The Fountain is a composition, one in which each and every member of the human family can hear his or her conscience’s calling, a reflection of what is not always visible to the eye, or a response to the yearning deep in the heart and mind; a response that sometimes finds its definition best expressed in a poem, and at other times in a journey into outer space or through the veins of the human body. It is reading the universe, the major book of creation, and making sense out of it by way of the manual of Divine guidance.

The Fountain is an effort to try and see the reality through the veils of apparent causes and to obtain our share from each phenomenon, each of which is a letter enclosed with a message addressing us.

The Fountain covers the following themes:

• analytical articles on religious and scientific topics
• reviews for books about new and contemporary issues
• answers for frequently asked questions

The Fountain prefers to publish articles which:

• encourage scientific discovery that is in the service of humanity,
• popularize scientific topics for average readers, rather than addressing to a field-specific audience,
• promote altruism and devotion to positive action,
• adopt a multicultural approach, aiming to find a consensus on universal human values,

• serve to break the stereotyped images in minds about different cultures and faiths, and provide guidance in a world of cultural diversity,
• accept everybody as they are, encouraging dialogue in society and preventing the idea of the other,
• underline that terror has nothing whatsoever to do with religious faith,

• do not deal with temporary agendas, like politics, but promote actuality instead.

Note: The explanations above aim to exemplify the type of topics with which the magazine is concerned in order to help brainstorming. Please do not feel restricted about writing on any other topic that may be suitable for the magazine.

STYLE CONVENTIONS

The editors reserve the right to edit and correct all articles. The essence of the article will be maintained. If there are numerous stylistic inconsistencies, the article will be returned to the author for further review and resubmission.

The article’s title; author’s full name, address, phone number, and e-mail address; educational background, university affiliation, other publications; the length of the article (the number of pages and words); and a brief abstract (150 words or less) should be provided. Articles should not be less than 1,500-2,000 words.

Proper sources, citations, and endnotes according to the Chicago Manual of Style should be provided. If another style is used, all citations must be consistent. Alphabetize bibliographical references in endnotes. References must contain: Author, (year of publication), title, place of publication, publisher, and page numbers. Citations within the text must be in the Harvard style: Author surname, year, page number(s). Quotations from the Sacred Books must be italicized. Provide the chapter’s name and number, and the number of the verse(s). Send original illustrations or photos in hardcopy, or on disk in Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator formats.

As The Fountain is intended for general readers, please do not use jargon, region-specific, or technical terms. Non-English or unfamiliar words may be explained in a glossary, or translated/explained immediately after the word.

The opinions and views expressed by The Fountain’s contributors and editors are their own, and do not necessarily express The Fountain’s viewpoint or position. The Fountain does not accept responsibility for views expressed in articles or other contributions that appear in its pages.

Please send your submissions to editorial@fountainmagazine.com.

Islamic calligraphy isn’t just a gorgeous style of art, but a symbol for how rich and diverse the Islamic world truly is

For all of the artistic forms the Islamic world has produced, calligraphy seems to be the most pre-eminent. It is entwined in the popular consciousness with Islam itself; mosques around the world proudly display the shahada and the bismillah, and these are featured – in calligraphic script – on the flags of many Muslim countries. Calligraphy has travelled across the Muslim world, transliterating many languages and morphing into many different schools of styles; it has even influenced Western styles of illustrated books and penmanship. This article does not focus on calligraphy entirely, but rather will show how the religious, historical, and cultural backgrounds of the different Islamic cultures informed the development of calligraphy – from the way the Qur’an and the Sunnah view art, to the history of the Arabic script and its transmission, to the way calligraphy travelled around the Middle East, and finally to how the actual production of calligraphy and the training of calligraphers influences its style.

Essentially, the ubiquity of calligraphy in the Islamic visual arts can be traced to the fundamental religious concepts of shirk – that it is forbidden to associate any other entity with Allah, thus risking tawhid, or the “oneness of God.” These other entities can be anything – from the “little gods” (ilah) of greed, capriciousness, and atheism, to the polytheistic deities displaced by Islam at its birth – but for the purposes of this essay, shirk is synonymous with idolatry. To humans, God cannot be comprehended with our own senses or mentality; it is only possible to see the results of His work on Earth and infer His qualities from that. Since God is fundamentally beyond the scope of the human, any attempt to reduce Him to a visual representation is heretical. Idols and icons of God detract from tawhid – that is, it places an intermediate entity between the worshipper and God – and “nothing must stand between man and the invisible presence of God” (Burckhardt, 1976 : p.34).

Within the Qur’an itself, there are many verses dealing with proscriptions in producing images of the divine – in particular, the story of Abraham destroying the idols in 20:52-7. As well as this, many hadith tell of the Prophet Muhammad’s disapproval of not only the makers of religious idols, but any visual depiction of animate beings like humans and animals. This again is to do with shirk – humans acting with arrogance and equating their creations with the creations and creatures of God.

Artists were encouraged to draw plants, landscapes, and abstract pictures instead. Historically, this prohibition against animate figures can explain the flowering of abstract design, calligraphy included, across the Islamic world; it also shows why mosques and other Islamic religious centres lack the anthropocentric art that is usual in their Christian counterparts (e.g., Jesus’ crucifixion, icons of the saints, etc.). Visual depictions of humans and animals do exist in the Muslim world on a smaller scale – murals and frescoes were painted in liberal enclaves like al-Andalus and ‘Abbasid Baghdad, and both Persia and Turkey have supported robust traditions of miniature painting and illustrated books since the 13^th century (Eastman, 1933 : p.22-3). However, the common theme underlying all these works is that they were usually small and for private viewing only; murals were not found outside the palace walls, and illustrated books and paintings were hobbies for nobles, and not for mass consumption. Calligraphy, with its abstract, non-representational style, and the general veneration of language and writing in Islamic culture, became the dominant art form within the Muslim world.

To adequately explain the first appearance of Islamic calligraphy, two distinct questions should be asked – what sort of script did the first Muslims write in, and where did it come from? And what is the history of the written, illustrated Qur’an that actually used calligraphy?

Answering the former question, Arabic script evolved from Nabatean, which in turn came from a script termed Proto-Sinaitic. Only a few examples of Proto-Sinaitic have been found, all dated to c.1900 BCE (Man, 2000 : p.189), but it is postulated that Proto-Sinaitic was one of the first alphabetical scripts developed (rather than ideographic or “symbolic” scripts, like Chinese). Since the actual spoken languages across the region all belonged (and for the most part still belong) to the Semitic language family, it was relatively easy for one script to be adapted to many languages; an archaic form of the Arabic script was known to the first Muslims, even if they were for the most part illiterate. The production of copies of the Qur’an was the first step to greater literacy in the Muslim community (the umma).

The first Qur’ans that still survive today were written in a thick, angular, straight style called Kufic, after the city of Kufa in modern day Iraq, a center for book production; most date to the 8^th or 9^th centuries. According to tradition, it was ‘Uthman’s successor, Ali, who first used and popularised this style over others (Schimmel, 1984 : p.3-4). Kufic was not cursive like modern Arabic script is; rather, five-sixths of letters were supposed to be straight against one-sixth of curved. This meant that the angular, thick lines of Kufic were very easy to chisel into metal or stone – the first Islamic coins and tombstones feature inscriptions written in Kufic (Schimmel, 1992 : p.4-7). A slanted subset of Kufic appeared around the same time, in copies of the Qur’an found in and traced back to the cities of Mecca and Medina. This style, called Ma’il, did not seem as popular as Kufic, but represented the first step towards the more recognisable cursive classical calligraphy. As Islam spread across the Middle East, different varieties of cursive script developed. This development was helped by the spread of sophisticated paper-making technology. Though paper had been known of and used since the start of the ‘Abbasid Caliphate in 751 (Coomaraswamy, 1929 : p.50), more durable vellum had been used to create Qur’ans up until the 10^th century. However, with the importation of high-quality Chinese paper, and the creation of royal paper mills in Baghdad, cursive styles began to appear in both the Qur’an and in official documents of the era; the first wholly paper book can be dated back to 870 (Schimmel, 1984 : p.16). The differences between each style of writing were studied and placed into groups: the “six cursive scripts” or al-aqlam al-sittah, as conflated by the master calligrapher and ‘Abbasid vizier, Ibn Muqla (885-940). These six groups were:

1. Nashk – everyday script; the precursor to the modern Arabic used worldwide. It is the most basic cursive hand; at first it was not used much to write Qur’ans or important state documents, but for everyday writing purposes. However, after the 15^th century, nashki underwent a “renaissance” and it appeared in many books across the Islamic world (Schimmel, 1970 : pl.IX).
2. Thuluth – “one-third” (named after the angle of the slant of its letters); the most common decorative script used in Islamic cultures. Ibn Muqla called it “the mother of the cursive scripts.” Thuluth is more extravagant than Nashki writing, with long, flowing lines and elegant curves, and it was often used in medieval times to decorate the veneers of buildings (Coomaraswamy, 1929 : 54).
3. Muhaqqaq – a script derived from thuluth and used by the Mamluk sultans of Egypt in the 13^th century, and Safavid Persia in the 15^th century; most of the sultan’s royal documents were written in this hand. It was considered to be drier than thuluth, with pointed letter endings and very high “tall” letters (Schimmel, 1992 : p.16).
4. Rihan – a less-extravagant version of muhaqqaq; it is distinguishable from thuluth by the pointed ends of its letters. After Ibn Muqla’s time, rihani writing fell out of favour and is not very well attested (Tabbaa, 1991 : p.122).
5. Tawqi’ – the official hand used by the ‘Abbasid caliphate under Yaqut al-Musta’simi, the successor of Ibn Muqla. The letters in tawqi’ are straighter than in other varieties, though it is still very much a decorative style, rather than an everyday one; it was mainly used to write out court documents and royal decrees (Schimmel, 1970 : p.7)
6. Riqa’ – a more informal, less “monumental” version of tawqi’, riqa’ is still used today as a secondary writing style. Like tawqi’, it flattens out elongated curves and high letters for ease of writing; it is known as the “copyist’s hand” (Shimmel, 1984 : p.23-4).

As well as these definitive styles that were used across the Islamic world, there existed regional variations that were used by specific cultures. The most well-known of these include:

1. Maghribi, which arose in North Africa sometime in the 14^th century, and owed more of its stylistic origins to Kufic than the cursive scripts; thick lines and tall, straight letters were emphasised (Schimmel, 1992 : p.32-3).
2. Ta’liq or “hanging,” that was used – from the time of its conquest – to write exclusively in the Persian language. It evolved into Nasta’liq in the 15^th century; Nasta’liq separated the letters far more than other styles did, and often wrote them on differing levels for artistic effect (Schimmel, 1992 : p.34-7). It was the preferred script for writing poems and for accompanying miniature paintings.
3. Diwani – the extremely elaborate calligraphy of the Ottoman Empire; it first appeared around the time of Suleiman in the 16^th century; Suleiman was apparently a master calligrapher himself. Diwani is extremely complex and difficult to learn – its rules were only taught to a select few, but exponents of the art could create images out of calligraphy (Coomaraswamy, 1929 : 58).

The basic method of production for all of these hands is essentially the same – the calligrapher uses a reed stylus/pen called a qalam, a supply of ink (hibr), and usually an inkpot as well (dawaat). The ink was collected from “lampblack”; that is, the remnants of oil found in burnt oil-lamps, though other methods existed, like burning tar or pitch (Schimmel, 1984 : p.40). At first, in the early days of Islam’s expansion, only black or brown ink was used; however, it is common to find manuscripts in which a later scribe has gone over their predecessors’ work with coloured inks, especially since not all the early Qur’ans used the same spelling. By the turn of the millennium, though, calligraphers could choose to write in many different dyes and inks, and color their books with such luxuries as lapis lazuli and gold leaf (Schimmel, 1970 : pl.XXII). The form of the calligraphy was also dictated by the material the words were written on; because only parchment was used to create the earliest books, cursive scripts would be too hard to write effectively on them.

The invention of paper directly led to the explosion of cursive styles. To prepare the paper for calligraphy, the artist had to first apply ahar, a conditioning mixture that consisted of rice powder, egg white, and starch, to make the paper smooth. Any further unevenness was smoothed out by a stone, traditionally an agate. Once the page was complete, sand was thrown over it, both to soak up the excess ink and as a blessing (Schimmel, 1984 : p.41-2).

The actual training of a professional calligrapher (khattat) was another matter entirely; though most Muslims of education knew how to write the basics of the nashki or riqa’ styles, the future khattat must seek the patronage of a master teacher (sheik). This idea of seeking guidance through a teacher comes directly from the influence of Sufism –  in fact, almost all master calligraphers were Sufis as well. Students had to train constantly, using a mashq (practice slate); on a given day, they would study only the permutations of one letter, though of course the style of training varied from teacher to teacher (Schimmel, 1984 : p.48). Most commonly the rules of form laid down by Ibn Muqla were the most studied. If the students were successful enough in their endeavors, the teacher would award them an ijaza (lit.,  “permission”), a certificate that showed that their sheik considered them adept enough to be a khattat. These ijaza were vital in showing the different lineages of styles across the Islamic world. One final, surprising feature of the calligraphers and their students was that so many of them were women – calligraphy was seen as a pious career for both sexes; many Ottoman princesses were considered master calligraphers in their own right (Schimmel, 1970 : 47).

In conclusion, Islamic calligraphy inherently shows the growth and development of Islam itself, through its aniconic styles of art, to the growth in usage of the Arabic script, and to the blossoming of distinct local variants of Islamic culture. Through all this, it is possible to trace the respect and awe Muslims held for writing, and calligraphy in particular, linking it with the heart of religion. An old Arabic saying puts it best by saying, “Purity of writing is the purity of the soul” (Schimmel, 1992 : p.1).

References

• Burckhardt, Titus (1976) Art of Islam: Language and Meaning, trans. French by Peter Hobson, London : Islamic Festival Trust.
• Al-Bukhari, Muhammad ibn Ismail (c.846) Sahih al-Bukhari, trans. Arabic by Muhammed Muhsin Khan, University of California (database) http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/bukhari/
• Eastman, Alvan C. (1933) Islamic Miniature Painting, Parnassus, vol.5 no.7, New York : College Art Association.
• Gruber, Christiane (2009) Representations of the Prophet Muhammad in Islamic painting, Muqarnas,  Necipoglu, Gulru & Leal, Karen (eds.), vol.26, Cambridge : Harvard University Press.
• Man, John (2000) Alphabeta, London : Random House.
• O’Connor, M. (1986) The Arabic Loanwords in Nabatean Aramaic, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol.45 no.3, Chicago : Chicago University Press.
• Denny, Frederick Mathewson (1989) Qur’an Recitation: A Tradition of Oral Performance and Transmission, Oral Tradition http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/4i-ii/2_Denny.pdf
• Akram, A.I. (1970) The Sword of Allah: Khalid bin al-Waleed, His Life and Campaigns, Rawalpindi : National Publishing House (database)
• http://web.archive.org/web/20020224232028/http://www.swordofallah.com/html/bookhome.htm
• Schimmel, Annemarie (1984) Calligraphy and Islamic Culture, New York : New York University Press.
• Schimmel, Annemarie (1992) Islamic Calligraphy, London : Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Coomaraswamy,Ananda (1929) Arabic and Turkish Calligraphy, Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, vol.27 no.162, Boston : Museum of Fine Arts.
• Schimmel, Annemarie (1970) Islamic Calligraphy, Leiden : E.J. Brill.
• Tabbaa, Yasser (1991) The Transformation of Arabic Writing: Part I, Qur’anic Calligraphy, Ars Orientalis, vol.21, Michigan : Smithsonian Institution and Department of the History of Art.

Moving on from that relation, I would like to open a small window onto the meaning of literature as I understand it. However, I must first beg that my readers pardon my humble statements on a subject that is in fact beyond my ability, and that they judge this essay not on how it stands, but for the good intentions with which it was written. I should confess that just as I and people like me with narrow horizons cannot judge matters even in our own field properly, so too is it very difficult for us to express other matters very clearly, even when we may have judged them correctly. And I think this is generally true of all who tackle this topic. For instance, after Imam Shafii had personally corrected his book Kitab al-Umm, and afterwards still others had repeatedly corrected it, he found that certain points still bothered him. He raised his hands to God and admitted that no book can be faultless, except for divine revelations.

Even the enchanting states inspired by the most magnificent pieces of writing, the greatest works of art, the most eloquent words, and the most dazzling conceptions which are not based on divine speech and are not illumined with the shining of His light have a completely relative beauty. And even if they hold any value in terms of being a reflection or an echo of the beauties He possesses, they can hold absolutely no individual value of their own.

Nevertheless, this reality should never dishearten us or paralyze our determination to work. We should always think, speak, plan, try to realize what we have planned, and while doing all this, we should never forget that we can occasionally make mistakes, that very often we can fall into error. This is natural; as soon as we recognize them, we will correct them, try to compensate for our shortcomings and stick to seeking the best possible alternative. Our decisions may not always be accurate, but we will try to fulfill what divine wisdom requires of us by implementing our human capacity for understanding and judgment (ijtihad).

So these humble contemplations must be seen in the same way. Speech was born with humanity, developed with humanity, and it constitutes a very significant depth of being human. So speech reached its contemporary level of maturity through history after having been repeatedly distilled through countless filters of thought and fashioned by masters of words, and then became what we now call literature. In this respect, it can be argued that the present moment of literature is brighter than its past, thus it can also be said that so too its future will be brighter than the present, or at least it should be so. As Said Nursi explains, human beings will eventually turn completely toward knowledge (ilm) so that they will derive their power from knowledge. As a result the ultimate say will pass into the hands of knowledge. At the stage when knowledge shows such a level of development, the command of language and eloquence, reaching its peak, will outweigh all other values. Possibly, in such a period, in order to make others accept their ideas, people will use language as a weapon, try to penetrate hearts through their facility with language and conquer souls with the charm of literature.

The reality of knowledge and speech manifested only concisely in Adam and it reached its most brilliant form with the Final Prophet, yielded its awaited fruit, and became fully realized in the Qur’an. Now, if the world is going to last any longer, in the years ahead, while knowledge reaches its peak, language too will rise to the rank of the interpreter of knowledge in almost all circles, accompanied by the most powerful of orators and richest of speeches voicing the truth.

The power of expression, which is always nourished and develops in the bosom of need and necessity, will flourish in this environment for one last time, make its voice heard as powerfully as it can. If you will, you could also say this will be the reliving of the Age of the Qur’an in its most mature state, an Age of the Qur’an where love of truth and love of knowledge, where zeal to understand and passion to explain, where human values and their appreciation will live alongside one another. Incidentally, I would like to underline one point: future architects of thought and masters of language should do whatever they can to protect and honor the power of expression, for it has fallen into the incapable hands of people like us. They should untie its tongue, so that it can voice our own world of thoughts. Otherwise, it is obvious that we will keep on hearing the cawing of crows where we expect to hear the singing of nightingales; we will not be able to be free of the distress of thorns on the way to roses.

The power of speech and refinement of eloquence have always developed, found its proper consistency, and come to maturity in the realm of literature and under the tutelage of literary thought. However, it is also very important what we understand-or we are supposed to understand-when literary thought or literature is mentioned.

Human beings have always expressed their feelings, thoughts, and the inspirations of their heart through cinema, theatre, and symbolic painting, along with oral or written literature. When the subject extends beyond spoken or written language, naturally gesture, facial expression, sounds and other means replace words and sentences. Even so, they have never been able to truly substitute for speech and writing. The most reliable way for a people to preserve their literature and make it flourish in its own framework and fertile ground is to put it into a written form. This turns it into a common source to which individuals may refer to at any time. It allows it to become as widely accessible as possible, paving the way for it to become the national style of an entire society, the nation’s shared property. It thus becomes a field of exposition for future generations, an exhibition ground of verbal excellence, and a trust to the common conscience, guarded by national memory and perpetuating its own origin.

In this respect, we have always sought literature in the magical world of written or spoken words and always realized our acquaintance and encounters with it among the pages of books and magazines. Whatever style is adopted in recounting a given subject – whether the work produced is approached with an artistic concern or expressed in a plain style, whether a small, select audience is targeted or large crowds are addressed – when literature is mentioned, what comes first to mind is the written word.

It does not make any difference whether the subject of a piece of literature is religion, an idea, philosophy, or doctrine; literature is one of the most important ways that humans can transfer the accumulation of knowledge they have gained through history from one generation to another. Through it they can sense all the depths and richness of yesterday in the present. They see the past and present as two dimensions of reality, and savor the future in its relative depth.

Furthermore, believers should firstly be faithful to their heritage and refer to it frequently, as much as they embrace universal human values. They should emphasize the essence of their common conscience and take it as an essential constituent. They should use this heritage as the canvas for the embroidery in which they depict their literary feelings and understanding of art, so that they do not destroy the spirit of their own literature, and are not constrained solely to foreign borrowings. If they use their own sources and weave their own cultural values on their own loom, there does not seem to be an obstacle to their progress, and they can walk to universality carrying the interpretations of their own time.

Believers should place the main sources of belief, cultural heritage and memory of universal values, in the center of their lives. Thus after having secured themselves from deviation, believers should strive to establish connections with the outside world; remaining indifferent to others’ values restricts what is normally broad and universal, is an obstruction to growth, causing agony for the living, and falling from the degree of being envied to a state of envying others; the condition of Third-world countries today presents so many living examples of that.

These countries always go through a period of standstill in their literature, sometimes due to customs, sometimes because of the influence of local understandings, and sometimes due to a fear of self-alienation-which can be empathized to a certain extent. Approaching literature liberally to a large degree ceased due to excessive reactions; some very important sources of inspiration were dried up, and efforts to enrich literature were perceived as fantasy and subsequently dismissed. Moreover, the field of literature was further narrowed at certain times by favoring a region or dialect at the expense of other varieties of the language; the branches with potential to develop were cut off and the roots were removed by prohibiting the field of literature from being ploughed. Thus, in such countries, the development of a language that may have been more representative of the wider society was prevented, and instead a dialect on the margins has been preferred over others, and as a result their literature was reduced to the voice of a small minority rather than becoming a respectable representative of literature in the world. This can also be called surrendering to oblivion.

In fact, what becomes dormant, stops growing, and what is not open to developing withers. Whatever is static then topples over. And that which does not give fruit dies. This is not limited to literature; it is true for almost every subject, from religion to thought, from art to philosophy.

Nevertheless, literature does not simply mean playing on words with written or spoken language skills and producing phrases people will like; it means making the art of expression lovable with the dimensions of eloquence and clarity. It is the water and air of feeding, adorning, and enriching daily language with the cleanest, purest, most lovable, and lasting material, and it is a treasure which increases with use.

A writer of verse or prose who pens his or her thoughts with literary considerations always relies upon a purpose and overtone; using a rich vocabulary, harmonious statements, and a grand style, writers activate words, long and short, aiming for excellence of expression. While moving toward this aim, writers place all the words or sentences they have picked and fitted in their places in such a way that they all sound out like notes serving to support the general theme of the tune they play. As these sounds and notes voice their intended ideal, they continue to play in the background, reflecting the author’s mode of thinking, general tendencies and mood.

In a lyric verse, produced by a master of expression the words, feel as if they are filled with that person’s excitement. The words, sentences, or lines, springing from a literary heart kindled with epic feelings, ring in our ears like the march of a glorious army. All the words in a masterfully written drama resonate in the depths of our soul and almost bring to life the story therein. A literary person is able to think very differently and reach different judgments; writers always pursue quality and strive to leave future generations a legacy they will gladly inherit and respect.

Actually, like literary language, daily language also has its own kind of beauty, ease, allure, and naturalness that entices pure pleasure. However, literary language is poetic, musical, and constructs a pleasing whole in harmony with the meanings it holds. It is superior in linguistic utilization, taste, and refinement in the way that demonstrates coherence within the text as a whole and cohesion between words and sentences. Let alone feeling and savoring these, it is sometimes very difficult for people who lack the aptitude to even understand them.

All that notwithstanding, it is not correct to regard literary style as the language of an upper class or an aristocratic group. On the contrary, even if they cannot penetrate as far as the secondary meanings and connotations suggested by the composition, people of every level should somehow be able to understand, and they should be able to benefit from that source, even if only in a limited way. Thus, in time they will be elevated to a level where they can express their feelings and thoughts more comfortably and gain greater language skills through the expansion of their knowledge. In the meantime, they will consolidate what they already know of language, enrich it by making suitable contributions as far as they can, and add new depths to their horizons of thought.

No matter at what level, the language almost all of us speak today, which has quietly settled in our memories through generations, is to a great extent the fruit of master poets’ and writers’ concerted efforts that have been adopted by our souls. With the sensitivity of a goldsmith, these masters of expression presented us with the beautiful jewels of expression and necklaces of words that they prepared; thanks to their legacy, we express ourselves through this rich resource to the best of our abilities. Even though not everybody understands the magnificent works they produced and the aesthetic depth in the spirit of those works, all of us have always appreciated them and felt eager for more. For such a level of appreciation one does not need to know the writer’s artistic anxiety, power to construct, mental strain, success in planning, nor his or her true value to the extent a skilful goldsmith knows the precious stones.

People have always held the literary artists in high regard, certainly with exceptions. They have applauded these people’s efforts, appreciated their labor, and frequently expressed this appreciation by imitating them. Then what falls to literary people is that they put their language skills and artistic talents at the service of the right, good, and beautiful, instead of hurting the souls of the masses-who can be regarded as their apprentices-by describing what is corrupt, or contaminating people’s pure thoughts with dirty images, and condemning them to the slavery of materialism with descriptions of carnal desires. According to Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, people of letters need to have high morals and act within the universal codes of conduct prescribed in divine scriptures. He also reminds us of the divine source where the “power of expression” originates from and advises us to duly respect this capacity, which is regarded as an important depth of our humanity.

Literary styles of expression are different than other styles. For example, in scientific writing or speech it is essential to have a sound pattern of reasoning, a systematic thought, well-versed statements, and no mental, logical, and emotional gaps should be left unfilled. Oratory style emphasizes proofs and arguments, maintaining interest and enthusiasm, making occasional repetitions, supporting the narration with paraphrases when necessary, using colorful expression, and enlivening the speech by inspirational shifts without detracting from the main axis. On the other hand, literary style requires a variety of linguistic arts, such as vividness of expression, accuracy of language, beauty of presentation, richness of imagination, the utilization of metaphors, parables, idioms, figures of speech, and allusions-as long as it does not reach the point of excess. Because excess will spoil-as in everything else-the naturalness of language and muddy the heavenly spring of expression, people of sound taste will mostly find it strange. As Said Nursi also expressed, the wording should be as ornate as the nature of the meaning allows. Form should follow content, and while it is being crafted, permission for literary license should be requested from the meaning in order to avoid excess. The brightness and resplendence of style should be given proper due, but the aim and intended meaning should never be neglected. The imagination should be given room to maneuver, but not at the cost of the Truth.

This is what Osman Sahin does to relax. Dance. But he is no choreographer, he is a calligrapher-one who has mastered the art of Classical Turkish-Islamic calligraphy for over twenty-five years. He calls his calligraphy style “the dancing of the pen.”

His eyes, eagerly glued to the paper, anticipate his next move. His hands lift with each pen stroke, gliding to the rhythm of his breath, rising with every new thought and slowing to the pace of his heartbeat.

To many of us, calligraphy is merely fancy handwriting used to record information, but to a Turk calligraphy is much more. It is an art-a grand form of art-with its origins dating back many centuries. The Turks refer to calligraphy as Hat (pronounced like “hut”). In its literal sense, Hat means beautiful writing practiced and perfected throughout time as a way to combine spiritual and functional writing with the medium of art.

It is however the spiritual element of Hat that is most striking to viewers. Because the drawing of human figures is not favored in Islam, Muslim artists throughout time have channeled their talents toward the art of calligraphy.

“Hat is all about symmetry, harmony and measurements,” explains Osman Sahin. “It is the dance of the pen and paper. It’s music to the eyes. Hat is like composed music that soothes and refreshes the spirit and brings peace and harmony to the soul. It enables the person to reach inner tranquility.”

The origins of Hat date back to the early Islamic era when manuscripts of the Qur’an were being recorded and handwritten. However, at that time there was little emphasis on the style of writing but greater emphasis on the message being revealed. It was centuries later, during the Ottoman Era, that Turks focused on the style of writing.

It is a common saying among Muslims that “the Qur’an was revealed in Mecca, recited in Egypt and written in Istanbul.” The Ottoman Turks produced and perfected various styles of script that were passed on throughout the Muslim world.

They loved and respected the art of Hat as it flourished in the great city of Istanbul, which was at the time the focal point of the Ottoman State, and it was there that history’s finest works were produced.

Hat has been used throughout Turkey in enchanting ways to decorate palaces, mosques, museums and fountains for many centuries. The renowned Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, referring to the art produced by Muslim calligraphers during the Andalusian period, said, “Muslim calligraphers five hundred years ago reached where I want to reach today.” In present-day Turkey, there are over twenty million artwork treasures that bear witness to this history.

The beauty present in Islamic-Turkish calligraphy is said to be a direct reflection of the inner soul of the calligrapher. As Osman Sahin himself says, “Whenever I am stressed, I pick up my pen and draw. This is because the art of Hat has a therapeutic aspect to it. During the Ottoman era, some of the sick were treated by using fine arts like Hat together with soothing Sufi music and the art of Ebru (water marbling) drawing.”

This extraordinary art form can only be executed with the use of pens made of bamboo cuttings, preferably Balinese bamboo. “The bamboo is cut at a thirty-degree angle and split in half from top to bottom,” demonstrates Osman Sahin. “Even with the technology present today, it is not possible to write better or more beautifully using anything other than bamboo. The squeaking sound you hear when using the bamboo pen is said to be the weeping of the pen. It is said that the pen weeps so as to not fall into the hands of the ignorant.”

It is no surprise that there is wonder and magic in Turkish-Islamic calligraphy. It is almost as if the art moves and comes alive. Sweet appearance follows a slow, inner flow. There is silence, yet harmonious and metaphysical music echoes. However, this music cannot be heard by the ears but must be heard within.

He breathed in and leaned back comfortably in his chair, looking deep into his finished calligraphy as it stared back at him. The dance was over, the rhythm ceased, and the music was muffled. The bamboo pen lay there on the table, weeping with heartache, unaware of when the next dance will be.

The most precious of values inherited from our ancestors, speech does not consist only of clarity of meaning, the sound of words, or the expression of certain intentions. It also gives voice to our thoughts, expresses the music of our feelings, the excitement of our hearts; it is the translator of an addressee to God and it is the golden winged turtledove released by our hopes to the future.

The Divine Knowledge has designed the scheme of existence, whereas His Speech has drawn its architecture. After emerging as twins in the most intimate sanctuary of the unchanging essence (ayan al-thabitah), creation and Speech have taken on physical forms and come into existence. In creating mankind, the Most Merciful gave us the ability to speak of the human essence, our inner profundities, the entire cosmos, and the truth beyond material existence before sending us to the dimension of external existence. In this respect, one can argue that “speech” was the first drop of ink that flowed from the Divine Power’s pen to give life to nonexistence. The speech revealed and displayed the mysterious relation between the Creator and the created.

Mankind is nothing more than a mixture of dust, mud, and water of this earth; however, thanks to the repository of knowledge and the ability of speech, they have been elevated to the rank of vicegerent on the same earth. In a sense, mankind is in a position to speak not only on his behalf but for the jinn as well. Human beings have become the addressee of God through speech and it is thanks to speech that they can address Him. As humans started to talk, things that seem silent and reticent have also begun to talk, and all beings and events, which are lines and paragraphs coming from the highest rank (mala al-ala) have become the talking tongue, wisdom-laden speech and the eloquent language of the truth that is behind the scenes of everything, like potent orators. During times when, in our belief, speech did not exist, all beings were silent, all events were muted, and everything was stagnant. How does each being talk? How do they express themselves? These issues are not easy to understand. What is known in this respect is that with the capability of speech that has been endowed on human essence, humans have been created with an ability to express and interpret all things and act as they wish. Indeed, speech is our life in this world of relativity. Each of us is a language in its own way, and the raison d’étre of these languages is speech or expression. Speech acknowledges truth as the highest reality and speaks for all beings like a symphony, thereby removing the cloak of objects, enabling them to express themselves. Speech is the key that opens the locks on the doors of the treasury of thought. Speech is the key by which a wide-ranging central move stimulates the periphery. Speech is the throne of humankind that has been elevated to the position of ruling on the earth and improving it as a vicegerent. Speech is the pen and sword of humanity. Speech is the basis of the kingdom of humanity. Wherever the flag of speech waves, the most powerful armies will be defeated and scattered. In the arenas in which speech shouts out, the sounds of cannon balls will become like the buzzing of bees. Behind the battlements on which the banner of speech has been raised, the sound of its drums will be heard. In the precincts where its march reverberates, the kings shake in their boots. Many insurmountable walls, in the face of which Alexander the Great, Napoleon, or many other men were desperate or had to retreat, were smashed to pieces by the words wielded by the Master of Speech, and the pen of Speech which provides training in submission and docility was saluted.

The Qur’an

The Holy Qur’an is a sample of Speech; it is such that it brings down the walls and echoes in even the most obstinate and bigoted of hearts. There is such a dazzling magic in the presentation of its themes that it is impossible not to be impressed upon hearing it.

The expressive style of the Qur’an is like no divine or worldly expression. The Qur’an has such an irresistible power penetrating the hearts that even those who do not speak in its language (i.e., Arabic) will be fascinated by the melody of its words.

While providing various solutions to various problems, the Qur’an presents them in such a manner that everybody, except those who are prejudiced against it, will be fascinated or at least influenced by it, and led into profound meditation, eventually the Qur’an will conquer their hearts.

The sentences, paragraphs and full-stops of this monument of Speech have a vast depth of meaning, an exquisite style, and a lively music and rhythm that penetrates the soul. With their musical grace, with words chosen to appeal to all the senses, the concepts and themes will take whoever listens to them to their magical horizon, surprising them at every turn.

If you attempt to replace the materials the Qur’an uses to discuss a subject, the attempt will be futile, the speech will be obscured, and the vivid style will lose its spirit.

The Qur’an has such a lofty power of speech that it exhibits different events like living images along with their time periods and backgrounds, and all this causes amazement, admiration, and excitement in the audience. By doing this, it makes no concessions; nothing is detracted from its ravishing beauty, its heart-penetrating profundity, or its phrasal harmony. Rather, it presents everything with clarity, leaving no room for obscurity.

The Qur’an does not address solely the minds, hearts, or souls. It treats human beings in the totality of their emotions, be they physical or spiritual. Its message is brief and concise, but addresses both the inner world and the outer world of the human at the same time. The Qur’an generates a unity of feelings, thoughts, and intelligence related to the entire universe, to all things and to all of humanity.

The Qur’an is more influential than the most magical of speeches, more exquisite than the most delicate of styles, and more elevated than the most exceptional of expressions. Up until now, neither those who opposed it with the desire to surpass it nor those kings of utterance who undertook the task with the enthusiasm of imitation have managed to produce anything that is equal to the Qur’an in speech.

Notable Arab poets, for example Farid al-Din Attar, about whom Shams al-Tabrizi said, “I might write poems that are sweeter than candy, but I can only ever be his pupil in terms of producing choice words,” or Rumi, who said, “I am a bonded servant of the Qur’an,” or Jami, whom Said Nursi described as “intoxicated by the cup of love” and their outstanding works, which still strike us as novel today despite many centuries, have never come close to the Qur’an as the Master of Speech.

We will deal with this issue in detail in future; but for now we will content ourselves with small hints at the narrative style of the Qur’an, and turn back to the reflections which have fallen on our limited comprehension of speech inspired from the Qur’an and the verse and prose that develop in the shade of the Qur’an:

We have all had our eyes opened to this world with speech, and have grown up on the lullabies of speech, and we have headed toward where we are with the magic of speech. Henceforth, we will breathe and live again with speech if we are to live, and we will die with a lack of speech and knowledge if we are to die. Speech is the resuscitating breath for living corpses and the water of life for those who want to live forever. Those who are capable of playing it like a flutemaster in the realm of the spiritually dead will promise successive resurrections to those who are living devoid of spirituality for thousands of years, and they will have the effect of Sur1 on those graves that have been inflicted with God’s wrath.

If there is a most beautiful thing which manages to keep its freshness and colors at all times in this guest house of day-dreams, which withers and grows obsolete in all aspects, a place where those that have arrived eventually leave and those who have settled down ultimately migrate, and “whose property, estates, and pleasures are transient,” it is speech. On the slopes on which speech echoes, thousands of doves delve in contemplation, living in the day-dreams of new rose gardens. As the plectrum of speech plucks at the strings of knowledge, objects start to whirl, and events moan with the whirling of a divine dance. Not one, but thousands of Majnuns wander in the deserts filled with echoes of speech. Nightingales fall quiet and retire to their nests in streams where the melody of speech is heard. In the wild forests where the cries of speech can be heard, the foxes take their leave of deception, and lions are terrified, seeking shelter in their dens.

Speech is the spirit, content, color, and pattern of the Book of the Universe and the Laws of Nature; it is the seal, sword, and pen of the truth of Islam as the divine path. In the same way that only goldsmiths can appreciate the true value of gold and only jewelers can appreciate the genuine value of jewels, only wordsmiths can know the actual value of speech. Gold objects or pearls are given relative values by the people of this world, and the relative values they have start and end in this world. On the other hand, speech is a king who issues coins at the different strata of the earth and heavens; he is a commander giving orders and a hero of legends. Up until today, nobody has managed to access the dizzying summits that speech has reached, and no combatant has possessed a weapon mightier than speech. Every prophet is a sultan of words, and every person of letters is a shadow of those sultans that falls on our heads. The former are the original models and the latter are their followers; the former are architects while the latter are laborers. All of them have acted in cooperation and are unified in developing prosperous cities from speech, weaving laces from the silk threads of words, and making exquisite necklaces from the jewels of words.

When the inspiration of those who wield speech is aroused, it pours into hearts and turns them into golden pastures which swell and become effervescent with the falling rains, while arid deserts become meadows with the gentle summer rain. And when speech matures and becomes a river, a waterfall, or an ocean which flows in waves, stretching out to the coasts, it attains such an irresistible power that all unseemly voices will cease in the face of its spiritual melody, and all nonsense that pretends to be real words will fall silent, and all talk without content will seek solitude. A person who is fortunate enough to attain their nourishment from such speech will listen to it; their ego will melt in complete submission to the extent that they open their heart to it, with the intention to intensify it, as if to allow their soul to fall down the waterfall of music.

Good speech influences almost everybody to the extent of their capability and potential. Sometimes, faced with a strong breeze of speech, people find themselves in the atmosphere where kites wander, taken up by balloons, and they will enjoy freedom and the ease of the bird taking wing toward the atmosphere. They will be captivated by the allurement of this attraction and start to revolve continuously around that “centripetal” force. If it were possible for them to turn back and listen to their soul, they would observe what stupendous romantic considerations they have been encased with and what alternative revelations of pleasure they enjoy; they would probably be enraptured. These fortunate people are revived each time they drink from the profuse rivers of such sounds and words, discovering themselves anew. As phrases and sentences echo in their ears and pour down upon their soul, they feel that they are evolving into a separate distinction and perceive the transcendence of the colors of life in the dimensions of speech, and are repeatedly startled.

And speech, inspired by the divine, emitting forth with such feelings and thoughts, captivates the audience with its charm, wafting its impact towards their souls and pouring its mark on their hearts. They find themselves in the warm bosom of speech, completely surrendering to it. Then, in this comforting atmosphere they can perceive the delicacies of their own world and lose themselves in the stunning beauty of their own achievement.

In the gentle murmurs of speech, people sometimes hear the melodies of belief and faith, like the rivers of Paradise, and the melodies of permanence and transience; with full comprehension that all things come from and ultimately return to eternity, they watch with pleasure the ever-changing colors of the horizon of hope and faith.

And sometimes we pass through certain exits and set sail to our past, trying to be aware of it in all its magnificence; and sometimes we listen to it, as if it were music, and then dance to it and take wing to it. Acquiring a state that is beyond time emotionally and spiritually, we find ourselves sitting at the convergence point of past realities and future day-dreams and observing three dimensions of time all at once. In this vision, the entire past, which has grown into a dream destroyed, acquires once again all of its previous magnificence through a magical restoration; the future we feel in our beliefs and hopes comes running to us like a joyful child entering our hearts to remember the good days and become ours once again. Thus, with these inner feelings, we release ourselves to the stream of diverse associations. Inside this waterfall, to which we have given an infinite power and a transcendent flow in our dreams, we pass from one state to another, from one thought to another, and just as in our dreams, we give shape to everything that is based on our intentions and our heart, casting them into whatever molds we wish and manipulating them as we desire; we can move as we want, taking wing, and landing on the ground to walk when we wish; we can watch the sunrise in the evening or the sunset in the morning; we can increase in number, taking a particle and making it everything.

Speech is based on the fundamentals of meaning, it nourishes our day-dreams, sings lullabies to them, takes them to the heavens, and even shows them the doors that open on the infinite, taking us to the upper reaches of the sky, causing our feelings to ascend and preparing thrones in the supraspatial realms. Responding to our desire for eternity, speech will enrich our feelings in an indescribable manner and give our souls a profundity that cannot be encased with dimensions of corporeality and it will open our ears to melodies from musical compositions that have no lyrics.

When refined speech with lofty ideals that comprise all of these goals erupts in its own accent, when it is profound like the skies, vivid like the earth, as smooth as silk, and as cozy as a mother’s embrace, the speech will have a magical impact that depicts the awakening of logic, the rampaging of spirits, the charm of words, and the history of talking that stretches to before time. Thus, speech tells us the beauty of our faith and values.

A good speech that originates directly from and voices what is in our hearts will always remind us of the breath of the spirit, the beating of the heart, and the color and manner of the ability to speak. To the extent of the sacredness of its color, wealth and goals, speech will echo in our hearts like celestial voices, providing us with specimens of its origin.

Notes

1. The Trumpet which the Archangel Israfil will blow to start the Apocalypse.

Did the Companions of the Prophet go to America?

Research conducted in the West during the twentieth century has proven the existence of Muslims on the American mainland approximately seven centuries before Christopher Columbus. Similarly, archeological excavations, linguistic, and philological analyses of languages and settlement names in the region, the fact that coins, household tools and other utensils were discovered there that were similar to those of the Abbasids in the eighth and ninth centuries are all justifications of the theory that Muslims, beginning from 650 CE, made their way to the continent for settlement, during which time they erected mosques and schools, leaving a prolonged impact on the natives, i.e. American Indians.

The Islamic sources carry no information as regards Muslim settlement in America, although research undertaken by Professor Barry Fell of Harvard University confirms that Muslims reached the continent at the time of Uthman, the third Caliph, concomitantly indicating the significant possibility that some of the Companions could have arrived there as well.

Many Western researchers acknowledge the famous map of Piri Reis as proof of Muslim presence in America long before the endeavors of Columbus, as it minutely comprises the map of America, as well as extremely accurate measurements of the distance between America and Africa.

According to Salvatore Michael Trento, former director of the Center for Archeological Research in Middletown, New York, before embarking on his first voyage to America, Columbus had read the book of Roger Bacon of Oxford University, which comprised information, compiled from a variety of Arabic resources, about geographical regions on the other side of the Atlantic; hence Columbus’ previous knowledge of the islands in the Atlantic Ocean and other places.1

Proofs in Western sources

1. Professor Barry Fell, retired lecturer from Harvard University and also a member of the American Academy of Science and Arts, the Royal Society, the Epigraphy Society and the Society of Scientific and Archeological Discoveries, is adamant about the arrival of Islam in America in the 650s,2 predicating this argument upon the Cufic calligraphy belonging to that era found in various diggings across America. If the words of Professor Fell have truth-value, then the Muslims had arrived in America during the era of Uthman, or at least that of Ali, the fourth caliph. Such information, however, is not found in Muslim sources.

Professor Fell again uses the results of various archeological diggings undertaken across many regions in the states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Indiana to assert the construction of Muslim schools during 700-800 CE. Writings, drawings, and charts inscribed on rocks discovered in the most remote and untainted terrains of Western America are relics bestowed by the elementary and intermediate systems of Muslim education at the time. These documents were written in the old Cufic letters of North African Arabic, covering subjects such as reading, writing, arithmetic, religion, history, geography, mathematics, astronomy, and navigation. The descendants of these settlers are thought to be the current native tribes of Iroquois, Algonquin, Anasazi, Hohokam, and Olmec.

2. The second evidence offered by Professor Fell is that the inscription of “In the Name of God” (picture 1), found on a rock during archeological work in Nevada, belongs to the seventh century, when the haraka sign system had not yet been developed. Likewise, the stone bearing the inscription “Muhammad is the Prophet of God” (picture 2) is pertinent to the same era. As seen by comparison of the two pictures, the inscriptions are not in the style of Modern Arabic; conversely they are in a Cufic style relevant to the seventh century.3

The Arabs, according to the findings of Professor Fell, settled in Nevada during the seventh and eighth centuries. The earlier existence of a school, which taught Islam and science, particularly navigation, has come to light following the archeological investigation undertaken by Professors Heizer and Baumhoff of California University around site WA 25 in Nevada. The excavations in Nevada have uncovered writings in Naskhi Arabic and Cufic style that are inscribed on rocks which carry information about this school (picture 3). The application of the mathematical formula “five diamonds equal an alif” (alif is the first letter of Arabic alphabet) may be seen in this picture (pictures 3b and 3c). The Arabic letters in pictures 3b and 3c, found amid excavations in Nevada, are in exactly the same style as North African Arabic. Again similarly, another rock was found in Nevada bearing the name “God”, the style of which is yet again reminiscent of the prevalent technique of seventh and eighth-century North Africa. The calligraphical similarities between various writing styles of the Prophet’s name over diverse periods, particularly those relating to Africa and America, found during archeological investigations are striking indeed. Figure A of picture 4 was found in al-Ain Lahag, Morocco and figure B in East Walker River; both are currently at the University of California. Figure C was discovered in Nevada and figures C and D were located in Churchill County and are also currently preserved at the University of California; likewise figure F was discovered in al-Haji Minoun, Morocco, while figure G, inscribed on ceramic, was revealed in al-Suk, Tripoli, Libya and figure H, at the University of California, was discovered at Cottonwood Canyon, while finally figure I was located on the border of Morocco and Libya. All these inscriptions belong to the eighth and ninth centuries, clearly illustrating the resemblance in style between North America and North Africa, as well as overtly suggesting a migration that occurred from Africa to America.

3. In the twelfth century the Athapcan Tribe, comprised of native Apaches and Navajos, raided the area inhabited by the Arabs, who either ended up fleeing or were exiled toward the South. These illiterate natives were spellbound by the schools founded by the Arabs, and, perhaps with the assistance of captives, attempted to imitate the same subjects, transforming the geometrical shapes into mythical beasts, which carried on for centuries.

4. Picture 5 is the Cufic writing found in 1951 in the White Mountains, close to the town of Benton on the border of Nevada. The words Shaytan maha mayan, i.e. the Devil is the source of all lies, have been written in a Cufic style peculiar to the seventh century.

5. Once more, a rock inscription belonging to post-650 CE, bearing the Cufic letters H-M-I-D of the word Hamid (picture 6), is another Arabic script discovered on the Atlata rocks in the Valley of Fire in Nevada.

6. While traveling from Malden to Cambridge in the state of Massachusetts in 1787 (on what is now RT. 16), the Reverend Thaddeus Mason Harris noticed some coins discovered by workers during road construction. The workers, not putting much value on these coins, presented him with a handful. Consequently, Harris decided to send these coins to the library of Harvard College for examination (picture 7). The study yielded that these were in fact Samarqand dirhams from the eighth and ninth centuries. As can be seen in the picture, the coins manifestly display the inscriptions La ilaha ill-Allah Muhammadun Rasulullah (There is no deity but God, and Muhammad is His Messenger) and Bismillah (in the name of God).

7. Picture 8 shows a piece of rock discovered in a cave in the region of Corinto in El Salvador, bearing the inscription Malaka Haji mi Malaya; this has been identified as belonging to the thirteenth century, suggesting a possible arrival of Muslims in South America, perhaps coming from somewhere near Indonesia.

7. During his second voyage, Columbus was told by the natives of Espanola (Haiti) of black men who had appeared on the island before him and they showed him the lances that had been left there by these Africans to support their assertions. The tips of the lances were of a metal, an alloy of gold, which they called guanin, a word which is semantically remarkably similar to the Arabic word ghina, meaning richness. Columbus had in fact brought some of this guanin back to Spain, recording that it was composed of 56.25% gold, 18.75% silver and 25% copper, ratios that were prevalent in African Guinea as standards for the processing of metals.

8. On his third voyage to the New World, Columbus visited Trinidad, where the sailors noticed the symmetrically patterned cotton and colorful handkerchiefs of the natives. Afterward, Columbus realized that the handkerchiefs, which the natives called almayzar, were all much the same in color, style, and use as the headscarves and waist bands used in Guinea. The word almayzar is Arabic, and denotes a cover, tie, apron, or skirt, and is a component of the regional costumes of the Moors, Arabs and, Berbers of North Africa, who had conquered Spain in the eighth century. Columbus observed that the local women wore cotton garments and wrote in astonishment that they had learned of the concept namus, i.e. chastity. In much the same vein, Hernan Cortes, another Spanish explorer, later recorded that the clothing of local women consisted of long veils and skirts decorated with ornaments that were similar to those of the Moors. Ferdinand, Columbus’ son, was also quick to notice the resemblance between the cotton dresses of the natives and the ornamented shawls fashioned by Moorish women in Granada. The cradles used by the natives, furthermore, very closely resembled those of North Africa.

9. Columbus recorded on 21 October 1492 that he had noticed a mosque on top of a mountain while sailing around Cibara on the northeast coast of Cuba. Relics of mosques carrying Qur’anic inscriptions on their minarets have been found in Cuba, Mexico, Texas, and Nevada since these times.

10. Leo Weiner, a well-known Harvard historian and linguist, stated in his book The Discovery of Africa and America, written in 1920, that Columbus was aware of the existence of Mandinka, an ethnic group of West Africa, in the New World. The same book also affirms that Columbus was aware that West African Muslims were living across North America, including the south, middle regions and Canada, as well as in the Caribbean, and that they had marital and commercial ties with the native tribes of Iroque and Algonquin.

11. A preponderance of the voyages embarked upon by Columbus and other Spanish and Portuguese explorers toward the other side of the Atlantic were undertaken only in the light of the geographical and navigational knowledge prepared by Muslims. Al-Masudi’s (871-957 CE) work Muruj’uz-Zahab, for instance, was written with this sort of data compiled by Muslim traders from across Africa and Asia. Two of Columbus’ captains on the first voyage, in actual fact, were Muslims: Martin Alonso Pinzon was in charge of the Pinta, while his brother Vicente Yanez Pinzon was the designated captain of Nina; both were from the Moroccan Marinid dynasty, descendants of Sultan Abu Zayan Muhammad III (r. 1362-1366). Formerly well-to-do ship riggers, they assisted Columbus in organizing his voyage of exploration, preparing the Santa Maria, the flagship, and covering all its expenses.

12. Christopher Columbus has recorded the custom of nose piercing, which used to be and still popular in the Middle Eastern and Arab countries, as being prevalent in some islands across the Atlantic also mentions the writing of letters in Arabic.

13. In the account of sixteenth century missionaries in America, the local copper mines, found particularly in Virginia, Tennessee, and Wisconsin were not operated by the natives, but instead by people from the Middle East, towards whom the natives nurtured a profound sympathy.

14. A sum of 565 names, 484 in America and 81 in Canada, of villages, towns, cities, mountains, lakes, rivers and etcetera, are etymologically Arabic, designated by locals long before the arrival of Columbus. Many of these names are in fact the same as names of Islamic places; Mecca in Indiana, Medina in Idaho, Medina in New York, Medina and Hazen in North Dakota, Medina in Ohio, Medina in Tennessee, Medina in Texas, Medina and Arva in Ontario, Mahomet in Illinois and Mona in Utah, are just a few noticeable names at the outset. A closer analysis of the names of native tribes will immediately reveal their Arabic etymological ancestry; Anasazi, Apache, Arawak, Arikana, Chavin, Cherokee, Cree, Hohokam, Hupa, Hopi, Makkah, Mohician, Mohawk, Nazca, Zulu, and Zuni are only a few.

House and building Structures

Archeological excavations conducted throughout North America and North Africa reveal a corresponding architectural resemblance between ninth century buildings. The structure of a Berber house of the Atlas Mountains, Morocco (picture 9), for instance, is exactly the same as that of a house in New Mexico (picture 10). The same similarity can be traced between the Castle of Montezuma discovered in Arizona and the remnants found in Mesa Verde in Colorado and the general structure of Berber buildings (picture 11-12).

The research undertaken by Professor Cyrus Thomas of the Smithsonian Institute shows that a small cabin built from piles of rock found in Ellenville, New York is virtually the same as the cabin, again of rock, found around Aqabah, Southern Arabia, both of which are thought to have been built around the start of the eighth century (picture 13).

Arabic words prevalent among natives prior to the arrival of Europeans

The pervasiveness of many Islamic words across the continent prior to European influx is verified by the following terms discovered in the regions currently known as New England and Nova Scotia, in America and Canada respectively. Fell pointed to some words as example of Arabic influence on Native Americans. All of the words listed below are derived from the Arabic language. However, time had eroded their original meanings and most are not used in Arabic today.

The last Muslim stronghold in Spain, Granada, fell just before the Spanish Inquisition was established in 1492. Non-Christians were forced to either convert to Catholicism to save themselves from the tyranny of the Inquisition or were exiled from the country. Documents exist which prove the existence of immigrant Muslims in Spanish America before 1550. In 1539 an edict from Spanish King Charles V was put into practice which forbade the immigration of Muslims to settlements in the West. This edict was later expanded to expel all Muslims from overseas Spanish colonies in 1543. The existence of Muslims in overseas islands and regions was known along with the fact that the Spanish king issued such an edict. Again, in many Islamic sources, it is noted that Muslims living in Spain and North Africa made overseas voyages during the Andalusia period. Scientific research on this subject will bring out many documents into the daylight, documents which have escaped the notice of both Muslims in America and those throughout the world, which will perhaps serve, in the future if not immediately, as a starting point for a re-evaluation of the history of America.

Notes

1. Trento, Salvatore Michael. The Search for Lost America, p.15 Penguin Books, New York: 1978.

2. Fell, Dr. Barry. Saga America, p. 190, Time Books, New York: 1980.

3. ibid. p. xiv.

4. ibid. pp. 332-333.

5. ibid. pp. 333-334.

6 ibid. p. 182.

7. ibid. p. 243.

8. ibid. p. 26.

6. ibid. p. 276.

7. Teacher, John Boyd. Christopher Columbus, p. 380, New York: 1950.

8. Columbus, Ferdinand. The Life of Admiral Christopher Columbus, p. 232 Rutgers Uni. Press, 1959.

9. Obregon, Mauricio. The Columbus Papers, The Barcelona Letter of 1493.

10. The Landfall Controversy, and the Indian Guides, McMillan Co., New York: 1991.

11. Weiner, Dr. Leo. Africa and the Discovery of America, Vol.2 p. 365-366 Philadelphia: 1920.

12. Obregon, 1493.

13. Trento, 1978, p. 23.

14. ibid. p. 29.

15. ibid. p. 65.

16. Fell, 1980. 250-252.

17. Trento, 1978, p. 15.

18. Fell, 1980. p. 400-403.

In the works of philosophers and historians and in the minds of ordinary people, there have been, down the ages, many different conceptions of what freedom actually means. They have not agreed on whether it is a moral ideal or a romantic aspiration, a political posture (propaganda) or a set of rights and duties expressible in legal terms.

At the present time, and for the vast majority of people world-wide, freedom is associated with a particular personal life-style. And the life-style they think of as ‘free’ is imaged in the norms and manners that evolved over the last hundred years or so in Western societies and were vigorously exported by them to all other societies. During this period, almost all movements for freedom throughout the world have focused on economic and political rights, sometimes mixed up with nationalist aspirations, but always insisting upon a rejection of the norms and values of the past. Especially in Muslim countries, the ideologues of these movements have accused religion, and the traditional values associated with it, of preventing freedom of thought and impeding the march of ‘progress’.

There has been an exceptionally fierce hostility among those ideologues – after all, they were consciously importing foreign values – to their own cultural past. Because of that hostility, they were uncritical not only in approving the values they sought to import but also in their attitudes to their own history. They often falsified their own cultural past, denying its values and genuine achievements, in order to be able to condemn and reject it outright. Outright rejection is always easier than careful thought, than painstakingly and patiently conceived reform. The result has been that Muslim societies have gained very little from these freedom movements and lost a very great deal.

The ground of this failure, and it needs to be admitted as a failure, is the narrow kind of ‘progress’ which freedom from the authority of religion is alleged to secure. Progress is defined in crudely material terms as economic prosperity for whose sake (and not for other reasons) certain political freedoms are deemed desirable or necessary. Economic issues are given so much prominence in collective life that collective life is reduced to economic relationships alone. Man is seen and presented merely as homo economicus, a producing and consuming animal. Literature and, more powerfully, film and television images have been used to propagate that view, and to spread, rather than its virtues, the vices of modern civilisation. The reach of those images, given the sheer scale and power of modern communications, touches all societies and persons and all places – private bedrooms as well as the more shared family space of living-rooms and kitchens. It is hard for the mass of ordinary people to escape from this invasion. Its consequence is to distract people from who and what they are, to separate them from each other, to alienate them from themselves.

By means of this media invasion of private dwellings and public cultural space, and also by means of the educational systems and curricula imposed in Muslim countries, the minds of the people have been emptied of what they used to know and care about. Their minds have been preoccupied instead with what is trivial and irrelevant. We find them showing interest in, even concern for, private goings-on in the lives of far-off individuals made international celebrities by the media, while they are quite ignorant and unconcerned about the conditions of their local and national community, their neighbours, sometimes even other members of their own family. They have been turned into a sort of cultural orphans and therefore weakened. And in that weakness it is easier for them to copy blindly whatever is represented to them as ‘modern’ than to question it. It is easier for them to imitate a life-style represented as ‘progressive’ and ‘free’ than to ask if it is truly progressive, truly free. They have become so infatuated with it that it is hard to see how they can adopt a serious, reflective attitude as befits free human beings, in the true sense of the word ‘free’.

The fashions and crazes that nowadays infatuate the mass of people in almost all societies have undermined the values and traditions which both distinguished them as human societies and gave them their cohesion and identity. Whereas, in the past, perennial values taught or inspired by religion guided their behaviour, people now allow themselves to be guided by adolescent fantasies, transient desires, childish impulsiveness. Whereas, in the past, they confessed to religious belief and felt concerned about the meaning and purpose of their lives, they now confess to uncertainty or atheism, to cynicism or indifference, some even pretend to welcome aimlessness and lack of meaning.

Since man has been represented in modern civilization as merely a composition of flesh and bones certain to decompose and perish eternally, only the pleasures of flesh and bones are considered worthy of concern, and nothing much matters except to have the means to indulge those pleasures.

But this representation of man is false; spiritual needs and the longing for eternity are a reality, the reality that defines us as human. Denial of that reality leads to a sickness in the very being of man, which has consequences for the whole pattern of his living. If an individual came to believe that he had only one leg and used only that one, the muscles in his other leg would atrophy and its sickness would affect the strong leg until, tired of hopping, he would fall down helpless. In the same way, many people, deprived of nourishment for their spiritual needs and suffering the artificially stimulated stresses of modem civilization, fall helplessly into the self-disgust of intoxication, drug- abuse and other crimes. Some do so from their early youth, in the pathetic hope of escaping from meaninglessness into excitement. But such excitement is, alas, more poison feeding the disease, at best a temporary abatement of the pain and certainly not a cure.

Sexual excitement in particular has been given more prominence in the public domain in modern societies than at any time in history. There is so much of it in advertising that one would suppose that nothing could be sold without a reference to it. The incessant incitement to sexuality is such that even the most disciplined persons are at times troubled by it, and the less disciplined tempted into thoughts or actions that lead to misery and remorse. It was once claimed, according to a simple version of Freud’s theory of sexuality, that all the achievements of human culture are really the result of frustration or sublimation of the sexual instinct. But that particular nonsense is not the reason why advertisers devote so much of their material to sexual imagery or innuendo. They do so for another reason. During adolescence, awakening of sexuality is a part of the process by which an individual realizes his separateness from his parents and is biologically prepared to function as a potential parent. The social side of the same preparation is through the individual’s experience of family life as a dependent, followed by the disciplines and responsibilities of marriage. Civilized within the social bonds of wedlock, the sexual instinct is married to affection and mutual responsibility between husband and wife, and then to affection and mutual responsibility for their children. Outside of wedlock, sexuality is bound to selfhood and intensifies selfish competitiveness, a

brutal lust to gratify one’s own needs regardless of any consequences to others. In that state of intense selfish desire, the individual is weak and vulnerable: the seductive illusion propagated by the advertisers is that by purchasing such and such a product one will be nearer to gratifying that selfish desire. Thereafter, as we know, people who are seduced by advertising of this kind, buy again and again, always to no avail. Sales go up, and so does stress associated with frustration and repeated failure. The more ‘modern a society has become, the more exaggerated the condition of adolescence among its population – notably, there is more aggressive and more prolonged rejection of parents, more ‘youthful rebellion’ – also the highest increase in violent crimes against persons and property, alongside collapse of the institution of the family.

It is surely an outrage against reason to give to this life-style-one that urges irresponsibility and selfish indulgence of animal appetites – the name of freedom. How can an ethos which exaggerates and exploits human weakness be said to enhance and improve one’s life choices? A rich person continually struggling to satisfy expensive appetites is no more ‘free’ than a poor man struggling to satisfy his hunger – the poor one at least has the dignity of a good reason for his stress. It is ironic that in the societies most dedicated to consumerism, people are not attached to their goods for long; because they buy regardless of need, they do not keep what they buy but discard it and replace with a new purchase. In effect they enjoy no better security with their goods than the poorest nomads who own very little. Again, the nomads have the dignity of owning only what they need and can transport easily and what, like all of us (whatever our level of ‘civilization’) they must forsake when they die.

Pollution of the environment is human folly on a grand scale. Because of that scale its consequences take a long time to emerge and are then very grave. In the same way, freedom as it is currently being promoted is a huge folly whose long-term consequences are very grave. Many societies, as we noted, are already suffering from seemingly irreversible increases in violent crime. This is a consequence of educating people to indulge selfish impulses. The sense of community, of belonging to a family and a locale, has been eroded. Where people do not feel they belong, mutual responsibility and caring disappears from their relationships, emotional or social or political or economic. This puts a great burden on the task of regulating the way people live together. If families do not care for their young, the state must do so; if the people will not voluntarily comply with the laws of their community, the laws must be enforced at vastly greater expense. In those Western cities which can afford to use such devices, the urban centres are peppered with closed-circuit television cameras designed to deter would-be offenders and to assure non-offenders that they may do their shopping or other business without fear of molestation.

Is this the goal towards which the unthinking reformers and champions of Western-style freedom will lead the people of the Islamic world? Are Muslims too going to succumb to the degradation of widespread abuse of intoxicants and excessive levels of crime? And if they are, what are they going to get for paying so high a price? A freedom that means letting people do whatever they wish, moment by moment, to gratify their animal impulses? A freedom that brings with it the diseases that flow from emotional and psychological stress and over-indulgence? A freedom that brings with it the crippling disability of unbelief, the emptiness and dread of having no relation with ultimacy and meaning, no relation with God, and the utter disorientation of values so that people will ardently champion animal rights while despising devotion to God, self-discipline and moral virtue? If this concept of freedom should prevail, it means that ever more individuals will lapse into criminality and abuse of themselves and others, while social political instability within and between societies will become impossibly difficult to contain. It need not do so. The other way of freedom is always open; the way that recognizes and affirms human liability and responsibility before God.

True freedom means that the human spirit does not reject noble feelings and aspirations as the illusions of the past, that it does reject enslavement selfish appetites in favour of to those forms of service, most particularly service of others and of God, which enable the spirit to transcend self- hood. True freedom is disciplined freedom. It wears the diamond chain of religion and morals and the golden collar of sound thinking. True freedom is to declare to man that he is free to do whatever he wants, provided that he does no harm to himself, bodily or spiritual, and none to others. True freedom, the freedom of moral responsibility, is the distinguishing mark of being human; it motivates and enlivens the conscience, and moves aside impediments to the spirit. It acknowledges religious belief and feelings, and is the ground for virtue, wisdom and understanding.

Many an individual, actually imprisoned or in chains, is free in conscience and never feels captivity. Many another, despite the grand spaces of palaces and gardens, does not taste the true meaning of freedom. The freedom to be a powerfully capable animal is in fact to chain the human spirit. True freedom consists in putting chains on animal desires while letting the spirit and mind free to enable man to fly in the infinite space of the spirit on the wings of belief, morality and knowledge and spiritual contentment.