Islamic Civilization
A) Introduction
In the study of civilization, Man takes the central position in its discussion. Everything that is reflected in the study of civilization, may it be the achievements, downfall, ideology, thoughts and others, will definitely involves Man as the agent of change to the existence or disintegration of a civilization. This is so because of the ability of Man to think, God’s special gift to Man, which enables him to co – operate with each other and also to use his reason to utilize the physical environment that has been given to him by God to the best of his knowledge. This full co - operation results in a complicated social process called social organization which further resulted into a civilization. The formation of civilization is of a natural social pattern or a ‘sunnatullah’, implanted in creation, causes creation to run as it does. The reason is due to the nature of Man being in need of material dependency with his physical environment (2 : 22), his spiritual inclination in wanting to know the Truth which leads him to get to know each other (49 : 13) and most important is the purpose of Man’s creation in being the vicegerent on earth (2 : 30) which further enhances the origin of civilization. As the philosophers puts it : ‘ Man is "political" by nature’, that is, he cannot do without the social organization.
Many civilizations grew and perished with times, just like the people of Ad and Thamud (9 : 70). There were also those civilizations that lasted for centuries and contributed their thoughts and cultures to the new civilization that took over them, just like the Greek, Persian, Byzantine, Mongol and other civilization which do have some influences over the Islamic civilization upon their acceptance of Islam as their faith. The initial starting point in the study of human history differs between the Western and Islamic philosophy. The western philosophy being hypothetical in nature tends to consider the study of human history ‘ from the first civilization preceeded by pre – historic time’ failing to explain clearly what it actually means by the ambiguous statement made. In Islamic philosophy, the beginning in the study of human history is clearly defined in the first creation of Man, that is Adam a.s. (2 : 30, 2 : 36). Thus, it can be said that ‘ Islamic civilization’, considering Adam a.s. being a Muslim just like Muhammad s.a.w (3 : 84) and eventhough Islam as a religion is only endorsed during the time of Muhammad s.a.w., has already started a long way back from the first creation of Man.
In the study of Islamic Civilization, many approaches has been taken by scholars, be it the Western or Muslim scholars. Most approaches tend to highlight the manifestations and the attributes of Islamic civilization such as in arts, architecture, sciences and others. Such known scholars who indulged their writings in this mannerism were Ziya Gokalp, Jurji Zaidan and many others. These scholars failed to stress and give more attention to the importance of philosophical and ideological aspect behind those manifestations. In this way, the study of civilization, as Volip put it, ‘ will be more of an exercise to the mind, a feast to the ears and a pleasure for the heart without providing any change for the future.’ Therefore, a more indepth discussion into the Islamic ideology as the basis and source of Islamic civilization which resulted in such a profound manifestations will be the main focus of this essay.
B) Definitions
Islamic Civilization is derived from the word ‘Islam’ and ‘civilization’, binding forcefully together so as to give a special connotation and a picturesque idea of an Islamic essence in it. As Islam is always equate with Muslims to most people, giving a false impression that Muslim civilization is the civilization of Islam which is not totally true in a certain extend, thus, a more critical analysis should be done so as to show the difference in both. In doing so, a separate definitions of ‘Islam’ and ‘civilization’ should be given in their own proper context and after such exercise is done, a definition of Islamic Civilization in its totality will be understood clearly and comprehensively.
1) Meaning of Islam
The Pocket Oxford Dictionary defines Islam as " the religion of the Muslims, proclaimed by Muhammad ". In Grolier, New Book of Knowledge, Islam is written as one of the world’s major religions and the word ‘Islam’ means submission in Arabic, which refers to the obedience to God, Allah s.w.t., being all – forgiving, all – powerful, Merciful and Compassionate God. John L. Esposito, in his book title ‘Islam The straight Path’, characterized Islam as ‘an uncompromising belief in the One, True God – His revelation and Prophet….’. As defined by Dr. Hazizan, ‘ Islam in its totality is a system of faith, practise and morality (ihsan). This is the shari’ah of Allah in the general sense ’. In the al – Qur’an, God validated and endorsed Islam as His only accepted and final religion (5 : 3). Thus, without doubt, Islam is a revealed religion with its own ideology and philosophy behind its existence 1400 AH years ago. In the definition of the term ‘Muslim’, it means ‘one who submits’ or ‘surrenders to God ; following His guidance and performs His will ’.
2) Meaning of Civilization
The term civilization encapsulates a vast idea. It has an encyclopedic connotation. The word ‘civilization’ is derived form the Latin word ‘civitas’ meaning ‘city’. The popular term for civilization in most Muslim countries is tamaddun which derived from an Arabic word m-d-n (madana). From this Arabic root word, two important terms are derived, namely, ‘madinah’ which literally means ‘town’ or ‘city’ and ‘tamaddun’ which literally means ‘urbanization’. Thus, it is accurate to say that the Arabic word ‘tamaddun’ does provide the actual translation of the Latin word ‘civitas’ in the modern sense as both words have the same meaning of ‘city’. In fact, civilization is sometimes defined as ‘city-based culture’ or ‘culture of the city’ as the word ‘city’ is strongly implied in its translation. Cambridge International Dictionary of English defines civilization as ‘ human society with its highly developed social organizations or culture and the way of life of a society or country at a particular period of time ’. In a general sense, civilization can also be define as ‘ a totality of cultural achievements, where culture includes everything as a way of life, which starts from a town ’. Civilization is also define as ‘ the achievements of Man in all areas and aspects of life, be it in its material or spiritual nature, which starts from a town or city ’.
Scholars from different areas of the world use different words and languages in referring to civilization in their books. Ibn Kahldun, in his book, al – Muqaddimah, uses the word ‘umran’ and ‘hadharah’ in developing his thoughts on civilization. The word ‘hadharah’ is more popular with the Arab people. According to M.J Beg, the words ‘umran’ and ‘hadharah’ are more appropriate to be translated as
‘culture’. Another term that is used to denote civilization is the word ‘madaniah’, meaning ‘town’ or ‘city’ which had been introduced by Abu Nasir al-Farabi (died in 350 H) in his book, al-Siasah al-Madaniah. The word ‘madaniah’ was often used by few scholars such as Muhammad Abduh, Muhammad Farid Wajdi and L. Carl Brown in their books in replacing the word ‘tamaddun’. Since ‘madaniah’ did not really reflect the true meaning of ‘tamaddun’, the usage was no more in use after the death of Muhammad Abduh except for few scholars such as L. Carl Brown, in his book,
‘ From Madinah to Metropolis ’. It usage is now more popular with the Turkish people with a slightly different spelling, ‘ medeniyet ’. The Muslims of Indo- Bangla sub-continent use the word ‘tamaddun’ in the sense of culture only and prefer to use the word ‘tahdhib’, literally means self-improvement as a technical term for civilization. In the Malay World (Malay Archipelago), the most use terms are ‘tamadun’ and ‘peradaban’. The word tamaddun has become increasingly popular and has been an acceptance by the Muslim ummah especially among the non-Arab Muslims in writing or studying Islamic civilizational studies till the present time.
3) Meaning of Islamic Civilization
Therefore, Islamic Civilization is a study of the totality of cultural achievements of human society with its highly developed social organizations or culture, in all areas and aspects of life, be it in its material or spiritual nature, which starts from a town or city and most importantly, having the Islamic ideology (will be explained later in the essay) as the basis and source of its civilization.
As such, any historical manifestation that is done by a Muslim, even though he is a follower of Islam, may not be considered Islamic if it is not aligned with the Islamic ideology. Thus, the main criteria of an achievement to be considered as an Islamic civilization need to be measured against the Islamic ideology and not just because it comes from a Muslim.
C) Periodization of Human History
The word Islam, in the traditional sense, as used by Muslims, it connotes the one true divine religion, taught to mankind by a series of prophets, each of whom brought a revealed book. Such were the Torah, Pslams and the Gospel, brought by the prophets Moses, David and Jesus a. s. (2 : 136) and the final book is the Qur’an revealed to Muhammad s.a.w., which completes and super cedes all previous revelations. In view of the above explanation, the period of Muslim history can be divided into two periods. The 1st period stretching from the creation of Prophet Adam a.s till just before the prophet hood of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. and the 2nd period is from the time of the first revelation (96 : 1 – 4) received by the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w until today.
1) Prophet Adam a.s - Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. (Before his prophet hood)
As Man is the central to the development of history and civilization, thus, it is irrational to deny the creation of Adam as the first man ever created by God and he was than given the Truth in acknowledging the Oneness and existence of God, The Divine Principle of Tawhid. The Theory of Evolution by Charles Darwin, denying the creation of Man, has been found to be a flawless theory by many scholars even by the Western scholars of today. During this period, a series of prophets were sent to the people with the duty to guide and remind them to the true path of tawhid after they started to go astray from worshipping the One and Only God (2 : 213). Every prophets brought the same message of Tawhid, worshipping the One and Only God, differing in their ritualistic systems (shari’ah) but with the same agenda of Tawhid. That leads to the conclusion that the religion of all the prophets at that time were Islam in substance though not in name and all of them and their followers were Muslims (2 : 136 ). Therefore, any civilizations or group of people who steered away from the principle of tawhid, failing to adhere to the sermons of the prophets in worshipping God and after a series of warnings and opportunities given to repent their ways, usually a ‘total wipe out’ of their civilizations to near extinction would be incurred by God as a punishment to them and as a lesson to the people of the future (9 : 70). Human history is therefore a history of truth and falsehood based on the acceptance or rejection of the principle of tawhid.
2) Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. (after the first revelation) - present time
Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. is the sealed of all the prophets of God. His message
(Islam) is a guidance for people of his time and those of a later time until the last day. Islam was officially declared as the only accepted religion in the ‘eyes’ of God and its perfection as a religion in its total principles and forms is endorsed by God Himself (5 : 3). The Qur’an and Sunnah are the two fixed and primary source of references for Muslims to lead their life in this world and the hereafter. His time was the pioneering era in which foundations and principles of religion are defined. The civilization development in terms of the physical achievements may be insignificance if compared to those after his time but, it is more of the values and principles that he instilled through the people of his time which paved the way to the manifestation of the Islamic civilization after him. This is actually found to be the most important aspect of Islamic civilization since it is these principles and values which shaped the Islamic civilizations as seen today.
The period of the pious caliphs have the common features of all post – prophetic period. Special features of this era is that there are many major events and implications to the Islamic civilization. All the three caliphs except Ali r.a., managed to expand the Islamic territories, stretching from North Africa to Southeast Asia. A very significance developments was especially seen during Umar r.a. era in his efforts to introduce a lot of new changes and territorial expansion. Islamic civilization was slowly developing in this era and was speed up with the growth of territorial expansion.
The period of the Islamic dynasties such as the Umayyad, Abbasid, Uthmaniah, Safavids, Mughals and others have seen a very vast significance in the growth of Islamic civilization at that time. Lots of historical manifestations can be seen during this time such as architecture, arts, knowledge and many others. The Golden Age of Islam has always been associated with the Abbasid dynasty especially due to the great developments of knowledge and scientific studies during that time. The building of Baitul Hikmah during the era of Sultan Harun al-Rasyid was explicitly seen as a great achievements of the Abbasid era in relation to knowledge.
The period after the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols, was seen to be a quiet era in the development of Islamic civilization. The ‘closure to the gate of ijtihad’ which led to the period of imitation worsens the situation further. Only in the late 19th century and the 20th century, efforts has been taken by the scholars to relook into the past events and analysing the lessons to be derived from them so as to be abled to relate them to the present situations. This approach has got many scholars to ‘open up again the gate of ijtihad’ which is one of the main key to the great achievements of Islam and its civilization. Some well known scholars who taken this approach are Dr Muhammad Iqbal, Abu ala – al Maududi, Ismail raji al – Faruqi and Abuhamid Sulayman and many others. Therefore, efforts to properly understand, interprete and translate the teachings of the Qur’an and the Sunnah into the reality of life need to be done for the positive growth of Islamic civilization.
D) Islamic ideology – An Elaboration on the importance to Islamic Civilization
In the traditional study of Islamic civilization, lots of focused have been given to the study of the historical manifestations, the growth and decline of Islamic civilization and the features of the civilizational developments in each period of time rather than looking indepth into the ideological factors behind all these achievements. Islamic ideology as the basis and source of Islamic civilization is normally mentioned superficially and not elaborated significantly in a critical manner.
Many scholars such as Muhammad Asad, Syed Qutb and Muhammad Abduh, have lengthily tried their best to explain the Islamic ideology of Islamic civilization to the best of their knowledge and expertise. Even though they slightly differed in their thoughts, basically all of them came to a common understanding that religion, which is Islam, governed by the Shariah, as the main source of development of Islamic civilization. As Muhammad Asad put it, ‘ For them (Muslims), religion was not just one of the contributing factors of cultural development : it was the root and source of their development. An elimination of the Shari’ah from economics, politics and social lifes implies much more than a change in cultural direction. It implies the loss of all cultural direction ’. Therefore, in the following paragraphs, a more detailed discussion on the Islamic ideology as the basis and source of Islamic civilization will be elaborated and discussed significantly.
1) The Divine Principle of Tawhid
The first and foremost important aspect of Islamic ideology which influence the manifestations of Islamic civilization is the Divine Principle of Tawhid. ‘La ilaha illallah, Muhammadun rasullullah’ ….. There is no deity except Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. This simple statement of a Muslim’s basic belief is the starting point for all that follows. As explained by Al – Faruqi, ‘ this shahadah
(confession of Islamic faith), occupies the central position in every Muslim place, every Muslim action, every Muslim thought.’ It derives from the word ‘wahhada’, which means to unite, to unify or consolidate. Literally it means a ‘unification’ or ‘ asserting oneness’.. As emphasized by Dr Taha Jabir al ‘Alwani’, ‘ Al Tawhid is a belief in the Divine Principle’ not just a statement per say. It is the conviction and witnessing that ‘ there is no God but God’ … a general view of reality, of truth, of the world, of space, and time, of human history and destiny. It is an act of affirming Allah s.w.t to be the One, the absolute, transcendent Creator, the Lord and master of all that exist may it be in this world or the Hereafter. So, how do all these actions of al-Tawhid assist in the development of Islamic civilization ?
With the affirmation of al – Tawhid, it is the first assertion of the Islamic creed which Muslim understands as a denial of any associates to God in his rulership and judgeship of the universe, a well as, a denial of the possibility for any creature to represent, personify or in any way to express the Divine Being. It is a responsibility that transcends to all Muslim, be it a king or a commoner, which he will conscientiously reflects in his day to day activities to the Oneness of God. The failure to carry out this affirmation in his daily activities will penalised him to a sinful act that deems the wrath of God (). In fulfillment of this view, the Muslim have been all too careful never to associate in any manner possible, be it in the forms of images, things or with their conciousness of the Divine, whether in writings, speeches and arts other than using the Qura’nic language, terms and expressions which do not deviate from the principle of tawhid.
Al – tawhid will free individuals and society from being oppressed and marginalised. It creates a feeling of solidarity and unity among the Muslim ummah, especially in freeing the minds of man to think positively under the divine guidance rather than being governed by fear towards humanity. Thus, the value of this guided freedom of thoughts provided the opportunity for the Muslim to progress and prosper. This guided freedom and solidarity is an important asset in the building of the Islamic civilization.
The Divine Principle of Tawhid, is by itself a unification of thoughts and belief to the One and Only God. Therefore, this divine unity of thoughts and belief further envelope itself in the unity of actions, values, objectives, law, economics and so on. It harmonises and binds the disparate elements together and impresses by its own mould or characteristic. A cloth made in Egypt, a ceramic from Syria and an art drawn in Andalus, will have the same characteristic or element of tawhid though different in forms. Without necessarily changing their natures, al – tawhid transforms the elements making up a civilization, giving them their new character as constitutive of that civilization.
There can be no doubt that the essence of Islamic civilization is Islam : or the essence of Islam is al – Tawhid. Al – Tawhid is that which gives Islamic civilization its identity, which binds all its constituents together and thus makes them an
intergral, organic body which we call civilization. As Al Faruqi said, ‘ All the diversity, wealth and history, culture and learning, wisdom and civilization of Islam is compressed in this shortest sentence or pronouncement, ‘La ilaha illallah’ (There is no god but God)’
2) The Shari’ah – Divine Sources
Muhammad Asad strongly believed that Islamic civilization was built on the ‘foundations supplied by the Shari’ah’. He interpreted Islamic civilization as a manifestation of the way of life prescribed by the Shari’ah. Definitely, there was much truth in his statement.
Shari’ah is an Arabic term used to designate ‘the Islamic way’ in its broadest sense of meaning. In other words, the Shari’ah would provide a detailed guidance for mankind to run their affairs, be it private or public, according to the will of Allah s.w.t. It is most likely against this backdrop that God has used the word ‘Shari’ah’ to denote the Islamic way of life covering all aspects of life for mankind and particularly the believers. The Shari’ah is the Divine direction to the Divine aims and goals in which the happiness of mankind lies. Since the Shari’ah is mainly contained in divine revelation, that is the Qur’an and the Sunna, it is a Divine law as it is without any human intervention. As such, normally, the Shari’ah would be of general principles that would be of a general application and ‘evergreen’ but allowing the flexibility on the interpretations of the Divine Law in producing detailed guidelines for the beneficial of mankind on earth but under the purview of the Shariah principles and not vice – versa. Therefore, Shari’ah likes religion, consist of belief, moral and law. So, how does Shari’ah, as an Islamic ideology, contributes to the Islamic civilization ?
a) Belief or Faith
In the area of belief or faith, it regulates the belief system between the Creator and the creature, man and his Creator. The basis of this system is to believe in the Divine Principle that is al – Tawhid and to submit to it completely, where the obedience to it is rewarded in heaven and the disbelievers will be chastised in hell. As explained in (D1), this belief in the principle of al – Tawhid, do play a major role in the establishment and source of Islamic civilization as one of the main ideological factors.
b) Ethical and Moral values
Shari’ah also brings along with it the Divine Trust which the heaven and the earth were incapable of shouldering the responsibility (33 : 72). This divine trust is the fulfillment of the ethical part of the divine will, and Man is the only creature capable of realizing it under the exercise of freedom in doing or not doing it. It is this exercise of human freedom regarding obedience to God’s commandment that makes fulfillment of the command moral. It is thus a responsibility for Man and especially the believers to actualize this divine trust for the sake of God, failing which, he will be severely punished in the Hereafter. In view of this, the Muslims not only actualizing this moral and ethical values in the spiritual sense but also manifesting it on the their daily activities, thus, contributing to the Islamic civilization as we have seen. There are plenty of ethical values that are being reflected in the Qur’an and Sunna, but below are the main values which contributed to the nature of Islamic civilization :
i) Adherence or Tolerance to other religious beliefs
The Muslim as taught by the Shari’ah, does not treat Islam as an exclusive that would contest the right of the existence of other religious within the community. In contradiction, Islam acknowledges the legitimacy of other religions which was founded on the bond of al – Tawhid such as the ahli – kitab. This tolerance is also extended to other communities under the ‘pact of protection’ known as the ahli – dhimmah. Due to this ethical nature, Islamic civilization flourished extensively among the communities. This tolerancy allowed peace and stability for the growth of Islamic civilization. One of the most conspicuous traits about Islamic civilization was its ability not only to contain the diversity but to positively thrive on it. In this context, Islam is abled to assimilate and synthesized a welter of diversed elements, brought them together in what became a new heritage for humanity which produced in the framework of a distinctive code and environment imparted by the characteristics of the Muslim Faith and Islamic ideology of the Shariah. For example, Islamic music was the fruit of a fortunate encounter between musical cultures, producing a ‘new music’ retaining the Islamic values in them.
ii) Life – affirming values in learning
Another example of the formative impact and the conditioning dynamic of Islam was in its life – affirming values in its attitude to seek knowledge. In principle, Islam upheld the value of learning as intrinsic to the Faith and its active pursuit is measurement of devotion (ibadah). As said in the famous hadith of the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w that it is a compulsory for man and woman to seek knowledge. Thus, with this attitude, Islam paved the way for an open and outward looking interactive and dynamic setting which was conducive to a cultural growth of knowledge within its parameters, Muslim and non – Muslim, could contribute. Obviously, the Qur’an and the Prophet’s teaching are responsible for generating a new spirit or research, creativity and progres. In view of this, Islamic civilization in terms of knowledge in various sciences flourished especially during the period of the Abassid where various scholars contributed their writings extensively. The works that were collected in Baitul Hikmah was the contributions of scholars from Muslims and non – Muslims such as Hunain bin Ishaq, Yuhanna bin Masawaih, whom were Christians and Al Fadhl bin Naubakht a Persian and many others.
iii) The spirit of al – Ihsan (Perfection)
Al – Ihsan, as said by the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w as an act where a Muslim worship Allah as though he sees Allah, but if he can’t achieve this state of devotion than he must know and be sure that Allah sees him. Thus, in view of this ideological basis, it has create a God - consciousness in the minds of the Muslim. A Muslim who has this consciousness in his mind and the faith in heart, will never dare to do anything than goes against the Shari’ah. Thus, this ideological factor has caused the Islamic achievements and developments to be free from any misguided forms of Shirk (associating God). As al – Ihsan can also be translated as perfection, this had imbued the Muslim to carry out their tasks to the best of their ability so as to attained the spiritual and physical perfection. This attitude has also been reflected in the achievements done in the Islamic civilization especially seen in the architectural design, example the Taj Mahal in India built during the Mughal dynasty.
c) Legal Aspect of Islam
The last aspect of Shari’ah is the legal aspect of Islam. This aspect governs the practical conduct of Muslims that would fall under one of five categories of rulings, namely the obligatory (wajib), recommended (sunnat), forbidden (haram), disliked (makruh) and permissible (jaiz). This categories of the legal aspect do influenced the way the Muslims behaved as going against or abiding to the legal aspect is a punishable offence or a reward able deeds under the Islamic law respectively. Therefore, whatever that is forbidden and disliked by God as stated in the Qur’an and Sunna will be eliminated in their creations such as the depicting a picture of godhead, prophets and any forms of deceitful actions while those which are obligatory and recommended such as praising the all –Mighty God in poetries, Quran’ic calligraphies and others would be highlighted. Thus, in this way, the Islamic civilization is shaped by this legal aspect of the Shari’ah.
There can be no doubt that Shari’ah, other than Al – Tawhid, gives Islamic civilization its identity. As Shari’ah acts as a governing agent to the Muslim, administering their daily activities, thus, it is inevitable that it does have a great implication in shaping the Islamic civilization. A careful analysis on the historical manifestations of the Muslim do show an extreme difference from other religious and cultural manifestations which act as a proof in it being the ideological source of Islamic civilization.
E) Islamic Ideology as seen in the Historical Manifestations
In this section, a few examples on the Islamic historical manifestations will be quoted so as to signify the Islamic ideology behind the manifestations. The three important contributions that will be focussed are on Islamic arts, architecture and sciences.
1) Islamic Arts
As it is an imperative for every Muslim to abide by the al – Tawhid and the Shari’ah, the association of things and sensory images with God was meticulously avoided by Muslims in all of their autistics works. Never has any Muslim mosque contained an object associated with divinity. It will be either decorated with the verses from the Qur’an or with abstract arabesques in the forms of stylized stalk, leaf and flower, or geometrical figures which by its nature free from any divine nature. As being said by Ernst Diez, he defined Islamic art as ‘ the art of Islam or Islamic art is that art which expresses submission to Allah ’ Fine arts of the Islamic people are eclectic in nature. The Muslims, Arabs as well as non Arabs, inherited the artistic traditions of the ancient Middle East and they molded the prevalent art forms according to the principles of al –tawhid and the shari’ah, evolving their own styles and added their own original contributions to fine arts. An example is the Arabic calligraphy which is a sacred art because it transmits the Qur’an, the words of God. There are many master calligraphers like Ibn Muqlah, Ibn al – Bawwab and Yaqut al – Musta’simi transformed the letters of the Arabic alphabet into a fine art. The fine arts of the Islamic civilization were not produced by any single race or country but these were the achievements of diverse races of mankind professing and practising Islam in many countries at different periods of history but with the Islamic ideology as its basis.
2) Islamic Architecture
Islamic architecture is a fine art which evolved during the first Islamic century in Arabia, Syria and Iraq and its influence spread to other regions under the Syrian Umayyad caliphate. Islamic. It has been said that ‘ Islamic architecture is an example of how the inspiration of a universal religion interacted with preexisting artistic traditions to produce strikingly new styles ’. This mainly due to the fact of the principles of al – Tawhid and Shari’ah which emphasisd on the denial of godhead figurines. Al Tawhid sees absolute beauty in God and His revealed or words and according to the Sunna of the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. it is forbidden in making or moulding images. Thus, the Islamic architecture does not have statues or human figures sitting inside the mosques or even anyway near them. Basically, the Islamic architectures have their own dominant nature depicting the Islamic concept in them. The major use of qubbah (dome) in the building of mosques with arabesque decoration in the forms of geometric, vegetal and calligraphic ornaments have been used throughout the Muslim World. These domes, in the religious sense, symbolises the unity of the ummah from various races and places to the objective in worshipping to the One and Only God. The first mosque to be built with domes is the Qubhat al – Sakhra (The Dome of The Rock) in Jerusalem during the Umayyad era. Arches were also greatly introduced by the Muslim architects. Reflecting the need to climb up to a high place by the muazzin in the call of prayer (adhan), has led to the evolution of minarets in the Islamic architecture. The first minaret was constructed at the Central mosque in Basrah around 45 Hijrah. The idea of mimbar (pulpit) for the imam to give his sermons and mihrab which is a special place for the imam to lead the prayer with his followers, have given rise to their existence in the Islamic architecture. As we can see, Islamic civilization is very rich in its architectural heritage. Thus, there is no doubt that the Islamic ideology that influenced such great manifestations to its architecture is the principle of al – Tawhid and the Shari’ah.
iii) Islamic sciences
As said before, the Qur’an and the Sunna of the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w stresses strongly on the acquisition of knowledge to the limits of one’s abilities is incumbent upon every believer, along with the fact that the central symbol of the Islamic revelation is a book, made learning inseparable from religion. Jamal Badawi, in his book, uses the term ‘new spirit’ as to mean Islam which is the source in the transformation of a people from the state of ignorance to where they became pioneers and apostles of learning and scientific progress, carrying the ideology whenever they go. Due to this, the progress of learning in the Islamic civilization grew extensively especially under the Abbassid rule (750 – 1258) and in Muslim Spain (755 – 1492).
Schools and libraries were parts of mosque complexes. Endownments for colleges and bursaries for students were common. Scholars and researchers were respected and appreciated, regardless of their religious affiliations. The first important center to be particularly concerned with philosophy and the natural and mathematical sciences was the Baitul Hikmah (House of Wisdom), constructed in Baghdad by al – Ma’mun around 200 Hijrah. It became the gathering place for many scientists and scholars, especially for competent translators, who translated almost the whole of Greek scientific and philosophical literature into Arabic, thus preparing the ground for the absorption of that literature by Islam. The firm belief in the possibility of a synthesis of Greek philosophical ideas and Islamic religious thought had made al – Kindi sought to investigate the nature and scope of scientific knowledge, its philosophical foundation and the aims and methods of each of its various branches. All this efforts was done out of sheer manifestations of his Islamic ideology that he strongly believed. Many major disciplines were conquered by the Muslims scholars such as astronomy, chemistry, medicine, civilization and many others. With these developments of major disciplines, it brought along important scholars such as al – Kindi, Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Haitham, al – Ghazali and many more. At that time when Europe was in the dark, Islamic sciences flourished rampantly in the world and this was nothing but a sincerity in abiding to the Islamic ideology.
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