The great Persian poet Nezami (1141-1209) was from the city of Ganja in northwestern Iran when it was ruled by the Seljuk Empire. That was the era of the Crusades and Richard Lionheart, though the Crusader kingdoms were far from Iran and Nezami only once left home, to see the king. In his Treasury of Mysteries, this Muslim poet refers to Christian themes several times.

The most famous reference is an anecdote clearly rooted in folk culture, though it captures something of Jesus’ love for the despised humble folk (courtesans and tax-collectors). Here is my hurried, loose rendering:

The feet of Christ, which traced the world,
passed by a small market one day.
A dog big as a wolf lay fallen.
Like Joseph, the coat of its beauty was bloodied.

A crowd of spectators gathered at the scene,
like vultures circling the carcass.
One said, “This gruesome sight poisons
the mind, the way a breath blows out a lamp.”

Another said, “It is a pure blight —
It is blindness for the eye, a plague on the heart.
All expressed their own opinion,
heaping scorn each in turn.

When came the turn of Jesus to speak,
he eschewed blame and went straight to the truth of the matter.
He said, “How fine was its bodily form,
and no white pearl can compare to its teeth.”

Unlike the others around him, Jesus is here depicted as finding something to admire even in the disgusting, putrid carcass of a dead dog, according to this mystical teaching story. Nezami goes on to advise people not to focus on the faults of others and preen about their own virtues. He warns against being too full of admiration for yourself when you look in a mirror. He says that decking yourself out in finery fresh as the spring is dangerous. Fate is out there, looking for prey to devour, and you don’t want to attract attention to yourself.

Here is an Iranian artist’s rendering of the scene from the Safavid period, early 1600s:

“Folio from a Makhzan al-asrar (Treasury of secrets) by Nizami (d.1209); verso: Jesus and the dead dog; recto: text: The tenth article.” National Museum of Asian Art . Creative Commons 0.

Nezami adds in Sufi fashion,

The entirety of this world, old or new,
is fleeting, and not worth two barley grains.
Do not grieve for this world, but rise, sir,
and if you do grieve, pour out some wine for Nezami.

Nezami’s story is an illustration of Matthew 7:3-5

3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition).

The Gospels also show Jesus as reminding people that they are in no position most of the time to judge others for their flaws, as when he defended the woman accused of adultery from being stoned in John 8:7

7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)

Muslim poets and story-tellers told lots of anecdotes about Jesus that are not in the Gospels. He was a figure of wisdom and self-denial, and the Persian mystics used him to symbolize the potential of the soul for spiritual growth.

This essay is part of my project on Islamic Peace Studies, an extremely neglected but very important field. Peace practices and movements have been very important in history, but they have been very little written about, as I pointed out recently in The Oxford Handbook of Peace History .

One of the morally more complex passages in the Qur’ān is Distinguished 41:33-35. It advocates responding to harmful actions with virtuous ones, suggesting that this approach can turn adversaries into allies or supporters. This passage echoes themes found in the Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament. Despite its significance, this and other verses promoting peace in the Qur’ān have not been critically examined by scholars, and little focus has been given to their reception in later Muslim commentaries. In this context, I investigate the commentaries on this passage by a renowned medieval Sufi scholar, who devoted particular attention to Qur’anic ethics and the spiritual growth these verses inspire.

I translate the passage as follows: “Whose discourse is more beautiful than one who calls others to God and performs good works and proclaims, ‘I am among those who have submitted to God’’ The good deed and the evil deed are not equal. Repel the latter with what is best, and behold, it will be as though your enemy is a devoted patron. Yet to none is this granted save the patient, and to none is it granted save the supremely fortunate.” The moral agent capable of carrying out this exceptional act toward harmful adversaries acquires the power to transform them into allies and supporters. This transformation is attainable only by those who possess boundless patience and are endowed with great good fortune. Responding to wrongdoing with acts of kindness is emphasized here as an extraordinary accomplishment for the faithful. The Qur’ān presents the idea that responding to hostility with kindness has a transformative effect. Some commentators have pointed out that the Christian teaching of “love your enemies” is less reciprocal, addressing only one side of the relationship.

The mystic Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Karīm Qushayrī (d. 1072) of Nishapur was a leading Sufi authority of his time. Britannica defines Sufi Islam this way: “Sufism, mystical Islamic belief and practice in which Muslims seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God.” His family, originating from Khorasan, claimed Arab lineage and provided him with an education in literature and martial arts. At the age of 15, he moved to Nishapur to study practical matters in hopes of reducing taxes in his village. However, he instead became a disciple of the spiritual teacher Abū ʿAlī Daqqāq. Alongside conventional Islamic studies, such as law, Qushayrī ultimately dedicated himself to the Sufi path. He later succeeded Daqqāq as the head of his seminary.

Qushayrī became entangled in the conflicts between the Ḥanafī and Shāfiʿī legal schools in Seljuk-era Nishapur around 1038. These disputes led to his exile, possibly to avoid imprisonment by Ḥanafīs, as Nishapur faced violent clashes between supporters of the two schools. He returned only after stability was restored. Some mystics envisioned Sufism as a spiritual movement that could transcend the divisions of legal schools, offering a unifying Muslim identity to end the sectarian strife. Qushayrī gained renown as the author of a significant Qur’ān commentary, The Subtleties of the Allusions.

He addresses Q. 41:34, “The good deed and the evil deed are not equal. Repel the latter with what is best . . .” He asserts that the verse counsels repelling the evil deed by the traits of character that are best, that is, by giving up on revenge and overlooking the past moral mistakes of others. Regarding “and behold, it will be as though your enemy is a devoted patron,” Qushayrī explains that this practice exemplifies proper spiritual conduct. It involves demonstrating patience and forbearance toward His creation out of devotion to God. Additionally, he highlights that in your interactions with others, it reflects a noble character to refrain from seeking personal revenge and instead to choose to forgive your adversary.

From the early eleventh century, Sufi lodges began to appear in Khorasan, initially funded by affluent Sufis or private patrons. Figures such as Sulamī, Abū ʿAlī Daqqāq, and Qushayrī were closely connected to these establishments, which served as spaces for spiritual retreats and accommodations for visitors. By the mid-eleventh century, Seljuk officials began extending state support to these centers.

“Dancing Dervishes”, Folio from a Divan of the poet Hafiz (1325–1390), attributed to Bihzad (Iranian, Herat ca. 1450–1535/36 Herat) ca. 1480. Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art . Creative Commons Zero (CC0).

Lloyd Ridgeon argues that the emergence of the Sufi center created a social venue for Sufis to engage in their rituals while also welcoming “lay affiliates” who sought to interact with more dedicated practitioners. These institutions often served charitable purposes, providing meals for the needy and lodging for travelers. Lay affiliates included a broad range of people, from peasants to urban laborers. According to Ridgeon, this environment fostered an expanded understanding of Sufi ethical conduct, aimed not only at training initiates but also at shaping the behavior of the general populace. Among those drawn to Sufism were urban trades guilds and groups adhering to a code of chivalry.

Qushayrī turns to Q. 41:35, “Yet to none is this granted save the patient, and to none is it granted save the supremely fortunate.” He emphasizes that these qualities of character can only truly be attained by those who are strengthened by patience and capable of transcending trivialities to embrace lofty moral virtues. Only those who endure hardships and challenges with perseverance can ascend to the highest levels of excellence.

These sentiments also resemble the medieval Muslim conception of chivalry. One principle of chivalry that Qushayrī mentions is “It means that you do not care whether the guest that you entertain at your table is a friend of God or an unbeliever.” A passage by this author in another work exemplifies the principle:

“I heard one learned man say: ‘A Magian [Zoroastrian] asked hospitality from Abraham, the Friend of God – peace be upon him. Abraham told him: “Only if you embrace Islam!” The Magian walked away. At that moment, God Most High revealed to him the following: “For fifty years I have fed him despite his unbelief. Couldn’t you have offered him a morsel without asking him to change his religion?” On hearing this, Abraham – peace be upon him – rushed after the Magian until he caught up with him. He then apologized before him. When the Magian asked him about the cause [of his change of heart], he explained what had happened to him, whereupon the Magian embraced Islam.’”

One Syrian source maintained that there was an uprising of anti-Assad Alawites in Latakia, and that HTS rebels had not entered the city. Other reports suggested that Alawites who had for years been oppressed and bilked by Alawite Baath officers were staging reprisals on them. Informed Comment cannot independently verify these allegations.

The fall of Latakia is significant for several reasons. Latakia is Syria’s major port and the new government cannot hope to run Syria without it. It is near to Tartus, the site of a Russian naval base. Apparently several thousand Russian troops are still stuck in Syria and will have to negotiate safe passage out.

Latakia’s naval and military significance led Israel to bomb some of its facilities on Monday, as well as to damage some of the war ships in the harbor. These strikes on Latakia came as part of a flurry of 250 such air attacks by Israel on Syrian military storehouses and facilities, in an attempt by the Netanyahu government to cripple the new government’s military capabilities during this transitional phase, when it is weak.

Then, the majority of the region’s inhabitants are Alawite Shiites, whereas the HTS is hard line Sunni fundamentalists. The heads of the Baath Party in Syria from 1970 had been the al-Assads, who hailed from an Alawite background, and they engaged in a great deal of nepotism. The best jobs went to Alawites, even though they were only 14% of the population. During the civil war in the past nearly 14 years, Alawite officers, infantry and militias (the Shabiha) put down the rebellion, with great loss of life.

In short, there are all the ingredients for sectarian reprisals and massacres. On Arabic social media, there are many calls for revenge on the Alawites now that the al-Assad regime has fallen. We saw this phenomenon in Iraq, which was a mirror image of Syria demographically and politically. There, the Shiites are a majority but were repressed by a Sunni-led Baath Party. When George W. Bush invaded and occupied Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein, the Shiites came to power in elections that they forced on Bush. In 2006-2007, and again in 2014-2018, there were numerous Sunni-Shiite sectarian clashes. The ISIL terrorist group, from which elements of the Syrian HTS hived off, committed numerous massacres of Shiites.

I can only imagine that the Alawite officers in the now-defunct Syrian Arab Army have disguised themselves and are trying to get out of the country any way they can. Some reports suggest they have fled to Lebanon.

On the other hand, I wonder if the threat of Israeli aggression will cause Syrians to pull together?

Al-Quds al-`Arabi reports that the elders (sheikhs) of the Alawite community called for “turning over a new page.” They met with representatives of the HTS at the former provincial residence of al-Assad, in a town called Qardaha in the hills overlooking Latakia. The elders issued a statement in which they called for a “general amnesty” and the safe return of everyone who had fled their homes “in the recent period,” and for an end to the carrying of guns except in accordance with the law.

The Alawite branch of Shiite Islam is an esoteric folk religion in which many of the verities are cultivated by the sheikhs, and the laity may not be steeped in them. They do not have formal seminary-trained clergymen or mosque worship. They are very different from the Twelver Shiites in Iraq and Iran.

After the meeting, the military operations HQ of the HTS issued a “general amnesty” for all conscripted troops of the former Syrian Arab Army, granting them security of property and person and forbidding attacks on them.

Since most people in the army had been conscripts, this amnesty would affect a lot of people. But it excludes those who volunteered for the military or who entered the officer corps through a military academy.

HTS-controlled state television broadcast images of captured Syrian soldiers in Damascus, Homs and Hama being pardoned. Of the 300,000 men in the Syrian Arab Army, probably 200,000 or more had gone AWOL or defected during the civil war. The remaining 50,000 to 100,000 were disproportionately drawn from the Alawite population. So, implicitly, this pardon of the grunts in the army has a sectarian dimension, and is an attempt to avoid sectarian tensions.

On the other hand, the military operations HQ said that military figures guilty of atrocities against civilians in recent years would be tried in the courts. If they can get hold of the officer corps, it appears that the HTS will execute large numbers of them.

—–

Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

Israel Conducts Air and Ground Offensive In Syria As Assad Regime Falls | India Today

Killing an entire world is the ultimate act of villainy in science fiction. The most memorable such fictional atrocity occurs in George Lucas’s Star Wars (1977), when the Galactic Empire’s imperial officer Grand Moff Tarkin fires a fatal beam from the newly constructed Death Star at the planet Alderaan, “the bright center of the universe,” to demonstrate its awful power to captive rebel leader Princess Leia Organa. Jedi Master Obi Wan Kenobi, in transit to Alderaan aboard the Millennium Falcon, senses the enormity of this casual murder of two billion individuals. He remarks, “I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.” The Empire had committed what we might term cosmocide, or the extermination of an entire world. Although it may risk trivializing the massive atrocities our world has witnessed in the past century to evoke them through a Hollywood fantasy, we should also acknowledge that the pulverizing of Leia’s (and Luke Skywalker’s) home world has shaken millions of filmgoers sheltered by selective media journalism from exposure to the real thing.

Lamentably, cosmocide in the full sense of the destruction of a whole planet became a possibility and not merely the stuff of speculative fiction on July 16, 1945, when the first nuclear device was detonated. On that day, as physicist (and Sanskritist) Robert J. Oppenheimer witnessed the first successful test of the atomic bomb he had fathered, he famously quoted the Bhagavad Gita, verse 11:12 (referring to Krishna): “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once in the sky, that would be the splendor of the mighty One.” He further recalled in this connection verse 11:32, translating it as, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Today, a massive exchange of thermonuclear weapons could plunge the earth into long-term darkness, killing most life. Even short of such a planetary slaughter, nuclear-armed states, and even those with extremely powerful conventional weapons, can wipe out “worlds,” in the sense of entire cities or regions. We have beheld such orgies of desolation in wars in the Middle East in the twenty-first century that have leveled cities in Syria, Sudan, Gaza, and Israel.

Al-Dayah begins by quoting an unnamed Hamas leader who condemned critics of the organization’s attack on Israel.

The politician castigated as “fools” those who argued that it would have been safer to avoid armed conflict rather than losing tens of thousands of lives. The politician denounced such persons as a fifth column for Israel, aiming to weaken “this nation and its determination.” The Hamas leader alleged that Israel killed 500 Palestinians at West Bank checkpoints in 2022, even though the Palestinians were not engaged in violent struggle that year. He implied that Israel would kill Palestinians even if they were passive. The price for being occupied was being paid then, but, he said, “you have to choose whether to pay it freely as a fighter and a victor, God willing, or to pay it in humiliation, disappointment, and loss.”

Al-Dayah refutes this militant, reminding him that struggling in the way of God is not a straightforward, simplistic duty, but is predicated on conditions, purposes and principles. It is necessary to consider matters such as the character of one’s leaders and soldiers, the terrain, the weaponry available, and the character of the opponent (whom he calls “the aggressor,” suggesting he believes this warfare is defensive).

[The issue of “terrain” is an important one. I quote Mao Zedong in my new book, Gaza Yet Stands, to the effect that having rugged terrain that affords hiding places is essential to a guerrilla movement. Otherwise, Mao said, the insurgents are just roving peasant rebels, doomed to fail. Gaza is not a promising place from which to fight a guerrilla struggle.]

Al-Dayah repeats that “aggression against religion” is one of the grounds for launching such a military struggle, as are “life, honor, family, land or property.”

Since it is a religious struggle, it has to be predicated on faith and sincerity, the righteousness of the individuals involved, and their cohesiveness and preparation, as well as logistical matters.

But there are, al-Dayah says, also counter-indications that might weigh against launching such a struggle. If the prerequisites listed above are lacking or defective, it cannot be undertaken.

Most important, you can’t launch a struggle for the faith if it seems likely that it will fail: “it is essential to avoid it if it is likely to bring harm to religion, life, honor, family, or property.”

He points out that the Qur’an, the Muslim scripture, promises that pious Muslims can prevail when the odds are 1 to 2 (Q. 8:66). The conclusion we may draw from the verse is that the believers cannot win against just any odds. If they are overwhelmed 3 to 1, they should avoid entering the fray. He quotes the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin, Ibn Abbas, as having said: “If a man retreats from two, he has fled, but if he retreats from three, he has not fled.”

His implication is that the Israeli armed forces are far superior in numbers, training, and equipment to the 30,000 members of the al-Qassam Brigades, the paramilitary of Hamas. Given this reality, it is “permissible to refrain from initiating combat.”

He also repudiated the Hamas leader for his harsh accusations against suffering Palestinians mourning the gravity of the disaster that has befallen them. They don’t, he insisted, deserve to be called agents or cowards for wishing it could have been avoided.

He points out, “These are the sentiments of the majority of people, whose homes are gone, their loved ones have perished, and they endure all forms of suffering.”

He concludes, “I ask God Almighty to return us to the right path and hasten relief. Amen.”

Prof. Dr. Salman bin Nasr Al-Dayah

The legal opinion has six sections, with this having been the first. In subsequent broadsides, he went on to elaborate his arguments. For instance, he quotes a saying of the Prophet that “it is not for the believer to humiliate himself” by undertaking a campaign clearly doomed to failure. I think, however, we get the point.

Al-Dayah rejects secular states and even the fundamentalist governance of Hamas, arguing for a restored Muslim caliphate or theocracy. However, he belongs to the quietist branch of Salafism or revivalism, since he generally rejects violence as a path to his aspirations, especially if the violence is stupid. Al-Dayah has refused to leave North Gaza, even though the Israeli authorities are attempting to ethnically cleanse it.

Similar debates were conducted between quietist Salafis in Jordan and the proponents of ISIL (ISIS, Daesh), the so-called “Islamic state” group.

Before the 2006 election, nearly half of the voters in Gaza supported the secular, nationalist Palestine Liberation Organization, and it is not clear that 18 years of Hamas rule will have altered this proportion. Indeed, the evidence from countries that have a state religion is that it tends to drive people away from religion or make them apathetic toward it. Al-Dayah as a quietist Salafi may not represent a very large proportion of Palestinians in Gaza. His discontents with Hamas, however, are likely widely shared.

The Arabic text of the fatwa was posted to Facebook.

The verse “Shema Yisrael” is a testimony to God’s oneness. The same idea is central to Islam. A linguistic connection shows Judaism and Islam share much in common.

( The Times of Israel) – This Shabbat we read the second paragraph of the Shema, and last week we read the first paragraph which opens with a call — arguably the most famous prayer in our liturgy:

Listen, Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4).

“The first paragraph of the Shema as written in a Mezuzah or Tefillin), July 2009, Picture taken from a Mezuzah or Tefillin.” Public domain. Wikimedia Commons.

The Masoretes determined that when written in the Torah scroll – 2 letters should have special formatting: The final letter of the first word שמע, ayin, and the final letter of the last word אחד, dalet, are enlarged (see pic). These two enlarged Hebrew letters spell the word עד, or “witness.” By saying the Shema, we are acting as a “witness” testifying to the existence and oneness of the Divine.

This concept of bearing witness to God’s oneness is central to Islam too, and is referred to as the ‘testimony‘ or Shahada (الشَّهَادَةُ).

It is part of the adhān, the call to prayer, and is considered one of the Five Pillars of Islam.

The word ‘Shahada’ derives from the same root of a Biblical monument to peace. When Jacob and Laban–who both felt wronged by the other–decided to let bygones be bygones, they erected a mound of stones as a witness their peace treaty. Laban called it in Aramaic יְגַר שָׂהֲדוּתָא, Yegar Sahaduta (like Shahada), while Jacob called it גַּלְעֵד Gal-ed – both meaning “Mound Witness” (Genesis 31:47).

We see how roots and concepts are shared between Judaism and Islam.

Reprinted from The Times of Israel with the author’s permission.

Eyewitnesses said that not all the dead were elderly, that young persons died, as well.

Pilgrims carry out a series of rituals during the pilgrimage, beginning with preparing themselves and establishing their pious intention. Many of the steps involve being outside and being active. They dress in white robes. They circumambulate the cube-shaped Kaaba shrine. They run between the nearby hillocks of Safa and Marwa seven times, in commemoration of the search of Abraham’s wife Hajar for water for her son with the patriarch, Ishmael. They walk or are taken in buses to Mina and spend some nights of the pilgrimage there. There, they throw stones at satan.

H/t Saudi Ministry of Hajj

AFP explains that some pilgrims try to avoid paying the hefty visa fees by just showing up unregistered. They however, then lack access to air conditioned facilities and are at special risk of heat stroke.

The number of heat stroke deaths seems to have doubled since last year. Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s major oil producers, and burning petroleum to power vehicles puts the deadly heat-trapping gas, carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere, heating up the planet.

The G20 Climate Risk Atlas writes, “The science shows that Saudi Arabia will experience devastating climate impacts if it follows a high-emissions pathway. Without urgent action, Saudi Arabia will see an 88% increase in the frequency of agricultural drought by 2050. Heatwaves will last more than 4,242% longer and the combination of sea level rise, coastal erosion and fiercer weather will cause chaos for Saudi Arabia’s economy, which stands to lose around 12.2% of GDP by 2050.”

A 12.2% loss of gross domestic product for Saudi Arabia today would amount to a loss of $135 billion annually. That loss alone is more than the entire yearly GDP of Kenya or Ecuador.

Flooding on the kingdom’s coasts as the sea level rises threatens 210,000 of the 22 million citizens. Long droughts endanger fisheries, forests and agriculture, which make up 2.6% of the country’s gross domestic product. Longer heat waves will reduce the quality of life and menace livelihoods and health.

I have to tell you, I have lived in the Arabian Peninsula. I remember one June evening my wife and I were ready to take a short walk over to a restaurant when it was 114° F., and we went out and were met with a blast furnace. We went back in and ordered an air conditioned car for the two-minute drive. We just couldn’t bear to walk five minutes in it.

The Saudi government sees hosting the annual Hajj or pilgrimage as a form of soft power that adds to its legitimacy throughout the Muslim world, comprising some 2 billion persons. If its oil-intensive policies increasingly contribute to disabilities for pilgrims on Hajj, in turn, that development can only harm the monarchy’s reputation, since it styled itself “Servant of the two holy shrines.”

AFP Video: “Hajj pilgrimage ends amid deadly Saudi heat spike | AFP

(The Conversation) – Algorithms have become integral to our lives. From social media apps to Netflix, algorithms learn your preferences and prioritise the content you are shown. Google Maps and artificial intelligence are nothing without algorithms.

So, we’ve all heard of them, but where does the word “algorithm” even come from?

Over 1,000 years before the internet and smartphone apps, Persian scientist and polymath Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī invented the concept of algorithms.

In fact, the word itself comes from the Latinised version of his name, “algorithmi”. And, as you might suspect, it’s also related to algebra.

Largely lost to time

Al-Khwārizmī lived from 780 to 850 CE, during the Islamic Golden Age. He is considered the “father of algebra”, and for some, the “grandfather of computer science”.

Yet, few details are known about his life. Many of his original works in Arabic have been lost to time.

It is believed al-Khwārizmī was born in the Khwarazm region south of the Aral Sea in present-day Uzbekistan. He lived during the Abbasid Caliphate, which was a time of remarkable scientific progress in the Islamic Empire.

Al-Khwārizmī made important contributions to mathematics, geography, astronomy and trigonometry. To help provide a more accurate world map, he corrected Alexandrian polymath Ptolemy’s classic cartography book, Geographia.

He produced calculations for tracking the movement of the Sun, Moon and planets. He also wrote about trigonometric functions and produced the first table of tangents.

Al-Khwārizmī was a scholar in the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikmah) in Baghdad. At this intellectual hub, scholars were translating knowledge from around the world into Arabic, synthesising it to make meaningful progress in a range of disciplines. This included mathematics, a field deeply connected to Islam.

The ‘father of algebra’

Al-Khwārizmī was a polymath and a religious man. His scientific writings started with dedications to Allah and the Prophet Muhammad. And one of the major projects Islamic mathematicians undertook at the House of Wisdom was to develop algebra.

Around 830 CE, Caliph al-Ma’mun encouraged al-Khwārizmī to write a treatise on algebra, Al-Jabr (or The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing). This became his most important work.

At this point, “algebra” had been around for hundreds of years, but al-Khwārizmī was the first to write a definitive book on it. His work was meant to be a practical teaching tool. Its Latin translation was the basis for algebra textbooks in European universities until the 16th century.

In the first part, he introduced the concepts and rules of algebra, and methods for calculating the volumes and areas of shapes. In the second part he provided real-life problems and worked out solutions, such as inheritance cases, the partition of land and calculations for trade.

Al-Khwārizmī didn’t use modern-day mathematical notation with numbers and symbols. Instead, he wrote in simple prose and employed geometric diagrams:

Four roots are equal to twenty, then one root is equal to five, and the square to be formed of it is twenty-five.

In modern-day notation we’d write that like so:

4x = 20, x = 5, x² = 25

Grandfather of computer science

Al-Khwārizmī’s mathematical writings introduced the Hindu-Arabic numerals to Western mathematicians. These are the ten symbols we all use today: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0.

The Hindu-Arabic numerals are important to the history of computing because they use the number zero and a base-ten decimal system. Importantly, this is the numeral system that underpins modern computing technology.

Al-Khwārizmī’s art of calculating mathematical problems laid the foundation for the concept of algorithms. He provided the first detailed explanations for using decimal notation to perform the four basic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) and computing fractions.

This was a more efficient computation method than using the abacus. To solve a mathematical equation, al-Khwārizmī systematically moved through a sequence of steps to find the answer. This is the underlying concept of an algorithm.

Algorism, a Medieval Latin term named after al-Khwārizmī, refers to the rules for performing arithmetic using the Hindu-Arabic numeral system. Translated to Latin, al-Khwārizmī’s book on Hindu numerals was titled Algorithmi de Numero Indorum.

In the early 20th century, the word algorithm came into its current definition and usage: “a procedure for solving a mathematical problem in a finite number of steps; a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem”.

Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī played a central role in the development of mathematics and computer science as we know them today.

The next time you use any digital technology – from your social media feed to your online bank account to your Spotify app – remember that none of it would be possible without the pioneering work of an ancient Persian polymath.

Correction: This article was amended to correct a quote from al-Khwārizmī’s work.

Debbie Passey, Digital Health Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

From childhood, we are told that patience is a virtue and that good things will come to those who wait. And, so, many of us work on cultivating patience.

This often starts by learning to wait for a turn with a coveted toy. As adults, it becomes trying to remain patient with long lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles, misbehaving kids or the slow pace of political change. This hard work can have mental health benefits. It is even correlated with per capita income and productivity.

But it is also about trying to become a good person.

It’s clear to me, as a scholar of religious ethics, that patience is a term many of us use, but we all could benefit from understanding its meaning a little better.

In religious traditions, patience is more than waiting, or even more than enduring a hardship. But what is that “more,” and how does being patient make us better people?

The writings of medieval Islamic thinker Abu Hamid al-Ghazali can give us insights or help us understand why we need to practice patience – and also when not to be patient.

Who was al-Ghazali?

Born in Iran in 1058, al-Ghazali was widely respected as a jurist, philosopher and theologian. He traveled to places as far as Baghdad and Jerusalem to defend Islam and argued there was no contradiction between reason and revelation. More specifically, he was well known for reconciling Aristotle’s philosophy, which he likely read in Arabic translation, with Islamic theology.

Al-Ghazali was a prolific writer, and one of his most important works – “Revival of the Religious Sciences,” or the “Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn” – provides a practical guide for living an ethical Muslim life.

This work is composed of 40 volumes in total, divided into four parts of 10 books each. Part 1 deals with Islamic rituals; Part 2, local customs; Part 3, vices to be avoided; and Part 4, virtues one should strive for. Al-Ghazali’s discussion of patience comes in Volume 32 of Part 4, “On Patience and Thankfulness,” or the “Kitāb al-sabr waʾl-shukr.”

He describes patience as a fundamental human characteristic that is crucial to achieving value-driven goals, and he provides a caveat for when impatience is called for.

1. What is patience?

Humans, according to al-Ghazali, have competing impulses: the impulse of religion, or “bāʿith al-dīn,” and the impulse of desire, or “bāʿith al-hawā.”

Life is a struggle between these two impulses, which he describes with the metaphor of a battle: “Support for the religious impulse comes from the angels reinforcing the troops of God, while support for the impulse of desire comes from the devils reinforcing the enemies of God.”

The amount of patience we have is what decides who wins the battle. As al-Ghazali puts it, “If a man remains steadfast until the religious impulse conquers … then the troops of God are victorious and he joins the troops of the patient. But if he slackens and weakens until appetite overcomes him … he joins the followers of the devils.” In other words, for al-Ghazali, patience is the deciding factor of whether we are living up to our full human potential to live ethically.

2. Patience, values and goals

Patience is also necessary for being a good Muslim, in al-Ghazali’s view. But his understanding of how patience works rests on a theory of ethics and can be applied outside of his explicitly Islamic worldview.

It all starts with commitments to core values. For a Muslim like al-Ghazali, those values are informed by the Islamic tradition and community, or “umma,” and include things like justice and mercy. These specific values might be universally applicable. Or you might also have another set of values that are important to you. Perhaps a commitment to social justice, or being a good friend, or not lying.

“Nizamiyyah University Nishapur,” Digital imagining, Dall-E, 2024.

Living in a way that is consistent with these core values is what the moral life is all about. And patience, according to al-Ghazali, is how we consistently make sure our actions serve this purpose.

That means patience is not just enduring the pain of a toddler’s temper tantrum. It is enduring that pain with a goal in mind. The successful application of patience is measured not by how much pain we endure but by our progress toward a specific goal, such as raising a healthy and happy child who can eventually regulate their emotions.

In al-Ghazali’s understanding of patience, we all need it in order to remain committed to our core principles and ideas when things aren’t going our way.

3. When impatience is called for

One critique of the idea of patience is that it can lead to inaction or be used to silence justified complaints. For instance, scholar of Africana studies Julius Fleming argues in his book “Black Patience” for the importance of a “radical refusal to wait” under conditions of systemic racism. Certainly, there are forms of injustice and suffering in the world that we should not calmly endure.

Despite his commitment to the importance of patience to a moral life, al-Ghazali makes room for impatience as well. He writes, “One is forbidden to be patient with harm (that is) forbidden; for example, to have one’s hand cut off or to witness the cutting off of the hand of a son and to remain silent.”

These are examples of harms to oneself or to loved ones. But could the necessity for impatience be extended to social harms, such as systemic racism or poverty? And as Quranic studies scholars Ahmad Ismail and Ahmad Solahuddin have argued, true patience sometimes necessitates action.

As al-Ghazali writes, “Just because patience is half of faith, do not imagine that it is all commendable; what is intended are specific kinds of patience.”

To sum up, not all patience is good; only patience that is in service of righteous goals is key to the ethical life. The question of which goals are righteous is one we must all answer for ourselves.

Liz Bucar, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Northeastern University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.