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Illusion and realityBy Paul J. Balles* Much of the perception of Arabs in the West is based on illusion. The Western media has largely created the false, illusory images of Arabs. Numerous leading media organizations, film producers, journalists and TV hosts have been openly hostile to Arabs. Organizations like Fox News and the Washington Post make little pretence about their anti-Arab orientation. Columnists like Ann Coulter, Seymour Hirsh, Charles Krauthammer, George Will and William Safire have expressed rabid opposition to almost anything Arab. Jack Shaheen wrote two books (The TV Arab and Reel Bad Arabs) exposing the vilification of Arabs on TV and in films. After thoroughly researching over 900 films involving Arabs, Professor Shaheen concluded that all but a few painted Arabs with a pernicious stereotype. As Professor Shaheen notes, "The seemingly indelible Arab-as-villain image wrongly conveys the message that the vast majority of 265 million peace-loving Arabs are 'bad guys'." What the films fail to portray is either the life of ordinary Arabs or anything of the vast array of contributions of Arab civilization to our own. Recently a British columnist asked, in an article, what Arabs contribute that's useful or valuable. It was a nasty rhetorical question, and he hadn't done his homework. Had he done just a bit of research, he would have discovered that Arabs have contributed a great deal more than they're credited with to civilization. Between the 7th and 13th centuries Arab civilization made incredibly large contributions to the future of humankind - no less than any other great civilizations before or after. While the West suffered the Dark Ages, Arab culture and learning flourished in a way previously unprecedented. Neither Greek civilization with its great philosophers nor Roman civilization with its spectacular conquests and temples exceeded the achievements of the Arabs. Had it not been for the Arab libraries, the centuries of Greek, Roman and Byzantine cultures and learning would have been lost to the Dark Ages. One of the Arabs' most valuable contributions was the preservation of Greek learning through the Middle Ages, and it is through their translations that much of what we know today about the Greeks became available. When the Muslims entered southern Spain - which they called al-Andalus - barbarians from the north had overrun much of Europe and the classical civilization of Greece and Rome had gone into eclipse. Islamic Spain then became a bridge by which the scientific, technological and philosophical legacy of the Abbasid period, along with the achievements of al-Andalus itself, passed into Europe. Thousands of Arab contributions to the arts and sciences improved the life and condition of man; and these have become an integral part of human civilization as we know it today. Think about the importance of the Arab arch to architecture, and consider the role of Arabesque style in furniture and clothing design. Contemplate the consummate artistry in Arabic calligraphy. Where would art be without the creativity of the imaginative glassware, ceramic designs and textile weaves of the Arabs? Their detailed mosaics, tiles and carvings can be found throughout the world. Potters learned their glazing techniques from the Arabs. Arab-style gold tooling and colour panels can be found in Venice and Florence today. Had it not been for Arab mathematicians, we wouldn't have the zero (sifr), the Arabic numerals we use daily, the decimal system essential to science, algebra or the highly refined trigonometry that followed, or the reformation of the calendar leaving a margin of error of one day in five thousand years. The Arabs brought algebra from ancient Babylon, Egypt and India to Europe via Italy. They took over and improved the Hindu number symbols and the idea of positional notation. These numerals (the Hindu-Arabic system of numeration) and the algorithms for operating with them were transmitted to Europe around 1200 and are in use throughout the world today. It was the Arabs who, through their invention of the astrolabe, made it possible for the establishment of latitude and longitude, and to investigate the relative speeds of sound and light. How would pilots or ship captains, even today, identify their positions without latitude and longitude, the basic tools of map making? Navigation and geography have a sizeable debt to Arab inventiveness. The possibility of the earth's rotation on its own axis, which Galileo later proved, originated with an Arab scientist. Arab astronomers significantly advanced the work of the Greeks in the development of the magnetic compass, something for which every pilot or sailor should be grateful. The Arabs prepared chemical compounds like sulphuric acid and alcohol; improved metal refining and cloth dying; and gained new knowledge about the relationship between light and vision. In the 9th century, a medical encyclopaedist was the first to diagnose smallpox and measles and to relate these to contamination and other contagious diseases. He introduced medical remedies that saved many lives as well as sutures made of animal gut to sew up wounds. Avicenna, the greatest Arab medical writer of the Middle Ages, was required study throughout Europe until the 17th century. The fundamentals of pulmonary circulation and recognition of the role of contagion in the spread of the plague were discovered by Arabs. The Arabs used anaesthetics; performed difficult surgery, particularly progressing in eye operations; and compiled medical textbooks. Centuries ago, Arab pharmacies stocked herbs and herbal remedies used in medicine today. Freud's later study of psychoanalysis had its roots in Avicenna's work. Where would the medical profession be today without this early medical progress? Arabs were pioneers in botany. In the 12th century an outstanding reference work described more than five hundred different plants and methods of grafting, soil conditioning, and curing of diseased vines and trees. The Arabs improved farming methods by rotating crops and using fertilizer. They transplanted fruits such as apricots, peaches and loquat trees in southern Europe. They grew olive trees and coffee plants. Rice, sesame, pepper, ginger, cloves, melons, shallots, dates, figs, oranges, lemons and other fruits grown by Arabs were introduced into European cuisine via the Crusaders. Where would the modern woman be without the early Arabs' love of fragrant flowers and herbs such as jasmine, pine, lavender and laurel from which they extracted perfumes? Hair dyes (henna), perfumes, eye liner (kohl), oils, body lotions and nail polish all owe their development to the Arabs. Much of our contemporary jewellery is a result of inspiration from adornments of the ancient and medieval Arabs, and the highly prized squash blossom design was once on the uniform bottle worn by Spanish Conquistadors. Concerning Arab contributions to engineering, one can look to the water wheel, cisterns, irrigation, water wells at fixed levels and the water clock. The Arab Book on Artifices described a hundred technical constructions. Arab exploration of optical illusions, the rainbow and the camera obscura led to the beginning of photographic instruments, laying the foundation for the later development of the microscope and the telescope. Do the Arab origins of cotton muslin, Damask linen and Shiraz wool mean anything to clothes buyers today? What about leather tanning and the use of vegetable dyes? Add to that the development of the art of crucible steel forging. Steel, hardened, polished and decorated with etchings by Arabs, produced tempered Damascene swords. Intricately cut brass chandeliers, ewers, salvers, jewel cases inlaid with gold and silver and, of course, the beautifully decorated astrolabe were all products of Arab craftsmen. Glassware, ceramics and textile weaves attest to their imagination and special skills. Many of today's intricately detailed mosaics, tiles, carvings, and paintings all harken back to Arabs. The richness of the Arabic language in poetry, literature and drama has left its mark on both East and West. Among the earliest publications of the Arabs were the translations into Arabic of the Greek and Roman. The original Romeo and Juliet (Layla and Majnun), "A Thousand and One Nights" and the first real novel came from Arabia. What would Western civilization do without the Arab contribution of the phonetic alphabet? Arabs were the first historiographers, designing methods of documentation of sources for scholars and historians. Arnold Toynbee wrote: "Ibn Khaldun has conceived and formulated a philosophy of history which is undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time." The harp, lyre, zither, drum, tambourine, flute, oboe and reed instruments are today the same as those of earliest Arab civilization or variations of the Arabs' early musical instruments. The guitar and mandolin derived from the oud. Arab poetry was put to music and the subtle delicacy of minor key sequences and rhythm continues to influence our ballads and folk songs today. Almost anywhere you go and in any area you can identify - in religion, philosophy, science, language, engineering and the arts and crafts - we can thank Arab civilization for an incredible array of contributions to modern civilization. It's time for a Western awakening to the gratitude Arabs deserve for their valuable and useful endowments to the world. I'm indebted to the following sources for the information collected for this article: Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Science and Civilization in Islam (Kazi Publications, 1996) Ali Abdullah al-Daffa, The Muslim Contribution to Mathematics (Prometheus Books, 1977) Rom Landau, The Arab Heritage of Western Civilization (University Press of the Pacific, 2003) John Hayes,ed., The Genius of Arab Civilization: Source of Renaissance (MIT Press, 1983), Philip K. Hitti, The Arabs: A Short History (Regnery Publishing, 1996), Sir Thomas Arnold and Alfred Guillaume,eds, The Legacy of Islam (Oxford University Press, 1968). http://www.stormwind.com/common/islam.html http://www.ais.org/~bsb/Herald/Previous/95/science.html http://www.freearabvoice.org/acPhysics_1.html http://www.netiran.com/Htdocs/Clippings/Social/950300XXSO02.html http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=247 http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/980422/1998042208.html http://www.islamicity.com/Mosque/ihame/Sec7.htm http://members.aol.com/bbyars1/algebra.html http://www.levity.com/alchemy/islam19.html http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/islamic_medical/islamic_02.html http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3125/ec/arab.html http://www.ais.org/~bsb/Herald/Previous/95/science.html *Paul Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for 34 years. For more information, see http://www.pballes.com. 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