House of Wisdom, by Jonathan Lyons - Book Report/Review Example

? House of Wisdom, by Jonathan Lyons Discussion of the four parts of the book of the Part 1: Al-Isha/ Nightfall Jonathan Lyons’ book, “The House of Wisdom“, begins with a narration of the illiterate, uncultured European populations seeking assistance from the educated and self-styled Islamic society, just to drive the message of the significance of Islam in the Global civilization during the twentieth century. By indicating that Fibonnaci’s dad relied on a Muslim learning institution to train is son on Math; Lyon demonstrates how the West cashed in on the opportunity to acquire knowledge on double-entry accounting, a development that was still new in the West. Nevertheless, the West also played a pivotal role in the development of the ancient education; In view of this, this section presents Lyons thought regarding the revolution that threatened the moral basis of Crusader Antioch. The author used character Adelard to explore the significance of the French ministry school, which had enabled him enjoy the most appropriate and modern education. Through the character, Lyons demonstrates how the then society enjoyed the approval and tutelage of the authoritative minister of Bath, the French jury doctor and educationist John de Villula1. Whereas the author used Adelard of Bath to depict the nature of the then common man, his dad, Fastrad, stands as a key figure in Bishop John's entourage; being the one of the most affluent occupants of his premises, who doubled as his closes confidantes, guaranteeing his son of inherent dispensation. The household seems radically in official records of Church and political circles. This is manifest in the manner in which royal circulars eventually incorporate Adelard as the recipient of a retirement fund from the income obtained from Whiltshire; a clear indication of the connection between state and religion. Nonetheless, the younger population does not seem to appreciate or proactively benefit from the connection. In view of this, the author presents young Adelard virtually perceiving little essence in the modern world, and he gave up on the nature of the Western education, for instance. He adds that a close examination of the ancient popular literature reveals that most of them depicted more eloquence and knowledge as compared to the talents and skill of the contemporary philosophers. The ‘earth is like a wheel’ chosen by the author in part one of the book clearly depicts the nature of rolling philosophies; some repeat themselves after modification, others are rolled away to oblivion. For instance, things are more less the same in elite cathedral learning centers. The internal and conflicts and confusion that infiltrated the schools following the barbarian intrusions of the European Roman Empire, from the fourth century AD, served to damage formal learning and the return of orthodox knowledge. The invasions by Islamic ideals three centuries later resulted in the isolation of the West ideologies by minimizing easy reach of the Byzantine Christians who lived in far-flung Constantinople, where negligible levels of the Greek philosophies was still present. The author manages to depict how the wonders of conventional education were largely discarded, or at the best marginalized from the extreme levels of the European society. Invaluable literature were left out through inattention, damaged by the uneducated hordes, or simply classified as unintelligible by the prevailing ignorance of rookie scholars or just by the lost capacity to understand Greek. It is this kind of created loophole that gave room for the influence of Islam in the West, hence fighting Christianity and presenting ‘The Warriors of God’ with a difficult time marketing Christianity societies that they had yet to evangelize religiously and intellectually2. Part 2: Al-Fajr/ Dawn Jonathan Lyons indicates that the Arabic philosophy is believed to have played a pivotal role in the ‘Mapping of the World’ in the second part of the book. The chronology of Western mapping processes, especially of the Caspian Sea demonstrates this postulation. In view of this, the book illustrates that European cartographers, paying keen attention to Muslim models, had effectively depicted the Caspian’s foundation north-south point of reference by the 1300. Less than two centuries afterward, following the contribution of the new conversion of Ptolemy’s Geographia straight from the language of Greece, Western mapmakers discarded the contributions of Arab philosophers and adopted the classical portrayal of the Caspian as taking the east-west direction. Two hundred years later witnessed the reversal of the damage. This marked eight centuries after the Arabs had initially offered a precise account of the Caspian Sea cartography. On the same note, Lyons notes that the discarding of the notion and the refusal to appreciate the importance of global mapping achievements of medieval Arabic discoveries, by the Renaissance West triggered the common concept that the distance al round the earth was one fifth shorter than it really is, a mistake not explained by Western trialing before the sixteenth century. Additionally, Christopher Columbus employed the use of this less lengthy distance in organizing his experimentation of the contemporary world, a mistake with nearly fatal repercussions. The Western explanation of Islam and scientific art, similar to those practiced in the Islamic society, such as the role of female gender and the religion and conflict, is part of a ten-century discourse that influences contemporary philosophies, and more significantly, what is left out of the contemporary world, in regard to Islamic religion and its faithful. This, eventually, has rendered man intellectually weak and politically incapable to react to a number of the most problems they face in the current contemporary world: the global development of Islamic influence in governance; the more remote growth of spiritual conflict and threat of global security; and disagreements between established traditional principles and multicultural privileges in regard to developing Muslim immigrant communities3. The most important point in regard to this vagueness is the underlying ideology that Islamic tradition is by its real essence unreasonable and against the sciences, a perception illustrated by the Orientalist education of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and largely common in the twenty first century. Additionally, it also mirrors the West’s unique historical philosophy in the seminal years of “contemporary” science and overlooks the uniques Islamic knowledge of science and skill in broad-spectrum. This tendency first came up following the worldly humanists of the Renaissance period, who concentrated their energies on the notion that Muslim intrusion in Greek philosophy had to be discarded and substituted by some kind of the reemergence of “authentic” Greek literature in the contribution of Arabic change. The second part demonstrates that this fatally ignored the immense contributions fronted by scientists inspired by Islam along the path, and, infrequently, spearheaded to a near comedy of mistakes4. Part 3: Al-Zuhr/ Midday The third part, the Al-Zuhr, the book carries ‘The First man of Science,’ which suggests the origin of science; ‘what is said of the sphere…,’ the composition and significance of the globe; and the origin, essence and contributions of ‘Wisest Philosophers of the world’ in relation to the Muslim society. In this section of the book, Lyons indicates that the origin of knowledge can be traced to Baghdad; and that it was set up by the second Abbasid Caliph, Abu Jahar al-Mansour. The author narrates that the Caliph as a learner of Euclid, was highly concerned about building a fortress in a ring so that individuals would be mid-way from his main palace; this is an indication of the significance of keeping the common man at the ‘right’ place in the society to avoid marginalization of the popular philosophies, a clear portrayal of the ‘wisest philosophers,’ which draw popular support. In this respect, the philosopher sanctioned the setting up of a ring of cottonseed petroleum, which brought the municipality into respite in glowing light, symbolizing the essence of change and contemporary philosophies of Christianity and Islam. Whereas Madina-al-Salam was a scientifically planned urban center, its delightful nature arose from a municipality governed by sanctity for law rather than by ethnic beliefs. Al-Mansour sanctioned transformation of scientific literature from Greek and Persian to English; he also ordered the establishment of the House of Wisdom, popularly identified as the Beit al Hikma. Its model followed the collections of the renowned Persian rulers. Lyons indicates that this contribution was highly shored up by the common man and the Caliphs as well. The society depicted in the book, highly respected scholars; if an influential individual wanted a scholar, he or she would seek the services of one, who lived in the same setting and carried out the duties in honor of his or her master. Astute translators took home good returns. In view of this, the paraphrasing of Greek literature into Arabic enabled Arabic to become more popular within academic circles. The novel portrays the involvedness of the translation work; the work was more than shallow paraphrasing of the words. To effectively translate this literature, the academicians needed immense knowledge in science. The deep skill would enable them to right, edit and adjust these texts. This enabled the Arabic translation of a classical Greek text to more accurate, and finer than the original work. Despite the significance of Arabic language in regard to the improvement of scientific innovations, the reception of the development by the West was poor. Renaissance philosophers were obsessed with the original Greek text. Lyons indicates that the need for science in the society did not contradict religious influence, the Islamic support was profound. And the impact of Arabic highly supported education. Many valued it because of its simplicity. For instance, Arabic language has 42 vocabularies for the text that implied “to be” in Latin language; this was highly significant, when scientists wanted to present easy facts in a complex subject such as metaphysics. Mohammed in his widely believed effort to bring spiritual, economic and eventually an intellectual change in Islam elevates him to the position of the ‘wisest’ globally among Muslims. The need to understand the Qibla, or the essence of Mecca, a significant place for prayer, interment and readiness for Halal meat, a significant role in the development of geographic inventions. When Mohammed departed from Mecca for Medina, the prophet just wanted to pray facing south. At first, this was accepted by Islamic faithful in the far-off regions, though the need for scientific precision superseded spiritual values. In view of this, eventually scientific solution was given precedence. Medieval spiritual opinion gave room for the scientists. As a result, the Qibla accepted was the discordant line that respected the twists of the actual boundaries on a map. By the tenth century, Lyons indicates that the Islamic intellectuals had developed clear geometry depicting the earth as spherical. A century earlier, all half-dozen key trigonometric principles were widely in use. Mosques set up in urban areas were already fertile ground for timekeepers; these were spiritual scientists who earned a living from the mosques, as they compiled almanacs, strict prayer schedules to be followed by Muslim faithful around the world. Part 4: Al Asr/ Afternoon In this Al Asr, Jonathan Lyons indicates that the world remains largely the same, and that though the West had some original inventions in its name, others were a modification of what the Arabs had made; this is manifest in Lyon’s presentation of ‘On the Eternity of the World’ and ‘The invention of the West’ respectively. Lyons indicates that just as the West attempted to ‘correct’ Aristotelian philosophies of metaphysics through Averroes and Avicenna, by injecting the sense and the existence of supernatural entity, the Arab scientists who were largely drawn from Baghdad’s House of Wisdom established their unique imperative reaction to Greek science. This jostling resulted in hypothetical and actual reversal of the common tenets of the science of the universe, as was presented by Ptolemy by the second century AD. This system was to be completely discarded following the gradual philosophy of Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astronomer. Eventually, Isaac Newton sealed the revolution in the eighteenth century. This innovation held that the sun and not the earth occupy the central solar system, hence emphasizing the contribution of the West in science, though the author indicates that this concept was derived from Arabic philosophies. Lyons says that many have ignored the significance of eight centuries of Islamic communities and traditions in Spain from the eighth through fifteenth centuries. The role played by the Muslim Spain toward the conservation of classical education during the Dark Ages period, and to the beginning of the Renaissance, is a clear manifestation of the eternity of the ancient Islamic philosophies. Although, Islamic Spain was largely insignificant to the mainstream society in terms of decision-making, it is apparent that Hellenistic philosophies were preserved for later use by the rising tolerant Western world. ‘Eternity of the world’ refers to the activities that the Muslim Spain engaged in; it collected and conserved the intellectual substance of classical Greek and Roman traditions. Additionally, it also translated and improved on that cultural heritage, making a significant input of its unique ones in several scholarly fields such as science, mathematics, and algebra - drawn from Arabic, astronomy, law, medicine, pharmacology, history, optics, architecture, religion, music and agriculture. In view of this, Averroes and Avenzoor, are great Western philosophers who, like Rhazes and Avicenna in the Arab world, made significant contributions to the research and implementation of medicine in the manner in which the West, especially Europe gained significance for centuries later5. Following the disintegration of the Roman Empire, which was a significant origin in the West, Europe suffered the loss of much of its ancient heritage and was devastated by the entry of Arabic concepts from the Byzantine Empire. This is where some primeval wisdom survived. Lyons narrates how ancient medieval Christendom was incapable of offering the exact account precise time schedules for royally offices, or establish the date of Easter. On the same note, dogmatic factors of spirituality and chain of command left little extent for innate scientific innovations. Aristotle's contribution was rendered less significant, following its confinement within the syllabuses of schools. Additionally, Bishop Isidore of Seville discovered the concept that advanced the flatness of Earth. Summary The hypothesis of constant Muslim-Christian conflict, though not widely full-blown due to its confinement in American scholarly circles, was in the past opened by the history philosophers. In this explicit and well thought-out book, Jonathan Lyons brings together different aspects of philosophies by shading more light on virtually all the grey areas by illustrating the manner in which Arabic science infiltrated the Latin culture in the middle ages and contributed toward the civilization of an uncouth society. The author narrates how Arab inventions in astronomy, engineering, mathematics, geography, medicine, navigation, construction, gardening, finance, and chemistry entered Europe through the Crusader empires, Spain and Sicily. The development led to the growth in the Renaissance, which later inspired the advances in science during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This Arabic invasion of European concepts has left eternal marks in the language of the West, such as the Arabic numbering method. Bibliography Lyons, Jonathan. The house of wisdom: how the Arabs transformed Western civilization. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010. Read More