Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

Position of the Teachers
There were various classes of teachers under the Abbasid according to their competency in various branches of the knowledge. There were two major types of the teacher of Abbasids society:
1. Mu’allim
2.
Mu’addib
The teachers of elementary schools having low position in Abbasid social structure of the society, were called Mu’aallim. Mu’addib was superior to Mu’allim. Next to these classes, was professor, who taught all branches of knowledge of science and arts to the royal family. Several authors have set down their ideas on teacher, student and teaching but the differences between them are not so great they need to be set down separately. Mawardi sums up the conditions of learning as:
1. Reason perceives facts
2. Intelligence
’ Muhammad Aslam, History of Muslim Education, P. 15.
Scientific and Literary Progress under the Abbasids 635
3. Quick comprehension
4. Perseverance.
5. Contentment with modest living
6. Leisure
7. Freedom from anxiety
8. Long life
9. A good teacher
The work of a good teacher was thus described. He went several times over the passage from at Muhadhdhab revised it with the students. The pay of the teachers was quite handsome amount of that time. Teachers as well as poor students were supported by the income derived from endowments attached to mosque, shrines, hospitals and in some cases donation from the elite classes. Some of them received allowance from the royal treasury. The concept of the regular vacations as the modern time was not existed in the Abbasid period. Bayt-al-Hikmah was the great center of learning. All branches of knowledge, science, arts were taught in the institution.
Mustansria and Tajyya were the two more institutions for higher education in Abbasid period. After the age of translation which was started with Mansur and reached the highest position during the period of Mamun. Greek, Persian, Indians books were translated into Arabic. The book shops as a commercial and education agency also makes its appearance early under the Abbasids The common writing material was parchment or papyrus down to the beginning of third Muslim century. Certain official documents written on paper. Chinese paper was imported into Iraq, but soon the paper industry gained a well position in Iraq. The development of education in Abbasid time reached its climax during the reign of Mamun. There were a large number of richly endowed cchooir>, upened ^ university was founded, libraries were organized and observatory was set up for the development of learning.10
Music
The art of music continued to make progress with the Arabs, and under the Abbasids it \vas carried to perfection. During the period covered by the ”Golden Age,” Arabian music made greater progress than during any other period. This was primarily due to two causes, which can be vie\ved quite apart from industrial prosperity or
’Hitti, P411

636
Political and Cultural History’ of Islam

Scientific and Literary Progress under tlie
637
political poise. These causes were the influence of Shi’a and Mu’tazili ideas upon Islamic thought, and the dominant note of Greek scientific culture in secular life. The former brought a more tolerant attitude towards music in so far as Islam was concerned. Strange to say, however, the theologians had considerable power at court. Whilst the Umayyads kept the theologian to his private and domestic sphere, the Abbasids brought him into the court and made him take part in public policy. Favouring the theologian in this way, was evidently considered a better policy than keeping him at a distance. The personal contact seems to have enoM**i the caliphs to get their own way to a considerable extent, and certainly it otts’ned so far as the malahi were concerned, including music. Harun, said to Ibrahim ibn Sa’d al-Zuhri the theologian one day, ”I hear that Malik ibn Anas makes singing a crime.” The court theologian replied, ”Has Malik the right to loose and bind?....If I heard Malik condemning it, and I had the power, I would improve his education.” Harun was amused at the reply. Indeed, what other reply could al-Zuhri have made, seeing that everyone knew, many to their cost, that it was Harun alone who could ”loose and bind.” Of course, the orthodox still murmured, and we have the poet Bashshar ibn Burd, himself a rationalist, voicing their opinion in a satire saying how incongruous it was to find a ”Successor of the Holy Prophet in the midst of winebottle and lute.” The pasquinade brought him to his death.
Proficiency in the theoretical side of musical art had theories derived from the ancient Greeks. Collectors of songs such as Yahya ai-jviakki, Ahmad ibn Yahva al-VUkki. Fulaih ibn Abi’I Aura’, and Ishaq al-Mausiii, issued several works, whilst the tast r^med compiled a dozen or so biographies of famous musicians. It is here that we see how considerably the Arabian traditions were preserved in the music of the period. The rhythmic modes (iqa’at) appeal to have been little different from what we saw in Umayva^ fifm^ Tney are fully described in the Risala fi Ijza’ Khabariya al-musiqi by alKindi, now preserved at Berlin. The only apparent difference is the substitution of a khafif ai-khafif instead of a ramal tunburi. The Persians adopted the rhythmic modes of the Arabs, although it was not until the time of Harun (786-809) that they took the ramal mode, which was introduced by a musician named Salmak.
Discussions on the theory of music, even before the caliphs, both by the virtuosi and the scientific musicians, were not uncommon, and they certainly reveal the temper of the period. That a
phonetic notation was known during the Golden Age is highly probate. Perhaps the letter of Ishaq to Prince Ibrahim mentioned above contained a notation. We certainly read that caliph al-Ma’mun ”waited twenty montus without hearing a letter (harf) of music (ghind).” Al- Kindi (d. . 874) uses a notation in his Risala fi khubr ta’Iif al- alhan, which is the earliest definite use of it among the Arabs.”
Considerable changes had taken place on the instrumental side, and during the second half of the 8th century, one of the court musicians, Zalzal, introduced a new type of Ud (lute), which was soon generally adopted in the place of the Ud, al-Farist or Persian lute that had been in common use. This ”’perfect lute” was called the Ud al-shabbut, which Hugh thinks to have been the instrument in which the neck and fingerboard gradually broadened out to the body. It was still mounted with four strings, although in al-Andalus, a musician named Ziryab had added a fifth. This Ziryab, whilst he was at the court of Harun (786-809), introduced some novel improvement to the lute.