Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/284

Rh ARABIA [SCIENCES. Atheer, which, after commencing the Arab annals, along with those of the world from the creation itself, carries them down to the overthrow of the Abbaside caliphate in the 13th century; that of Musa oodee, containing a pre- Islamitic summary of the geography and history of the world in general, till the birth of Mahomet, after which the chronicle confines itself exclusively to the fortunes of the Arab empire ; and that of Abul-Feda, especially interest ing by its curious notices of pagan Arabia, may be men tioned as favourable specimens in their line. In particular, Egypt was amply chronicled by Makreezee and Siyootee ; Spain by Makkaree ; Africa by Ebn Kateeb ; Syria and Baghdad by writers out of number. A more voluminous, and, it must be added, a more childish collection of writings could scarcely be found in any language. Theological We may imagine (for it would be a waste of time to writings, catalogue) the theological writings, glossaries, commentaries, discourses, and so forth, which, from the first century of Mahometanism to the extinction of Arab empire, have illustrated or obscured the great book on which that empire was founded the Koran. Beydawee in the 10th, Jelal-ed- deen and Bokharee in the llth, and El Ghazalee in the 12th century of our era, each was in his day considered a master in Islam, and their treatises are still reverentially studied in its schools. Legal dissertations by Malek, Ebn Hanbal, Shafeyee, Hanefee, and their disciples, load the shelves of every Arab bookcase; but the authors them selves were mostly of extra- Arab origin, and often reflect the Persian, the Turkoman, and even the Byzantine, rather than the genuine Arab mind. Astro- From the fancies of astrology, in which the early Arabs norny. no t -R-iggr than their neighbours, but favoured with clearer skies seem to have indulged freely, and which, though discountenanced by the practical good sense of Mahomet himself, have never been wholly abandoned by their descendants, a not unnatural transition led to the more useful study of astronomy. Specially patronised by the Abbaside caliph Al-Mamun, the Augustus of his race (813-833 A.D.), this science made great and rapid progress. The obliquity of the ecliptic, the diameter of the earth, and even the precession of the equinoxes, were then calculated with commendable accuracy ; and shortly after, Abul- Mezar s Introduction to Astronomy and his Treatise on the Conjunction of the- Planets, with the Elements of Al- Furjanee (though this last author was largely indebted to the Egyptian labours of Ptolemy), proved that the caliph s liberality had been well bestowed. But Al-Batinee, a native of Syria (879-920 A.D.), surpassed all his pre decessors in the nicety alike of his observations and com putations. Geber, at Seville, constructed (1196 A.D.) the first astronomical observatory on record ; and Ebn-Korrah in Egypt proved by his example that the Arabs could be even better astronomers than the Greeks had been before them. Yet although the doctrine of attraction seems to have been dimly surmised by some of them, none ever succeeded in emancipating themselves from the clumsy and erroneous Ptolemaic geocentric system. Mathe- In mathematics the Arabs based themselves on what they inatica. 1^1 ac q u i re d f rom the Greek and Indian originals; the f ormer gave them geometry, the latter algebra. Satisfied at first with translations of Euclid, Apollonius, and others, they ultimately left their masters behind. They reached in the 10th century the limits of spherical trigonometry, and solved quadratic and even cubic equations. In these studies the astronomers Geber and Ebn-Moosa chiefly dis tinguished themselves. Optics, too, and hydrostatics were investigated by the professors of Baghdad ; but no special progress or remarkable discoveries are recorded as having been made in these sciences. In mixed as well as in pure mathematics the leading-strings of the Greek became the fetters of the Arab mind. Their practical application, however, of hydraulics in the construction of wells, water works, reservoirs, sluices, canals, and the like, does them great credit ; and of this peculiar skill ample traces, ill maintained by succeeding governments, remain in Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia. Debarred by religious scruples from the representation Fine aits, of animated forms in sculpture or painting, Arab decorators (for they are no more) found themselves restricted to vegetable or fantastic patterns and colour combinations, and in these, as the Spanish Alhambra and other buildings can testify, showed themselves no mean proficients. They made great use of glazed tiles and stucco, and possessed the art one that they have lost long ago of staining glass. Lastly, music, as the handmaid and enhancer of Musia. poetry, was a favourite and honoured pursuit among the Arabs, who, with comparatively rough instruments, the rudiments of the flute, harp, tabor, and guitar, rather than the instruments themselves, and with a scale, carefully and scientifically elaborated, but essentially differing from our own, produced results that real excellence alone could have merited or obtained. The voluminous &quot; Book of Songs &quot; already alluded to contained the history and points out the distinctive characteristics of a hundred airs, each esteemed a masterpiece by competent judges. For one alone its composer received from the Caliph Al-Nathik Billah (842 A.D.) a sum equivalent to nearly 2300 sterling. It is notice able that though the best voices were furnished by the Hejaz, the instrumental and scientific part was perfected by Persian instruction under the Abbaside caliphs of Baghdad. More widely recognised, however, are the Arab claims to Medicine proficiency in medicine, an art which Mahomet himself an d appears to have dabbled in, showing himself, if tradition sur S ei 7 speaks true, by no means so good a physician as he was a preacher. Under the caliphs, however, regular schools of the therapeutic science were established in Damascus, Baghdad, and Cairo, where the works of Hippocrates and Galen, translated from their originals in Greek, were adopted as the basis of instruction. Hence the great medical treatise entitled El-Melekei, or &quot; The Royal,&quot; of Ali-Ebn- Abbas, which appeared in Aleppo towards the end of the tenth century, was essentially an enlargement of and appendix to the Galenic teaching. Shortly after Er-Razi, the Baghdad professor, published his writings on pathology, containing the first authentic description of exanthematous diseases. The Canon of Ebn-Sina, commonly known as Avicenna, born 980 A.D., with his Matcria Medica, which preluded in some respects that of Paracelsus, ultimately, however, superseded every other work in the Arab schools. But the neglect of anatomical study, with a superstitious horror of the practice of dissection, rendered the surgery of the Arabs imperfect and their medicine empirical. The invention of the probang and some improvements in the lancet and the couching needle are due, nevertheless, to Arab surgeons. Botany was chiefly studied as subsidiary to medicine ; Botany aful nor did chemistry ever attain the dignity of a separate chemistry, science ; as, however, an adjunct to the old herbal pharma copoeia, it received close and not unsuccessful attention. The principal mercurial and arsenical preparations of the materia medico,, the sulphates of several metals, the pro perties of acids and alkalies, the distillation of alcohol, in fine, whatever resources chemistry availed itself of up to a very recent date were, with their practical application, known to Er-Razi and Geber, already mentioned. In fact, the numerous terms borrowed from the Arabic language alcohol, for instance, alkali, alembic, and others with the signs of drugs and the like, still in use among modern apothecaries, have remained to show how deeply this science is indebted to Arab research.