Are you kidding? We're talking six hundred years after the Roman Empire's peak........an equivalent period would be from the 14th century to the 21st century. Maybe I'm wrong but I assumed that record keeping improved during that 600 year period.
Yeah, but the European Christian world (I don't know about the Muslim world) took a large step back after the fall of the Roman Empire... they don't call 'em the Dark Ages for nothin'.
The Dark ages started around 470 CE and mostly effected the European/western portion of the old Roman Empire. The eastern portion came under the influence and control of the Islamic Empire......from JF's post:
"So on the one hand you’ve got Hulagu, and on the other you’ve got Baghdad. Mongols destroyed cities; Islam built them. In the years after the Prophet Muhammad’s death, in 632, his Arab followers spread their religion along the southern Mediterranean as far west as Spain and into central Asia as far east as Pakistan. Along the way, they founded new cities or enlarged old ones, and, of all the cities of early Islam, Baghdad became the wonder. The caliph—Islam’s spiritual leader, comparable to the Pope—founded it in 762 and finished its construction in 766. His name was Jaffar al-Mansour, and he belonged to the Abbassid line of caliphs, who descended from the Prophet’s paternal uncle, Abbas. The Abbassid caliphate lasted for five hundred years. Mansour chose the small village of Baghdad, on the Tigris, as the site for his future capital because of its possibilities for transportation and agriculture. He also liked its remoteness. He wanted to get away from the factional disputes that had come up in Islam’s previous capital cities of Medina, Damascus, Kufa, and Basra. Islam suffered from violent factions, notably the Sunni-Shia schism, dating from soon after Muhammad’s death. Mansour called his city Madinat as-Salaam, “the city of peace,” from a verse referring to Paradise in the Koran. The name Baghdad, however, prevailed.
Within forty years, Baghdad had become the storied and romantic place it would forever be in popular imagination. Under enlightened, poetry-loving caliphs like Harun al-Rashid, Mansour’s grandson, Baghdad attracted scholars from all the domains of Islam, in keeping with Muhammad’s teaching that educated men are next to the angels and that “the scholar’s ink is more sacred than the blood of martyrs.” Mansour’s prediction that his city would be a crossroads had come true, and wealth accumulated from caravan trade arriving from each of the four directions. Poets who pleased the caliph might have pearls poured upon them; concubines for his harem sold for tens of thousands of gold dirhams. A Chinese method for making paper from flax and hemp appeared in the Middle East at about the time of the city’s founding, and the new technology produced books in quantities impossible before. Almost everybody in ninth-century Baghdad could read and write. While Europe still moiled in its Dark Ages, Baghdad was a city of booksellers, bathhouses, gardens, game parks, libraries. Harun al-Rashid was the first chess-playing caliph; Baghdadis also played checkers and backgammon. Translators took Greek works and rendered them into Arabic, in which they were preserved to be translated into European languages several centuries later.
The palaces of the caliphs were of marble, rare woods, jade, and alabaster, with fountains and interior gardens, and carpets and wall hangings by the thousand. Servants sprinkled guests with sprinklers of rosewater and powdered musk and ambergris. A poet wrote, “Live long, O Caliph, to thy heart’s content / In scented shade of palace minarets.” Arts and sciences flourished—literature, music, calligraphy, philosophy, mathematics, chemistry, history. Because of the need for accuracy in setting the religious calendar and orienting mosques to face Mecca, astronomy was especially important. From Baghdad’s best years we get words like “zenith” and “nadir,” as well as “algebra,” “algorithm,” “alcohol,” “alembic,” “alchemy.” The food in Baghdad was great, too, apparently. The city’s gardens grew a cornucopia of fruits, spices, pistachios, licorice root. Its cooks knew how to make highly complicated dishes, and sweets like halvah and baklava."
Message 21261815
You should read the article......its long but a good read.
In addition, there is ample, written evidence that the Caliphs descended from Mohammad did, in fact, exist. I think that confirms that Mohammad was real.
Written evidence by whom?
I can't point you to specific documents. But most every accounting about Mohammad provides the kind of specificity with the dates of his birth and deaths that we expect of historical figures.......for an example, I think he was born on 20 April, 573 CE. And those dates are attributed to Muslim historians. Furthermore, there were his descendants who became historical figures as Capiphs of the Muslim religion.
However, I don't have the same questions about Mohammad's existence because there is not as much effort made to make him appear divine as with Jesus. The Muslims make it clear that Mohammad was a man and a prophet. About the only miracle involving him was the Archangel Gabriel transmitting the Koran to him. While that's dramatic, I attribute that more to the romanticizing of the life of a founder of a major religion. [As an aside, I once had a Chritian Scientist tell me that there is not a grave for the founder of her religion because they could never find her body....according to her, it was a resurrection redux.........and her death took place only a hundred years ago]. My point is the faithful have a way of romanticizing even the human when it adds to the mysticism of their religion. Having said that, the Muslims look at the Prophet Mohammad like we look at George Washington........with reverence and respect and not this incredible evangelical awe many Christians have for Jesus.
On this one, I'm just playing devil's advocate... I'd like to know what's there.
I understand. Sorry I can't give you more definitive stuff.
ted |
