Al-Jahiz

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Al-Jāḥiẓ
Full name Al-Jāḥiẓ
Born 165 AH (781)[1]
Basra, Abbasid Caliphate
Died 255 AH (869)[2][3]
Basra, Abbasid Caliphate
Era Medieval era
Region Muslim scholar
School Arabic literature, Islamic science, Mu'tazili
Main interests Biology, grammar, history, lexicography, literature, poetry, psychology, rhetoric, theology, zoology
Notable ideas Evolution, evolutionism, natural selection, struggle for existence

Al-Jāḥiẓ (in Arabic الجاحظ) (real name Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri) (781 – December 868/January 869) was a famous Afro-Arab scholar of East African descent,[4][5] the grandson of a Zanj slave.[6][7] He was an Arabic prose writer and author of works on Arabic literature, biology, zoology, history, early Islamic philosophy, Islamic psychology, Mu'tazili theology, and politico-religious polemics.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Not much is known about Al-Jahiz's early life, except that his family was very poor and he sold fish along one of the canals in Basra to help his family. Yet, despite his difficult financial troubles, he was a seeker of knowledge as a youth. He met with a group of other youths at the main mosque of Basra, where they discussed various scientific subjects. He also attended various lectures given by the most learned men in philology, lexicography, and poetry.

[edit] Education and career

Al-Jahiz continued his studies, and over a span twenty-five years he acquired knowledge of Arabic poetry, Arabic philology, the history of the Arabs and Persians before Islam, and he studied the Qur'an and the Hadith. He also read translated books on Greek and Hellenistic philosophy, especially that of Greek philosopher Aristotle. His education was facilitated by the fact that the Abbasid Caliphate was in a period of cultural and intellectual revolutions. Books were readily available, and this made learning easily available.

While still in Basra, Al-Jahiz wrote an article about the institution of the Caliphate. This is said to have been the beginning of his career as a writer, which would become his sole source of living. It's said that his mother once offered him a tray full of notebooks and told him that he would earn his living from writing. Since then, he had authored two hundred books throughout his lifetime that discuss a variety of subjects including Arabic grammar, zoology, poetry, lexicography, and rhetoric. He wrote a staggering number of books, of which thirty survive.

He moved to Baghdad, the capital of the Arab Islamic Caliphate at the time, in 816 AD, because the Abbasid Caliphs encouraged scientists and scholars and had just founded the House of Wisdom. Due to the Caliphs' patronage, his eagerness to reach a wider audience, and establish himself, al-Jahiz stayed in Baghdad (and later Samarra) where he wrote a huge number of his books. The Caliph al-Ma'mun wanted al-Jahiz to teach his children, but then changed his mind when his children got afraid of his boggle-eyes (جاحظ العينين), it's said that this is where he got his nickname.

[edit] Works

[edit] Kitab al-Hayawan (Book of Animals)

See also: Early Islamic philosophy: Evolution

The Kitab al-Hayawan is an encyclopedia of seven volumes of anecdotes, poetic descriptions and proverbs describing over 350 varieties of animals. It is considered the most important work of al-Jahiz.

In the Book of Animals, al-Jahiz first speculated on the influence of the environment on animals and developed an early theory of evolution. Al-Jahiz considered the effects of the environment on the likelihood of an animal to survive, and first described the struggle for existence,[8] an idea that anticipates the theory of natural selection.[9][10] Al-Jahiz's ideas on the struggle for existence in the Book of Animals have been summarized as follows:

Animals engage in a struggle for existence; for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed. Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to offspring.[11]

Al-Jahiz was also the first to discuss food chains, and wrote the following example of a food chain:

The mosquitoes go out to look for their food as they know instinctively that blood is the thing which makes them live. As soon as they see the elephant, hippopotamus or any other animal, they know that the skin has been fashioned to serve them as food; and falling on it, they pierce it with their proboscises, certain that their thrusts are piercing deep enough and are capable of reaching down to draw the blood. Flies in their turn, although they feed on many and various things, principally hunt the mosquito ... All animals, in short, can not exist without food, neither can the hunting animal escape being hunted in his turn.[12]

He was also an early adherent of environmental determinism and explained how the environment can determine the physical characteristics of the inhabitants of a certain community. He used his theories on natural selection and environmental determinism to explain the origins of different human skin colors, particularly black skin, which he believed to be the result of the environment. He cited a stony region of black basalt in the northern Najd as evidence for his theory:

[It] is so unusual that its gazelles and ostriches, its insects and flies, its foxes, sheep and asses, its horses and its birds are all black. Blackness and whiteness are in fact caused by the properties of the region, as well as by the God-given nature of water and soil and by the proximity or remoteness of the sun and the intensity or mildness of its heat.[13]

In the 11th century, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi accused al-Jahiz of having plagiarized parts of his work from the Kitāb al-Hayawān of Aristotle,[14] but modern scholars have noted that there was only a limited Aristotelian influence in al-Jahiz's work, and that al-Baghdadi may have been unacquainted with Aristotle's work on the subject.[15] In particular, there is no Aristotelian precedent for al-Jahiz's ideas on topics such as natural selection, environmental determinism and food chains.

[edit] Kitab al-Bukhala (Book of Misers or Avarice & the Avaricious)

A collection of stories about the greedy. Humorous and satirical, it is the best example of Al-Jahiz' prose style. It is an insightful study of human psychology. Jahiz ridicules schoolmasters, beggars, singers and scribes for their greedy behavior. Many of the stories continue to be reprinted in magazines throughout the Arabic-speaking world. The book is considered one of the best works of Al Jahiz, and is still a significant component of children's literature in the contemporary Arab world.[16]

[edit] Kitab al-Bayan wa al-Tabyin (The Book of eloquence and exposition)

Al Jahiz was prolific writer. He is believed to have written about 360 books during his life span, covering all the areas of knowledge and wisdom of his time. Al bayan wa tabyeen, which literally means eloquence and demonstration, was one of his last works. In it he approached various subjects, such as epiphanies, rhetorical speeches, sectarian leaders, princes, as well as giving a sardonic treatment to foolish and crazy people. It is also a book in which his skills of language and eloquence, the art of silence and the art of poetry, all converge.

This book is considered one of the earliest works in Arabic literary theory and literary criticism.[17]

[edit] Kitab Moufakharat al Jawari wal Ghilman (The book of dithyramb of concubines and ephebes)

In Arabic the word jawari is the plural of jariya, meaning a female servant which by today's standards would be called a concubine mistress. There were two kinds of female servants: jariya – one that manages the household and runs daily errands, was the first type. The second type used to be called qina (also spelled qaena). This was a jariya who had the ability to sing, which put her above the usual jariya in market value. Often, this kind of slave girl was worth a lot of money. Consequently, they became a luxury of princes and wealthy merchants. The other word in the title, ghilman, is the plural of ghoulam a word which might be translated eunuch, castrato, or ephebe. For most scholars the book of dithyramb on concubines and ephebes is a wanton book of sensuality; in this book Al Jahiz enthralls the reader with stories of an erotic nature that deal with the perception of sexuality in his time.

[edit] Risalat mufakharat al-sudan 'ala al-bidan (Superiority Of The Blacks To The Whites)

Al-Jahiz wrote the following on black people:

We (Ethiopians in this case) have conquered the country of the Arabs as far as Mecca and have governed them. We defeated Dhu Nowas (Jewish King of Yemen) and killed all the Himyarite princes, but you, White people, have never conquered our country. Our people, the Zenghs (Blacks of Africa's East Coast) revolted forty times in the Euphrates, driving the inhabitants from their homes and making Oballah a bath of blood. [...] Blacks are physically stronger than no matter what other people. A single one of them can lift stones of greater weight and carry burdens such as several Whites could not lift nor carry between them. [...] They are brave, strong, and generous as witness their nobility and general lack of wickedness. [...] The Blacks say to the Arabs, 'A sign of your barbarity is that when you were pagans you considered us your equals as regards the women of your race. After your conversion to Islam, however, you thought otherwise. Despite this the deserts swarm with the number of our men who married your women and who became chiefs and defended you against your enemies.'[18]

[edit] The Essays

In his treatise The Essays, he wrote a chapter entitled "On the Zanj", where the word Zanj means black people, whom he praises and uses environmental determinism to explain why they are black:

Everybody agrees that there is no people on earth in whom generosity is as universally well developed as the Zanj. These people have a natural talent for dancing to the rhythm of the tambourine, without needing to learn it. There are no better singers anywhere in the world, no people more polished and eloquent, and no people less given to insulting language. All other peoples in the world have their stammerers, those who have difficulty in pronouncing certain sounds, and those who cannot express themselves fluently or are downright tongue-tied, except the Zanj. Sometimes some of them recite before their ruler continuously from sunrise to sunset, without needing to turn round or pause in their flow. No other nation can surpass them in bodily strength and physical toughness. They are the sons and daughters of the sun which has made them so black. One of them will lift huge blocks and carry heavy loads that would be beyond the strength of most Bedouins or members of other races. They are courageous, energetic, and generous, which are the virtues of nobility, and also good-tempered and with little propensity to evil. They are always cheerful, smiling, and devoid of malice, which is a sign of noble character.[19]

The Zanj say that God did not make them black in order to disfigure them; rather it is their environment that made them so. The best evidence of this is that there are black tribes among the Arabs, such as the Banu Sulaim bin Mansur, and that all the peoples settled in the Harra, besides the Banu Sulaim are black. These tribes take slaves from among the Ashban to mind their flocks and for irrigation work, manual labor, and domestic service, and their wives from among the Byzantines; and yet it takes less than three generations for the Harra to give them all the complexion of the Banu Sulaim. This Harra is such that the gazelles, ostriches, insects, wolves, foxes, sheep, asses, horses and birds that live there are all black. White and black are the results of environment, the natural properties of water and soil, distance from the sun, and intensity of heat. There is no question of metamorphosis, or of punishment, disfigurement or favor meted out by Allah. Besides, the land of the Banu Sulaim has much in common with the land of the Turks, where the camels, beasts of burden, and everything belonging to these people is similar in appearance: everything of theirs has a Turkish look.[20]

[edit] Other works

The earliest works on social psychology and animal psychology were written by al-Jahiz, who wrote a number of works dealing with the social organization of ants and with animal communication and psychology.[21]

[edit] His death

Al-Jahiz returned to Basra after spending more than fifty years in Baghdad. He died in Basra in 869 AD. His exact cause of death is not clear, but a popular story is that an accident, where the books piling up his private library, toppled over and crushed him, caused his death. He died at the age of 93. Another version said that he suffered from ill health and died in Muharram[5]

[edit] Quotes

  • "The most genial writer of the age, if not of Arabic literature, and the founder of the Arab prose style, was the grandson of a Negro slave, Amr ben Bahr, known as Al-Jahiz, 'The Goggle-Eyed'." H. A. R. Gibb
  • "Al-Jahiz was the greatest scholar and stylist of the ninth century." Christopher Dawson
  • "One of the greatest prose writers in classical Arabic literature." Bernard Lewis
  • "[al-Jahiz] was one of the most productive and frequently quoted scholars in Arabic literature. His originality, wit, satire, and learning, made him widely known." Philip K. Hitti

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sherman Jackson/ﺷﻴﺮﻣﺎﻥ ﺟﺎﻛﺴﻮﻥ, Al-Jahiz on Translation/ ﺍﻟﺠﺎﺣﻆ ﻭﻓﻦ ﺍﻟﺗﺮﺟﻤﺔ, in "Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics." Department of English and Comparative Literature, American University in Cairo Press: 1984, p.99
  2. ^ Mit-Ejmes
  3. ^ Joshua Finkel, A Risāla of Al-Jāḥiẓ, in "Journal of the American Oriental Society," 1927, p. 314
  4. ^ James E. Lindsay, Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World (2005), p. 72.
  5. ^ a b Al-Jahiz: INTRODUCTION." Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski. Vol. 25. Gale Group, Inc., 1998. eNotes.com. 2006. 13 Sep, 2007
  6. ^ Cyril Glasse, The New Encyclopedia of Islam, (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers: 2008), p.631
  7. ^ Bernard Lewis, The Political Language of Islam, (University of Chicago Press: 1991), p.466
  8. ^ Conway Zirkle (1941). Natural Selection before the "Origin of Species", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 84 (1), p. 71-123.
  9. ^ Mehmet Bayrakdar (Third Quarter, 1983). "Al-Jahiz And the Rise of Biological Evolutionism", The Islamic Quarterly. London. [1]
  10. ^ Paul S. Agutter & Denys N. Wheatley (2008), Thinking about Life: The History and Philosophy of Biology and Other Sciences, Springer, p. 43, ISBN 1402088655 
  11. ^ Gary Dargan, Intelligent Design, Encounter, ABC, 2006.
  12. ^ Frank N. Egerton, "A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 6: Arabic Language Science - Origins and Zoological", Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, April 2002: 142-146 [143]
  13. ^ Lawrence I. Conrad (1982), "Taun and Waba: Conceptions of Plague and Pestilence in Early Islam", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 25 (3), pp. 268-307 [278].
  14. ^ Peters, F. E., Aristotle and the Arabs: The Aristotelian Tradition in Islam, New York University Press, NY, 1968.
  15. ^ J. N. Mattock (1971). "Aristotle and the Arabs: The Aristotelian Tradition in Islam by F. E. Peters", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 34 (1), p. 147-148.
  16. ^ From "Jahiz, Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr ibn Mahbub al-" in Oxford Islamic Studies Online
  17. ^ van Gelder, G. J. H. (1982), Beyond the Line: Classical Arabic Literary Critics on the Coherence and Unity of the Poem, Brill Publishers, pp. 1–2, ISBN 9004068546 
  18. ^ Yosef A.A. Ben-Jochannan (1991), African Origins of Major Western Religions, p. 231, 238. Black Classic Press, ISBN 0933121296.
  19. ^ "Medieval Sourcebook: Abû Ûthmân al-Jâhiz: From The Essays, c. 860 CE". Medieval Sourcebook. July 1998. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/860jahiz.html. Retrieved 2008-12-07. 
  20. ^ "Medieval Sourcebook: Abû Ûthmân al-Jâhiz: From The Essays, c. 860 CE". Medieval Sourcebook. July 1998. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/860jahiz.html. Retrieved 2008-12-07. 
  21. ^ Amber Haque (2004), "Psychology from Islamic Perspective: Contributions of Early Muslim Scholars and Challenges to Contemporary Muslim Psychologists", Journal of Religion and Health 43 (4): 357-377 [376].

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