It is well to bear in mind while reading this book the distinction between theory and practice; the distinction between what Muslims ought to do and what they in fact do; what they should have believed and done as opposed to what they actually believed and did. We might distinguish three Islams: Islam 1, Islam 2, and Islam 3. Islam 1 is what the Prophet taught, that is, his teachings as contained in the Koran. Islam 2 is the religion as expounded, interpreted, and developed by the theologians through the traditions (Hadith); it includes the sharia and Islamic law. Islam 3 is what Muslims actually did do and achieved, that is to say, Islamic civilization.
If any general thesis emerges in this book it is that Islam 3, Islamic civilization, often reached magnificent heights despite Islam 1 and Islam 2, and not because of them. Islamic philosophy, Islamic science, Islamic literature, and Islamic art would not have attained those heights had they rested only on Islam I and Islam 2. Take poetry, for example. At least early on, Muhammad despised the poets: “Those who go astray follow the poets” (sura 26.224); and in the collection of traditions known as the Mishkat, Muhammad is made to say: “A belly full of purulent matter is better than a belly full of poetry.” Had the poets adhered to Islam 1 and Islam 2, we certainly would not have had the poems of Abu Nuwas singing the praises of wine and the beautiful buttocks of young boys, or any of the other wine poems for which Arabic literature is justly famous.
As for Islamic art, the Dictionary of Islam (DOI) says,4 Muhammad cursed the painter or drawer of men and animals (Mishkat, 7, ch. 1, pt. 1), and consequently they are held to be unlawful. As Ettinghausen5 points out in his Introduction to Arab Painting, the Hadith are full of condemnation for “makers of figured pictures,” who are called the “worst of men.” They are condemned for competing with God, who is the only Creator. “The canonical position gave no scope to the figural painter.” Mercifully, contact with older civilizations with rich artistic traditions induced newly converted Muslims to flout the orthodox position, and was responsible for such masterpieces of representational art as the Persian and Moghul miniatures.
Thus, the creative impulse underlying Islamic art, Islamic philosophy, Islamic science, and Islamic literature came from outside Islam I and Islam 2, from contact with older civilizations with a richer heritage. Artistic, philosophical, and scientific traditions were totally lacking in Arabia. Only poetry emerged from the Arab past, and its continued creativity owed little to specifically Islamic inspiration. Without Byzantine art and Sassanian art there would have been no Islamic art; Islam 1 and Islam 2 were hostile to its development. Similarly, without the influence of Greek philosophy and Greek science there would not have been Islamic philosophy or Islamic science, for Islam 1 and Islam 2 were certainly ill-disposed to these “foreign sciences.” For the orthodox, Islamic philosophy was a contradiction in terms, and Islamic science futile.
Some of the greatest representatives in these fields, or those who played a crucial role in their development, were either non-Muslim or actually hostile to some or even all of the tenets of Islam 1 and Islam 2. For instance, Hunain ibn Ishaq (809-873), the most important translator of Greek philosophy into Arabic, was a Christian. Ibn al-Muqaffa (d. 757), a translator from Pahlavi into Arabic and “one of the creators of Arabic prose,”6 was a Manichaen who wrote an attack on the Koran. Nicholson7 selected for discussion the following five poets as the most typical of the Abbasid period: Muti ibn Iyas, Abu Nuwas, Abu‘1-Atahiya, al-Mutanabbi, and al-Ma’arri. All of them were accused or suspected of heresy or blasphemy and are discussed in chapter 10. Also discussed in chapter 11 is Ar-Razi, the greatest physician (European or Islamic) of the Middle Ages and the greatest representative of Islamic science. Razi was totally hostile to every single tenet of Islam 1 and Islam 2; he even denied the prophethood of Muhammad.
The treatment of women, non-Muslims, unbelievers, heretics, and slaves (male and female) was appalling both in theory and practice. In other words, Islam 1, Islam 2, and Islam 3 all stand condemned. The horrendous behavior toward women, non-Muslims, heretics, and slaves manifested in Islamic civilization was a direct consequence of the principles laid down in the Koran and developed by the Islamic jurists. Islamic law is a totalitarian theoretical construct, intended to control every aspect of an individual’s life from birth to death. Happily, the law has not always been applied to the letter—Islamic civilization would scarcely have emerged otherwise. Theoretically Islam 1 and Islam 2, the Koran, and Islamic law condemn wine drinking and homosexuality; in reality, Islamic civilization tolerates both. However, the sharia still does govern the practices in certain areas of human life, for example, the family (marriage, divorce, etc.).
In some areas of human life Islamic practice has been more severe than required by the sharia. Circumcision is not mentioned in the Koran, and most jurists at most only recommend it, but without exception all male Muslim children are circumcised. Female circumcision is also not discussed in the Koran but the practice persists in certain Islamic countries. The Koran expressly talks of the basic equality of all adult male Muslims; unhappily the reality was far different, as Muslims of non-Arab blood discovered throughout the early years of Islam. Here Islam 1 and Islam 2 taught moral principles that were not respected by Islam 3.