INTRODUCTIONFootnote *
A long standing topic of discussion among orientalists has been the question whether science in medieval Islamic society was a marginal activity, restricted to small elite circles and not rooted in society, or whether it was something which was well assimilated and widely accepted in society. The former position, called the ‘marginality thesis’ was adopted, for instance, by von Grünebaum.Footnote 1 He explained that important and authoritative scholars such as al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) had said that indeed the search of knowledge is a duty for every believer. However, since the goal of life is to attain happiness not in this world, but in the next one, and this goal may be achieved by the service of and obedience to God, which is possible only through knowledge of God's will and action in accordance with this will, the knowledge to be pursued by the believer is knowledge that serves this goal. This is primarily knowledge of Qurʾān and ḥadīth; knowledge of the nature of the world should also be pursued, insofar as it is necessary to lead a correct life and to organize the community. Thus, astronomy, mathematics and medicine should be studied insofar as they are useful to the Muslim ritual and the community. Any inquiry that goes beyond these needs may be dispensed with. Von Grünebaum claims that the scientific activity that nevertheless occurred beyond these needs was due to the patronage of elites and was not rooted in society. In this view the idea that science could be motivated by intellectual curiosity and by the pleasure derived from knowledge for its own sake was absent or only rarely occurred in Islamic society.
An indication of the marginal position of science is, according to the marginality view, that the sciences were not officially taught in the madrasahs, the institutes of education that were established by Niẓām al-Mulk (d. 1092) under the Seljuqs.
The marginality thesis was attacked, for instance, by Sabra.Footnote 2 His position became known as the ‘appropriation thesis.’ From the fact that some science was recognized as useful for Muslim society, a fact also recognized by the adherents of the marginality thesis (see above), he derived an opposite conclusion, namely that science became integrated in society. Furthermore, he remarked that the establishment of the madrasahs was probably motivated by political and theological reasons, as a defense of Sunnite orthodoxy against Ismāʿīlī propaganda, and that it was therefore not surprising that the curriculum only comprised religious disciplines and excluded the sciences. Still, since teaching was rather informal, the interests of an individual teacher could be reflected in the program of the school. For instance, in Mosul the fāqih (jurist) Kamāl al-Dīn ibn Yūnus (13th century) taught astronomy and mathematics besides the religious disciplines. The fact that many of the extant Arabic manuscripts on science survive in the libraries of madrasahs and mosques is an indication of the acceptance of science within these institutions.
Also Gutas opposes the marginality thesis.Footnote 3 He states that the translation of Greek science in the ninth and tenth centuries was not the result of the interest of a few individuals, but reflected a whole attitude and culture of the ʿAbbasid society, otherwise it could not have been supported by funding from khalifs and his courtiers, civil servants, merchants, bankers and scholars. Science was needed by various circles of society for various reasons: khalifs were interested in astrology, which demanded knowledge of astronomy, the secretarial class that did accounting, surveying and time-keeping needed mathematics, and of course doctors needed knowledge of medicine. When the existing Greek science had become known in this way by means of translation, Islamic scholars got interested in their further development, also beyond the immediate needs of society, and Arabic science had become autonomous. Indeed, there were also individuals who pronounced themselves against the pursuit of science, especially in times when the society was under pressure, due to a decaying khalifate, the Crusades, or the Mongol attacks. Then circumstances called for a more aggressive Islamic ideology, resulting in a conservative traditionalism such as that of Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328). Despite of this, at the same time science continued to flourish, even under these circumstances (e.g. the scholars of the Marāgha observatory, Ibn al-Shāṭir [d. 1375], Ibn al-Nafīs [d. 1288]).
That scientific knowledge was recommendable not only insofar as it was useful for religion and Muslim society, but also as an intellectual pleasure and as a recognition of the beautiful order and arrangement of God's creation is testified by the philosopher al-ʿĀmirī (d. 992).Footnote 4 About logic he says that it confers an intellectual pleasure, since the soul feels itself blessed by the realization of truth and the joy of certainty. He who masters the sciences has the three advantages of (1) being familiar with the true reality of things and the possibility of controlling them, (2) having the insight into what reveals the wisdom with which the Creator has created the various things in the world, understanding their causes and effects and their wonderful and splendid arrangement, and (3) being well versed in arguments against traditional claims and being in no danger of soiling himself with vain dogmas through a blind belief in authority.
It is this attitude to science which one also finds in adab literature. Books belonging to this kind of literature contain material about a variety of subjects, considered from various points of view, such as religious, scientific, historical, literary, etc. They contain knowledge and at the same time entertainment for educated, ‘well behaved’ people. Well known examples are the books by al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 868) and al-Tawḥīdī (d. 1023). Here we consider two adab works: (an extract of) Faṣl al-Khiṭāb by al-Tīfāshī (d. 1253) and Mabāhij al-fikar wa-manāhij al-ʿibar by al-Waṭwāṭ (d. 1318).
The fact that subjects in these books were also discussed from a (non-specialist) scientific point of view shows that the interest in scientific knowledge was not restricted to the ‘specialists’. The books also show that the subjects of science were not restricted to those which were useful for religion and Muslim society, that science was an integrated activity in society and that most groups in that society held that there was nothing in it that would be incompatible with Islam as a religion.
AL-TĪFĀSHĪ AND HIS WORK
Al-TīfāshīFootnote 5 was born in 1183 in Qafsa, the present Gafsa (Tunisia). At that time the country was ruled by the dynasty of the Almohads. The Tīfāshī family was in favour with the Almohad khalifs. Their name is derived from Tīfāsh, a village near Gafsa, but that was not their native place. After his elementary education al-Tīfāshī went to Tunis, and then at the age of fourteen, to Egypt and subsequently to Damascus for further education. He returned to Gafsa, where he married, got three children and became a judge (qāḍī). He was forced to give up this job when it was discovered that he stored wine in his house. Then he decided to leave Gafsa. He embarked to Alexandria with his children (his wife had already died). His ship was wrecked in a storm and his children drowned; he himself was saved by Bedouins, who brought him to Alexandria. Then he lived at the court in Cairo, under the protection of the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, al-Kāmil Muḥammad al-Malik (d. 1238). Al-Kāmil liked the company of scholars and literary men; he received them in his palace, let them sleep in his bedroom, and subsidized their living. From Cairo al-Tīfāshī travelled to various places throughout the Middle East. Among others, he visited the court of Muḥyīddīn al-Ṣāhib, a representative of the Zanjid sultan Muʿizz al-Dīn Sanjarshāh (d. 1208) in Jazīrah (northern Iraq). It is probably there that he wrote the work Faṣl al-Khiṭāb, making use of the books in the library of this Muḥyīddīn.
After this period of travelling he settled down in Cairo, a centre of culture and commerce where people from all parts of the world gathered. There he learned many things, for instance about gems, resulting in his well known book about gems and minerals Azhār al-afkār fī jawāhir al-aḥjār (Flowers of Thought about the Precious Stones). He died in Cairo in 1253.
Al-Tīfāshī was an attractive, clever and elegant person, and also social and kind-hearted. He was inquisitive and interested in new experiences, an eager observer of nature and society. He loved wine and wrote about it. He read many books, but what he wrote was also based on stories told to him by others and on his own observations and experiences, of which he was quick to make notes; what was told to him he checked by observation and experiment. Nevertheless he followed ideas which included much of what we nowadays would call superstition, but which were current in his time among a large part of the population; for instance, he devoted a large part of his Faṣl al-Khiṭāb to astrology.
Arabic sources mention eighteen books written by al-Tīfāshī, a few of them still extant. His most well known books are the one on gems and minerals mentioned above, and Nuzhat al-albāb fīmā lā yūjad fī kitāb (Entertainment of the Hearts About What One Cannot Find in Any Book),Footnote 6 a collection of anecdotes and poems about sexual life, such as pimps, prostitutes, and the conditions for adultery.
Al-Tīfāshī also wrote the extensive work Faṣl al-Khiṭāb fī madārik al-ḥawāss al-khams li-ūlī al-albāb (Decisive Discourse on the Perceptions of the Five Senses for Intelligent People). This work is not extant as a whole, but we have an extract from it, made by Ibn Manẓūr (d. 1311). This Ibn Manẓūr is well known as the author of the Arabic dictionary Lisān al-ʿarab. His fuller name is Muḥammad ibn Mukarram Jamāl al-Dīn, known as Ibn Manẓūr. His grandfather moved from Tunis to Cairo where his father Mukarram was born, two years after the birth of al-Tīfāshī. Mukarram was favoured by the sultan al-Kāmil, who called him malik al-ḥuffāz (king of those who have memorized the Qurʾān), because after hearing eleven verses one time, he could memorize them all. He was often visited by al-Tīfāshī. Mukarram's son Muḥammad was born in 1232. He acquired an extensive knowledge of language, grammar, history and literature. He wrote summaries or extracts of many works, such as Kitāb al-Aghānī, and al-Yatīma of Thaʿālibī.
When Ibn Manẓūr was still a child he heard al-Tīfāshī talk to his father about a huge book which had taken almost his whole life to write, with the title Faṣl al-Khiṭāb fī madārik al-ḥawāss al-khams li-ūlī al-albāb. This title struck him as an insolence, for faṣl al-khiṭāb was something given by God to the prophet David.Footnote 7 When al-Tīfāshī died, Ibn Manzūr was twenty-two years old, and he forgot about the whole matter, until he remembered the book when he was sixty. Then he got hold of the book at one of al-Tīfāshī's friends, and started to make an extract from it. He gave it the title Surūr al-nafs bi-madārik al-ḥawāss al-khams (Enjoyments of the Soul by the Perceptions of the Five Senses).Footnote 8 According to al-Ṣafadī the extract consisted of ten sections. What is extant is two sections, entitled: Nuthār al-azhār fī al-layl wa-al-nahār (Fragments of Flowers about the Day and the Night) and Ṭall al-asḥār ʿalā al-jullanār fī al-hawā' wa-al-nār (Morning Dew on the Pomegranate Blossom about the Air and the Fire).
Ibn Manẓūr's editing of al-Tīfāshī's text consisted of the following: he omitted what he considered to be a repetition; he also omitted verses that he considered scabrous or jocular; he reordered the texts, and divided each section into ten chapters; one time he added a poem and two times he changed verses of a poem. He did not change anything in what the editor of the book in his introduction called the ‘lies of the astrologers’.
The book Surūr al-nafs as we have it discusses the following subjects: night, day, sun, moon, stars, seasons, thunder, lightning, rain, winds and fire. These subjects are discussed from various points of view: natural philosophy (science), pseudo-scienceFootnote 9 (e.g. astrology, oneiromancy [= dream interpretation]), religion, language, literature, etc. Poems and pieces of prose are quoted in which these subjects are mentioned. The sources from which the quotations come are often mentioned, but not always. Some of them are: Aristotle, Pseudo-Aristotle (Theology), al-Jāḥiẓ (K. al-Ḥayawān), Ibn Qutayba (K. al-Anwā'), Marzūqī (Azmina wa-amkina), Ibn Sīnā (al-Qānūn), Abū Maʿshar, Kushyār, al-Bīrūnī (K. al-Tafhīm), Ibn Dāwūd (K. al-Zahr), Thaʿālibī (al-Yatīma), and the dīwāns of various poets, such as Ibn Muʿtazz.
Al-Tīfāshī's book, of which Surūr al-nafs is an extract, belongs to the kind of adab literature which intends to explain knowledge for a general educated audience and at the same time shows the pleasure one may derive from knowledge for its own sake. It exhibits the various ways and forms in which poets, natural philosophers, geographers, encyclopedists, etc. talked about natural phenomena. Later similar works would be composed by al-Nuwayrī (d. 1333) (Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab), al-ʿUmarī (d. 1384) (Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār), al-Waṭwāṭ (d. 1318) (Mabāhij al-fikar wa-manāhij al-ʿibar).
What follows is a translation of the passages of Surūr al-nafs that deal with astronomical and meteorological subjects, discussed from the point of view of science or natural philosophy.
The passage on astronomy gives the usual Aristotelian cosmological picture of the world; it is a simplified picture for non-specialists; it does not go into details of planetary motions and it does not mention anything of the Ptolemaic model for these motions.
The transformation of one element into another is not described as a change of one the four qualities (hot, cold, dry, wet), as was done by Aristotle, but simply as a change in density: when fire becomes denser, it becomes air, etc.
The cosmology of the heaven is Ibn Sīnā's cosmology of nine revolving celestial spheres, each with its intellect, soul and body.
The passages on meteorological subjects (lightning and thunder, rainbow and halo, rain, snow, etc.) explain these phenomena in agreement with Aristotle's theory of the double exhalation. According to this theory, the heat of the sun dissolves two exhalations from the earth: a dry warm kind of smoke (dukhān), dissolved from the earthy parts, and a wet, warm vapour (bukhār), dissolved from the watery parts (sea, lakes and rivers). All phenomena in the atmosphere are explained as being effects of these two vapours. This theory was adopted by most Islamic scholars. Some of them, such as Ibn Sīnā, added further descriptions and explanations that are not found in Aristotle. It will be seen below that passages from Surūr al-nafs are based to a large extent on Ibn Sīnā's explanations of meteorological phenomena.
The numbers refer to the pages of the printed edition by Iḥsān ʿAbbās.
/167/ Opinions of the ancient astrologers and philosophers on the celestial sphere and the stars.
According to the philosophers, the universe is an expression of everything that was created by God in the heavens and on the earth. This consists of two worlds: the higher, celestial world, which extends from the highest sphere that surrounds everything and which is called the sphere of Atlas, until the concave side of the sphere of the moon, and the lower, terrestrial world, which extends from the sphere of the fire, adjacent to the concave side of the sphere of the moon, until the center of the earth.
They call this lower world ‘the world of generation and corruption’; it consists of four bodies, called ‘elements’ (arkān, usṭuqusāt, ʿanāṣir). The highest of them is fire, then comes air, then water, and then earth. They move in straight lines from the middle of the universe and towards it. They continously change into one another. When fire becomes denser,Footnote 10 it changes into air; when air becomes denser, it changes into water; when water becomes denser, it changes into earth. Conversely, when earth become thinner, it changes into water; when water becomes thinner, it changes into air; when air becomes thinner, it changes into fire.
Everything that exists on the earth has come into existence from these four elements by congregation and mixing, by being present to a greater or lesser extent in the natures of things. The totality of what has come about on the earth from these elements comprises three kinds of things: inanimate bodies, plants and animals. The totality of these things forms the terrestrial world. According to them, it is continuously in process: things arise anew, are combined, transformed and decomposed again.
The celestial world, according to them, consists of nine spheres. The highest one is the surrounding sphere which is called Atlas. This sphere contains no stars, therefore it is called ‘atlas’.Footnote 11 It has a soul, a spirit and a body. It moves around the center of the universe in a rotational motion from west to east, one rotation per day.
Then follows the sphere of the fixed stars, which contains all stars except the seven planets. Then follows the sphere of Saturn, which only contains the planet Saturn, then follows that of Jupiter, which only contains /168/ the planet Jupiter, then follows that of Mars similarly, then that of the Sun, then that of Venus, then that of Mercury, and then that of the Moon. Each of these eight spheres rotates from east to west. The highest surrounding sphere drags them along forcibly and gives them a daily rotation from west to east. In this way one sees the Sun rising every day in the east.
Each of these nine spheres is a simple, transparent, spherical body, assembled together and attached to each other. Each sphere has a body, a soul and an intellect which knows itself and its creator.Footnote 12 Each of them performs an eternal rotational motion.
The signs of the zodiac and the degrees
The ancient philosophers divided the eighth sphere with the fixed stars into twelve parts, which they called the signs of the zodiac. They are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. They made each of these signs thirty degrees, so that the total becomes three hundred and sixty degrees. They divided each degree into sixty parts, called minutes, and each minute into sixty parts, called seconds, and each second into sixty parts, called thirds, and similarly these were divided into fourths, fifths, sixths, and so on infinitely.
Due to the fact that Sun is traversing and moving along these signs of the zodiac the different seasons come about, as well as other phenomena in the world of generation and corruption, such as the growing and perishing of inanimate bodies, plants and animals. Because the seven planets also traverse these signs, the various particular conditions come about of what happens in the terrestrial world to anything that is generated or corrupted and to any change that appears in it, such as motion or rest.
The nature of the stars
Aristotle said that the matter of the stars does not consist of the matter of fire, nor does it consist of the matter of earth or the matter of one of the other natural elements, but it consists of an elementary celestial matter, which is transparent, hard, strong, not light nor heavy, not subject to change nor transformation. Thus the stars have become a separate fifth nature (element) and they are luminous, shining bodies that have a stable position on their spheres around their centres, not descending, nor rising.
The rotation of the celestial sphere around the earth
The surrounding sphere rotates around two poles: the north pole and the south pole. It moves around the earth with a rotational motion. One half is always under the earth and one half is above the earth. Thus always six signs of the zodiac with their degrees are rising above the earth during daytime and six signs with their degrees are setting under the earth during the night, since we said that the surrounding sphere drags along with its motion all the other spheres under it, /169/ including the sphere with the signs of the zodiac. The knowledge of the equations (taʿādīl) and the other knowledge of the astrologers is based on the rising and setting of these signs and their degrees.
What follows in this chapter is astrological material.
/258/ Opinions of the philosophers on lightning and thunder
Lightning and thunder are the same thing; they occur because fiery thin smoke is enclosed within thick moist vapourFootnote 13 after it has joined it and imposed itself on it; it is enclosed in it and then it bursts out, such as when an egg is cracked when it is broiled on a fire and the vapour in it comes out in one burst; then fiery parts appear when it is bursting.
They said that both lightning and thunder come into existence at the same time, but one sees the lightning before one hears the thunder, because vision grasps visible objects without time delay, whereas the sense of hearing grasps the heard object only after some time; therefore, one sees the lightning before the thunder. They said that thunder always occurs due to the enclosure of smoke, and perhaps it occurs because of a decomposition of clouds that collide against each other due to strong winds.
/266/ Opinions of the philosophers on the rainbow and the halo of the moon.
The meteorological phenomena may be distinguished into those which are real and those which are not real. The real ones are all those which occur due to rain, clouds, winds, hail, hoarfrost, etc.; those which are not real occur due to the illumination by the sun or the moon of the clouds, when they have acquired a certain smoothness due to moistness, such as the various phenomena and colours that occur in the vision of someone who observes them. These phenomena differ in accordance with the different positions a cloud may have in relation to the observer /267/ and the luminous body (sun or moon).
If the cloud is between the observer and the luminous object, while the latter is around its highest position, then you will see a halo; this is a circle, in the middle of which one sees the moon, surrounded by a white ring which is secluded by the darkness of a moist cloud. Sometimes a cloud is situated below another cloud; then another halo arises from it, which is larger than the one caused by the cloud above it and is similar to it as seen from the observer.Footnote 14 A halo around the sun seldom ccurs, since the sun is so strong that it dissolves the cloud, which is thin. An intense darkness surrounding the halo is a sign of rain; if the darkness is slight, then it is a sign of no rain coming; if the halo is dispersed quickly, it is a sign of a southern wind.
If the observer is between the cloud and the luminous object, while the latter is in a low position, near the horizon, then he sees half a circle with various colours; it is necessarily half a circle, since the luminous object is at the horizon. This is called a rainbow. The extension (width) of the rainbow varies in accordance with the height of the luminary above the horizon. Since the luminary should be near the horizon one seldom sees the rainbow at midday in summer, in contrast to the winter. One can imagine this occurring only when there is behind the smooth cloud something dark, another cloud or something else, so that it will be possible for the smooth cloud to transmit what is impressed on it to the observer via a transparent medium, the cloud acting as a mirror.Footnote 15
/290/ Opinions of the philosophers on rain, snow, hail and hoarfrost.
They say: among the things that arise in the atmosphere are those that arise from the vapour which rises from the moist parts of the earth due to the heat of the light rays that fall upon them from the celestial bodies and are reflected from these moist parts into the atmosphere. The most important of the rays are those of the sun. Other phenomena in the atmosphere are due to smoke and again others are due to both smoke and vapour.
Some of the vapour rises while its matter is weak and heat overcomes it; then it is changed into air and rarely something comes about from it. The vapour which has a more considerable matter rises, trying to get higher. If it hits upon the cold of the night before it can rise to the cold layer of the air, then it condenses and comes down /291/ as dew. This is the moistness that one experiences at dawn.
If the coldness on the dew becomes stronger after the condensation,Footnote 16 so that it freezes, it comes down as hoarfrost. This is what we can see on the surface of the earth in the early morning as a shining sheet.
The vapour which rises to the cold layer of air is condensed by the coldness and becomes a cloud as its parts are compressed. This is what we can see in the sky as moving mountains. If coldness overcomes it so that it freezes before it condenses, it becomes snow,Footnote 17 which is white, since air is mixed into its parts. This seldom occurs outside winter time.
If that which due to its weight descends along straight lines becomes denser, from occupying a wide space to a narrow one around a center, and its parts get together and are formed into drops of rain, then this comes down as rain. The amount of raindrops depends on the distance between the condensing parts and the extent to which they get together. This occurs mostly in spring because of the far distance of the clouds in which the condensation occurs.
If the coldness becomes stronger after the vapour has been formed into rain drops, they freeze and come down as hail. Sometimes raindrops are overpowered by heat from the atmosphere; this forces the strong coldness to become confined inside the drops and then it congeals to hail. Something like this happens in spring time. Therefore, we can see hail in the spring; then the inside of the hail stones is more frozen than the outside.
Sometimes the matter of these things is also air, but then the thickening of the vapour and the overpowering of the coldness, which is little, by the heat are faster and stronger. Therefore the thickening of the vapour from a kettle and its condensation by oncoming coldness is faster than that of the vapour of a bath. This is due to the difference in their thinness due to the heat.
The quantity of these things varies in accordance with the different places from which the vapour rises and the intensity of the coldness in the air, so that at places from where much vapour is dissolved, such as the sea, more rain occurs, whereas less rain occurs at places where less vapour arises. Where the coldness of the atmosphere is stronger, there is more snow, hail and hoarfrost, such as on the tops of the mountains and other elevated places.
/332/ Opinions of the philosophers on air.
This passage is a quotation from Book I of Ibn Sīnā's al-Qānūn. Footnote 18 A translation is available in The General Principles of Avicenna's Canon of Medicine by Mazhar H. Shah.Footnote 19 Ibn Sīnā states that the air we breath is the atmospheric air. It is not the same as the element air. The atmospheric air is a mixture of elemental air, water in the form of vapour, particles of dust and smoke, and fire.Footnote 20 The (atmospheric) air may undergo a change and become obnoxious for human health. Such a change may be substantial or it may be a change of qualities. In the former case the air becomes spoiled, just as stagnant water may become spoiled and putrid. In the latter case the extent in which the air has the qualities dry, moist, hot and cold changes. Then Ibn Sīnā mentions the various influences of putrid air and of hot, cold, moist and dry air on the condition of the human body.
AL-WAṬWĀṬ'S MABĀHIJ AL-FIKAR WA-MANĀHIJ AL-ʿIBAR
Muḥammad ibn Ibrahīm ibn Yaḥyā ibn ʿAlī al-Anṣarī, known as al-Waṭwāṭ, his laqab being Jamāl al-Dīn al-Kutubī, was born in Egypt in 1235, where he seems to have spent his whole life. He made his living as a copyist of manuscripts, which gave him the opportunity to collect books and to develop a broad knowledge in many fields. He died in 1318.
The title of his book Mabāhij al-fikar wa-manāhij al-ʿibar (The Pleasures of Thoughts and the Ways of the Lessons) is also given as Manāhij al-fikar wa-mabāhij al-ʿibar in the manuscripts, as well as in the texts that mention the book. The subject matter is considered from two points of view, that of adab – this includes the poems and adab fragments which the author has found concerning the subjects under discussion – and that of science – this includes the scientific matters mentioned by the author about his topics.
There is an abstract of the Mabāhij under the title Nuzhat al-ʿuyūn fī arbaʿat funūn (Pleasures for the Eyes in Four Disciplines). This abstract mainly omits the adab part and only contains the scientific part. It only exists in manuscript form. An article about it has been published by Kāmil al-Ghazzī.Footnote 21
A facsimile edition of the Mabāhij has been published by Fuat Sezgin in 1990.Footnote 22 The book consists of four sections, entitled The Heaven and its Adornments, The Earth and What is Connected With it, The Animals and Their Natures, and The Plants and Their Cultivation. An edition of the third section, about animals, was published in 2000 by ʿAbd al-Razzāq Aḥmad al-Ḥarbī.Footnote 23 For this section al-Waṭwāṭ used the following sources: for the scientific aspect he used K. al-Ḥayawān of al-Jāḥiẓ, K. al-Ḥayawān of Aristotle, K. al-Ḥayawān of Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ashʿath and the works of ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī; for the aspect of adab and language he used many sources, such as the dīwāns of poets, and general works of adab. He especially mentions ʿUyūn al-akhbār of Ibn Qutayba, al-‘Umda of Ibn Rashīq, al-Gharīb al-muṣnaf of Abū ʿUbayd, al-Mujmal of Ibn Fāris, al-Awāʾil of Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī, Kitāb al-Maṣāyid wa-al-muṭārid of Kashājim. He also took information from some books on history, such as Kitāb Murūj al-dhahab of al-Masʿūdī and al-Kāmil of Ibn al-Athīr, and from works on philosophy and tafsīr.
Chapter 5 of the first section deals with the meteorological phenomema. After an exposition of the four elements and the way they are ordered in spherical layers around the center of the universe, first special attention is paid to the elements fire and air. About fire it is stated that it has a resemblance to human beings, a resemblance that does not exist between the other elements and human beings. This resemblance consists in the fact that human beings come into being and live in the same environment where also fire comes into being and lives, and they perish and die where also fire perishes and dies. This became known the people who work in shafts and mines. Whenever they are about to enter a shaft in the earth or a cave, they carry in front of them a burning wick at the tip of a lance, and if the fire remains burning, they enter, and if the fire is extinguished, they do not enter.
Air is discussed as being the material of wind. Since Aristotle has stated that wind is not moving air, but moving dry exhalation, the problems that arose if one adopts this explanation gave rise to many rather confusing explanations by Greek and Arabic commentators. Al-Waṭwāṭ says that, according to Aristotle, wind is flowing air and air is wind that is stagnant. The air is set in motion by the rising of much vapour, which pushes it into various directions. Another explanation is that wind is a motion caused by the dry and wet exhalations. After having risen they return independently with a motion that is hitting the air and stirring it up; this return is either due to the heaviness that comes to them when they get to the cold layer of the atmosphere, or due to the fact that they are obstructed from penetrating into the higher air because of the speed with which this layer of air is moving. This explanation is similar to the one described by Ibn Sīnā.Footnote 24
Sometimes wind occurs due to the expansion of the parts of the air that are made less dense by the heat that occurs to them, so that they flow and move. This alternative explanation is also mentioned by Ibn Sīnā.Footnote 25 It is also the explanation of wind by al-Kindī.Footnote 26
Snow is caused by moist vapour. When the higher air between the heaven and the clouds becomes very cold, it freezes the rain that descends from the clouds and changes it into snow. It can also happen that the atmosphere becomes very cold by a wind that cools it down so that the air, which is mixed with watery vapour, freezes before it condenses into clouds. Then it falls down, while the sky is bright, as oblong snow, since its parts coalesce with each other due to the cold wind – this is called zamharīr. This special type of snow was discussed by al-Kindī.Footnote 27
Other meteorological phenomena discussed are thunder and lightning, shooting stars, thunderbolts and the rainbow. Al-Waṭwāṭ mentions the phenomenon that the rainbow is half a circle when the sun is at the horizon and becomes less than half a circle when the sun is rising until it completely disappears when the sun is at a certain height. He also says that according to some people observing the rainbow is like observing something in a mirror. Therefore the rainbow is only seen behind a smooth cloud, which acts as the dark backside of a glass mirror. The idea of a cloud acting as a mirror is also proposed by Ibn Sīnā, see above note 15.
CONCLUSION
Probably one will not find new and original scientific ideas in the adab literature, but the few examples discussed here show that besides knowledge of Qur'ān, ḥadīth, poetry and literary prose scientific knowledge was a part of the education of a certain class of ‘civilized’ people, also of those whose primary interest was not science. Also, the subjects of science discussed were not restricted to those which were useful for religion and Muslim society. Science was also pursued for intellectual satisfaction and pleasure in knowledge, as is indicated by some of the titles of the works discussed here.
The examples also show that the cosmological worldview of the adab authors discussed here, as well as several of their explanations of meteorological phenomena are similar to those given by Ibn Sīnā, although his name is not mentioned: probably his ideas were more or less common knowledge among educated people. A further study of the scientific aspects of adab literature seems recommendable.
