Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts

Sunday, February 26, 2023

The Rashidun Caliphate

After the death of Muhammad in June 632, his followers discussed who should carry on his message to all parts of the world. Muhammad's close companion Abu Bakr was named first caliph in Medina and promptly began converting the entire Arab Peninsula to Islam.

Abu Bakr died two years later and was succeeded by ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, Muhammad's father-in-law. Umar had originally been opposed to Muhammad, but had come around. As the second caliph, he expanded the caliphate to cover two-thirds of the Byzantine Empire as well as part of Persia. Jewish tradition claims Umar allowed Jews into Jerusalem to worship. Umar was assassinated in November 644 by a Persian slave.

Umar's successor was Uthman, who advanced Islam into Byzantine territory until he was assassinated in June 656.

From 656 until 661 the caliphate was headed by ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, a member of Muhammad's clan and had married Muhammad's daughter, Fatima. His election was opposed by the members of Uthman's clan, and they did not recognize his authority. After Ali, there were those who felt the caliphate should be ruled by heredity, as opposed to being ruled by political choices. Ali's rule was the beginning of the Shia-Sunni civil war.

Sunnis say that the first four caliphs were all related to Muhammad through marriage and were among his closest companions. They were the Rashidun, the "Rightly Guided" caliphs. The Shia group (about 10-15% of Muslims) claims that originally Muhammad chose Ali as his successor, but he was passed over for Abu Bakr. They said Islam should be led by descendants of Muhammad and Ali. Sunnis believe the leader should be chosen by political means, as were Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman.

This clash between the two groups ended the Rashidun Caliphate and gave rise to the Umayyad Caliphate,  which has been mentioned a few times in this blog. The Umayyads expanded Islam even further and  started clashing with Western Europe. We will see how that turned out tomorrow.

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim

A nun, a poet, a playwright— Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim has been called the most remarkable woman of her time, but she was hardly known until a manuscript of her works was discovered in 1494.

From information in her writing we can glean that she was born between 930 and 940CE to a well-to-do Saxon family. We do not know what prompted her to "take the veil" and enter a nunnery, but we know she took vows of chastity and obedience but not poverty, presumable because she did not want to give up comforts and freedoms she had grown up with.

In a preface to her poetical works, she writes of her education at the Abbey of Gandersheim:

I was trained first by our most learned and gentle novice-mistress Rikkarda and others. Later, I owed much to the kind favour and encouragement of a royal personage, Gerberga, under whose abbatial rule I am now living. She, though younger in years than I, was, as might be expected of the niece of an Emperor, far older in learning, and she had the kindness to make me familiar with the works of some of those authors in whose writings she had been instructed by learned men.

Among the works to which she was introduced were those of the Roman playwright Terence, and she decided she wanted to try her hand at that genre, making her the earliest known playwright—female or male—in the Latin West. Where Terence wrote women as shrews and courtesans, Hrotsvitha wrote them as innocents who were exemplars of Christian virtue.

She was the first female poet in Germany, writing several works in dactylic hexameter, including a history of the Ottoman Empire. and a history of Gandersheim Abbey.

She was the first Northern European to write about Islam. In her play Passio Sancti Pelagio ("The Passion of Saint Pelagius"), which she says is derived from an eyewitness to the martyrdom of Pelagius of Cordova, she refers to the character of Abd al-Rahman III, the Emir of Cordova from 929-961. Her plays read as dialogues, which means they are labeled "closet dramas" (a play meant to be read out loud, rather than performed). We know, however, that the Abbey enjoyed her writing, and she was asked to read to the other nuns, so it is possible that her plays were "performed" at Gandersheim.

The discovery and publication (in 1501) of her works made her a subject for study. In the 20th century, she became a feminist icon, which means I'll take a deeper dive into her works tomorrow.

Wednesday, June 15, 2022

The First Crusade Announced

Christianity in the Middle Ages did not approve of Islam and its swift growth. It was not many years after the death of Muhammad in 632 CE that the Islamic occupation of Jerusalem was established in 638. Even though Jews and Christians were allowed in the city, and a treaty was signed between the caliph and the Patriarch of Jerusalem guaranteeing protection of Christian holy places, Western Europe and the papacy saw Jerusalem as a problem to solve.

Pope Urban II decided it was important to restore Jerusalem to Christian rule, and to that end he announced there would be a special gathering at Clermont in France in 1095. Clermont was the site of a couple religious councils. He was holding one on 18 November, 1095. Urban had received a request for aid from Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus against the Muslim Turks

On 27 November he spoke from a wooden platform to a crowd of thousands of the faithful that had gathered. On each of four sides of the platform were men with leather conical "megaphones" who repeated his words so that they could reach as far as possible to the crowds. (I have read this in the past, but cannot now find a reference for it, so take it as literary license for now.)

In short, he called all Christians to join in a war against the Muslims to free the Holy Land. This would also be an important pilgrimage for any involved, and would include a plenary indulgence (a remission of all penance for sins) to those who partook. When Urban finished his announcement, he concluded Deus vult! (Latin for "God wills it.") The crowd erupted, repeating his Deus vult.

The result of all this? We'll see tomorrow whether they succeeded.

Saturday, April 2, 2022

The Berbers

They call themselves the Amazigh, but history knows them as Berbers, who inhabited northwestern Africa since at least 10,000BCE. The etymological origin of "Berber" is problematic. The obvious guess is that it comes from the Greek βάρβαρος ("barbaros"), used by the Greeks to refer to any non-Greek speaking people. One scholar thinks instead it's from the Bavares, a tribe known to exist in Mauretania from the 3rd to 5th century CE.

The historian Ibn Khaldun shared two popular theories of the origin of the Berbers. One was that they were descended from Canaan, son of Ham, son of Noah. Either that or they were descended from another son of Ham, Keloudjm.

As Muslims moved westward across northern Africa, Arabization had a profound effect on Berber culture: tribal practices were replaced with Islam. During the 12th century, Christian and Jewish communities became marginalized, although Jews continued to exist as dhimmis, protected peoples. 

Prior to the influence of Islam, however, most Berber groups were either Christian or Jewish or Animist. One of the most famous of early Christian fathers, St. Augustine of Hippo, was from a Berber family. On the other hand, so possibly was Arius, an early heretic. Another Berber who created an approach to Christianity that did not suit the mainstream was the heretic Donatus Magnus. Let's dabble in heresy next time.

Wednesday, March 9, 2022

The Order of Assassins

We cannot talk about the Order of Assassins without talking about the word "assassin" and its origin, and you may be surprised to learn that 1) the origin is not what you've been told, and 2) I've already gone over this. In fact, the founder of the Order referred to his members as Asāsiyyūn (or أساسِيّون), "people who are faithful to the foundation [of the faith]." The hashish derivation was added later by Europeans who did not know the whole story.

With that out of the way, we can discuss their origin more calmly. They were originally called the Nizari Isma'ili State, founded by Hassan i-Sabbah. Sabbah (c.1050 - 12 June 1124) was a Twelver Shia, called thus (in English, anyway) because they believed in twelve divinely ordained imams who are the spiritual successors to Muhammad.

Sabbah was strongly Twelver, but later in life embraced the Isma'ili doctrine. The followers of Isma'ilis believed that Isma'il ibn Jafar was the proper spiritual successor to Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq; other Twelver Shia believed Isma'il's younger brother, Musa al-Kadhim, was the true Imam. Sabbah further made "different choices" in Cairo when he gave his support to Nizar, the son of Isma'ili Imam-Caliph al-Mustanṣir, as the next Imam. Sabbah was jailed by the chief of the army, but the collapse of one of the jail's minarets was taken as a sign to get rid of him: he was therefore deported. He wound up in Isfahan in 1081.

Sabbah decided he needed a stronghold where he could found the Nizar Isma'ili State, maintain his own safety, instruct others in his beliefs, and from which he could conduct his mission to spread the word of his specific beliefs. In 1090 he and his followers captured Alamut Castle, the first and greatest of the Nizari Isma'ili fortresses. From here he used his Order of Assassins to covertly eliminate leaders—first Muslim, later Christian as well—who stood in the way of spreading his version of Islam.

The way he conquered Alamut Castle, and the castle itself, deserve more than a passing glance. I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

One Soul To Guide Them All

Averroes (1126-1198) undertook to explain and comment on the works of Aristotle, in an attempt to clarify the Greek philosopher's concepts. One of those concepts was the idea of man's intellect, the debate over which was both stimulating and shocking for the medieval world.

Averroes (in turban); detail, "School of Athens" (Raphael)
Aristotle distinguished between a passive intellect, which is man's predisposition to accept and hold ideas, and an active intellect, which was the agent of analysis and creativity.* The active intellect was an outside force, and the blending or convergence of the external active intellect with the internal passive intellect differed in individuals, which is why we could strive to learn and think and better ourselves intellectually, but we were still different from each other. The connection between active and passive was not the same in each person. This accounted for different and individual personalities.

This was an obvious parallel to Aristotle's Realism: the idea that there exist "universal" abstract concepts—such as "dog"—outside of our direct experience, that allow us to directly experience multiple different dogs with different characteristics (which he called "particulars") and yet understand that they were all dogs.

Averroes explained this further, and created a religious controversy.

If the active intellect was external (and from a divine source) but the less-powerful passive intellect resided in man, and it was the blending of the two that created personality and human intelligence, then what happens at death when the external active intellect is removed? As a divine and lasting and (presumably) unchanging force, it stays as it is, unaffected by its temporary connection to an individual. The human-centered passive intellect dies with the human, the active intellect withdraws, and therefore there is no individual personality that exists anymore.

For Averroes, understanding Aristotle meant that there was no survival after death of a personality. Your personality—what makes you "you"—is gone when you die, and there is no room here for a soul with your personality to exist in an afterlife.

Orthodox Mohammedan theology did not agree with this, nor did Christian theologians such as St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Averroes defense against the charge of heresy? That reason forced him to express these thoughts, but that of course he adhered to the truth as explained by his faith.

*Aristotle used the term "intelligences" to refer to the non-physical (divine, or spiritual) forces that moved the celestial spheres. Christian thinkers would later call these "angels."

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The Commentator

Statue commemorating Averroes in Córdoba
Averroes (1126-1198) was born in Córdoba into a family of distinguished jurists and scholars at a time when Islamic culture was flourishing in Spain. He probably would have spent his life as a judge if not for his mentor and friend, the physician Abu Bakr ibn Tufayl, who told him that he should write commentaries on the works of Aristotle. The problem seen by ibn Tufayl was that Aristotle was too obscure either because of the ambiguity of his own writing or the shortcomings of his translators.

Averroes, whose real name was ʾAbū al-Walīd Muḥammad bin ʾAḥmad bin Rušd, embraced the task so thoroughly that, to the West, he became known as "The Commentator." His scholarship was embraced across cultures: Jacob Anatoli translated Averroes' Commentaries into Hebrew. Anatoli's colleague and friend Michael Scot translated some directly into Latin.

He analyzed and promoted most of Aristotle (and Plato's Republic) to the known world, as well as writing dozens of books of his own. So far as we know, he did not have access to original texts—there is no evidence that he knew Greek—and so his commentaries are based on Arabic translations of Aristotle.

Unfortunately for him, his rationalist views often got him into trouble when they came up against Islamic theology (which he had studied extensively). He was, in fact, banished by a caliph to whom he had been the personal physician, because some side remarks in Averroes' writing (such as "that Venus is one of the gods") struck the caliph as blasphemous. Fortunately, Averroes was allowed to return home prior to his death.

One of his most radical ideas, based on Aristotle, was that there were multiple intellects, but only one shared soul for all of mankind. To explain that raises more questions, however, unless first we look at a debate I have been putting off for months. Tomorrow, therefore, we will (finally) discuss Nominalism vs. Realism.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Refuting Astrology

As attractive as astrology was in the Middle Ages, not everyone was willing to accept the premise that it was "easy" to use it for predictive purposes, or even that it was likely that the existence and movements of observable heavenly bodies had a direct influence on events and people on Earth.

We have seen how some sources, such as the University of Paris, spoke against astrology's predictive uses not because it believed they were in error, but because they were believed to contravene God's wishes for human beings. There were others who objected to the reliance on astrology because they could not believe that it was likely to work.

Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya (1292-1350) was a Sunni Islam theologian and commentator on the Qu'ran. Not given to flights of fancy, and accustomed to arguing the details of the law, he put a critical lens on astrology. One of the lynch pins of his refutation of astrology came from the fact that hundreds of stars were not included in astrological calculations. Astrologers told him that the stars were too far away and to small to matter. To Al Jawziyya, this was an intolerable double-standard:
And if you astrologers answer that it is precisely because of this distance and smallness that their influences are negligible, then why is it that you claim a great influence for the smallest heavenly body, Mercury? Why is it that you have given an influence to al-Ra's and al-Dhanab, which are two imaginary points?
Astrologers accepted at the time, through their calculations, that the stars appeared small because they were far away, but were actually enormous compared to the world. They also knew that the Milky Way was "a myriad of tiny stars packed together in the sphere of the fixed stars"; Al-Jawziyya said that it was impossible to know what effect, if any, they would have. Astrology had too many variables, and was just so much guesswork.

What were the "two imaginary points" mentioned in the above quotation? He was referring to "orbital nodes," the imaginary point in space where the line of "an orbit crosses the plane of reference to which it is inclined." Astrologers made much out of these points, which had no physical existence, and yet ignored actual physical stars. They neglected stars as being too small to matter, and yet put all their attention on planets that were a ridiculously small fraction of the size of a star. To the keen legal and theological mind of Al-Jawziyya, this suggested that astrology was not, in fact, based on any kind of rational thinking.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Father of Arab Astrology

Abu Ma'shar, from his Introduction to Astronomy
Albertus Magnus, Robert Grosseteste, Geoffrey Chaucer—well-known names from the Middle Ages denoting a Dominican scientist, a university scholar and administrator, and a courtier and poet. One thing they had in common, besides a love of learning, was their attention to the art of astrology. And through their interest in astrology, they were all influenced by a 9th century Arab known in the West as Albumasar. His full name was Abu Ma'shar Ja'far ibn Muhammad ibn 'Umar al-Balkhi (787-886), and he was one of the most respected figures in the history of astrology.

Abu Ma'shar was of particular interest to Western Europe because he was a source for knowledge of and commentary on Aristotle when his writings reached Europe in the 12th century, brought back by the Crusaders. He offered so much more, however. His work blends knowledge of Greek science with Islamic doctrine, Persian chronology, Mesopotamian astrology, and hermetic traditions from Anatolia. He presented a unified approach to the knowledge of several cultures that lent weight to his work.

For instance, he uses the Biblical Flood as the focal point of his astrological tables. He calculates it at midnight on Thursday to Friday, 17-18 February 3101 BC. This date was not arbitrary, nor was it an indication that Abu Ma'shar believed in a short-lived Earth. He chooses the date because it is the start of the Hindu Kali Yuga (the "age of vice"; the last of four phases the world will go through). His knowledge and acceptance of Hindu chronology and its "Great Year" (composed of 360,000 years) is further shown when he calculated a grand conjunction of planets in 183,101 BC, and again in 176,899 BCE.

The Middle Ages loved "unified theories" that could reconcile different traditions to enhance understanding. Abu Ma'shar argued for the superiority of his chronological calculations because he made the year out to be 365.259 days long. Why was he so enamored of this number? Because "259" he explained was the minimum number of days for human gestation (8.6 months). It was obvious to him that he was onto something!

Unlike the hostility experienced by astrology from the University of Paris and others, who felt it was a way to contravene God's plan, or to know what should remain unknowable, Abu Ma'shar was able to give his astrology a veneer of respectability by acknowledging Islamic religious doctrine.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Nicholas of Cusa: Ecumenist

After the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Turks, Nicholas of Cusa (c.1400-1464) wrote De pace fidei (On the Peace of Faith), in which he envisioned a conference in Heaven of representatives of all religions, including Islam and Hussites (the followers of Jan Hus were one of the first Christian Protestant movements, over a century before Luther).

The imaginary conference concluded that it was possible to have a single unified religion, even if it manifests in many different versions with separate practices. After all, the Roman Catholic Church had co-existed with the Eastern Church for centuries; the Eastern Church may not have recognized the authority of the Pope over the East, but the East and West did consider themselves two parts of the same faith.

Nicholas clearly prefers and exalts Christianity, but is willing to find accord with others. He had written Cribratio Alchorani (Sifting the Koran), which acknowledges that Islam and Judaism still possess seeds of the truth. Let me be clear: Nicholas doesn't treat Islam or Judaism as equals with Christianity—in 1451 he had used his authority as a bishop to require Jews in Arnhem to wear badges, and he had imposed other restrictions on Jews that were later lifted by Pope Nicholas V. The fact, however, that a well-known Catholic prelate and respected theologian could write on and publish such tolerant ideas was remarkable for the time.