Enlightenment, Scientific Achievements, Religious and Ethnic Tolerance
“The European Enlightenment was prepared by the Arabs. It was their contribution in the Iberian Peninsula that made it possible”, "Islam is in Portugal's soul," statements said by the Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
The Arab Islamic rule in al-Andalus (large parts of Spain and Portugal) (711-1492 AD) is considered the golden age of scientific achievements, religious and ethnic tolerance throughout human history. Over a thousand years, Europe underwent one of its greatest periods of cultural enlightenment and far-reaching changes in its history in Medieval Spain and Portugal.
Religious Tolerance and freedoms under the Arab Islamic Rule
People of all religions and faiths lived together and prospered in a thriving multicultural civilization. There was a harmony between the major three religions, Muslims, Christians and Jews. This kind of harmony never exited anywhere except under Arab Muslim rule.
Muslims did not interfere in other religious groups' administrations or in their religious rites. Non-Muslims neither were forced to live in special neighborhoods "ghettos", nor were enslaved. Muslims did not impose Islam on them; so many of them remained Christians or Jews. They excelled in prominent professions such as money exchange, gold and silver trading, and worked in the offices of Muslim rulers.
Islam didn't spread by sword
Some claim that Islam spread by sword and Muslims conquered others' lands for only expanding their territories. It is not true. These are mere lies. But if it was so, what is wrong? Wasn’t the Roman and Persian Empires invading others' lands at that time and torturing and oppressing other peoples?
Every single Muslim battle has a great story behind it. Most wars that occurred in Islamic history have been self-defense, or defending the oppressed people. This trend has continued all the way into the present.
Stories of great Muslim leaders and battles
Acry of a Muslim woman moved armies
"وامعتصماه"
One of the Muslim great conquests that led Muslims to conquer the Romans in Amorium 'Amuriyyah' (a city in Anatolia in nowadays Turkey), is the Story of the Caliph Mu’tasim and the cry of a Muslim Woman. This incident happened in 837 AD.
One Muslim woman was abused and enslaved by the Romans in Amorium. Embarrassed and horrified, she called out the name of the Caliph "Wa Mu'tasimah" ‘Oh Mu’tasim'. When her call reached the caliph, he responded immediately, “Labbaiki ukhtah” (I am here at your call sister) saying: "I swear by God, I will send an army that is so big that when it reaches them it is still leaving our base. And tell me the strongest city of those Romans and I will send the army to that city."
In Ramadan in 223 AH (Hijri), the Caliph Al-Mu'tasim Billah prepared a large army and set off for battle to rescue the woman, he led the Muslim army himself to 'Amuriyyah' which is considered one of the unforgettable battles in Islamic history, in which he conquered the Romans. After victory and after destroying the Roman enemy stronghold, the caliph insisted on opening the jail of that woman by himself, and when he saw her, he said: “I heard your call, sister.”
This was the decisive response of the Caliph when the honor of one Muslim woman was touched.
Saladin the great human worrior disguised as a physician to treat and cure the Crusader king Richard the Lionheart
The Story of The Crusaders who occupied Jerusalem in 1099 AD, until defeated by the great noble leader Saladin in 1187 is another example that refutes these lies about Islam. Many generations succeeded one after another in an attempt to liberate the city, until Saladin defeated the Franks (France) in several battles, and then lured them into the Battle of Hettin in northern Palestine.
History tells us that aggressors will only negotiate when they are defeated
After a siege that lasted 12 days, Daniel, the commander of the Crusader garrison in Jerusalem, took the initiative to request peace. Saladin agreed and the city was conquered on Friday, Rajab 27, 583 AH, corresponding to October 2, 1187 AD. Saladin prayed the first Friday prayer after the conquest in the Dome of the Rock prayer hall in Jerusalem after 90 years of occupation.
The British orientalist Stanley Lane-Poole describes Saladin in his Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, January 1898, as a rare example in his morals, a pure soul, a brave and gentle person, soft-hearted, merciful, ascetic in the world, a great fighter, not arrogant, but rather simple and pious.
Despite his successes against the Crusaders, Saladin gained an impressive reputation in Western Europe.
Conquest of Spain and Portugal
In the case of Spain conquest, Muslim armies were invited by a Spanish king whose daughter was raped by another king. In 710 Count Julian, Gothic Governor of an island near the Straight of Gibralter, asked Musa ibn Nusair, the governor of Ifriqiya North Africa, to help against the tyrannical Visigoth ruler of Spain, Roderick.
Musa responded immediately by sending the young general Tariq bin Ziyad with an army of 7000 troops. The name Gibraltar is derived from Jabal -Tariq which is Arabic for 'mountain of Tariq' named after the place where the Muslim army landed. Arab Muslims defeated the Gothic kingdom, the Visigoth army surrendered, and Roderick was killed in the battle. After this victory, larger parts of Spain and Portugal became under Muslim control by 720.
Corruption at early Omayyad Rule
After Muawiyah, The corruption of the Omayyads reached its highest levels with Karbala and the killing of our beloved imam Al Hussein- May Allah be pleased with him. The spirit of the Caliphate changed and dynastic rule was established. The Early Omayyads had no accountability to the treasury. To support their lavish life styles, they collected enormous taxes from Persia and Egypt. When the Omayyad prince Suleiman (714-717) lay on his deathbed, he was advised that he could earn the pleasure of God by nominating a new caliph. He therefore dictated in his will that Omar ibn Abdul Aziz, a distant cousin, was to succeed him.
Gone was the oppression of Al Hajjaj in Iraq and Qurrah ibn Shareek in Egypt. The peoples responded with enthusiastic support for the new Caliph.
Omar bin Abdul Aziz the reformer of Omayyad Rule
The fifth of the Rightly Guided Caliphs during the first century of Islam
Unfortunately some Muslims, from a narrow point of view, claim that the rule of Omayyad is totally the rule of the killers of ahl albayt, which it is completely a mere lie, all the Muslim nation hate the killers of imam Al Hussein and any of the grandchildren of the prophet PBUH, we all curse and denounce their killers. Egypt testifies for that. Egyptians accepted the lineage of the Ahlal-Bayt (A.S), their souls joined them and they fell in love with the Ahlal-Bayt (A.S) while they were alive. And Cairo is full of the shrines of the Ahlal-Bayt (A.S), which the Egyptians visit and consider as their refuge and destination.
Omar ibn Abdul Aziz (681-720 AD), the eighth of the Omayyad Caliphs and the center of their chain, is known in history as Omar II, was born in Helwan, Egypt, he was the first revivalist Caliph in Islamic history, some sunni scholars viewed him also as the six righteous caliphs of Islam after Hasan ibn Ali.
He was a man of Polish and experience, having served as the governor of Egypt and Madinah for more than twenty-two years, he proved to be the wisest, the most pious, far-sighted and responsible of all the Omayyad Emirs. He rose to justice and the redress of injustices until he was given the title of the fifth of the Rightly Guided Caliphs.
Since the time of Muawiyah, it had become customary for imams to insult the name of Ali ibn Abi Talib (which contradicted Islamic principles) in Friday sermons. Omar ibn Abdul Aziz abolished this obnoxious practice and decreed that the following passage from the Quran be read instead: {God commands you to practice justice, enjoins you to help and assist your kin and He forbids obscenity, evil or oppression, so that you may remember Him} (16:90)
It is this passage that is still recited in Friday sermons all over the world. He treated Bani Hashim and the Shi’a with fairness and dignity
The golden age of science
During the Golden Age, Arabic was the language of science, the major Islamic capital cities of Cairo, Baghdad, and Córdoba became the main intellectual world centers for science, philosophy, medicine, and education. Meanwhile, Europe was living in the dark ages.
"Algebra" is an Arabic word
Islamic contributions to mathematics began around 825 AD, when the mathematician Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī wrote his famous treatise al-Kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr wa’l-muqābala (translated into Latin in the 12th century as Algebra et Almucabal, from which the modern term algebra is derived) The term "algebra" itself is derived from the Arabic word "al-jabr," which means "reunion of broken parts."
Ibn Rushd
Ibn Rushd, often Latinized as Averroes, was an Andalusian polymath and jurist who wrote about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, psychology, mathematics, Islamic jurisprudence and law, and linguistics
Ibn Al-Haytham: Father of Modern Optics
Ibn Al-Haytham made significant contributions to the principles of optics and visual perception in particular. His most influential work is titled Kitāb al-Manāẓir (Arabic: كتاب المناظر, "Book of Optics"), written during 1011–1021, which survived in a Latin edition.
Arabs founded the science of chemistry
The Arabs in Al Andalus transferred sciences from Ancient Egyptians and Greeks, thorough translation into Arabic, and added their contributions, later on their works were translated from Arabic into Latin. The book Liber Ignium of Marcus Graecus, an early source of gunpowder formulas in Europe, was translated into Latin from an Arabic work found in Spain.
Chemistry is an Arabic word
The word chemistry is derived from "alchemy" was derived from the Arabic word كيمياء or kīmiyāʾ and may ultimately derive from the ancient Egyptian word kemi, Jabir bin Hayyan (Latinized as Geber) is known as the Father of Chemistry, introduced the meaning of experimentation, leading from alchemy to modern chemistry.
Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain under Arab Muslim Rule
By contrast, while Jews were discriminated against in Europe, they lived protected in Arab and Muslim countries throughout history. The golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, which coincided with the European Middle Ages, was under the Arab Muslim Rule, during which Jews were accepted in society and Jewish religious, cultural, and economic life flourished. This golden age of Jewish culture ended with the fall of Caliphate in Al Andalus.
No doubt, that the European enlightenment was established upon the contributions of those great Arab Muslims. Western civilization owes much to the Arabs, who did not only inherit and preserve the ancient sciences from Egyptians and other nations, but by the influence of many Muslim scholars on Western Enlightenment. Islamic scholars such as Al-Kindi, Ibn- -Sina, and in particular Ibn-e-Rushd, contributed hugely to the European Enlightenment. The transmission of various Arabic scientific and intellectual sources enabled Latin-Europeans to exit from the Dark Ages and contributed towards medieval Renaissance. Many Western thinkers and scholars acknowledge that, such as Professor “Quiller Young,” who is keen in his studies to remind Christians in contemporary Europe of the great cultural debt they owe to Islam since their ancestors in the Middle Ages. Also The valuable work of the Spanish Orientalist Angel Gonzalez Palencia Historia de la España musulmana 1869-1949, is another example.
"My family is from the south of Portugal, from an area that was very influenced by the Islamic presence. So I grew up with this interest in the other and ended up discovering that the other is also part of us,” said the Portuguese president.
With the beginning of the fall of Caliphate in Al Andalus was the fall of Jerusalem
Those great men carried the torch of enlightenment, civilization and the sword of the right, defended Islam and the Muslims for eight centuries, with their fall was the fall of Jerusalem, Muslims lands were captured by the crusaders, and until the great hero Saladin defeated them in Palestine.
Today Muslim lands are now under attack by Zionists and western allies. Western imperialism, neo-colonialism, and Zionist aggressions, give evidence to our current debate. Instead of cursing each other, it is time for unity to stand against our mutual enemy.
Calling on the Muslim Nation to unite, the late Iranian president Raisi, said: "Muslims, like Ahl al-Bayt (AS) who themselves were a symbol of unity and cohesion, should be sympathetic and united, and confront those who stand against Islam and Muslims".
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