Arabic Thought and Its Place in History

by De Lacy O'Leary

It will not be unfair to say, therefore, that during the `Umayyad period the Arabs learned practically nothing of the art of government and of the work of administration. They were in the position of prodigal young heirs who leave all details to their men of business and content themselves with squandering the proceeds.

In the case of civil law matters were rather different. The civil law is necessarily based on the social and economic structure of the community, and in the acquired provinces this was so different from that prevailing in Arabia that it was necessarily forced on the attention of the Arabs. Moreover, in primitive Islam, the line was not clearly drawn between the canon law and the civil law. Inheritance, the taking of pledges, and such like matters, were to the Arabs subject to the direction and sanction of the law of God as revealed by his Prophet. Thus, for example, Sura 4, one of the later Madinian revelations, contains a statement of the law relating to guardianship, inheritance, marriage, and kindred topics, according to the social conditions prevailing at Madina. But in the Greek and Persian dominions the conquering Arab had to deal with more complex conditions for which the revealed law made no provision, although what it did contain so far touched the subject that it could not be treated regardless of revelation. It seemed impossible to disregard the revealed precepts and substitute an alien legislation, although this has been done in the modern Ottoman Empire, but not without many and grave protests; in the first century it would have been intolerable, for every disaffected faction would have used it to break up the Muslim state which was only held together by the prestige of the Prophetical tradition. We may well suppose that the `Umayyads would have had no reluctance to try the experiment, but it was too dangerous. The only alternative was to expand the sacred law so as to include new requirements, and in the `Umayyad period this was done by the addition of a vast number of fictitious traditions professing to relate what the Prophet had said and done in conditions in which he had never been placed. In describing these traditions as “fictitious,” it is not necessarily implied that they were fraudulent, although many were so, showing an obvious motive in increasing the privileges and rights of the dominant faction or asserting the tribal pre-eminence of the Quraysh, etc. But more often they are “fictitious” in the sense of legal fictions rightly correcting the actual law in the interests of equity. When entirely new conditions arose, the question would be asked, “How would the Prophet have acted in this case?” The early companions of the Prophet, educated in the same environment as he had been educated, and confident that their outlook was essentially the same as his, had no hesitation in stating what he would have done or said, and their statement was almost certainly correct: but they worded their evidence, or it was afterwards worded for them, as a statement of what the Prophet actually had done or said. And, later again, in a subsequent generation, when new problems arose, no difficulty was felt in accepting the supposition that the Prophet would have admitted the reasonable and just solution which the Roman jurists proposed. Thus it finally came to pass that a considerable portion of the Roman civil law was embodied in the traditions of Islam (cf. Santillana: Code civil et commerciel tunisien. Tunis, 1899, etc.) It is not to be supposed that Arab governors and judges studied the Roman code, they simply accepted its provisions as they found them in force in Syria and Egypt, and thus learned its general principles from the usage of the civil courts already existing. In many places material is found in the traditions which can be traced to Zoroastrian, Jewish, and even Buddhist sources, though these deal rather with ritual and the description of the unseen world and serve to show how readily Islam absorbed elements with which it was in contact. So far as the actual needs of the civil law are concerned, the chief source was the Roman law, and these needs fill a very large part of the traditions.

It was not until the close of the `Umayyad period that the Muslims began to develop a scientific jurisprudence and to make a critical examination and codification of the traditions. In the case of jurisprudence there were at first two schools, a Syrian and a Persian. The Syrian school formulated its system under the leadership of al-Awza`i (d. 157), and for some time it prevailed over all parts of the Muslim world which had been parts of the Byzantine Empire. The Persian school owed its origin to Abu Hanifa (d. 150) and, as the seat of government was removed to `Iraq by the `Abbasids and Abu Hanifa’s system was enforced by his pupil Abu Yusuf (d. 182) who was chief Qadi under the Khalif Harunu r-Rashid, it had a tremendous advantage over the Syrian school. It became the official system of the `Abbasid courts and still holds its own through Central Asia, North India, and wherever the Turkish element prevails, whilst the Syrian system has become extinct. Abu Hanifa’s system represents a serious and moderate revision of the methods which had already come into use as extending the discipline of Islam to the needs of a complex and advanced civilization. Under the `Umayyads the jurists had supplemented any deficiencies in the law by their own opinion (ra´y) which meant the application of the judgment of a man trained under the Roman law as to what was just and fair. In that early period no derogatory sense was attached to “opinion” which rested on the theory that the intellect could intuitively perceive what is right and just, thus assuming that there is an objective standard of right and wrong capable of apprehension by philosophical enquiry, a theory which shows the influence of Greek ideas embodied in the Civil Code. But the `Abbasid period experienced an orthodox reaction which tended to limit freedom in using speculative opinion, and Abu Hanifa shows this limitation. In his system weight was attached to every positive statement of the Qur´an which could be taken as bearing upon the civil law, only to a slight extent did he avail himself of the evidence of tradition, to a much larger extent he employs qiyas or “analogy,” which means that a new condition is judged by comparison with some older one already treated in the Qur´an, and he also employed what he called istihsan, “the preferable,” that is to say, what seemed to be equitable and right even when it diverged from the logical conclusion which could be deduced from the revealed law. Only in this latter case did he admit what can be described as “opinion,” and this is strictly limited to the adoption of a course necessary to avoid an obvious injustice. As thus stated, Abu Hanifa’s system was broader, milder, and more reasonable than any other treatment of the Islamic law: but it is a mistake to suppose that it still is mild and reasonable, for in the course of time the decisions pronounced as to “the preferable” have become hardened into precedents and the Hanifite code expresses only those fixed decisions of early mediæval Islam without flexibility. The case is parallel with the English treatment of equity. In older times equity shows us the philosophical principles of justice correcting the defects of common law; but modern practice displays these principles fossilized as precedents and as rigid and formal in their application as the common law itself. As first conceived, “the preferable” shows the influence of Roman law and Greek philosophy, both of which contemplated an objective standard of right and wrong which could be discovered by investigation, the Stoic teaching, predominant in Roman law, tending to treat this discovery as intuitive. Unsupported by other evidence, we might hesitate to suggest that istihsan necessarily had a Hellenistic basis, but when we compare the ideas of Abu Hanifa with the contemporary teaching of Wasil b. `Ata (d. 131) in theology, we are forced to the conclusion that the same influences are at work in both, and in Wasil these are certainly derived from Greek philosophy. We are not justified in supposing that Abu Hanifa ever read the Greek philosophers or the Roman law, but he lived at a period when the general principles deduced from these sources were beginning to permeate Muslim thought, though in fact his teaching tends to limit and define the application of the general principles according to a system. The older Muslims supposed that good and evil depend simply on the arbitrary will of God, who commands and forbids as he sees fit: it was the influence of the Greek philosophy which brought in the idea that these distinctions are not arbitrary but due to some natural difference existing in nature between good and evil and that God is just in that his decrees conform to this standard.

In orthodox Islam there are now four schools of jurisprudence showing allowable differences in the treatment of the canon law. Most absurdly they are sometimes described as “sects”: this they are not as the differences of opinion are fully recognised as all equally orthodox. The followers of Abu Hanifa form the most numerous of these schools, the other three being all more or less reactionary as compared with it. The contemporary Malik b. Anas (d. 179) was openly actuated by dislike of the admission of istihsan and the recognition thereby given to “opinion” for this he substituted what he called istislah or “public expediency,” allowing analogy to be set aside only when its logical conclusion would be detrimental to the community. The difference seems to be more a verbal correction than a material change, but the underlying motive is clear and indicates an orthodox reaction. At the same time he attached much greater weight to the evidence of tradition, adding to it also the principle of ijma or “consensus,” which in his system meant the common usage of Madina. Undoubtedly Ibn Malik’s position was theoretically sound: the Islamic state had taken form at Madina and nothing could give so clear light on the policy of the Prophet and his companions as the local customary law of the mother city. At the same time Ibn Malik took tradition quite seriously, indeed, the critical and scientific treatment of tradition begins with his manual known as the Muwatta. To-day Ibn Malik’s school prevails in Upper Egypt and North Africa west of Egypt. The third authority ash-Shafi`i (d. 204) takes an intermediate position between Abu Hanifa and Ibn Malik, interpreting ijma as the general usage of Islam, and not of the city of Madina alone. The fourth authority, Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 241), shows an entirely reactionary position which reverted to a close adherence to Qur´an and tradition; it carried great weight amongst the orthodox, especially in Baghdad, but now survives only in remote parts of Arabia.

In the sphere of the arts and crafts, our best evidence lies in architecture and engineering. In these the Arabs had no skill and were conscious of their incapacity. The earliest mosques were simply enclosures surrounded by a plain wall, but a new type was developed under the first `Umayyad Khalif Mu`awiya, who employed Persian non-Muslim builders in the construction of the mosque at Kufa, and they worked on the lines of the architecture already used by the Sasanid kings. In this mosque the traditional square enclosure was retained, but the quadrangle was surrounded by a cloister in the form of a collonade with pillars 30 cubits high of stone drums held together by iron clamps and lead beddings. From this the cloistered quadrangle became the general type of the congregational mosque and remained so until late Turkish times, when it was partly superseded by the Byzantine domed church. The dome had been used in earlier times only as the covering of a tomb, standing alone or attached to a mosque.

The same Khalif Mu`awiya employed bricks and mortar in restorations which he made at Mecca, and introduced Persian workmen to execute the repairs. In 124 A.H. (A.D. 700) the fifth `Umayyad Khalif found it necessary to repair the damage caused at Mecca by flood, and for this purpose employed a Christian architect from Syria.

In the time of the next Khalif al-Walid, the “Old Mosque” of Fustat (Cairo), that is now known as the “Mosque of `Amr,” was rebuilt by the architect Yahya b. Hanzala, who probably was a Persian. The earlier mosque had been a simple enclosure. The next oldest mosque of Cairo, that of Ibn Tulun (A.H. 283) also had a non-Muslim architect, the Christian Ibn Katib al-Fargani.

Not only in the earlier period, but also in the days of the Abbasids, the Muslims relied exclusively upon Greek and Persian, to a less degree on Coptic, architects, engineers, and craftsmen for building and decoration. In Spain of the 2nd century (8th century A.D.) we find the Byzantine Emperor sending a mosaic worker and 320 quintals of tessarae for the adorning of the great mosque at Cordova.

In origin all Muslim art had a Byzantine beginning, but the traditions of Byzantine art received a peculiar direction by passing through a Persian medium, and this medium colours all work done after the close of the `Umayyad period. Only in the west, in Spain, and to a less degree in North Africa, do we find traces of direct Byzantine influence in later times. But Persian art, as developed under the later Sasanids, was itself derived from Byzantine models, and mainly from models and by craftsmen introduced by Khusraw I. (circ. A.D. 528); but even at that early stage there were also some Indian influences apparent in Persian and East-Byzantine work, as, for example, in the use of the horse shoe arch which first appears in Western Asia in the church of Dana on the Euphrates, circ. A.D. 540. But the horse shoe arch in pre-Muslim times, as in India, is purely decorative and is not employed in construction.

Thus it appears that the real work of Islam in art and architecture lay in connecting the various portions of the Muslim world in one common life, so that Syria, Persia, `Iraq, North Africa, and Spain shared the same influences, which were ultimately Greek or Graeco-Persian, the Indian element, of quite secondary importance, entering directly through Persia. Already before the outspread of Islam, Byzantine art had entirely replaced native models in Egypt, and this was largely the case in Persia as well. At most we can say that Islam evolved a quasi-Byzantine style which owed its distinctive features to the limitations of the Persian artists, but which occasionally attained a better level by the importation of Byzantine craftsmen. Exactly the same general conclusions hold good in the history of the ceramic arts and in the illumination of manuscripts, though here the observance of the Qur´anic prohibition of the portrayal of animal figures, strictly observed only in some quarters and least regarded in Persia and Spain, caused a greater emphasis to be laid on vegetable forms in decoration, and on geometrical patterns.