Abu 'Ali 'Isa ibn Zur'a (943-1008) was also a Christian and studied with ibn 'Adi. He translated Aristotle and other Greek works from Syriac versions. Ibn Zur'a asserted that the blameworthy ethical qualities are anger, mendacity, ignorance, injustice, and vileness; but Abu Sulayman al-Sijistani argued that anger and lying are suitable in some circumstances. Al-Hasan ibn Suwar ibn al-Khammar was a Christian physician, who also made translations and wrote philosophical treatises. Ibn Suwar recommended a balance between the contemplative life and civic virtue; the true philosopher loves the real essence of all things and is not tempted by material concerns, being temperate and generous.
Although Abu 'Ali ibn al-Samh (d. 1027) was also in ibn 'Adi's school, he believed that natural dispositions were strong and free will weak. The Melchite Christian physician Nazif al-Rumi believed that the three pleasures of eating, drinking, and sex become tedious, but the pleasures of perfume, clothing, and music do not. The family of 'Isa ibn 'Ali (d. 946) had converted from Christianity to Islam. Inclining toward Sufism, 'Isa ibn 'Ali believed that dispensing with something is better than acquiring it, that a rough life in company with the intelligent is better than an easy life with fools, that one should spare no effort in improving one's soul, and that since deceit is used to catch birds, fish, and beasts, one can also use it to guide and purify humans. The poet Abu l-Hasan al-Badihi was also associated with the school of Yahya ibn 'Adi, and ibn al-Nadim (d. 990) compiled an encyclopedic catalog of literature available at Baghdad for that circle.
Another prominent circle of philosophers was led by Abu Sulayman al-Sijistani, who died at Baghdad about 985 after teaching there for fifty years. His group commented on a saying of Alexander, each agreeing in different ways that while a father is a cause of life, one's teacher is a cause of improving one's life. Like the Neo-Platonists, the Sijistani circle considered philosophy a way of life and the path to happiness and perfection, and the teacher is the guide to their goal. When 'Adud al-Daula died in 983, those in Sijistani's circle agreed that he had succumbed to the world's deceit and questioned what he had accomplished with his wealth, slaves, retainers, and armies just as sages had commented upon the death of the "great" Alexander. They also discussed the usefulness and validity of astrology, and Sijistani concluded that it may be pursued to advantage only by those with the needed intellectual and moral virtues.
The Sincere Brothers were led by Abu Sulayman al-Maqdisi, who wrote their philosophy in fifty letters. Souls are saved from the defilement of matter by a celestial ascent that is preceded by three levels. First, the rational faculty masters the urban arts at age fifteen. Second, the ruling faculty learns to govern brothers with generosity and compassion at age thirty. Third, the legal faculty helps kings exercise command and control with kindness and moderation at age forty. The brothers assembled in sincere friendship for sanctity, purity, and good counsel. They believed the religious law had been contaminated by error and folly and that it must be purified by philosophy. Perfection could be achieved by combining Greek philosophy with Islamic religious law. The sick require the religious law, while the healthy need philosophy. Virtue is acquired by philosophy and leads to the divine life. The religious virtues based on authority and opinion are corporeal and temporal, aiding in recovery from illness; but virtues based on demonstrative proof are certain, spiritual, and eternal, preserving health.
The school of Abu 'Abdallah al-Basri was criticized for teaching the skeptical doctrine that various proofs are equivalent. Another circle was led by Abu 'Abdallah ibn Sa'dan, who was vizier for 'Adud al-Daula's son Samsam for the first year of his rule to 984. He tried to calm the rivalry between 'Adud's successors and recommended the lessons of the ascetics to discoursing philosophers. When ibn Sa'dan tried to appoint his father to office, his rival ibn Yusuf was able to replace ibn Sa'dan and get him executed during a revolt led by Asfar.
The historian and ethical philosopher Abu 'Ali ibn Miskawayh (c. 936-1030) studied the histories of al-Tabari with abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Kamil al-Qadi and philosophy with the Aristotelian commentator ibn al-Khammar. For seven years Miskawayh served as librarian for abu al-Fadl ibn al-'Amid, and he probably served Buyid princes such as 'Adud al-Daula. Miskawayh wrote a history of the world. He believed that history is a mirror of society in each era, and the historian must be careful not to mix facts with fiction. Facts should be interpreted according to human interests that show creative hopes and aspirations. History is like a living organism that is guided by nations' ideals, and it even affects the future. Miskawayh shared the same theory of evolution as the Brothers of Purity (Sincerity) with the four stages of mineral, plant, animal, and human, culminating with the prophet imbibing the celestial soul within.
Miskawayh also adopted Plato's psychology and the traditional virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice, and he elucidated Aristotle's ethical doctrine of the mean. Wisdom he divided into intelligence, retention, rationality, understanding, clarity, and capacity for learning. Courage includes greatness of spirit, fearlessness, composure, fortitude, magnanimity, calmness, manliness, and endurance. Temperance he divided into modesty, tranquility, self-control, liberality, integrity, sobriety, goodness, self-discipline, good disposition, imperturbability, stability, and good deeds. Justice includes friendship, concord, family fellowship, recompense, fairness, honesty, amiability, and piety. He further divided liberality into generosity, altruism, nobility, charity, and forgiveness. Miskawayh believed that wisdom is the noblest aim in life and achieves the most happiness. The other goals people seek are honor and pleasure. He recommended humanistic education as the way to salvation, perfection, and happiness. Perfection of character begins with ordering one's faculties and actions so that they are in harmony within. The intelligent person examines imperfections and makes effort to remedy them. A youth should be trained in law to carry out duties until it is a habit. Then ethical studies establish the habits firmly as virtues in the soul by proofs. However, education by obscene poetry can result in the false values of lying and immorality.
Miskawayh criticized asceticism and withdrawal from society as unjust, because they want services without rendering any themselves. He noted that ascetics sever themselves from moral virtues. He believed that people are social and need to learn mutual cooperation with others to perfect humanity. Humans need others in order to survive, and they naturally desire friendship. Those who serve others much may demand much, but those who serve little can ask for little. Human affairs need to be ordered by government, which removes misfortunes. The highest law is from God, followed by the law of the ruler, and the law of money. The four causes of harm are the baseness that results from passion, wickedness resulting from injustice, grief caused by error, and anxiety resulting from misfortune. Humans should love each other and contribute to each other's perfection like different organs in a single body. Miskawayh rejected the idea that happiness only comes after death; he believed we must search for happiness in this world and in the world to come.
Miskawayh found that human love for God is too high to be attained by mortals; but the student's love for the teacher is even more important than a son's love for his parents because teachers educate souls and guide them to happiness. Friendship he considered most sacred, and he noted that even a king needs friends to give him information and carry out his orders. One should please one's friends without hypocrisy or flattery. Miskawayh disagreed with Aristotle that love is an extension of self-love, for he found that one must limit self-love in order to love another. He contrasted the pleasure of animal love with the virtue or goodness of spiritual love. Love is the best sovereign; but when it fails, justice must be brought about by fear and force.
Miskawayh recommended practical disciplines for diseases of the soul such as anger, vanity, contentiousness, recklessness, cowardice, pride, self-indulgence, deceit, fear, and sadness. Some of his remedies are similar to those of al-Razi. One may control the passions by not dwelling on the memories of pleasurable sensations. Rational deliberation can help one avoid being driven by the force of habits. Like Pythagoras, he recommended reviewing one's actions at the end of the day to examine one's shortcomings. The cure of many ills is achieved by eradicating anger and arrogance. Anger is caused by vanity, pride, bickering, importunity, jesting, conceit, derision, treachery, wrong, ambition, and envy, but they all culminate in the desire for revenge. Anger also accompanies greed. The self-respecting and courageous person overcomes anger with magnanimity and discernment. Fear is of future events which may not occur. Fears that cannot be prevented such as old age or death can be relieved by understanding that death is an escape from pain. Grief is caused by attachment to material possessions and by not attaining physical desires. The remedy is realizing that nothing in the world of generation and corruption is stable nor endures. Those who learn how to be satisfied with what they find and are not grieved at loss will be happy.
Avicenna, Ibn Hazm, and ibn Gabirol
Abu 'Ali al-Husayn ibn Sina (980-1037), known in Christian Europe as Avicenna, was the son of the Bukhara governor. Avicenna was taught literature and had memorized the Qur'an by the age of ten. He studied Islamic law with the Hanafi jurist Isma'il al-Zahid and philosophy with al-Natili. Avicenna also studied medicine, and by the time he was sixteen he was leading legal and medical discussions. He read Aristotle's Metaphysics forty times but admitted that he did not really understand it until he bought al-Farabi's book On the Objects of Metaphysics. When Nuh ibn Mansur became seriously ill, Avicenna was consulted; upon the Emir's recovery the young physician joined the Samanid staff and now had access to its library. At this time he wrote a commentary on the philosophical legacy called Sum and Substance and a book on ethics entitled Innocence and Guilt. In the latter he defended the naturalistic theodicy that enables good and truth to win over evil and falsehood. He argued in favor of the popular belief in retribution and recompense, which operate through nature, human action, and seemingly by chance; but in reality they descend ultimately from God.
When his father died, Avicenna was given a government position and became independent; but he was compelled to leave Bukhara after the last Samanid 'Abd al-Malik ibn Nuh was deposed in 999. Avicenna moved to Gurganj and stayed there until 1012. Avicenna was summoned to the court of Mahmud; but faced with the Ghaznavid's cruel policies of conquest, persecution for deviating from orthodoxy, high taxes, and military conscription, the philosopher fled south. He was given refuge by Qabus after curing a member of his family; but Qabus was imprisoned and died in 1013. In Jurjan Avicenna began writing his great medical Canon. With his loyal disciple Juzjani, he traveled to the court of al-Saiyida and her son Majd al-Daula at Ray, which also soon fell to the Ghaznavids. After Shams al-Daula recaptured Ray in 1015, Avicenna medically treated the prince and joined his court. Mutineers demanded the life of Avicenna but were mollified when Shams al-Daula banished him for forty days. The philosopher-physician was reinstated after treating the prince's colic.
Avicenna was at Hamadhan until 1023; there he was vizier twice and completed his Canon. In the second part he suggested seven rules for scientific experimentation in order to isolate causes and quantify effects. His pharmacopoeia included 760 drugs. When Shams al-Daula died, Avicenna negotiated with Isfahan monarch 'Ala' al-Daula and was imprisoned by Shams' son Taj al-Mulk for four months in a castle, where he wrote his Hidayah (Book of Guidance). Avicenna, his brother Mahmud, Juzjani, and two slaves managed to escape disguised as Sufis to Isfahan. Avicenna recognized Sufi experiences as a valid subject for philosophical study. In 1029 Mahmud captured nearby Ray and destroyed the library in the Buyid palace. The following January Avicenna was forced to flee Isfahan as his baggage was plundered. Avicenna never married; but some blame his frequent sexual intercourse with slaves as a contributing factor in his fatal illness of 1037. Avicenna wrote at least a hundred books, and his medical book al-Qanan (Canon) became the standard text in Europe until the 17th century. His major philosophical work is called al-Shifa (The Healing) and discusses comprehensively logic, physics, mathematics, and metaphysics.
In his Book of Hints and Pointers Avicenna asked the reader to reflect that absent any sensory experience one could still realize one's existence. Thus he posited that the conscious subject or soul is independent of the body. He also noted that mathematical and other theoretical knowledge transcend the temporal. Since the soul does not depend on the body for its existence, it is not necessarily destroyed with the body. Avicenna agreed with al-Farabi that the active intelligence knows in the same way as God knows, though not as completely. The soul is what receives the reward since it survives the body's perishing and is unmolested by passing time. In a mystical treatise On Love Avicenna went beyond the language of conjunction to the Sufi idea of unity. He wrote that every being loves the absolute good with innate love and that the absolute good manifests itself to all who love it, though their receptivity may vary. Avicenna argued that the soul can cure another body without instruments, and he cited evidence from hypnosis and suggestion. These demonstrate that what are called miracles can occur.
Avicenna explained how prophets bringing revelation can impel people to good actions by more than intellectual insight and inspiration. Thus the prophet should be the law-giver, and some can understand the laws by philosophical methods. However, those who are unable to understand philosophical truth behind the law have to accept revelation of the law as literal truth. Avicenna's social and political philosophy are discussed in relation to prophecy. Humans are a species that needs to be complemented by others of the same species since an isolated individual has difficulty fulfilling basic needs. Thus humans require partnerships and reciprocal transactions, which in turn demand law and justice. The creation of the laws may come from a prophet, who lays down laws by God's permission. The first principle is to teach people they have a single omnipotent Creator who knows all and that the commands of God must be obeyed. Those who do obey will obtain an afterlife of bliss, but the disobedient will be miserable. Avicenna warned that not everyone can understand the more complex philosophical knowledge of God and that if those unable to do so try, they fall into dissension with multiplying doubts and complaints.
To ensure the preservation of the laws the prophet should teach people to pray so that they will be reminded of God and the afterlife. Avicenna also stated his belief that worldly interests could be enhanced by holy war (jihad) and the pilgrimage, though the noblest act of worship is prayer. He argued that happiness in the hereafter is achieved by the soul's detaching itself by piety from what is acquired by the bodily dispositions. This purification is achieved by ethical states and moral habits of character that turn the soul away from the body and its senses and toward the memory of its true essence.
Avicenna suggested that the legislator divide the state into administrators, artisans, and guardians with a leader for each group. The common fund comes from duties on acquired and natural profits, such as agricultural fruits. Property may also be taken from those who resist the law, and Avicenna includes war booty in this category. These funds are required to meet the needs of the guardians (soldiers) who do no productive work and of the sick and aged unable to work. Avicenna condemned gambling as unproductive, usury as seeking excessive profit, and fornication and sodomy as detrimental to the sacredness of marriage. What is most conducive to the general good is love, which is achieved through friendship and long association. He considered women less rational but needing protection from separation. Thus judges and the law should decide about divorces in order to protect the woman from mistreatment. Avicenna observed that sexual relations of women are considered shameful while those of men only arouse jealousy. Thus he approved of the veiling of women and their seclusion from men. Men should be the bread-earners, but women share in the proper upbringing of children. He argued that the man's work is compensated by his exclusive use of the woman's genitalia.
The prophet's successor may be designated by the legislator or by the consensus of the elders. Avicenna recommended the decree that if someone secedes or claims the caliphate by power or because of wealth, it is the duty of every citizen to fight and kill him. Those who do not do so disobey God, and only belief in the prophet is more important to God than killing such a usurper. Avicenna suggested that those who oppose the laws should be called upon to accept the truth; if they resist, they should be destroyed by war. Their property and women should be administered according to the constitution of a virtuous state. He justified this slavery because some people must be forced to serve others. Those not capable of acquiring virtue he argued are already slaves by nature. Thus the legislator must impose prohibitions, penalties, and punishments for disobeying the divine law.
Avicenna taught the traditional moderation of the cardinal virtues in temperance and courage. Excessive indulgence harms human interests, and a deficiency of courage harms the state. Wisdom guides practical action, and the sum of wisdom, courage, and temperance is justice. These include the virtues of contentment, generosity, patience, forgiveness, tolerance, moral strength, keeping confidences and promises, eloquence, kindness, firmness, honesty, loyalty, friendliness, mercy, modesty, magnanimity, and humility.
Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi (994-1064) was born at Cordoba into a wealthy family that had recently converted from Christianity to Islam. His family fled the Berber invasion. His mother, brother, sister-in-law, and father had all died by the time he was 18, and Ibn Hazm himself suffered from heart palpitations and an enlarged spleen. The family's property had been lost during a civil war at Cordoba in 1009, but Ibn Hazm became vizier to the caliph at Valencia and was vizier at Cordoba under Caliph al-Mustazir in 1023. However, the continuing civil war destroyed the Umayyad caliphate, as Spain broke up into petty states. He spent three years studying jurisprudence in order to answer criticism he received from eminent jurists. He was imprisoned several times for his politics and eventually retired to write. According to his son he wrote 400 books, though fewer than forty survived. His critical writings were often unpopular, and some of his books were burned in public.
Ibn Hazm wrote about romantic love in The Ring of the Dove, and his greatest work was an encyclopedic study of comparative religion. He rejected the current notion that women are more susceptible to corruption. Ibn Hazm defended the rights of women and slaves and argued that everyone should have a free education. In politics he rejected the Shi'a ideas that the imam (leader) should be chosen by heredity and that he is infallible. Ibn Hazm believed that the ruler must be just, but he ranked the scholar who teaches the people as deserving an even higher place in the hereafter.
Near the end of his life Ibn Hazm wrote A Philosophy of Character and Conduct. In considering that life is a continual process of reducing anxiety, Ibn Hazm discovered a method for arriving at what all people seek. He described it eloquently as follows:
I discovered that this method consists in nothing else but
directing one's self towards a Supreme Goodness
by means of good works conducive to immortal life.
For, as I investigated, I observed that all things tended to elude me,
and I reached the conclusion that the only permanent reality possible
consists in good works useful for another, immortal life.
Every other hope that I desired to see realized was followed by melancholy,
sometimes because what was ardently desired escaped me,
sometimes because I decided to abandon it.
It seemed to me that nothing escaped these dangers
but good works, directed by a Supreme Goodness.
These alone were always followed by pleasure
in the present and in the future;
in the present because I was freed from numerous anxieties
which disturbed my tranquillity,
and, moreover, friends and enemies concurred in commending me;
and in the future because these works promised immortality.10
This virtuous work is free of defects and the most effective way to stop anxiety. Ibn Hazm observed that those who worked for this end were joyful and free of cares, even when they underwent unpleasant tests, because of the hope that the end of their life would bring what they sought. He compared the spiritual life to sensual pleasures.
The pleasure which the intelligent man experiences
in the exercise of his reason, the learned man in his study,
the prudent man in his discreet deliberation,
and the devout man in his ascetic combat
is greater than the delight which is felt by the glutton in his eating,
the toper in his drinking, the lecher in his incontinence,
the trader in his painful bargaining, the gamester in his merriment,
and the leader in the exercise of his authority.
The proof of this lies in the fact that intelligent, learned, prudent,
and devout men also experience those other delights
which I have just enumerated in the same way
as one who lives only to wallow in them,
but they tend to abandon and separate themselves from them,
preferring instead the quest for permanent release from anxiety
through good and virtuous works.11
Ibn Hazm advised his readers to listen to the Creator more than to what other people say. He believed that those who think they are safe from all criticism are out of their minds. Those who study deeply and discipline the soul not to rest until it finds the truth are more glad to receive criticism than praise, because praise can lead to pride, while criticism may result in correction. Even unjust criticism can help a person to learn how to control oneself with patience. He put those seeking eternity on the side of the angels, those striving for evil on the side of the demons, those striving for fame and victory on the side of the tigers, and those seeking pleasures on the side of the beasts. Those who seek only money are too base to be compared even to beasts but resemble collected slime. The person with a strong intellect with extensive knowledge, who does good deeds, should rejoice, because only the angels and best people are superior.
Ibn Hazm encapsulated the whole of virtue in the saying of the prophet Muhammad on the golden rule - "Do as you would be done by."12 From the prophet's forbidding of all anger Ibn Hazm inferred that the soul should turn away from greed and lust while upholding justice. He considered the person misguided who would barter an eternal future for a passing moment. The person who harms is bad, and anyone returning evil for evil is just as bad. Anyone refraining from returning evil is their master and the most virtuous. Ibn Hazm warned against gaining a reputation for being devious. The person who knows one's own faults better than others know them is blessed. Security, health, and wealth are only appreciated by those who lack them; but the value of a sound judgment and virtue is known only to those who share them. The wise are not deluded by a friendship that began when one was in power. He recommended trusting the pious.
Too much wealth causes greed, and Ibn Hazm defined the supreme objective of generosity as giving away the entire surplus of one's possessions to charity. He defined courage as fighting in defense of religion, women, ill-treated neighbors, the oppressed who seek protection, for a lost fortune, when honor has been attacked, and for other rights. Ibn Hazm defined continence as turning away all one's organs of sense from forbidden objects. He defined justice as giving spontaneously what is due and knowing how to take what is right. Nobility is to allow others their rights willingly. "One hour of neglect can undo a year of pious effort."13 During civil war the blossom does not set fruit. He considered it a virtue of self-discipline to confess faults so that others may learn from them. Then Ibn Hazm described how he worked to overcome his faults of self-satisfaction, sarcasm, pride, trembling, love of fame, disliking women, and bearing grudges. He believed that the best gift from God is justice and the love of justice and truth. He observed that anyone who cares about your friendship is willing to criticize you, while those who make light of faults show they do not care.
Ibn Hazm warned against giving advice, interceding, or giving gifts only on the condition that they be accepted; one should not insist. He considered the highest aim of friendship to have all things in common without constraint and preferring one's friend to all others. He characterized love as longing for the loved one, fearing separation, and hoping that one's love will be reciprocated. He believed that jealousy is a virtuous feeling made of courage and justice, and he claimed that a jealous person never committed adultery. He described the five stages of love as making friends, admiration, close friendship such that one misses the other terribly, the obsession of amorous affection, and finally passion. For Ibn Hazm the four roots of virtue are justice, intelligence, courage, and generosity, and their contrary vices are unfairness, ignorance, cowardice, and greed. He considered honesty part of justice, and temperance part of generosity. He noted that the good do have a hard time in this world, but they find rest in their calmness that others worrying about the vanities of this world do not know.
The wise see their own faults and fight against them in order to overcome them. The fool ignores them, or even worse, takes them for good qualities. One should avoid speaking of the faults of others except when counseling someone face to face. One should also be careful not to praise people to their face lest one be taken for a vile flatterer. Ibn Hazm warned against being proud of intelligence, good works, knowledge, and courage, because there are always others who are superior in these good qualities; being proud of wealth, beauty, praise, ancestry, and physical strength is ridiculous because they have no lasting value. If your pride causes you to boast, you are doubly guilty, because it shows that your intelligence was unable to control your pride. He reminded us that it is harder to tame oneself than it is to tame a wild beast, and it is also more difficult to guard against other humans than it is against wild animals. Ibn Hazm believed that to the well-born honor is more important than gold. The well-born should use gold to protect one's body, one's body to protect one's soul, one's soul to protect one's honor, one's honor to protect one's religion, and one's religion should not be sacrificed for anything. A person wishing to be fair should put oneself in the adversary's position in order to see the unfairness of one's own behavior.
Solomon ibn Gabirol was born at Malaga in Spain about 1022 and was educated at Zaragoza. By the age of 16 he was already well known for writing poetry. He was protected by the king's advisor Yekutiel ibn Hasan until Hasan was imprisoned and executed in 1039. Ibn Gabirol was called a Greek for his Neo-Platonic philosophy, and his two ethical works, Choice of Pearls and The Improvement of the Moral Qualities, were written when he was quite young. He became a court poet with the prominent Jewish statesman Samuel ha-Nagid in Granada. Samuel's son Joseph (1031-1066) became the Jewish leader (Nagid) when he was 24, but he was killed when Muslims massacred 1500 Jewish families in Granada on one day. This was the first major persecution of Jews in Islamic Spain, and the Jews in Granada were compelled to sell their property and go into exile. Yet Abu Fadl Chasdai, the son of a poet as famous as ibn Gabirol, was made vizier in that same year of 1066 by the king of Zaragoza. Ibn Gabirol's major work on metaphysics was called The Fountain of Life, but it only survived in Latin translation with the author's name appearing as Avicebron or Avencebrol; only in 1846 was it realized that this book, which influenced Christian scholasticism, was by ibn Gabirol. His poem The Royal Crown humbly calls upon the grace of God. He may have died as early as 1051, though other authorities say ibn Gabirol died about 1070.
Ibn Gabirol's Choice of Pearls is a collection of aphorisms, some of which were collected from ancient Greek philosophers. He passed on the advice about the four mental types - the wise know and are aware that they know, and one can learn from them; those who know but are unaware that they know need reminding; those ignorant who are aware that they are ignorant can be taught; and those who are ignorant but pretend that they know are fools and should be avoided. He noted that kings may be judges on earth, but the wise judge the kings. If one cannot control one's temper, how much less can one control others. Those who seek more than they need hinder themselves from enjoying what they have. A person's best companion is the intellect, and the worst enemy is desire.
In The Improvement of the Moral Qualities ibn Gabirol commented on various moral qualities. He found that intelligence and modesty go together in people. Those who hate people are hated by them, and this may destroy one, as one suffers injury from hostile people. Wrath is reprehensible except when it is used to correct or because of indignation for transgressions. Generosity in moderation is commendable but not when it lapses into prodigality, squandering substance on pleasures and lust. Valor perseveres in the right and overcomes desires. It is better to die in the best way than to live in an evil way.
Another influential ethical work was written by Bahya Ben Joseph ibn Pakuda in the second half of the 11th century. Bahya was a rabbinical judge in Zaragoza. He believed that one must go beyond the duties of the body required by religious traditions, and so he wrote Duties of the Heart, describing them in ten sections called gates. Bahya tried to spiritualize ethics by appealing to conscience as more important than ritualized laws. He himself became a self-denying ascetic. Bahya explained that people are blind for three reasons. First, they are too absorbed in secular affairs and pleasures. Second, they grow up surrounded with such abundance they take for granted that they do not appreciate the wisdom and bounty of God. Third, people do not seem to realize that the various mishaps that occur in the world are valuable trials in order to learn discipline. Bahya described the many blessings of life and perceived in them the miraculous design of a divine creator. He argued that altruism is really in everyone's self-interest, for the beneficiary is under obligation to serve the benefactor.
1001 Nights and 'Umar Khayyam's Ruba'iyat
The famous Arabian tales called The Thousand and One Nights derive from a Persian collection of a Thousand Legends (Hazar Afsana) that was translated into Arabic about 850, though new stories were being added to replace others all the way up to at least the 15th century. Many stories are set in Baghdad at the peak of its wealth and splendor under Caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786-809); later stories are often set in Cairo. The prolog suggests that people can look back at the fortunes of predecessors to be admonished about folly.
The Persian original contained the framework story of King Shahzaman, who caught his wife in bed with a black slave and killed them. While his brother King Shahryar was hunting, Shahzaman also found his brother's wife embracing an African in a slave orgy. Shahryar had his wife's head cut off and ordered his vizier to bring him a virgin girl every night; these he ravished each night and in the morning had them executed until the vizier could no longer find girls for his king. The vizier's daughter Shahrazad was very well read and volunteered to be ransom for the other daughters. After King Shahryar ravished the virginity of Shahrazad, she sent for her younger sister Dunyazad, who asked her to tell the king stories to pass the night pleasantly. At dawn Shahrazad discreetly stopped speaking, and the king, wanting to hear the end of the story, postponed her execution. Every night Shahrazad would tell stories and stop when she saw morning approaching, and the king would ask her to complete her story the next night. Finally after a thousand and one nights, Shahrazad had born three children. Both kings Shahryar and Shazaman decided to put aside their resentment of women's treachery, and Shahzaman married Dunyazad.
The stories marvelously describe urban Islamic culture, and magical genies and Ifrits make any fantasy come true. Few stories relate to war and the military, while many are frankly erotic. In the "Tale of the Second Sheikh" he tells his Ifrita wife not to kill his brothers because they know that the wicked person suffers punishment enough. In "The Fisherman and the Genie" King Yunan kills his physician Rayyan, because he fears the physician may kill him; but the vizier explains to the Ifrit that God would have preserved Yunan if he had preserved the physician. The Ifrit asks the vizier to return good for evil by pardoning his wrong. Tales within tales lead eventually to a fisherman becoming the richest man in the country. A brother and sister who committed incest were punished by being burned in a fire, and their punishment in the next world is expected to be even worse. A Christian broker tells how he had his hand cut off for stealing.
"The Tale of King Umar Al-Numan and His Two Remarkable Sons, Sharkan and Du Al-Makan" concerns battles with the Byzantine empire and shows the Christian warriors in a negative light epitomized by the wicked old Mother-of-Calamity. In this story a section on the art of conduct mentions four human ways of government, commerce, husbandry, and craftsmanship. One must beware that pity weakens government but also that lack of pity stirs revolt. The road away from the house of moderation leads to the town of foolishness. One should be just, especially to slaves. Girls give wise discourses to King Umar. A qadi to judge justly should look at both sides and make no difference between rich and poor. His duty is to reconcile people if possible to maintain peace. When in doubt, he should reserve judgment. Justice is the first human duty. It is better for the unjust to turn toward justice even than for a just person to remain so. Humans judge only appearances, but God will judge what is hidden. A judge should not try to exact confession by torture or starvation. The three things that make a judge useless are respecting place, loving praise, and fearing to lose one's position. A second girl says,
There are three things which are possible only under three conditions:
you may not know if a man be really good
until you have seen him in his anger;
you may not know if a man be brave
until you have seen him in battle;
and you may not know if a man be a friend
until you have come to him in necessity.
A tyrant will pay for his injustice,
in spite of the flattering words of his courtiers;
and the oppressed will escape perdition, in spite of all injustice.
Deal with people according to their deeds
and not according to their words.
Yet deeds are not worth the intentions which inspire them;
therefore each man shall be judged
according to his intentions and not according to his deeds.
The heart is the noblest member of the body.
A wise man said that the worst of men
is he who allows an evil desire to take root in his heart,
for he shall lose his manhood.14
When King Shahryar asks Shahrazad for a tale to fortify their moral precepts, she tells him of a girl named Sympathy, who was known for her learning as well as her beauty. She advises that a holy war should only be undertaken for defensive purposes when Islam is in danger, and it should never be offensive. To give is to enrich oneself. Sympathy's wisdom includes the following duties of religion:
The branches of Islam are twenty:
strict observance of the Book's teaching,
conformation with the traditions and oral instructions of the Prophet,
the avoidance of injustice,
eating permitted food, never to eat unpermitted food,
to punish evil doers that vice may not increase
owing to the exaggerated clemency of the virtuous,
repentance, profound study of religion, to do good to enemies,
to be modest, to succor the servants of Allah,
to avoid all innovation and change,
to show courage in adversity and strength in time of trial,
to pardon when one is strong, to be patient in misfortune,
to know Allah, to know His Prophet (upon whom be prayer and peace!),
to resist the suggestions of the Evil One,
to fight against the passions and wicked instincts of the soul,
to be wholly vowed in confidence and submission to the service of Allah.15
Faith abides in the heart, the head, the tongue, and in the members. The strength of the heart is joy; strength of the head is in knowing the truth; strength in the tongue is in sincerity; and strength of the members is in submission. In introducing moral anecdotes from a perfumed garden Shahrazad warns the king that to gross and narrow minds they might seem licentious; but to the pure and clean all things are pure and clean, and it is not shameful to speak of things which lie below the waist.
A story about Buhlul the jester in the court of Harun al-Rashid is perhaps one of the earliest references to the medieval court jesters or fools. When the Caliph asks Buhlul to make a list of all the fools in Baghdad, he suggests that it would be easier to make a list of all the wise men and then conclude that all the others are fools. The second-to-last tale attempts to explain why al-Rashid had his body-guard Masrur execute their best friend, Vizier Jafar of the Barmakid family. The rest of that family that numbered nearly a thousand were thrown into dungeons, and their goods were confiscated. The Caliph feared that Yahya al-Barmaki and his sons had taken away the management of the government from him. Also they had previously practiced the Magian cult, and during the expedition to Khurasan, they had used their power to prevent the destruction of Magian temples and monuments. Jafar had agreed to marry Harun's sister Abbasah but never see her except in his presence. Al-Rashid became so jealous when he learned that she bore a child that he had his own sister and the baby buried alive.
The tales of the Arabian nights were translated into French in 1704 and since then have provided immense entertainment to western culture that still continues in adventure movies based on the voyages of Sindbad and stories of Aladdin's lamp.
Analysis of his horoscope has indicated that 'Umar Khayyam was born May 18, 1048, and modern investigation has put his death in 1131. He was educated at Khurasan's capital Nishapur and at Balkh. He was most noted in his life as an astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher. He wrote his influential treatise on algebra at Samarkand. In 1074 he was summoned by Seljuq sultan Malik-Shah and his famous vizier Nizam al-Mulk to construct an observatory and revise the calendar; the new era was inaugurated on March 16, 1079. His patron allowed 'Umar Khayyam leisure for writing. After Nizam al-Mulk died in 1092, 'Umar Khayyam went on pilgrimage. He made an enemy of Sanjar when he predicted the child would die of an ailment. Sanjar governed Khurasan from 1117 and was Sultan 1137-1157. It was reported that 'Umar Khayyam died while reading Avicenna's chapter on the one and the many, praying to God that he had only his knowledge to recommend himself.
Ruba'iyat means quatrains, and hundreds of these attributed to 'Umar Khayyam were collected after his death. English renderings were made famous by the Victorian poet Edward Fitzgerald. Unlike traditional Islamic belief and Sufi mysticism, these writings question the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. The poet recommended the sensual pleasures of the present rather than asceticism or study. Yet he once wrote, "If the heart could grasp the meaning of life, in death it would know the mystery of God."16 His ethics was not in the least transcendental as this quatrain indicates:
The good and evil that are in man's heart.
The joy and sorrow that are our fortune and destiny,
Do not impute them to the wheel of heaven because, in the light of reason,
The wheel is a thousand times more helpless than you.17
Although 'Umar Khayyam in his quatrains often recommended drinking wine, which is forbidden by the Qur'an, he nevertheless advised doing so wisely.
If you drink wine, do it with men of sense,
Or drink with a tulip-cheeked paragon of girlhood;
Don't overdo it, or make it your constant refrain, or give the show away;
Drink in moderation, occasionally, and in private.18
'Umar Khayyam found responsibility in each person.
It is we who are the source of happiness, the mine of our own sorrow,
The repository of justice and foundation of iniquity;
We who are cast down and exalted, perfect and defective,
At once the rusted mirror and Jamshid's all-seeing cup.19
'Umar Khayyam disliked religious hypocrisy and suggested that if all are not saved, then none will be.
Drinking wine and consorting with good fellows
Is better than practicing the ascetic's hypocrisy;
If the lover and drunkard are to be among the damned
Then no one will see the face of heaven.20
Notes
1. Yusuf Khass Hajib, Wisdom of Royal Glory tr. Robert Dankoff, p. 110.
2. Nizam al-Mulk, The Book of Government tr. Hubert Drake, p. 187.
3. Ibid., p. 187.
4. Ibid., p. 231.
5. Quoted in Islam ed. John Alden Williams, p. 138.
6. 'Attar, Tadhikrat al- 'Awliyal' tr. Paul Losensky in Early Islamic Mysticism, p. 163.
7. Ibid., p. 169.
8. Abu Nu'aym al-Isfahani Hilyat ul-auliya'. Vol. 10, p. 58 quoted in Schimmel, Annemarie, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p. 51.
9. Abu l-Qasim al-Junayd, Some Points on Tawhid in Early Islamic Mysticism, p. 255.
10. Ibn Hazm, A Philosophy of Character and Conduct tr. James Kritzeck in Anthology of Islamic Literature, p. 133.
11. Ibid., p. 134.
12. Ibn Hazm, Morality and Behavior tr. Muhammad Abu Laylah in In Pursuit of Virtue 26, p. 127.
13. Ibid., 93, p. 140.
14. The Thousand Nights and One Night tr. J. D. Mardrus and Powys Mathers, Volume 1, p. 429.
15. Ibid., Volume 2, p. 153.
16. Rub'iyat of Omar Khayyam 5 tr. Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs, p. 48.
17. Ibid., 34, p. 54.
18. Ibid., 202, p. 97.
19. Ibid., 211, p. 99.
20. Ibid., 222, p. 101.
Copyright © 2004 by Sanderson Beck
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Introduction
Ethics
Prehistoric Cultures
Sumer, Babylon, and Hittites
Egypt
Israel
Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Empires
Muhammad and Islamic Conquest
Abbasid, Buyid, and Seljuk Empires 750-1095
Islamic Culture 1095-1300
Ottoman and Persian Empires 1300-1730
Ottoman and Persian Empires 1730-1875
Africa to 1500
Africa and Slavery 1500-1800
Africa and Europeans 1800-1875
Summary and Evaluation
Bibliography
ETHICS OF CIVILIZATION Index
Chronological Index
BECK index
