In the history of Islamic civilization, the names of conquerors are more captivating and more enduring than the names of those who made the conquered world livable. Much has been written about wars, the change of dynasties, and the expansion of domains, and costly television series have been made about them. But about the people who, after the armies had passed, rose from the ruins and the ashes of settlements and went on living, who gave the land new life, treated the sick and built a future for their children, there is little to narrate. Even when the flourishing of science is discussed, a few great names cast such a shadow over history that the thousands of people who made their work possible remain out of sight. In old Baghdad, a translator who encountered a medical text from the Greek tradition sometimes had to solve a linguistic problem before translating a single sentence. A word with a long history in Greek might still have no accepted equivalent in Arabic. He would consult other manuscripts, talk with men of learning and, to express a new concept, learn the capacity of the language. In the same city, there were people who made paper, sold books, produced medical and astronomical instruments and carried manuscripts to distant cities, and history does not mention their names.
We know the works of some of the translators and scholars of that era. Of the lives of many of their craftsmen and copyists, we know almost nothing. This inequality in historical memory raises a more important question: how can one write the story of knowledge that was the product of the work of many people but has mostly been recorded under the names of a few famous figures?
In the first centuries of their history, Muslims conquered lands that, even before Islam, possessed long-standing administrative, economic and scientific traditions. Sasanian Iran and the eastern parts of the Byzantine Empire had cities and extensive trade networks. Tax systems, irrigation systems and medical traditions in these lands had taken shape over centuries. To administer its territory, the new government drew on the experience of local officials and on resources that existed before the conquests. People’s lives also did not change at the speed with which political maps were redrawn. In many regions, the change of religion and language took place over several generations. A family that farmed in a village still needed water, safe roads, and the ability to sell its harvest. Governments changed, and people had no choice but to adapt their lives to the new rules.
In the Abbasid period, the scientific and cultural heritage of these lands entered a wider network of translation and study. Baghdad was one of the important centers of this activity. Greek, Iranian and Indian works reached new readers through various languages and intermediaries. Hunayn ibn Ishaq and his colleagues played a prominent role in transmitting medical texts, while al-Khwarizmi, al-Razi, Ibn Sina, Ibn al-Haytham and al-Biruni, each in a different environment, reread part of this heritage and added to it. But if we read the history of this period only through surviving works, we may form a mistaken impression of how knowledge was produced. A manuscript kept in a library today is the outcome of a long process. Before it, the author may have changed his mind many times, set aside an explanation or tried a path that led nowhere. Today we know nothing of a large part of these efforts and of the things that were not known, which are themselves part of the history of science.
What Did Not Survive of the Errors
In the history of science, the achievements that are most visible are usually those that could be transmitted. A book was written, copies of it were produced, and later generations read it. But the fate of preliminary notes, mistaken calculations, failed experiments,s and questions that never became a complete work is often unclear. We do not know what paths Ibn al-Haytham had taken and set aside before arriving at some of his explanations of light. We also have limited information about the failed experiments of many physicians and craftsmen of the past. This ignorance does not mean that they did not record their errors or that unsuccessful works were never copied. What can be understood is that the surviving history does not give us the whole process of knowledge production. Sometimes a final manuscript is all that remains of years of intellectual effort.
This problem exists in our own time as well. Researchers may work for months on a hypothesis and, after reaching a negative result, lack the opportunity or the motivation to publish it. As a result, another researcher walks the same path again, unaware of the earlier experience. Contemporary science, despite specialized journals and extensive data-recording facilities, still faces the problem of insufficient publication of negative results. In societies where war and instability damage scientific institutions, this problem takes a more severe form. A laboratory is closed, and part of its data is lost. A professor emigrates, and his students have no access to his notes and methods. A research project is left unfinished, and no one knows where its continuation should begin.
This is the very situation in which the next generation may pose the same question from the beginning. The history of Islamic civilization has also experienced several periods of such ruptures. Wars, shifts in centers of power, and the displacement of populations have at times destroyed the networks on which the transmission of knowledge depended. Even so, one must be cautious about the true extent of the knowledge that was lost. Scientific works were kept in various centers, and many intellectual traditions continued their activity even after the fall of a city or a dynasty.
The fall of Baghdad in 1258 to Hulagu Khan brought extensive destruction and massacre. But scientific activity in the Islamic world never came to an end with that event. Other centers continued to live on, and in later periods new environments took shape in Maragheh, Samarkand, Istanbul and Isfahan. What is harder for us is to understand the experiences of which no trace remains. A historian cannot construct a definitive story out of the silence of the documents. He can only take this gap seriously and resist the temptation of a complete and flawless historical narrative.
This issue is relevant today as well. A university that wants its scientific experience to be passed to the next generation must preserve, in addition to successful results, the methods, data and limitations of its research. Otherwise, with the departure of a few professors or the closure of a laboratory, part of its institutional experience will be lost. At this point, another issue emerges: many scientific experiences of the past were never recorded in books, because they were in the hands of craftsmen and of people who had acquired their knowledge through practical work.
In the history of technology, the name al-Jazari carries particular importance. At the beginning of the seventh century AH (the early 13th century CE), he described a variety of mechanical devices and provided plans and instructions for building them. In his work, one finds water clocks, fountains, and automatic instruments. Copies of this work have survived to this day, and some of its illustrated pages are kept in museum collections around the world. Al-Jazari confronts us with a world in which calculation, design, and manual skill are not separate from one another. Someone who wants to build a device must know the properties of materials, the movement of water, the weight of components and the method of joining them. If the calculation is correct but a part is not made properly, the device will not work. The experience of the craftsman might likewise force the designer to change his calculations. In the scientific works of the past, there are other examples of this connection. Astronomical instruments, medical equipment and measuring devices did not come into being without cooperation between men of learning and skilled builders. Even so, the social standing of these groups was not always equal. The author of a treatise might have his name preserved in numerous manuscripts, while the maker of the instrument was known only in the memory of the workshop.
The important question is how the experience of such workshops was transmitted. An apprentice might work beside a master for years and gradually learn skills that were not easy to explain in a book. Recognizing the sound of a device, judging the quality of a metal, or adjusting a delicate instrument sometimes demands long experience. If the master died or the workshop was closed because of war, part of this knowledge was exposed to destruction. But one should not conclude from this fact that the craftsmen of the Islamic world were separated from theory or that practical experience had no value in that civilization. The surviving works of al-Jazari, astronomical instruments and engineering traditions contradict such a picture. The historical question is to understand the conditions under which workshop knowledge could become a broader experience and go beyond the confines of a single master or a single workshop. In Europe as well, the link between craftsmen, instrument makers and scientists took shape through a long process. The Industrial Revolution cannot be regarded as the product of the activity of a few great inventors. Workshops, mines, trade networks and the needs of production, alongside scientific developments and access to sources of energy, provided the ground for the spread of technology.
James Watt worked in an environment in which precision instrument making and industrial needs were growing in importance. The improvement of the steam engine was the product of a union of technical experience, capital and economic demand. Once the machine entered the network of production and transport, it had greater potential for improvement and expansion. To understand the differences between historical paths, one must examine these very networks. The invention of a device is the beginning of the road. Its widespread production requires raw materials, capital, skilled labor, a market, and the possibility of repair. If these conditions are not available, even a brilliant design may remain within a small sphere for a long time. In the Islamic world, as in Europe, wars, changes in trade routes, and power relations affected the fate of such networks. Some skills continued in new centers and others gradually lost their importance. About many of these processes, we still need more historical research.
When knowledge leaves the workshop and the library, it encounters the lives of people who may not know its specialized language. A farmer who relies on the experience of previous generations to irrigate his land does not necessarily have access to complex mathematical works. A physician trained in a scientific environment must be able to apply his findings in the real conditions of treatment. Between written knowledge and everyday experience there is a relationship that sometimes leads to cooperation and sometimes leaves a deep gap between them. The Arabic language, over long periods, made scientific communication possible among scholars from different lands. Medical and philosophical works were written in a language that had a wide readership in the scientific centers of the Islamic world. But access to these works depended on education and economic resources. Someone who could not read and write or had no opportunity to study remained distant from a large part of this scientific world.
Attributing this gap solely to language is neither accurate nor scientific. Even if a work was written in a local language, understanding its specialized concepts required education. On the other hand, the practical knowledge of farmers and craftsmen could also be transmitted over generations without being recorded in books. These two worlds of knowing sometimes existed side by side and benefited from each other’s experience, without everything they knew being brought into a common language. In the history of Islamic civilization, understanding this relationship still calls for a great deal of research. How much of medical knowledge depended on the experience of local healers? How did instrument makers apply mathematical findings? Which institutions made communication possible between the scholar, the craftsman, and ordinary people? The answers to these questions change our picture of the scientific flourishing of the past. Perhaps part of what we today know as the achievement of one scholar is the product of a long relationship between him and those whose experiences were never recorded as an independent work. This same issue continues in our own time. A university whose researchers study agriculture, health, or water management must be able to connect with the people who are meant to benefit from the results of that research. If scientific findings remain only in specialized journals, part of their social capacity is lost.
In Afghanistan, this gap has been accompanied by other problems as well. War, migration, and educational restrictions have reduced the possibility of stable communication between universities and society. In many regions, people rely on local experience and family networks to solve their everyday problems. These experiences are valuable, but when the possibility of linking them with scientific research is limited, important opportunities for mutual learning are lost. In such circumstances, translating and producing scientific resources in the languages commonly used in society becomes more important. But translation alone is not enough. There must be an environment in which the student can ask questions, the professor has the possibility of conducting research, and scientific findings are placed at the disposal of those who need them. A scientific language stays alive when it is put to use in people’s lives.
In discussing the scientific institutions of the past, the waqf (endowment) also gains importance from this same angle. A school that had a fixed income could continue its activity for years, even if its founder was no longer alive. In many cities, endowed properties provided the costs of education, health care, and public services. But the durability of an institution raises another question: when the needs of society changed, could that institution also change the way it operated? The answer was not the same in all times and places. The terms of the endowment deed, the school of jurisprudence, judicial practice, and the powers of administrators affected the possibility of changing the use of endowed properties or replacing them. In some cases, the founder’s conditions created serious restrictions, and in other cases there were ways of adapting to new circumstances. Therefore, the waqf cannot be regarded as an institution that was inherently an obstacle to scientific change. But the question of its flexibility deserves careful historical examination. When new educational needs arose, what legal and financial options confronted a school whose resources had been designated for teaching specific subjects? Could it change its program, or did it need other resources to do so? Such questions steer us away from sweeping judgments about flourishing and decline and bring us closer to the real relations of institutions.
A similar issue exists in contemporary universities. Research budgets, financial contracts and administrative structure can expand or limit the possibility of scientific activity. A university whose resources all depend on a single sponsor faces difficulty when that sponsor’s priorities change. On the other hand, diversity of financial sources, too, if not accompanied by accountability and scientific independence, will not in itself guarantee the quality of research.
Part II and Final: Wisdom, Institutions and the Future of Islamic Civilization
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