بنات بليز أبي مساعدة بحث عن اي موضوع

أنتي قولي لي أيش عن ايش حابه يكون ( بالعربي) ورااح أجيبه لك ان شااءالله =)

السلام عليكم
في بحث لقيته بالإنكليزي في أحد المنتديات وجاهز عن الدول العربية بس هو مرة طويل
و إنتي تبغي يكون معه الترجمة بالعربي

شكرا لكم أخواتي
لكن البحث اللي أبيه يكون بالإنجلش
وعادي حتى لو طويل

تفضلي هذا هو الموضوع
The Arab Countries The Arab homeland stretches some 5,000 miles— nearly twice the distance between New York and San Francisco—from the Atlantic coast of northern Africa in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to Central Africa in the south. It covers an area of 5.25 million square miles. By comparison, the United States comprises 3.6 million square miles.
With seventy-two percent of its territory in Africa and twenty-eight percent in Asia, the Arab world straddles two continents, a position that has made it one of the world's most strategic regions. Long coastlines give it access to vital waterways: the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Arabian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
While the region is dominated by dry climatic conditions, the existence of mountain ranges permits seasonal rainfall. The Atlas range in northwest Africa (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) forms a barrier between the Sahara Desert and the coastal areas. Other important mountain systems are the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges and the Zagros Mountains to the east of Iraq.
Given the preponderance of arid conditions, reliable sources of water are immensely important; be they springs, from which oases are formed, or rivers. Foremost among the river valleys are the Nile and the Tigris-Euphrates.
The population of the Arab nation—approximately 253 million as of 1994—is a youthful one. Almost half of the population is under fifteen years of age. Given the current annual rate of increase, the population will be approximately 280 million by the year 2000.
The concept of average population density has little meaning when applied to the Arab world. Since significant human settlement is found only where water supplies are adequate, the overwhelming majority of Arabs live in relatively high concentrations along coastal areas and major river valleys. The most striking example of this phenomenon is in Egypt where more than ninety percent of the population lives on less than five percent of the land.
Agriculture is the primary economic activity in the Arab homeland. The most important food crops are wheat, barley, rice, maize, dates and millet. These are largely consumed within the region, while cotton, sugarcane, sugar beets and sesame are exported as cash crops.
Contrary to popular belief, relatively few Arab countries possess petroleum and natural gas resources. Other natural resources include iron-ore, lead, phosphate, cobalt and manganese.
It was in the Arab land that man first organized into a settled form of society, cultivating grain and raising livestock, establishing cities and promoting diverse skills and occupations. In such a setting, rich and complex cultures were nourished: ancient Egypt, Sumer, Assyria, Babylonia and Phoenicia were great civilizations, legends even in their own day, whose traces continue to be uncovered in archeological sites throughout the region.
It was in this same area that the three great monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—originated, in time spreading to all corners of the world. The followers of those faiths lived in harmony throughout the centuries in the Arab homeland, since all considered themselves the people of one God.
The Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him appeared in the seventh century A.D. with the message of Islam. His Arab followers soon spread the new faith in the West, across North Africa into Spain and France, and in the East, to the borders of China. These Muslim believers rapidly founded a new and dynamic civilization that for centuries was the only bright light in an otherwise culturally and intellectually stagnant world. Indeed, while ****pe was experiencing its "Dark Ages," the Arab/Islamic civilization was at its apogee. It was this same Islamic civilization, with its many contributions to science and the humanities, that paved the way for the rise of the West to its present prominence.
The Arab homeland today is a rich composite of many diverse influences. Various ethnic, linguistic and religious groups inhabit the region. Yet, Islam and the Arabic language constitute its two predominant cultural features. The Arab people, spread over a vast area, enjoy common bonds of history and tradition. Members of twenty-one different countries, the Arabs consider themselves to be one nation.
The Arab people are further united through their membership and participation in the League of Arab States. One of the oldest regional organizations in the world, the Arab League was founded on March 22, 1945, even before the formal establishment of the United Nations. The primary objective of the Arab League, as it is commonly called, is to facilitate maximum integration among the Arab countries through coordination of their activities in the political sphere as well as in the fields of economics, social services, education, communications, development, technology and industrialization.
The headquarters of the Arab League are in Cairo, Egypt, which also hosts some of the League's specialized agencies. Additional agencies are based in the capitals of other Arab countries. The twenty-two member states of the League, in alphabetical order, are: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoro Islands, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
The Arab nation in the twentieth century is a region in transition— developing, modernizing, and building the foundation for its own renaissance. Its great and ancient cities—Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad— with populations well into the millions, are rapidly expanding their municipal services, communications systems and other facilities. New construction is evident everywhere as high-rise buildings replace the covered bazaars of former times.
Those Arab countries with natural resources, especially petroleum, are devoting large funds to development programs in nearly every field while at the same time providing their less fortunate sister states with financial assistance to help them modernize. Scores of thousands of young Arabs are studying in old and new universities in their own countries and abroad, particularly in the United States where there are an estimated 60,000 Arab students. They are specializing in professions and disciplines that will enhance the progress of their homeland.
In spite of all of this development and modernization, the Arab nation is also dedicated to preserving its traditions and values which are largely rooted in Islam. Its people are reaching out for progress while endeavoring to avoid the confusion that so often accompanies rapid change.
While the great urban centers of the Arab nation are reaping the benefits of the space age, including satellite communications with other parts of the world, many retain the flavor of the past through their architecture, arts and traditions. In sum, the Arabs today are still drawing cultural sustenance from their great past, while fueling their advance into the future.
This present collection is intended to offer the reader a glimpse of some of the major contributions made by the Arabs to world civilization. Its purpose is normely to acknowledge a great cultural debt, but also to stimulate interest in a region and its people based on mutual respect and understanding.
ISLAM
Since the seventh century A.D., the culture of the Arab world has been dominated by the last of the three great monotheistic religions to have emerged from the region: Islam. Islam, faith of the vast majority of Arabs, is more than just a religion; it is the focal point of Arab society for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, permeating their culture at every level—political, social, economic, as well as private. To appreciate the enormous force of Islam in the Arab world, one must understand the basic tenets of the faith—how it emerged and grew.
Islam originated in the Arabian Peninsula— present-day Saudi Arabia—in 622 A.D. According to Islamic tradition, God ( Allah ) conveyed to Muhammad, a tradesman, a series of revelations which were to form the basis of the new faith. Islam means submission—submission to the will of God; a Muslim, in turn, is one who has submitted himself to Allah and who acknowledges Muhammad as His prophet.
Muslims consider Prophet Muhammad to be the last in a series of prophets which included Abraham, Moses and Jesus, to whom God revealed His Divine Message. Islamic tradition, in fact, takes into account the doctrines of both Judaism and Christianity which preceded it. For example, Muslims believe, as do both Jews and Christians, in one God and in an afterlife. Islam also acknowledges Jews and Christians as the "people of the Book" ( ahl al-kitab ), "the Book" meaning the Bible, and has granted them privileged status from the early days of the Islamic empire into modern times. For this reason, religious minorities throughout the Arab world have survived and flourished during periods of severe cultural and religious repression elsewhere.
The body of revelation which Allah delivered to Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel is contained in the Qur'an , the holy book of Islam. The Qur'an , written in Arabic, the language of Allah's divine transmission, provides the Muslim believer with all he or she needs to know to lead a good and pious life. In addition to its obvious religious significance, the revelation of the Qur'an represents the crowning literary achievement of the Arabic language. It has been both an immeasurable influence on the development of Arabic literature and an inspiration for all branches of literature and scholarship. Islamic acts of devotion and worship are expressed in the Five Pillars of Islam. These involve not only profession of faith, but also recognition of God in all aspects of human conduct. The Five Pillars are:
(1) Profession of Faith , or shahada in Arabic, which requires the believer to profess the unity of God and the mission of Muhammad . This involves the repetition of the formula: "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." This assertion forms part of every prayer and in a critical situation, one may repeat the first part in order to establish one's identity as a Muslim.
(2) Prayer , salatt , is required five times a day: at dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset and dusk. It must be performed in a state of ritual purity and every word must be in Arabic. The worshipper has the choice of praying privately, in the open air or in a house; or with a group outdoors or in a mosque. Islam opposes the practice of withdrawing into ascetic life. For this reason, there is no priesthood, as is known in the West, only 'ulema , learned men, who are well-versed in Islamic law and tradition. Throughout the Muslim world, services are held at noon on Fridays in mosques. Muhammad did not explicitly designate Friday as a day of rest, only a part of which is devoted to a special religious service. Merchants are free to open their shops before and after the service.
(3) The third Pillar of Islam, Almsgiving , zaka or zakat , embodies the principle of social responsibility. This precept teaches that what belongs to the believer also belongs to the community in the ultimate sense, and that only by donating a proportion of his or her wealth for public use does a person legitimize what he or she retains. The zaka , in addition to the other tenets of Islam, is a religious obligation, and believers are expected to treat it seriously.
(4) The ancient Semitic institution of Fasting is the fourth Pillar of Islam, known as saum . To a Muslim, it means observing Ramadan, the month during which, it is written, God sent the Qur'an to the lowest heaven where Gabriel received it and revealed it in time to Muhammad. Fasting demands complete abstinence from food and drink from dawn to sunset every day during Ramadan.
(5) The last cherished Pillar of Islam is the Pilgrimage to Mecca , al-hajj , where God's revelation was first disclosed to Muhammad. Believers worship publicly at the Holy Mosque, expressing the full equality among Muslims with a common objective—all performing the same actions, all seeking to gain the favor of God. All pilgrims, from various cultures and classes, wear identical white robes as they assemble around a single center, the Ka'aba , which inspires them with a strong sense of unity. Every Muslim is expected to make the pilgrimage at least once during his or her lifetime. Attached to the experience of the pilgrimage is added status: after the individual returns home, he or she is addressed as " al-Hajj " or " al-Hajjah " (the pilgrim), a title which carries great prestige.
While the Islamic community throughout the world is united by the two essential beliefs in (1) the Oneness of God and (2) the divine mission of His Prophet, there developed shortly after Muhammad's death a debate within the Islamic community over who should succeed the Prophet as leader of the faithful. This debate split the community into Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims. It is important to remember, however, that on fundamental issues, Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims are in basic agreement since they both draw on the Qur'an and the Shari'ah , body of Islamic Law.
ARABIC
While most people know that Arabic is the written and spoken language of more than 150 million inhabitants of the Arab world, few realize that the Arabic script is also used by one-seventh of the world's population.
Millions of people in Africa and Asia write their languages in the Arabic alphabet. Farsi—the language of Iran—and Urdu—the language of Pakistan and some parts of India—are written in the Arabic script. The Turkish language employed Arabic characters until the 1920's. In addition, Arabic script is used today in Afghanistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, sections of China and even in the Muslim areas of the Philippines and the former Soviet Union.
The reason for the extensive use of Arabic dates back to the emergence of the Islamic faith in 622 A.D. The Qur'an , the Holy Book of Islam, was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad and subsequently, recorded in Arabic. Thus, for the Muslim Arab of that time, as well as today, his language and the language of God ( Allah ) are identical. Arabic remains the primary vehicle for prayer in Islam.
As the new believers, or Muslims, spread out from the Arabian Peninsula to create a vast empire—first with its capital in Damascus then, later, in Baghdad—Arabic became the administrative language of vast sections of the civilized world. It drew upon Byzantine and Persian terms and its own immense inner resources of vocabulary and grammatical flexibility. By the eleventh century A.D., this language was the common medium of expression from Persia to the Pyrenees—the language of kings and commoners, poets and princes, scholars and scientists. Arabic became the principal reservoir of human knowledge, including the repository for the accumulated wisdom of past ages, supplanting previous cultural languages, such as Greek and Latin.
Arabic belongs to the Semitic family of languages, of which Hebrew is also a member; thus, the term "Semite" refers to anyone who speaks a Semitic tongue. Arabic script reads from right to left and its alphabet contains twenty-eight characters. While it is universally written, read and understood in its classical form, spoken Arabic has undergone regional or dialectical variations.
The Arabic language developed through the centuries in what is today Saudi Arabia until, in the era immediately preceding the appearance of Islam, it acquired the form in which it is known today. Arab poets of the pre-Islamic, or Jahiliyyah period, had developed a language of amazing richness and flexibility, despite the fact that many were desert bedouins (nomads) with little or no formal education. For the most part, their poetry was transmitted and preserved orally. The Arabic language was then, as it is now, easily capable of creating new words and terminology in order to adapt to the demands of new scientific and artistic discoveries.
As the Empire spread, the Arabic language—and, indeed, culture—was enriched by contacts with other civilizations: Greeks, Persians, Copts, Romans, Indians and Chinese. During the ninth and tenth centuries, a great translation movement, centered in Baghdad, was in force, in which many ancient scientific and philosophical tracts were transposed from ancient languages, especially Greek, into Arabic. Many were enhanced by the new wisdom suggested by Arab thinkers; other texts were simply preserved, only to re-emerge in ****pe during the Renaissance.
Modern ****pean languages, such as Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and English owe a great debt to Arabic. The English language itself contains many words borrowed from Arabic: algebra, alchemy, admiral, genius, ghoul, mare sherbet, soda and many others. Few sample of English words originated from Arabic

• AMBER * 'ANBAR
  (Fossilized resin)


• BORAX * BOWRAQ


• RACKET * RAHAT
  (Palm of the hand)


• CANE * QANAH
  (Pipe, reed)


• GARBLE * GHARBALA
  (To sift)


• GHOUL * GHUL
  (Evil spirit, ogre)


• HAZARD * AL AZ-ZAHR
  (Dice - as in "roll of the dice")


• ALCOHOL * AL-KUHL
  (Spirits of fermentation)


• GUITAR * QITAR

• GIRAFFE * ZIRAFAH


• ORANGE * NARANJ


• COFFEE, CAFE * QAHWAH
  (Coffee, originally wine)


• SAFARI * SAFARA
  (To travel)


• TAMBOURINE * TUNBUR
  (A drum)


• SANDAL * SANDAL
  (Arab skiff or type of sandal)


• LUTE * AL'OUD
  (The lute)


• TARIFF * TA'RIF
  (Declaration)


• SUGAR * SUKKAR

ARABIC WRITING AND CALLIGRAPHY
Arabic calligraphy is characterized by flowing patterns and intricate geometrical designs. This fine writing—which the Alexandrian philosopher, Euclid, called a "spiritual technique"—has poured forth from the pens of Arabs for the last thirteen centuries.
In a broad sense, calligraphy is merely hand-writing, a tool for recording and communicating; but in the Arab world it is an art, an art with a remarkable history; a form with great masters and revered traditions. Beauty alone distinguishes calligraphy from ordinary handwriting; writing may express ideas, but to the Arab it must also express the broader dimension of aesthetics.
Historians disagree on both the birthplace and birthdate of Arabic writing, but the most widely accepted theory is that it developed from Nabataean, a west Aramaic dialect which served as the international language of the Middle East from about the fourth century, B.C., until the seventh century, A.D. As the new Islamic faith emerged and spread, the Arabic of the Arabian Peninsula replaced Aramaic as the lingua franca of the area.
As we have noted elsewhere, the Arabs had a highly developed oral tradition in poetry even before they had an alphabet. Poetry was composed and committed to memory and was passed on in this manner from generation to generation. Indeed, in the beginning, even the Qur'an , the Holy Book of Islam and the Arabic language's crowning literary achievement, was committed to memory by professional memorizers who attended the Prophet Muhammad. For fifteen years after his death, it existed only in oral form.
The Caliph 'Uthman, 644-656 A.D., fearing dangerous diversity in such a method, ordered that an official recension be undertaken. In the seventh century, only consonants and long vowels were written; the short vowels had to be inferred by the reader. But even more confusing was the fact that several consonants were written with the same symbol; only later was a system of dots above and below the letters devised in order to differentiate among them. Finally, in 933 A.D., the final version of the written Qur'an —the one which is considered authoritative even to this day— was completed.
Just as the Christian monks of ****pe in the Middle Ages spent lifetimes writing and illuminating religious manuscripts, so, too, did the Arab forebears devote their lives to producing elegantly handwritten copies of the Qur'an . Because Islam's monotheism discouraged the representation of human or animal forms, the calligrapher found artistic expression in highly stylized intricate and flowing patterns. Over a period of centuries, calligraphy remained a supreme art form, replacing design, painting and sculpture. Calligraphy filled not only palaces and mosques, but clothing, carpets, decorative items and literary works. The artist could draw from any number of styles— kufic, thuluth and the best known, naksh —depending, often, on the purpose of that inscription.
From the Dome of the Mosque of the Rock in Jerusalem to the great mosques of Isfahan in Persia, calligraphy decorated, enhanced and even helped to visually unify the greatest Muslim structures. The art of Arabic calligraphy was employed in many ****pean churches as well, such as in Saint Peter's in Rome. The representations of Christian saints that beautify the Capella Palatina in Palermo, Sicily, bear inscriptions in kufic , the early Arabic script. Today, the calligraphic tradition lives on throughout the Arab/Islamic world in religious, educational, governmental and commercial architecture.
EDUCATION
The Prophet Muhammad said "it is the duty of every Muslim man and woman to seek education," and under his influence, the Arabs were encouraged to pursue knowledge for its own sake. Fulfilling the duty to pursue knowledge gave Muslims a head-start in education. Among the early elementary educational institutions were the mosque schools which were founded by the Prophet himself; he sat in the mosque surrounded by a halqa (circle) of listeners, intent on his instructions. Muhammad also sent teachers to the various tribes to instruct their members in the Qur'an .
The formal pursuit of knowledge had existed in one form or another since the time of the Greeks. The Arabs translated and preserved not only the teachings of the Greeks but those of the Indians and the Persians as well. More importantly, they used these basic teachings as a starting point from which to launch a mass revolution in education beginning during the Abbasid dynasty (750-1258 A.D.).
During the Abbasid period, thousands of mosque schools were established throughout the Arab empire and the subjects of study were increased to include hadith (the science of tradition), fiqh (jurisprudence), philology, poetry, rhetoric and others. In tenth century Baghdad alone there were an estimated 3,000 mosques. Fourteenth century Alexandria had some 12,000 mosques, all of which played an important role in education.
In the mosque school, the teacher sat on a cushion and leaned against a column or wall as his students sat around him listening and taking notes. Only Muslims were allowed to attend the Qur'an or hadith sessions, but non-Muslims could attend all other subjects. There was no age limit, nor were there any restrictions on women attending classes.
Historians such as Ibn Khallikan reported that women also taught classes in which men took lessons. Few Westerners recognize the extent to which Arab women contributed to the social, economic and political life of the empire. Arab women excelled in medicine, mysticism, poetry, teaching, and oratory and even took active roles in military conflicts. Current misconceptions are based on false stereotypes of Arab life and culture popularized by some journalists and "Orientalists."
In the mosque schools, rich and poor alike attended classes freely. Classes were held at specific times and announced in advance by the teacher. Students could attend several classes a day, sometimes traveling from one mosque to another. Teachers were respected by their students and there were formal, if unwritten, rules of behavi. Laughing, talking, joking or disrespectful behavior of any kind were not permitted.
Different teachers used various methods of instruction. Some preferred to teach from a text first and then to answer questions. Others allowed student assistants to read or elaborate upon the instructor's theories while the teachers themselves remained available to comment or answer questions. Still others taught without the benefit of texts.
In 1066 A.D., Nizam al-Mulk, a Seljuk vizier, founded the Nizamiyya Madrasa in Baghdad which became the forerunner of secondary/college level education in the Arab empire. Madrasas had existed long before Nizam al-Mulk, but his contribution was the popularization of this type of school. The madrasa gave rise to various universities in the Arab empire and become the prototype of several early ****pean universities. Founded in 969 A.D., Al-Azhar University in Cairo preceded other universities in ****pe by two centuries. Today it attracts students from all over the world.
The madrasas, which literally mean "places for learning," were the beginning of departmentalized schools where education was available to all. The madrasas even provided student dormitories. Each madrasa , depending on its location, had a specific curriculum. The subjects taught were the religious sciences ( e.g. , the study of the Qur'an, hadith, jurisprudence and grammar) and the intellectual sciences ( e.g., mathematics, astronomy, music and physics). As these schools began to attract distinguished teachers and specialists from all corners of the Arab empire, the number of disciplines increased. Teachers received substantial salaries and scholarships and pensions were available for students. Funds for operation of the madrasas came from both the government and private contributions. Since the government placed an important role in promoting these institutions, the subject matter, choice of teachers and allocation of funds were closely supervised and regulated.
The development of the madrasa evolved from the various elementary and secondary schools which were prevalent in the Abbasid empire: the mosque schools and other traditional institutions; maktabat , or libraries, which originated in the pre--Islamic Arab world; tutoring houses, palace schools; halqa , discussion groups in the homes of Muslim scholars; and the library salons in the palaces of wealthy men and courtiers who were patrons of learning and scholarship. In addition, there were the majalis or meetings which were presided over by learned men at various social institutions and private homes. The majalis covered a wide range of topics and subjects. In the current revivals of traditional Islam, many of these "old" institutions and customs are being resuscitated.
Traveling to other cities to seek knowledge under the direction of different masters was a common practice in the early centuries of Islam. From Kurasan to Egypt, to West Africa and Spain, and from the northern provinces to those in the south, students and teachers journeyed to attend classes and discuss social, political, religious, philosophical and scientific matters. The custom was later popularized in ****pe during the Renaissance.
Academies began to emerge in the eighth century, serving as centers for the translation of earlier works and for innovative research. Each academy provided rooms for classes, meetings and readings. The Bayt al-Hikma for the Caliph al-Ma'mum (813-833 A.D.) and the Dar al-'Ilm of Cairo founded by al-Hakim (966-1021 A.D.) are the most notable. Books were collected from all over the world to create monumental libraries that housed volumes on medicine, philosophy, mathematics, science, alchemy, logic, astronomy and many other subjects.
Along with the introduction of paper and textbooks in the eighth century came the antecedent of "teacher certification." An instructor would give his permission ( ijazah ) to competent students to teach from one or all of his textbooks. Because of this practice, an individual could have an ijazah to teach a subject although he might be a student in another class. Consequently, the distinction between teacher and student was often minimized.
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as Arab influence spread to Spain, Sicily and the rest of ****pe, ****peans became increasingly aware of Arab advancements in many fields, especially education and science. Books were translated from Arabic into Latin and, later, to vernacular language. ****pean schools which had long limited learning to the "seven liberal arts" began to expand their curricula.
For some five hundred years, Arab learning and scholarship played a major role in the development of education in the West. The Arabs brought with them well-developed techniques in translation and research and opened new vistas in areas of medicine, the physical sciences and mathematics. Application of empiricism in all fields of study was rapidly incorporated into the learning system of those who became familiar with Arab methodology.
Long before the popularization of the phrase "transfer of technology," a term used to describe advanced expertise which developed nations offer to Third World countries, the Arabs shared their accumulated knowledge and institutions with the rest of the world.
LITERATURE
Any discussion of Arabic literature must begin with the language itself. While the leading literary figures within the Islamic Empire represented a diversity of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, the non-Arabs among them adopted the language of the Qur'an as their universal medium of expression. Arabs have long considered their language a perfect instrument of precision, clarity and eloquence, as evidenced by the Qur'an itself and by subsequent literary masterpieces. Since the Qur'an was adopted as the fixed standard, a surprisingly vast and rich literature has accumulated over a period of fourteen hundred years.
The earliest known form of Arabic literature is the heroic poetry of the noble tribes of pre-Islamic Arabia. It was there that the standard Arabic verse form, the qasidah , evolved. The qasidah , a long poem, often recounted incidents from the poet's own life or that of his tribe—sometimes dramatically and, sometimes, with a distinctively epic flavor. Pre-Islamic poetry was transmitted and preserved orally until the latter part of the seventh century A.D. when the Arab scholars undertook a large effort to collect and record verses and shorter compositions that had survived in the memories of professional reciters.
During the Umayyad period (661-750 A.D.), the Arab way of life began to shift from a nomadic mode of existence to a more settled and sophisticated urban style. In accordance with Greek and Persian practices of the time, poetry was often accompanied by music performed by women. In time, the poetic form was simplified: the complex and highly refined meters of the traditional Arabian poetry were replaced by shorter, freer meters which were adaptable to music. Poetry and music became inseparable, giving rise to the ghazal traditions, most strikingly illustrated in the famous Kitab al-Aghani , or "Book of Songs."
Arab literature flourished under the Abbasids, who rose to power in Baghdad in the mid-eighth century. The "golden age" of Islamic culture and commerce reached its zenith during the reigns of Harun al-Rashid and his son, al-Ma'mun. Arabic prose began to take its rightful place along with poetry; secular literature was at home alongside religious tracts. Abbasid authors of this era not only contributed to the splendor of their age but also left an indelible mark on the ****pean Renaissance.
The outstanding genius of Arab prose at that time was Abu 'Uthman 'Umar bin Bahr al-Jahiz (776-869), the grandson of a black slave who, having received a wide education in Basra, Iraq, became one of the period's leading intellectuals. Al-Jahiz is best known for his Kitab al-Hayawan , "Book of Animals," an anthology of animal anecdotes, representing a curious blend of fact and fiction. His Kitab al-Bukhala , "Book of Misers," a witty and insightful study of human psychology, is more revealing of Arab character and society than any other book the time.
The essays of al-Jahiz form a part of the large category of adab , polite literature or belles-lettres . In the second half of the tenth century, a new literary genre appeared. This was known as maqamat "assemblies"—amusing anecdotes narrated by a vagabond who made his living by his wits. The maqamat were invented by Badi' al-Zaman al-Hamadhani (d.1008); only fifty-two of his original four hundred maqamat have survived. Al-Hariri (d. 1122) elaborated upon this genre and stereotyped it, using the same format and inventing his own narrator and roguish hero. The popularity of the maqamat was only eclipsed by the rise of modern Arabic.
For many people, Abu al-Tayyib Ahmad al-Mutanabbi, may have been the greatest of all Arab poets. Born in Kufa, Iraq, and educated in Syria, al-Mutanabbi appeared in the early part of the tenth century. His themes recalled the traditional Arab virtues of loyalty, honor, friendship, bravery, and chivalry.
The last great poet of the Abbasid period was Abu al-'Ala al-Ma'arri (973-1057). While al-Ma'arri's poetry reflects the pessimism and skepticism of his particular era, he nevertheless transcended his age to become one of the major figures of Arabic literature, as well as a special favorite of Western scholars.
Towards the end of the ninth century, history began to form a part of belles-lettres . The necessity for collections of data on the countries of the Abbasid empire stimulated geographical writing, mixed with travelers' observations and tales of marvels. Idrisi, in twelfth century Sicily, was commissioned to compile the Book of Roger for the Norman King of Palermo, with accompanying maps. Yaqut (d. 1229) wrote a large geographical dictionary, gleaned from many sources.
The basis of Arabic writings of history was provided by accounts of the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Since the compilation of such biographies was determined by the Arab system of isnad —that is, of quoting all available authorities and establishing their reliability—Arab history-writing was generally characterized by accuracy rather than by creative handling or interpretation of available materials. It, thus, provides the modern historian with a most accurate and comprehensive source of material. The Arabs also produced the man whom modern scholars consider the true father of modern historiography and of the science of sociology—Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406).
A native of Tunisia, a government official at the Arab courts of Granada, Morocco and Algeria, Ibn Khaldun became the chief justice of the Mamluk sultans of Egypt. It was in the Maghreb, before settling in the Middle East, that he spent several years in retreat composing his great work: Muqaddimah . While before Ibn Khaldun, historiography was concerned mainly with rulers, battles and straightforward accounts of main events, the great Arab thinker was the first to recognize that events did not happen in a vacuum but depended upon an endless variety of factors previously neglected by historians, such as climate, social customs, food, superstitions and so on. Thus, in his Muqaddimah , he deals extensively with subjects such as the nature of society and occupation, labor conditions, climate and methods of education.
Modern scholarship acknowledges that, thanks to him, latter-day historiography changed fun-damentally. Of his truly revolutionary work Arnold Toynbee wrote, "Ibn Khaldun has conceived and formulated a philosophy of history which is undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time." In a similar vein, Professor George Sarton has said of the Muqaddimah "I do not hesitate to call it the most important historical work of the Middle Ages."
Orientalism in ****pean Literature
Arab influences in ****pean literature began to appear in the poetry of the early Spanish and Provençal troubadours, and, in the thirteenth century, in the French fabliaux and contes .
No Western author expressed ****pe's fascination with any aspect of Arabism in a more dramatic and poetic form than did Shakespeare. Among his most attractive characters, two are Arabs, or as he calls them, "Moors": Othello, from the play of the same name and the Prince of Morocco, one of the noblest figures in The Merchant of Venice . The prince, modeled on the great Sultan Ahmed al-Mansur, shows a royal dignity expressed in words of great nobility.
Whereas the Prince of Morocco is but a minor character in The Merchant of Venice , Othello completely dominates the drama to which his name is given. A man of unbounded passion, this Moor—"who comes from a land of deserts, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven" (an obvious reference to the Atlas Mountains)—is also a paragon of loyalty, courage, honesty, and possessed of a nobility rendered more striking by contrast with the infamy of the "white" Iago. To the present day, experts acquainted with the Moorish character are amazed at the insight with which Shakespeare created Othello.
In the London of Queen Elizabeth I, Morocco was very much "in the news." Among the founders of the "Barbary Company," an association of London merchants trading with Morocco, we find the Earl of Leicester, one of the Bard's patrons; it was from his many Barbary-merchant friends that Shakespeare obtained much information of Morocco and its people. Altogether we find more than sixty references to Barbary (Morocco) in Shakespeare's plays.
Shakespeare was by no means alone in falling under the spell of Moorish subjects. In his Tamburlaine the Great of 1587, Christopher Marlowe introduces the "Kings of Moroccus and Fez." A year later a certain Ed. White published A Brief Rehearsal of the Bloody Battle of Barbary ; in 1594, George Peel's play, The Battle of Alcazar , was produced in London; and, shortly afterwards, an anonymous author, Ro. C. published a history of Morocco entitled, A True Discourse of Muley Hamet's Death .
The Oriental fashion, in which Arab elements were often confused with Persian and Indian, persisted through most of the nineteenth century when Victor Hugo could write: "In the age of Louis XIV all the world was Hellenistic; now it is Orientalist" (Preface to Les Orientales ). While The Thousand and One Nights did not alone create this romantic flood, it greatly widened the scope of ****pean literature and enriched its imagery and language, producing a focus for ****pe's yearning for the exotic and stimulating latent interests among its intellectuals.
Arabic literature, in addition, to being the crowning artistic and intellectual achievement of the Arabs, also represents one of their most enduring legacies to the West. It is an aspect of the Arab heritage which, though often neglected or given only cursory attention, offers important insights that provide a fuller understanding of Arab culture and its contributions.
We find Arab names and settings in the famous Aucassin et Nicolette and Arab echoes even in Boccacio's Decameron . Chaucer's Squires Tales uses a theme brought to ****pe by Italian merchants who had traded in the Middle East. And, of course, there is the most famous medieval work of literature, Dante's Divine Comedy, replete with details from the story of the Prophet Muhammad's ascension to heaven and details culled from the Meccan Revolution by the great Arab mystic Ibn Arabi.
Perhaps no work of Arabic literature has stirred Western imagination as much as The Thousand and One Nights , popularly known as The Arabian Nights . A collection of separate stories—exciting, romantic, amusing and always highly entertaining— the book has Arab, Greek, Persian and Indian origins. It was finally compiled and unified by Arab authors in the tenth century, giving it an entirely Arab character, placing its two main centers in Baghdad and Cairo. At times, with the salty humor of true folk tales and always with an astounding inventiveness, the book enjoyed a great popularity throughout the Middle East where it was known chiefly through oral transmission by professional storytellers. Its popularity with the ****pean public, however, was infinitely greater. The first translation by the Frenchman Galland, in 1704, was soon followed by English versions. Their was spectacular, and new editions followed one another in the most enviable manner of modern best-sellers.
The astounding popularity that The Thousand and One Nights enjoyed in ****pe from the start can be traced to the "oriental" yearnings that had been growing among Western writers, artists and readers ever since the days of the Crusades. The public found in these tales an element of romance and adventure that was missing from ****pean literature. To be sure, The Thousand and One Nights was partly responsible for the composition of ****pean novels as famous as Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels. Arabism, or "Orientalism," as it was usually called, provided Western writers with a wealth of new themes. We find such themes in Samuel Johnson's Rasselas , in Byron, in the satires of Voltaire, and, of the French reformers, in Beckford's Vathek , in Germany, in Goethe's famous Westoestlicher Diwan , and in Rukert and Platen-Hallermund.
THE SCIENCES
Chemistry
Chemistry, or alchemy, from the Arabic alkimiya , was first studied among Arabs in the seventh century A.D. by Khalid ibn Yazid ibn Muawiyya who was familiar with the writings of the ancient Greeks on the subject. Muawiyya was followed by Jabir ibn Hayyan (known to the West as Geber). Jabir was born in the year 721 A.D., and later became the pupil of the celebrated Islamic teacher, the Imam Jaffar. He spent most of his life in Kufa, Iraq. In spite of Jabir's leanings toward mysticism and superstition, he more clearly recognized and proclaimed the importance of experimentation than any other early chemist. "The first essential in chemistry," he declared, "is that you should perform practical work and conduct experiments, for he who performs not practical work nor makes experiments will never attain the least degree of mastery." He made noteworthy advances in both the theory and practice of chemistry.
Jabir was acquainted with the usual chemical reactions such as crystallization, calcination, solution, sublimation, and reduction and often described them. Among Jabir's great contributions were his studies in the transmutation of metals. Regarding practical applications of chemistry, Jabir described processes for the preparation of steel and the refinement of other metals, for dying cloth and leather, for making varnishes to waterproof cloth and to protect iron, and for the preparation of hair dyes. He devised a recipe for making an illuminating ink for manuscripts from "golden" marcasite to replace the much more expensive ones made from real gold, and suggested the use of manganese dioxide in glass-making.
Jabir is credited with the discovery of red oxide, bichloride of mercury, hydrochloric acid, nitrate of silver, nitric acid, sal ammonic, and ammonium chloride. The preparation of nitric acid was perhaps his most useful discovery. But to the alchemists and chemists of the Middle Ages,. the descriptions and illustrations of furnaces in Jabir's books were probably of even greater value.
History records a few alchemists in the interval after Jabir's death, but it is only with the appearance of the chemist and physician, Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (known to the West as Rhazes) that Jabir's great example was successfully followed. Razi was learned in almost every branch of science and philosophy, alchemy, mathematics, logic, ethics, metaphysics and music. By profession a physician, his medical writings were more famous than his works in alchemy. His interest in alchemy seems to have begun in his youth and he is reported to have said that "no man deserves the name of 'philosopher' unless he be a master of theoretical and applied chemistry." He authored more than one hundred medical books, thirty-three treatises on natural science (exclusive of alchemy), eleven on mathematics and astronomy and more than forty-five on philosophy, logic and theology. On alchemy, he wrote Compendium of Twelve Treatises and Book Secrets .
Razi is a figure of exceptional importance in the history of chemistry since in his works we find for the first time a systematic classification of carefully observed and verified facts regarding chemical substances, reactions and apparatuses described in a language almost entirely free from mysticism and ambiguity. Razi also gives a list of the apparatuses used in chemistry. These consists of two classes: (1) instruments used for melting metals, and (2) those used for the manipulation of substances generally. He completes the subject by describing how to make composite pieces of apparatuses and, in general, provides the same kind of information as is to be found in laboratory manuals today.
Another famous scientist who followed Razi is Abu Ali al-Hussain ibn Sina, "Avicenna" as he was known in ****pe, who has been described as the "Aristotle of the Arabs." During his lifetime, he accomplished an amazing mass of literary, medical, philosophical and scientific works. In his Book of Remedy , he wrote about minerals, the formation of rocks and stones and the properties of minerals and metals.
From the fourth to the twelfth centuries A.D., the original chemical research and writing in ****pe was virtually non-existent. Instead, Arabic texts came to be translated into Latin, these treatises functioning as standard textbooks for students in ****pe. The translation of technical matters presented special difficulties, so that scholars often had to content themselves with literal renderings. It was safer not to translate words the meanings of which were imperfectly understood. Thus, in the translation from Arabic to Latin, such words were often simply transliterated, e.g., alembic, camphor, borax, elixir, talc and saffron.
Mathematics and Astronomy
There is no doubt that mathematics and astronomy owe a great debt to the Arabs. As George Sarton, the great Harvard historian of science, wrote in his monumental Introduction to the History of Science :
From the second half of the eighth to the end of the eleventh century, Arabic was the scientific, the progressive language of mankind... When the West was sufficiently mature to feel the need of deeper knowledge, it turned its attention, first of all, not to the Greek sources, but to the Arabic ones.
In the twelfth century, ****pe became aware of the scientific achievements of the Arabs and embarked upon serious translations of their rich legacy. A special college for translators was founded in Toledo, Spain, and it was there, and in other centers, that some of the great Christian scholars translated most of the Arabic works on mathematics and astronomy. In most ****pean universities, Arab treatises formed the basis of mathematical studies.
The history of Arab mathematics began with Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khawarazmi who, in the ninth century, journeyed east to India to learn the sciences of that time. He introduced Hindu numerals, including the concept of zero, into the Arab world. This number system was later transmitted to the West. Prior to the use of "Arabic" numerals, as we know them today, the West relied upon the somewhat clumsy system of Roman numerals. Whereas in the decimal system, the number of 1948 can be written in four figures, eleven figures were needed using the Roman system: MDCCCXLVIII. It is obvious that even for the solution of the simplest arithmetic problem, Roman numerals called for an enormous expenditure of time and labor. The Arab numerals, on the other hand, rendered even complicated mathematical tasks relatively simple.
The scientific advances of the West would have been impossible had scientists continued to depend upon the Roman numerals and been deprived of the simplicity and flexibility of the decimal system and its main glory, the zero. Though the Arab numerals were originally a Hindu invention, it was the Arabs who turned them into a workable system; the earliest Arab zero on record dates from the year 873, whereas the earliest Hindu zero is dated 876. For the subsequent four hundred years, ****pe laughed at the method that depended upon the use of zero, "a meaningless nothing."
Had the Arabs given us nothing but the decimal system, their contribution to progress would have been considerable. In fact, they gave us infinitely more. While religion is often thought to be an impediment to scientific progress, we can see, in a study of Arab mathematics, how religious beliefs actually inspired scientific discovery.
Because of the Qur'an's very concrete prescriptions regarding the division of an estate among children of a deceased person, it was incumbent upon the Arabs to find the means for very precise delineation of lands. For example, let us say a father left an irregularly shaped piece of land—seventeen acres large—to his six sons, each one of whom had to receive precisely one-sixth of his legacy. The mathematics that the Arabs had inherited from the Greeks made such a division extremely complicated, if not impossible. It was the search for a more accurate, more comprehensive, and more flexible method that led Khawarazmi to the invention of algebra. According to Professor Sarton, Khawarazmi "influenced mathematical thought to a greater extent than any other medieval writer." Both algebra, in the true sense of the term, and the term itself ( al-jabr ) we owe to him. Apart from mathematics, Khawarazmi also did pioneer work in the fields of astronomy, geography and the theory of music.
It was due to another exponent of Arab civilization, Omar Khayyam (1040-1123), that algebra made an enormous leap forward, two centuries after Khawarazmi. Known in the West as the author of The Rubayat , a poem made famous by Edward Fitzgerald's translation, he was admired in the East mainly as a mathematician. In his use of analytical geometry, he anticipated the geometry of Descartes. Commissioned by the Seljuk Sultan Halikshah to reform the Persian calendar, he prepared a calendar said to be more accurate than the Gregorian one in use to the present day. Whereas the latter leads to an error of one day in 3,300 years, in Omar Khayyam's calendar that error is one day in 5,000 years.
Because of their Islamic faith, it was essential for the Arabs to obtain a more precise knowledge of astronomy and geography than was already available: a Muslim is obliged to perform a number of religious observances with distinctly astronomical and geographical implications. When he prays, he must face Mecca; if he wishes to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, he must first know in what direction and what distance he will have to travel. Yet a thousand years ago such a journey might take months or even years, for the would-be pilgrim might have been living in Spain, Sicily or Asia Minor—all parts of the medieval Arab Empire. During Ramadan, the month of fasting, when between sunrise and sunset a Muslim must abstain from food and drink, he must know in advance the precise moment at which the moon rises and sets. All these functions required a detailed knowledge of astronomy and geography.
It was, thus, under the great Caliph Ma'mun (813-833) that the Arabs set out upon their investigations into astronomy. Ma'mun—a son of Harun al-Rashid of Arabian Nights fame—built a special observatory in Palmyra, Syria, and gradually, his scientists determined the length of a degree, thus establishing longitude and latitude.
Among the Arabs who laid the foundations of modern astronomy were Battani (858-929) and Biruni (973-1048). Battani's astronomical tables were not only adopted enthusiastically by the West, but were in use there until the Renaissance. He was the first to replace the Greek chord by the sine , in trigonometry. His works were translated and published in ****pe from the twelfth until the mid-sixteenth century.
Professor Sarton considers Biruni "One of the very greatest scientists of all time." It was he who gave, finally, an accurate determination of latitude and longitude, and who, six hundred years before Galileo, discussed the possibility of the earth's rotation around its own axis. He also investigated the relative speeds of sound and light.
However much astronomy depends upon mathematics, equally vital to it are instruments, and in that field, also, the Arabs proved themselves the chief pioneers. In the early Middle Ages, measurements had to be made with purely mechanical instruments, such as the quadrant, the ***tant, or the astrolabe. To reduce the margin of error, the Arabs made their instruments larger than any known before and, consequently, obtained remarkably accurate results. The most famous observatory at which these instruments were being used was at Maragha, in the thirteenth century, where distinguished astronomers from many countries collaborated—not only Muslim, Christian and Jew, but even Chinese. It was the latter who were responsible for the otherwise surprising appearance of Arab trigonometry in China.
It has already been indicated that, in the hands of the Arabs, mathematics acquired a new "dynamic" quality. We find this in Biruni's trigonometry, where numbers became elements of function, and in Khawarazmi's algebra, where the algebraic symbols contain within themselves potentialities for the infinite. What is significant about this development is that it reveals an intuitive correspondence between mathematics and religion. The Qur'an does not present the universe as a finished creation; rather, God keeps re-creating it at every moment of existence. In other words, creation is an ever-continuing process, and the world is not static but dynamic. This dynamic character, inherent in Islam, is amply manifested in Arab mathematics.
In conclusion, it is clear that Arab mathematicians, besides passing on to the West the Hindu and Greek legacies, developed most branches of trigonometry and astronomy, gave us algebra, invented many astronomical instruments, and showed that science, instead of being a denial of faith, can be its instrument if not its affirmation.
Physics
Without question, the greatest name in physics during the Arab/Islamic Empire was Ibn al-Haytham, born in the city of Basra, Iraq, in 965 A.D. By the time he died in 1030, he had made major contributions to optics, astronomy and mathematics, some of which would not be improved upon for six centuries.
Ibn al-Haytham's main field of interest and the one to which he made his greatest contributions, was the branch of physics we call optics. Striking parallels exist between his work and that of the seventeenth century English physicist, Isaac Newton, one of the greatest scientists of all time.
One of Newton's major accomplishments was his famous Law of Universal Gravitation. The most significant aspect of this theory is that it considers gravitation to be universal; that is, the same laws apply in the heavens and throughout the universe as apply on earth. This contradicts the idea held from the time of Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) that there is a difference between the laws governing events on earth and those pertaining to celestial bodies. Newton realized that the force that causes an apple to fall from a tree is the same force that holds the moon and all the planets in their orbits and, indeed, is the same as that which governs the motion of the stars themselves.
If this idea were considered new in the seventeenth century, it was certainly new in the eleventh. Yet some of Ibn al-Haytham's experiments showed that he, too, believed that extraterrestrial phenomena obeyed the same laws as do earthly ones.
Ibn al-Haytham evolved his theories of optics through the study of light rays, and his investigations revealed a number of important properties: that light travels in a straight line; that every point of a luminous object radiates light in every direction; and that light weakens as it travels from its source. He studied these characteristics of light from a variety of light sources, i.e. , self-emitting (the moon and reflecting bodies on earth).
This seemingly trivial experiment is in fact an early example of what is known as the "scientific method." Ibn al-Haytham designed an experiment to test a hypothesis, namely, that light travels in a straight line. His experiment was arranged to avoid the possibility of the experimenter's bias affecting the conclusions. Today, it seems obvious that light travels in straight lines, yet there was a time when intelligent men thought it obvious that the sun travels arounthe earth. The most advanced and sophisticated theory in modern physics, the Theory of Relativity, is derived from a refutation of ideas that are based on our everyday experience. Performing experiments to test and verify theories is at the heart of all modern scientific methods.
Ibn al-Haytham's experiments have even greater significance. By using the sun, the moon, lamps, fires and a variety of other light sources in his experiments, he was saying that light is light, regardless of its source. In this sense, he anticipated the universal laws of seventeenth century scientists.
We have described only the simplest of Ibn al-Haytham's experiments on the properties of light rays, but there are many others that were considerably more sophisticated. Ibn al-Haytham foresaw the works of later scientists not only in his use of experimentation but in the use of instrumentation: devices to help make measurements, the key to all modern science. He

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