6. Some of the pre-Islamic poets are household names in the Arabic world, even today. The love poems of Imru’ al-Qays and the moral maxims of Zuhayr are probably better-known than most. Apart from poets, high prestige also attached to the orator (khatib) and the rawi, who related the legends of bygone ages. Their stature dominated that of the scribes who became significant only after the rise of Islam. Hitti, Op. cit., page 56.
7. G. F. von Grunebaum, Classical Islam, London: Allen & Unwin, 1970, page 24.
8. Hitti, Op. cit., pages 64–65.
9. Ibid., page 112.
10. Anwar G. Chejne, The Arabic Language: Its Role in History, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969, pages 7–13. Hitti, Op. cit., page 123.
11. Bernard Lewis, The Middle East, London: Phoenix, 1995, page 53.
12. Hitti, Op. cit., page 118. See Angold, Op. cit., page 61, for a discussion of the qiblah.
13. Lewis, Op. cit., page 53.
14. Hitti, Op. cit., page 128.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., page 129.
17. Originally, Allah asked to be prayed to fifty times a day, but Muhammad reached a compromise when he was in heaven on his nocturnal journey there.
18. Hitti, Op. cit., page 132. The prohibition on alcohol, incidentally, may not have been insisted on from the beginning. One of the chapters in the Qurʾan contains a suggestion that it was introduced early on to prevent disturbances during the Friday service.
19. Ibid., page 124. For Islamic judgement see: Jane Idleman Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, page 64.
20. Hitti, Op. cit., pages 124–126.
21. Chejne, Op. cit., page 25.
22. Ibid., page 28.
23. Ibid., page 356.
24. Lewis, Op. cit., page 54. Angold, Op. cit., page 60, on the battles for the caliphate.
25. Lewis, Op. cit., page 64.
26. Ibid., page 65.
27. Ibid., page 68. Angold, Op. cit., pages 57–59, for the role of coins.
28. Hitti, Op. cit., page 242. See Angold, Op. cit., pages 61ff, for the Umayyads and, in particular, their architectural achievements.
29. Hitti, Op. cit., page 393.
30. Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Beauty in Arabic Culture, Princeton, New Jersey and London: Markus Wiener/Princeton University Press, 1998/1999, page 126. Angold, Op. cit., page 62, for the Dome of the Rock and page 65 for the Great Mosque of Damascus.
31. Behrens-Abouseif, Op. cit., page 124.
32. Ibid., page 132.
33. Lewis, Op. cit., page 37. Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1991, pages 56ff.
34. Behrens-Abouseif, Op. cit., page 148.
35. Angold, Op. cit., page 67. Calligraphy was important in all walks of life, political as well as religious, and many objects were adorned with writing or, in some cases, simply with beautiful letters which had no intrinsic meaning relevant to the context. Two forms of calligraphic script in particular developed in tenth-century Baghdad. These were Kufic and Nashki, the first of which emerged in a religious tradition, and the latter in a secular, bureaucratic tradition. Kufic tends now to be used in traditional religious contexts, whereas Nashki is used for historical purposes, often against richly decorated backgrounds. Hourani, Op. cit., page 56.
36. Apart from its prohibitions on the visual depiction of the human form, Islam was also inherently hostile to music. In yet another hadith, Muhammad described the musical instrument as ‘the devil’s muezzin’, the means by which he called people to worship him. Despite this, the Umayyads did patronise music at their court, to the extent that ‘four great singers’ are still remembered, one of whom, Ibn Surayj (c. 634–726), is credited with being the man who introduced the baton for conducting musical performances. Hitti, Op. cit., page 275.
37. Lewis, Op. cit., page 75.
38. Ibid., page 77.
39. Hitti, Op. cit., page 301.
40. Ibid., page 303.
41. In 988, al-Nadim composed al-Fihrist, a sort of compendium of books then available in this city and this gives some idea of the range of ideas and activities then current. He refers to manuscripts devoted to such subjects as hypnotism, sword-swallowing, glass-chewing and juggling. But there were more serious subjects too.
42. Howard R. Turner, Science in Medieval Islam, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995, pages 28–29 and 132–133.
43. Boyer, Op. cit., pages 211ff.
44. P. M. Holt et al. (editors), The Cambridge History of Islam, volume 2, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1970, page 743.
45. Hugh Kennedy, The Court of the Caliphs: The Rise and Fall of Islam’s Greatest Dynasty, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004, pages 246 and 255. William Wightman, The Growth of Scientific Ideas, Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1950, page 322.
46. Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, London: Routledge, 1998, page 132. Kennedy, Op. cit., pages 258–259.
47. The translation of Greek, Persian and Indian authors was encouraged by the introduction of paper. This was a Chinese invention, probably from the first century AD. According to tradition, paper reached the Middle East in 751 after the Arabs had captured some Chinese prisoners at the battle of Talas (in modern Kyrgystan, 150 miles north-east of Tashkent). On this account, the prisoners taught their conquerors how to manufacture the new product and their lives were spared. This is now thought unlikely, however, as it appears that Chinese painters, weavers and goldsmiths were living in Kufa, in southern Iraq, at the time of the Arab conquest. Almost certainly they were familiar with papermaking as well. But it doesn’t change the point that this was another important idea/invention that flourished in Baghdad having come from outside. The ancient Arabic word for paper, kaghdad, is derived from Chinese. In Baghdad, there was an area of the city known as the Suq al-warraqin, the Stationer’s Market: lining its streets were more than a hundred shops selling paper. Baghdad was an important centre of papermaking and, for the Byzantines at least, it was the best. They referred to paper as bagdatixon and the standard size, 73 cm × 110 cm, was known as a ‘Baghdadi sheet’. There were many different types, usually named after rulers: Talhi paper, Nui paper, Tahiri paper. Paper was the new technology and the Arabs were the masters. Jonathan Bloom, Paper Before Print, Op. cit. See also Gutas, Op. cit., page 13.