'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎178r] (360/862)

THE ARAB CALIPHATES 249
metaphysics of the Neoplatonists reached the inquisitive minds of the
Arabs, who responded by applying, synthesizing, and developing
them. But of the literature proper of the Greeks they knew nothing:
Arabic history, biography, essays, and poetry (drama they lack) were
never influenced by the classics of Greece.
Philosophy and Scholarship
Greek thought inspired free speculation and gave rise to unortho
dox religious movements such as the Mutazilites, believers in free
will (p. 251), who were publicly supported by Caliph Mamun(8i3—
833), and later to the mystical tenets of Sufism (p. 252). There was
a corresponding orthodox reaction which succeeded only by adopting
the philosophical technique of its opponents. This Arabo-Greek
logic developed apace, and various orthodox Moslems produced
a reconciliation of Aristotelian philosophy and Islamic faith. Chief
among them was Ashari of Baghdad (d. 933). But in the reign of
Mutawakkil (842-861) there was persecution of free thought and the
Sufi mystic Hallaj was done to death in 921. At the same time
there was a codification of the Sunna or Traditions of Islam, which
had the effect of excluding the sources of ‘error’ and heresy from the
accepted scriptures of Islam. Six canonical books of Traditions were
recognized, of which two, those of Bokhari and Muslim, rank next to
the Koran.
Thus the period of intellectual liberty shaded off, under the Bu-
wayhid protectorate (p. 245), into a period of consolidation: the
foundation of libraries and universities, the development of a highly
artificial prose style, and the codification of learning marked the
decline of genius and invention. But the output of the first three
centuries of Islam had already been enormous, and the deadening
Turkish rule (1055-1258) saw the ‘Silver Age’ of Arabic literature
in which court officials cultivated only the strictly orthodox in
thought and learning. Encyclopaedias, universal histories, and
Koranic commentaries were the main productions. Institutions like
the Nizamiya at Baghdad, founded by the vizir Nizam al Mulk,
encouraged the amassing of knowledge rather than the development
of thought. Already in Iran a new non-Arabic literature was begin
ning with the revival of the Persian language, and the primacy of
Arabic learning was passing from Iraq back to Syria, where the
Hamdanid dynasty of Aleppo and the career of Saladin (p. 246)
caused a revival that cast the dictionary writers of Iraq still more
in the shade,