|
_001.jpg) Baghdad was hit by a series of explosions. The city
raked by violence. Baghdad equals chaos, death, and destruction. Baghdad is a city screaming in pain and dying in the smokescreen. As we watch the tangled
mess on our television screens, it is hard to imagine that Baghdad was once a
great seat of learning. Baghdad and books have been synonymous for hundreds of
years. Bookshelves line family homes and booksellers line the streets of Baghdad. Even now, amidst the rubble and pandemonium the residents of Baghdad shop for
books. “It is an old disease in Iraq – people spend their money on books, not on
food,” jokes an Iraqi translator for NBC News.
In the period, that western history has come to call the
Dark Ages, the love affair between Baghdad and books began. In a time when
churches across Europe felt themselves fortunate to have a library consisting
of several books, there was a street in Baghdad lined with more then 100 shops,
each selling books, stationary, or both. Across the western world, literacy
was restricted to the rich or religious authorities, but in Baghdad, the people
had access to more then 30 libraries.
Within 200 years after the death of Prophet Muhammad,
the small Islamic nation grew into an Empire that stretched from North Africa
to Arabia, from Persia to Uzbekistan and pushed onwards to the frontiers of India and beyond. Around 750CE Baghdad, the city built on the banks of the Tigris River was established as the capital of the Islamic empire. Its location connected
it to countries as far away as China, and Baghdad soon became not only the
political and administrative centre but also the hub of culture and learning.
Men and women from all parts of the Empire flocked to Baghdad and brought with them knowledge from the far corners of the known world. Islam
teaches that there is no compulsion in religion so therefore all faiths united
in their thirst for knowledge and enlightenment. In the quest to seek the
wonders of the world, and acknowledge the majesty of The Creator, Islam did not
put up barriers separating science and scholarship, from faith.
Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Zoroastrians, and
even people from other more obscure faiths lived and worked together in Baghdad. Books began to symbolise life of Baghdad. The streets were alive with authors,
translators, scribes, illuminators, librarians, binders, collectors, and
sellers. However, these people from such diverse backgrounds need to be
connected. Arabic developed as the language of scholarship and the connection
was established.
The leaders of the Islamic Empire sort out classical
texts. The works of Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Plutarch among many others
were translated into Arabic. Christian monks translated the Bible into Arabic
and Jewish philosophers used Arabic translations of Greek philosophical works
to write their own treatise and essays. When Europe began to emerge from the
dark ages into a period of enlightenment, they relied on books written in
Arabic to redeem and reclaim the foundations of the Western empire.
Many of the original books translated in Baghdad were lost or destroyed in their home countries, and remained only in their Arabic
translations. The scholars of Baghdad were responsible for preserving
classical works from the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians and even translated
classics from Persia, India and China. These great works were then translated
from Arabic back into languages such as Turkish, Persian, Hebrew, and Latin. Catholic
theologian, Thomas Aquinas made his famous integration of faith and reason
after reading Aristotle’s philosophy in a translation by Baghdad scholars.
The scholars of Baghdad not only collected and synthesised
the great works, they added to the body of knowledge. They opened up new
fields of scholarship, such as celestial mechanics, and introduced the world to
algebra and geometry. A Baghdad scholar produced an ophthalmology
textbook, believed the world’s first medical book containing anatomical
drawings. It was the definitive work in both the east and west, and was used
for more than eight centuries.
As Baghdad transformed itself into a centre of learning Kaliph,
Harun Al Rashid, and his son, Mamoon, opened one of histories most renowned
think tanks, Bayt al Hikmah, or the House of Wisdom. The scholars at
the House of Wisdom, unlike their modern counterparts, did not
"specialize.” Al-Razi was a philosopher and a mathematician as well as a
physician, and al-Kindi, wrote on logic, philosophy, geometry, calculation,
arithmetic, music, and astronomy. Among his works were such titles as The
Reason Why Rain Rarely Falls in Certain Places, The Cause of Vertigo, and
Crossbreeding the Dove.
The historian al-Maqrizi described the opening of the
House of Wisdom in 1004 CE. “The students took up their residence. The books
were brought from [many other] libraries ... and the public was admitted. Whosoever
wanted was at liberty to copy any book he wished to copy, or whoever required
to read a certain book found in the library could do so. Scholars studied the
Quran, astronomy, grammar, lexicography and medicine. The building was,
moreover, adorned by carpets and all doors and corridors had curtains, and
managers, servants, porters, and other menials were appointed to maintain the
establishment.”
Books have always played a role in the life of Baghdad. In 11th century CE Baghdad , a manuscript “... was about the size of
the modern book, containing good quality paper with writing on both sides, and
bound in leather covers”. An average bookshop contained several hundred titles
including the Quran and commentaries on the Quran, languages and calligraphy,
Christian and Jewish scriptures, histories, government works, court accounts,
pre-Islamic and Islamic poetry, works by various schools of Muslim thought,
biographies, astronomy, Greek and Islamic medicine, literature, popular
fiction, and travel guides (to India, China, Indochina).
Today, as the bombs explode around them and their world
falls into an abyss, the people of Baghdad hold on to their literary heritage.
Amongst the rubble, the booksellers ply their trade and the citizens of Baghdad make choices between reading and eating. This however is not surprising for Islam
has a long tradition of literacy. The first word of Quran revealed to Prophet
Muhammad was iqra – read, learn, and understand In part two we will go
on a journey of discovery to see what the Quran and the authentic traditions of
Prophet Muhammad say about literacy and seeking knowledge.
|
