The formation of the Arab-Islamic culture is connected with the birth and strengthening of the Arabic Caliphate, which under the aegis of a new religion (Islam), proclaimed by the prophet Muhammad, has spread over an extensive area, from the Middle Volga in the north down to Madagascar in the south, from the Atlantic coast of Africa in the west to the Pacific coast of Asia in the east. Having united the Hellenic Mediterranean with the Indo-Iranian world for the first time after Alexander the Great, the Caliphate turned it into a new center of interaction and mutual enrichment for different cultural traditions. The "Golden Age" of its civilization grew during the 9th to 12th centuries and defined the level of both its material and the scientific-philosophical world culture.

Theology. Alongside Christianity and Judaism, Islam represents the family of "Abrahamic religions," which, first of all, are characterized by Monotheism—faith in one God who is Life and Love, All-knowing, Omnipotent, and the Creator of the world. At the same time, Islamic Tawhid claims greater severity and sequence in contrast to Christianity and Judaism. According to Islam, such dogmas as the Trinity and the Incarnation are deviations from the true Monism and blot its essential purity.

The Islamic religion shares some of biblical traditions, such as the world being created within six days, the creation of man in God’s image (the Sacred Scripture of Muslims, the Qur’an, underlines, the animation of man by the Spirit of God), Adam and Eve as their ancestors, their falling into sin, and their withdrawal from the original Paradise, as well as other events of sacred history connected both with Old Testament names of Noah, Abraham, Jacob and Joseph, Moses, David, and Solomon and the New Testament names of Zechariah, John the Baptist, Mary, and Jesus Christ. But Islam does not recognize the crucifixion of Christ. According to the Qur’an another man was crucified instead of Christ, who was taken alive to Heaven. The denial of Christ’s martyrdom is explained partially by the fact that according to the Qur’an, God forgave the Primogenitors their offense and, consequently, their original sin. Thus the original sin is deprived of its hereditary character and does not require any expiation by divine self-sacrifice.

The Qur’an teaches the end of the world, the Day of Judgment, Paradise, and Hell as does the Bible. But in contrast to medieval Christianity, the Qur’an did not instill apocalyptic feelings in its adherents, and did not keep them in constant expectation of the Day of Judgment. As Muhammad said, the believer should prepare himself for his future life as if he would die the next day, but he must work in the present life as if he would live forever. For Qur’anic eschatology it typically presents in a concrete, sensual form not only infernal sufferings, but the pleasures of Paradise as well. But for the inhabitants of Islamic Paradise (as with the Christian Paradise) the highest happiness is the spiritual bliss of seeing God.

Like Christianity and Judaism, Islam is a religion revealed by God, who himself reveals to the people his essence and will, granting to them the Holy Scriptures and messenger-prophets. But in Islam prophecy (prophetism) plays such an important role that theocentrism in Islamic history takes the form of prophetcentrism. According to the Islamic prophetology, God grants at least one prophet to each nation. The total number of God’s messengers reaches 124.000. The first one was Adam, and the last was Muhammad. There are about 30 prophets mentioned in the Qur’an, including those noted above.

Islam teaches not only the universality of prophecy, but also its unity: All prophets propagate the same faith (dogma); only the laws that regulate the moral-legal and cult-ritual sides of the adherents’ lives, can be varied. Thus, not only Muhammad but also all God’s messengers before him were Muslims, adherents of Islam, because "Islam," in a broad sense of the word, means Monotheism.

As a rule, God sent His revelation to the prophets with the archangel Djibril (Gabriel in the Bible) in "Scriptures" or "Books." God sent 100 commandments: to Adam—21; to Seth—29; to Enoch (Arab. Idris)—30; to Abraham—10; to Moses—10. Four books were presented: to Moses—the Torah; to David—the Psalter; to Jesus—the Gospels; to Muhammad—the Qur’an. The prototypes of all Sacred Scriptures and Books are kept eternally in the celestial "Preserved Tablet. "The "Scriptures" and "Books" present by themselves the "dictum" or the "dictation," which comes from God both in content and verbal format. The other part of revelation is the "inspired word;" here the prophet is involved in its verbal expression. In particular, Muhammad’s own dictums (so-called Hadiths or Sunnah) compose the kernel of the Islamic Sacred Tradition and refer to this second type. On the basis of the Hadiths and testimony by Muhammad’s associates, various versions of his Sira (Biography) have been made. The last ones for Muslims are similar to the Gospel in Christian understanding, whereas the Qur’an, being an embodiment of God’s primeval Logos, is comparable to the Jesus himself.

In essence, the ethical and moral doctrine of Islam is closely related to Judaic and Christian ethics. In comparison to the social and moral outlook of the Arabs during the epoch of paganism, it represented a huge step forward. Instead of a sense of a tribal exclusiveness and isolation, the founder of Islam introduced the idea of the equality of all believers, irrespective of tribal and racial differences. Contrary to the well-known heathen custom of blood feud, the Prophet called for tolerance and mildness. Islam condemned the practice of burying newborn girls alive, a practice that was widespread among some tribes. By the sanction of having no more than four legal wives the Islamic law essentially constrained the practice of polygamy, which had been widespread hitherto. The opportunity to divorce, which was rather easy for the Arabic pagans, became difficult. The initiative in the cancellation of marriage, which hitherto had belonged exclusively to men, became accessible to women as well. After entering Islam, the rights of widows and divorced women were rehabilitated: The heathen custom of levir was revoked. From this time, women could freely take care of themselves and, in particular, could get married again.

In general, due to this new religion, the social-legal position of women was considerably improved. The current subordinate status of Islamic women occurred much later, partly on the ground of contacts with other peoples who joined Islam. Such institutions as seclusion of women, the harem, and the eunuch were also alien to the original Islam.

The interdiction of wine and gambling, stipulated by Islam, promoted feelings of moderation and a serious attitude to life. At the same time, ascetism was rejected in Islamic ethics. The Prophet said: "The best of you are those not who, for the sake of the heavenly, neglect the terrestrial. The best of you take both." Following this spirit, Islam does not accept celibacy, raising marriage to the level of a religious responsibility and calling for the pleasures of family life. According to the Prophet: "When spouses caress each other, God looks at them with a gaze full of kindness."

A similar "grounding" in secularity is found in the attitude to work and wealth. The Prophet required each Muslim to earn his living. The Caliph Umar, well-known as Muhammad’s companion, said that God rewarded the efforts made by persons to earn their living much more than participation in the war for faith. Although the Prophet promised the poor that on Judgment day they would enter Paradise before the rich, this was not considered an attribute of the superiority of poverty over wealth. On the contrary, prosperity (gained, naturally, in a legal way and "cleared" by paying the religious tax—zakat) was a sign of heavenly favor. Muslims did not despise "The Beautiful Life," and even encouraged it. According to the Prophet, "If God made a great favor for one of His serfs, it is necessary for Him to see an attribute of that benefit in the serf."

The activist orientation characteristic for classical Islam agreed easily with the doctrine of divine predetermination (Qadar) of the destiny of each creature outlined on the heavenly Tablet. Understanding this doctrine called one to live and act in such a way as if predetermination did not exist. Each one should apply all their efforts to changing what is possible to change. But one should readily accept what seems to him unchangeable. Only after the 13th century, partly due to the Islamic mystic Sufis, did the divine determinism, in the religious consciousness of Muslims, turn into a passive fatalism and an inert quietism.

The correlation of religion and state, spiritual and secular authority in the Islamic society was not so unequivocal and unconditionally theocratic as it appears. It is possible to characterize the authority of the founder of Islam as theocratic. He combined in himself the roles of teacher of dogma and leader of the secular community and the state (army commander). The theocratic idea is also peculiar to the doctrine of the Shi’ites, who trust in God’s inspiration of their teachers—Imams from the line of Ali’s descendants (son-in-law and Muhammad’s cousin). By direct contact with Allah, they have not only legislative, but also God-given political authority. But the "majoritarian" Islam, known as Sunnism, did not share similar ideas and did not recognize the spiritual authority of the Caliph. The Caliph ("governor," "deputy") acts for Muhammad as a community head, but not as a religious lawmaker. After the Prophet’s death, the legislative, spiritual authority was embodied exclusively in the Qur’an and Sunnah. In contrast to the Pope, the Caliph was never considered as the carrier of sacral grace. That is why he could not introduce new doctrines and rites or establish such institutions as indulgences, interdicts, excommunications, etc. The Caliph possessed executive authority only. His main goal was to see that the life of the community proceeded according to religious prescriptions. Therefore, some researchers avoid applying the term "theocracy" to Islamic realities. When using this term they necessarily add such clarifications as "executive," "protective," and even "secular" theocracy.

State authority in the classical period was not surrounded by a religious aura, though it was considered a necessary institution. In the consciousness of Muslims of that epoch, only the first four companion-successors of the Prophet (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, who ruled from 632 to 661) were real "executive deputies" of the Prophet. Such understanding has remained until now, that is, the leaders of the state have never inherited his prophetic powers of prophecy. They were known only as the "rightly guided Caliphs." All subsequent governors were actually only ordinary kings (muluk), though they had the title of Caliph. There is a belief that such a transformation of power had been predicted by the Prophet: "After me the Caliphate will last for thirty years, and then a reign (mulk) comes." In reality, under the Umayyad (660—750), state authorities took an openly secular character. Under the Abbasids (750-1258), it remained the same in general, though the latter sometimes aspired to give to it a religious, theocratic coloring.

The "people of religion," the theologians (Ulama) and jurists (Faqihs) in their majority, obviously distanced themselves from state authorities, and at times were opposed to them. When some of the governors (in particular, in the 10th-11th centuries) declared themselves "deputies of God," such theocratic claims appeared only in idle declarations, because by that time the Baghdad Caliph had changed into a simple symbol of the empire, which entered into feudal dismemberment. Real power was concentrated in the hands of the Turk praetorian guards, and in the provinces the power had passed into the hands of secular governors, Emirs and Sultans. The emergence of the institution of the Sultanate meant the delimitation of religion and state.

Islam (to be exact Sunnism) did not stipulate such an institution as church, that is, a hierarchically and territorially structured clergy, which would accumulate in itself the mystical presence of God in the world and act as an indispensable link between God and the individual. Islamic faith does not recognize any intermediary who is to carry out the contact between earth and heaven, any organ that monopolizes the right of interpreting the Sacred Scripture, and any instance (like cathedrals and synods) that makes obligatory decisions for the whole community. In Sunnite Islam, only an Islamic community (Umma) is considered infallible or to be correct in its unanimous opinion—Ijma. But Ijma, usually reduced to the consensus of authoritative theologians, is actually represented as a legitimizing instance. As a rule, it legalized those beliefs and rites that long ago had taken deep root. An analogue of the indisputable authority of the church can be found only in theocratic and charismatic Shiism, in its doctrine on Imams as sinless and infallible. Among extreme Shi’ites, Ismailists, Druzes, and Alawits—this cult reached the level of their complete deification.

Though paradoxical, in the Sunnite environment, the existence of some kind of an intermediary between God and believers was assumed by mystic Sufis.

Arising as early as the Umayyad dynasty, Sufism (tasawwuf) initially had the form of asceticism, which expressed the lower class’s protest against the sharp differentiation in the Islamic community, against the luxurious and idle life of the ruling strata. Later, in the 8th and 9th centuries, it was expressed in a movement oriented to a mystical knowledge of God. Rabya praised love between God and believers. Zun-Nun marked out different stages (maqami) on a mystical way (tariqa) to God. Al-Bistami considered the wanderer’s goal on this way to his final annihilation (fana) in the Beloved (God). Al-Bistami is also known scandalously because of his ecstatic utterances (shatkh) in which theologians saw claims to joining with the deity and even self-deification. His exclamation "Glory be on me!" was considered as most seditious, for in Islamic tradition the epithet "glorified" (subhan) is attributed only to God. The other famous daring saying is "I am the Truth (God)" by the greatest mystic of Islam al-Hallaj (d. 922), who developed the doctrine on an incarnation (hulul) of the deity in the human soul.

Between the 8th and 9th centuries in Sufi groups, there was a charter of spiritual management: the neophyte Sufi (murid) could attain the mystical way of perfection only under supervision by the master (sheikh), the will of whom he should obey completely and implicitly. Further, Sufi groups began to unite into large and powerful brotherhoods or orders (tariqah). Each had a system of mystical practice, rites of initiation and investiture, and external insignia. At the head of a hierarchically organized brotherhood was the "saint" (wali, "Friend of God "). As a rule, they considered that the "saint" had supernatural abilities, and at times even a divine nature. So the mystics of Sufism introduced into religious life institutions alien to Islam. In a certain sense, these institutions were a mediating link between a believer and God, some kind of a church to which some mystics in Christianity had objected.

As a whole, Sufism acted as a many-sided phenomenon, in which there were the most various social, political, spiritual, and moral orientations: from praising poverty to blessing wealth, from an anarchic aversion of the state to its active support, from indifferent religious toleration to the zealous spreading of Islam by arms, from enthusiasm in speculative theorizing to the sharp aversion of discursive thinking as a dry way of thinking and a barrier between God and the mystic.

Rigoristic Islam, while rejecting the esoteric, libertarian, and pantheistic manifestations of Sufism, simultaneously legitimized the "nomistic" branches of Sufism, supporters of which insisted on strict observance of the instructions of the Islamic law, and obligatory coordination of their doctrines with the Qur’an and Sunnah. Also, they called the "union" of a Sufi adherent with the Deity a particularly psychological (instead of ontological) act. Thus, the cult of the Saints, not known in early Islam, became a notable element in the religious life of the majority of the people. In many regions, Sufism had become almost the main form of "popular" Islam.

The absence of church in Islam resulted in another feature of Islamic spiritual life: no uniform, institutional Orthodoxy of general importance. During the Middle Ages in the Islamic empire, there were three competitive Caliphates whose capitals were in Baghdad, Cairo, and Cordoba. Within each of them, there were numerous competing religious-political schools, the number of which in the 10th century could hardly squeeze into the framework predicted by Muhammad: "My community will be divided into 73 branches." Under such conditions, naturally, the appearance of conventional "orthodoxy" was impossible, though it did not prevent each Caliphate or each school from considering their own doctrine to be the only correct one. Gradually, the conflicting religious movements came to comprehend the need of peaceful coexistence, which was the dictum of the founder of Islam: "Differences in opinions within my community are a signal Divine favor." An example was the peaceful coexistence of the four schools of Islamic (Sunnite) law (fiqh): Hanafism, Shafiism, Malikism, and Hanbalism. An adherent of any one could pass freely to another. In turn, it was possible to meet representatives of different schools of law in the same family. It is characteristic that since old times at the four corners of the main Islamic holy place—Kaaba (in Mecca)—there have been centers for each of the four schools. In the oldest Islamic university, al-Azhar (Cairo), teaching was distributed among the four corresponding chairs.

The ideological variety of the Arab-Islamic society was supported also by the fact that alongside Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism were recognized as revealed religions. From one side, this coexistence of different confessional groups was an important factor for training in religious tolerance and universalism; from the other side, it determined the character of classical Islamic culture, as not only multinational, but also poly-confessional.

Another distinctive feature of classical medieval Arab-Islamic culture is its urban character. In the Islamic society, culture was not concentrated in closed, out-of-town centers of scholarship, as in the European monasteries. Culture was exclusively the product of townspeople. The high level of urbanization of that world is indicated by the fact that about 20 percent of the population lived in the three largest towns of Southern Mesopotamia: Baghdad, Basra, and Kufa. In the quantity of towns with a population of more than 100.000 people, Iraq and Egypt in the 8th to 10th centuries surpassed the most urbanized West-European countries in the 19th century, such as the Netherlands, England, and France.

The value orientations in the medieval Islamic burgher society is indicated by the reference group with which the society tried to comply. This group was the embodiment of those features supposed obligatory for an educated and well-brought-up person. Such groups were formed by adibi, the carriers of adab (in Greek, paideia and in Latin, humanitas), which combined the breadth of humanitarian interest and many-sided secular knowledge with high morals, refined breeding, elegant manners, and courteous behavior.

From the adabi environment, there were many outstanding representatives of liberal medieval thinking, which had a relatively wide circulation in the Islamic East. This took diverse forms, from treatises about Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad as "three impostors,",to the "dandies" (zurafa), who sported their religious nonconformism and skepticism. Usually, the long list of such thinkers of the classical epoch opens with the names of the adibs Ibn al-Muqaffa and at-Tawhidi, the philosophers Ibn al-Rawanda and Abu-Bakr ar-Razi, and the poets Khayyam and al-Ma’arri.

The action of these and other factors of the social-political and ideological kind has determined the character of the classical Arab-Islamic culture as a religious-secular one. Moreover, as we shall see below, in many spheres of spiritual creativity, secular matters were not subject to religious matters, and sometimes came to the fore.

It is noted by researchers in the Arab-Islamic culture that "knowledge" (ilm, also meaning "science") had a significance not found equally in other civilizations. The universal celebration of knowledge in Islamic civilization has been partly promoted by the Islamic religion. The Qur’an often emphasized ordering the world according to a system of, and compliance with, law, which is the main precondition for scientific knowledge. Many Qur’anic verses urge the human being to think of natural things because they bear in themselves the "signs" of the Creator and certify His skill, wisdom, and good intention. Moreover, the Qur’an declares the human being to be God’s governor on the Earth. That is why one is called not only to study the world, but also to transform it. In many respects, the general moral-psychological atmosphere surrounding knowledge and science was determined by Qur’anic prescriptions that represent the world as something final rather than as relative and transient, that is, the emphasis is on the theistic rule of God as stabilizing rather than as capable of working all possible miracles, that would break the usual flow of cause-effect relations, which would subvert knowledge and science.

The Sacred Tradition is eloquent evidence to the worship of knowledge. The founder of Islam called the search for science a "responsibility of each Islamic man and woman." He talked about study as a continuous process which lasts "from cradle to tomb" and requires of a person a brave search for wisdom "even in far China." Such words, as the "ink of the scientist is as precious as the blood of the martyr who died for the faith," or "one hour of thinking is better than 70 years of divine service" belong to Muhammad as well. Orthodox adherents have vainly tried to attribute all these calls and similar ones to religious and theological knowledge. The rising civilization surrounded any knowledge with respect and honor. This is reflected in one saying, which is sometimes attributed to the Prophet: "Take wisdom even from a pagan’s lips".

People of classical Islam not only cultivated knowledge and wisdom, but also enjoyed the magical charms radiated by the word of "knowledge". Knowledge was considered to be required for the soul ("heart") as food and drink is for the body. Sometimes knowledge was so tied to life that if the heart did not receive it within three days it definitely could die. Due to knowledge, one obtains immortality, because "knowledge and books are the eternal posterity of a wise man."

The public prestige of knowledge is indicated by its position as a self-sufficient value, exceeding all religious and secular matters: Knowledge and education put a person on a level equal to the aristocracy and bestowed authority and power. With wide availability for education and the absence of any formal restrictions of caste, race, ethnicity, or even confession on obtaining knowledge, the real prospect of increasing personal social status was open for any ambitious young man.

A respectful attitude to the Book later spread to the Arabic alphabet, instruments and materials for writing, and the writer’s profession and reflected the high position of knowledge. For Muslims, the purchasing of books turned into a matter of passionate enthusiasm, becoming a status position. In general, manufacturing paper (the secret of which was borrowed from the Chinese) in the Islamic East began in the 8th century and had vast significance for developing the book business and culture. Subsequently, paper manufacturing was taken over from the Arabs by the Europeans.

The whole Islamic world was covered with a network of numerous and diverse libraries. Libraries with up to 100,000 books (for comparison one notes that in 1340 the famous library of the Sorbonne had only 1720 books) became usual phenomenon. At the end of the 10th century, in the library of the Fatimids in Cairo, there were more than 600,000 volumes, and in Cordoba alone there were more books than in all the rest of Europe. In public libraries the readers, especially visitors who were not rich, not only used the books, but also received paper and writing materials free of charge. There they found both a quiet place and material support. Books from a library could be taken home without any subscriptions, and many libraries were also a kind of scientific club or literary salon.

A tremendous role in the formation and development of classical Islamic culture was played by the so-called "translation movement." Begun in the 8th century, it became quite active in the next century, in particular after the Caliph, al-Mamun (813-833), established in Baghdad the "House of Wisdom." This served simultaneously as a library, academy, and translation office. Many works of the ancient, Iranian, and Indian wisdom were translated into the Arabic language, which became the language of science and culture for the whole Islamic empire.

The greatest interest shown by the was in Greek/Hellenic scientific and philosophical culture. From the Greek language (at the beginning, via Syrian and Persian, there were translations of the philosophical works of Aristotle and Plato, medical works by Galen and Hippocratus, mathematical and astronomical works by Euclid and Ptolemy, and also works on chemistry, botany, pharmacology, zoology, mineralogy, agriculture, agronomy, mechanics, etc. Works on astronomy were translated from Sanskrit, and works of the ethical instruction from Persian. Thanks to the "translation movement," a considerable number of ancient sources in their Arabic versions were saved for history.

After the epoch of translations, which lasted about one century—until the mid 9th century—the period of actual creative development of the inherited cultural traditions followed. From the 9th to 12th centuries, Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasids, had became the center of world science, just as Athens -had once been a philosophical center, and Jerusalem a religious one. Intellectual life prospered also in other large towns of the Islamic empire. A great number of cultural centers were also formed as the result of feudal dissociation, which came after the 10th century, when each independent dynasty aspired to make of its capital a small Baghdad.

Scientists of medieval Islam (as well as the figures of the Arab-Islamic culture in general) were encyclopedically educated people. Often, one person combined a philosopher, mathematician, physician, physician, historian, geographer, poet, and philologist. Having mainly overcome the speculative character of ancient Greek science, they aspired to combine science and practice, theoretical knowledge and technical action. The interest in resolving practical problems resulted for such scientists as Ibn al-Hayssam and al-Biruni in the creation of experimental science long before its rise in Western Europe. In the Islamic world, points of the astronomical system by Ptolemy, Aristotelian physics, Pythagorean optics, and theory of music were experimentally checked and revised. At the same time, due to the high theoretical level of the development of mathematics, its influence on the sciences especially on physics, chemistry, astronomy, and geography was evident. Al-Biruni considered the language of mathematics as the most perfect language of science.

Based on their predecessors’ achievements, Arab-Islamic scientists made their own contributions to the development of the exact and natural sciences. In mathematics they introduced a system with 10 numbers (ciphers), subsequently called Arabic numerals (but probably Indian in origin). This system replaced a cumbrous Greek-Roman system of figures/letters and opened broad horizons for the development of mathematics. Both "zero" and "cipher," which with the Europeans originally meant "zero," originated from the Arabic name of zero—sifr ("empty", that is, "an empty place"). Along with the introduction of daily arithmetic, the merit of discovering decimal fractions, important for the extraction of square and cube roots, belongs to the Islamic scientists.

The mathematicians of medieval Islam transformed algebra into an exact science and considerably developed it. The term "algebra" (Arabian, al-Jabr) goes back to the name of a mathematical treatise by al-Khorezmi (11th century), and the term "algorithm" originates from the author’s name, transformed into Latin. The algebraic symbol "X" was taken from the Spanish xay which is the phonetically transformed Arabic word shay—thing. Islamic scientists created plane and spherical trigonometry. By applying arithmetic and algebra in geometry, they laid the basis of analytical geometry.

As a whole the astronomy of the medieval Islam adopted the Ptolemaic system. Though this system was erroneous in its essence, the Islamic scientists managed to reach important discoveries. At the end of the 9th century, al-Battani was the first to calculate the deviation of the terrestrial axis (so-called ellipticity). In 920, the equinox or precession was predicted, which allowed an adjustment of the lunar and solar calendars. Having found a weakness in the Ptolemaic system, some scientists subjected it to criticism and reformation. Astronomers from Maraga, as well as Ibn al-Shatir (d. 1350)— from Damascus, created non-Ptolemaic planetary models, and al-Biruni conceived the benefit of heliocentrism. In the well-equipped observatories of Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, Cordoba, Maraga, Samarkand, and other cities, the foundation of astrometry, the whole area of astronomical observation was began. More perfect than those of antiquity and India, the astronomical tables made in the Islamic East were popular in Europe until the middle of the 18th century. Along with the well-known terms: "zenith", "nadir", "almanac," and "azimuth," more than 200 of the Arabic names of stars, among which Aldebaran, Altair, Betelgeyze, Vega, and Rigel, were adopted in Europe.

In the Middle Ages, astrology was closely bound with astronomy. It became the subject of general enthusiasm, despite the negative attitude of rigorist theologians. Abu-Mashar (in Latin Albumasar, who died in 886) was the greatest Arabic astrologer. The Christians of medieval Europe honored him as a prophet.

The geographical literature of Medieval Islam is characterized by an abundance of information and a variety of genres. Arabic geographers and travelers left the description of the whole Islamic world, and also some other countries of Europe, Northern and Central Africa, the East African coast, and Asia from Korea to the Malay Archipelago. They were interested not only in physical, geographical, or climatic conditions, but also equally in life, industry, culture, language, religious doctrines, miracles, and legends. The geographer al-Idrisi (1165), native of Morocco, was the most known in the Christian West. He became famous after preparing for the king of Sicily, Roger II, descriptions of the world on the basis of direct observations obtained by an expedition under his supervision. As an illustration of his work, the scientist created a silver planisphere, on which all cities known at that time (1154) were marked.

Beyond descriptive geography, scientists of the Islamic world successfully developed astronomical and mathematical geography. Under al-Mamun (9th century) in the Syrian desert, the meridian degree was measured with the purpose of subsequently measuring the Earth’s circumference. The result of the measurement was incredibly accurate, within several hundred meters. Arab-Islamic geographers had rules that make it possible to calculate the area coordinates, and also the table of latitudes and longitudes for all points worldwide. These tables, created from making corrections and additions by the Arabs to the data contained in the Geography of Ptolemy became known in the medieval West as well. For example, the length of the Mediterranean sea was considerably reduced in comparison with the calculations of Ptolemy: from 62 to 52 degrees (al-Khawarizmi), and then down to 42 degrees (az-Zarqali), which is close to correct.

Arab-Islamic achievements in the field of navigation were taken up by the Christian West. In particular, the Europeans borrowed such technical innovations as the compass and the slanting (triangular) sail, which allowed one to move against the wind. Especially due to the latter it became possible to build larger ships which were able to cross the Atlantic and make longer voyages, resulting in great geographical discoveries. Moreover, marine maps (the Portolans), important for seafarers, were made in Genoa on the basis of Islamic marine maps. The evidence of an Islamic contribution to the development of marine culture can be found in the acceptance by Europeans of many Arabic words as international terms: admiral, arsenal, barge, after mast, galley, cable, monsoon, still used today.

The Islamic world promoted great geographical discoveries in other ways as well. Early Islamic geographers taught that there was a certain global center "Arin," looking like a dome and located in India, at the equator, midway between the extreme western and eastern borders of the inhabited part of the Earth. This theory, later perceived by Christian Europe, guided Columbus to the idea of a pear-shaped Earth. Additionally, in the western hemisphere, opposite to the Indian Arin, another center should exist, which was supposed to be higher than that located on the eastern side. So the Arabic geographical doctrine played a certain role in the greatest geographical discoveries of the modern epoch. Columbus in his letter with the inscription "from Haiti" (October, 1498) said that the Arabic-Spanish thinker, Ibn Rushd (Averroes), was one of the authors who opened to him the existence of the New World. It is interesting, also, that Vasco da Gama, used the services of the Arabic pilot, Ahmad Ibn Majid, to first reach the coast of India on May 20, 1498.

In the history of optics, Ibn al-Hayssam (d. 1039), known in Europe as Alhazen, discovered that the heavenly bodies emitted light, and that time is required for light’s movement. He disproved the theory of Euclid and Ptolemy on visible rays, which go from the eyes to an object, and described the visual process as a pure act of perception. Studying light reflection in flat, spherical, cylindricalm, and conic mirrors, the Cairo optician investigated the question that to this day is called the Alhazen problem. Ibn al-Hayssam came close to discovering the principle of the magnifying lens that became an initial point for telescope design. While studying light refraction, he managed to calculate the height of the terrestrial atmosphere with rare precision. The scientist’s work, known in the Latin West under the name of the Treasure of Optics, formed the basis for optical research by Europeans, from Vitelo, Peckam and Roger Bacon to Leonardo da Vinci and Kepler.

In the Middle Ages, chemistry and alchemy were indivisible disciplines, and in the Arabic East they were combined under the same term, al-kimiya, from which the European names of both sciences originated. Having originated in Greek Egypt, alchemy reached the peak of its popularity in Islamic Iraq. Until the 14th century, the code of works ascribed to Jabir Ibn Hayyan (Lat. Geber, 8th century), served as the most authoritative manual on alchemy-chemistry both in Asia and in Europe. Though the attempts to find such miracle substances as the "Philosopher’s Stone" (which helps to transform the base metals into gold and silver) and the "Elixir of Life" (preserving youth and longevity) were doomed to failure, Arabic alchemists during their quests developed a new technology of smelting metals and made a number of valuable scientific discoveries. They essentially improved such main chemical operations as calcination and restoration, and also the methods of evaporation, sublimation, melting and crystallization. Due to these methods, the Arabs discovered the following new chemical substances: nitric acid, borax, arsenic, ammonium chloride, potash, saltpeter, antimony, aqua-regia, etc. The physician and philosopher ar-Razi (9th century), as well as the above-mentioned encyclopedist, al-Biruni (widely known due to his historical ethnographic work on India), who succeeded in measuring with a high degree of accuracy the specific weight of metals and minerals, are considered to be leaders in alchemy.

The medicine of the Islamic East was the leader in the world till the European Renaissance. A powerful stimulus to the development of hygiene and public health services was given by Islam which required its adherents to take care of preserving not only the soul, but the body as well. Muhammad, being extremely scrupulous in matters of physical cleanliness, had given the status of a religious cult to the observance of hygiene (including daily ablutions). The mosques, where there was necessarily a room for ablution, served simultaneously as the centers of hygiene. In addition to such rooms there were numerous public baths—hammams—which were a characteristic element of an Islamic town. The founder of Islam encouraged medical treatment, because, as he said: "God does not send diseases for which He does not send an appropriate medicine". Under his name some hundreds of sayings were given, mainly advising on prophylactic, diet and hygiene. Later they were collected under the name "The medicine of the Prophet".

In Islamic cities medical services were performed not only by privately practicing doctors, but also by hospitals, usually established by donations from governors and rich people. Also there were mobile hospitals for the countryside. More often medical aid was free, including the hospital care, medicine and food. Hospitals were subdivided into female and male branches, and also into various categories depending on an illness: fever, eye disease, gastrointestinal, or surgery. Attached to hospitals there were reading rooms, laboratories, a chapel and also a school of pharmacy. For the first time pharmacology became an independent science, and pharmaceutics a recognized profession. In hospitals students had their clinical practice; this tradition was not adopted by Europeans until approximately 1550. The Islamic world was familiar also with dispensaries, hospitals for lepers and mental hospitals, where experts on nervous diseases cared for patients.

The medical knowledge of medieval Islam was known in Europe in particular due to the translations of the encyclopedic works by such scientists, as ar-Razi (Lat. Razes, d. 926) and Ibn Sina (Lat. Avicenna, d. 1037). "The Canon of Medicine" by the latter was published in Latin in the 12th century and dominated the medical teaching in Europe at least to the end of the 16th century. In the 15th century, it was published in 16 editions, and in the 16th century in 20. Such terms as alcohol, soda, and syrup were borrowed by the European languages from Arabic medical language.

The religious-philosophical thought in classical Islamic culture was represented by three main trends: Kalam-Islamic philosophical theology; falsafa, which evolved on the ancient Greek model of philosophizing, and speculative Sufism.

Kalam first appeared in Islam and developed as various religious and political groupings appeared on the social and political scene, and in the disputes of the Muslims with the adherents of such other faiths as Mazdaism, Christianity, and Judaism. In these disputes, there took shape a characteristic theological problematic, which included the following main questions: God’s attributes and their correlation with his essence; the eternity of the Qur’an as God’s speech or its creation in time (while writing it on the Heavenly Tablet or sending it down to Muhammad); divine predetermination; and freedom of the will.

Mutazilites, the representatives of the first large school in Kalam, which prospered in the first half of the 9th century, opposed anthropomorphism and fatalism. Mushabbikhits, the adherents of such anthropomorphism, conceived God in human form. The most extreme of them—literalists or Hashawits—insisted on a literal understanding of the words of Sacred Scripture and Tradition referring to the creation of man in "God’s image," to "eye," "hand," and "leg," and to His Throne. On the contrary, Mutazlites considered Islamic monotheism to be incompatible not only with polytheism and anthropomorphism, but also with the recognition of the reality and eternity of the divine attributes as certain entities or hypostases distinct from the divine essence. The traditional list of the main "positive" attributes of God usually included the following: knowledge, power, life, will, sight, hearing, and speech. Among these as substantive or internally inherent to the divine essence, Mutazlites recognized only the first three considering them to be identical to the divine essence and in this sense eternal. The rest of the characteristics they considered "operative attributes" that arise within time, are changeable, and, hence, different from the divine essence. From this follows the Mutazilite doctrine about the creation of the Qur’an as God’s Word, which does not comply with the prevalent Islamic theological conception of the eternity of the Sacred Scripture. Refuting the determinism of the fatalists, Jabrits, the Mutazlites considered divine justice to assume freedom of choice without which the moral responsibility of a human being for his actions and deeds is inconceivable.

Having become the main school of Kalam after the 10th century, Asharism developed its own way of resolving theological matters as the "golden mean" between the Mutazlites’ position and the traditionalist theologians, between libertarians and fatalists in the perception of human action, and between nominalism and realism in their approaches to the divine attributes. In particular they believed, that the Qur’an was eternal in its meaning, but not in verbal expression. Moreover, according to the opinion of some Asharites, Sacred Scripture in its verbal expression had been generated within time, and was not necessarily divine: God handed over to the archangel Gabriel only the sense of revelation, which he passed to Muhammad. From this it follows that the verbal content of the Qur’an belongs to the Prophet.

In the above-mentioned religious discussions, there developed not only a special circle of theological problems characteristic of Kalam, but also a specific method for their resolution, which excluded references to any authorities (including Sacred Scripture and Tradition), except reason. Mutakallims (teachers of Kalam) proclaimed the unconditional priority of reason over faith, and proclaimed doubt as a methodological principle of cognition. They considered it necessary for each Muslim to pass through a stage in which he had to call into question all religious ideas, in order mentally to convince himself of their validity or falsity.

The ability to think critically was trained and polished in numerous circles (or assemblies, Majalis) organized by the Mutakallims. There, representatives of very different schools and orientations, represented by Muslims, Christians, Jews, and atheists demonstrated their skill in carrying on theological-philosophical dispute. Mutakallims also disputed before the general public; quite often even street shops and markets were places for theological disputes.

However, the problems of Kalam was not reduced to theological questions. It is indicative, that in the classical works on Kalam (13th-14th centuries), theology takes less than one quarter of their volume. The rest of the research was devoted to epistemology, natural philosophy, and ontology. In Kalam were developed the original atomistic concepts, in which the finitist approach to the structure of physical bodies was applied to movement, space, and time. The teachers of Kalam thus continued the ancient atomistic tradition, which had been forgotten in medieval Christian Europe.

The aforesaid main features of Kalam—rationalism, antifideism, and primary attention to actual philosophical problems—explain the fact that the activity of the Mutakallims was perceived suspiciously and sometimes with hostility by the majority of Islamic theologians. On the whole, in Islam, there was no aspiration to rationalize and conceptualize dogmatism and develop speculative theology. It was more focused on developing not orthodoxy as the "correct faith," but orthopraxy as the "correct deed." Therefore, Islamic civilization institutionalized and canonized the law or fiqh but not theology. In addition to law, such disciplines as the science of the Qur’an (exegetical) and the science of hadith—the sayings and deeds of Muhammad—were included in the traditional number of "religious sciences," but not dogmatic theology. Hence subjects similar to Kalam were not taught at religious schools (Madrasahs).

If Kalam was born in the bosom of religious disputes, falsafa was a child of the "translation movement." The translation activity, where the Nestorian Syrian scientists played a large role, had resulted in the Islamic world engaging an extensive circle of philosophical ideas of the Greek-Hellenic tradition, the most important of which were the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, Neo-Platonists, Stoics, and Neo-Pythagoreans. Aristotelism and, in particular, its encyclopedic scope attracted the attention of Islamic scribers for the most part. Therefore, falsafa (Arabian, Calque) was represented mainly by the Peripatetics (Aristotelians), who were guided by Aristotle’s logic, physics, metaphysics, and ethics. For politics (as the doctrine of the "ideal state" or the "virtuous city"), they used Plato’s Republic. The most outstanding Peripatetics of Islam were: Al-Farabi (d. 950), who combined Aristotelian cosmology with the emanationist doctrine of Neo-Platonians, Ibn Sina (in Latin, Avicenna, d. 1037) who systematized Aristotelism, and Ibn Rushd (in Latin, Averroes, d. 1198) known in Europe also under the honorary name of the Commentator par excellence.

The Eastern Peripatetics gained new life in medieval Europe. As remarked by R. Bacon, it was due to the Islamic commentators that the Aristotelian philosophy, which had been in oblivion, became popular in the Latin-speaking world. Also, the original works of falasifa left a deep imprint on the philosophy of medieval Europe and the epoch of the Renaissance. Medieval European scribers were familiar with the works of al-Kindi and al-Farabi. The philosophical Robinsonade of Ibn Tufayl was very popular among European readers, especially after its translation into Latin in 1671. But the deepest imprint on the philosophical thought of Christian Europe was left by Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd. Their names were bound up with such trends, as Avicennian Augustinianism and the Latin Averroism. As a whole, classical Arab-Islamic philosophy promoted the secularization of European philosophical thought and its consolidation with the natural sciences. Thus it prepared the development of early modern philosophy.

The aspiration to self-reflection, the rational understanding of mystical experience, can be found in the al-Hallaj’s works and in particular, in the works of al-Ghazali (d. 1111). It gained its most advanced form in the theosophical systems of al-Suhrawardi and Ibn Arabi.

The doctrine of al-Suhrawardi (d. 1191), known as Ishraqism (from ishrak, "inspiration") or illuminism, represents a version of the "Metaphysics of Light," proceeding from the concept that light is the primary origin, which ontologically is represented as a substantiation of all existence, and gnoseologically as a principle of cognition. From the point of view of illuminism, the world consists of a hierarchy of "lights," at the top of which is the Higher Light of lights (God). On this basis, al-Suhrawardi revised the peripatetic system combining it with a Platonic "theosophy of inspiration," above any Aristotelian "Philosophy of Discourse."

The school of Ibn Arabi (d. 1240), the "Great Sheikh" of Islamic mystics, was more widespread in the Sufi environment. The characteristic feature for this school was the doctrine of the "unity of being" (Wahdad al-Wujut), for which it received the name of Wujudism, "ontic monism." According to Ibn Arabi, being is the one and single principle, equally present in all things; it allegedly forms their substance of primary matter, but they are its forms or modes. This Unique Being is identical to God. On this thesis, Wujudits formed the most significant system of philosophical pantheism in the Arab-Islamic culture. The other important theme of the Wujudism is the concept of "perfect man," reflecting in itself the richness of both the Deity and the universe. This concept was developed for the first time in the philosophy of classical Islam by Ibn Arabi; his follower, al-Jili (d. 1428), devoted to it his main book al-Insan al-Kamil (The Perfect Man).

The maghribian Ibn Khaldun (1406) was among the pleiad of celebrated members of the philosophical culture of medieval Islam. He was not a member of any of its schools, but founded the Human Civilization (umran) doctrine. This doctrine aimed to transform history from a chronicle of kings and prophets into a strict scientific discipline, which should form one of the important branches of philosophy. The creativity of the thinker was ahead of his time, and only in the 19th century was his true worth appreciated as the founder of historical criticism and of sociology.

The artistic genius of the Arabs found its brightest expression in poetry. In heathen Arabia, poetic creativity was especially cultivated by the nomad Bedouins, almost all were men. In special cases, women could compose verses. Each tribe had its own recognized poet, called to protect its honor by word, and to strike its enemies by poisonous abuse. It was believed that the poet was inspired by the Jinn, which resulted in the poet’s magic charm toward the phenomena of nature. The poet’s authority was important in decision-making related to private life. For example, it was enough for the poet, al-Asha, to recite a small poem eulogizing the generosity and the hospitality of one of his friends, for members of the most famous families of Arabia to come to the aid of the poor Bedouin, who still had eight daughters to establish in marriage.

At the annual fair in Ukaz (near Mecca), to which people from all ends of the Arabic peninsula came, there were competitions of poets. The verses judged the best were embroidered on silk with gold letters and hung on the walls of Kaaba, to be admired by all the pilgrims visiting Mecca. According to one of the legends, the Mu’allaks (literally, "hung up"), that is, the seven (or nine or ten) poems by the poets of the 6th century, originated from that. The Mu’allaks, in later medieval Arabic culture, were considered ideals for imitation.

The composite form of Mu’allak, which is the main form of the ancient Arab poetry, is the Qasida or ode, consisting of 50-120 lines, or, more exactly, of couplets. The verses (beits) have not only a uniform size, but also a uniform rhyme. Therefore, poems are often named with reference to their rhyme: lamiya, that is, ended with the lam ("L"), nuniya with the nun ("N"), etc. Each verse of the classical Qasyds is drawn toward the semantic completeness and, sometimes, toward the topic-figurative independence. Its connections with other verses are determined not so much by the development of a plot, as by the associations prompted by a trick of the imagination.

Actually, the ode (Qasida) represents a monodrama, usually about love, the hero of which is invariably a poet. It begins with a poet traveling by desert who stops at a site that had been left by a tribe. The poet’s beloved usually is a member of that tribe, and the poet falls into his memories of her, describing her beauty and mourning his living apart from her. Then the poet, starting again on his journey, turns to the description of his fellow travelers, horse or camel, views of the Arabic nature, animals and birds. In the final part of the Qasida, the poet eulogizes himself, re-reasoning about his arms and feats or the persons to whom he devoted this ode, glorifies his tribe, and derides his personal or tribal enemies.

The ancient Arabic poetry, which was associated with paganism, originally was met with hostility by Muhammad. In the 26th chapter of the Qur’an, entitled "Poets," they were blamed for its invention. Probably, the founder of Islam was confused by the fact that he was accepted as an ordinary prophet or poet. Apparently, he had also personal collisions with poets and narrators, who sarcastically and disrespectfully criticized the doctrine he propagated.

Nevertheless, at the last stage of his activity, Muhammad drew upon the services of poets. Two of the most outstanding poets of the time, Kab ibn Zuhayr and Hassan ibn Sabit, delivered panegyrics in his honor. Kab, who previously composed a poem deriding the Prophet and even was wounded in a collision with the Muslims, had been an outlaw. Out of fear for his life, he came to the Prophet in repentance and began to read him a laudatory poem. It touched Muhammad so much that he threw his cloak over the poet’s shoulders. As a result, the poem received the name of Burda (Cloak). As to Hassan, the Prophet presented him with a captive, the sister of his own Coptic concubine Maria. From there on, the poet recited many poems with much phraseology from the Qur’an and became known as the father of Islamic religious poetry.

However, the poetry of classical Islam did not become a religious poetry; on the contrary, with some exceptions it had a secular character. The Christian, al-Akhtal, who was the main poet of the Umayyad’s court, sang proudly about his unwillingness to accept Islam and openly derided the Islamic cult. The love lyrics and the "wine" poetry of Abu Nuwas, the predecessor of Omar Khayyam, was widely popular.

As in pagan times, poetry was recognized as the sole "high" form of literature and held a special place in Arab-Islamic society. In each court, there were poets called to glorify their patron. The study of poetry was one of the elements of general education, and erudition in this area was considered an attribute of good manners. The poetic art of classical Islam strengthened a feature characteristic of ancient Arabic poetry, namely, close connection with recitation, music, and singing. Shows starring poets, musicians, singers, and dancers were the main means of secular entertainment for the nobility and the educated people. In many respects, poetry defined the Baghdad style, and then, in general, the Arabic style of a magnificent and beautiful life.

Medieval Arabic poetry reached its zenith in the 9th to 10th centuries. In this epoch there appeared the drinking and hedonistic lyrics of Abu Nuwas and the freethinking, philosophical, and, sometimes, pessimistic verses of al-Maari, as well as the solemn lyrical odes by al-Mutanabbi who up to now is considered by many the greatest Arabic poet.

During the following centuries, in particular in the 12th to 13th, the philosophical lyrics of Sufism flourished in Arabic (Ibn al-Arabi, Ibn al-Farid) and Persian ("Mesnevi" al-Rumi). The mystical poems, which were rich with bacchanalian and erotic images, were widely popular even far from the actual Sufi environment.

Classical Islamic poetry remained faithful to lyricism. The epos genre presented in the Persian language by the famous Shah-nameh (Book on the Kings) by Ferdowsi (10th to 11th centuries), was not appreciably developed. At times, the genre of the "knight novel," Syra (literally "Biography") was attributed to the epos genre. This is the product of collective folk creativity, where prose alternates with verses. From more than 20 such novels have come, up to now, the Syras of the pre-Islamic poet-warrior Antare, the Mamluk sultan Beybarse and, most famous, the migration of the Hilalits tribe to Egypt and Northern Africa. The tradition of the performance of these works in the streets, squares, and coffee shops by professional speakers, accompanying themselves on the rabab (viola), has continued until now.

A significant place in Arabic prose writing is taken by adab. This is the original semi-didactic, semi-fictional genre, intended for the education and entertainment of the above-mentioned humans or adibs. In the middle of the 8th century, Ibn al-Muqaffa, who was one of the founders of this genre, translated into Arabic and carried out the literary processing of the collected fairy tales and fables, approaching the Indian Panchatantra, and played by animals. This book, known by the Arabs as the Kalila and Dimna, made Ibn al-Muqaffa famous and provided the basis for the framed story genre, at the peak of which is the famous folk fairy tales of The Thousand and One Night.

Life in the large cities gave birth to an original kind of short story called Maqama. This was a cycle of picturesque stories about the adventures and transformations of a clever tramp. Maqamas were written with refined and rhymed prose mixed with poetic inserts. The best example flowed from the pens of al-Hamadhani (d. 1008) and al-Haryri (d. 1122).

Drama was not cultivated in the culture of Islam. Shadow theater plays were in folk language (oral language only). The Egyptian Ibn Daniyal (13th century) became an outstanding figure in such theater and wrote for it three librettos, which were recognized as belonging to high literature, and in this sense were unique. Later on, there was a doll theater known as the Aragooz, named after the main character. A serious kind of folk drama was represented in the Shiite mysteries (Tazia, literally Consolation), which were shows about the tragic death of Imam al-Huseyn and performed during anniversaries of this event.

As far as the Qur’an is concerned, it is considered a unique work, which did not belong in the frameworks of traditional poetry or prose. Written in the form of a rhythmic and sometimes rhymed prose, this book is a divine, not human, word and is inimitable and inaccessible in its artistry. The perfection of the Qur’anic form is also the justification of its heavenly origin, proclaiming the authenticity of Muhammad’s prophetic mission.

In Arab-Islamic artistic culture an extremely high position is held by calligraphy, which represents an alternative to Christian iconography. A respectful attitude to handwriting was incorporated in the Islamic religion, based on the Qur’an, not without similarity in Christianity to respect for the person of Jesus. According to Islamic conceptions, the first of God’s creations, which appeared even before the sky and earth were created, were writing tools, that is, the pen and the tablet. The Prophet Muhammad guaranteed a dwelling place in paradise to one who beautifully reproduces God’s words, particularly from the Qur’an, by means of the pen.

Arabic handwriting became the sacred symbol of Islam. Some people considered that each letter from the alphabet represented one of the "most perfect names" of God. During the whole Islamic history, there was a wide circulation of "the science of the letters," which attributed magical and physical properties to the letters, the perception of which was the key to the mysteries of nature.

In the medieval Arab-Islamic culture, the aesthetic, emotional, and artistic perception of handwriting has been brilliantly expressed, not only in the endless efforts of artists to create new, more perfect forms of writing, but also in numerous sayings in which the writing is compared to such objects of beauty and emotional appeal as jewelry, flowers, fabrics, and gardens. Beautiful handwriting has been described as bringing pleasure to the heart and eye. "Where saffron is a maid’s spirit, ink is the spirit of men," the poet exclaimed. In literature, the comparison of corporal features with letters became a standard component of poetic figures: A ringlet on the temple of the beloved can remind the poet of the "nun" letter, and a birthmark on the cheek a point above the "nun," the ligature of the "lam" and "alif" letters, written as interlacing each other, symbolizes love and union.

Being rectilinear, angular and monumental in form, Kufi calligraphy (named from a town in Iraq) was a favorite for the Qur’an for more than five centuries. Subsequently, it was replaced by new, uncanonized styles, mainly by naskhi ("italics"). Both calligraphies were ornamental, often with symbolic content. Calligraphy was not only a matter of patterns (in arabesque; see below); sometimes it represented the completed whole in the form of some kind of a frieze or panel. Sometimes its capricious flourishes, merging together, created images of animals and even people in stories and poems.

Islamic art, especially in its Arabic version, developed mainly as a decorative art. This characteristic ornamentation was given in the West the name "arabesque", which reflects the aspiration to create abstract patterns in infinite variations of the same motifs filling all the graphic space.

Arabesque is a complex interlacing of vegetative, geometrical and calligraphic (epigraphic) elements. The vegetative elements (acanthus, palms, grape leaves, trefoil, pine cones, tulips, roses and almond tree flowers) are stylized and have some elements in common with Hellenic tradition. But geometrical figures are characterized by rich abstractness. A circle or a star are not so much the objects of contemplation, as self-sufficient and perfect figures characteristic of the perception by Greek geometricians as the initial point for creating new figures. The third element of arabesque and the most original is calligraphy. The Arabic letters are the most suited for such a purpose and may have no analogues in this respect except possibly the Chinese hieroglyphs.

Arabesque has left a rich heritage in Islamic Spain, and hence in Europe, where it was known as the "Moresque" ("Mauritanian style"). It is remarkable that Europeans did not always realize the Islamic character of the innovations adopted by them, perceiving Arabic inscriptions on fabrics imported from the East only as geometrical patterns. Arabic calligraphy is clearly visible on the coronation attires of German emperors; it can be distinguished even on the band decorating the shoulder of Jesus in Giotto’s "Resurrection of Lazarus".

The flourishing of the ornamental arts in the Arab-Islamic culture arose partially from the characteristic Islamic tendency to struggle against icons, according to which depicting not only God, but also creatures (in particular people) is forbidden. Such anti-iconism reflected unitarism, the denial of any anthropomorphic features of God, the fear of idolatry, and the conception of God as the creator (Mussawir, literally "Form-maker") who gave forms to creatures, but whom it is impossible to imitate. According to this point of view, the artist who depicts a person or an animal encroaches on the prerogative of the Creator and will be strictly punished on Judgment Day when he will be required to breath life into the pictures he created.

However, the interdictions by the theologians on painting and sculpture in aristocratic environments was sometimes no more effective than those on wine. Figured images can be seen on the surviving frescos in the Umayyad Caliphs country castles in Syria and on the Abbasid palaces of Samarra (in Iraq). The Baghdad Caliph al-Mansur (754-775) is mounted on a horse statue on the green dome of the palace in the capital. The Arabic-Spanish Caliph Abd-ar-Rahman III (912-961) crowned with a statue of his favorite wife, az-Zahra, the palace named in her honor. The governor of Egypt, Humarawayah (834-895), decorated the residence with his own image and the images of his wives wearing golden crowns. But nowhere in an Islamic mosque do we find an image of a person or animal. Thus Islam did not resort to the fine arts as a means of propagating religious ideas, as did Christianity and Buddhism. Sculpture, and especially painting, became secular arts patronized by the governors and the aristocracy.

The miniaturists, who easily overcame the interdiction against the figured images, did not overcome the temptation to reproduce sacred persons, which the rigoristic Islam prohibited. In the illustrations for the story about a mystical Muhammad’s ascendancy to the Sky (Mi’raj) and in the books of sacred history, the Prophet is sometimes presented with a veil on his face, sometimes with his face bare and a flame of nimbus. There were also pictures of the pre-Islamic prophets, Muhammad’s companions, Islamic saints and angels.

The "Antifigure" rule was also circumvented in applied works of art. The utilitarian purpose of such subjects as though excluding God’s respectful attitude to them, partly explains a relative tolerance of figured images in this sphere. Alongside calligraphic and ornamental motives, bronzes and glass, fabrics and carpets, ceramics and other products were decorated with figures of people and animals (including some that were three-dimensional).

As has been said already, Arab-Islamic civilization is mainly urban. In the conquered countries the Arabs kept all the existing towns, and when founding new towns they did not feel a need to establish a special "Arabic" architectural type of town. In this respect the medieval Arab-Islamic towns are remarkable for their variety.

The general features determining a classical "Islamic town" are mainly connected with some types of cult buildings, first of all a mosque, and also a madrasah (religious school, college) and mausoleums. The additional universal modes are set by such public structures as baths (Hammam), hospitals, fountains (sabyl), caravansaries and covered markets. Private residences are oriented on the inside court with only high solid fences turned toward the streets, thus preserving the inhabitants of a house from immodest stares.

The mosque (from Arab. Masjid, "the place of worship") represents the main center and the main symbol of Islamic religious life. With all the historical and geographical variety in mosque architecture a number of general unifying elements were maintained. The main one is the orientation of the prayer hall toward Mecca, to which the Mida (a covered room or a door with a fountain or a pool) is adjoined, where a short ablution (Wudu) is made prior to praying. In the back wall of a prayer hall there is a Mihrab or niche indicating for the believer the direction (Qibla) to address while praying. The Mihrab is considered the symbol of Islamic unity because it forces all to look toward the Kaaba, the spiritual center of the Universe, or to the symbol of Muhammad’s mystical presence during the prayer of an Imam. The vicinity of the Mihrab is the most sacred and the most decorated part of a mosque.

In the principal mosques, to the right of a Mihrab there is a rostrum—Minbar—from which is read the sermon prior to the Friday prayer. Under Muhammad the Minbar was a high seat, and within the first centuries of Islam it was a symbol of power, similar to the throne. In the middle Ages announcements and addresses of the governors to people were made from Minbars. Here they performed the solemn ceremonies of crowning the governors.

Rising above a mosque is a Minaret (Arab. manara), a tower with a balcony, from which the call to prayer is announced. According to one interpretation, the Minaret symbolizes Islamic monotheism, because it resembles the forefinger, which a Muslim raises upwards when pronouncing the formula "There is no God, except Allah".

Palaces were also remarkable samples of Arabic secular architecture, the fabulous luxury and the fantastic magnificence of which made a magic impression on foreigners, especially from Western Europe. Their characteristic feature is open courtyards surrounded by colonnades, around which there were groups of halls and rooms. An abundance of mirror pools, fountains and babbling streams also were typical. Around the palaces there were shady rustling gardens. Unfortunately, not many of these numerous palaces remain, but one is the magnificent Alhambra palace-fortress in Spanish Granada.

Research on the religious and cultural originality (in particular emphasizing its difference from Christianity) reveals that Islam did not allow instrumental music in cult. Nevertheless, the prophet Muhammad was tolerant of such musical genres as military, pilgrim and holiday (public and family) songs. Moreover, from the beginning of his stay in Medina the Prophet founded Azan, a call to prayer, performed by a harmonious human voice. Later he permitted the believer "to decorate reading the Qur’an with a good sounding voice", which is the basis for the art of Tajwid, the melodic recitative of the Sacred Scripture.

Other kinds of spiritual music were also developed in the Islamic religious tradition. During the nights of Ramadan (month of fast), special melodies, fazzariyat, were performed. On the Prophet’s birthday (Mawlid) hymns and songs telling about his birth and life were performed. Music accompanied celebrations devoted to the famous Saints, in particular during the above-mentioned Shiite mourning ceremonies (Tazia).

Music has been especially popular in the Sufi orders. Dhikr, a ritual mentioning the name of Allah, became the main element of religious practice of Sufism. The ritual of Dhikr was combined with certain body movements, which in some brotherhoods was performed with a drumbeat. At similar "meetings" it was the practice to sing love and drinking verses, quite often accompanied by musical instruments, in particular keys. Thus Dhikr developed into the practice of sama’ (literally "listening"), sometimes with ecstatic dancing (raqs). The "Swirling Dervishes", who were the members of the Mawlawi order founded by the famous Sufi poet, ar-Rumi (1273), performed these dances most brilliantly.

Strict adherents of theology, as a rule, condemned these practices and similar forms of joining music with religious cult. They allowed only vocal music, calling musical tools the instruments of temptation. Therefore, the music of classical Islam was primarily secular in character and focused mainly on the tastes of the palace aristocracy and other higher levels of the urban population. The hostile attitude to secular music from the side of pious theologians and society was stimulated in particular by its association with erotic dances and wine parties, and also by the socially reprehensible moral character and behavior of many woman-like (mukhannasun) actors and musicians.

Developing as a synthesis of ancient Arabic, Persian, Byzantine and other traditions, Islamic music was always closely connected with poetry. Primarily it was vocal in character. The most common genre was a small vocal and instrumental group, consisting of a group of soloists of whom usually the singer was dominant. The other feature of the music of medieval Islam is its micro-key, tonal richness, in which can be found not only semi, but quarter tones as well.

The four or five-string lute (al-’Ud) became the favorite instrument for Arabic classical music. This instrument was glorified by poets and played an important role in theoretical and cosmological constructions. National storytellers accompanied their recitation by playing rabab (the base of the European "Rebeck", an original viol). The trapezoid eve (European "kanoon" originated from it) and kaman (a kind of viol) were the other popular string instruments. There were a variety of flutes and pipes, often double. Among percussion instruments a drum tambourine was the main instrument, while a regular tambourine was popular at all levels of the society. The drum (tambl, transformed by Europeans into timbal), the kettledrum (nackara, transformed into European naker) and the dulcimer (kasat) were parts of a military orchestra, which also included the wind instruments, horn (buk) and pipes (nafir, plural anfar, origin of fanfares). Besides the purely military function military orchestras played an important role in public processions and ceremonies.

In Europe minstrels spread the music of the Arabs, with their manner of singing and playing instruments. "The Morris dancers" (came from "moorish"), who made shows with toy horses and bells, were reminiscent of that. European names of the notes: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, came from the names of those Arabic letters which represented the notes in Islamic countries in the middle ages.

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