2. Abú Isḥáq al-Fárisí a native of Persepolis (Iṣṭakhr)—on this account he is known as Iṣṭakhrí—wrote a book called Iṣṭakhrí and Ibn Ḥawqal. Masáliku ’l-Mamálik ('Routes of the Provinces'), which was afterwards revised and enlarged by Ibn Ḥawqal. Both works belong to the second half of the tenth century and contain "a careful description of each province in turn of the Muslim Empire, with the chief cities and notable places."
3. Al-Muqaddasí (or al-Maqdisí), i.e., 'the native of the Holy City', was born at Jerusalem in 946 a.d. In his delightful book entitled Aḥsanu ’l-Taqásím fí Muqaddasí. ma‘rifati ’l-Aqálím he has gathered up the fruits of twenty years' travelling through the dominions of the Caliphate.
4. Omitting the Spanish Arabs, Bakrí, Idrísí, and Ibn Jubayr, all of whom flourished in the eleventh century, Yáqút. we come to the greatest of Moslem geographers, Yáqút b. ‘Abdalláh (1179-1229 a.d.). A Greek by birth, he was enslaved in his childhood and sold to a merchant of Baghdád. His master gave him a good education and frequently sent him on trading expeditions to the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. After being enfranchised in consequence of a quarrel with his benefactor, he supported himself by copying and selling manuscripts. In 1219-1220 a.d. he encountered the Tartars, who had invaded Khwárizm, and "fled as naked as when he shall be raised from the dust of the grave on the day of the resurrection." Further details of his adventurous life are recorded in the interesting notice by Ibn Khallikán.[675] His great Geographical Dictionary (Mu‘jamu ’l-Buldán) has been edited in six volumes by Wüstenfeld (Leipzig, 1866), and is described by Mr. Le Strange as "a storehouse of geographical information, the value of which it would be impossible to over-estimate." We possess a useful epitome of it, made about a century later, viz., the Maráṣidu ’l-Iṭṭilá‘. Among the few other extant works of Yáqút, attention maybe called to the Mushtarik—a lexicon of places bearing the same name—and the Mu‘jamu ’l-Udabá, or 'Dictionary of Littérateurs,' which has been edited by Professor Margoliouth for the Trustees of the Gibb Memorial Fund.
As regards the philosophical and exact sciences the Moslems naturally derived their ideas and material from Greek culture, The foreign sciences. which had established itself in Egypt, Syria, and Western Asia since the time of Alexander's conquests. When the Syrian school of Edessa was broken up by ecclesiastical dissensions towards the end of the fifth century of our era, the expelled savants took refuge in Persia at the Sásánian court, and Khusraw Anúshirwán, or Núshírwán (531-578 a.d.)—the same monarch who welcomed the Neo-platonist philosophers banished from Athens by Justinian—founded an Academy at Jundé-shápúr in Khúzistán, where Greek medicine and philosophy continued to be taught down to ‘Abbásid days. Another centre of Hellenism was the city of Ḥarrán in Mesopotamia. Its inhabitants, Syrian heathens who generally appear in Muḥammadan history under the name of 'Ṣabians,' spoke Arabic with facility and contributed in no small degree to the diffusion of Greek wisdom. The work of translation was done almost entirely by Syrians. In the monasteries of Syria and Mesopotamia the Translations from the Greek. writings of Aristotle, Galen, Ptolemy, and other ancient masters were rendered with slavish fidelity, and these Syriac versions were afterwards retranslated into Arabic. A beginning was made under the Umayyads, who cared little for Islam but were by no means indifferent to the claims of literature, art, and science. An Umayyad prince, Khálid b. Yazíd, procured the translation of Greek and Coptic works on alchemy, and himself wrote three treatises on that subject. The accession of the ‘Abbásids gave a great impulse to such studies, which found an enlightened patron in the Caliph Manṣúr. Works on logic and medicine were translated from the Pehleví by Ibnu ’l-Muqaffa‘ († about 760 a.d.) and others. It is, however, the splendid reign of Ma’mún (813-833 a.d.) that marks the full vigour of this Oriental Renaissance. Ma’mún was no ordinary man. Like a true Persian, he threw himself heart and soul into theological speculations and used the authority of the Caliphate to enforce a liberal standard of orthodoxy. His interest in science was no less ardent. According to a story told in the Fihrist,[676] he dreamed that he saw the venerable figure of Aristotle seated on a throne, and in consequence Ma’mún's encouragement of the New Learning. of this vision he sent a deputation to the Roman Emperor (Leo the Armenian) to obtain scientific books for translation into Arabic. The Caliph's example was followed by private individuals. Three brothers, Muḥammad, Aḥmad, and Ḥasan, known collectively as the Banú Músá, "drew translators from distant countries by the offer of ample rewards[677] and thus made evident the marvels of science. Geometry, engineering, the movements of the heavenly bodies, music, and astronomy were the principal subjects to which they turned their attention; but these were only a small number of their acquirements."[678] Ma’mún installed them, with Yaḥyá b. Abí Manṣúr and other scientists, in the House of Wisdom (Baytu ’l-Ḥikma) at Baghdád, an institution which comprised a well-stocked library and an astronomical observatory. Among the celebrated translators of the ninth century, who were themselves conspicuous workers in the new field, we can only mention the Christians Qusṭá b. Lúqá and Ḥunayn b. Isḥáq, and the Ṣábian Thábit b. Qurra. It does not fall within the scope of this volume to consider in detail the achievements of the Moslems in science and philosophy. That in some departments they made valuable additions to existing knowledge must certainly be granted, but these discoveries count for little in comparison with the debt which we owe to the Arabs as pioneers of learning and bringers of light to mediæval Europe.[679] Meanwhile it is only possible to enumerate a few of the most eminent philosophers and scientific men who lived during the ‘Abbásid age. The reader will observe that with rare exceptions they were of foreign origin.
The leading spirits in philosophy were:—
1. Ya‘qúb b. Isḥáq al-Kindí, a descendant of the princely family of Kinda (see p. [42]). He was distinguished by his Kindí. contemporaries with the title Faylasúfu ’l-‘Arab, 'The Philosopher of the Arabs.' He flourished in the first half of the ninth century.
2. Abú Naṣr al-Fárábí († 950 a.d.), of Turkish race, a native of Fáráb in Transoxania. The later years of his life Fárábí. were passed at Aleppo under the patronage of Sayfu ’l-Dawla. He devoted himself to the study of Aristotle, whom Moslems agree with Dante in regarding as "il maestro di color che sanno."
3. Abú ‘Alí Ibn Síná (Avicenna), born of Persian parents at Kharmaythan, near Bukhárá, in the year 980 a.d. As Ibn Síná. a youth he displayed extraordinary talents, so that "in the sixteenth year of his age physicians of the highest eminence came to read medicine with him and to learn those modes of treatment which he had discovered by his practice."[680] He was no quiet student, like Fárábí, but a pleasure-loving, adventurous man of the world who travelled from court to court, now in favour, now in disgrace, and always writing indefatigably. His system of philosophy, in which Aristotelian and Neo-platonic theories are combined with Persian mysticism, was well suited to the popular taste, and in the East it still reigns supreme. His chief works are the Shifá (Remedy) on physics, metaphysics, &c., and a great medical encyclopædia entitled the Qánún (Canon). Avicenna died in 1037 a.d.
4. The Spanish philosophers, Ibn Bájja (Avempace), Ibn Ṭufayl, and Ibn Rushd (Averroes), all of whom flourished in the twelfth century after Christ.
The most illustrious name beside Avicenna in the history of Arabian medicine is Abú Bakr al-Rází (Rhazes), a native of Medicine, Astronomy, and Mathematics. Rayy, near Teheran († 923 or 932 a.d.). Jábir b. Ḥayyán of Tarsus († about 780 a.d.)—the Geber of European writers—won equal renown as an alchemist. Astronomy went hand in hand with astrology. The reader may recognise al-Farghání, Abú Ma‘shar of Balkh († 885 a.d.) and al-Battání, a Ṣábian of Ḥarrán († 929 a.d.), under the names of Alfraganus, Albumaser, and Albategnius, by which they became known in the West. Abú ‘Abdalláh al-Khwárizmí, who lived in the Caliphate of Ma’mún, was the first of a long line of mathematicians. In this science, as also in Medicine and Astronomy, we see the influence of India upon Muḥammadan civilisation—an influence, however, which, in so far as it depended on literary sources, was more restricted and infinitely less vital than that of Greece. Only a passing reference can be made to Abú Rayḥán al-Bírúní, a native of Khwárizm (Khiva), whose knowledge of the Bírúní 973-1048 a.d. sciences, antiquities, and customs of India was such as no Moslem had ever equalled. His two principal works, the Áthár al-Báqiya, or 'Surviving Monuments,' and the Ta’ríkhu ’l-Hind, or 'History of India,' have been edited and translated into English by Dr. Sachau.[681]