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 محتاج مساعدة يا زملاء(بحث عن الأديان)..
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أعمل بجد في موضوع البحث أدناه وأحتاج لنكات وأسماء مراجع وكتب قدر الإمكان
The role of the religions in the development of civilizations and in the interactions between one or more civilizations or cultures.
I hope if poosible to provide me with some links or info about the above topic.
Thanks
seif
بوسطون
ومعا لإثراء الحوار والبحث عن المعرفة...
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Re: محتاج مساعدة يا زملاء(بحث عن الأديان).. (Re: سيف اليزل برعي البدوي)
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Clash of Civilizations or Clash of Religions
Which is a More Important Determinant of Ethnic Conflict?
Jonathan Fox
Bar Ilan University, Israel
Samuel Huntington's ‘clash of civilizations’ argument that in the future most conflicts will be between civilizations has been the source of considerable debate within international relations. Among the criticisms of this argument is the fact that there is a considerable overlap between Huntington's concept of civilizations and religion. In fact, only one of Huntington's eight civilizations has no obvious religious component. This raises the question of whether the concept of civilizations is really a surrogate for religion. Accordingly, this study examines the influence of both religion and Huntington's concept of civilizations on ethnic conflict using data from the Minorities at Risk Phase 3 dataset as well as data on religion and civilizations collected independently. The results show that while there is considerable overlap between religion and civilization, the two are not the same. Also, while it is not clear whether religious or civilizational differences have a greater impact on ethnic conflict, it is clear that neither are they its primary cause. These results cast serious doubt on the validity of Huntington's hypothesis, at least as far as it concerns ethnic conflict.
Key Words: clash of civilizations • conflict • ethnic conflict • ethnicity • religion • Samuel Huntington
Ethnicities, Vol. 1, No. 3, 295-320 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/146879680100100302
http://etn.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1/3/295
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Re: محتاج مساعدة يا زملاء(بحث عن الأديان).. (Re: سيف اليزل برعي البدوي)
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A very detailed, well-written article dealing with the Native American Religion and the infringements it has suffered throughout history.
This article provides information on Native American religions, their practices and beliefs. You can gain an insight into the religious beliefs of two important Native American civilizations, the Maya and the Inca.
Paganism - Traditional Native American Religion
Pagan religions are known as nature based religions. Paganism denotes religious beliefs and practices that feature polytheism, the worship of multiple God and Divinities. The Pagan form of Native American religion was based on ancient beliefs, practices, gods, symbols, lands, music and myths. Traditional Native American religion made no distinction between the sacred and the ordinary. Every action in life was considered a spiritual dance between the person and the object acted upon. The various actions and thoughts were considered an interaction with the spirit. For example, hunting a beast for food was considered as a communication between the hunter and the beast.
Sacred stories and history played an important part in Native American religion. Many traditional rituals were designed to recreate myths. The dancing ritual is one such important ritual. Masked dancing is an important ritual in Huron, a Native American tribe. The dancers try to recreate the mythical beginnings of their families by bringing in the power of founding beings such as the raven, the killer whale etc. Dakota, a popular Native American civilization made no distinction between the natural world and the supernatural. They emphasized the unity of nature through various religious rituals. Iroquois was a strong Native American civilization, situated to the east of the Mississippi river. The Iroquois religion placed emphasis on the immortal soul. According to them, Great Sprit judges the soul of a man upon his death. They practiced ritual ceremonies in accordance with the various seasonal periods in a year.
Two important Native American civilizations were the Maya and the Inca civilizations. A look into the religious practices of these civilizations will give us a fairly accurate idea on the practices and beliefs of Native American religion.
Mayan Civilization
The Mayan civilization existed as a continuous territory along Southern Mexico, Guatemala and northern Belize around 250 AD. It contained more than 40 cities and over 2 million people. The periods between 300 and 900 were considered the classic period of the Mayas. Ceremonial architectural monuments were built in Maya some 3000 years ago. Mayans believed that the universe functioned in a logical, cyclical and predictable way and that humans can exploit the cyclical nature of the universe by accommodating them into the cycles.
Mayan Religion
The Mayans worshipped a number of Gods and Goddess and indulged in elaborate religious ceremonies. Many ritual plazas or temples were constructed to honor deities. Temple doorways were decorated with feathered banners. Worshippers took ritual steam baths and dressed in feathered robes and headdresses. They danced to the music of drums with bells tied to their hands and feet. Music, dance, competition, dramatic performances, prayer and sacrifices were significant ingredients of the Mayan worship. Mayans conducted ritual ceremonies to communicate with their deities during the month of July (The Mayan New Year). Elaborate ceremonies were conducted to please Gods during times of famine, epidemics or droughts. Mayans made simple offerings of Corn, fruit, game and blood (which a worshiper obtained by piercing his own lips, tongue or genitals) in order to obtain small favors from God. For major favors, they resorted to sacrifices. The Mayan religion emphasized human as well as animal sacrifices. Separate altars were constructed on top of the temples in order to conduct the sacrificial ceremonies, the sacrificial victims being children, slaves or prisoners of war.
Mayan Gods
Mayans worshipped a number of Gods and Goddess. Their chief God was Hunab Ku, the eyes and mouth of sun and lord of Heavens. He was the deity of the royal lineage and was worshiped as the God of day and night, responsible for rain, writing and medicine. Yum Kaax, the maize deity was the God of the common people. Women and children worshiped the Deity of Ix Chel (the lady rainbow) as the Goddess for healing, childbirth and weaving. Ixtab was the Goddess of suicide; Mayans believed that suicides went to a special heaven.
Some other important Gods of the Mayans are:
Bacabs – Lord of the seasons
Camazotz –The Bat God and demon of the underworld.
Chac – Rain God, Lord of East and Lord of nine generations
Hurakan – Lord of thunderstorms and whirlwind
Itzamna – Sky God and Healer
Kukulcan – Serpent God
Inca Civilizations
Manco Capac was the founder of the Inca dynasty. The civilization flourished along the Pacific coast and Andean highlands, from the northern border of modern Ecuador to Maule River in central Chile. Inca civilization contained a population of over 12 million people. Cuzco was the capital of the civilization.
Inca Religion
Incas worshiped multiple Gods and Goddess. They had multiple sacred sites, which contained the Huacas. Huacas are deities placed on natural objects such as mountains, boulders or streams, the priests offered prayers and communicated with them for advice and assistance. Most of the Inca temples had a priest who was important for prayers and religious ceremonies. The priests performed various functions such as diviner of lungs, sorcerer, confessor and curer. Villac umu, the chief priest of Cuzco had authority that equaled the Inca of the land.
Divination was important in Inca religion and was considered before every important action. Patterns in which spiders’ move, arrangements of coca leaves in a shallow dish, human predictions after the consumption of drink ayahuasca, studying the lungs of a sacrificed white llama were considered suitable methods for divination. The Incas offered human as well as animal sacrifices during troubled and festive times. Incas believed that a sacrificed person became God once death overtook them. Every month of the year, the Incas held a festival to honor their God. The various religious festivals of the Inca are described below:
http://www.clearleadinc.com/site/native-american-religion.html
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Re: محتاج مساعدة يا زملاء(بحث عن الأديان).. (Re: awadharoun)
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Quote: The role of the religions in the development of civilizations and in the interactions between one or more civilizations or cultures.
I hope if poosible to provide me with some links or info about the above topic |
تحياتي ,,,
رغم تواضع معلوماتي فى هذا المجال
أؤكد بأن ما تبحث عنه من تجانس ما بين الديانات والثقافات المختلفة ستجدها فى بلاد الهند وعليه يمكنك البحث فى العزيزة قوقل مع اضافة الهند فى جملة البحث
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Re: محتاج مساعدة يا زملاء(بحث عن الأديان).. (Re: سيف اليزل برعي البدوي)
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Made
Useful Contributions to Civilization?
by Bertrand Russell
Index: Historical Writings (Russell)
Home to Positive Atheism
Go to Bertrand Russell Society Home Page
My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilization. It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and it caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they became able to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others.
The word religion is used nowadays in a very loose sense. Some people, under the influence of extreme Protestantism, employ the word to denote any serious personal convictions as to morals or the nature of the universe. This use of the word is quite unhistorical. Religion is primarily a social phenomenon. Churches may owe their origin to teachers with strong individual convictions, but these teachers have seldom had much influence upon the churches that they have founded, whereas churches have had enormous influence upon the communities in which they flourished. To take the case that is of most interest to members of Western civilization: the teaching of Christ, as it appears in the Gospels, has had extraordinarily little to do with the ethics of Christians. The most important thing about Christianity, from a social and historical point of view, is not Christ but the church, and if we are to judge of Christianity as a social force we must not go to the Gospels for our material. Christ taught that you should give your goods to the poor, that you should not fight, that you should not go to church, and that you should not punish adultery. Neither Catholics nor Protestants have shown any strong desire to follow His teaching in any of these respects. Some of the Franciscans, it is true, attempted to teach the doctrine of apostolic poverty, but the Pope condemned them, and their doctrine was declared heretical. Or, again, consider such a text as "Judge not, that ye be not judged," and ask yourself what influence such a text has had upon the Inquisition and the Ku Klux Klan.
What is true of Christianity is equally true of Buddhism. The Buddha was amiable and enlightened; on his deathbed he laughed at his disciples for supposing that he was immortal. But the Buddhist priesthood -- as it exists, for example, in Tibet -- has been obscurantist, tyrannous, and cruel in the highest degree.
There is nothing accidental about this difference between a church and its founder. As soon as absolute truth is supposed to be contained in the sayings of a certain man, there is a body of experts to interpret his sayings, and these experts infallibly acquire power, since they hold the key to truth. Like any other privileged caste, they use their power for their own advantage. They are, however, in one respect worse than any other privileged caste, since it is their business to expound an unchanging truth, revealed once for all in utter perfection, so that they become necessarily opponents of all intellectual and moral progress. The church opposed Galileo and Darwin; in our own day it opposes Freud. In the days of its greatest power it went further in its opposition to the intellectual life. Pope Gregory the Great wrote to a certain bishop a letter beginning: "A report has reached us which we cannot mention without a blush, that thou expoundest grammar to certain friends." The bishop was compelled by pontifical authority to desist from this wicked labor, and Latinity did not recover until the Renaissance. It is not only intellectually but also morally that religion is pernicious. I mean by this that it teaches ethical codes which are not conducive to human happiness. When, a few years ago, a plebiscite was taken in Germany as to whether the deposed royal houses should still be allowed to enjoy their private property, the churches in Germany officially stated that it would be contrary to the teaching of Christianity to deprive them of it. The churches, as everyone knows, opposed the abolition of slavery as long as they dared, and with a few well-advertised exceptions they oppose at the present day every movement toward economic justice. The Pope has officially condemned Socialism.
Christianity and Sex
The worst feature of the Christian religion, however, is its attitude toward sex -- an attitude so morbid and so unnatural that it can be understood only when taken in relation to the sickness of the civilized world at the time the Roman Empire was decaying. We sometimes hear talk to the effect that Christianity improved the status of women. This is one of the grossest perversions of history that it is possible to make. Women cannot enjoy a tolerable position in society where it is considered of the utmost importance that they should not infringe a very rigid moral code. Monks have always regarded Woman primarily as the temptress; they have thought of her mainly as the inspirer of impure lusts. The teaching of the church has been, and still is, that virginity is best, but that for those who find this impossible marriage is permissible. "It is better to marry than to burn," as St. Paul puts it. By making marriage indissoluble, and by stamping out all knowledge of the ars amandi, the church did what it could to secure that the only form of sex which it permitted should involve very little pleasure and a great deal of pain. The opposition to birth control has, in fact, the same motive: if a woman has a child a year until she dies worn out, it is not to be supposed that she will derive much pleasure from her married life; therefore birth control must be discouraged.
The conception of Sin which is bound up with Christian ethics is one that does an extraordinary amount of harm, since it affords people an outlet for their sadism which they believe to be legitimate, and even noble. Take, for example, the question of the prevention of syphilis. It is known that, by precautions taken in advance, the danger of contracting this disease can be made negligible. Christians, however, object to the dissemination of knowledge of this fact, since they hold it good that sinners should be punished. They hold this so good that they are even willing that punishment should extend to the wives and children of sinners. There are in the world at the present moment many thousands of children suffering from congenital syphilis who would never have been born but for the desire of Christians to see sinners punished. I cannot understand how doctrines leading us to this fiendish cruelty can be considered to have any good effects upon morals.
It is not only in regard to sexual behaviour but also in regard to knowledge on sex subjects that the attitude of Christians is dangerous to human welfare. Every person who has taken the trouble to study the question in an unbiased spirit knows that the artificial ignorance on sex subjects which orthodox Christians attempt to enforce upon the young is extremely dangerous to mental and physical health, and causes in those who pick up their knowledge by the way of "improper" talk, as most children do, an attitude that sex is in itself indecent and ridiculous. I do not think there can be any defense for the view that knowledge is ever undesirable. I should not put barriers in the way of the acquisition of knowledge by anybody at any age. But in the particular case of sex knowledge there are much weightier arguments in its favor than in the case of most other knowledge. A person is much less likely to act wisely when he is ignorant than when he is instructed, and it is ridiculous to give young people a sense of sin because they have a natural curiosity about an important matter.
Every boy is interested in trains. Suppose we told him that an interest in trains is wicked; suppose we kept his eyes bandaged whenever he was in a train or on a railway station; suppose we never allowed the word "train" to be mentioned in his presence and preserved an impenetrable mystery as to the means by which he is transported from one place to another. The result would not be that he would cease to be interested in trains; on the contrary, he would become more interested than ever but would have a morbid sense of sin, because this interest had been represented to him as improper. Every boy of active intelligence could by this means be rendered in a greater or less degree neurasthenic. This is precisely what is done in the matter of sex; but, as sex is more interesting than trains, the results are worse. Almost every adult in a Christian community is more or less diseased nervously as a result of the taboo on sex knowledge when he or she was young. And the sense of sin which is thus artificially implanted is one of the causes of cruelty, timidity, and stupidity in later life. There is no rational ground of any sort or kind in keeping a child ignorant of anything that he may wish to know, whether on sex or on any other matter. And we shall never get a sane population until this fact is recognized in early education, which is impossible so long as the churches are able to control educational politics.
Leaving these comparatively detailed objections on one side, it is clear that the fundamental doctrines of Christianity demand a great deal of ethical perversion before they can be accepted. The world, we are told, was created by a God who is both good and omnipotent. Before He created the world He foresaw all the pain and misery that it would contain; He is therefore responsible for all of it. It is useless to argue that the pain in the world is due to sin. In the first place, this is not true; it is not sin that causes rivers to overflow their banks or volcanoes to erupt. But even if it were true, it would make no difference. If I were going to beget a child knowing that the child was going to be a homicidal maniac, I should be responsible for his crimes. If God knew in advance the sins of which man would be guilty, He was clearly responsible for all the consequences of those sins when He decided to create man. The usual Christian argument is that the suffering in the world is a purification for sin and is therefore a good thing. This argument is, of course, only a rationalization of sadism; but in any case it is a very poor argument. I would invite any Christian to accompany me to the children's ward of a hospital, to watch the suffering that is there being endured, and then to persist in the assertion that those children are so morally abandoned as to deserve what they are suffering. In order to bring himself to say this, a man must destroy in himself all feelings of mercy and compassion. He must, in short, make himself as cruel as the God in whom he believes. No man who believes that all is for the best in this suffering world can keep his ethical values unimpaired, since he is always having to find excuses for pain and misery.
The Objections to Religion
The objections to religion are of two sorts -- intellectual and moral. The intellectual objection is that there is no reason to suppose any religion true; the moral objection is that religious precepts date from a time when men were more cruel than they are and therefore tend to perpetuate inhumanities which the moral conscience of the age would otherwise outgrow.
To take the intellectual objection first: there is a certain tendency in our practical age to consider that it does not much matter whether religious teaching is true or not, since the important question is whether it is useful. One question cannot, however, well be decided without the other. If we believe the Christian religion, our notions of what is good will be different from what they will be if we do not believe it. Therefore, to Christians, the effects of Christianity may seem good, while to unbelievers they may seem bad. Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
A certain kind of scientific candor is a very important quality, and it is one which can hardly exist in a man who imagines that there are things which it is his duty to believe. We cannot, therefore, really decide whether religion does good without investigating the question whether religion is true. To Christians, Mohammedans, and Jews the most fundamental question involved in the truth of religion is the existence of God. In the days when religion was still triumphant the word "God" had a perfectly definite meaning; but as a result of the onslaughts of the Rationalists the word has become paler and paler, until it is difficult to see what people mean when they assert that they believe in God. Let us take, for purposes of argument, Matthew Arnold's definition: "A power not ourselves that makes for righteousness." Perhaps we might make this even more vague and ask ourselves whether we have any evidence of purpose in this universe apart from the purposes of living beings on the surface of this planet.
The usual argument of religious people on this subject is roughly as follows: "I and my friends are persons of amazing intelligence and virtue. It is hardly conceivable that so much intelligence and virtue could have come about by chance. There must, therefore, be someone at least as intelligent and virtuous as we are who set the cosmic machinery in motion with a view to producing Us." I am sorry to say that I do not find this argument so impressive as it is found by those who use it. The universe is large; yet, if we are to believe Eddington, there are probably nowhere else in the universe beings as intelligent as men. If you consider the total amount of matter in the world and compare it with the amount forming the bodies of intelligent beings, you will see that the latter bears an almost infinitesimal proportion to the former. Consequently, even if it is enormously improbable that the laws of chance will produce an organism capable of intelligence out of a casual selection of atoms, it is nevertheless probable that there will be in the universe that very small number of such organisms that we do in fact find.
Then again, considered as the climax to such a vast process, we do not really seem to me sufficiently marvelous. Of course, I am aware that many divines are far more marvelous than I am, and that I cannot wholly appreciate merits so far transcending my own. Nevertheless, even after making allowances under this head, I cannot but think that Omnipotence operating through all eternity might have produced something better. And then we have to reflect that even this result is only a flash in the pan. The earth will not always remain habitable; the human race will die out, and if the cosmic process is to justify itself hereafter it will have to do so elsewhere than on the surface of our planet.. And even if this should occur, it must stop sooner or later. The second law of thermodynamics makes it scarcely possible to doubt that the universe is running down, and that ultimately nothing of the slightest interest will be possible anywhere. Of course, it is open to us to say that when that time comes God will wind up the machinery again; but if we do not say this, we can base our assertion only upon faith, not upon one shred of scientific evidence. So far as scientific evidence goes, the universe has crawled by slow stages to a somewhat pitiful result on this earth and is going to crawl by still more pitiful stages to a condition of universal death. If this is to be taken as evidence of a purpose, I can only say that the purpose is one that does not appeal to me. I see no reason, therefore, to believe in any sort of God, however vague and however attenuated. I leave on one side the old ####physical arguments, since religious apologists themselves have thrown them over.
The Soul and Immortality
The Christian emphasis on the individual soul has had a profound influence upon the ethics of Christian communities. It is a doctrine fundamentally akin to that of the Stoics, arising as theirs did in communities that could no longer cherish political hopes. The natural impulse of the vigorous person of decent character is to attempt to do good, but if he is deprived of all political power and of all opportunity to influence events, he will be deflected from his natural course and will decide that the important thing is to be good. This is what happened to the early Christians; it led to a conception of personal holiness as something quite independent of beneficient action, since holiness had to be something that could be achieved by people who were impotent in action. Social virtue came therefore to be excluded from Christian ethics. To this day conventional Christians think an adulterer more wicked than a politician who takes bribes, although the latter probably does a thousand times as much harm. The medieval conception of virtue, as one sees in their pictures, was of something wishy-washy, feeble, and sentimental. The most virtuous man was the man who retired from the world; the only men of action who were regarded as saints were those who wasted the lives and substance of their subjects in fighting the Turks, like St. Louis. The church would never regard a man as a saint because he reformed the finances, or the criminal law, or the judiciary. Such mere contributions to human welfare would be regarded as of no importance. I do not believe there is a single saint in the whole calendar whose saintship is due to work of public utility. With this separation between the social and the moral person there went an increasing separation between soul and body, which has survived in Christian ####physics and in the systems derived from Descartes. One may say, broadly speaking, that the body represents the social and public part of a man, whereas the soul represents the private part. In emphasizing the soul, Christian ethics has made itself completely individualistic. I think it is clear that the net result of all the centuries of Christianity has been to make men more egotistic, more shut up in themselves, than nature made them; for the impulses that naturally take a man outside the walls of his ego are those of sex, parenthood, and patriotism or herd instinct. Sex the church did everything it could to decry and degrade; family affection was decried by Christ himself and the bulk of his followers; and patriotism could find no place among the subject populations of the Roman Empire. The polemic against the family in the Gospels is a matter that has not received the attention it deserves. The church treats the Mother of Christ with reverence, but He Himself showed little of this attitude. "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" (John ii, 4) is His way of speaking to her. He says also that He has come to set a man at variance against his father, the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and that he that loveth father and mother more than Him is not worthy of Him (Matt. x, 35-37). All this means the breakup of the biological family tie for the sake of creed -- an attitude which had a great deal to do with the intolerance that came into the world with the spread of Christianity.
This individualism culminated in the doctrine of the immortality of the individual soul, which was to enjoy hereafter endless bliss or endless woe according to circumstances. The circumstances upon which this momentous difference depended were somewhat curious. For example, if you died immediately after a priest had sprinkled water upon you while pronouncing certain words, you inherited eternal bliss; whereas, if after a long and virtuous life you happened to be struck by lightning at a moment when you were using bad language because you had broken a bootlace, you would inherit eternal torment. I do not say that the modern Protestant Christian believes this, nor even perhaps the modern Catholic Christian who has not been adequately instructed in theology; but I do say that this is the orthodox doctrine and was firmly believed until recent times. The Spaniards in Mexico and Peru used to baptize Indian infants and then immediately dash their brains out: by this means they secured that these infants went to Heaven. No orthodox Christian can find any logical reason for condemning their action, although all nowadays do so. In countless ways the doctrine of personal immortality in its Christian form has had disastrous effects upon morals, and the ####physical separation of soul and body has had disastrous effects upon philosophy.
Sources of Intolerance
The intolerance that spread over the world with the advent of Christianity is one of the most curious features, due, I think, to the Jewish belief in righteousness and in the exclusive reality of the Jewish God. Why the Jews should have had these peculiarities I do not know. They seem to have developed during the captivity as a reaction against the attempt to absorb the Jews into alien populations. However that may be, the Jews, and more especially the prophets, invented emphasis upon personal righteousness and the idea that it is wicked to tolerate any religion except one. These two ideas have had an extraordinarily disastrous effect upon Occidental history. The church made much of the persecution of Christians by the Roman State before the time of Constantine. This persecution, however, was slight and intermittent and wholly political. At all times, from the age of Constantine to the end of the seventeenth century, Christians were far more fiercely persecuted by other Christians than they ever were by the Roman emperors. Before the rise of Christianity this persecuting attitude was unknown to the ancient world except among the Jews. If you read, for example, Herodotus, you find a bland and tolerant account of the habits of the foreign nations he visited. Sometimes, it is true, a peculiarly barbarous custom may shock him, but in general he is hospitable to foreign gods and foreign customs. He is not anxious to prove that people who call Zeus by some other name will suffer eternal punishment and ought to be put to death in order that their punishment may begin as soon as possible. This attitude has been reserved for Christians. It is true that the modern Christian is less robust, but that is not thanks to Christianity; it is thanks to the generations of freethinkers, who from the Renaissance to the present day, have made Christians ashamed of many of their traditional beliefs. It is amusing to hear the modern Christian telling you how mild and rationalistic Christianity really is and ignoring the fact that all its mildness and rationalism is due to the teaching of men who in their own day were persecuted by all orthodox Christians. Nobody nowadays believes that the world was created in 4004 b.c.; but not so very long ago skepticism on this point was thought an abominable crime. My great-great-grandfather, after observing the depth of the lava on the slopes of Etna, came to the conclusion that the world must be older than the orthodox supposed and published this opinion in a book. For this offense he was cut by the county and ostracized from society. Had he been a man in humbler circumstances, his punishment would doubtless have been more severe. It is no credit to the orthodox that they do not now believe all the absurdities that were believed 150 years ago. The gradual emasculation of the Christian doctrine has been effected in spite of the most vigorous resistance, and solely as the result of the onslaughts of freethinkers.
The Doctrine of Free Will
The attitude of the Christians on the subject of natural law has been curiously vacillating and uncertain. There was, on the one hand, the doctrine of free will, in which the great majority of Christians believed; and this doctrine required that the acts of human beings at least should not be subject to natural law. There was, on the other hand, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a belief in God as the Lawgiver and in natural law as one of the main evidences of the existence of a Creator. In recent times the objection to the reign of law in the interests of free will has begun to be felt more strongly than the belief in natural law as affording evidence for a Lawgiver. Materialists used the laws of physics to show, or attempt to show, that the movements of human bodies are mechanically determined, and that consequently everything that we say and every change of position that we effect fall outside the sphere of any possible free will. If this be so, whatever may be left for our unfettered volitions is of little value. If, when a man writes a poem or commits a murder, the bodily movements involved in his act result solely from physical causes, it would seem absurd to put up a statue to him in the one case and to hang him in the other. There might in certain ####physical systems remain a region of pure thought in which the will would be free; but, since that can be communicated to others only by means of bodily movement, the realm of freedom would be one that could never be the subject of communication and could never have any social importance.
Then, again, evolution has had a considerable influence upon those Christians who have accepted it. They have seen that it will not do to make claims on behalf of man which are totally different from those which are made on behalf of other forms of life. Therefore, in order to safeguard free will in man, they have objected to every attempt at explaining the behaviour of living matter in terms of physical and chemical laws. The position of Descartes, to the effect that all lower animals are automata, no longer finds favor with liberal theologians. The doctrine of continuity makes them inclined to go a step further still and maintain that even what is called dead matter is not rigidly governed in its behaviour by unalterable laws. They seem to have overlooked the fact that, if you abolish the reign of law, you also abolish the possibility of miracles, since miracles are acts of God which contravene the laws governing ordinary phenomena. I can, however, imagine the modern liberal theologian maintaining with an air of profundity that all creation is miraculous, so that he no longer needs to fasten upon certain occurrences as special evidence of Divine intervention.
Under the influence of this reaction against natural law, some Christian apologists have seized upon the latest doctrines of the atom, which tend to show that the physical laws in which we have hitherto believed have only an approximate and average truth as applied to large numbers of atoms, while the individual electron behaves pretty much as it likes. My own belief is that this is a temporary phase, and that the physicists will in time discover laws governing minute phenomena, although these laws may differ considerably from those of traditional physics. However that may be, it is worth while to observe that the modern doctrines as to minute phenomena have no bearing upon anything that is of practical importance. Visible motions, and indeed all motions that make any difference to anybody, involve such large numbers of atoms that they come well within the scope of the old laws. To write a poem or commit a murder (reverting to our previous illustration), it is necessary to move an appreciable mass of ink or lead. The electrons composing the ink may be dancing freely around their little ballroom, but the ballroom as a whole is moving according to the old laws of physics, and this alone is what concerns the poet and his publisher. The modern doctrines, therefore, have no appreciable bearing upon any of those problems of human interest with which the theologian is concerned.
The free-will question consequently remains just where it was. Whatever may be thought about it as a matter of ultimate ####physics, it is quite clear that nobody believes it in practice. Everyone has always believed that it is possible to train character; everyone has always known that alcohol or opium will have a certain effect on behaviour. The apostle of free will maintains that a man can by will power avoid getting drunk, but he does not maintain that when drunk a man can say "British Constitution" as clearly as if he were sober. And everybody who has ever had to do with children knows that a suitable diet does more to make them virtuous than the most eloquent preaching in the world. The one effect that the free-will doctrine has in practice is to prevent people from following out such common-sense knowledge to its rational conclusion. When a man acts in ways that annoy us we wish to think him wicked, and we refuse to face the fact that his annoying behaviour is a result of antecedent causes which, if you follow them long enough, will take you beyond the moment of his birth and therefore to events for which he cannot be held responsible by any stretch of imagination.
No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behaviour to sin; he does not say, "You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go." He attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right. An analogous way of treating human beings is, however, considered to be contrary to the truths of our holy religion. And this applies even in the treatment of little children. Many children have bad habits which are perpetuated by punishment but will probably pass away of themselves if left unnoticed. Nevertheless, nurses, with very few exceptions, consider it right to inflict punishment, although by so doing they run the risk of causing insanity. When insanity has been caused it is cited in courts of law as a proof of the harmfulness of the habit, not of the punishment. (I am alluding to a recent prosecution for obscenity in the State of New York.)
Reforms in education have come very largely through the study of the insane and feeble-minded, because they have not been held morally responsible for their failures and have therefore been treated more scientifically than normal children. Until very recently it was held that, if a boy could not learn his lesson, the proper cure was caning or flogging. This view is nearly extinct in the treatment of children, but it survives in the criminal law. It is evident that a man with a propensity to crime must be stopped, but so must a man who has hydrophobia and wants to bite people, although nobody considers him morally responsible. A man who is suffering from plague has to be imprisoned until he is cured, although nobody thinks him wicked. The same thing should be done with a man who suffers from a propensity to commit forgery; but there should be no more idea of guilt in the one case than in the other. And this is only common sense, though it is a form of common sense to which Christian ethics and ####physics are opposed.
To judge of the moral influence of any institution upon a community, we have to consider the kind of impulse which is embodied in the institution and the degree to which the institution increases the efficacy of the impulse in that community. Sometimes the impulse concerned is quite obvious, sometimes it is more hidden. An Alpine club, for example, obviously embodies the impulse to adventure, and a learned society embodies the impulse toward knowledge. The family as an institution embodies jealousy and parental feeling; a football club or a political party embodies the impulse toward competitive play; but the two greatest social institutions -- namely, the church and the state -- are more complex in their psychological motivation. The primary purpose of the state is clearly security against both internal criminals and external enemies. It is rooted in the tendency of children to huddle together when they are frightened and to look for a grown-up person who will give them a sense of security. The church has more complex origins. Undoubtedly the most important source of religion is fear; this can be seen in the present day, since anything that causes alarm is apt to turn people's thoughts to God. Battle, pestilence, and shipwreck all tend to make people religious. Religion has, however, other appeals besides that of terror; it appeals specifically to our human self-esteem. If Christianity is true, mankind are not such pitiful worms as they seem to be; they are of interest to the Creator of the universe, who takes the trouble to be pleased with them when they behave well and displeased when they behave badly. This is a great compliment. We should not think of studying an ants' nest to find out which of the ants performed their formicular duty, and we should certainly not think of picking out those individual ants who were remiss and putting them into a bonfire. If God does this for us, it is a compliment to our importance; and it is even a pleasanter compliment if he awards to the good among us everlasting happiness in heaven. Then there is the comparitively modern idea that cosmic evolution is all designed to bring about the sort of results which we call good -- that is to say, the sort of results that give us pleasure. Here again it is flattering to suppose that the universe is controlled by a Being who shares our tastes and prejudices.
The Idea of Righteousness
The third psychological impulse which is embodied in religion is that which has led to the conception of righteousness. I am aware that many freethinkers treat this conception with great respect and hold that it should be preserved in spite of the decay of dogmatic religion. I cannot agree with them on this point. The psychological analysis of the idea of righteousness seems to me to show that it is rooted in undesirable passions and ought not to be strengthened by the imprimatur of reason. Righteousness and unrighteousness must be taken together; it is impossible to stress the one without stressing the other also. Now, what is "unrighteousness" in practise? It is in practise behaviour of a kind disliked by the herd. By calling it unrighteousness, and by arranging an elaborate system of ethics around this conception, the herd justifies itself in wreaking punishment upon the objects of its own dislike, while at the same time, since the herd is righteous by definition, it enhances its own self-esteem at the very moment when it lets loose its impulse to cruelty. This is the psychology of lynching, and of the other ways in which criminals are punished. The essence of the conception of righteousness, therefore, is to afford an outlet for sadism by cloaking cruelty as justice.
But, it will be said, the account you have been giving of righteousness is wholly inapplicable to the Hebrew prophets, who, after all, on your own showing, invented the idea. There is truth in this: righteousness in the mouths of the Hebrew prophets meant what was approved by them and Yahweh. One finds the same attitude expressed in the Acts of the Apostles, where the Apostles began a pronouncement with the words "For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us" (Acts xv, 28). This kind of individual certainty as to God's tastes and opinions cannot, however, be made the basis of any institution. That has always been the difficulty with which Protestantism has had to contend: a new prophet could maintain that his revelation was more authentic than those of his predecessors, and there was nothing in the general outlook of Protestantism to show that this claim was invalid. Consequently Protestantism split into innumerable sects, which weakened one another; and there is reason to suppose that a hundred years hence Catholicism will be the only effective representation of the Christian faith. In the Catholic Church inspiration such as the prophets enjoyed has its place; but it is recognized that phenomena which look rather like genuine divine inspiration may be inspired by the Devil, and it is the business of the church to discriminate, just as it is the business of the art connoisseur to know a genuine Leonardo from a forgery. In this way revelation becomes institutionalized at the same time. Righteousness is what the church approves, and unrighteousness is what it disapproves. Thus the effective part of the conception of righteousness is a justification of herd antipathy.
It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one may say, is to give an air of respectability to these passions, provided they run in certain channels. It is because these passions make, on the whole, for human misery that religion is a force for evil, since it permits men to indulge these passions without restraint, where but for its sanction they might, at least to a certain degree, control them.
I can imagine at this point an objection, not likely to be urged perhaps by most orthodox believers but nevertheless worthy to be examined. Hatred and fear, it may be said, are essential human characteristics; mankind always has felt them and always will. The best that you can do with them, I may be told, is to direct them into certain channels in which they are less harmful than they would be in certain other channels. A Christian theologian might say that their treatment by the church in analogous to its treatment of the sex impulse, which it deplores. It attempts to render concupiscence innocuous by confining it within the bounds of matrimony. So, it may be said, if mankind must inevitably feel hatred, it is better to direct this hatred against those who are really harmful, and this is precisely what the church does by its conception of righteousness.
To this contention there are two replies -- one comparatively superficial; the other going to the root of the matter. The superficial reply is that the church's conception of righteousness is not the best possible; the fundamental reply is that hatred and fear can, with our present psychological knowledge and our present industrial technique, be eliminated altogether from human life.
To take the first point first. The church's conception of righteousness is socially undesirable in various ways -- first and foremost in its depriciation of intelligence and science. This defect is inherited from the Gospels. Christ tells us to become as little children, but little children cannot understand the differential calculus, or the principles of currency, or the modern methods of combating disease. To acquire such knowledge is no part of our duty, according to the church. The church no longer contends that knowledge is in itself sinful, though it did so in its palmy days; but the acquisition of knowledge, even though not sinful, is dangerous, since it may lead to a pride of intellect, and hence to a questioning of the Christian dogma. Take, for example, two men, one of whom has stamped out yellow fever throughout some large region in the tropics but has in the course of his labors had occasional relations with women to whom he was not married; while the other has been lazy and shiftless, begetting a child a year until his wife died of exhaustion and taking so little care of his children that half of them died from preventable causes, but never indulging in illicit sexual intercourse. Every good Christian must maintain that the second of these men is more virtuous than the first. Such an attitude is, of course, superstitious and totally contrary to reason. Yet something of this absurdity is inevitable so long as avoidance of sin is thought more important than positive merit, and so long as the importance of knowledge as a help to a useful life is not recognized.
The second and more fundamental objection to the utilization of fear and hatred practised by the church is that these emotions can now be almost wholly eliminated from human nature by educational, economic, and political reforms. The educational reforms must be the basis, since men who feel hatred and fear will also admire these emotions and wish to perpetuate them, although this admiration and wish will probably be unconscious, as it is in the ordinary Christian. An education designed to eliminate fear is by no means difficult to create. It is only necessary to treat a child with kindness, to put him in an environment where initiative is possible without disastrous results, and to save him from contact with adults who have irrational terrors, whether of the dark, of mice, or of social revolution. A child must also not be subject to severe punishment, or to threats, or to grave and excessive reproof. To save a child from hatred is a somewhat more elaborate business. Situations arousing jealousy must be very carefully avoided by means of scrupulous and exact justice as between different children. A child must feel himself the object of warm affection on the part of some at least of the adults with whom he has to do, and he must not be thwarted in his natural activities and curiosities except when danger to life or health is concerned. In particular, there must be no taboo on sex knowledge, or on conversation about matters which conventional people consider improper. If these simple precepts are observed from the start, the child will be fearless and friendly.
On entering adult life, however, a young person so educated will find himself or herself plunged into a world full of injustice, full of cruelty, full of preventable misery. The injustice, the cruelty, and the misery that exist in the modern world are an inheritance from the past, and their ultimate source is economic, since life-and-death competition for the means of subsistence was in former days inevitable. It is not inevitable in our age. With our present industrial technique we can, if we choose, provide a tolerable subsistence for everybody. We could also secure that the world's population should be stationary if we were not prevented by the political influence of churches which prefer war, pestilence, and famine to contraception. The knowledge exists by which universal happiness can be secured; the chief obstacle to its utilization for that purpose is the teaching of religion. Religion prevents our children from having a rational education; religion prevents us from removing the fundamental causes of war; religion prevents us from teaching the ethic of scientific co-operation in place of the old fierce doctrines of sin and punishment. It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.
Index: Historical Writings (Russell)
Home to Positive Atheism
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell2.htm
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Re: محتاج مساعدة يا زملاء(بحث عن الأديان).. (Re: سيف اليزل برعي البدوي)
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DURING THE RENAISSANCE PERIOD IN THE FIELD OF MEDICINE OR ITS ALLIED SUBJECT
Prof. Dr. A. Mottaleb
BANGLADESH
The coming of Islam in the sixth century created faith and confidence in its followers and gave them a message of brotherhood and a measure of Democracy. They led great conquest and within the hundred years of the death of Prophet organized a Wonderful Kingdom from the East Coast of Arabian sea to the East Coast of Atlantic & developed a culture and civilization which stood as a marvel of the middle ages when the whole World and Europe was plunged into barbaric ignorance and rift alone held the torch of learning and civilization brightly shining which lighted the World upto 1650. Islam considered the religion of Science to be the Twin sisters and on the fundamental faith the glory of Islamic Science & Medicine flourished.
Among the ancients we do not find much science in Egypt, China and India, and just a bit of it in Greece and it was absent in Rome. The Arabs had the scientific spirit of enquiry and they may be considered to be the father of the Modern Science.
The main achievement of medieval Arabic Medicine and its influence on the European Medicine was in the field of:-
Systemization.
Development of Pharmacology.
Establishment of Surgery.
Establishment of Ophthalmology.
And
Building of Hospitals.
This can be said that the rise of Islam, one of the wonders of the world brought fundamental changes in faith, Philosophy, Politics, Economics, Arts and above all science and everything that is needed for civilized living for which there is no second example on the Earth. The wisdom of the other people were taken and the man educated in previous traditions when become Muslim fused their formal learning with the Ouranic Philosophy. Their contributions went into the general stream of Islamic thoughts and thus an autonomous Islamic culture and science took shape.
On the basis of this knowledge gained from others they made their own researches and made several important discoveries. These scientific activities took place allover the Islamic Empire but above all toward Baghdad the capital of Islam the eye of Iraq, the seat of empire, the centre of beauty culture and arts. The Arabs were great travelers, Historians and Writers (Al-Beruni, Ibne Batuta, etc.) which contributed in the flow of knowledge in the Islamic World. Supreme confidence and faith in himself the Prophet had which he left as heritage for his followers is evidenced by his invitations to the mighty emperors of Persia, Rome, Constantinapole and China to embress Islam.
Arabic Medicine began with translation from Greek and Syria created by ORIBASIOS AND PAULOS of Aegina. The Arabs took over the Galanic system, corrected it, improved it added new things to it until the European impact on it in the 19th century. When the chief works of Galen & Hippocratics were available in Arabic, the Christian lost their monopoly in Medicine & several Muslims reached such a stature in Medical science they stood for above their oredecessor and become greater than the Greatest -the Greeks.
The attitude of Europe to the Arabs & Islam was a contrast of fear and admiration coupled with acknowledgement of superiority. This was altered with the capture of Toledo in 1085, the conquest of Sicily in 1091 and fall of Jerusalem in Christian Cruseders in 1099. These events along with tread brough the Western Europe in contact with Islamic Civilization in Muslim Spain & in Palestine. There for the first time they realised that the Islamic culture & Science is far more superior that they ever seen before. So started the translation of Arabic science into Latin & on the foundation of which the Europe has developed the Modern science. Not Merely did Islam share with Western Europe many material product and technological discoveries; not merely did it stimulate Europe internationally in the fields of but it provoked Europe in the forming a new image of itself. According to Baron-Carra-de-Bany the writer of legacy of Islam concludes by saying that the Arabs have really achieved great things in science they taught the use of Arabic numerals and thus became famous of arithmetic in everyday life. They made Algebra & exact science and laid the foundation of analytical Geometry plans and spherical Trigonometry, which did not exit among the Greek. In Astronomy they made valuable contribution because they had to know the direction of Makkah. It was in fact in the sphere of Mathematics and Astronomy that the fast advances were made by the Arabs in Islam. They also made a considerable contribution and sea fearing and discovered the telescope and mariners compass. They talked well the art of gracious living in which the small things the shocks and kamizs were introduced by the Muslim thinkers which passed from Islamic World through Constantinapole to Europe. Of the Other Sciences contributed by the Arabs the most important was Al-Camy in the sense of Chemistry.
Jabir-Ibne-Haiyan was the most prominent among the chemists, several names for substances and chemical vessels have come into European languages from Jabir Corpus. The Arabs made a substantial contribution in the field of Botany, Zoology & Mineralogy and the best works were in Botany, Logic and ####physis also took a greater strive during the Islamic period. Imam Gazzali (R) and Ibne-Seena, Ibne-bajja, Musa-Ibne-Maymun were the top in logic, ####physis and Theology.
The Romans for the first time established Military Hospital for the treatment of soldiers but it took a complete shape during Islamic civilization. Hospitals were for the first time established in Europe in 13th century. The European hospitals were established in the imitation of Hospitals in Baghdad, Cordova and Damascus. There were about 60 hospitals in 1116 A.D. which started during the regime of Caliph Harun-or-Rashid. The Govt. bore all the expenses of treatment and feeding of the poor patients in the hospital. A fabulous hospital was established in Morocco in 13th century, which towered all of them during that time.
The administration of hospitals during Islamic civilization has little difference from the administration of hospital in Modern time. Every hospital had indoors and outdoors and indoor had separate arrangement for male and female patients. There were separate wards for different categories such as fevers, ophthalmia, dysentery and surgical cases.
The teaching in the hospital was similar as it is today; Medical examinations were conducted to the fitness of Medical students to become Physicians was established by Khalifa Moktadir in the year 931. The dresses of physicians were identified during the Abbaside regime and Ibnul Amig recommended a dress of the physician as such that it does not make the poor jealous and the rich does not dislike it. He recommended the use of white cloth by the physician, which is even used today.
Ali Ibne Rabban discussed about Physiology in 9th century. He described that blain, heart and liver are the main organs of human body and he described each in detail. He also thought that stomach, gall bladder, spleen and lungs are also necessary for maintenance of the normal physiology of the body in addition to brain, heart and liver.
Ali Ibne Abbas in 10th century had written his views on the function of the heart and lungs. He described the systole and diastole inspiration and expiration and capillary system.
Ibne-Seena for the first time in Medical history described the theory of bacteria and virus as the cause of the disease. He described the presence of bilirubin, albumin and serum in the blood. He gave a vivid description about ptyalin, Hcl, enzymes in intestines and their role in the process of digestion of food. Nobody for 200 years after him could add anything in addition to his descriptions
Ibnul Khatib in 14th century again postulated that bacteria and virus present in atmosphere are responsible for the cause of certain disease and he cited Plague as an example of this.
The progress of Anatomy during the Islamic periowas slowed down due to religious restriction on dissection of dead body and they followed the science of Galen in this aspect. Yu-Hanna during the regime of Calipha Al-Mansur dissected an ape and wrote a book on Anatomy, which was highly praised by the scientists of his time and scientists after him. Ibne-Seena also wrote a book on Anatomy in Bokhara in 11th century.
In 12th century Abdul Latif wrote a book on Anatomy at an age of 28 and he challenged some information of Galen on Anatomy to be not correct. He described the lower jaw bone is composed of only one single bone instead of two as described by Galen. Subsequently the Arab anatomist described that the skull is composed of 8 pieces of bones, which was described as 7 by Galen. Monsur Fobbe wrote another book on Anatomy on 14th century.
The Muslim scientist of Spain made a break through in the development of surgery. Abul Kasim of Cordova wrote a book on Surgery for the first time in the 10th century. Al-Razi also wrote a book in surgery in which he described Neuro-surgery, Hernia, Tumour and E.N.T. He recommended the use of goats intestine for stitching at the side of operation. Ali Ibne Abbas also wrote a book on surgery. He gave a vivid description on laryngotomy. Ibne Seena also wrote in detail about surgery. Abul Kasim for the first time established surgical treatment on scientific basis. His book was the first illustrated book in surgery.
Muslim physicians for the first time used devices of anaesthesia for operation on the patients. Ibne Seena recommended opium, latuce seed and belladonna for anaesthesia. He described application of cold water for the relief of pain. Alcohol was mixed with Dernel & water to produce annaesthesia.
Egyptian opium, liquorice extract and colchicum, suckrash in equal quantity mixed with water was used to produce sleep. Venesection as surgical treatment was used for the treatment of hypertension, cellulitis & intracranial haemorrhage.
During the 10th century Al- Razi used cautery as a surgical treatment which is still being maintained. He advised operation and cautery for cancer, physiotherapy for paralysis and cautery to stop bleeding and for gangrene. Both Ibne-Seena and Abul Kasim mentioned especially the use of cautery in their books.
Arab physicians used to treat fractures by using an ointment with immobilization and this was used by Abul Mansur in 10th century which he developed into plaster of Paris in 19th century in Europe.
Ibne Seena has given an illustrated description in the treatment of fracture. Al-Razi and Abul Kasim described the treatment of difficult diseases like fracture of pelvis, paraplegia & vertebral dislocation in their book.
Ibne Seena described the difference between tumour and cancer, which has remained unchanged even today. "Al-Razi recommended operation followed by cautery for the treatment of cancer. Abul Kasim is known to have operated the cancer in the chest. The operation by the Arabian physician in the peritoneum has remained unchanged even today. Peptic ulcer and intestinal ulcers were described by Ibne Seena, Al-Razi. Arab scientist in SIRAJ performed colostomy for the first time. Arabian physicians also treated hernia, hydrocele, urinary calculus by operations.
In 2nd century Rufus wrote a book on ophthalmology. In 10th century Ibnul Haisum for the first time proved that we can see the object because light from the object comes to the retina. Ali Abbas abd Ibne Seena wrote books on ophthalmology. They used the term retina and catarract and also described conjunctivitis, corneal ulcer, glaucoma, leucoma and night blindness.
Arab physicians also wrote books on Obstetrics and Gynaecology. First description of Caesarean Section is found in Shahanam written by Firdousi about the birth of Persian Hero Rustam. Al Ahnab Bin Kaies was also born by Caesarean Section. During the Islamic period the female doctors used to treat the Gynaecological diseases under the supervision of male surgeons. Cervical polyps and cervical atresia were treated by Arab Gynaecologist, which was described by Bahaud-Dowla.
There is no description of Obstetric in Greek Medicine. During the Islamic period Moschion Aetius and Paul described about obstetrics. Abul Kasim, Ibne Seena and Al-Jurgani wrote on obstetrics as an special subject.
Women were mostly engaged in obstetrical work. The daughter and grand daughter of Avenzoar during 1091 to 1162 were engaged in this profession. Abul Kasim Al-Zahrawi described about cranioplasty operation, in his book Kitabut Tasrif. He also described the use of forceps. He also described Walcher's position during delivery. Ibne Seena wrote in detail about pregnancy in his Qanoon in which he described about Dystocia. He described different procedure for delivery and advised the use of obstetrical forceps perhaps for the dead foetus. They also described about the induction of labour by use of instruments and medicines.
That the use of fillets and obstetrics forceps was first introduced by Arabs and not by the Europeans has been proved by William Smellie (1697-1763). Arab physicians especially Ibne-Seena described about teeth. He described that every tooth has at least one root, and two roots in the tooth of the lower jaw, and wisdom tooth has three roots. Upper teeth have got three roots ro counteract the action of gravitation. Abul Kasim described about the surgery of teeth. Arabian physician in Cordova suggested to apply false teeth from the bull after extraction of sick teeth. Mesu the junior, treated caries teeth by gold cap. He described the sympathetic pain in the disease of the teeth. They used Alcohol to wash wound and cold with ice to stop bleeding and Thermocautery and hot fomentation.
Ibne Seena used cannula for the examination of the Eye. He described lacrimal fistula and recommended daily dressing, which helped to heal the wound quickly. This lacrimal cannula ultimately lead the discovery of Syringe.
CONCLUSION
Because Europe was reacting against Islam and belittled the influence of Islam and exaggerated its dependence on its Greek and Roman Heritage. Today the mankind is moving into the era of the one World, therefore time has come for Europe to correct false emphasis and to acknowledge fully their debt to the Arab and Islamic world.
REFERENCES
"Science and the Renaissance". An introduction to the study of the
emergency of the sciences the 16th century By WIGHTMAN, w.p.d.
"Contributions of Moslems in science", part-VII, by M. ALI AKBAR.
-do- part-VI.
"Asian Medical System" A comparative study by CHARLES LESLIE.
"The Influence of Islam on Modieval Europe", by W.MONTOGOMERY.
"A syllabus of medical history", by FRED B. ROGERSOM.
"Islamic surveys" by MANFRED ULLMAN.
"Glimpses of world history" by JAWAHARLAL NEHRU.
"History of Medicine" by I.H. HERMANN BAAS, M.D., volume-1.
http://www.islamset.com/hip/i_medcin/mottaleb.html
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Re: محتاج مساعدة يا زملاء(بحث عن الأديان).. (Re: سيف اليزل برعي البدوي)
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Joseph Schacht and C.E. Bosworth, eds., The Legacy of Islam, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), Part 1, II, III
Jonathan Lyons, The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization, (New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press, 2009)
Thomas Walker Arnold, The preaching of Islam: A History of the Propagation of the Muslim Faith, (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2007)
Thomas W. Arnold, The Spread of Islam in the World : A History of Peaceful Preaching (New Delhi: Goodword Books, 2002)
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Re: محتاج مساعدة يا زملاء(بحث عن الأديان).. (Re: سيف اليزل برعي البدوي)
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الإسلام في الديار الأوروبية ... نظرات الى التاريخ والقضايا والمستقبل
le 9 حزيران (يونيو) 2007
لم يبدأ الحضور الإسلامي في القارة الأوروبية مع وصول الموجات الأولى من المهاجرين القادمين من العالم الإسلامي، إنه أبعد من ذلك. صحيح أن مساهمة الإسلام في بناء الهوية الدينية والروحية لأوروبا قد وقع الاستنقاص منها في الغرب، مثلما تم استنقاص مساهمة الحضارة العربية الإسلامية في شكل عام. فأوروبا ليست فقط وليدة الثقافة اليونانية اللاتينية والثقافة اليهودية المسيحية، كما يحاوَلُ أحياناً إقناعنا. يتعيّن علينا إذاً القيام بنبش الذاكرة حول «الميراث المنسي» الخاص بالإسلام. وفي الحقيقة فقد شُرع في هذا العمل منذ بضعة عقود، ويجب أن يُنجز هذا العمل بعقلية التفتح العلمي والثقافي وليس بعقلية المطالبات الدينية أو الطائفية أو غيرهما. لا بد من التذكير في البداية أن الحضور الإسلامي الفعلي قديم ومتجذر في قارتنا. وإذا كنا نعلم تمام العلم أن جزءاً من أسبانيا قد ظل مسلماً ما يناهز ثمانية قرون، فإننا لا نعلم إلا القليل عن بقاء الإسلام مدة أربعة قرون في صقلية - كانت باليرمو في القرن العاشر تعُدّ ثلاثمئة مسجد - والقليل القليل عن وجوده في جنوب إيطاليا. ولم تنطفئ شعلة الثقافة العربية الإسلامية في هذه المناطق بعد خروج العرب، بل استمر إشعاعها طوال قرون عدة. وفضلاً عن ذلك، كانت لأوروبا الشرقية تجربة واسعة مع الإسلام الذي توطد في البلقان بعد الفتح العثماني منذ أواخر القرن الرابع عشر. فقد تركت هذه القرون من الحكم العثماني لها بصمة لا تمحى. وعلى رغم القرون المنقضية، وعمليات المد والجزر البشري المفروضة، فإن تلك المناطق تشهد إلى اليوم حضوراً إسلامياً غير منقطعٍ في قلب القارة الأوروبية. ففي كوسوفو وألبانيا، على سبيل المثال، نجد أن نسبة المسلمين تصل إلى 90 في المئة في الأولى و70 في المئة في الثانية. أما روسيا، فقد عرفت بدورها الإسلام منذ القرن الحادي عشر، لكن ذلك قد يجرنا إلى الحديث عن أوروبا أخرى قد تمتد إلى الأورال...
تتجلّى الإضافة الدينية للإسلام في أوروبا العصور الوسطى بداية في اللاهوت والفلسفة. فقد أثّر علماء المسلمين أمثال ابن سينا والغزالي وابن رشد، وكذا المعتزلة أيما تأثير في الفكر اللاتيني في العصور الوسطى. وسرعان ما أثارت مسألة التوافق أو التعارض بين الفكر الإغريقي والعقيدة الدينية نقاشاً واسعاً بين المسلمين. ولم يتأخر علماء اللاهوت «الأوروبيون» من يهود أمثال ابن ميمون، ونصارى أمثال القديس توماس الأكويني عن مناقشة هذه المواضيع. وأدى تأثير الفكر الإسلامي على الفلسفة الكلاسيكية المسيحية إلى نشوء تيارين: تيار ابن سينا اللاتيني وتيار ابن رشد اللاتيني. ولا بد من التذكير بأن الغرب اكتشف الفلسفة الإغريقية بفضل أعمال الترجمة إلى اللغة العربية لمؤلفات أرسطو وأفلاطون وأف########ن في شكل خاص. ولم يكتف علماء المسلمين بالعمل كوسطاء لنقل الثقافة، بل أضافوا بصمة عبقريتهم العلمية والروحية والإنسانية. وفي القرن الثالث عشر، تمكن الإمبراطور فرديريك الثاني، بعد أن انتابته هواجس ميتافيزيقية، من العثور على أجوبة عن أسئلة فلسفية كانت تراوده لدى أحد متصوفة مدينة سبتة هو ابن سبعين. والتحق العلماء والأدباء الأوروبيون من لاتينيين وجرمانيين وسلافيين بمدرسة الفكر الإسلامي مع استيعابهم أيضاً لبعض الأنماط الدينية. ونحن نعرف اليوم أن الكوميديا الإلهية للكاتب دانتي أخذت الكثير من كتاب معراج محمد الذي نشرت في إيطاليا نسخة شعبية منه تحكي قصة معراج النبي (صلى الله عليه وسلم).
كما أثرى الإسلام أوروبا في العصور الوسطى في المجالات الروحية والتصوف. وإذا لم تترك رابعة [العدوية]، زاهدة العراق، إلا أسطورة رائعة في بلاط القديس لويس، فإن الصوفية غذت المذهب الروحي للجماعات الكهنوتية الصليبية كجماعة الهيكل. وبظهور أعمال القس الأسباني (آسين بالاثيوس) في بداية القرن العشرين، بدأ أيضاً الإقرار بتأثير الصوفية المغاربية على روحانيين أسبان مثل القديس (جان دو لكروا) والقديسة (تيريز دافيلا)، وذلك عبر الروحانيين اليهود. بل إن بعض الباحثين الغربيين - من غير المسلمين - ذهبوا إلى أن ممارسات الشعائر الروحية لـ (إجناص دي لويولا) ربما اعتمدت على طرق التلقين الصوفي. ألم يولد «الشيخ الأكبر» للروحانية الإسلامية ابن عربي (المتوفى عام 1240م.) في أسبانيا؟ وحتى إذا كان قد استقر في ما بعد في المشرق بدمشق، فإنه يعود إلى الغرب المعاصر بفضل الإشعاع الذي عرفته تعاليمه الإنسانية هناك. وبغض النظر عن التأثيرات أو الاقتباسات، فإنه يمكننا أن نتبين أن اليهود والمسلمين والمسيحيين كانوا متعايشين في غالب الأحيان في الأمصار المتاخمة المذكورة أعلاه، والتي صارت تحت سلطة المسلمين. وإذا كانت الأندلس تعتبر النموذج المثالي لهذا التعايش السلمي والمثمر بين الديانات الثلاث، فإن آسيا الصغرى والبلقان شهدت أيضاً قيام علاقات حميمية بين الديانات، خصوصاً بين الرهبان والدراويش.
والفترة المهمة الأخرى التي تلاقى فيها الإسلام مع الغرب، والتي كانت في الواقع فترة مواجهة، كانت أثناء التوسع الاستعماري للدول الأوروبية. ففي حالة فرنسا، كان لهذا الحضور في العالم الإسلامي، وفي الجزائر في شكل خاص، الدور المؤسس، لأنه أثر في شكل دائم على الطريقة التي كانت تنوي الجمهورية الفرنسية إدارة علاقاتها مع الإسلام كعبادة موجودة فوق التراب الفرنسي ذاته. وأصبحت فرنسا منذ القرن التاسع عشر عبارة عن «قوة إسلامية».
لقد أدى الاستعمار إلى نشوء حركة هجرة كبيرة من أوروبا باتجاه العالم الإسلامي، تلاها بعد ذلك مباشرة موجات مختلفة من الهجرة المعاكسة، وكان أهمها تلك التي ظهرت في الستينات من القرن العشرين. ومع بداية الثمانينات من القرن نفسه، ظهر الإسلام كحقيقة دينية جماعية وليس كديانة فردية وعائلية. ومنذ ذلك الحين، بدأ نسيج جمعياتي بالتشكّل، وبدأ المسلمون يطالبون بأماكن عبادة معقولة وعلنية داخل المدينة الأوروبية. وتميزت العشرية الموالية بإعادة أسلمة جمهور المسلمين الأوروبي. وأصبح الإسلام، خصوصاً في أوساط الشباب، طريقة مفضلة لتأكيد الذات وتأكيد الهوية ذات البعدين الشخصي والجماعي في آن معاً. إن إعادة التكيف هذه، ذات الطابع الديني تَرَافَقَت مع المطالبة بمواطنة أكثر فعالية. كما إن المداخلات الكارسماتية المتكررة لطارق رمضان أمام الشباب تسير في هذا الاتجاه.
نحو ثقافة إسلامية أوروبية
يناهز عدد المسلمين في أوروبا الغربية اليوم 15 مليوناً على أقل تقدير. وتضمّ فرنسا وحدها ما لا يقل عن خمسة ملايين منهم، مما يجعلها أول بلد مسلم في أوروبا من حيث العدد. وعلى رغم التنوع في الأصول العرقية والوطنية والثقافية والطقوسية، فإن الحضور الإسلامي في أوروبا الغربية يفرض نفسه أكثر فأكثر كحضور إسلامي أوروبي، ونحن نلاحظ بروزاً تدريجياً لإسلام محلّي. وهكذا نجد أن حوالى نصف المسلمين في فرنسا يحملون الجنسية الفرنسية. ولسنا في حاجة إلى التذكير بأن الإسلام متعدد. وأن السلطة لا تقتصر فيه على مصدر وحيد، ولا يشتمل على سلطة عقائدية عليا على غرار البابوية. وبناء عليه، تستطيع الحساسيات الأكثر اختلافاً في ما بينها التعبير عن نفسها في إطاره: بدءاً من أقصى دعاة التطبيق الحرفي أو الأكثر تشدداً مثل الوهابية في السعودية، إلى الأكثر تفتحاً أو الأكثر كونية على غرار الصوفية، مروراً بالإصلاحيين الذين يعملون على الجمع بين التقاليد والحداثة، إلخ. وعملياً، هناك الكثير من الفوارق الدقيقة التي يجب مراعاتها لأن هذه التيارات تأثر في بعضها البعض.
ويجد المجتمع المدني والسلطات العمومية نفسها منذ سنوات عدة في حاجة إلى أطراف من المسلمين معروفين جداً. لقد دخل الإسلام الأوروبي مرحلة التنظّم، في وقت نجد، في شكل معاكس، أن الديانات الأخرى بدأت تتخلص شيئاً فشيئاً من الوضع المؤسسي. ومنذ بضعة أعوام، اكتسبت دول مثل أسبانيا وبلجيكا بعض التجربة في هذا المجال، لكن الإسلام في فرنسا خطا خطوة حاسمة بانتخابه هيأته، المتمثلة في المجلس الفرنسي للديانة الإسلامية في أيار (مايو) 2003. وصار الإسلام يشارك في البرامج الأوروبية الكبرى، كبرنامج امنحوا روحاً لأوروبا، عندما لا يكون هو نفسه محوراً للجدل.
لا يزال يُنظر إلى الإسلام على أنه في الغالب «ديانة خاصة بالمهاجرين»، مما جعل السلطات العمومية تحافظ على طريقة تسيير ملفه مثلما كان معمولاً به في الفترة الاستعمارية أو فترة ما بعد الاستعمار. لا بد إذاً من الحديث عن الذين «اعتنقوا» الإسلام. ففي أغلب الحالات، يعتبر هؤلاء لحظة دخولهم إلى الإسلام كإنجاز متمم لانتمائهم الديني السابق، وليس كردة. فالإسلام الذي يقدّم نفسه كآخر ديانة موحاة لهذه الإنسانية، يعترف بالديانات الأخرى في نصوصه المؤسسة (القرآن والسنة)، ويعتبرها فروعاً للشجرة الآدمية. وفي هذا الصدد، وما دام القصد من لقائنا هو إقامة حوار بين البوذية والإسلام، نشير إلى أنه ورد ذكر الإله بوذا ثلاث مرات في القرآن، حسب غالبية المفسرين.
منذ حوالى عشرين سنة خلت، كان المعتنقون الجدد يدخلون الإسلام بهدف الوصول إلى التصوف. وكان معظم هؤلاء من المثقفين والفنانين، الذين كانت أعمال رينيه غينون (المتوفى عام 1951) حاسمة بالنسبة إليهم. وقد شهد هذا اللاهوتي الفرنسي، الذي اعتنق الإسلام وتسمّى بعبدالواحد يحيي وعاش في القاهرة، على كونية السنّة الأساسية بطريقة واضحة للغاية، مما جعل أعماله تبقى مرجعاً لكل «الباحثين عن الحقيقة»، بخاصة في الوسط البوذي الغربي. وعمل لاهوتي صوفي آخر وهو فريثجوف شون (تـ. عام 1998) بدوره على تطوير موضوع «الوحدة المتعالية للأديان» التي هي ترجمة لمبدأ وحدة الأديان الذي قال به متصوفة العصور الوسطى.
من الواضح أن الصوفية لعبت دائماً دوراً رئيسياً في الحوار بين الديانات. ويُفهَم ذلك أفضل إذا علمنا أن الأولياء المسلمين، بحسب مشايخ الصوفية، هم ورثة الأنبياء السابقين عن النبي محمد (صلى الله عليه وسلم) عبر الوظيفة الجامعة والمركبة للنبي محمد (صلى الله عليه وسلم) الذي لخص أنواع النبوات السابقة جميعها. ورُبّ وليٍّ يكون في لحظة من حياته أو طيلة حياته «نوحياً» (نسبة إلى النبي نوح) أو «إبراهيمياً» أو «موسوياً» أو «عيسوياً» (عليهم السلام). عرف التصوف إذاً أولياء موسويين كانوا يغطون وجوههم كي لا يعمي نورهم مخاطَبيهم ولا يتسبب في مقتلهم، تماماً كما فعل النبي موسى (عليه السلام) وهو ينزل جبل سيناء. وكان البعض الآخر من الأولياء العيسويين (نسبة إلى المسيح عيسى بن مريم) يدّعون القدرة على إحياء الموتى، كما فعل عيسى (عليه السلام). ولا يزال الأولياء المعاصرون يعيشون هذه التجربة المتمثلة في الإرث النبوي، لكن الأمر يتعلق هنا طبعاً بمجال يتجاوز التحليل الخارجي.
كما نشهد في أيامنا هذه ما يمكن أن نسميه «اعتناق الأجوار»، الذي له علاقة بأصدقاء أو جيران أو زملاء مسلمين، ويكون ذلك أحياناً في أحياء الضواحي. كما لا ننسى دور الزواج المختلط. ففي فرنسا، نجد أن عدد النساء اللاتي يعتنقن الإسلام يفوق عدد الرجال، وهذا معـطى يجـب التفكيـر فيه. لا يمكن إعـطاء رقم صحـيح عـن عدد الأشخاص الذين اعتنقوا الإسلام، لأن تغيير الدين لا يتطلب تصريحاً رسمياً. إضافة إلى ذلك، هناك الكثير ممن يخفون إسلامهم بسبب المعاداة للإسلام التي تعشش بين بعض الطبقات من السكان. بل وصل الأمر إلى حد القول إن 200 ألف شخص اعتنقوا الإسلام، ولكنه من المنصف القول إن العدد يتراوح بين 30 و40 ألف شخص. ولا بد أيضاً من دراسـة أسباب اعتناق الناس للإسلام.
عوائق ومحاسن الإسلام الأوروبي
نحن نعيش ظهور ثقافة إسلامية أوروبية كأمر واقع، لكن هذه الثقافة تواجه عوائق كثيرة لم تعرفها البوذية في أوروبا. فمن جهة، يرزح الإسلام الأوروبي تحت وطأة الجهل بأمور الدين لدى الجيل الأول من المهاجرين الذين لم يعرفوا أو لم يستطيعوا تربية أولادهم ضمن المنظور الكوني للإسلام. وهو يخضع، من جهة ثانية، إلى عبء الخلط عند بعض المسلمين بين التعاليم الحقيقية للرسالة الإسلامية والعادات العربية أو البربرية أو الأفريقية أو التركية، وغيرها. فالإسلام الفرنسي في شكل خاص، لا يزال خاضعاً للإيديولوجيات والتناقضات الوطنية السائدة على الضفة الجنوبية للبحر الأبيض المتوسط، وخاضعاً للارتباطات الديبلوماسية أو السياسية التي تربطه بالبلدان الأصلية. لكن الشباب المسلم يرفض الإسلام المتوارث عن الآباء، إسلام قد يُختزل في الحلال والحرام، ويرونه نوعاً من العقيدة الشكلية الغثة. فهم، على غرار الطبقات الاجتماعية الأخرى، يحسون في حاجة إلى الوصول إلى روحانية أصيلة تكون عاملاً للصحوة والتحرر.
هنا يكمن الأمل في إسلام أوروبي جديد، مع فرصة التوجه نحو ما هو جوهري، أي نحو محور التوحيد، البحث عن الوحدانية، وعملية التوحد ذات الأهمية المركزية في الإسلام. وبهذا الشكل، يمكن للمسلمين الأوروبيين أن يتخلصوا أكثر فأكثر من القيود العائلية والطائفية والوطنية وغيرها في شكل أفضل. إن العقيدة الصوفية في «الإنسان الكامل»، إذا ما صيغت بعبارات متلائمة مع عصرنا، قد تتيح للبعض على الأقل الوصول إلى هذه الحرية الداخلية التي من شأنها أن تمدهم بها الروحانية. إن مثال الأمير عبدالقادر يستحق التأمّل. فهذا البطل المتصوف فهم أنه لا بد من الانتقال في وقت من الأوقات من الجهاد الأصغر ضد الفرنسيين، هذا الجهاد الذي لم يعد مطابقاً للنهج الرباني، إلى الجهاد الأكبر لأنه يحرر الإنسان من شهواته وأوهامه.
مبدئياً، يتعين على المسلم أن يكون مطمئناً في أي مكان من الأرض، وذلك بحكم هذه المحورية الداخلية التي أشرنا إليها أعلاه والتي يستمدها من التوحيد. لا وجود لهيكل في الإسلام لأن النبي (صلى الله عليه وسلم) يقول: «وجُعِلتْ لي الأرض مسجداً وطهوراً»، وكل شخص مسلم، سواء كان ذكراً أو أنثى، هو إمام لنفسه عند القيام بصلاته منفرداً. ومن الناحية التاريخية، فقد تكيف الإسلام دائماً مع سياقات المكان والزمان المختلفة، بل أظهر رغبة جامحة في التعرف الى الثقافات المختلفة التي احتك بها أو في استيعابها. وحتى يتسنى للشخصية الإسلامية الأوروبية استرجاع تناسقها الكامل، فإنها مدعوة للتفتح على الكوني، مدعوة لاكتساب نظرة ميتافيزيقية للعالم، وذلك للقضاء على الازدواجية، إن لم نقل الانفصام في الشخصية، التي تؤدي إلى نشوء توتر خطير في النفس المسلمة بين الغرب والشرق، بين الضفة الشمالية والضفة الجنوبية للبحر الأبيض المتوسط، بين الإسلام والمعاصرة، بين الإسلام والعلمانية، بين الإسلام والمواطنة، إلخ. وفي الواقع فإن المسلمين عرضة للقلق نفسه الذي يحس به الأوروبيون الواعون نسبياً: الهدم الذي تقوم به «الحضارة» الميكانيكية، ضياع المعالم، وخيبة أمل العالم...
فقط الضمير الموحد وحده، ثمرة تجربة التوحيد، هو الذي يتيح للمسلمين أين وُجِدوا اقتحام كل مستويات الحقيقة بحكمة، وذلك بإعطاء كل مستوى من مستوياتها حقه ومكانته. فالنبي (صلى الله عليه وسلم) لم يكن يطالب المحيطين به من رجال ونساء بشيء آخر.
كاتب فرنسي
http://www.eric-geoffroy.net/الإسلام-في-الديار
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