Ship Shape
In the ancient world the square sail was universal – on Roman galleys, Viking longships, Chinese junks. But square sails made sea-faring entirely dependent on a fair wind.
Arab Dhow
About the 9th century, in the constantly variable winds and narrow waterways of the Red Sea, Arab sailors and pirates developed a triangular or 'lateen' sail which gave them better manoeuvrability and a speed advantage.
Portuguese Caravel, the type of vessel used by Henry the Navigator to edge his way down the west coast of Africa. It was fitted with an Arab 'lateen' sail.
In the late in Middle Ages, as a result of contact with the Arabs, European ships started incorpo-rating triangular sails on their ships, together with a mizzen mast (derived from the Arab word 'miizaan', meaning balance).These three masted ships made the ocean voyages of Columbus, Diaz, and Vasco da Gama possible.
Bath Time
Umayyad baths, Jaen, Spain. Echoes of Rome.
Smelling Good
A form of soap appeared in Moorish Spain in the 8th century where it was made with goat fat and ashes. A 'luxury' version developed in Castile with the addition of olive oil.
A crude attempt at soap making began in 17th century Europe using pork fat and lye (caustic soda)!
Food & Drink
Coffee derives its name from the original source of the tree, the Ethiopian highlands of Kaffa – and was transmitted to other languages via the Arabic 'qahwah' and the Turkish 'kahveh.'
Around the 10th century Sufis in the Yemen began using the drink as a stimulus to stay awake for all-night prayer.
In the mid-17th century Venetian traders brought the beans to Europe and the first coffee houses opened Paris and London.
The crescent shaped croissant was a pastry made to celebrate a victory over the Ottomans.
Sherbet and syrup derive from Arabic 'sharbah' – a drink made from melted snow. Entered English from French sorbet.
Both 'lemons' and 'limes' have Arab/ Persian origin and the fruits were introduced to Europe by Arabs.
Other Arab imports included oranges, apricots, mulberries, bananas, watermelons and eggplants.
Sugar (from Arabic 'sukhar'/Persian 'shakar'). The Arabs planted sugar cane extensively.
Rice cultivation, native to India, followed, in regions hot enough to support the crop – Spain and Sicily.
Artichoke (from Arabic 'al-kharshuf')
Instead of the soft summer emmer wheat cultivated by the Romans the Arabs introduced hard durum wheat. Its higher gluten content allowed longer storage and various uses – such as pasta and couscous.
In contrast, northern Europe ate barley and rye bread.
Love & Romance
Troubadour (from Arabic 'tarrab', to sing)
Poet-musicians of 12th/ 13th century France, notably Provence, got their ideas from Mozarabic Spain.
The wandering minstrels propagated the notion of a 'courtly love', which struck a contrast with the loveless, dynastic marriages of Europe.
The influence of the troubadours was reinforced by tales from returning pilgrims and crusaders, titillated by the perceived delights of the harem.
No, Not the Comfy Chair!
Sofa (from Arabic 'suffah') – comfort for the quieter moments
1001 Nights
The anonymous Arabian Nights, a huge corpus of stories of which the best known are those of Ali Baba, Sinbad the Sailor, and Aladdin, was collated in Arabic about the 10th century, from Persian, Indian and Arab originals.
The classic stories first reached Europe in an 18th century French translation.
Printing
In 1454, Gutenberg developed the most sophisticated printing press of the Middle Ages. However, movable brass type was in use in Islamic Spain 100 years prior, and that is where the West's first printing devices were made.
Holy Warriors The Arabs conquered almost the whole of Spain within three years. Many towns capitulating in return for the promise of religious tolerance. Those who had suffered from the harsh intolerance of the Visigothic Catholic Kings – Arians, heretics, Jews – welcomed and assisted the new rulers. Even some Visigothic princes (for example, Theodemir of Murcia) submitted to Arab overlords and kept their thrones. But others retreated to the mountains of the Asturias. From these small enclaves, after witnessing several centuries of Muslim brilliance, stagnation and decline, Christian knights were able to mount the "reconquest" of Spain. In this they were helped by the rise of fanaticism within Islam.
Wrath of God During the 10th and 11th centuries what the Islamic world had preserved – and developed – of ancient wisdom began to flow back into Europe, together with precious spices, fabulous cloth and a vast emporium of both rich and practical goods. Having done so, the states of Europe, animated by pious avarice for the 'riches of the east', launched two centuries of warfare – the Crusades and in the 12th and 13th centuries established enclaves in the Levant. The savagery of the 'armed monks' coincided with the blitzkrieg from the east mounted by the Mongols from central Asia (with whom the Christians attempted to form an alliance and not unrealistically – at least one Mongol general was a Nestorian Christian). The Islamic world was sent reeling.
Losing the Light Military reversals did not bode well for enlightened Islam. In a manner not unlike the beleaguered Roman Caesars centuries earlier, Muslim regimes turned to mounted nomads and barbarians to fight for them – and reaped a similar fate. Seljuk Turks from central Asia, initially hired as mercenaries in the 10th century, took power in Baghdad in 1055. The Berbers of North Africa, used in the original 8th century conquest of Spain, mutinied and sacked Cordoba. To the delight of the Christians waiting in the mountains, first Almoravids from the Moroccan Sahara wrecked Andalus. Then, in the 13th century, Almohads from the Maghreb repeated the assault. In each case the new barbarians acted in God's name and fought for a 'purity of faith.' The price of religious purity, as ever, was civilization.
Re-assertion of Orthodoxy – The Closing Mind The Iranian Hamid Al Ghazzali (1058-1128) reasserted the cause of religion. In his famous work 'Tuhafut al-Falasifa' ('The Incoherence of the Philosophers') al-Ghazzali held that the approach of logic and the mathematical sciences was essentially correct but he opposed what he regarded as 'excessive rationalism'. Logic should merely be used to elucidate 'God's reality'. Al-Ghazali argued that it was impossible to comprehend the 'absolute and the infinite' and questioned the reliability of the senses. In effect, he formulated a 'Cartesian doubt' centuries ahead of Descartes! Towards the end of his life, al-Ghazzali renounced the world and became a Sufi mystic. Al-Ghazali's work influenced both Jewish and Christian Scholasticism and several of his arguments passed into the theology of Thomas Aquinas who similarly sought to reestablish the authority of orthodox religion. With al-Ghazzali, philosophy, as a discipline distinct from theology, came to an end in the Islamic world. Islam's university system began to emphasize the teaching of theology ('Kalam'), in some places almost exclusively, and attacks began on the philosophers by theologians. In Muslim Spain, a last word came from Cordoba-born Ibn Rushd (aka 'Averroës,' 1126-1198). Ibn Rushd served as qadi (chief judge) for the enlightened amir Ibn Yaqub, for whom he translated Aristotle and Plato. But this was a time of increasing conflict with Christian Spain and growing fanaticism throughout Europe and the Middle East. For his free-thinking Ibn Rushd was banished from Cordoba 1195. Ibn Rushd was the last of the philosophers, his death a few years later coinciding with end of Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad.
Darkness Falls in Al Andalus When the 'Mohammadans' were driven out of Spain by Christian knights from the north, Christian savagery turned on the Jews, who numerically had barely recovered from the previous Christian assault under the Catholic Visigothic kings. The most fortunate fled, some to Morocco with the Moors, many others to the Turkish empire. Wealthy, educated Jews who chose to stay and 'accept Christ' became the prime victims of the Inquisition. And Spain, a land which once had led Europe in science, art and literature, a land of scholars, merchants and knights, became a place of beggars, friars, and bandits. In a typical example of pious vandalism the fine irrigation system that had made southern Spain a richly productive garden was all but reduced to desert in the interest of religious purity:
Storm from the East By the end of the 13th century the Mongols had devastated the eastern lands of Islam and spread terror all the way from the Sinai desert to India. The Abbasid caliphate was finally destroyed when Hulagu, the Mongol ruler, captured Baghdad in 1258, destroying much of the city including its incomparable libraries.
Fragmentation of the Islamic empire was followed by a partial reunification under the leadership of various barbarous nomads from the steppe. Like Christian Bishops working the tribesmen of northern Europe, the imams of Islam achieved by stealth what Arab horsemen could not achieve by the sword and the first of a series of dynasties of Asiatic Islam were installed in triumph.
In the 11th and 12th centuries the Seljuk Turks, as zealous recent converts to Islam, adopted a rigorous orthodox Asharite theology which completely supplanted the intellectual sciences which had gone before. Unlike the more tolerant Fatamids, the Seljuks refused Christian pilgrimage in the Holy Land, exacerbating the conflict there. In the 13th century the Mongols adopted Islam and installed their own unenlightened and brutal regime, the Il-Khanate. One group alone was spared the wrath of the Mongols (such was their fear of 'demons'): 'holy men.' The Mongols were succeeded by Timur, a zealous Muslim conqueror who wrecked much of India. He and his descendants ruled from their Asiatic capital of Samarqand from 1369 to 1500. And then, from humble origins another branch of the Turks, the 'Ottomans,' rose to dominance over the whole of Anatolia and parts of Europe.
Asiatic Islam – Extinguishing the Light In 1453 Mehmet the Conqueror captured Constantinople and put an end to the 'Christian Empire' of Byzantium. Religious fanaticism ruled in the capitals of Islam. Though immensely powerful and rich compared to the puny states of western Europe little that was new would emerge from the realm of the Ottomans and it 'missed out' on the Industrial Revolution that Islam's early promise had made possible. Islam had recovered politically but it had left behind forever its brief spring of liberality and innovation.
Sources:
Copyright © 2004
by Kenneth Humphreys.
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