A is for Arabs

G is for guitar
If the Moors had known they would be responsible for the spectacle of Mick Jagger shaking his scrawny ass onstage into his late 50s, they might have thought twice about schlepping the early prototypes of the instruments that make up the typical rock band to Spain and Southern Italy. Percussion in the form of cymbals and timpani, bowed instruments, the lute (from "al-ud," the wood; see "The Buena Vista Social Club" for more), the Spanish guitar (or guitarra morisca as it was originally called 800 years ago), the zither (brought west from Greece), the dulcimer began keeping the neighbors awake as early as the 9th century. There's also that unique Near Eastern sound and rhythm, which, aside from early Spanish music, made itself felt in 18th-century classical music, most famously in Mozart's "The Abduction from the Seraglio." (Turkish things were so "in" then. Witness all those wonderfully exotic 18th-century Venetian scenes by Longhi and Reynolds' costumed, turbaned toffs.) Miles Davis accented the "Oriental," Near Eastern strain in his "Sketches of Spain." The godfather of world music, Davis incorporated Middle Eastern elements into his fusion of jazz and rock in the late '60s and '70s. Nowadays nobody thinks twice about such hybridization.

H is for "Havi"
Expanding on the legacy of the Greek physician and philosopher Galen was Rhazes (c. 865-c. 930), the greatest doctor of the Middle Ages. His extensive medical treatise in nine volumes, "Havi" ("The Virtuous Life"), was used as a textbook in the Sorbonne as late as 1395. In addition to case studies and clinical reports that still have anecdotal interest, Rhazes also wrote a celebrated monograph on smallpox. (Knock wood.)

"The Book of Healing," by the Persian physician and philosopher Avicenna (980-1037), is a masterwork on hygiene and therapeutics that was used as a reference well into the 16th century. With Averroes (1126-1198), the Andalusian physician and philosopher, Arabian medicine attained its peak. Muslim surgeons in the 11th century knew how to treat cataracts and internal hemorrhaging, and they pioneered the usage of anesthetics, which they derived from herbs. Arabian hospitals anticipated our modern ones in combining teaching facilities and libraries, and in offering specializations such as internal medicine, opthamology, orthopedics and pharmacology (on the last, Ibn al-Bayter, who died in 1248, described 1,400 different medicines of vegetable and mineral origin alone). They also set standards for cleanliness and hygiene that in the West shamefully weren't met till the 19th century.

I is for Ibn Khaldun of Tunis (1332-1406)
He invented the scientific study of history (and, indirectly it could be argued, sociology) centuries before the French Enlightenment, Hegel, Weber and Braudel. His "Muqaddimah" ("The Prolegomena"), the introduction to a general survey of Islamic history with a specific focus on North Africa, was begun in 1377 and updated several times to account for sociopolitical changes. In it, he attempts to order the raw material and outward phenomena of history under basic principles.

"Wise and ignorant are at one in appreciating history, since in its external aspect it is no more than narratives telling us how circumstances revolutionize the affairs of men, but in its internal aspect it involves an accurate perception of the causes and origins of phenomena. For this reason it is based on and deeply rooted in philosophy, worthy to be reckoned among its branches.

"Human society in its various manifestations shows certain inherent features by which all narratives must be controlled ... The historian who relies solely upon tradition and who has no thorough understanding of the principles governing the normal course of events, the fundamental rules of the art of government, the nature of civilization and the characteristics of human society is seldom secure against straying from the highway of truth ... All traditional narratives must invariably be referred back to general principles and controlled by reference to fundamental rules."

Of Olympian detachment, Ibn Khaldun was less prone than most historians, then and now, to fiddle the books and force facts to fit preconceived theories. He saw that the course of history is governed by the balance of two forces, which for him were the nomadic and the settled life. He identified history with civilization and, having established this theory, expounded in minute detail upon civilization in all its religious, administrative, economic, artistic and scientific layers.

Ibn Khaldun briefly made headlines in the early 1980s, when President Reagan quoted him in a speech. His name mystified the White House press corps, driving them to their encyclopedias to bone up on this Ibn guy; within hours they were speaking knowledgeably of him. As an undergraduate at the time, I was taking a yearlong seminar entitled "Oriental Humanities." One of our assigned texts in the Arabian section was "Muqqadimah." Professor Meskill, an old China hand, informed us of the Great Communicator's "erudition." We all had a good laugh.

J is for jihad
This word, which has been misinterpreted as "religious war" but really means "an effort" or "striving," is one of many Arabic words that have entered the English language. Besides mullah and ayatollah, which have also acquired pejorative connotations, a partial list of Arabic words or derivatives thereof includes: alcohol, orange, coffee, sofa, caravan, tariff (from Tarifa -- the village through which the Moors invaded Spain, near Gibraltar), citrus, lemon, alembic, algebra, chess, sugar, cataract, magazine, seraphim, arsenal (also the name of a London soccer club, Osama bin Laden's favorite, appropriately enough), apricot, sandal, Satan (from "Shaitan," the Evil One), rice (from "al-ruzz"), sherbet and sorbet, talisman, artichoke, rack (from "arrack," perspiration, also the name of the fiery spirit, raqi; wrack your brains on that one), almanac, alcove, albatross (from "al-kadas," which the Portuguese corrupted into "alcatraz"; now what would the author of "Kubla Khan" make of that?), castle (from "alcazar"), albacore, Abyssinia, ginger, ghoul, zircon (from which we derive "jargon," one being a mixture of stones, the other of tongues), banana (from "banan," finger or toes), nadir, zenith, cipher, zero and monsoon (from "mausim," or season).

Next page: Coffee, optics and navigation