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

Some Scholar’s Views on Islam’s influence on Europe
According to John W. Cambell, the whole of Europe except Italy was in a state of barbarism. It was the civilisation of Islam which infused light into Europe. Lane-Poole in his famous book ”The Moors in Spain”, remarks: ”Students flocked from France, Germany, England and every part of Europe to drink from the fountain of learning which flowed only in the city of Moors”. S.P. Scott in his monumental work ”Moorish Empire in Europe” writes, ”No achievement of ancient or modern time was perfected with such rapidity or produced such decided effect upon the intellectual progress of the human race as that of the Arabs”.
About Islam’s contribution to the modern world progress and western civilisation Oxford Junior Encyclopedia remarks: ”It is said that institutions created by the Arab Muslims were remarkable for their good sense and humanity and that justice was frequently well administered. Even the Jews and Christians so long as they paid taxes received the protection of the Islamic State. The modern world also owes a debt to Islam for keeping alive and fostering art and science through dark ages in the great centres of Arab civilization at Baghdad, Cairo and Cordova”.
Allama Muhammed Asad in his book ”Islam at the Crossroads”, referring to the new cultural impulses and ideas which the Arabs had been transmitting to the West for several centuries, comments: ”Whatever had been best in the culture of old Greece and the later Hellenistic period, the Arabs had revived in their learning and improved upon, in the centuries that followed the establishment of the early Islamic Empire. I do not say that the absorption of Hellenistic thought was an undisputed benefit to the Arabs, and the Muslims generally-because it was not. But for all the difficulties which this revived Hellenistic culture may have caused to the
Muslims Contribution in the European Renaissance
745
Muslims by introducing Aristotelian and new-Platonic philosophy into Islamic theology and jurisprudence, it acted, through the Arabs, as an immense stimulus to Europe. The Middle Ages had laid waste Europe’s productive forces. Sciences were stagnant, superstition reigned supreme, the social life was primitive and crude to an extent hardly conceivable today. At that point the cultural influence of the Islamic world-at first through the adventure of the Crusades in the East and the brilliant universities of Muslim Spain in the West, and later through the growing commercial relations established by the republics of Genoa and Venice-began to hammer at the bolted doors of European civilization. Before the dazzled eyes of the European scholars and thinkers another civilization appearedrefined, progressive, full of passionate life and in possession of cultural treasures which Europe had long ago lost and forgotten.
”What the Arabs had done was a far more than a mere revival of old Greece. They had created an entirely new scientific world of their own and developed until then unknown avenues of research and philosophy. All this they communicated through different channels to the western world; and it is not too much to say that the modern scientific age in which we are living at present was not inaugurated in the cities of Christian Europe, but in such Islamic centres as Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Cordova, Nishpur and Samarqand.”
The effect of these influences on Europe was tremendous. With the approach of Islamic civilization a new intellectual light < dawned on the sky of the west and infused it with fresh life and thirst ! for progress. It is no more than a just appreciation of its value that European historians term that period of regeneration, the Renaissance-that is, ”re-birth”. It was, in fact, a re-birth of Europe. Ameer Ali estimating the achievements of the Arabs says: f’The Saracenic race by its elastic genius as well as by its central Dosition-with the priceless treasures of dying Greece and Rome on ine side, and of Persia on the other, and India and China far away sleeping the sleep of ages-was pre-eminentl) fitted to become the teacher of mankind. Under the inspiring influence of the great Prophet, who gave them a code and a nationality, and assisted b\

746 Political and Cultural History of Islam

their sovereigns, the Saracens caught up the lessons of wisdom from the East and the West, combined them with the teachings of the Master, and started from soldiers into scholars.” ,
Humboldt says, ”The Arabs were admirably situated to act the part of mediators, and to influence the nations from the Euphrates to the Guadalquivir and Mid-Africa. Their unexampled intellectual activity marks a distinct epoch in the history of the world.”
Charles T. Gorham, writing about the achievements of the Muslims in his book ”Christianity and Civilization says: ”In the eighth century the Moors conquered Spain, and. as if by magic, a splendid civilization sprang into being. An extensive commerce and a general love for industry created a wealth that astounded the Christian world. Wise laws developed and regulated an ingenious system of agriculture. The Moors bred cattle, sheep and horses. Civilization owes to them the culture of silk and introduction into Europe of rice, sugar, cotton and many fruits. They fostered the manufacture of textile fabrics, earthern-ware, iron, steel and leather. While Christians were slaughtering one another for the glory of God, the Spanish Moors were writing treatises on the principles of trade and commerce. A Christian stricken by disease sought the aid of the nearest saint, and wanted a miracle; the Moors relied on the presumptions of a physician or the skill of a surgeon. Rome and Constantinople were asserting the flatness of the earth while the Spanish Arabs were using globes in their common schools. In practical science especially in astronomy, botany, optics, surgery and medicine their achievements were beyond imitation or even comprehension of the rest of Europe for hundreds of years. The study of Algebra and Mathematics was carefully cultivated by the Moors. They understood the weight of the atmosphere and the principles of hydrostatics, discovered the theory of the pendulum, recognized gravity as force, and, at least partially, discovered the theory of the progressive development of animal organism.
A school of poets arose in Spain who furnished the germs of poetry of Provence; the fiction writer and the historian were held in high esteem. Dictionaries, one of which was in sixty volumes, and encyclopaedias were completed. The palaces of the rulers were
Muslims Contribution m the European Renaissance 747
adorned with mosaics and tapestries and lighted by chandeliers the courts were cooled by cascades; baths of marble were supplied with warm and cold water, according to the season. The scrupulous cleanliness of the Arab was as great an improvement on the verminous hair shirt of the Christian saint as the superb palace of the Caliph was upon the Chimneyless barn of the Christian King. In the great city of Cordova, a centre of learning and prosperity, the streets were paved and lighted centuries before London or Paris had imagined such luxuries.”
George Sarton, the great historian of science has paid glowing tributes to Muslim scholars and their attainments: ”The most valuable of all, the most original and the most pregnant works were written in Arabic. From the second half of the eighth to the end of the eleventh century, Arabic was the scientific and the progressive language of mankind. During that period anyone wishing to be wellinformed and upto-date, had to study Arabic. It will suffice here to evoke a few glorious names without contemporary equivalents in the West: Jabir-Ibn Hayyan, AI-Kindi, AI-Khwarizmi, Al-Farghani, AlRazi, Thabit Ibn Qura, Al-Battani. Hunain Ibn Ishaq, Al-Farabi, Ibrahim Ibn Sinan, AI-Mas’udi, Al-Tabari, Abul Wafa, Ali Ibn Abbas, Abul Qasim, Ibn-al-Jazzar, Al-Biruni, Ibn Sina, AI-Ghazzali, Al-Zarqali, Omar Khayyam-a magnificent array of names which it would not be difficult to extent. If anyone tells you that the Middle Ages were scientifically sterile, just quote these men to him. All these scientists flourished within a relatively short period between

750 and 1100 A.D.”

E.A.W. Budge, in Chronography says: ”And there arose among the Arabs, philosophers, mathematicians and physicians, who surpassed the ancient sages in the exactness of their knowledge. The only foundations on which they set up their buildings were Greek houses; the wisdom-buildings which they erected were great by reason of their highly polished diction, and their greatly skilled researches.”6
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The Fatirmds
749
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