Navigation under the Rightly Guided Caliphs:
Arabia is surrounded on three sides by water having the Persian Gulf on the east, the Indian
Ocean on the south and the Red sea on the west Arabia is known for its dryness and barrenness.
The people of such a country have naturally to be a commercial community. From time
immemorial the Arab merchants had been busy moving by land and water. The geographical
condition of Arabia made the Arabs a sea-faring nation. When the storm of persecution broke on
the Muslims in Makkah, the Prophet asked his followers to migrate to Abyssinia for safety.
Accordingly in the 5th year of the call, a party of 15 men and women left Makkah and found in
Jeddah two merchant ships ready to sail for Abyssinia. The Quraysh followed them but they
were out of their reach. Islam did not spread beyond the frontiers of Arabia during the
life-time of the Prophet. It was under Abu Bakar and 'Umar I that Islam penetrated into
Persia and the Persian Gulf on the one hand and Egypt and Alexandria on the other
Oballah was an old port in the Persian Gulf. Ships carried cargo and merchandise from
this port to India and China. Alexandria, Spain, North Africa and Europe occupied the
prominent positions in the Mediterranean Sea. When a small force sent across the Red
Sea was completely lost in the Sea, "Umar I gave up the idea of sending naval
expedition. Mu'awiyah, who was at that time the Governor of Syria, wanted to attack the
Romans by sea but Umar refused to grant it. But when severe famine broke out in
Arabia by land he had a canal of 69 miles dug from the river Nile to the Red Sea. When
the work was completed, 20 ships of corn sailed from the river Nile to the Red Sea and
anchored safely in lar, the port of Madinah at that time. The First Muslim expedition by
sea was undertaken by Al-Ala bin al-Hadrami against the Persians across the Gulf
without the previous sanction of the Caliph.
Under Uthman:
The real age of the Arab navigation began from 'Uthman's reign. The first Arab Admiral
was Abdulah bin Qays Harith who made fifty naval raids against the Romans. The
Romans were afraid of him but afterwards he was killed by the former. In 28 A. H. the
Arabs invaded Cyprus. Mu'awiyah and Abdullah led the Syrian and the Egyptian navies
respectively and the Arabs gradually occupied most of the islands in the Mediterranean
Sea. 'Uthman deputed his brother Hakam as Vice-Regent in Bahrain. He had to prepare
a fleet which he despatched to India. Thana was raided by Hakam's battle-ships. Another
assault was made upon Bahroch and then Mughirah bin Abi al-A's was sent to attack
Dabul (Thatta), the port of Sind. After this no important naval expedition was
undertaken till the comming of the Umayyads in power.
Naval power under the Umayyads: Egypt and Syria were the important centre of shipbuilding, Attacks on the Byzantines by sea under Mua'wiyah:
When the regime of the first four Caliphs came to an end, the Umaayds made Damascus their
capital and paid greater attention to naval activities. This was due to the fact that the
Romans attacked the Syrian coast in 49 A.H/669 A.D Mu'awiyah had to take proper
precautions to check them. The Arabs had up-till then a ship-building yard in Egypt
only. A similar shipyard was also necessary in Syria. Experts and artisans were appointed
an arrangements were being made to build ships on the Syrian coast. Akka was made
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the chief centre After this, Mu'awiyah tried to check the progress of the Romans and
occupied the islands in the Mediterranean Sea and garrisoned them. He then attacked
Sicily and returned with large booty. At his orders Junadah bin Abi Umayya al-Azid
conquered Rhodes from the Byzantines and the Muslim fleet struck terror in the heart of
the Greeks who were in constant apprehension of it. He established an Arab colony
there. In 54 AH/673 A.D. Junadah subjugated an island named Irwad near
Constantinople and then invaded Crete, Junadah and Abdullah bin Qays were the two
prominent Admirals who played an important role in the naval expeditions under
Mu'awiyah. Abdullah alone led about 50 raids against the Byzantines.
Ship-building factory established by Abdul Malik in Tunis, Naval supremacy
reached its zenith under Walid I:
By the end of the reign of Mu'awiyah the Arabs had a great fleet of 1,700 ships. "In addition to
the ship-building yards on the Syrian coast, several on the coast of Egypt were engaged in shipbuilding". Abdul Malik founded a very big ship-building factory in Tunis. But as a large part of
his reign spent in civil war, he could not pay much attention to the navy. Under his son Walid,
the navy had a heyday. In his reign Hajjaj bin Yusuf was the Governor of the eastern provinces.
The merchant-ships of the Muslims visited the island of Ceylon and some of these ships were
plundered by the Indian pirates. Hajjaj bin Yusuf retaliated by attacking Sind by land and sea and
it was once for all conquered in 93 A.H./711 A.D. Dr. Husaini says, "Most of the islands in the
western Mediterranean and, above all, Spain and Sind were conquered with the aid of
the mighty Muslim navy."
Masjid al-Aqsa
The term al-Masjid al-Aqsa, as we have learned before, is used in Arabic literature in a
general sense to include the whole collection of sacred buildings comprising the Dome
itself, the tombs, dervish monasteries (sing takiyah oranya) and public fountains (singsobil) erected by many caliphs from 'Abd-al-Malik to the Ottoman Sultan Sulayman the
Magnificent, which cover an area of some thirty-four acres. Strictly, the word Aqsa is
applied to the mosque built by The Dome of the Rock is the shrine of which the Aqsa
Masjid is the sanctuary. Abd-al-Malik not far from the Dome. In its construction use was
made of the ruins of St. Mary's Church of Justinian, which stood of that site until
demolished by Chosroes(Persian Kings). The Aqsa Mosque was rebuilt about 771 by the
Abbasid al-Mansur following an earthquake, and was later modified by the Crusaders.
Salahuddin al Ayyubi restored it (1187) to Islam. As in the Dome of our earliest
description of it dates from Muslim historians.
The Brethren of Sincerity:
About the middle of the fourth Muslim century (970) there flourished in al Basrah an
interesting eclectic school of popular philosophy, with leanings toward Pythagorean
speculations, known as Ikhwanus Safa or the brethren of sincerity. The appellation is
presumably taken from the story of the ringdove in kalilah wa Dimnah in which it is
related that a group of animals by acting as faithful friends or ikhwanus safa to one
another escaped the snare of the They were opposed to the political order. Hence,
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obscurity surrounded their activities and membership. A collection of their epistles,
Rasail, arranged in encyclopedic fashions survives, bearing some obscure names as
collaborators. The epistles number fifty-two and treat of mathematics, astronomy,
geography, ethics, philosophy, embodying the sum-total knowledge that a cultured man
of that time was supposed to acquire. The fifty-one epistles lead up to the last, which is
the summation of all sciences. The language of the epistles shows that Arabic had by
that time become an adequate language for expressing scientific thoughts in all its
various aspects. It is said that great scholars like al-Ghazzaly were influenced by this
intellectual society.
Muslim Numerals:
The same scholar who brought to the court of al Mansur the astronomical work Sindhind (Sindhanta) is credited with having also introduced Indian arithmetical lore with its
numeral system and the zero. Al-Fazari's translation of the Indian works was therefore
responsible for making the numerals known to Islam. The tables of al-Khawarizmi and
Habash al Hasib(867-874) probably spread the use of them throughout the Muslim
world. As late As the eleventh century we find the abu Bakr al Karaji still writing out in
his al-kafi fil hisab or the sufficient in arithmetic, all number in words. Others following
the old Semitic and Greek practice used the letters of the alphabet which in Arabic is
Hisabul Jummal. Ahmad al-Nasawi (1040), whose al-Muqni fil Hisab al Hindi or the
convincer of the Indian calculation, explains the division of fractions and the extraction
of the square and cubic roots in an almost modern manner, used the Indian Numerals as
had al-Khawarizmi before him.
Geography:
The institution of the Hajj, the orientation of the Masjids towards Makkah and the need
for the determining the direction of the Ka'bah at the time of prayer gave impetus to
the Muslim study of Geography. Astrology, which necessitated the determining of the
latitudes and longitudes of the all places throughout the world, added its influence.
Muslim traders reached China on the east both by sea and by land, attained the island
of Zanzibar and the farthest coasts of Africa on the south, penetrated Russia on the
north and were checked in their advance westward only by the dreaded waters of the
"Sea of Darkness" (Atlantic). The reports of the returning merchants naturally aroused
popular interest in distant lands and alien peoples. Sulaiman the Merchant, the account
of whose journeys into the Far East was written by an anonymous author in 851, gives us
the first Arabic description of China and the coast-lands of India. He reports the use of
fingerprints as signatures by the Chinese. From this and similar narratives there
gradually evolved the stories that have clustered around the name of Sindbad the Sailor.
The earliest reliable account of Russia is that of ibn Fadlan, sent in 921 by the Abbasid
Caliph al Muqtadir to the king of Bulgars, who resided along the Volga. Most of his
account is reproduced in Yaqut's monumental geographical dictionary, Mujamul Buldan,
Ptolemy's Geography, which had a list of places located by latitude and longitude, was
translated into Arabic in many ways. With this as a model al- Khwarizmi had composed
Suratul Ardh or image of the earth, which served as a basis for later works and
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stimulated geographical studies. His work was accompanied by an image of the earth; a
map executed by him and sixty-nine other scholars at the instigation of alMamun- the
first map of the heavens and the world in Islam. Al- Mas'udi consulted this map while
writing geographical history. The great systematic geographers of the Arabs do not
make their appearance until the advent of al-Istarkhi, ibn-Hawqal and al Maqdisi in the
middle of the fourth Muslim century. Al- Istarkhi (950) produced his Masalik wal
Mamalik with colored map for each country. At his request ibn-Hawql, who travelled as
far as Spain, revised the maps and text of his geography, Ibn-Hawgal later rewrote the
whole book. To this same school belongs the more original work of al Maqdisi of
Jerusalem. He visited all the Muslim lands except Spain, Sijistan and India. In 985-86 he
embodied an account of his twenty years of travel in a work, Ahsanut Taqsim fi Ma'rifatil
Aqalim or the best of classification of the knowledge of regions, which contains much
valuable information. Later, Yaqut introduced Mujamul Buldan, in which names of places
are alphabetically arranged, is a veritable encyclopedia and contains in addition to the
whole fund of geographical knowledge of the age, valuable information on history,
ethnography, and natural science. Hence he was the greatest of the Eastern Muslim
Geographer.
Astronomy:
The scientific study of astronomy in Islam was begun, as we of a converted Jew, Sind
ibn-'Ali, and Yabya ibn-ahi-Mangür († 830 or 831). Here the caliph's astronomers "not
only made systematic observation of the celestial movements, but also verified with
remarkably precise results all the fundamental elements of the Almagest: the obliquity
of the ecliptic, the precession of the equinoxes, the length of the solar year, etc." To this
observatory al-Ma'mun soon added another on Mt. Qäsivun outside of Damascus. The
equipment in those days consisted of quadrant, astrolabe, dial and globes. Ibrahim alFazări († ca. 777) was the first Moslem to construct an astrolabe, undoubtedly on the
Greek model, as the Arabic name (asturlab) indicates. One of the earliest Arabic treatises
on this instrument was written by 'Ali ibn-'Isa al-Asturläbi (maker of astrolabes), who
flourished in Baghdad and Damascus before 830.
Al-Ma mun's astronomers performed one of the most delicate geodetic operations-the
measuring of the length of a terrestrial degree. The object was to determine the size of
the earth and its circumference on the assumption that the earth was round. The
measurement, carried out on the plain of Sinjär north of the Euphrates and also near
Palmyra, yielded 563 Arabic miles as the length of a degree of the meridian-a
remarkably accurate result, exceeding the real length of the degree at that place by
about 2877 feet. This would make the circumference of the earth 20,400 miles and its
diameter 6500. Among those who took part in this operation were the sons of Mūsa
ibn-Shakir and perhaps al-Khwarizmi, whose tables (rij), revised a century and a half later
by the Spanish astronomer Maslamah al-Majriti († ca. 1007) and translated into Latin in
1126 by Adelard of Bath, became the bases for other works both in the East and the
West. Such Arab astronomical tables replaced all their Greek and Indian predecessors
and came to be used even in China.
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