"Man has become a problem for man"

(ashkala-l-insan’ala-l-insan)

Abu Hayan at-Taukhidi, 1010

But as one English proverb says, every cloud must have its silver lining, and so medievalists sooner or later began investigating "the other side" of the spiritual life of the Middle Ages in order to grasp this life in the unity of the diverse forms of its objective reality. Thus began the dismantling of the one-dimensional image of the Middle Ages.

The temptation to declare the Medieval Islamic, Iranian, Central Asiatic culture to be a Renaissance is especially great, because its creators, like the figures of the (European) Renaissance, "revived" ancient science (‘ulum al-awail). Besides, this culture not only anticipated some features of the culture of Renaissance, but also directly participated in its creation and development.

The discussion of what A. Mets called The Islamic Renaissance (Die Renaissance des Islam") began soon after the publication of his book (in 1922) with the same title. At first, it concentrated on the problem of what the author meant when he gave such a title to his book. (A. Mets died in 1917, without finishing his work). Rekkendorf, who wrote a preface to the book, noted that the author was not satisfied by this title, and the word "Renaissance" was used by him alternately to (a) denote the transition of the ancient learning to the Islamic world, and (b) the transformation of Islam in the 9th-10th centuries as a result of the resurrection of the Hellenistic-Christian heritage in the form of a new religious ideal – Ma’rifa, meaning ancient Gnosis. It was also suggested that under the word Renaissance, A. Mets understood first of all the resurrection of classical ancient learning, in the sense in which one speaks of a Carolingian, Byzantine, German, and so on Renaissance.

During the following decade, Eastern scholarship discovered nothing to justify rejection of the negative attitude of the former orientalists towards the idea of the Eastern Islamic, Iranian, Central Asiatic and other Renaissances. The investigation was broad in scale, in the former Soviet Union, particularly in the states of Transcaucasia and Central Asia.

As bases for the proclamation of the concept of an Eastern Renaissance, they sought parallels with the European Renaissance in a number of cases: first, the idea of philanthropy (jen) as interpreted by Han Juy, a Chinese thinker; second, the neoplatonism of the Areopagites, whose Georgian propagandists became pioneers of the neoplatonic Renaissance not only in Georgia, but also in Europe; third, the different manifestations of the Medieval Armenian culture whose flourishing was interrupted by the rise of the feudalism and the Mongolian, Turkish, and Persian conquerors; fourth, the diverse realms of the culture of the Medieval Islamic East that developed under the Iranian, Turkish, and Arab rulers before and after the Mongolian conquest.

To agree with this rejection in the East of a direct connection between the Renaissance, on the one hand, and the appearance of early capitalist economies and the development of capitalist manufacturing, on the other is not to deny this connection in Europe in general. But it is a substitution of concepts to introduce the notion of a city period in the history of Feudalism, anticipated by a village (castle) period. The idea of the Renaissance as a global phenomenon is forced and artificial, due to this substitution, for the constitutive, essential features of such a supposedly global phenomenon cannot depend on absolutely external circumstances such as the presence of some ancient classical culture that might be resurrected. It is not possible to confirm by empirical materials relevant to the history of all the people of the world the proposition that humanistic urban culture develops as a negation of the preceding village (estate or castle) culture, implying for every country or cultural historical community a "Medieval" period of development?

The people of the Islamic East had no "Middle Ages" either as "a historical period," or in that culturological sense in which the authors of the above mentioned discourse used the term as an epoch of village-type culture, developed in feudal castles and monasteries. In contrast to Europe, in the Medieval Islamic East, besides cities there were no other centers for culture could be formed. A distant resemblance with monasteries could be found, perhaps, in hanaks, the places of dervishes, but their cultural role was insignificant, and their spiritual values were derivative from the culture of the cities.

But if the development of humanistic urban culture in the Islamic East did not accompany the decay of Feudalism, if it never replaced some "village" cultures or was practiced in castles and monasteries, and if, beside that, the alien cultural values it absorbed were not restored to life but were adopted from their living bearers, just as the cultural values of the Islamic world were taken in by the European scholastics of the 12th and the following centuries—then is there any basis to speak about the Eastern, Iranian, Central Asian, and other Renaissances? This term was turned into a metaphor, into a kind of a quality sign, and the "city type" culture, discovered here and there, was honored with this sign.

This fact does not reject the possibility of finding certain common regularities in the development of cities and the city cultures in the East and West, but it is necessary, first, to look for such regularities based upon firm empirical ground, not upon artificial scheme; second, it is necessary to characterize these regularities without using the name of this unique phenomenon "Renaissance," but by finding more adequate, universal categories. This phenomenon can be characterized as Humanism.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the term Humanism was introduced by a German teacher, F. Hithammer, who wanted to promote the teaching of the ancient classics in secondary schools as opposed to the natural sciences and technical subjects. In the Renaissance, beginning from the 15th century, a person was called a Humanist (Italian: humanista, humanista), who devoted himself to studia humanitatis, to an educational program emphasizing more cultural refinement and the dignity and earthly destination of a human being. But the sources of Humanism go back to antiquity.

The main attribute of Humanism—the idea of the unity of humanity—developed on the ground of the great empires that opened the space for political, commercial, and cultural communication. These, in turn, created conditions for using a single language for interethnic communication. At the period of late antiquity, the language was Hellenistic Greek. In the empire, created by Alexander the Great, a person who knew this language could pass from the Nile to the Indus without an interpreter. Thus, the former boundary line between a Hellen and a barbarian was overcome: Now the term indicated belonging to a definite culture, hence, the stoic’s idea of the world state came closer. Theofrast spoke about friendship (philia) and union (syngenes) that rule in the world, and about the community (oikeiotetos), unitin all people. The roots of these ideas can be found already in Aristotele’s Nicomachean Ethics, widely known in the Islamic world.

For Aristotle, it was the polis that represented an ideal context for a human community, and in the epoch of Hellenism, such a context formed the world state. As Stoics thought, humankind was divided into a wise minority and an unwise majority (later the Islamic philosophers used a similar idea of dividing people into an intellectual elite (al-khassa) and the "general public" (al-amma).

In the Hellenic epoch, the term Humanism was widely used to mean humaneness. It was encouraged through wars when the humaneness of a conqueror or ruler often was represented as a saver and a benefactor of humanity. The word "philanthropy," originally used in the 4th century BC, meant the charity of Gods and autocrats towards their people, especially toward the helpless and suffering.

The idea of Humanism was further developed in the era of the Roman Empire. Soon after the Roman conquest of the West Mediterranean, Polibius, a Greek, wrote the first general history of humankind, representing humankind as an integral formation. Cicero, who had great influence on the Western interpretation of Humanism, understood humanitas to correspond to the Greek words anthropismos, cultural humaneness, and paideia, education, as well as the word philanthropiaas, meaning humaneness in the sense of merciful.

The appearance of humanistic ideas in the Islamic world was also due to broad interethnic contacts, the development of international trade, and intensive urbanization. Though the Islamic power gradually disintegrated to such a degree that al-Masudi compared the resulting states with the ownership of diadikhs True Muslims were united by a common religion, literary language, law, culture, and citizenship.

A cosmopolitan spirit ruled at the Baghdad school of Aristotelians that united scholars of different confessions. Abu Zakharia Yahia ibn Adi, the head of this school, was a Jacobite and a pupil of the Moslem al-Farabi. A Nestorian, Yuhanna ibn Khailan, was al-Farabi’s philosophy teacher. A close friendship connected Abu Nasr and another Nestorian, the interpreter, Matta ibn Junus. Among direct pupils of Yahia ibn Adi were a Nestorian, Abu-l-Hair al-Hasan ibn Suwar ibn al-Hammar (or al-Humar), and a Jacobite, Abu Ali Isa ibn Ishak ibn Zuraa, as well as Muslims, among them the famous philosophers Abu Suleiman al-Sidjistani and Abu Haian at-Tawkhidi. European philosophers, Wabh ibn Yaish and Abu-l-Hair Daud ibn Muzadj, were also in close contact with this school of thought. Vivid descriptions of the cultural activity in Baghdad, left by al-Tawkhidi showed that a scientific circle of al-Sidjistani united Muslims, Christians, Jews, and pagans from all partsof the Islamic world, who shared common spiritual values and aims stimulated by studying the ancient scientific and philosophical heritage.

The idea of the unity of humankind, disputed by philosophers, was one of the most important features of the Humanism of Medieval Islamic culture. It had another important feature—an ideal of enlightenment, of intellectual and moral culture, every close to the ancient ideal of paideia.

Though the theory of education did not form a special discipline, the problems connected with education were very often discussed in the works in jurisprudence, theology, philosophy, Sufism, and Adab. Jurists were the first to devote works to education (Ibn Sahnun, al-Kabisi, Ibn Jamaa), but their discourse concerned mainly the juridical aspects of education. The connection of education and the upbringing of a person acquired paramount significance in the works of the philosophers ("The Brethren of Purity," Miskawayh, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd) and Sufis (Abu Talib al-Makki, al-Kushairi, al-Suhrawardi). The representatives of Arab literature also showed great interest in the problems of education (Al-Jahis, Ibn Kutaiba, Ibn Abd Rabbih), as well as Ibn Khaldun. Authors of books about upbringing devoted special chapters to the related moral and pedagogical issues (Ibn Kayyim al-Jauzia, Ibn al-Jazzar al-Kairavani). However, a number of works in pedagogy are known only by their titles, mentioned in a bibliographical work of Hadji Halif, Kashf az-zunun, and in different catalogues of Arabic manuscripts.

Philosophers regarded their science as the highest aim of humanitarian education and as the cornerstone of all the sciences, as a means of human perfection, of achieving happiness and salvation. Miskawayh represented philosophy as the only mean of genuine upbringing (al-adabal-hakiki-alethinepaideia) and the way to salvation (nadjat-soteria). According to him, an ideal upbringing is one in accord with religious scripture (adab al-Shari’a) in order to teach a child and to conform him to the prescribed rules of behavior. After that a child must study arithmetic and geometry, demonstrative speech and love of truth. Learning must continue until a person reaches the highest perfection and happiness.

The philosophers’ ideas on education originated in continuity with the translation of texts from classical Greek science and philosophy and were inspired by Hellenistic—sometimes by neo-Pythagorean models, where the program of education was closely connected with the classification of the sciences. At the source of both was a work of Paul the Persian, included the Miskawayh’s treatise, Tartib al-saada, where different stages of human happiness, as well as the ways of their achievement were analysed.

This became the second part of Miskawayh’s treatise which was devoted to the classification of the parts of Aristotle’s philosophy, divided into theoretical and practical philosophy. Theoretical philosophy has two parts. One deals with nonmaterial objects whether abstracted from matter as in mathematics or separated from matter mentally, or metaphysics. The characteristics of all material objects is studied by Aristotle’s physics. Among such material objects there are the eternal and passing objects. The former are treated in Aristotle’s treatise "On Heaven". Those which arise and pass away are analyzed either in a general form, in the Physics or in "On Generation and Destruction" or in special treatises. Some treat things above the Earth; others treat those that are on the Earth, which are divided into inanimate and animate things. Animate objects are subdivided into plants and animals. The second part of theoretical philosophy includes also a science which is close to metaphysics, namely psychology. To this Aristotle devotes such treatises as "On the Soul", "On Spirit" and "On Senses and the Sensually Perceived". Lastly, practical philosophy is divided into two parts, one of them deals with an individual (ethics) and the other - with his environment (economics and politics). According to Miskawayh, Aristotle’s philosophy must be studied, beginning from ethics and then passing to mathematics, logic, physics and metaphysics.

Behind such reasoning there is hidden a whole tradition of allegoric interpretation of sacred texts, both Pagan and Christian, that was used even in early Hellenism and Neoplatonism. Before Olympiodor, a direct predecessor of the author of this reasoning, a considerable experience in the adaptation of philosophy and religion had been accumulated; Olympiodor himself regarded Christianity as a credo for uneducated common people.

At the court of Anushirvana, where traditionalists had no strong influence, Paul the Persian could openly raise the problem of the correlation of faith and knowledge, as well as underline the epistemological role of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, which had not been analysed before in the Syrian tradition in order not to conflict with religion.

The classification of sciences, stated above, directly influenced the classification, advanced by Abu Nasr al-Farabi and represented to philosophers a program of higher grade education.

Such words as adab (paideia) and ta’dib (paideusis) were the main terms denoting education in the Medieval Islamic world. The last word denoted the process of education, the first one, its result. Accordingly, adib meant an educated man, a carrier of ada-ba (paideutos). The philosophical theory of education, proceeding from the identification of adaba with paideia, was not limited to the circles of professional philosophers, but became a part of "the general course of the Islamic thought" (26, p. 152). The essential features of philosophical education are seen in a number of works on pedagogy, to which belong the works, Exhortation to the Education of a Young Man, attributed to Plato and included into the Miskawayh’s treatise, Jabidan Herad, as well as fragments, traced primarily to Plato and included in the book of Abu-l-Hasan al-Amiri, Al-Saada va-l-isad; and a pedagogical part of a work of a neo-Pythagorean Brison, entitled Oikonomicos.

"Al-saada Wa-l-isad" treats politics as a means of achieving the final end of philosophy—happiness. Here the aim of education coincides with that postulated in the work analyzed above, but not only adults were concerned, but also children. The basis of education from childhood is the firm belief that happiness and blessings are achieved through obedience to the laws (su-nan) and to seniors (akabir). If there is such a faith, then a law or order can be received as something that gives pleasure.

The treatise begins with the definition of adab (education), mutaaddib (the one who receives education), and adib (an educated one). Plato, it is said here, equates adab with philosophy (hikma). Another definition comes from the first person (wa-akul): Adab is human wisdom, and human wisdom is knowledge about behavior that leads to happiness. In Kraemer’s opinion, this definition could belong to al-Amiri’s pupil, but in Rosenthal’s opinion, it could belong also to the commentator of this work.

Referring again to Plato, it is affirmed that the aim of education is to form a virtuous man, who can keep himself from physical pleasures and display emotional indifference whether facing joy, troubles, or other occasions This person can stay calm always, if only reason impels him to. In the treatise an educated man is equated to a sensible one (natik), while the noneducated is compared with one who is sleeping (this last comparison is attributed to Plato, while the Greek tradition attributes it to Antisphen). The education of children must be adapted to their abilities. At the beginning (as Plato taught), serious matters (djidd) are represented as amusement (hazl) with the help of parables, containing adab. For example, with the help of poems that teach virtue and modesty (corresponding ideas are found in Plato’s work, The Republic), as opposed to poetry that propagates dissipation and idle fun. A human being from his childhood must be taught to be brave, to scorn death, to learn to write, to swim, and to know the rules of etiquette. The highest degree of education—learning philosophy—is prepared for by a propedeutic program (attributed to Plato) that included arithmetic, the science of measuring areas, geometry, astronomy, music, dialectics and logic. It must also impart disgust as regards what is dirty and ugly.

Brison had great influence on the development of a philosophical theory of education in the Islamic East, beginning from the 10th century. Miskawayh directly refers to Brison as an authority in pedagogy in his work, Tahzib al-akhlak. The thought of Miskawayh himself became the basis for the following interpretation of the subject and were included in the works of al-Gazali, Ihyia ulum ad-din, and of Nasir ad-Din at-Tusi Ahlak-i nasiri. Interpreting Brison, Miskawayh characterizes education as a reliable guide in the formation of proper moral and intellectual skills, leading to true humaneness and happiness.

But all this did not mean, that philosophical comprehension of the truth was available to the broad population of the Islamic cites. Beginning from al-Farabi in Arabic-Islamic philosophy, it was affirmed that philosophy was the property only of the intellectual elite, while the general population or masses were induced to virtuous life only by the poetic and rhetoric reasoning of religion. According to Ibn Rushd, political education of the citizens of an ideal state was to include several levels of introduction to truth: the lowest level was formed by poetic debates, a higher one by a combination of poetic and rhetorical debate, while the highest level involved apodictic (conclusive) discourse. The lowest level of education used parables and mytho-poetic images. At the same time, Ibn Rushd was radically against using "bad tales," for example, about the other world (as in Plato’s works) or describing God as the reason of good and evil. From political education together with "bad tales," Ibn Rushd excluded the imitations of evil and sophistical statements (sophistry was excluded from the teaching in general). According to him, analogous statements, typical of the Islamic theologians, lead to absolute relativism and subjectivism in defining good and evil. Supremacy of theologians in the state might mean the end of regular social life, because there might be a war of everybody against everybody.

At the same time, one of the main difficulties met by Ibn Rushd while working out his theory of education, consisted in the following: He held the point of view, dating back to Plato, that the highest happiness is gaining theoretical (intellectual, dianoethical) virtue, that is, philosophical knowledge; and at the same time he was to agree with the Islam directive that the main principle of morals, including the teaching of happiness, had already been presented in the Qur’an. This difficulty was compounded by Abu Hamif al-Gazali’s critique of philosophers, who, in his opinion, when distinguishing between the broad public and the intellectual elite, argued that the Prophet addressed the former with rhetorical reasoning based on allegories and metaphors, or, in other words, he misled them because any allegory and metaphor is a lie. That is why for Ibn Rushd, it was not enough to declare (after Aristotle) that a man could not acquire theoretical virtues if he did not lead a righteous, morally irreproachable life. He underlined that truth is one both for a crowd and for philosophers and that the difference was only in the way it is comprehended. He concluded that both philosopher and a common believer can be happy, but each in his own way.

Adab had a clearly defined aesthetic character, displaying the highest value in general. It was said by the ancient sages:

"adab for a man is a treasure, that cannot be robbed";

"Adab is like a harbor for everybody";

"When Aristotle was asked about the most beautiful living creature, he answered: "It is a man decorated with good education";

Aristotle said: "Education (adab) is a decoration for the rich and permits the poor to live among their friends" (or to live the life of a free man");

"When Socrates was asked, what things are the most pleasant in the world, he replied: "Education, training and contemplation of things unknown";

"When Socrates was asked: in what respect education (adab) had a wholesome effect on young people, he said: "If the only benefit of education were that it kept them from bad behavior, even that would be quite enough";

"Lack of education (adab) is the reason of any evil."(Pythagoras);

"Education (adab) decorates the wealth of the rich and conceals the poverty of the poor."(Aristotle);

In the Medieval West, adab fulfilled the same moral, social, and intellectual mission as the Latin humanitas. It implied the values of the city courteous, refined behavior, an index of good breeding, and education. Originally, adab was akin to humanitarian education that made a man cultured and refined. Contacts with foreign cultures broadened the adab’s content and began to include non-Arabic literature, expressing in this way a more universal form of Humanism. Secretaries (katibs), copyists, functionaries, literarymen, and courts were the main representatives of this humanitarian culture. In these surroundings, wittiness and oratory were highly appreciated. Refinement (zarf) (hence, the designation of the above-mentioned social group "zurafa") was a synonym of this culture. The education of secretaries was encyclopedic, combining Arabic and non-Arabic learning (Greek and Persian), for which they were often accused of apostasy.

Adab conveyed the idea of paideia. Humanitas corresponds to the Arabic insaniyya, that in philosophical terminology denotes human nature, a quality, and characteristic of a man as such. But like Cicero’s humanitas, it also means to be a man in the full sense of the word as a result of self-perfection. (Insaniyya as Humanism is a neologism). In al-Farabi’s, Kitab al-huruf, the word insaniyya is used to denote the general quality of people, and it correlates with the Persian mardumi (man). Human perfection, "insaniyya," was often used as a synonym for intellect, and the use of intellect, possession of real wisdom or philosophy, was equated by philosophers with happiness (saada-eudaimonia). Al-Amiri says that through "divine wisdom" that one can reach humaneness (kamal al-insaniyya).

This "humaneness" had different degrees. The most imperfect man, says Miskawayh, is provided with minimal intellect; such people are only "on the border" of the animal world, and an animal soul gains the upper hand over them. Fascinated by sensual pleasures, they can be honored by the designation "al-insaniyya" only in a limited sense. Usually such half-men, half-animals ("barbarians") reside somewhere on the borders of the civilized world. In the middle part of this world, people are more predisposed to intellectual activity, and some of them are inclined even to philosophizing. But the majority of people that have limited intellect and differentiating power (tamyiz) cannot overcome their animal inclinations.

In this work, we analyzed the ideals of the Islamic Middle Ages mainly to the extent to which they were in contact conceptually with the notions of paideia and humanitas. But it is not sufficient to show the groundlessness of the statements of a number of authoritative scientists (B. Yeger, K. Bekker, G. Sheder, B. Shpuler, J. Kraemer, etc.), who affirmed that the Medieval Islamic culture appeared to be incapable either of developing its own humanistic ideals or mastering an adequate form the humanism of Antiquity. Indeed, Sophocles did remain unknown to the Medieval Islamic bookman. Perhaps, they did not feel a vital need for him, because they had at their disposal a heritage of the centuries-old belles-lettres of the East, enriched by contemporary poets and prose writers.

If now we return to the argument at the beginning of the article to the Humanism of the Age of the Renaissance and compare it with the Humanistic ideals of the Islamic Middle Ages in its full extent, we find that the ideas that European humanists drew from the Scholastic tradition appear not only in Islamic fiction and general literature, but also in its professional philosophy. Secondly, its secular thinking, in some cases, surpassed even the humanism of the age of the European Renaissance.

 3 V. I. Ruttenburg, Antichnoe naslediye v kulture Vozrozhdeniya (Ancient Legacy in the Culture of the Renaissance) (Moscow, 1984), p. 46.

 4 F. Engels, Dialektika prirody (The Dialectics of Nature) (Ìoscow, 1955), p. 5.

 6 Filosofsky entsklopedichesky slovar (Philosophical Encyclopedia Dictionary) (Moscow, 1983), p. 665.

 8 V.I. Ruttenburg, op. cit, p. 48.

 9 V. V. Bartold, "Ucheniye musulmanskogo "renessansa" (Teaching of "Islamic Renaissance"), Zapiski Kollegii vostokovedov pri Aziatskom muzee Rossiiskoi Akademii nauk. (1930). Vol. V.

 10 K. Marx, F. Engels, Soch. (Works. 2nd ed., V. 20), p. 345.

 11 V.I. Rutenburg, Vozrozhdeniye i Reformatsiya v sovietskoi literature (Renaissance and the Reformation in the Soviet Literature) (Leningrad, 1981), p. 5.

 12 D. E. Bertels, "Predisloviye" (Foreword // A. Mets, The Islamic Renaissance) (Moscow, 1966), p. 11.

 13 V.A. Karpushin, "Abu Ali Sina i vostochny Renessans" (Abu Ali Sina and Eastern Renaissance), Philosophy and History of Culture, (Moscow, 1985), p. 52.

 14 N. I. Konrad, Zapad i Vostok (West and East) (Moscow, 1972), p. 240.

 15 Ibid, pp. 81-82.

 16 O.G. Bolshakov, Srednevekovy gorod Blizhnego Vostoka (Medieval City in the Near East), p. 288.

 17 Kuli-Zade, Teoreticheskiye problemy istorii kultury Vostoka i nizamivedeniye (Theoretical Problems of the Eastern Culture and Nizamology) (Baku, 1987), p. 53.

 18 G. von Grunebaum, Islam: Essays in the Nature and Growth of a Cultural Tradition. (1964), p. 15.

 21 D. Gutas, "Paul the Persian on the Classification of the Parts of Aristotle’s Philosophy: A Milestone Between Alexandria and Baghdad", Islam, (1983), Bd. 60, N 2.

 22 Ibid., p. 247.

 23 F. Rozental, Torzhestvo znaniya (Moscow, 1978), p. 278.

 25 D. Gutas, Greek Wisdom in Arabic Translation: A Study of the Graeco-Arabic Gnomologia (1975), p. 460.

 28 J. Gabrieli, "Adab", The Encyclopaedia of Islam. (N.E.V.I.), p. 175-176.

 29 P. Brown, "Late Antiquity and Islam: Parallels and Contrasts," Moral Conduct and Authority: ThePlace of Adab in South Asian Islam (Berkley etc., 1984).

 31 Rasail al-Bulaga’ (Cairo, 1946), pp. 517-518.

 33 At-Tawhidi wa- Miskaweikh, Al-Hawamil wa -sh-shawaiml (Cairo, 1951).