Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud

64. Beckwith, Op. cit., pages 151 and 158. Nor should we overlook the fact that the iconoclasts did not object to the use of human figures in non-Christian art. Cyril Mango says that the Milion arch in Constantinople, for example, marked the start of a great road that crossed the entire Balkans. This arch was dominated by an elaborate sculpture of the emperor’s favourite charioteer. No one thought of attacking this. Mango, Op. cit., page 266.

65. Ibid., page 267. See Moynahan, Op. cit., page 211, for how the iconodules were themselves mocked.

66. Mango, Op. cit., pages 271–272. See Talbot Rice, Op. cit., page 151, for painting techniques. Beckwith, Op. cit., page 191.

67. Mango, Op. cit., page 278, for the ‘intense aura’. See Angold, Op. cit., for a similar interpretation. Beckwith, Op. cit., page 346.

CHAPTER 12: FALSAFAH AND AL-JABR IN BAGHDAD AND TOLEDO

1. Philip K. Hitti, A History of the Arabs, London: Macmillan, 1970, page 90.

2. Ibid., page 25.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid., page 91.

5. In fact, in certain circumstances it was more. The Arabian poet, the shaʾir, was understood to be privy to secret knowledge, not all of which was good and some of which might come from demons. As a result, the eloquent poet could bring misfortune on the enemy at the same time that he inspired his own tribe to valour. Even in peacetime he had a role, Philip Hitti says, as a sceptic to subvert the ‘claims and aims’ of demagogues. See Angold, Op. cit., page 60, for the place of poetry in Arab society.

6. Some of the pre-Islamic poets are household names in the Arabic world, even today. The love poems of Imru’ al-Qays and the moral maxims of Zuhayr are probably better-known than most. Apart from poets, high prestige also attached to the orator (khatib) and the rawi, who related the legends of bygone ages. Their stature dominated that of the scribes who became significant only after the rise of Islam. Hitti, Op. cit., page 56.

7. G. F. von Grunebaum, Classical Islam, London: Allen & Unwin, 1970, page 24.

8. Hitti, Op. cit., pages 64–65.

9. Ibid., page 112.

10. Anwar G. Chejne, The Arabic Language: Its Role in History, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969, pages 7–13. Hitti, Op. cit., page 123.

11. Bernard Lewis, The Middle East, London: Phoenix, 1995, page 53.

12. Hitti, Op. cit., page 118. See Angold, Op. cit., page 61, for a discussion of the qiblah.

13. Lewis, Op. cit., page 53.

14. Hitti, Op. cit., page 128.

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid., page 129.

17. Originally, Allah asked to be prayed to fifty times a day, but Muhammad reached a compromise when he was in heaven on his nocturnal journey there.

18. Hitti, Op. cit., page 132. The prohibition on alcohol, incidentally, may not have been insisted on from the beginning. One of the chapters in the Qurʾan contains a suggestion that it was introduced early on to prevent disturbances during the Friday service.

19. Ibid., page 124. For Islamic judgement see: Jane Idleman Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, page 64.

20. Hitti, Op. cit., pages 124–126.

21. Chejne, Op. cit., page 25.

22. Ibid., page 28.

23. Ibid., page 356.

24. Lewis, Op. cit., page 54. Angold, Op. cit., page 60, on the battles for the caliphate.

25. Lewis, Op. cit., page 64.

26. Ibid., page 65.

27. Ibid., page 68. Angold, Op. cit., pages 57–59, for the role of coins.

28. Hitti, Op. cit., page 242. See Angold, Op. cit., pages 61ff, for the Umayyads and, in particular, their architectural achievements.

29. Hitti, Op. cit., page 393.

30. Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Beauty in Arabic Culture, Princeton, New Jersey and London: Markus Wiener/Princeton University Press, 1998/1999, page 126. Angold, Op. cit., page 62, for the Dome of the Rock and page 65 for the Great Mosque of Damascus.

31. Behrens-Abouseif, Op. cit., page 124.

32. Ibid., page 132.

33. Lewis, Op. cit., page 37. Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1991, pages 56ff.

34. Behrens-Abouseif, Op. cit., page 148.