'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎177v] (359/862)

•
248 HISTORY
had in 1170 ten rabbinical schools and several synagogues. Mesopo
tamian Judaism was very strict in its rules. The Karaite sect, the
‘sons of the writing’, in particular, which arose during the eighth
century, insisted on the authority of the written word, rejected all
oral testimony, and rigorously interpreted the Law, especially its
obligations concerning marriage and the Sabbath. The chief rabbi
or Prince of the Captivity, Resh Galutha, was regarded as the political
head of all Jews within the Caliphate, and was a great figure in the
life of the capital.
The Sabians or Mandeans of the lower delta, thrice mentioned in
the Koran, were the third of the Peoples of the Book. They originated
as a special sect devoted to baptismal rites in the Parthian period and
have survived into modern times. Another and more learned pagan
sect, the Sabians of Harran, adopted this name to secure it protection,
and contributed much, like the Nestorians, to the education of the
Moslems in Greek thought.
Abbasid Civilization
The Arabs brought with them no literature except one book, the
Koran, and their ballads of desert life, which were not written down.
To explain the Koran, which was not allowed to be translated, schools
of Arabic language and Moslem traditions came into being at Kufa
and Basra in Omayyad times. These schools became in the Abbasid
period the centres of a great intellectual movement. From small begin
nings of grammatical and theological study this developed into the
broad Moslem system of sciences by which the civilization of medieval
western Europe was itself largely fertilized. The broadening of the
basis of thought from purely Islamic studies to philosophy, history,
and mathematical sciences was the result of the tolerance of the earlier
Abbasids, the assimilation of Arabian and non-Arabian Moslems, and
the general mixture of peoples. The main stimulus came from the
translation of the philosophical and scientific writings of the Greeks
into Arabic. Translation was done under the authority of the Caliphs,
who desired to replace the Greek members of their administrative
machine by educated Arabic-speaking officials. Mamun in particular
established an academy of translation, Bait al Hikmah or House of
Wisdom, at Baghdad. Many of the translators were Nestorian
Christians and pagan Sabians of Harran, who turned Greek originals
into Syriac (a form of Aramaic), which was done into Arabic by
others. Thus the medicine of Galen, the astronomy and geography
of Ptolemy, the logic of Aristotle, the geometry of Euclid, and the