Arab influences in European literature began to appear in the poetry of the early Spanish and Provençal troubadours, and, in the thirteenth century, in the French fabliaux and contes.
    No Western author expressed Europe's fascination with any aspect of Arabism in a more dramatic and poetic form than did Shakespeare. Among his most attractive characters, two are Arabs, or as he calls them, "Moors": Othello, from the play of the same name and the Prince of Morocco, one of the noblest figures in The Merchant of Venice. The prince, modeled on the great Sultan Ahmed al-Mansur, shows a royal dignity expressed in words of great nobility.
    Whereas the Prince of Morocco is but a minor character in The Merchant of Venice, Othello completely dominates the drama to which his name is given. A man of unbounded passion, this Moor—"who comes from a land of deserts, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven" (an obvious reference to the Atlas Mountains)—is also a paragon of loyalty, courage, honesty, and possessed of a nobility rendered more striking by contrast with the infamy of the "white" Iago. To the present day, experts acquainted with the Moorish character are amazed at the insight with which Shakespeare created Othello.
    In the London of Queen Elizabeth I, Morocco was very much "in the news." Among the founders of the "Barbary Company," an association of London merchants trading with Morocco, we find the Earl of Leicester, one of the Bard's patrons; it was from his many Barbary-merchant friends that Shakespeare obtained much information of Morocco and its people. Altogether we find more than sixty references to Barbary (Morocco) in Shakespeare's plays.
    Shakespeare was by no means alone in falling under the spell of Moorish subjects. In his Tamburlaine the Great of 1587, Christopher Marlowe introduces the "Kings of Moroccus and Fez." A year later a certain Ed. White published A Brief Rehearsal of the Bloody Battle of Barbary; in 1594, George Peel's play, The Battle of Alcazar, was produced in London; and, shortly afterwards, an anonymous author, Ro. C. published a history of Morocco entitled, A True Discourse of Muley Hamet's Death.
    The Oriental fashion, in which Arab elements were often confused with Persian and Indian, persisted through most of the nineteenth century when Victor Hugo could write: "In the age of Louis XIV all the world was Hellenistic; now it is Orientalist" (Preface to Les Orientales). While The Thousand and One Nights did not alone create this romantic flood, it greatly widened the scope of European literature and enriched its imagery and language, producing a focus for Europe's yearning for the exotic and stimulating latent interests among its intellectuals.
    Arabic literature, in addition, to being the crowning artistic and intellectual achievement of the Arabs, also represents one of their most enduring legacies to the West. It is an aspect of the Arab heritage which, though often neglected or given only cursory attention, offers important insights that provide a fuller understanding of Arab culture and its contributions.
    We find Arab names and settings in the famous Aucassin et Nicolette and Arab echoes even in Boccacio's Decameron. Chaucer's Squires Tales uses a theme brought to Europe by Italian merchants who had traded in the Middle East. And, of course, there is the most famous medieval work of literature, Dante's Divine Comedy, replete with details from the story of the Prophet Muhammad's ascension to heaven and details culled from the Meccan Revolution by the great Arab mystic Ibn Arabi.
    Perhaps no work of Arabic literature has stirred Western imagination as much as The Thousand and One Nights, popularly known as The Arabian Nights. A collection of separate stories—exciting, romantic, amusing and always highly entertaining— the book has Arab, Greek, Persian and Indian origins. It was finally compiled and unified by Arab authors in the tenth century, giving it an entirely Arab character, placing its two main centers in Baghdad and Cairo. At times, with the salty humor of true folk tales and always with an astounding inventiveness, the book enjoyed a great popularity throughout the Middle East where it was known chiefly through oral transmission by professional storytellers. Its popularity with the European public, however, was infinitely greater. The first translation by the Frenchman Galland, in 1704, was soon followed by English versions. Their was spectacular, and new editions followed one another in the most enviable manner of modern best-sellers.
    The astounding popularity that The Thousand and One Nights enjoyed in Europe from the start can be traced to the "oriental" yearnings that had been growing among Western writers, artists and readers ever since the days of the Crusades. The public found in these tales an element of romance and adventure that was missing from European literature. To be sure, The Thousand and One Nights was partly responsible for the composition of European novels as famous as Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels. Arabism, or "Orientalism," as it was usually called, provided Western writers with a wealth of new themes. We find such themes in Samuel Johnson's Rasselas, in Byron, in the satires of Voltaire, and, of the French reformers, in Beckford's Vathek, in Germany, in Goethe's famous Westoestlicher Diwan, and in Rukert and Platen-Hallermund.

THE SCIENCES

Chemistry

Chemistry, or alchemy, from the Arabic alkimiya, was first studied among Arabs in the seventh century A.D. by Khalid ibn Yazid ibn Muawiyya who was familiar with the writings of the ancient Greeks on the subject. Muawiyya was followed by Jabir ibn Hayyan (known to the West as Geber). Jabir was born in the year 721 A.D., and later became the pupil of the celebrated Islamic teacher, the Imam Jaffar. He spent most of his life in Kufa, Iraq. In spite of Jabir's leanings toward mysticism and superstition, he more clearly recognized and proclaimed the importance of experimentation than any other early chemist. "The first essential in chemistry," he declared, "is that you should perform practical work and conduct experiments, for he who performs not practical work nor makes experiments will never attain the least degree of mastery." He made noteworthy advances in both the theory and practice of chemistry.
    Jabir was acquainted with the usual chemical reactions such as crystallization, calcination, solution, sublimation, and reduction and often described them. Among Jabir's great contributions were his studies in the transmutation of metals. Regarding practical applications of chemistry, Jabir described processes for the preparation of steel and the refinement of other metals, for dying cloth and leather, for making varnishes to waterproof cloth and to protect iron, and for the preparation of hair dyes. He devised a recipe for making an illuminating ink for manuscripts from "golden" marcasite to replace the much more expensive ones made from real gold, and suggested the use of manganese dioxide in glass-making.
    Jabir is credited with the discovery of red oxide, bichloride of mercury, hydrochloric acid, nitrate of silver, nitric acid, sal ammonic, and ammonium chloride. The preparation of nitric acid was perhaps his most useful discovery. But to the alchemists and chemists of the Middle Ages,. the descriptions and illustrations of furnaces in Jabir's books were probably of even greater value.
    History records a few alchemists in the interval after Jabir's death, but it is only with the appearance of the chemist and physician, Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (known to the West as Rhazes) that Jabir's great example was successfully followed. Razi was learned in almost every branch of science and philosophy, alchemy, mathematics, logic, ethics, metaphysics and music. By profession a physician, his medical writings were more famous than his works in alchemy. His interest in alchemy seems to have begun in his youth and he is reported to have said that "no man deserves the name of 'philosopher' unless he be a master of theoretical and applied chemistry." He authored more than one hundred medical books, thirty-three treatises on natural science (exclusive of alchemy), eleven on mathematics and astronomy and more than forty-five on philosophy, logic and theology. On alchemy, he wrote Compendium of Twelve Treatises and Book Secrets.
    Razi is a figure of exceptional importance in the history of chemistry since in his works we find for the first time a systematic classification of carefully observed and verified facts regarding chemical substances, reactions and apparatuses described in a language almost entirely free from mysticism and ambiguity. Razi also gives a list of the apparatuses used in chemistry. These consists of two classes: (1) instruments used for melting metals, and (2) those used for the manipulation of substances generally. He completes the subject by describing how to make composite pieces of apparatuses and, in general, provides the same kind of information as is to be found in laboratory manuals today.
    Another famous scientist who followed Razi is Abu Ali al-Hussain ibn Sina, "Avicenna" as he was known in Europe, who has been described as the "Aristotle of the Arabs." During his lifetime, he accomplished an amazing mass of literary, medical, philosophical and scientific works. In his Book of Remedy, he wrote about minerals, the formation of rocks and stones and the properties of minerals and metals.
    From the fourth to the twelfth centuries A.D., the original chemical research and writing in Europe was virtually non-existent. Instead, Arabic texts came to be translated into Latin, these treatises functioning as standard textbooks for students in Europe. The translation of technical matters presented special difficulties, so that scholars often had to content themselves with literal renderings. It was safer not to translate words the meanings of which were imperfectly understood. Thus, in the translation from Arabic to Latin, such words were often simply transliterated, e.g., alembic, camphor, borax, elixir, talc and saffron.

Mathematics and Astronomy

There is no doubt that mathematics and astronomy owe a great debt to the Arabs. As George Sarton, the great Harvard historian of science, wrote in his monumental Introduction to the History of Science:

From the second half of the eighth to the end of the eleventh century, Arabic was the scientific, the progressive language of mankind... When the West was sufficiently mature to feel the need of deeper knowledge, it turned its attention, first of all, not to the Greek sources, but to the Arabic ones.

In the twelfth century, Europe became aware of the scientific achievements of the Arabs and embarked upon serious translations of their rich legacy. A special college for translators was founded in Toledo, Spain, and it was there, and in other centers, that some of the great Christian scholars translated most of the Arabic works on mathematics and astronomy. In most European universities, Arab treatises formed the basis of mathematical studies.
    The history of Arab mathematics began with Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khawarazmi who, in the ninth century, journeyed east to India to learn the sciences of that time. He introduced Hindu numerals, including the concept of zero, into the Arab world. This number system was later transmitted to the West. Prior to the use of "Arabic" numerals, as we know them today, the West relied upon the somewhat clumsy system of Roman numerals. Whereas in the decimal system, the number of 1948 can be written in four figures, eleven figures were needed using the Roman system: MDCCCXLVIII. It is obvious that even for the solution of the simplest arithmetic problem, Roman numerals called for an enormous expenditure of time and labor. The Arab numerals, on the other hand, rendered even complicated mathematical tasks relatively simple.
    The scientific advances of the West would have been impossible had scientists continued to depend upon the Roman numerals and been deprived of the simplicity and flexibility of the decimal system and its main glory, the zero. Though the Arab numerals were originally a Hindu invention, it was the Arabs who turned them into a workable system; the earliest Arab zero on record dates from the year 873, whereas the earliest Hindu zero is dated 876. For the subsequent four hundred years, Europe laughed at the method that depended upon the use of zero, "a meaningless nothing."
    Had the Arabs given us nothing but the decimal system, their contribution to progress would have been considerable. In fact, they gave us infinitely more. While religion is often thought to be an impediment to scientific progress, we can see, in a study of Arab mathematics, how religious beliefs actually inspired scientific discovery.
    Because of the Qur'an's very concrete prescriptions regarding the division of an estate among children of a deceased person, it was incumbent upon the Arabs to find the means for very precise delineation of lands. For example, let us say a father left an irregularly shaped piece of land—seventeen acres large—to his six sons, each one of whom had to receive precisely one-sixth of his legacy. The mathematics that the Arabs had inherited from the Greeks made such a division extremely complicated, if not impossible. It was the search for a more accurate, more comprehensive, and more flexible method that led Khawarazmi to the invention of algebra. According to Professor Sarton, Khawarazmi "influenced mathematical thought to a greater extent than any other medieval writer." Both algebra, in the true sense of the term, and the term itself (al-jabr) we owe to him. Apart from mathematics, Khawarazmi also did pioneer work in the fields of astronomy, geography and the theory of music.
    It was due to another exponent of Arab civilization, Omar Khayyam (1040-1123), that algebra made an enormous leap forward, two centuries after Khawarazmi. Known in the West as the author of The Rubayat, a poem made famous by Edward Fitzgerald's translation, he was admired in the East mainly as a mathematician. In his use of analytical geometry, he anticipated the geometry of Descartes. Commissioned by the Seljuk Sultan Halikshah to reform the Persian calendar, he prepared a calendar said to be more accurate than the Gregorian one in use to the present day. Whereas the latter leads to an error of one day in 3,300 years, in Omar Khayyam's calendar that error is one day in 5,000 years.
    Because of their Islamic faith, it was essential for the Arabs to obtain a more precise knowledge of astronomy and geography than was already available: a Muslim is obliged to perform a number of religious observances with distinctly astronomical and geographical implications. When he prays, he must face Mecca; if he wishes to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, he must first know in what direction and what distance he will have to travel. Yet a thousand years ago such a journey might take months or even years, for the would-be pilgrim might have been living in Spain, Sicily or Asia Minor—all parts of the medieval Arab Empire. During Ramadan, the month of fasting, when between sunrise and sunset a Muslim must abstain from food and drink, he must know in advance the precise moment at which the moon rises and sets. All these functions required a detailed knowledge of astronomy and geography.
    It was, thus, under the great Caliph Ma'mun (813-833) that the Arabs set out upon their investigations into astronomy. Ma'mun—a son of Harun al-Rashid of Arabian Nights fame—built a special observatory in Palmyra, Syria, and gradually, his scientists determined the length of a degree, thus establishing longitude and latitude.
    Among the Arabs who laid the foundations of modern astronomy were Battani (858-929) and Biruni (973-1048). Battani's astronomical tables were not only adopted enthusiastically by the West, but were in use there until the Renaissance. He was the first to replace the Greek chord by the sine, in trigonometry. His works were translated and published in Europe from the twelfth until the mid-sixteenth century.
    Professor Sarton considers Biruni "One of the very greatest scientists of all time." It was he who gave, finally, an accurate determination of latitude and longitude, and who, six hundred years before Galileo, discussed the possibility of the earth's rotation around its own axis. He also investigated the relative speeds of sound and light.
    However much astronomy depends upon mathematics, equally vital to it are instruments, and in that field, also, the Arabs proved themselves the chief pioneers. In the early Middle Ages, measurements had to be made with purely mechanical instruments, such as the quadrant, the sextant, or the astrolabe. To reduce the margin of error, the Arabs made their instruments larger than any known before and, consequently, obtained remarkably accurate results. The most famous observatory at which these instruments were being used was at Maragha, in the thirteenth century, where distinguished astronomers from many countries collaborated—not only Muslim, Christian and Jew, but even Chinese. It was the latter who were responsible for the otherwise surprising appearance of Arab trigonometry in China.
    It has already been indicated that, in the hands of the Arabs, mathematics acquired a new "dynamic" quality. We find this in Biruni's trigonometry, where numbers became elements of function, and in Khawarazmi's algebra, where the algebraic symbols contain within themselves potentialities for the infinite. What is significant about this development is that it reveals an intuitive correspondence between mathematics and religion. The Qur'an does not present the universe as a finished creation; rather, God keeps re-creating it at every moment of existence. In other words, creation is an ever-continuing process, and the world is not static but dynamic. This dynamic character, inherent in Islam, is amply manifested in Arab mathematics.
    In conclusion, it is clear that Arab mathematicians, besides passing on to the West the Hindu and Greek legacies, developed most branches of trigonometry and astronomy, gave us algebra, invented many astronomical instruments, and showed that science, instead of being a denial of faith, can be its instrument if not its affirmation.

Physics

Without question, the greatest name in physics during the Arab/Islamic Empire was Ibn al-Haytham, born in the city of Basra, Iraq, in 965 A.D. By the time he died in 1030, he had made major contributions to optics, astronomy and mathematics, some of which would not be improved upon for six centuries.
    Ibn al-Haytham's main field of interest and the one to which he made his greatest contributions, was the branch of physics we call optics. Striking parallels exist between his work and that of the seventeenth century English physicist, Isaac Newton, one of the greatest scientists of all time.
    One of Newton's major accomplishments was his famous Law of Universal Gravitation. The most significant aspect of this theory is that it considers gravitation to be universal; that is, the same laws apply in the heavens and throughout the universe as apply on earth. This contradicts the idea held from the time of Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) that there is a difference between the laws governing events on earth and those pertaining to celestial bodies. Newton realized that the force that causes an apple to fall from a tree is the same force that holds the moon and all the planets in their orbits and, indeed, is the same as that which governs the motion of the stars themselves.
    If this idea were considered new in the seventeenth century, it was certainly new in the eleventh. Yet some of Ibn al-Haytham's experiments showed that he, too, believed that extraterrestrial phenomena obeyed the same laws as do earthly ones.
    Ibn al-Haytham evolved his theories of optics through the study of light rays, and his investigations revealed a number of important properties: that light travels in a straight line; that every point of a luminous object radiates light in every direction; and that light weakens as it travels from its source. He studied these characteristics of light from a variety of light sources, i.e., self-emitting (the moon and reflecting bodies on earth).
    This seemingly trivial experiment is in fact an early example of what is known as the "scientific method." Ibn al-Haytham designed an experiment to test a hypothesis, namely, that light travels in a straight line. His experiment was arranged to avoid the possibility of the experimenter's bias affecting the conclusions. Today, it seems obvious that light travels in straight lines, yet there was a time when intelligent men thought it obvious that the sun travels arounthe earth. The most advanced and sophisticated theory in modern physics, the Theory of Relativity, is derived from a refutation of ideas that are based on our everyday experience. Performing experiments to test and verify theories is at the heart of all modern scientific methods.
    Ibn al-Haytham's experiments have even greater significance. By using the sun, the moon, lamps, fires and a variety of other light sources in his experiments, he was saying that light is light, regardless of its source. In this sense, he anticipated the universal laws of seventeenth century scientists.
    We have described only the simplest of Ibn al-Haytham's experiments on the properties of light rays, but there are many others that were considerably more sophisticated. Ibn al-Haytham foresaw the works of later scientists not only in his use of experimentation but in the use of instrumentation: devices to help make measurements, the key to all modern science. He designed and constructed a variety of instruments, pipes, sheets, cylinders, rulers and plane, concave and convex mirrors in order to conduct his tests.
    In addition to his studies of reflection, he also studied refraction, a phenomenon in which light rays bend when traveling from one medium to another, such as from air to water. The effect causes an object to appear to be in a location other than where it actually is, making him the first scientist to test a property of refraction that seems so obvious today. He demonstrated that a ray of light arriving perpendicular to the air-water boundary was not bent at all and showed that this was true for light passing through not just two, but several media. Clear parallels exist between his work and that of Isaac Newton six centuries later: both men studied that effects of light passing through glass, and both realized that the accepted ideas of their day were wrong.
    It is difficult to appreciate the degree of intellect required by both these men to overcome the ingrained prejudices of previous centuries. The greatest scientists of Newton's day could not accept his theory of colors, a theory that we in the twentieth century, with three hundred years of hindsight, regard as self-evident. Newton's seemingly simple idea was that the colors produced when sunlight passes through a prism are caused by the separation of the sunlight, which contains all colors, into its constituent parts by refraction. Ibn al-Haytham demonstrated that the prism made the colors visible by bending rays of different colors in varying amounts, thus producing the familiar spectrum.
    Ibn al-Haytham's explanation of how a lens worked required a similar leap of intellect. He contended that magnification was due to the bending, or refraction, of light rays at the glass-to-air boundary and not, as was thought, to something in the glass. He correctly deduced that the curvature of the glass, or lens, produced the magnification; thus, the magnifying effect takes place at the surface of the lens rather than within it.
    This distinction is, of course, critical to the design of lenses, and without the ability to design lenses, we would have no cameras, movies, television sets, satellites, eyeglasses, contact lenses, telescopes, or microscopes—life would be very different for the human race.
    Although he did not build a telescope, it is known that Ibn al-Haytham did construct parabolic mirrors. incoming parallel rays of light, such as those from the stars, are focused at a point so that such mirrors can be used to obtain unblurred images of celestial bodies and remote objects on the earth. Today, these are used in the world's great telescopes.
    Like Newton, Ibn al-Haytham was interested in vision. Three Greeks, Galen in particular, did pioneering work on the anatomy of the eye and its connections to the brain, but did not produce a satisfactory theory of vision. Hero and Ptolemy both believed that vision was produced by the emission of light from the eyes, but their theory did not provide a reasonable explanation of perspective, the effect whereby the apparent size of an object depends upon its distance from the observer. As we know today, and as Ibn al-Haytham understood in the eleventh century, vision results from light being reflected into the eye from the object observed, an idea that explains perspective. He correctly regarded the eye as an intercepting screen, comparable to those we use today to show movies or slides. When his revolutionary ideas on perspective passed into Europe during the Renaissance, they influenced the development not only of science but also of art. The use of improved knowledge of perspective to give a feeling of depth and movement became strikingly visible in the works of Italy's new school of painters, the Perspectivi, around 1500.
    Furthermore, Ibn al-Haytham appreciated that an explanation of vision must take into account not only such physical factors as light, screens, lenses and so on, but also anatomical and psychological factors, and he realized that the eye must function in a manner consistent with the laws of optics.
    Ibn al-Haytham proved that the perception of an image occurs not in the eyes but in the brain and that the location of an image is largely determined by psychological factors. Like Newton, Ibn al-Haytham considered the problem of why a visual image produced within the brain is perceived as if it were located at some distance from the viewer, is the actual position of the object which produced it. Even today, most people do not find this surprising, although it is quite remarkable that images of the objects we see do not appear to be inside the head, where they actually exist, since they are simply electro-chemical versions of the scene inside the brain.
    Ibn al-Haytham was aware of an even more subtle aspect of vision, namely, that when we see an object the brain automatically performs a memory retrieval procedure to see if it recognizes the object. The signals ultimately produced within the brain by light entering the eye cannot tell us that what we see is, for example, a loaf of bread. Almost instantly, the brain scans its memory and compares the new information it has received through the eyes with data it has stored over the years. Ibn al-Haytham called this function of the brain "the distinguishing faculty" and realized that it is intimately tied to the entire process of seeing.
    That someone in the eleventh century realized that such complex questions existed is in itself noteworthy, but Ibn al-Haytham did not merely raise them, he attempted to provide answers. Explanations of these phenomena required him to construct a psychological theory of vision at a time when psychology was not recognized as a field of study. These ideas were quite different from the notions held by the Greeks and even by other contemporary Arab scientists.
    The manner in which Ibn al-Haytham presented his theories in his Book of Optics is extremely interesting to the historian of science. He was both a mathematician and an experimenter, which allowed him to present his arguments with a power unmatched by previous scientists who rarely had experimental evidence to back up their assertions. Here lies another parallel between Newton and Ibn al-Haytham: they were both mathematicians and experimenters who made significant contributions to optics and other physical sciences by applying their knowledge of mathematics to the results of experiments. Ibn al-Haytham's descriptions of his experiments are replete with mathematical explanations in the form of geometric drawings, and he must have prepared engineering drawings or sketches to assist with the manufacture of his instrumentation.
    About one-fourth of Ibn al-Haytham's more than 200 books and treatises survive; the best known of which is his Kitab al-Manazir, or Book of Optics (literally, Book of Perspectives). The breadth of the other subjects discussed in his book shows the wide range of his interests. They include optical illusions, the structure of the eye, binocular vision, perspective, atmospheric refraction, comets, mirages and the camera obscura. He is known to have studied physiology, anatomy and meteorology. Ibn al-Haytham also made notable contributions to astronomy. For example, he pointed out problems with the model of planetary orbits proposed by Ptolemy in the first century A.D., a model that was not superseded until the time of Copernicus in the sixteenth century.
    It is not too much to claim that Ibn al-Haytham was not only the founder of the science of optics, but a pioneer in the modern scientific method and a man whose work stood unchallenged for six centuries before others were able to carry forward ideas that sprang from his fertile mind.

MEDICINE

The development and, indeed, the very creation of European medicine is unthinkable without the Arabs' contribution. For its basis was the legacy of the ancient Greeks, and that legacy was unknown to Europe until the moment when it became available in Arabic translations and with the commentaries of Arab scholars. The first contribution of the Arabs to Western medicine is, thus, the transmission of Greek knowledge. Between 800 and 900 A.D., they had discovered, translated, commented upon, and assimilated the entire Greek heritage in practically all branches of science. Of medical works they translated not only those of such giants as Hippocrates and Galen, but also of Dioscorides, Paul of Aegina, Oribasius and Rufus of Ephesus. Further, the Arabs are credited with many original contributions of hospitals and clinics, the practice of internship, the licensing of physicians and regulations concerning malpractice.
    The most important medical school affecting the development of Arab medicine was Jundishapur, situated in what is now western Iran. Jundishapur came under Arab rule in 738 A.D., and a medical school managed by Syrian Christians began to foster the spread of medicine among Arabs and other Muslims.
    The first bimaristan (hospital and medical institution) in the Arab domain was established in Baghdad during the reign of the Caliph al-Mansur (754-775 A.D.). Incorporating the traditions and standards of Jundishapur and laying the foundations for the wider Arab adventure in medicine, hospitals continued to be built throughout the Abbasid empire (749-1258 A.D.), an era referred to as the "golden age" of Arab Muslim rule. In the medical schools associated with the hospitals, a well-developed curriculum was taught, in line with the notion that an "educated" man was not one with a singular area of expertise but, rather, broad knowledge in many fields. Music, mathematics, astronomy, geometry and other courses were among the electives available. Students learned medical theory and practiced in small classes where they received clinical instruction and observed surgery.
    From Spain to western India, bimaristans were among the most important educational institutions in the Arab world. Physicians of many races, nationalities and religions taught and practiced in them, making daily rounds, taking notes, writing prescriptions. Men and women recuperated in separate wards and many hospitals had gardens in which herbs were grown for use in treatments. Doctors even traveled to remote villages and accompanied soldiers into the field so that the injured could be cared for immediately. Hospitals were established for the blind, lepers and even the mentally ill.
    Most of the early Arab physicians believed in treating the whole person, not just a given disease. They were aware of the links between a patient's physiological and psychological conditions. Early Islamic literature abounds in stories and anecdotes of a medical nature, particularly those dealing with what Razi termed ilaj-il-nafsani, or psychotherapeusis—that is, cures effected by psychoanalysis, for, the therapy he often applied consisted of leading his patient back to some early recollection of a long-forgotten incident that, planted in the unconscious, became the cause of an ailment physical in its manifestation, yet psychological in origin.
    They also developed an elaborate ethical theory for medicine based on Greek, Indian and Persian teachings as well as the tenets of Islam. Among early books on the subject was Adab al-Tibb (Literature of Medicine) by Ishaq ibn Ali al-Ruhawi who considered physicians as "guardians of souls and bodies." He expounded on proper etiquette for physicians, urging high standards of ethical conduct. To insure that such prescriptions were followed, a special office, created early in the ninth century to deal with overcharging, profiteering, extortion and fraud in business, also watched over medical practice and administered a special oath to doctors.
    The first great physician of the Arab world was Muhammad Ibn Zakariya al-Razi (860-940 A.D.), known as Razi by the Arabs and Rhazes by medieval Europe. Universally considered one of the outstanding authorities in medical history, Razi authored more than two hundred books. His most important work was the Hawi, an extremely detailed medical encyclopedia in twenty-five volumes that was being used by doctors and students not only in the East, but also throughout Europe well into the fifteenth century. Razi best demonstrated his sharp powers of observation in an encyclopedia of therapeutics.
    Among his discoveries was the identification of smallpox and measles, both of which he treated successfully. His treatise on smallpox was translated into several European languages over the centuries, the last time in 1948, into English. Razi was the first to use alcohol as an antiseptic and mercury as a purgative. In surgery, he used a fine string made of animal intestine for sewing up wounds.
    Perhaps the most renowned of all Arab philosopher-scientists was Abu Ali al-Hussain Ibn Sina (980-1037 A.D.) or Avicenna. An extremely precocious youngster, Ibn Sina did not turn to medicine until he was sixteen, by which time he had already mastered Islamic law, philosophy, natural sciences and mathematics. He was only eighteen when his fame as a physician was such as to induce ruling princes to seek his services. A busy statesman, teacher, lecturer, profound thinker, poet and highly prolific writer on subjects as diverse as geology, music and mathematics, Ibn Sina treated medicine as only one of his numerous occupations.
    Nevertheless, he produced sixteen books on medicine, including the Canun, a work of one million words. This encyclopedia, dealing with every then-known disease, treatment and medication as prescribed by both Greek and Arab authorities, is generally regarded as the final codification of all Greco-Arab medicine. Some thirty editions of it were issued in Latin and several in Hebrew. It formed one-half of the medical curricula at European universities throughout the fifteenth century.
    While some of the greatest representatives of medicine in the West were Persians, practically all those of western Arabism—that is of Morocco and Moorish Spain—were Arabs. The most famous of these was Ibn Rushd, or Averroes, better known as a philosopher than as a doctor. However, his Kulliyyat fa Tibb (Rules of Medicine), while a compendium of Greek and Arab medicine, is more critical and analytical than either of the comparable works by Ibn Sina and Razi.
    While under Arab rule, Spain produced its share of great physicians, especially surgeons, foremost among whom was Abu al-Qasim al-Zarawi, or Abulcassis. His main work, Concession, was rendered into Latin and other languages and was studied for centuries in the West. He described how to crush stones in the bladder and how to cauterize wounds. His book was the first to include a section on general surgery, detailing different operations and containing some two hundred figures of surgical instruments in use at the time.
    It was in the West that the Arabs made one of their most significant discoveries, namely that of contagion. While contagious diseases, such as smallpox, cholera and bubonic plague were known to the Arabs, it was not until the fourteenth century, at the time of the Great Plague which ravaged the world from India and Russia across Europe, that they clearly recognized the fact of contagion. This recognition was the great achievement of Ibn Khatib and Ibn Khatima of Granada in Moorish Spain. Ibn Khatib's most important medical work is called On The Plag. In it we find the first clear affirmation of the existence of contagion. Another two hundred years had to elapse before Gerolamo Fracastoro gave a scientific formulation of contagion, and yet another three hundred before Pasteur's bacteriological discoveries. The fact remains that Ibn Khatib and Ibn Khatima were the first to give clinical accounts of contagion.
    In the book Kitab al-Maliki (Liber Regius in its Latin version), the tenth century al-Majusi propounded views that show a rudimentary conception of the capillary system, several hundred years in advance of Western science. In the same century, the geographer and historian al-Masudi, speaks of the process of evolution from mineral to plant, plant to animal, and animal to man in his Kitab al-Tanbih. Modern scholars have recognized him as a precursor of Darwinism, and the German expert Dieterici called his book about Masudi, Darwinism in the Tenth and Nineteenth Century (Leipzig, 1878). Ibn al Nafis (d. 1289), discovered not only the fundamental principles of pulmonary circulation but, by criticizing Ibn Sina's theory concerning the possible passages of venous blood between the ventricles, established himself as a forerunner of William Harvey.
    Gradually, in Western Europe, chiefly in Spain and Sicily, both strongly subject to Arab influences, scholars were absorbing the knowledge opened up to them by the Arabs. Among the Western pioneers of Arab medicine were Roger Bacon, Michael Scott, Gerard of Cremonal, Adelard of Bath and Gerbert, the future Pope Sylvester II. They approached that knowledge "with a great and growing enthusiasm combined with a blind trust in its authority." Medieval Europe regarded Arab medicine with wondrous awe, and Cordoba, an Arab center was looked upon with admiration by educated Europeans. As a result, until the end of the sixteenth century, the medical curricula of European universities demanded a knowledge of Avicenna's Canun (Arabian Medicine, by Donald Campbell, London, 1926). When the leading European medical schools were established in Paris (1110 A.D.), Bologna (1113), Montpellier (1181), Padua (1222) and Naples (1224), their curricula were dominated entirely by Arab medicine. It is interesting to note that these universities have remained among the leading medical schools to the present day.

MUSIC

The identifying link of a people may be found not only in their language, but in their music as well. Throughout their long and illustrious history, the Arabs have been lovers of music in its various forms. Music is an integral part of daily life in the Arab world and sensibility to its sounds and tones is deeply rooted in the Arab personality.
    Musical tradition in the Arab world is very old, dating back to the simple sing-song recitations of tribal bards in pre-Islamic days, usually accompanied by the rababa, a primitive two-string fiddle. As they spread out into the Middle East and North Africa in the seventh and eighth centuries A.D., the Arabs quickly added the rich and complicated scales and tones of Indian, Persian and Byzantine music and developed a unique form that has persisted to this day with only minor changes.
    In that sense, Arabic music is a remarkably enduring art form which, after centuries of competing cultural influences, has retained an overall unity. Many of its sounds are alien to Western ears, but the melodies have great emotive power for Arabs who can recognize the variations in musical styles, from the famous maqaam of Iraq to the muwashahat, a form of singing developed in Arab Spain during the Middle Ages and still used today.
    For several centuries, Arab rulers from Baghdad to Cordoba were famed for their patronage of music and musicians. Their courts boasted full orchestras for entertainment, while noted musicians competed for the ruler's favor.
    The music of the Arabs gradually influenced the West. Masters such as Bartok and Stravinsky composed works with detectable Eastern or Arabic influences. The Western world inherited not only the structure and tabulation of Arab music but also many of its instruments.
    The leading musical instrument in the Arab takhet (orchestra) is the 'oud. It has a half pear-shaped body with stripes on its shell and a right angle keyboard. It has twelve strings (six pairs) and is played with a plectrum, often the sharpened quill of an eagle. The word 'oud comes from the Arabic word meaning wood. This instrument has a long history. Pictures of 'oud-like instruments have been discovered on stone carvings in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Persians and Indians played it in ancient days. It was the Arabs, however, who perfected the 'oud, gave it its name, and passed it on to the Western world.
    The 'oud reached Europe during the Middle Ages to replace a plucked instrument, the gittern. In Italy, the 'oud became il luto, in Germany, laute, in France, le luth, and in England, the lute. As music became more complex with the introduction of chord patterns in the thirteen century, alterations in the technique of playing the 'oud as well as modifications in its construction were applied. These changes brought its sound close to that of the vihula, a form of Spanish guitar. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the 'oud was very popular in Europe as a solo instrument and as a part of orchestra ensembles. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the lute's rival, the guitar, which was simpler in construction and less cumbersome to hold and to play, finally won the battle for popular favor.
    Other instruments which developed from the 'oud are the mandolin, the mandora, panadurina, theorbo, chitarrone and mandolino.
    The mandolin enjoyed its golden age in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when works for it were written by Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart and Beethoven. Another instrument developed by the Islamic world and passed on to Europe is the tanbour or the buzuk. This instrument has a small pear-shaped body and long gut-fretted neck. Its shape required the player to have a far greater dexterity than was required for performing the 'oud. In Italy, it was transformed into the calscione and is still used in most of the Balkan countries as a folk instrument. In Yugoslavia, it became tanburitzza, in Greece, the buzuki, and in Russia, the domras.
   The qanoon, zither, was first developed in the Arab world during the tenth century. It is a flat trapezoidal wooden box, with twenty-four strings in triple fastened at its rectangular side on one end and to pegs on the oblique side on the other. Small levels lying below each course of strings are manipulated by the player to make slight changes in pitch. The strings are plucked with two horn plectra, one on each index finger. The qanoon is believed to have been invented by al-Farabi, the Muslim mathematician, physicist and musician. From Spain it was introduced to Europe. It retained its original name and shape until the fifteenth century. In Europe, it was the psaltery, in Russia, gusli, in the Ukraine, bandura. The Latin name was canon, the Italian, canone, the German, kanon, the Scandinavian, kanala, and the French, micanon.
   As early as the twelfth century, a new Islamic instrument, very similar to the qanoon, was introduced to Europe through Byzantium. The santur, as it originated, or the dulcimer, as it was named by medieval Europe, is struck rather than plucked. In Greece it was known as the santuri and in Rumania and Hungary it evolved as cembalom.
    The rabab, or "rabe morisco"—one of the contributory ancestors of the violin—also spread from Spain to Europe under the name rebec. It is a violin-like instrument except that it is played vertically, mostly by street musicians.
    The last Arab instrument to be adapted by the Western world is the tambourine. A percussion instrument used to provide rhythm, the tambourine is made of wood and parchment with pairs of small brass cymbals attached around its circular frame. It is held up by its frame with the thumb of the left hand on one side and the rest of the fingers extended on the other side of the skin. Its effect can still be felt today in many parts of Europe, especially in Spain.

Architecture and Craftsmanship

Every culture builds in its own way, borrowing from the past, developing a distinctive style, then passing on to a new age those special achievements which are proven most worthy. The foundation of all great buildings in Islam was Faith. The earliest major work of Islamic architecture was undertaken during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad: the rebuilding of the sanctuary of the Ka'aba at Mecca. Since, Islamic architecture has created a unique design concept, style and form which have survived to this day. The principal architectural types of Islamic buildings are the mosque, with its minaret, the madrassa (school), the tomb (mausoleum), the khan (rest house), the fort, and the palace.
    At first, the Arabs adopted Greek methods of design and architectural forms to suit their own purposes. The byzantine rotunda dome, for example, was used in the seventh century Mosque of 'Umar, or Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem (685), the earliest existing monument of Islamic architecture. This mosque, built on the site from which the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven, is the work of craftsmen from all corners of the Arab/Islamic Empire.
    The method of constructing domes—a recurrent feature of Islamic mosques—is another architectural theme that was passed on to the West. The Arabs introduced a transitional structural support, known as corner stalactites or muqarnasaat, between the dome and the cube which shaped the plan of a mosque. This technique was successfully applied in the Capella Palatina in Palermo, Sicily (1132).
    The minaret, a Muslim innovation, was inspired by earlier forms. The earliest known minaret at Kairouan, Tunisia (670), is a vast, battlemented tower. The most striking was constructed in Samaria, a Muslim capital of Iraq. It recalled the lofty, spiraling structure, called ziggurats, which the Arabs found in the ancient cities of Babylonia. The minaret, in turn, was adopted by Western architects. The Giralda of Seville, which had been built originally as a minaret and completed as a bell-tower, was duplicated in Evesham, England. The influence of the minaret may also be seen in innumerable towers of rural medieval English churches and in the campaniles or bell-towers of Renaissance Florence (Palazzo Vecchio) and Venice (Piazza San Marco).
    The horseshoe arch was an early Islamic form. It became a predominant feature of the Great Mosque of Damascus (707), in Alcazar of Seville and in Santa Maria la Blanca in Toledo. The Muslims also developed the pointed arch which appeared throughout the Arab world more than two centuries before it attained popularity among the Gothic church builders of Europe. Medieval French, German, English and Italian architects adopted the pointed arch in the form of cusped, trefoil and ogee arches which may be seen today supporting and adorning magnificent European cathedrals, such as those of Chartres and Notre Dame in France and Wells in England. Thus, they provided the model for the Tudor arch and other arches found chiefly in English, French and Italian churches. In the Great Mosque of Cordoba (786), the soaring double arches were used springing higher into the horseshoe forms; later even higher into the gothic.
    Ribbed vaults arching high over central spaces, arcades and colonnades defining interior spaces in buildings, as well as construction supports, inspired Western buildings in their church designs and other buildings.
    Stone or wood interlacing (mashrabeyya) grilles, an early feature of Arab architecture, were to become one of the greatest ornamental glories of the time. Begun in the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo, the Blue Mosque in Isfahan and in other monuments in Damascus, the pierced fretted stone window grilles were laid out in complex geometrical schemata. This technique inspired builders of churches in medieval Europe.
    The Alhambra, the palace of the Moorish rulers of Granada, built by Muhammad Ibn Al-Ahmar in 1230, is perhaps the most famous example of classical Muslim architecture in Europe. Externally, it resembles an imposing fortress; internally, it displays a most sumptuous design, an unsurpassed conquest of space, light and water. It is laid out with gardens, enclosed courts and luxurious chambers and a mosque.
    Islamic techniques of covering walls with breath-taking explosions of brightly-colored patterns, plastered ornaments and stretches of lustered tiles are best exemplified in the Alhambra, whose faience mosaic and tile designs were absorbed into the mainstream of Western design.
    Finally, the use of water as a landscaping element to create a beautiful environment was introduced by the Muslims in the Alhambra; this technique was later imitated by European architects and landscape designers to form beautiful fountains, reflecting pools and man-made waterfalls adorning many of the open spaces and structures of the Western world, such as Villa D'Este in Rome, Italy.
    The classical period of Arab art, which began with the advent of Islam in the seventh century and lasted more than a thousand years, was marked by an art form that was essentially abstract and geometric. The artistic movement in Islam has always favored the lacy theorizing of geometry over the realities of nature. Its staunch monotheism discouraged depiction of human or animal forms in any place or object used for religious purposes, so that Muslim artists were forced to limit themselves to the realm of abstraction and intricate floral designs, known as Arabesque, with the Arabic script as a distinctive feature.
    During the ten centuries of Arab/Islamic expansion, arts and crafts were treated in a unified way. Islamic artists and artisans concentrated on woodwork, ivory inlays, glass-making, ceramics, textile weaving and rug-making. Their sense of balance and their use of color were outstanding. They drew upon imaginary and natural sources to arrive at pure designs and forms with which they covered both walls and objects with mosaics, tiles, carvings and paintings.
    The woven textiles of the Muslims laid the foundations in Sicily for one of Italy's later and most important industries. The Arab cape woven for the twelfth century coronation of the King of Sicily, Roger II, is only one example of this influence in craftsmanship. Cotton muslin (from Mosul), damask linen (from Damascus), wool cloth (from Shiraz), and fustian (from Fustat, Egypt's first Islamic capital), were prized during the European Renaissance.
    Islamic craftsmen excelled in the bookmaking arts, such as leather binding which left a deep mark upon Europe, manuscript illustrations, miniature painting—especially in book illustrations—and above all, the art of making paper. Their knowledge of paper making was brought to Sicily and Spain and then to Italy and France, generating a great increase in book production in the West and, thus, in learning.
    Muslim scientists also contributed to the advancement of craft technology. Adopting from India the art of crucible steel forging. Islamic craftsmen developed the process considerably. The result was a high order of arms and armor named after the cities in which they originated as well as architectural Islamic metalwork, decoration and inlays. Techniques of setting gold and silver segments into brass and bronze vessels were developed in Persia, Syria and Egypt, and influenced Western craftsmanship for many years.

This material has been written, produced and distributed by the ARAB INFORMATION CENTER, 1100-17th St., N.W., Suite 602, Washington, D.C. 20036 which is registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended, as an agent of the LEAGUE OF ARAB STATES, Cairo, Egypt. Copies of this material have been filed with the Department of Justice where the registration statement of the ARAB INFORMATION CENTER is available for public inspection. Registration does not indicate the approval of the contents of this material by the United States Government. Arab League Member States: Algeria • Bahrain • Comoros Islands • Djibouti • Egypt • Iraq  •Jordan • Kuwait • Lebanon • Libya • Mauritania • Morocco • Oman • Palestine • Qatar • Saudi Arabia • Somalia • Sudan • Syria • Tunisia • United Arab Emirates • Yemen.

Part I

Sponsored by the Arab American Guide.com