge of the actual workings of the Babylonian academies has been
expanded greatly by the materials available in the Geniza.
Geniza fragments allow us to contextualize
previously known Jewish philosophical works in Judeo Arabic (a form of Arabic written in Hebrew
characters) and Hebrew, providing information about the circumstances of their
composition, their distribution and readership, and their reception. In the
case of the Kuzari of Judah ha-Levi (ca.
1071–1141), letters from a merchant friend of his reveal that the first version
of the book was written as a response to a Karaite who lived in a Christian
country. In addition, the Geniza has provided important finds for the historical
reconstruction of religious texts and their variants. For example, the
importance and specific content of the Palestinian Talmud is now known in some
detail. Similarly, original Hebrew versions of books such as the Ecclesiasticus of Ben Sira, once thought lost forever, were
in circulation in the Islamic world in the Middle Ages and are now available to
us. In addition, the existence of a rich post-Talmudic exegetical literature is
known from the answers of legal authorities to questions addressed to them (responsa),
many of which were deposited in the
Geniza.
While most genizas were repositories
for prayer books and other sacred writings, the Jews of medieval Egypt
deposited a variety of different documents, including business accounts, wills,
inventories of various kinds, marriage contracts, trousseau lists, wills,
and
commercial and private correspondence. Based largely on these documents, S.D.
Goitein (1900–1985) produced his five-volume magnum opus, A Mediterranean
Society, which provides a comprehensive
picture
of the social, economic, communal, family, and religious history of the Jewish
communities of medieval Egypt.
Geniza documents reveal that Jews were
integrated into economic and social life in Islamic lands to a very high
degree. There were no legal restrictions on the economic activities of Jews and
Christians, and the
Geniza
makes it clear that no social or cultural impediments to full participation in
economic life existed. Unlike Christian Europe, where Jews were restricted to a
small number of occupations and could not
own
property, the Geniza reveals Jews working in hundreds of occupations and owning
property. The documents of Jewish pious foundations reveal that the poll tax
was not merely a symbolic payment, but was a significant financial burden for
Jewish communities and a major expenditure for Jewish charities. The documents
of the Geniza show clearly that some provisions of the Pact of Umar were often
ignored
and
became an issue largely at times of economic and political stress. Family life,
particularly social and economic aspects of marriage, is richly documented. From
the Geniza we learn, in some detail, that Jews
in
the lands of Islam practiced polygyny. We learn also about the daily lives of
women, including their extensive economic activities. The Geniza provides ample
evidence of Jewish use of the Muslim courts
even
to adjudicate disputes between Jews, who had the right under Islamic law to
appeal intracommunal disputes to the rabbinic courts.
The predominant language of the documentary material
of the Cairo Geniza is Judeo-Arabic. The Judeo-Arabic of the Geniza documents
is characterized by the use of quotations in Hebrew and Aramaic from the Bible
and the Talmud, and by the assimilation of Hebrew vocabulary into Arabic. The
use of Judeo-Arabic in writing, as well as in speech, reflects
the
fact that, by the tenth century, Arabic had displaced Aramaic as the lingua
franca of Jews (and other communities) in the lands of Islam. The use of an
Arabic vernacular had a noticeable impact on the development of religious and
philosophical thought among Jewish thinkers. One major effect of this exposure
to the so-called secular branches of learning
that
were widespread among Muslim intellectuals in the ninth and tenth centuries was
the adoption of rationalist thinking as a method of studying Jewish texts.
Arabophone Jewish rationalists embraced the exegetical culture of the classical
Islamic world and began to write commentaries on Torah and other parts of the
Hebrew Bible in Arabic. Later commentators used the same rationalist methods to
produce commentaries in Hebrew. The study of Hebrew grammar came to be
considered fundamental to the
exegetical
enterprise and was developed along the model of Arabic grammar.
Genizas
As a Source of Information on Islamic History and Culture
The Geniza contributes to many aspects
of broader Islamic history and is
particularly rich in many areas that are otherwise sparsely documented. Arabic
scribal encyclopedias and historical works, often written at a much later
period, describe administrative structures and transmit caliphal and
administrative decrees from the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries, but
they are often described in anachronistic terms. Legal documents of various
kinds and administrative documents emanating from the government chanceries are
rare, and they are known largely from the Geniza. A number of these legal
documents are contracts concerning the sale of properties. These documents are
written in Arabic script, and many are contracts between Muslim parties that
made their
way
into the Geniza because they concerned a property that eventually came into the
hands of Jews, at which time the contracts documenting the property’s history
came into the possession of these later owners.
Other
documents no doubt made their way into the Geniza because they were registered
in a court archive, an act that gave the written document a probative value
that it would not otherwise have had in the Islamic legal system, in which oral
testimony was ordinarily required as legal proof. Arabic Geniza documents reveal
the frequent use of petitions to
rulers,
judges, and other dignitaries to appeal for assistance or redress grievances.
The information in literary historical sources about petitions is more than
verified by the petitions in the Geniza, many of them from the Fatimid
(969–1171) and Ayyubid (1171–1250) periods.
The Geniza provides extensive material on
commerce. It contains hundreds of trade letters, many between Jewish merchants
but a significant number involving Muslims and Christians. These letters, as
well
as inventories, accounts, and court cases, demonstrate the extensive use of
informal cooperation and partnerships that characterized commerce in the
medieval Islamic world. They also document the range of techniques used to
provide credit, given Islamic law’s prohibition on interest, particularly the
use of the commenda. Commercial documents and letters from the Geniza provide
impressive detail on industries, manufacturing processes, local and regional market
conditions and prices, and business practices. We also learn from these
documents that the government’s involvement in commerce was expressed primarily
in exercising its rights as first buyer and in the collection of taxes. One of
the richest contributions of the Geniza is to the history of material culture.
The trousseau lists, inventories, accounts, and business letters provide
voluminous information about textiles and clothing, including details about color,
fabric, ornamentation, and value. Collectively, the Geniza provides extensive
lexical material, allowing us to understand vocabulary in Arabic historical texts
that would otherwise remain obscure. Similar
information
is available about housing, furnishings, food, and jewelry.
Further
Reading
Ben-Shammai, Haggai. ‘‘Medieval
History and Religious
Thought.’’ InThe Cambridge
Genizah Collections: Their
Contents and Significance, ed.
Stefan C. Reif. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Brody, Robert.The Geonim of
Babylonia and the Shaping of
Medieval Jewish Culture. New
Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1998.
Cohen, Mark.Jewish
Self-Government in Medieval Egypt.
Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1980.
———. ‘‘Goitein, the Geniza, and
Muslim History.’’ Available on line atwww.dayan.org/mel/cohen.htm(2001).
Friedman, M.A.Jewish Marriage in
Palestine: A Cairo
Geniza Study. Tel Aviv: Tel-Aviv
University, Chaim
Rosenberg School of Jewish
Studies; New York: Jewish
Theological Seminary of America,
1980–1981.
Gil, Moshe.Documents of the
Jewish Pious Foundations
from the Cairo Genizah. Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1976.
Goitein, S.D.Letters of Medieval
Jewish Traders. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1973.
———.A Mediterranean Society: The
Jewish Communities
of the Arab World As Portrayed in
the Documents of the
Cairo Geniza. 6 vols. Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967–1993.
Kahle, Paul.The Cairo Geniza.
Oxford: Blackwell Press,
1959.
Khan, Geoffrey.Arabic Legal and
Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Lambert, Phyllis,
ed.Fortifications and the Synagogue: The
Fortress of Babylon and the Ben
Ezra Synagogue, Cairo.
London: Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, 1994.
Olszowy-Schlanger, Judith.Karaite
Marriage Documents
from the Cairo Geniza: Legal Tradition
and Community
Life in Mediaeval Egypt and
Palestine. Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1998.
Rabi’, Hasanayn Muhammad.Dalil
watha’iq wa-awraq alJiniza al-jadidah (Catalogue of latest Geniza Documents
and Papers). Al-Qahirah: Jami’at
al-Qahirah, Markaz
al-Dirasat al-Sharqiyah, 1993.
Reif, Stefan C. ‘‘A Centennial
Assessment of Genizah
Studies.’’ InThe Cambridge
Genizah Collections: Their
Contents and Significance, ed.
Stefan C. Reif. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
———.A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo:
The History of
Cambridge University’s Genizah
Collection. Richmond,
Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000.
Stillman, Yedida. ‘‘Female Attire
of Medieval Egypt:
According to the Trousseau Lists
and Cognate Material
from the Cairo Geniza.’’ Ph.D.
dissertation, University
of Pennsylvania, 1972.
Udovitch, Abraham L.Partnership
and Profit in Medieval
Islam. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1970.
GEOGRAPHY
The science of geography in Islam developed
on a foundation of previous civilizations and was strongly impacted by the
expansion of the Islamic state and the spread of the Islamic faith. The rise of
the Islamic
empire
entailed four major developments in regard to scientific geography and travel:
(1) the rise of a need for geography as an auxiliary discipline to government
and administration; (2) access to the academic
and
cultural heritage of the Hellenic, Mesopotamian, Iranian, Indian, and other
civilizations conquered by Islam; (3) a new impetus and opportunities for travel,
exploration, and long-distance trade; and (4)
a
specifically Islamic branch of cartography and astronomical geography focused
on Mecca and the direction of prayer (qibla,q.v.). The great majority of
geographical works combined aspects of science and literature and were composed
in Arabic, although non-Arabs and even non-Muslims made important contributions.
Some scholars treated geography as part of history; it was also customary to discuss other
sciences in the introductions to geographical works. For some parts of the
world, or certain periods of their history, medieval Islamic geographers
provide major, if not the only, sources of information. Their works are thus
invaluable and often indispensable to the study of history and historical
ethnography, as well as historical geography and the history of science.
The cosmographic views of early Muslims
absorbed the pre-Islamic vision of the world registered in the Qur’an and
somehadiths, or the pre-Islamic traditions recorded in the second and third
centuries of Islam by authors such as the historian al-Dinawari (d. AH 281 or
282/894–895 CE) and geographers such as al-Ya‘qubi (259–292/872–873 to 905), al
Hamdani (d. 334/945), al-Mas‘udi (d. 345/956). According to one view recorded
by al-Ya‘qubi, the earth has the shape of a bird with spread wings whose head
is in the East (China), tail in the West, and the breast encompasses Mecca,
Hijaz, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, that is, the core of the early Islamic empire.
The Umayyad postal service drove the development of precise itineraries and
distance measurements. The Roman mile, mil
(pronounced
‘‘meel’’), became the common unit of distance
in the western parts of the empire. Another measure of distance was the
Iranianfarsakh, equal to three mils (six kilometers). Itineraries also used
‘‘marches’’
(marhal) or ‘‘days of journey’’
(approximately twenty kilometers). Degrees of longitude and latitude were long
confined to works of mathematical geography and only gradually made their way
into
geographical
narratives. They are not found on extant maps predating the fourteenth century,
even those using grids.
Among the earliest geographical compositions are
travel records of the Umayyad period and the early genre of fada’il, descriptions of ‘‘advantages’’ of
places sacred to Muslims in some ways, which later acquired an increasingly
secular nature. Scientific Islamic geography began in Baghdad in the early ‘Abbasid
period and was particularly encouraged by the caliph al-Ma’mun (r.
198–218/813–833). The first
steps
included the measurement of the degree of latitude, construction of observatories,
production of maps and instruments, and especially the translation and
adaptation of Indian, Iranian, and Greek
geographical and astronomical treatises. Among the Indian borrowings were the
imaginary Mount Meru, the highest point on dry land directly under the North Pole,
the division of the inhabited regions of the earth into nine sections, and the
calculation of the longitude from the meridian of Sri Lanka, drawn from Mount Meru
through the Cupola of the Earth (Ar.Arin,
from Ujjain—modern Avanti—site of an ancient Indian observatory). From the
Greeks were borrowed the limitations of the inhabited world to a quarter of the
globe, the concept of the continents (Europe, Libya, Ethiopia, Scythia), the
idea of the Indian Ocean landlocked between Asia and Africa, and the word jughrafiya for the discipline. In
mathematical geography Arabic scholars accepted the system of seven latitudinal
climates, or climes (Ar.aqalim; sing.
iqlim), from the equator to the polar circle. Ptolemy’s Geographywas
translated repeatedly (as was his
Almagest);
particularly influential was the version of al-Khwarizmi (also Khorezmi, fl.
ca. 205/820). Iranian influences were the strongest in descriptive geography
and in cartography, including the method
of
describing the world following the four cardinal directions (beginning in the
East) and the division of the earth into seven kishvarha (equal geometric circles), the central one representing
Iran (with Mesopotamia). The lost map of al-Ma’mun supposedly followed this
pattern, though it was also supposed to use the projection of Marinus.
Other notable early advances in Islamic
geography came when the administrators of the vast, newly reordered empire
composed or commissioned geographical reference books in the genre of Masalik wa
al-Mamalik (Routes
and Kingdoms), from the title of the first extant composition of this nature,
by Ibn Khurdadhbih (ca. 205–300/820–912). Other authors include al-Balkhi
(235–322/849–850 to 934), alIstakhri (ca. 340/951), and Ibn al-Faqih
al-Hamadhani (ca. 290/903), all of whom functioned in the eastern parts of the
empire. These treatises concentrate on such practical needs of government as
topography, administrative information, commercial and postal routes, and
descriptions of boundaries. A separate branch of mathematical geography, shaped
by
Ptolemaic
influence, was developed by al-Khwarizmi, al-Farghani (Alfraganus, fl.
247/861), and al-Battani (Albategnius, d. AH929). To begin with, their works contained
the tables of astronomical coordinates of locations and geographical features,
and descriptions of maps with coordinates (very few of the maps survive).
During the classical period of Islamic
geography (ninth to eleventh centuries), two schools of descriptive geography
developed. The first was the Iraqi school, so called because it often followed
the Iranian system of kishvars, but
substituted Iraq (the center of the ‘Abbasid caliphate) for Iran as the center
of the Islamic empire. This school included Ibn Khurdadhbih, al-Ya‘qubi, Ibn
Rusta ( fl. ca. 290–300/ 903–913), Ibn al-Faqih, and al-Mas‘udi, all of whom wrote
world geographies. Al-Ya‘qubi and al-Mas‘udi traveled extensively, but their
personal experiences
seem
to have had little effect on their geographical concepts. The second school was
that of al-Balkhi, whose own work does not survive. Among his followers were
al-Istakhri, Ibn Hawqal (ca. 366/977), and al-Muqaddasi (al-Maqdisi, ca.
335–390/946–947 to 1000). These geographers focused on the world of Islam and
attached central importance to Mecca. They introduced the concept of a country
as a geographical unit and enlarged the scope of their science with elements of
‘‘human geography,’’ discussing the languages and races of people, their occupations,
customs, and religions. Firsthand observation during their travels was an
important source of information for these authors, though they also borrowed heavily
from their predecessors. Al-Muqaddasi, the
last
and most original representative of this school, created the systematic
foundation of Arab geography by discussing its uses and scopes, the
geographical terminology, the various methods of division of the earth, and the
value of empirical observation. A distinctive characteristic of this school is
its attention to cartography. Texts often seem to follow
the
map and were usually accompanied by a set of twenty-one maps: one of each of
the twenty climes or regions into which they divided Islamic lands, and one
world map. These maps are very similar to each other in character and are
composed of peculiarly simplified geometric shapes. They show roads and towns
but give no indication of coordinates or distances; collectively, they are
known today as the ‘‘Atlas of Islam.’’
The physical geography of Muslim scholars in
part depended on their Greek precursors and in part contributed new thinking on
the nature of physical phenomena. They saw the earth as a sphere, resembling the
yoke within the white of the egg. They understood that the changing positioning
of the sun resulted in differences between climatic zones: hot, temperate, and
cold. They agreed that climate, topography, and soils conditioned the spatial
distribution of life and water. They discussed the causes of wind, clouds,
rain, tides, and earthquakes. Many geographers who adopted the Greek notion of
the Inhabited Quarter assumed that the parts of the earth south of the equator
were uninhabitable due to excessive heat. Unique among the geographers of the
late classical period of Islam is al-Biruni (c. 442/1050). Apart from his
important contribution to regional geography (he described India in detail), he
compared and critically evaluated the contributions to geography of the Arabs,
Greeks, Indians, and Iranians. An advanced theoretician of geography and
astronomy, he was also a bold and undogmatic thinker. For example, he discussed
the difference in seasons between the northern and southern hemispheres and
argued that, contrary to the prevailing views, life was possible south of the
equator; he, alone, among Muslim geographers
conjectured
that the Indian Ocean communicated with the Atlantic (the earliest maps showing
the Indian Ocean somewhat realistically are considerably older, found in
manuscripts ascribed to Ibn Sa‘id alMaghribi [610–673 or 685/1214–1274 or 1286]
and the encyclopedist Ibn Fadlallah al-‘Umari [700–749/ 1301–1349]).
The spirit of exploration and inquiry
generated both active travel beyond the better-known areas of the Middle East,
India, and Africa and demand
among
the reading public for travel accounts. Some of these accounts were reports of
authentic journeys, such as Ibn Fadlan’s diplomatic mission to the Volga region
(ca. 921) and Ibrahim ibn Ya‘qub’s journey
from
Spain to Germany (ca. 354/965). Others belong to the genre of ‘aja’ib (marvels): surviving compositions
by Abu Zayd al-Sirafi (ca. 306/916) and Buzurg
ibn Shahriyar (ca. 342/953) contain, together with
factual
information, semilegendary stories, including maritime tales; a few found their
way into the One Thousand and One Nights as
the stories of Sinbad the Sailor and may have been heard by Marco Polo. Yet, although
Muslim seafarers knew the Indian Ocean well enough to sail from Malacca to
Southeast Africa, the formal geographical works say disappointingly little
about distant areas. Moreover, the new facts were often overlooked or
stubbornly fitted into the old theoretically devised patterns. This
conservative attitude forced practical geography to yield to theory and
gradually led to scientific stagnation.
In the area of world geography the highest
achievement was attained by al-Idrisi (493–560/1098–1165), who worked at the
Norman court in Sicily and used data produced by the Islamic and European geographers
and travelers. His Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi
Ikhtiraq al-Afaq (Entertainment for One Who Wants to Travel the World) was
conceived as a description of a large map, each chapter detailing itineraries
within one of seventy sections illustrated by a regional map. The innovation
was to subdivide each of the seven Greek climes into ten longitudinal sections,
starting from the west. Although some of the information was incorrect or
outdated even at the time, as a universal geography his work remained
unsurpassed
in the Islamic world, and among mapmakers al-Idrisi’s cartographic tradition
survived as late as the sixteenth century. His system influenced Ibn Sa‘id
al-Maghribi, who supplemented his description with the coordinates of many
locations, and Ibn Khaldun.
The twelfth to sixteenth centuries produced
little conceptual development, but they are marked by the emergence of new specialized
genres: geographical dictionaries, cosmographies, travel narratives(rihla)
and
pilgrimage guides (ziyarat), and the
works of marine geography. The largest and most famous geographical dictionary
is that of Yaqut (ca. 575–626/ 1179–1229), who presents a great number of
placenames, listed alphabetically and accompanied by a wealth of geographical
and historical information. His method and much of his information were
borrowed
by the most prominent cosmographer, Zakariya al-Qazwini (d. 682/1283), whose
works remain popular even with modern Arab readers.
Specifically
Islamic variations of the dictionary genre were the guides to religious places
or pilgrimage centers, the ziyarat (see
pilgrimage); the most famous of these is by al-Harawi (d. 611/1215). Among the travel
narratives, of particular significance for Arabia was the work of Ibn
al-Mujawir (ca. 626/1229); for the Near East, that of Ibn Jubayr (540–614/1145–1217); and for
Europe, Abu Hamid al-Andalusi (473–565/1080–1170). The most outstanding
traveler, Ibn Battuta, whose journeys took him from his native Maghrib to
Arabia, Europe, Central Asia, India, Indonesia, China, and sub-Saharan Africa,
was not famous in his own time.
Outside the Arabic tradition of Islamic
geography, Persian scholarship, represented by the anonymous Hudud al-‘Alam (Regions of the World,
ca. 372/982), was influenced by the work of al-Istakhri, which had been
translated into Persian. Some of al-Biruni’s
works were originally written in, or later translated into, Persian. His
contemporary, Nasir-i Khusraw (394–481/1003–1060), wrote in Persian, describing
the travels in Egypt and Arabia. Generally derivative of Arabic authorities,
the works in Persian were produced mainly in Iran, Central Asia, and India. The
development of Ottoman geography began in the fourteenth century. At first it
popularized translations of Arab cosmographies; later translations were also made
from Persian and Greek. From the early sixteenth century, Ottoman geography was
continuously influenced by European scholarship, especially in cartography. A
specifically Ottoman genre was represented by the campaign itineraries of the
Turkish
sultans.
All
the main genres of Islamic geographical literature had been set by the
fourteenth century. Although travel accounts and regional studies produced new data,
systematic innovation ceased. The new cosmographies, often of inferior quality,
simply rehashed outdated information. Use of others’ material without credit
and indiscriminate compilation prevailed, and pre-Islamic concepts and
mythological motifs
continued
to fascinate the reader. Especially popular among these were the Encircling
Ocean surrounding he landmass, and Mount
Qaf in turn surrounding the ocean; the Fortunate Isles and the Pillars of Hercules
as the western boundary of the inhabited earth; the Wall of Alexander
separating the civilized world from Gog and Magog; the Isles of Waq-Waq where
trees allegedly bore fruit of human heads; and the number seven (seven climata, seven kishvarha, seven seas).
Marine geography for the most part remained outside the mainstream of Islamic
scholarship. Only works of Ahmad ibn Majid (second half of the fifteenth
century) and Sulayman al-Mahri (first half of the sixteenth century) survive.
Among them are sailing manuals and nautical instructions, often in
verse
(for better memorization by navigators), for the Mediterranean and the Red
Seas, but particularly for the Indian Ocean.
The majority of extant Islamic maps are found
in copies dating from the thirteenth and later centuries, though the first
Islamic reference to map making dates to 83/702. A few authors give
instructions for map production, and some texts describe maps, but extant maps
cannot be used as exact guides to locations and the projections used are still
not
fully
understood. In form, Arabic maps typically included round world maps and
rectangular regional maps. There were also separate maps of seas, small maps of
astronomically determined zones, and special
Islamic
maps of the Ka‘ba for orienting the viewer to the qibla (sacred direction of prayer) from any location. City plans
must have existed, but those extant are from the sixteenth century and later.
There
are
no topographical maps, though there may be some color coding of geographical
features such as rivers, cities, mountains, and roads. Ethnic divisions and
major features such as deserts are marked in writing. Sailing charts reportedly
existed, but none survives.
The round maps show the continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa surrounded by the
Encircling Ocean (al-Bahr al-Muhit),
which is sometimes surrounded in turn by Mount Qaf, a concept of Qur’anic
cosmogony. Round maps were usually centered on Mesopotamia (in the ‘‘Iraqi’’
school) or Mecca (in the tradition of the ‘‘Atlas of Islam’’). The oldest
Turkish world map, found in the encyclopedia of Mahmud alKashghari (ca.
466/1074), is centered on Balasaghun, the capital of the then Uighur state in
the mountains of Tien Shan. Round maps were usually oriented to the south or
east, rectangular maps almost always to
the
south. Some round maps mark the seven climata of the Inhabited Quarter as
latitudinal bands, numbered from the equator to the Polar Circle. The Greco-Muslim
tradition of cartography is best represented by al-Idrisi, who adopted
Ptolemy’s map of the world and, abandoning Ptolemy’s outdated content and
tables, superimposed on it an enormous amount of new information gathered from
books and travelers. Al-Idrisi is also one of the few Arabic scholars who
provided instructions for map production and discussed distance measures. His
works contain 70
detailed
sectional rectangular maps and a round world map; he reportedly created a
silver planisphere based on the so-called al-Ma’mun map, which does not
survive.
Further
Reading
Ahmad, S. Maqbul.A History of
Arab-Islamic Geography
(9th–16th century AD). Amman:
al-Bayit University,
1995.
———. ‘‘Djughrafiya.’’ InThe
Encyclopaedia of Islam. New
ed. 2:575–587.
———. ‘‘Kharita.’’ InThe
Encyclopaedia of Islam. New ed.
4:1077–1083.
Donini, Pier Giovanni.Arab
Travelers and Geographers.
London: IMMEL, 1991.
The History of Cartography, vol.
2, book 1: Cartography in
the Traditional Islamic and South
Asian Societies. Eds.
J.B. Harley and David Woodward.
Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Ibn Battuta. The Travels of Ibn
Battuta, AD 1325–1354.
Trans. with revisions and notes
from the Arabic text
C. Defre´mery and B.R.
Sanguinetti by H.A.R. Gibb. 5
vols. Cambridge: Hakluyt Society,
1971–2000.
Ferrand, Gabriel.Relations de
Voyages et Texts Ge´ographiques Arabes, Persans et Turks, Relatifs a` l’Extre
ˆme-Orient du VIIIe au XVIIIe sie`cles. 2 vols. Paris: Leroux ,
1913–1914. Reprint, 2 vols. in
one. Frankfurt: Institut
fu ¨r Geschichte der
Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften,
1986.
———.Studies by Gabriel Ferrand on
Arab-Muslim Geography, Cartography and Navigation. Reprint in 3 vols.
Ed. Fuat Sezgin. Frankfurt:
Institut fu¨r Geschichte der
Arabisch-Islamischen
Wissenschaften, 1994.
Kennedy, Edward S., and Mary
Helen Kennedy.Geographical Coordinates of Localities from Islamic Sources.
Frankfurt: Institut fu¨r
Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften, 1987.
King, David A.World-Maps for
Finding the Direction and
Distance to Mecca: Innovation and
Tradition in Islamic
Science. London: Al-Furqan
Islamic Heritage Foundation, 1999.
Krachkovskii, I. Iu.Arabskaia
geograficheskaia literatura.
Moscow, Lenigrad: Izdatel’stvo
Akademii Nauk SSSR,
1957. Trans. into Arabic Salah
al-Din‵Uthman
Hashim.
Ta’rikh al-Adab al-Jughrafi
al-‘Arabi. 2 vols. Cairo,
1963–1965.
Mappae Arabicae: Arabische Welt-
und La¨nderkarten des 9.-13. Jahrhunderts, ed. Konrad Miller. 5 vols.
Stuttgart,
1927–1931. Reprint in 2 vols.:
Frankfurt: Institut fu¨r
Geschichte der
Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften,
1994.
Miquel, Andre´. La Ge´ographie
Humaine du Monde Musulman Jusqu’au Milieu du 11e sie`cle. 4 vols. Paris, La
Haye:
Mouton, 1967–1988.
Reinaud, Joseph
Toussaint.Ge´ographie d’Abou ‘l-Fe´da.
Vol. 1:Introduction Ge´ne´rale a
´ la Ge ´ographie des Orientaux. Paris: Imperime ´rie Nationale, 1848. Reprint:
Frankfurt: Institut fu¨r
Geschichte der ArabischIslamischen Wissenschaften, 1998.
Sezgin, Fuat. The Contribution of
the Arabic-Islamic
Geographers to the Formation of
the World Map. Frankfurt: Institut fu ¨r Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen
Wissenschaften, 1987.
Sezgin, Fuat.Mathematische
Geographie und Kartographie
im Islam und ihr Fortleben im
Abendland. 3 vols.
Geschichte des arabischen
Schrifttums, vols. X–XII.
Frankfurt: Institut fu¨r
Geschichte der ArabischIslamischen Wissenschaften, 2000.
Tolmacheva, Marina. ‘‘The
Medieval Arabic Geographers
and the Beginnings of Modern
Orientalism.’’International Journal of Middle East Studies27 (1995): 141–156.
Youssouf Kamal.Monumenta
Cartographica Africae et
Aegypti. 5 vols. In 16 parts.
Cairo, 1926–1951. Reprint
in 6 vols. Frankfurt: Institut fu
¨r Geschichte der
Arabisch-Islamischen
Wissenschaften, 1987.
GEOMETRY
At the beginning of Islam, some knowledge of
geometry was available in Syria and Iran, and in the eighth century CE,
practical geometrical rules were transmitted from India into Islamic lands.
However, the
history
of geometry in Islamic civilization really started when the basic textbook of
Greek geometry, theElementsof Euclid (ca. 300 BCE), was translated into Arabic
in Baghdad in the early ninth century CE. Euclid begins with definitions and
axioms (fundamental assumptions), but he then proves by logical reasoning a
series of more than three hundred geometrical propositions and constructions.
Initially, the Islamic scholars of the ninth century CE studied the Elementsto
understand Greek astronomy, but some of them fell in love with Greek geometry
for its own
sake
and searched for Greek manuscripts of the works of Archimedes (ca. 250 BCE) and
Appollonius (ca. 200 BCE). In the mid-ninth century CE, the three sons of Musa
(Banu Musa)—Ahmad, Muhammad, and Hasan—were interested in the Conics on the
basis of two very corrupted Greek manuscripts of Books 1 - 4 and Books 5–7. After they had
succeeded, they hired two translators—Hilal ibn Abi Halal al-Himsi and Thabit
ibn Qurra—and had them translate Books 1–4 and Books 5–7, respectively. Books
5–7 are now lost in Greek, and thus the Banu Musa sons and
Thabit
ibn Qurra saved one of the most profound works of Greek geometry for posterity.
Book 8 of the Conics was entirely
lost but reconstructed by Ibn al-Haytham in the early eleventh century.
Already in the mid-tenth century, some
Islamic mathematicians embarked on deep investigations of the definitions and
basic assumptions made by Euclid in Elements.
In Book 5 of Elements, Euclid presented
a
complicated definition of proportional magnitudes (a: b¼c : d)in order to deal
with rational and irrational ratios at the same time. In European mathematics
the motivation of this definition was understood only after the discovery of
the modern concept of real numbers around the year 1860. A thousand years
earlier, around 860, the Iranian mathematician
al-Mahani
had replaced Euclid’s definition by an alternative definition related to the
modern mathematical theory of continued fractions. He also proved that the two
definitions are equivalent. A number of Islamic mathematicians studied Euclid’s
parallel postulate, to the effect that if two straight linesmandnare intersected
by a straight line l in such a way that the sum of the two adjacent angles
between land mand between landnis less than two right angles, the two lines
mandn must intersect. Many mathematicians found it inappropriate that Euclid
assumed such a
complicated
postulate right at the beginning of his work Elements. Unfortunately, the postulate is necessary in the proofs
of the theorem of Pythagoras and the theorem that the sum of the angles in a
triangle is
equal
to two right angles. Several mathematicians, including Ibn al-Haytham (eleventh
century) and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (thirteenth century), tried to prove Euclid’s
parallel postulate on the basis of other assumptions that they found more
natural or simpler. In the nineteenth century, it turned out that the parallel
postulate could not be proved from the
other
postulates of Euclidean geometry. If we
assume the negation of the parallel postulate, we obtain the modern non-Euclidean
geometry, which was never studied in medieval Islamic civilization.
In the tenth century, the Islamic geometers
in Iraq and Iran started to work on conic sections. They used parabolas and
hyperbolas to solve problems such as the construction of the regular heptagon,
the trisection of the angle, and cubic equations. By means of conic sections,
Ibn al-Haytham solved the following problem in optics, which was later named
the ‘‘problem of Alhazen’’ after the
Latinized version of his first name al-Hasan: Given a convex or concave
circular spherical, cylindrical, or conical mirror, and the positions of the
eye and the object, construct the places in the mirror where the eye sees the
object. Conic sections were also used for the theoretical construction of some
mosaic patterns.
Another theoretical field of study was the
determination of surface areas, volumes, and centers of gravity of curvilinear
figures. Archimedes’ work on the surface area and volume of a sphere had been
translated into Arabic, and in the preface to this work, Archimedes says that
he had found the area of a parabolic segment as four-thirds of its inscribed triangle.
His work on the parabolic segment, as well as most of his other investigations, were not transmitted
into Arabic, and thus the Islamic mathematicians did not know Archimedes’
famous work,Method of
Mechanical Theorems.
(This work was discovered around 1900 in a Greek palimpsest manuscript, which
was stolen but has since resurfaced.) Thabit ibn Qurra (d. 901), Ibrihim ibn
Sinan (d. 946), and Abu Sahl al-Kuhi (ca. 970) succeeded in proving that the
area of a parabolic segment is four-thirds of its inscribed triangle. They then
went on to study other
curved
figures and solids. Most of their achievements are independent rediscoveries of
results in Archimedes’Method of Mechanical
Theorems. Ibn alHaytham determined the volume of a solid not studied by
Archimedes, namely the solid of revolution of a parabola around a segment
perpendicular to the axis. To solve this difficult problem, Ibn al-Haytham had
to find a formula for the sum of the firstnand fourth powers.
In modern mathematics the surface areas,
volumes, and centers of gravity of curved figures and solids are computed by
means of the integral calculus, which was discovered in the late seventeenth
century by
Leibniz and Newton. It does not follow that the Islamic mathematicians
possessed anything like the integral calculus, because the methods of Leibniz and Newton were generally applicable,
whereas Archimedes
and the Islamic mathematicians had to design for every solid a new procedure.
It should also be noted that Leibniz and Newton did not prove their methods in
ways that are now considered to be rigorous, but Archimedes and the Islamic
mathematicians gave rigorous proofs.
Abu Sahl al-Kuhl determined the centers of
gravities of various curvilinear solids. He thought that he had found a
regularity, and derivedp ¼ 3 1/9, in contradiction to the fact that Archimedes
had proved
That
p >3 10/71. Around 1420, the first
sixteen decimals of pwere determined correctly by Al-Kashi in Samarkand.
Spherical trigonometry was important in late
Greek and medieval Indian and Islamic mathematics because astronomy depends on
the accurate computation of arcs on the celestial sphere. In the tenth century,
three
Iranian
mathematicians introduced the concept of a spherical triangle consisting of six
elements: three arcs of great circles and three angles contained by these arcs.
A little later, the methods are analogous to, but
more
complicated than, the formulas for a plane triangle. The solution of spherical
triangles was studied systematically by al-Biruni around 1030 and by Nasir al-Din
al-Tusi around 1260. The Islamic mathematicians computed trigonometrical tables
that were much more accurate than the tables known in Greek and Indian
mathematics. A difficult problem is the
computation
of sines (without computers), especially the computation of the sine of one
degree. No exact methods for the computation were known until AlKashi (ca.
1420) discovered a method by which the sine
of one degree can be easily computed with any desired accuracy. He expressed
the unknown sine as the root of a cubic equation with known coefficients. He
then presented an easy iterative algorithm for the
numerical
solution of the cubic equation.
Various projections of the sphere on a plane
were applied in geographical maps, and stereographic projection was used in the
construction of astrolabes. It is clear that the designers of Islamic mosaics makers
and architects employed complicated geometry in their designs, but very little
information on their methods has been preserved in medieval Arabic and Persian
sources. Perhaps they transmitted their
methods
orally.
Further
Reading
Berggren, J. Len. ‘‘Mathematics
and Her Sisters in Medieval Islam: A Selective Review of Work Done from 1985
to 1995.’’ Historica
Mathematica24 (1997), no. 4,
407–440.
———. ‘‘The Correspondence of Abu
Sahl al-Kuhi and Abu
Ishaq al-Sabi: A Translation with
Commentaries:’’Journal for the History of Arabic Science7 (1983): 39–124.
Ozdural, Alpay. ‘‘Mathematics and
Arts: Connections between Theory and Practice in the Medieval Islamic
World.’’Historica Mathematica27
(2000): 171–201.
Rosenfeld, B.A., and Jan P.
Hogendijk. ‘‘A Mathematical
Treatise Written in the Samarqand
Observatory of
Ulugh Beg.’’Zeitschrift fur
Geschichet der arabischislamishcn Wissenschaften. 15 (2003): 25–65.
Vahabzadeh, B. ‘‘Al-Mahani’s
Commentary on the Concept of Ratio.’’Arabic Sciences and Philosophy12 (2002):
9–52.
GESUDARAZ
Sayyid Muhammad Husayni, popularly known as
Gesudaraz
(‘‘He With the Long Tresses’’) and
Bandanawaz (‘‘The One Who is Kind to His
Servants’’), was a prominent Sufi teacher responsible for the establishment
of the Chishti Sufi order in the Deccan
province
of southern India. Born in 1321 CE into a family tracing its ancestry to
Khurasan (Iran), Gesudaraz received his early education in Delhi studying various
religious sciences, including Qur’anic exegesis, theology, and jurisprudence.
In 1336, he was formally initiated into the Chishti order by becoming a disciple
of the renowned Chishti master Nasir ad-Din Chiragh-i Dihli (‘‘The Lamp of
Delhi’’). Gesudaraz so
distinguished
himself on the Sufi path that upon the death of his teacher he assumed
leadership of the order. As a consequence of rumors concerning Timur’s
(Tamerlane’s) invasion of northern India in 1398, Gesudaraz left Delhi and
traveled south. At the invitation of the Bahmanid ruler Firuz Shah, Gesudaraz
eventually settled in Gulbarga, the capital of the Bahmanids. Gesudaraz’s
initial association with
Firuz
Shah, as well as his later involvement with intrigues in the Bahmanid court
over the succession to the throne, in which he supported the cause of Firuz
Shah’s brother Ahmad Shah (r. 1422–1436), indicate that he had moved away from
the ideals of previous Chishti masters who considered contact with royalty to
be detrimental to spiritual well-being. Apparently, Gesudaraz saw nothing wrong
in accepting tax-free land from his royal patrons.
In terms of his teachings, Gesudaraz was more conservative
than his Chishti predecessors, such as Nizam ad-Din Awliya, who were strong
proponents of wahdat al-wujud (unity of existence), a philosophical doctrine
traditionally associated with the Andalusian Sufi Ibn Arabi (d. 1240) and
interpreted ashama ust (everything is
He). Gesudaraz felt that
this
doctrine went against the legal and theological precepts of Islam because it
blurred the distinction between created and Creator. Instead, he supported the
theory of wahdat ash-shuhud (unity of
witnessing)
which,
when interpreted ashama azust (everything
is from Him), emphasized the distance between creation and a transcendent God.
Gesudaraz was also a strong upholder of the law (shari’ah). As a result, he was critical not only of Ibn Arabi but
also considered Sufis such as Jalal ad-Din Rumi to be enemies of the faith
because of their liberal pantheistic/monistic teachings. Notwithstanding his
conservatism on doctrinal issues, Gesudaraz upheld the Chishti tradition of
sama’ (musical concerts), because he was a firm believer in the power of music
as an aid to spiritual transformation and ecstasy. Not surprisingly, he was also
a strong supporter of love mysticism, for he saw passionate love as the basis
of the relationship between creation and the Divine.
Gesudaraz was such a prolific scholar and
writer that he has been called the Chishti sultan
al-qalam (‘‘King of the Pen’’). Although the exact number of his works is
not known—estimates range from thirtysix to one hundred and fifty—he is
believed to have been multilingual, being competent in Arabic, Persian, and
several Indian languages. Through his commentaries, he popularized the works of
classical Sufi thinkers such as Qushayri and Suhrawardi in the Indian
subcontinent. In using Dakhani, a local Indian vernacular, to compose the Mi’raj al-‘ashiqin (The Celestial Ascent
of Lovers), a book on the Prophet Muhammad, Gesudaraz played a pioneering role
in promoting the use of local languages in religious literature, a trend that
became increasingly important in subsequent centuries.
Gesudaraz died November 1, 1422, and is
buried at Gulbarga in a vast tomb–shrine complex, the upkeep of which has been
generously patronized by various rulers. His tomb, which is one of the most
important centers of religious pilgrimage in southern India, attracts
thousands
of devotees, Muslim and non-Muslim, who come here to seek his blessing and
intercession.
Further
Reading
Eaton, Richard.The Sufis of
Bijapur 1300–1700. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1978.
Hussaini, S.S.K.The Life, Works,
and Teachings of
Khwajah Bandahnawaz Gisudaraz.
Gulbarga, 1986.
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