Iran 2026: the Pivot of World History Assaulted by the Barbarians of the West - III b

ix- Fake Dilemma and Double Misnomer: for 7th c. CE 'Shia' and 'Sunni', the correct appellations are respectively 'Muslims' and 'hypocrites'

That's why the biased Western academics shamelessly attribute to Jabir ibn Hayyan 'imamological' (sic!) theories and purposely formulated yet nonsensical conjectures, labeling him also as "Shia Muslim" (as if a genuinely false term can possibly have a derogatory meaning), because he was said to be a pupil of Ja'far al-Sadiq. And this explains what is hidden behind the fabricated divide "Sunni vs. Shia" that the forgers of the Western universities created out of thin air; the term Shia was basically used during the period going from Prophet Muhammad's movement (Hijrah) to Madinah (622 CE) to the Battle of Kerbala (680 CE), when Hussein, rightful heir and second son of Ali, was killed by the forces of Yazid I, son of the usurper Muawiyah, who left Madinah and made of Damascus his capital.

The term "Shia" meant the "party" of Ali, i.e. all those who sided with Ali, Fatimah, and their sons; after the generation of Ali was gone (end of 7th c. CE), the term became obsolete. Similarly, the term "Sunni" is a historically used term with totally different meaning from the sectarian notion that the cruel colonial schemers and Orientalists attributed to it; initially, it denoted all those who followed the "tradition" (Sunnah/ سنة; in the sense of "life example") of Prophet Muhammad. However, as per this meaning, all Muslims are Sunnis, because all those, who are now falsely called "Shia", follow too the tradition of Prophet Muhammad.

There is no doubt that there was fierce opposition between the supporters of descendants of Prophet Muhammad (down to Ja'far al-Sadiq and later on) and the heretic and pseudo-Muslim Umayyad dynasty. But this extreme polarization was -to put it in real terms- due to the fact that the outright majority of all Muslims followed the faithful Muslim leaders (and rightful heirs to Ali who was the only true caliph as he was designated by the prophet) and rejected the Umayyads. While most of the Muslims opposed and repeatedly fought against the ominous Umayyad disbelievers, they utilized several docile and submissive people, who were avid for governmental and social power, in order to produce ridiculous justifications of their supposedly Islamic identity and attitude. Consequently these two groups, which certainly had a historical continuity from generation to generation, should be accurately described as "Muslims" (: the religious forefathers of today's so-called "Shia") and the "hypocrites" (: the doctrinal precursors of modern times' self-styled "Sunnis").

All the same, the above schematization, although historically appropriate, does not fully clarify the matter; the outright majority of the Muslims, who followed Prophet Muhammad's offspring, did not do so only because he had designated Ali ibn Abi Taleb as his successor or solely due to their own disagreement with, rejection of, and opposition to, the Umayyads, namely the opponents of Ahl al-Bayt ('the People of the House', i.e. the descendants of the prophet) or merely as a result of the Umayyad cruelty, lawlessness and total lack of Islamic credentials. There were truly far more important issues at stake and they had nothing to do with the prophet, but with God Himself.

The descendants of Prophet Muhammad practiced, instructed and introduced spirituality to their supporters, pupils, and initiates; they made everyone realize that the Divine is not merely a nominal value or an abstract theory or a verbal debate for agnostics, but -quite contrarily- a highly sensed, comprehended, and spiritually enacted transcendental reality without which every sort of material existence is entirely worthless and utterly contemptible. For the magnificently created human being, life has value only through permanent synergy of the body and the soul.

The few opponents of the true Muslims of the Umayyad times were

a- the children of heinous tribal lords, who were unable to break the clannish tradition as per which a younger man or a low-ranking member of the tribe cannot have any precedence over older persons or higher clan members (in spite of the fact that Prophet Muhammad's revelation and the verses of the Quran strictly reprimand that mentality);

b- brainless soldiers devoted to razzias, looting, and ruining others in order to gradually establish their own wealth, increase their social status, assert their military command, and materialize all the lawless desires that they had, irrespective of the ascetic example of Prophet Muhammad, Ali ibn Abi Taleb, and their descendants; and

c- faithless imams who learned (through reading or hearsay) the Quran and the Hadith only to find arguments in support of their masters (as per above), produce justifications of all the impious, lawless, and sacrilegious acts of their superiors, and reduce Islam to a social code of behavior and a series of futile actions (fasting, hajj, prayer, zakat/almsgiving, etc.) perpetrated for the benefit of the rulers, and not for the profit of every person's soul.

These were the doctrinal precursors of modern times' self-styled "Sunnis"; they did not fight in order to diffuse Islam, because if they wanted to do so, they would have to abdicate in favor of the Ahl Al Bayt. They fought for their material benefits and when the true Muslims decried them, they attempted to massacre them; that's why there were as many rebellions against and secessions from the Umayyad pseudo-caliphate as I described in the previous article of the present series.

This tragic and extreme polarization took an end with

a) the Iranization of Islam during the Abbasid times,

b) the emergence of the Iranianates,

c) the advent of Bayt al Hikmah,

d) the development of the Islamic sciences, and

e) the expansion of Islamic spirituality and mysticism.

Most of the early schools of jurisprudential authority (madhhab) were established by scholars who believed that law, moral, science, wisdom, and spirituality are totally inseparable from one another. But, as I already said, with the rise of the Iranianates, the malignant and faithless imams, who learned (through reading or hearsay) the Quran and the Hadith only to find arguments in support of their masters, gathered around the impotent Abbasid caliphs in order to console them by means of flatter and hypocrisy, and in the process, survive and obtain some importance.

Thus, they distorted the true meaning of Islamic theology ('ilm al-kalam) and the original concepts on which most of the early schools of jurisprudential authority had been founded; they apparently produced tons of totally useless material. However, these imams were rejected by the outright majority of the Muslims, by the followers of all the other religions, and more importantly, by all the rulers of the Iranianates that emerged. So, all the worthless fatwas were not executed and their decisions were fully disregarded. Consequently, all the inhabitants of the quasi-defunct caliphate were all -Iranians or not- liberated from the evil indoctrination and the purely anti-Islamic pseudo-theological literature produced by those villainous imams.

For this reason, Islam expanded among the populations of the Iranianates more during the period 820-1450 CE rather than in the course of the first two centuries after Hijrah. It was not a matter of oppression but of attraction; it was not enforced but preferred. In fact, after the first 50 years of Umayyad rule, at the very beginning of the 8th c. CE, not even 15% of the total population throughout the Islamic territory had accepted Islam as their faith.

World History would have been very different had these faithless imams not survived around the powerless Abbasid caliphs, transferred to Damascus after 1258, and then made the Ottoman sultan's palace their home. That's why the destruction of Baghdad by Hulagu was effectuated after the advice of a leading Muslim scientist, scholar, and founder of the Maragheh Observatory (Nasir al din al-Tusi; 1201-1274) and it was a really divine blessing for all Muslims.

Exactly for this reason, it was said that Tigris River became black because of the ink of the -therein thrown and destroyed, excessively voluminous but very perilous and poisonous- material, namely all the manuscripts produced by the malignant pseudo-Muslim imams, who wanted to eliminate spirituality, mysticism, sciences, and arts from Islam in order to reduce the divine revelation of Prophet Muhammad and the blessed preaching of Ali ibn Abi Taleb to a doctrinal idiocy, which justifies villainous and mischievous rulers, turns the average people into filthy, submissive, brainless and pathetic beings, and makes of every Islamic state a truly repugnant entity that has to disappear.

That's why Timur (Tamerlane) attempted to eradicate the Ottoman infamy and vanquished Bayezid I near Ankara (1402), and immediately proceeded to the West, to terminally destroy and uproot the Catholic missionary state (1344-1402) that the Knights of the Hospitaller Order were calmly allowed by the idiotic Ottoman sultans to set up around Smyrna (Izmir) in Western Anatolia.

And this is how Islamic spirituality and sciences took an end with the expansion of the Ottoman Empire (notably in 1453 and in 1517), because those faithless imams put gradually under control the Sultanate, creating the purely anti-Islamic officialdom of the sheikhulislam and forcing the insane sultans-caliphs to exterminate every Islamic Spiritual Order (notably the Şahkulu, the Qizilbash, the Bektashi, etc.) and every academic-scientific institution (like the Istanbul Observatory).

x- The true, but unknown to Muslims, Islam: the sciences of Jabir al Hayyan

But Jabir al Hayyan is always there - as an exemplary Muslim, mystic and scientist. And so is the Jabirian Corpus; for many unbiased researchers, it will take a lifetime to a) delve into the mass of excerpts hitherto found, b) search for further citations in other manuscripts that have not yet been studied, translated and published, and c) reconstitute the true meaning of Jabir al Hayyan's words, terms, concepts, sciences and descriptions. It will be an unprecedented project able to put a dead end to the entire Western science.

We can expect that the most suitable scholars able to undertake the task would be Chinese Islamologists, Iranologists, and Semitic linguists, because they are the only apt to establish parallels with Chinese Alchemy and the other historical sciences developed in China, and in addition, they are void of the Western Greco-centric bias. Except the aforementioned Jabirian Science of the Balance, it is to be noted that Jabir al Hayyan mentioned and discussed topics pertaining to other, today unidentified and impenetrable, sciences, which he defined as 'ilm al-khawass ('science of specific properties') and 'ilm al-ṭilasmat ('science of the talismans') that can be translated as Magic (the use of the term at this point is totally unrelated to the Mithraic Magi), although some scholars used the term 'theurgy' to describe it. Personally, I believe that the latter term is rather advisable for references to ancient civilizations, religions, and temples - only.

Among the most famous works of Jabir ibn Hayyan, we find the "Ten Books of the Rectifications" (المصححات العشرة), the "Book of the King" (كتاب الملك; describing the effectiveness of the talismans), the "Book on Poisons and on the Repelling of their Harmful Effects" (كتاب السموم والدفع مدارها), the "Books of the Seven Metals" (الأحجار السبعة; lit. 'the seven stones' / in which he describes the properties and the use of the metals, namely gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead and the 'Chinese metal' named kharsini), "Our Books on the Transmigration of the Soul" (كتبنا في التناسخ), the "Book of the Thirty Words" (كتاب الثالاثين كلمة), the "Subtle Book on Astronomical Tables" (کتاب الزاج اللطيف), the Books on Military Stratagems and Tricks (الحيال الحروبية والمكايد), and many others. If I mention few titles of works either written by the great mystic, scholar and scientist or attributed to him by posterior Muslim writers, this is only indicative.

Only by attentively observing the titles of his works, one understands to some extent how Jabir ibn Hayyan perceived the two worlds, spiritual and material, and their interconnectedness. Exactness is very significant, but only when it is needed in calculation; if one text, which is considered as presentation of an entity, fails to reproduce the entireness of a topic (and this involves its interconnection with many others), the author has failed in his endeavor. If a researcher does not manage to generate a balance of understanding out of his study of a subject, he betrays his faith, because he misrepresents a basic law of the universes, namely that of the perfect equilibrium.

There is no invention and no discovery that can plausibly be achieved by anyone; everything is known and everything has been known as possible to be eventually produced. Research, study, observation, learning, exploration, calculation, and description are not endeavors undertaken in order to create something new, but they consist in personal training for the soul of the scholar. As a matter of fact, there is no knowledge without Moral; and wisdom is the effective representation of the spiritual and material reality, as well as the extraction of the proper conclusion.

No human needs any novelty or change, except for what the nature brings about - in and by itself. Actually, nothing can be renovated or modified in the universes, except by the Will of God. For a scientist, faithlessness is merely self-destruction, whereas the transmutation executed by an alchemist has no utilitarian purposes. The many tricks and secrets, which exist in the nature and can potentially be unveiled and narrated by a scholar, constitute a moral examination for all those who happen to learn them. The use they may make thereof can become a blessing or a disaster for their soul; the only standard or measure for this life is the Hereafter.

The Jabirian Corpus was published in two volumes (of 215 & 406 pages respectively) by Paul Kraus in 1942-1943 at the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale du Caire (Jâbir ibn Hayyân: Contribution à l'histoire des idées scientifiques dans l'Islam. I. Le corpus des écrits jâbiriens. II. Jâbir et la science grecque; in the series: "Mémoires de l'Institut d'Egypte, tomes 44 et 45). For that period, the result delivered by the great scholar was excellent, but it bears the stamp of the misperceptions, the preconceived ideas, and the assumptions that most of the Orientalists had at the time. So, the prejudiced approach of the Western Orientalists is present throughout this otherwise excellent opus and, due to the fallacy of Hellenism, all Egyptian alchemists, scientists and mystics, who are known through the Ancient Greek names that they adopted, are portrayed as "Greeks" whereas in fact they are Egyptians reflecting Ancient Egyptian traditions, sciences, knowledge, wisdom and spirituality.

The present article does not consist in a presentation of the major scientists of the Golden Age of Islam, but it offers a brief outlook of the seminal role played by Iran in this development; even more particularly, since the rise of the Islamic sciences, scholarship and wisdom coincided with and was due to the emergence of the Iranianates and the disintegration of the Abbasid Caliphate.

xi- Abu Nuwas and Islamic Poetry: Wine Poetry, Erotic Poetry, Transgender Poetry, and Hunting Poetry

During this period, Abu Nuwas (756-814) excelled in poetry, oratory, literary wisdom, and criticism of religion. He became one of the most legendary figures of early Abbasid Baghdad, up to the point of being mentioned several times in the momentous epic One Thousand and One Nights. Due to his unconventional life, extravagant lifestyle, and uncompromising verses, he was one of the most often selected poets for literary anthologies, a social-intellectual practice that typified the historical Islamic culture across the ages.

Having earned the favor of Harun al Rashid, Abu Nuwas exemplified in his verses what everyday life of the Abbasid elite was about; in his Diwan, he outstandingly exalted the sumptuous banquets, the poetry recitation competition, the physical comedy performances, the extensive oenophilia, the voluptuous desires, and the homoerotic tendencies that created the overall ambiance. Being of mixed -Persian and Arabic- origin, he was known throughout the Islamic ages for his Khamriyyat (wine poetry), his Tardiyyat (hunting poetry), and his Ghazaliyyat (erotic poetry).

One gets a more comprehensive picture of Abbasid Baghdad's libertarian and self-indulgent society by reading Abu Nuwas' Ghulamiyyat (poetry about girls dressed like boys). Being three decades older than Harun al Rashid's son and successor, the caliph al-Amin (Abu Musa Muhammad bin Harun al-Amin; 787-813), who reigned for only four years, Abu Nuwas may well have been not only his royal poet but also private lover, as it was well known that the young caliph did not have interest in the opposite sex.

xii- Al Jahiz and his Praise of the Black over the White people

Living at the time of Harun al Rashid and benefitting from the establishment of Bayt al Hikmah, Al Jahiz (historically known as Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Basri; 776-869) was a leading scientist, an innovative littérateur, a wise researcher, and a thought-provoking intellectual able to make groundbreaking approaches to many earlier untackled topics, while integrating spiritual and universal dimensions into the microcosm of his library. He was apparently eager to contextualize his own activities astronomically/astrologically; able to describe the wisdom of the nature in each and every of his texts and ready to identify Divine Providence everywhere, Al Jahiz demonstrated his wisdom and perspicacious view on life and nature in his famous Kitab al-Hayawan (كتاب الحيوان; Book of the Animals), a treatise in zoology (involving descriptions of no less than 350 species) that encompasses observations on the character of the animals, the balance of the nature, and the rules of survival.

As member of the Mu'tazilite ('rationalist') school of thought, Al Jahiz wrote about the techniques of eloquence in order to strengthen the abilities of orators in public debates and help people speak formally and effectively. His Kitab al-Bayan wa-al-Tabyin (كـتـاب الـبـيـان و الـتـبـيـن; 'The Book of Eloquence and Demonstration') became the foundation of all literary theories that were later developed within the Islamic world. As a dedicated moralist, Al Jahiz was excellent in denouncing avarice and greedy minds of every social layer in his (كتاب البخلاء; Kitab al Bukhala'/The Book of Misers).

In his Al-Radd 'ala al-Nasara (الرد على النصارى; Rebuttal against the Christians), Al Jahiz proved that he never tolerated dogmatic sectarianism (as per which modern idiotic Muslims 'learn' and propagate the falsehood that 'Christianity is closer to Islam'); he fervently supported that the Hebrew text of the Old Testament was a more reliable and trustworthy source than the Christian Gospels. He also attributed the Christian theological arguments (as per which Jesus was literally the son of God) to erroneous Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible.

As his grandfather was a Black cameleer or loader, Al-Jahiz was the best placed wise scholar and intellectual to compose the World History's first comparative essay about races of different color; he opposed and rejected the racist and pathetic attitude that several Muslim theologians had toward the East African Zanj (: Bantu) people and the Indus River Delta Zutt (maybe the ancestors of Roma) people, who used to work as slaves in the central provinces of the Caliphate. It is not a coincidence that, during and after his lifetime, overwhelming events like the Zutt Rebellion (810-835) and the Zanj Rebellion (869-883) took place. The absolutely unconventional, balanced and sagacious essay elaborated by Al Jahiz under the title Fakhr al-Sudan ala al-Biḍan (فَخْر السُودان على البيضان; 'The Boast of blacks over the Whites') makes state of the unmatched dexterity of the Black people in eloquence, oratory, literature, poetry, music and dance.

Al Jahiz was wise enough never to hold an official position in the Abbasid court; however, he was in high demand by three successive caliphs, namely al-Ma'mun (813–833), Al-Mu'tasim (833-842) and Al-Wathiq (842-847) whose reigns lasted no less than three and half decades.

xiii- Habash al-Hasib, and the astronomers/astrologers of Bayt al Hikmah

Better known as Habash al-Hasib, Ahmad ibn 'Abdallah al-Marwazi (approx. 770-870) was a leading mathematician and astronomer in the famous Al-Shammisiyyah observatory in Baghdad, which was constructed around 823-825 CE as part of the wider Bayt al Hikmah precinct. Built as per the orders of the caliph al Ma'mun, it was one of the two scientific centers of astronomical-astrological research in the world - along with the observatory at Mount Qasioun in Damascus, which was erected few years later, in 830-831, according to the demand of the same Abbasid caliph. It would take 150 years until another observatory was built in Baghdad by the Buwayhi / Buyid 'Amir al Umara' ('emir of the emirs') Sharaf al-Dawla (born Shirdil Abu'l Fawaris; reign: 983-989) in the garden of his palace.

Habash al-Hasib (حبش الحاسب; lit. 'Abyssinian calculator') published his 10-year long observations in three zij (astronomical) tables; one of them is still extant in two copies (preserved in Istanbul and Berlin), but unfortunately not yet published. Around 150 years later, al Biruni studied Habash al Hasib's work, mentioned him repeatedly in his own treatises, and continued his astronomical tables. Iranian of origin but called 'Abyssinian' because of his dark skin, Habash al-Hasib discovered the tangent and the cotangent, the trigonometric ratios, and generated the first known tables in this regard. His Book of Bodies and Distances (its remaining parts were translated by the Israeli scholar Y. Tzvi Langermann) detailed his researches and activities in several fields; in it, we find a report on a geodetic expedition that he conducted with others in the Nineveh Plains in order to calculate the length of one degree of the meridian.

Ḥabash al Hasib wrote extensively on the fabrication of astronomical instruments; in addition, he composed a separate treatise about the construction of a universal plate for timekeeping by the stars; preserved in a single and incomplete copy (MS Oxford, Bodleian Marsh 663, pp. 205-206 and 239-247) and published by François Charette & Petra G. Schmidl (2001), the text remains quite obscure and difficult to comprehend.

During the same period, many other significant scholars, multilingual translators, mathematicians, scientists, engineers, astronomers and astrologers were actively engaged in the works of the observatories and the associated research, notably Sanad ibn Ali (famous for having introduced the decimal point notation to the Arabic numerals), Yahya ibn Abi Mansur (also known through his Farsi name Bizist son of Firuzan and originating from the then influential Banu al Munajjim Iranian family), al Abbas ibn Said al-Jawhari (active in the observatories of Baghdad and Damascus), Ali ibn Isa al-Asturlabi (nicknamed after his treatise on the astrolabes), Khalid ibn Abd al-Malik al-Marwarrudhi (member of the 827 CE academic expedition to the Nineveh Plains for the purpose of measuring the length of a meridian arc), and Ahmad al Dharra. More important of them all proved to be Al-Khwarizmi (780-850).

xiv- al-Khwarizmi

According to Tabari, the Islamic World's greatest historian, who was born 11 years before al-Khwarizmi died, the complete name of the illustrious Northeastern Iranian scholar and founder of Algebra was Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi al-Majusi al-Quṭrubbulli (محمد بن موسى الخوارزميّ المجوسـيّ القطربّـليّ). Khwarizm (or Chorasmia) covers today the territories of Turkmenistan, Western Uzbekistan, and Western Kazakhstan; the area spans across the eastern coastline of the Caspian Sea. By adding the name 'al-Majusi', which is the Arabic equivalent of the modern term 'Zoroastrian' (actually, the word originates from the Old Achaemenid, Iranian, Imperial Aramaic, Parthian and Middle Persian term for 'Magus', which is also mentioned in the Quran as 'al Majus'), Tabari insinuates that al-Khwarizmi's ancestors were Zoroastrians and that he either was surreptitiously follower of the pre-Islamic Iranian religion or regarded the quintessence of both religions as identical. Qutrubbul (or Qatrabbul) was a site west of Baghdad.

Al-Khwarizmi's Al-Jabr {its complete title being 'the Concise Book of Calculation by Restoration and Balancing' (الكتاب المختصر في حساب الجبر والمقابلة /al-Kitab al-Mukhtaṣar fi Hisab al-Jabr wal-Muqabalah)} proved to be apparently one of the most impactful and the most indelible treatises in World History; al Jabr is the word from which the term Algebra originates. The book consists in the first true algebra text that exists; in it, the ingenious author presented the first systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations, by introducing the 'reduction' (al-jabr/الجبر, lit. 'forcing' or 'restoring') and the 'balancing' (Al-muqabala - المقابله) as methods, namely the transposition of subtracted terms to the other side of an equation.

Other major works by Al-Khwarizmi were the Zij as-Sindhind al Kabir (' Great Astronomical Tables of the Sindhind'/ زيج السندهند الكبير), which was an astronomical manual consisting of 37 chapters with no less than 116 related tables (completed in 820 CE) and his geographical grand opus Kitab Ṣurat al-Arḍ ('Book of the description of the Earth'/ كتاب صورة الأرض ), which is also known as 'Geography' (finished in 833). He reassessed the work of Ptolemy, the Egyptian Geographer of the 1st-2nd c. CE, and came up with 2402 coordinates of cities, towns, villages and other geographical locations.

Several of Al-Khwarizmi's works were not saved in the Arabic original text, but in Medieval Latin translations, because his reputation reached Western Europe through Andalusia; furthermore, he elaborated several other treatises on chronology and calendars, Trigonometry and other branches of Mathematics, History (Annals) and other topics. In general, he is considered as the beginning of the Golden Age of Islamic Science.

xv- Abu Ma'shar al Balkhi: the scholar who abandoned the worthless science of Hadith to focus on Mathematics, Astronomy and Astrology

Abu Ma'shar al Balkhi (787-886) was a Bactrian (Eastern Iranian) astronomer and astrologer, who became highly influential in the Abbasid court and widely known in Andalusia and in Western Europe, due to Latin translations of the 12th c.; known as Albumasar to Latin readership, he was extensively quoted, copied, and discussed in either Muslim or Christian lands. His successful divination and foretelling did not only attract admiration and respect, but also caused him grave trouble, as the puppet caliph al-Musta'in (836-866; reign after 862), who was imposed by the Turkic military guards, was very displeased with him and punished him with public lashing; such were the conditions of life during the period, which was historically called 'Anarchy at Samarra' (fawda Samarra/فوضى سامراء; 861-870), because the capital was transferred 130 km to the North; during those years, the violent succession of four caliphs epitomized the disintegration of the Caliphate.

Most of Abu Ma'shar al Balkhi's manuals and books are preserved through various summaries and anthologies made by Muslim scholars (notably Ibn al-Nadim and Sijzi in the 10th c. and Abd al-Hasan Isfahani in the 14th c.) or thanks to many Latin translators {such as Johannes Hispaniensis (John of Seville), Herman of Carinthia, and Abelard of Bath in the 12th c.}.

As he has been chronicled by several Muslim authors, we can safely claim that his centenarian life example is as important as his treatises and opuses; Abu Ma'shar al Balkhi in his early years was a theologian and a scholar of hadith; it is only at middle age that he shifted his focus to mathematics, astrology, and astronomy. This was not merely a personal affair, but it reflected and epitomized the reality of the Muslim society, which valued science, exploration and intellectual investigation far more than the boring work of archiving sayings, utterances, debates and discussions made before 200 years in the faraway, marginal and mainly uneducated region of Hejaz.

It simply meant that, in the 9th c. CE, most of the Muslims -with few exceptions- were astute enough to realize that what they could understand from the Quran and the -already known through hearsay- hadith was quite sufficient for them to perceive the revelations made by Prophet Muhammad and accept the moral values preached by Ali ibn Abi Taleb. And who were the exceptions? Ahmad ibn Hanbal (780-855), Muhammad al-Bukhari (810-870), Muslim ibnl-Hajjaj (815-875) and few others, who wasted their lives either in trivial affairs or in distorting the true essence of Islam, which was exemplified by wise scholars and true scientists like Al Khwarizmi and Abu Ma'shar al Balkhi.

What truly mattered for the 9th c. CE Muslims was to study the nature, explore the universe, learn the truth of other civilizations, and live their lives in plain truth and freedom – and not in the hypocrisy of following orders issued by uneducated muftis who wanted to make of religion a shameful bureaucratic officialdom and to thus secure for them all the material goods that they could. It is therefore crucially vital for today's Muslims to understand that they are disastrously wrong in the selection of their readings, absolutely false in their religion, completely alien to their cultural heritage, tragically confused in their priorities, and totally ignorant of their historical past. Staying as they are now, Muslims cannot claim any historicity, do not represent anything more than their willful blindness and execrable misery, and are at the very antipodes of the true Islam.

xvi- Abu Hanifa Dinawari and the Islamic Agricultural Revolution

Originating from the Zagros Mountains (Western Iran), Abu Hanifa Dinawari (828-895; أبو حنيفة الدينوري) was another Iranian scientist, who excelled in Agronomy, Botany, Alchemy, Metallurgy, History, Geography, Astronomy, and Mathematics; his major work, the Book of Plants, has been considered as the foundation of Islamic Botany, as it consists in an outstanding contribution to the phenomenon of Islamic Agricultural Revolution, which represents only one aspect of socio-environmental transformation brought about during the Golden Age of Islam.

Great improvement in irrigation, productivity, and animal husbandry, impressive increase in agronomic literature, systematic diffusion of new plants to potentially accommodating regions, and an evident effort to develop techniques able to support an advanced urbanization and a sophisticated stratification of society constitute some of the main changes occurred due to this phenomenon. Several Western Orientalists gave it an absurd misnomer, namely 'Arab Agricultural Revolution', but of course this appears pathetic and ludicrous in view of the aridity that prevails in Hejaz and the minimal skills that the Arabs developed in agriculture - in striking contrast to the Yemenites, the Aramaeans, the Iranians, the Turanians, the Indians and the Egyptians.

Abu Hanifa Dinawari's 'General History' (الأخبار الطوال) marks a major landmark as it is an early Islamic chronography that starts with the Creation, the antediluvian times, and the Flood. Written by a devout Muslim and a proud Iranian, the text places Iranshahr (the realm of Iran) at the epicenter of World History; the book ends with the defeat of the Khurramite rebellion (837) and the subsequent execution of Babak Khorramdin and the vassal prince of Ushrusana (in parts of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan), Khaydhar ibn Kawus al-Afshin (see previous unit of the present series of articles Iran 2026: the Pivot of World History Assaulted by the Barbarians of the West – II, Part IV, C, 1, a, i).

It would take few decades until Tabari makes of historiography the revelation of all oral and written sources, and around 150 years until Ferdowsi exalts Iranshahr as the epitome of Mankind.

xvii- The Shu'ubiyyah movement

In the late 8th and the early 9th c. CE, we first attest the fundamental concepts and the main tenants of the Shu'ubiyyah movement; this reflected the conclusions and the convictions of the outright majority of the population of the Caliphate, namely all those who, having accepted Islam, realized very clearly that the religion revealed by Prophet Muhammad and preached by Ali ibn Abi Taleb was understood by the non-Arab Muslims far better than by Arabs. In other words, they maintained that the Yemenites, the Aramaeans, the Iranians, the Turanians, the Indians, the Egyptians, the Berbers, and the Eastern Romans could perceive the spirituality and the faith of Muhammad in a far more sound and noble manner than the tribal society of Hejaz that had no cultural background, no historical past, no indigenous spirituality, and no socio-behavioral environment suitable for the very sophisticated revelation made by the Quran.

Uncultured, uneducated, ignorant and barbarian, the Arabs should not therefore control the administrative positions of the caliphate if the state had to be Islamic. Disastrously entrenched in tribalism and barbarian traditions, the Arabs, who had already become a tiny minority among the Muslim populations of the vast Islamic state 100 years after the death of Prophet Muhammad, could not understand the universal-ecumenical role of the Caliphate, and downgraded it to petty razzias, stupid invasions, and miserable tribal rules, thus demonstrating that their false religion was a sort of combined Abu-Bakrism (also known as Bakriyyah), Umarism (quite distinct from Omarism, i.e. the literary legacy of Omar Khayyam), and Uthmanism (historically described as shi'at Uthman or Uthmaniyya) rather than the true Islam.

Although the Shu'ubiyyah movement never had proper structure and organization, it constituted a mindset, a worldview, an attitude and a behavior -attested in average people and the academic-intellectual elite-, which could never tolerate any form of cultural sectarianism and governmental Arabization. The movement represented indeed a certain number of trends that finally prevailed; in terms of governance, it took the form of the Iranianates that rose at the expense of the Abbasid caliphate. With regard to spirituality, education, culture, and everyday life, the Golden Era of Islamic Civilization sent all Arab elements back to the useless deserts from where they had come. In the 9th and the 10th c., Arabic language became a highly enriched medium of communication, able to incorporate many words of Aramaean, Persian, Turkic, Egyptian, Indian, Berber and other origin, thus taking a markedly different form from Quranic Arabic.

The complete prevalence of the Shu'ubiyyah led to the de-Arabization of the early administrative nomenklatura. In fact, the only Arab traits of the early Caliphate that remained were

a- the idiotic desire to produce copious theological literature in support of every ignominy performed and of all the debased caprices committed by lawless fighters who turned Islam into a disgrace; this trait is at the origin of the so-called Sharia (the fake religious law) and the Islamic jurisprudence (which is falsely associated with Fiqh) that were later developed in several pseudo-Islamic states.

and

b- the deeply anti-Islamic absurdity that a religion can be spread through invasions and wars, which was what Prophet Muhammad before dying had sworn Ali ibn Abi Taleb never to do; this vicious trait is the true reason for the many unnecessary wars attempted and invasions undertaken by pseudo-Islamic states run presumably by the various caliphs, emirs and sultans, but in reality governed by despicable muftis and false theologians, who wanted to perpetuate the Arab barbarism within their Papo-Caesarist bogus-Islam.

xviii- Al Kindi and the Mutazilites

Al Kindi (أبو يوسف يعقوب بن إسحاق الصبّاح الكندي/Abu Yusuf Ya'qub ibn 'Isḥaq as-Sabbaḥ al-Kindi; 801-873), born in Kufa and educated in Baghdad, was truly a particular case of theoretician, scientist and intellectual influenced by the Mutazilite school of theology that rose to prominence in the period known as Mihna {833-851; محنة خلق القرآن/miḥna khalq al-Quran/'the tribulation (caused by the belief) that the Quran was created', in the sense that, because the holy book of Islam was literally 'the Word of God', it had to be thought of as eternally extant, just like God}, when four successive Abbasid caliphs (i.e. al-Ma'mun, al-Mu'tasim, al-Wathiq, and al-Mutawakkil for his first four years of reign) decided to impose Mutazila (المعتزلة) as the only acceptable Islamic doctrine allowed across the Caliphate, resulting in persecution and execution of numerous opponents.

Initiated by Wasil al Ata (699-748), the Mutazila School of Islamic theology revolved around four pillars, namely Monotheism (Tawhid), Justice (al-'Adl), Freedom, and the Creation of the Quran; promoting a rational approach to divine matters, all the Mutazilites rejected the theological absurdity as per which the Quran was uncreated and as eternal as God; they also reduced the 'good' and the 'evil' to merely rational categories. Strictly religious, the Mutazilites opposed the rising secular trend of their days, but by persistently debating on these topics, they significantly contributed to the consolidation of the beliefs of their theological opponents.

Renowned scholar in the Bayt al Hikmah, al Kindi was an Arab originating from Kindah, a tribe that is known to have a) earlier served the Yemenite kingdom of Sheba (the Sabaeans), b) later worked for the Himyarite Yemenite kingdom, and c) then migrated to the North where they established their own tribal realm in the desert (4th to 6th c. CE). Being a Mutazilite, Al Kindi tried to find theoretical tools, potential arguments, and counter-examples useful to oppose all those who rejected the rational argumentation and the Mutazila theology.

xix- The totally false academic terms "Ancient Greek philosophy", "Neo-Platonic philosophy", "Neo-Pythagorean philosophy", and "Hellenistic period"

He therefore resorted to pre-Islamic spiritual concepts, cosmological-soteriological systems, theoretical backgrounds, and schools of esoteric mysticism that were known and well documented for several centuries before the revelation of Islam. In this regard, Western historians, Orientalists and Classicists have introduced distortive representation of the facts and false terms, such as "Ancient Greek philosophy", "Neo-Platonic philosophy" and "Neo-Pythagorean philosophy". Working on this background, many Western scholars and experts in Islam, utilizing these false terms, suggest that al Kindi was influenced by Neo-Platonic philosophers. That's absurd and nonsensical.

The so-called "Ancient Greek philosophers" are basically Ionians from Anatolia (and not the Balkans, so unrelated to Europe), who travelled to Babylonia, Egypt and Iran to study in the local temples-universities-research centers, because there was nothing equivalent back at home where the tiny local temples were centers of limited cult and dogmatic ignorance. Whatever idea was attributed to those 'philosophers' is subject to the real and original meaning of the created term: feeling a sense of inferiority in front of the wisdom of the Ancient Babylonian, Egyptian, Iranian or Phoenician priests, mystics, scribes, translators, scientists and wise elders, they did not dare to call themselves 'wise', but 'friends of wisdom' ('philosophia' vs. 'sophia'/wisdom).

When speaking about the so-called "Ancient Greek philosophers", it is absolutely crucial to bear in mind that their texts were not properly, honestly and reliably saved and preserved. There is no text written by any Ionian or (later) Attic philosopher that dates back to 6th, 5th or 4th c. BCE. Most of their works are lost; of several books attributed to them by later authors only some excerpts have been saved as they were quoted by posterior writers; and the few texts, which are 'preserved' down to our days, were recorded in the 9th, 10th or even 15th c. CE (so 1500 or even 2000 years after these philosophers died). Even more importantly, it is critical to point out that those manuscripts were written in geographically very distant lands that were culturally different, among people who were ethnically-linguistically dissimilar, by copyists who were spiritually and religiously opposed to all these philosophers. How trustworthy can this deceitful operation possibly be in terms of originality, accuracy and truth?

And, to ask the question in reverse form, why on Earth should a 10th c. Frankish or Irish Catholic monk bother to "copy a manuscript" of a text written by a pre-Christian Anatolian thinker

- whose land was located 3000 km away;

- whose faith had nothing in common with the Biblical past that the Christians cherished;

- whose language and script were totally unrelated to Latin or Frankish;

- whose culture and worldview directly contradicted the Christian faith; and

- whose potential use (by other monks, priests and few more people able to read) was none?

It makes no sense!

Even more so, since these monks and scribes had plenty of material to translate and copy, notably the Hebrew Bible, various Targumim (Aramaic translations of the Old Testament), diverse translations of the New Testament, and -above all- treatises, speeches, and other works elaborated by numerous Fathers of the Christian Church in Syriac, Greek, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian and Ge'ez.

Even worse, the corpus of all these Ancient Greek philosophical texts (and all the contents, concepts, theories, notions, assumptions, and conclusions that happen to be therein stated, discussed or mentioned) -if duly viewed in the light of the meanwhile deciphered, read, understood, and amply studied Sumerian, Akkadian (Assyrian-Babylonian) cuneiform, Hittite, Hurrian, Egyptian hieroglyphic, Canaanite Ugaritic, Phoenician, Aramaean, and Iranian texts (which are all accurately dated as per the archaeological excavation data)- plainly demonstrates that all the so-called "Ancient Greek philosophers" either merely reproduced diverse Ancient Oriental doctrines, worldviews, perceptions of the Divine, and moral codes or misperceived them in different ways. So, we can conclusively assert that what is by now senselessly called "Ancient Greek philosophy" constitutes in fact Ancient Oriental wisdom variably comprehended, partly understood, slightly misconstrued, totally misunderstood or even mistakenly overlooked by the intellectuals of Western Anatolia and Southern Balkans.

Now, in addition to the aforementioned, the fallacious misconstructions "Neo-Platonic philosophy" and "Neo-Pythagorean philosophy" were generated in order to supposedly narrate the otherwise nonexistent continuity of the so-called "Ancient Greek philosophy". As per the respective assumptions of biased Western scholars, the figurative descendants of Plato and Pythagoras were the intellectual progeny of Platonism and Pythagoreanism; this -if true- would simply mean a new stage of reassessment and reevaluation of Ancient Oriental wisdom, spirituality and science among Greek-reading audience during the Roman imperial times. But this would certainly be misplaced, because the tenants of those 'schools' were Oriental mystics, scholars and intellectuals, who wrote in Ancient Greek in order to diffuse their own Oriental reinterpretation or reconstitution of the Ancient Oriental spirituality, moral and wisdom that had largely decayed and been lost.

Look now at the leading figures of the so-called Neo-Platonists, who are better known due to existing sources! They are the following:

i- Ammonius Saccas (175-243 CE), an Egyptian mystic who was by name dedicated to Amun, an Egyptian god;

ii- Plotinus (diminutive of 'Plautus'; 204-270), an Egyptian from Zꜣwtj (Zauti; in Coptic: Sayawt; in Ancient Greek: Lycopolis; in Arabic: Asyut), 390 km south of Cairo; his most famous work, the 'Enneads', is a direct allusion to the Ancient Egyptian Iwnw (: Heliopolitan) religion, spirituality, world conception, system of cosmogony which were known to the Ancient Macedonians, Ionians and others as 'Ennead'.

iii- Porphyry of Tyre (233-309), Plotinus' best pupil, loyal follower, and editor of the 'Enneads' was, as already his conventional appellation suggests, a Phoenician (or Aramaean) from Tyre (today in Lebanon) whose original name Malchus was typically Semitic.

iv- Iamblichus (245-325), who was also a pupil of Plotinus, originated from Qinnasrin, near Haleb (Aleppo) in NW Syria, and represented Aramaean culture and mysticism.

v- Last but not least, Proclus Lycius (412-485) was a Lycian Anatolian scholar who grew in Xanthus (SW Anatolia) and later traveled, lived, studied, and taught in many cities, notably Alexandria, Constantinople and Athens; but he was not 'Greek' and he cannot be called as 'Proclus of Athens', contrarily to what many vicious Western bogus-scholars and forgers pretend.

There was nothing 'Greek' in all of them; they were Oriental mystics, scientists, and erudite scholars who wrote in Greek in order to diffuse Oriental concepts, notions, worldviews, cults, spiritual sciences, and wisdom among the elites of the Roman Empire. Considering them as 'Greeks' is as erroneous and as absurd as describing African American intellectuals as "Anglo-Saxon philosophers".

Similarly erroneous term is the construct "Hellenistic philosophy", which relates to the so-called "Hellenistic period", another racist fallacy fabricated by the criminal colonial academics out of thin air; the term is extremely biased because it supposedly refers to monuments built and material record -excavated in Western Asia and Egypt- with Ionian or Attic inscriptions and traces of Ionian, Macedonian or Attic Art. This was due to the formation of new cities where several soldiers of Alexander the Great, and of the Epigones, dwelled. This is true indeed, but the development did not Hellenize the local populations; but quite contrarily to this development, an unprecedented flood of Oriental cults, mysticisms, myths, and diverse systems of spirituality prevailed in the kingdoms of the Seleucids, Ptolemies, Attalids, etc.; in addition, a great number of Oriental religions, worldviews, cosmologies and eschatologies, behavioral systems and lifestyles were later diffused throughout the Roman Empire, removing the old Roman, Macedonian, Ionian and Dorian traditions and transforming all the European populations into culturally Orientalized nations. The correct term would therefore be "Orientalistic period" and "Orientalistic philosophy".

xx- Al Kindi, his example, and his works

Al Kindi found it necessary to study many treatises and other opuses of those pre-Islamic Oriental wise men and erudite writers in order to find ways to effectively refute the anti-Mutazila arguments of several Muslim theologians. And in doing so, he was very smart; at the same time, he offered the same possibility to many other Muslim scholars, scientists, mystics and wise savants who wanted to oppose the ignorance, the obdurate persistence, and the strict literalism of the traditionalist theologians. But the typical description that Al Kindi and many others (Avicenna, Ibn Rushd, etc.) made of the Late Antiquity Oriental mystics and savants was "the philosophy of the ancients".

Al Kindi covered many scientific fields, being inventive, innovative, perspicacious and comprehensive in his consideration of all things spiritual and material. Although he was not the first Muslim scholar to write about cryptography and al-Khalil (718-791; Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi), the famous grammarian and linguist from Basra, was the first to have written about the topic (كتاب المُعَمَّى /Kitab al-Muamma/

the book of cryptographic messages), Al Kindi established a method according to which a variation in the procession of letters, if duly observed, could help break ciphers (which in modern cryptanalysis is called 'frequency analysis'). In his essay (Risāla fī Istikhrāj al-Kutub al-Mu'ammāh/ رسالة في استخراج الكتب المعماة /How to extract the meaning of obscured texts), he explains how to proceed analytically in the matter.

In his astronomical-astrological treatises, Al Kindi reveals his conviction that the spiritual and material universes are inherently intertwined; they therefore interact, and that's why the celestial bodies influence the humans. Most of his astrological books are lost, whereas other treatises are saved as fragments or translated in Latin. Known as Alkindus among Western Europeans, he maintained that the stars are rational beings, which willingly act as instruments for the worship of God. He made many predictions, foresaw the collapse of the Caliphate, established concordances between astronomical signs and Medicine, associated meteorological conditions to sidereal developments, calculated solar returns (i.e. 'natal revolutions'), and asserted that every luminous body emits rectilinear rays which spread everywhere thus filling the universe. He was also versed in Optics, and his essay on vision was rendered in Latin as 'De Aspectibus'; according to him, the visual power of the eye transforms the air, which is the medium that stands between the eye and the object, and it is this 'transformed medium' that allows the object to be perceived by the eye.

In his medical treatise that was saved in its Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona (a 12th c. Italian translator of Arabic books in the libraries of Toledo, which became part of the Castilian kingdom in 1085) under title 'De Gradibus' (also known as 'Quia Primos' / the Arabic title being: رسالة في قدر منفعة صناعة الطب/risalatu fi qadr manfaeati sinaeatul tibi/A treatise on the usefulness of the medical profession), Al Kindi tries to apply mathematics to Medicine by quantifying the strength of drugs. By assuming that every simple drug, in which the two opposing qualities -i.e. hot and cold- are moderate, is thought to possess one part of warmth and one part of coldness, he quantified the degrees of potential effect that the drugs may have, by defining the arithmetic progression of the degrees (1nd, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) as actually hinging on the geometric progression of the number of parts (2, 4, 8 parts of warmth or coldness, etc.) that is administered for each degree.

Al Kindi's Medical Formulary (Aqrabadhin), which is not included in Ibn al-Nadim's Fihrist, is a collection of many recipes that may have been attributed to the illustrious scholar because of his reputation; most of them originate from botanical sources, whereas few ingredients are taken from animals or derived from minerals. Although Al Kindi was quite knowledgeable in Alchemy, wrote essays on Chemistry and Distillation, and also produced a great number of recipes for different perfumes, he did not believe in the transmutation of metals, which was thought to be the highest level of this science. In addition, he is credited with having actively contributed to the diffusion of the Indian system of numeration among Muslims. He even wrote several groundbreaking treatises on the topic, notably 'A book on the use of Indian numerals' (كتاب في استعمال الأعداد الهندية/Kitab fi Isti'mal al-a'dād al-hindiyyah). Last, he developed a purely mathematical approach to Spiritual Ontology (which is falsely called 'Metaphysics' today) by attempting to 'prove' that infinity in actuality is logically and mathematically absurd, and by pointing out that infinity exists only in potentiality.

Al Kindi's treatises on music, its relationship with the universal order, its impact on humans (as form of healing), and the 'knowledge on the composition of melodies' testify to a spiritual-material perception of the phenomenon of the sound, the need for sonar equilibrium, and the reflection of the universe within the human soul. The same approach to scientific research can also be found in his treatises about climate and the meteorological phenomena. However, to most Islamic scholars, scientists and intellectuals, as well as to Medieval Jewish philosophers and Western thinkers, al Kindi remained as the first savant of the Golden Age of Islam who tried to prove that divine revelation and human reasoning or philosophy are two different paths that lead to the Truth.

xxi- Al Farghani

Originating from the Central Asiatic valley of Ferghana (which belongs today partly to Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) and being of Iranian ancestry, Al-Ferghani (أبو العبّاس أحمد بن محمد بن كثير الفرغاني /Abu al-'Abbas Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Kathir al-Farghani; 800-870) was an astronomer at the Abbasid court and a distinguished engineer supervising projects in Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt. His grand opus 'Compendium of the Science of the Stars' (كتاب في جوامع علم النجوم /Kitab fi Jawami' 'Ilm al-Nujum/also known as 'Elements of Astronomy on the celestial motions') included a summary of the Almagest (a major treatise composed by the Ancient Egyptian astronomer and geographer Ptolemy in the 2nd c. CE), corrections, modifications, and improvements made by earlier Muslim astronomers, as well as his own personal calculations.

Al Farghani made notable amendments concerning the circumference of the Earth, the Earth's axial tilt (or obliquity), and the apsides (apogee and perigee) of the Sun and the Moon. His masterpiece of Islamic Astronomy was translated into Latin by John of Seville (around 1135) and later by Gerard of Cremona (ca. 1170). Between 1231 and 1235, it was also translated into Hebrew by Jacob Anatoli, who was invited by Friedrich (Frederick) II to Naples where under the high patronage he translated from Arabic into Latin and also taught Arabic. Last, Al Farghani composed several essays on various astronomical instruments, notably astrolabes, providing at the same time the mathematical basis for the construction of tools able to function in different meridians, as well as tables with the necessary data. More than 150 years after the death of the great astronomer, an even greater, Al Biruni, commented and discussed his contributions in a lost treatise under the title 'Editing the chapters of Al Farghani' (تذهيب فصول الفرغاني/Tahdhib fuṣul al‐farghani).

xxii- Al-Mahani, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Al-Battani, the Banu Musa, and Al-Hallaj

Abu-Abdullah Muhammad ibn Isa Mahani (ابوعبدالله محمد بن عیسی ماهانی; died ca. 880) was an Iranian astronomer and mathematician, born in Mahan (near Kerman) and active in Bayt al Hikmah and the Baghdad Observatory around the middle and the 2nd half of the 9th c. He worked on several mathematical problems, wrote commentaries, and introduced several new terms, thus enriching and updating the scientific vocabulary of Muslim scholars. Writing on irrational numbers, he considered integers and fractions as rational magnitudes and held square and cubic roots as irrational magnitudes. After defining square roots as plane irrationalities and cubic roots as solid irrationalities, he determined the sums or differences of these roots as also irrational magnitudes. Although most of his astronomical treatises are lost, Al-Mahani's achievements were mentioned by several posterior astronomers; his methods of calculating the azimuth were used by many other savants of the Golden Age of Islam and his observations of eclipses and conjunctions were mentioned in zij (astronomical tables) established by later scientists. He was also credited with using a solar clock in order to estimate the ascendant.

Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (known in Arabic as أبو زيد حنين بن إسحاق العبادي /Abu Zayd Ḥunayn ibn 'Isḥaq al-'Ibadi; 808-873) was a Christian Nestorian Aramaean scholar, physician, ophthalmologist, and most acclaimed translator, who became the personal doctor of Caliph al-Mutawakkil; however, this high distinction did not prove good enough to help him avoid a one-year imprisonment, because he refused to formulate a lethal poison for the caliph's enemy. He excelled in the study of vision and the description of the anatomy of the eye; in his 'Book of the Ten Treatises of the Eye' (kitab al-ashar maqalat fil-ayn/ كتاب العشر مقالات في للعين), he elucidates the function of all parts enabling a human being to have sight and makes state of the interconnection between the spiritual and the material parts of every person in this regard. At the very center of the eye, a crystalline lens links the eye to the brain; the vital part of the soul, which is based in the heart, rises to the brain, and thence it is adjusted in order to condition the sight. In other words, for Hunayn it is absolutely impossible for a body to see without interacting with the soul; it is only due to a) the spiritual vitality, which is sent from the brain to the eye, and b) the light, which acts in concordance with the soul, that humans can see what they see.

Hunayn was the student of another great Christian Nestorian Aramaean scholar, Yuhanna ibn Masawaih (777-857; يوحنا بن ماسويه ), who was the son of a physician and alchemist active in the illustrious Sassanid University Gundeshapur, before moving to Baghdad. Fluent in Syriac and many other languages, he translated extensively. Widely translated into Latin, Yuhanna ibn Masawaih became known in Western Europe as Janus Damascenus. Hunayn inherited his mentor's love for translation. He therefore systematized the translation process, establishing different teams working for specific tasks and prioritizing the accurate reproduction of the original meaning and the natural phrasing over word-for-word accuracy. As he was described as the 'master of all translators', it is not strange that his son, Ishaq ibn Hunayn (830-910), became a fully accredited translator at the Bayt al Hikmah too.

It goes without saying that Hunayn, his mentor, and his son, as well as many other Christian Monophysitic or Nestorian Aramaeans, who actively contributed to the rise of what is conventionally called 'Islamic Sciences' and Golden Age of Islam, fully and totally disperse the racist fallacies set up by many American and European Protestant, Evangelical, and other pseudo-Christians and the historical forgeries diffused by the paranoid Zionist Christians, who -by means of extreme distortion- represent the numerous Christian populations of the Islamic realm as supposedly oppressed or persecuted during the period between the 7th and the 11th c. CE.

That's a devilish lie and a vicious odium; the Monophysites and the Nestorians made the quasi-totality of the Christians who lived in the lands governed by Muslim rulers either in Asia or in Africa. We have therefore to conclude that the highly disastrous conditions, which prevailed across Eastern Mediterranean because of the barbarian, heinous, pseudo-Christian, Frankish Crusaders, and their absolutely negative consequences, which lasted long and were attested within the Ottoman Empire, cannot be arbitrarily projected onto the Islamic past (before the end of the 11th c. CE) and intentionally generalized, because this consists in foremost distortion and falsification.

Abu Abd Allah Muḥammad ibn Jabir ibn Sinan al-Raqqi al-Ḥarrani al-Ṣabi' al-Battani (basically known as Al-Battani; 858-929) was a Sabian Aramaean from Harran, not far from modern Urfa in SE Turkey (i.e. the great Aramaean capital Urhoy, which was also known as Edessa of Osrhoene). Extinct only in the 19th c., the Sabians were one Aramaean nation with totally distinct religion the sacred center of which was located in Eski Sumatar, SE of Urfa.

Astro-symbolists, monotheists, and forgetful of their appearance, the Sabians continued the Assyrian-Babylonian tradition, belief and worldview, which identified the material world as a reflection of the spiritual universe. Their religious center encompassed seven circular buildings dedicated to the stars, being available for both celestial and chthonian types of cults, either around them or in the caves constructed underneath the architectural structures. Quite bizarrely for Muslim historiographers of the Golden Age of Islam but very meaningfully for both, Prophet Muhammad and Ali ibn Abi Taleb, the Sabians were respectfully labeled as 'People of the Book'; they were thought to have their own holy scriptures of which no remain has been saved until now. Quite reasonably, the Sabians were believed to be the best observers of the luminaries and the wisest connoisseurs of the meaning of their particularities and trajectories. It was not therefore strange that Al-Battani found easily his position among Baghdad's leading astronomers and astrologers.

Working mainly in Raqqa, in today's NE Syria, where he established an observatory, Al-Battani continued the pre-Islamic Aramaean scholarly tradition, even more so since his father was a technician who produced astronomical instruments; this must have been the reason of his rather nominal adhesion to Islam, because it is evident that for people of such caliber, silly theological prescriptions and absurd descriptions are only worthless distortions of the truth. Quoted by later Muslim astronomers and widely translated by Western Europeans, he was a leading mathematician who introduced the use of sines and tangents in geometrical calculations, discovered trigonometric formulas, solved equations, defined relationships, and developed equations enabling the calculation and the establishment of tables of tangents and cotangents. He also produced an equation for finding the qiblah (the direction that Muslims take when praying), which was however superseded by a more accurate calculation invented by Al Biruni one century later.

Excellent astronomer following the geocentric model of the universe, Al-Battani employed his father's dexterity in creating correct astronomical instruments, made groundbreaking observations, improved Ptolemy's measurements, obtained a value for the precession of the equinoxes (1 degree every 66 years), and understood that this occurrence altered the annual motion of the Sun through the zodiacs.

He wrote several treatises in Mathematics and in Astronomy, as well as discourses, essays, and commentaries, but his Zij (Book of Sabian Astronomical Tables/Kitab az-Zij as-Sabi/ كتاب الزيج الصابئ), composed around 900 CE, consists in a masterpiece of Islamic Astronomy; it comprised of numerous astronomical tables, which were established on the basis of earlier Sassanid Iranian, Indian, and Egyptian (Ptolemy the Geographer) material, at times rectified, and of Al-Battani's own observations. The appended texts contained instructions as to how to use the tables. According to Ibn Nadim, the Sabian master released two editions of Zij, and the second was the best. The book was translated into Latin in the 12th century and in Spanish in the 13th century; the author's name was Latinized as Albategnius.

The Banu Musa ('the sons of Musa') is a conventional term used collectively for three Iranian brothers, who were all employed in the Bayt al Hikmah and the court of the caliph in Baghdad as leading scholars in Mathematics, Astronomy, and Engineering; named after their father, Musa ibn Shakir (who was the personal astrologer of Caliph al Ma'mun), Muhammad ibn Musa, Ahmad ibn Musa, and Al-Hasan ibn Musa (in order of seniority) lived during the 9th c., were prolific writers, and invented a great number of fascinating devices. Only three of their twenty (20) books are preserved; however, the titles, the contents, and commentaries about them are abundant in texts written by posterior Muslim scholars.

Not only did they form a large group of worldwide leading scientists and erudite scholars -along with Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf ibn Maṭar (a famous translator), Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi, al-Khwarizmi, and al-Kindi- but they also traveled across the Caliphate in order to effectuate different projects, being also dispatched to Constantinople in order to acquire manuscripts that were necessary for their research. They produced armillary spheres and other astronomic instruments; they carried out extensive astronomical observations in various part of the vast state, also effectuating concurrent stargazing from faraway locations.

Some of the titles of their treatises are quite indicative: the 'Kitab bayyana fihi bi-ṭariq ta'limi wa-madhhab handasi annahu laysa fi kharij kurat al-kawakib al-thabitah kurah tasi'ah' (كتاب بيّن فيه بطريق تعليمي ومذهب هندسي أنه ليس في خارج قرة الكواكب الثابتة قرة تاسعة /Book on the mathematical proof by geometry that there is not a ninth sphere outside the sphere of the fixed stars), which is by now lost, constitutes a stark and full refutation of Ptolemy's assumption that there might be a ninth celestial sphere, which would be (as per the Egyptian astronomer's assumptions) responsible for the motion of the heavens. The author of the treatise, Ahmed Ibn Musa, contended that all the stars moved, as independent spiritual and material beings, of their own free will.

The Banu Musa became principally known in Western Europe thanks to their 'Book on the measurement of plane and spherical figures' (Kitab ma'rifat masaḥat al-ashkal al-basiṭah wa-al-kuriyah / كتاب معرفة مساحة الأشكال البسيطة والكريّة) that was translated into Latin in the 12th c. by Gerard of Cremona, who knew their biographical details and he therefore selected the descriptive title "Liber trium fratrum", i. e. 'the book of three brothers'); this book was extensively commented by Nasir al din al Tusi in the 13th c., and quoted-discussed by plenty of Muslim and Western European scholars. The three great savants translated astronomical and mathematical treatises from Chinese into Arabic in an effort to encompass all the previous major scientific schools and traditions, namely Egyptian, Babylonian-Aramaean, Iranian-Turanian, Indian and Sinic, and to integrate them in a unified framework, as a universal patchwork of human knowledge, research, exploration, and wisdom.

For modern readership, the most spectacular treatise of the Banu Musa is certainly the 'Book of ingenious devices' (Kitab al hiyal/ كتاب الحيل; in Farsi: كتاب ترفندها /Kitab tarfand-ha, lit. 'Book of the tricks'); this constitutes an impressive collection of about 100 diverse innovative devices and engineering inventions.

Modern scholars believe that only one fourth of them can have a practical use, but at the same time, they fail to realize that all these concepts, engineering ideas, various automata, inventive designs, mechanisms, and textual descriptions were viewed at the time as "tricks"; in other words, the Persian title of the book was meaningful. This already suggests a visibly negative reception of all these items by the faithful and the spiritually sound people of those days. This is so because they believed and knew that the human being since the Creation was fully capacitated to achieve far more impressive and astounding acts than these petty tricks and trivial schemes that the Banu Musa materialized and presented.

Actually, during the Golden Age of Islam, it was not quite well known why they undertook this effort and what their real target was; utilitarianism is attributed to their inventions only by modern scholars, who exist only to endlessly and uselessly praise the modern Western science in a most unilateral, intentional, and sectarian manner. But there is no textual evidence of scholarly admiration from those days. It would therefore pertinent to deduce that the grand opus was mainly the result of

- eventual lengthy discussions and interpolations among them,

- their meticulous examination of the material feasibility of such projects,

- their desire to captivate the caliph and his guests, and

- their exuberant scholarly pride.

Two critical realities are certain in this regard:

a- whereas there were many ingenious Muslim scholars, who lived, searched, wrote, taught and delivered groundbreaking results over the next 600 years (down to the middle of the 15th c., notably in Timurid Samarqand), few among them showed an interest in expanding the advance made, and in engaging in the path opened, by the Banu Musa; for example, it is quite interesting why Al Biruni, 150 years later, did not bother to continue in the footsteps of the three brothers. But the foolish and pathetic Western scholars did not bother to examine the issues closely, because they want to always pretend that modern science is by definition beneficial -which is an absurdity.

and

b- soon there would appear an epic-literary and mystical 'response' to those unwise engineering marvels invented by the three brothers. In Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, a most intriguing character, the outlandish Iranian Kayanian King Kay Kavus, would devise a magnificent flying throne and undertake a fabulous flight to China, only to face a disastrous fall and be saved at the very last moment by Rustam, the ultimate personification of the Divine Grace.

As I cannot further expand on this point, I want to make clear that such inventions, either in the case of the Banu Musa or with respect to Ismail al-Jazari 300 years later, must be dealt with skepticism and not enthusiasm. Saved in several copies among which the best preserved are at the Vatican Library, the Berlin State Library, and the Topkapi Sarayi (Palace) in Istanbul, the 'Book of ingenious devices' comprises plans, designs and descriptions for non-manual (automatic) cranks, automatic one-way and two-way valves, mechanical fountains, pouring vessels, grabbing tools, funnels with bent end, double-concentric siphons, mechanical musical instruments, delay systems, timing devices, water dispensers for hot and cold water with both outlets alternating, a form of gas mask for underground use, devices capable of responding to feedback, self-trimming and self-feeding lamps, mechanical memories, hurricane lamps, and diverse combinations of pneumatics and aerostatics.

Mansour al-Hallaj (ابو المغيث الحسين بن منصور الحلاج /Abu 'l-Mughith al-Husayn ibn Manṣur al-Hallaj; 858-922) was a leading mystic, poet, and spiritual master far more important than the theologians, the hadith collectors, and the muftis who gathered around the impotent caliph of Baghdad during the late 9th and the early 10th c. CE in order to flatter him and acquire higher social status in the process. Best known for defining himself with the words 'I am the Truth' ('Ana 'l-Ḥaqq), Al-Hallaj was one of the Islamic world's most controversial champions. This is so because many heinous religious scoundrels accused him for laying claim to divinity, whereas contrarily to them, the true Muslims realized that the audacious and portentous visionary, when stating this, only described his personal achievement of fully annihilating his ego (or character or person) – which is «condicio sine qua non» for every human willing to fathom the Truth.

Al Hallaj is a historical person to whom the historical reality, the mystification, and the mythologization converged so forcefully that it is almost impossible for impartial observers to extract an exact and accurate understanding of what happened to him, his followers, his admirers, and his enemies.

Describing him as a Sunni Muslim is preposterous and misleading. He was not a Mutazilite by all means; that's for sure. For the miracles he was able to perform and for the wording of his sentences, we can comprehend that Mu'tazila rationalism was sheer absurdity to him.

There were no 'Sunni' and no 'Shia' at those days; as I already explained this is a modern construct. There were people, who viewed Islam as divine revelation, but it would be wrong to label them 'Shia', because the term is valid only for the times of Ali ibn Abi Taleb. More importantly, they did not designate themselves in this manner.

And there were people afraid for their petty lives up to the point of distorting and rationalizing the divinely sent book (Al Qur'an), as well as the speeches of Prophet Muhammad and the narratives about him (Hadith). By so doing, they reduced their religion to mere theology and they diminished the eternal, moral prescriptions to silly, strict rules formulated in a way that pleased villainous rulers and execrable usurpers. Accepting the material order above the divine calling is the exact opposite of Islam.

Among the people who wholeheartedly accepted Islam as divine revelation, one can distinguish, starting at the end of the 8th c. CE, two different categories of faithful Muslims:

a- those who identified salvation within an eschatological context and specified the forthcoming Savior as a descendent of Prophet Muhammad and Ali ibn Abi Taleb (those are mistakenly called 'Shia' by Western colonialists and by their foolish puppets, i.e. the outright majority of today's demented Muslims);

and

b- those who viewed salvation as result of mystical efforts within esoteric or personal context, involving abstinence and celibacy, explorations, spiritual exercises, and eventually (but not obligatorily) a mystic as spiritual guide. This particular approach to spiritual-material life is called Tasawwuf; the term was distorted in modern times as "Sufism", which can be all things to all people (like so many other ludicrous -isms) and must therefore be rejected. Consequently, the term "Sufi" is a totally fallacious construct that must not be used.

As true believers, all those, who identified salvation within eschatological context, practiced spiritual exercises as well and they lived experiencing mystical revelations of personal order. That's why the Western Orientalist forgers generated false terms, such as "Sunni Sufi" and "Shia Sufi" in order to deliberately produce common ground among those, who maintained no eschatological expectations, and to thus portray the so-called Sunnis as Muslims. The term "Sunni Sufi" is an oxymoron. Spirituality, as transcendental life, is the opposite of theology, which constitutes -within Islam- real death and faithlessness.

Al-Hallaj was an Iranian originating from a sacerdotal family of SE Mesopotamia; as a Muslim child, he memorized the Quran at 12, becoming thus a 'hafiz'; he studied spirituality and religion with several mystics, notably Junayd of Baghdad, performed hajj, and decided to abandon his tariqa (mystical order or esoteric group), because he did not agree with his master. He then traveled extensively to Khorasan (today's NE Iran and the southern parts of Central Asia); he practiced asceticism, which he fully identified with 'Jihad' (holy war against one's own sins, passions, desires, thoughts, and personal feelings), and he consciously erected Islamic monasteries for ascetic fighters willing to practice spiritual exercises and reconnect with their souls. It was a novelty for the entire Muslim world, but the dreadful end of his life cancelled the perspective. Celibacy and asceticism existed throughout the Islamic Ages, but never in organized form (like the Eastern Roman monasteries); all the same, many Muslim saints were hermits for several years of their lives.

It is certain that, after acquiring some spiritual potency, he was able to perform miracles – a faculty that would not be appreciated by many different segments of the multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural society that was the then Abbasid realm.

The miracles performed by Al-Hallaj could not possibly be acceptable by

a- the ruling family, the social elite, and the military officers,

b- the scientists, erudite savants, translators and researchers, who -contrarily to him- did not have a direct contact with the popular masses,

c- the Muslim theologians, who had reduced religion into a bogus-educational system geared to ensure social status stability to them and spiritual death to their followers,

d- those who identified salvation within eschatological context and specified the forthcoming Savior as descendent of Prophet Muhammad and Ali ibn Abi Taleb,

f- the followers of all the other religions, notably Zoroastrianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitic/Miaphysitic Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc., and

g- many people who wanted to calmly live their lives, disregarding the spiritual world.

Embarrassed because of the great number of his followers, many accused him of sorcery, pacts with demons and other spiritual beings, subordination to Evil, etc. His second hajj was apparently an opportunity for him to clash with a great number of people, notably all those who -irrespective of their religious, intellectual, and social background- desired to continue living in the way they did. We therefore understand that immorality for Al-Hallaj had become tantamount to voluntary or thoughtless disconnection from one's soul. Consequently, we can safely deduce that his Central Asiatic asceticism was impregnated with concepts related to a) criticism of the social order and b) rejection of the urban life. He then undertook his life's major quest and travel, which apparently was a spiritually inquisitive expedition throughout India and Turkestan.

After his return to Mecca (third hajj) and Baghdad, his life's last two decades were a period of extreme turmoil, incessant persecution, and constant confinement. Al Hallaj must be the only person in the History of Islam, who performed hajj with a Hindu loincloth and a patched garment. His ambivalent and inscrutable utterances, which are often mentioned as reason for his arrest and his brutal execution, date from that period. We cannot be sure about the correct and genuine reproduction of his words, because in such cases one word more or less changes entirely the meaning. It appears that he so much reviled urban life and human congregation in urban agglomerations that he may have believed that, in and by itself, civic life, community engagement, and social order constituted the real «mater omnium peccatorum» (the mother of all sins).

This conclusion is what interprets best the utterances which insinuate that he preferred to be killed by the senseless people of his community. However, if this is true, Al Hallaj constituted a unique and unprecedented threat (not for the Islamic world but) for all human communities of all time. The fact that he never called for a rebellion or an upsurge of any sort shows that he had clearly understood that no society can be potentially rectified, because the real problem is the human society itself. In other words, his atypical anachoretism may have helped him realize that the terminal end of all eschatologies cannot be other than the return to the Paradise before the Fall; but there is no -and there cannot be any- 'society'.

Al Hallaj was disastrous for all those, who identified salvation within eschatological context and specified the forthcoming Savior as descendent of Prophet Muhammad and Ali ibn Abi Taleb; although these people were fully correct in their demands, struggle, and faith, the real problem of human life after the Fall was far beyond all issues related to the time of Prophet Muhammad.

The truth is that these people had also been divided among themselves; after the death of Ja'far as-Sadiq, his followers were split into those, who accepted Musa al Kadhim (745-799 CE) as the seventh Imam, and those, who accepted Isma'il ibn Ja'far (722-775 CE; an elder half-brother of Musa al Kadhim) as the seventh Imam (and by so doing, they identified him as the Savior/Al Mahdi); however, the followers of Musa al Kadhim did not identify him as the Mahdi, therefore expecting one of his descendants to be the long awaited Savior.

The above brief description gives only a very modest idea about the eschatological divisions that characterized those Muslims. There were others, who -although they accepted Isma'il ibn Ja'far- viewed him as the sixth Imam, because they did not count Hasan ibn Ali as the second imam, considering him only as 'temporary' (mustawda/ المستودع); furthermore, there were people, who viewed Isma'il ibn Ja'far as the sixth Imam, because they considered Ali ibn Abi Taleb as Asas (الأساس; Foundation of the New Era) and Prophet Muhammad as the Natiq (الناطِق; Proclaimer of the New Era). This means that the divisions were not due to personal differences, but involved key conceptual divergences and distinct interpretations of the phenomenon of Islam.

There were also many who -considering Isma'il ibn Ja'far as the sixth Imam- accepted his son, Muhammad ibn Isma'il (740-813 CE), as the Savior/Al Mahdi. The latter group became known as Qarmatians; they were so dynamic and so strong that they set up a distinct religious state of purely eschatological vocation. By identifying the Zanj Rebellion (869-893 CE) in Basra as an excellent opportunity, the Qarmatians seceded from the already collapsed caliphate and, originally based in Bahrain and Qatar, invaded al-Hasa (NE Saudi Arabia) in 899 CE. There they formed a rebellious religious society of eschatological aspirations, because they were impatiently expecting Muhammad ibn Isma'il to come out of hiding and save the world; the Qarmatian state lasted for almost two centuries (from 899 until 1077).

This was the fragmented situation in which the Islamic realm lived when Al Hallaj had realized that the problem lay elsewhere. It was easy therefore for those, who accepted Musa al Kadhim (745-799 CE) as the seventh Imam, to accuse an outlandish and otherworldly mystic known for his eccentric utterances as Qarmatian. The fact that Al Hallaj had performed hajj three times, whereas the Qarmatians prohibited the hajj as a useless ritual and repeatedly ambushed hajj caravans, did not and could not possibly matter under those circumstances.

Al Hallaj was condemned to death in 922 CE only because in one of his utterances, he stated the following: «one true believer circumambulates seven times the Kaaba of his heart». It sounds quite ironical, but only five years after his excruciating death (in 927 CE), the Qarmatian army invaded Iraq and they were about to capture Baghdad, whereas three years later (in 930 CE), during the sack of Mecca and Medina, they tore down the Kaaba, desecrated the Zamzam well with killed corpses, and carried the Black Stone off for ransom that the otherwise useless Abbasid caliph paid an enormous amount of money to get it back two decades later.

Al Hallaj was 16 years old when the Eleventh Imam, Hasan al-Askari (844-874) died; his son, Abu al Qassim Muhammad ibn al-Askari, the Twelfth Imam (identified as the Mahdi), was only six (6) years old (being born in 868 CE) and until then totally unknown to the public. His existence was announced for the first time by Uthman ibn Sa'id al-Asadi (the first of the four successive representatives through whom the Twelfth Imam was said to have communicated with the faithful Muslim community) immediately after the death of Hasan al-Askari. According to several traditions, the only time Muhammad ibn al-Askari appeared in public was the funeral of his father where he led the funeral prayer. His life until 941 CE was therefore defined as Minor Occultation (al-Ghayba al-Ṣughra/ الغيبة الصغرى) because from the age of 6 until he reached 73, he lived among people, being though unidentified and unknown, and guided the faithful and their affairs only though his deputies.

One can therefore maintain that either Al Hallaj lived at the time of the Minor Occultation of the Twelfth Imam or that Abu al Qassim Muhammad ibn al-Askari lived at the time of Al Hallaj; no less than 19 years after the latter died, the former started his Major Occultation (الغيبة الكبرى / al-Ghayba al-Kubra), namely a very long period of mystical existence during which he does not communicate with the faithful through deputies. Having disappeared from the cellar of his family home in Samarra (Central Iraq), which contains the well of the Occultation (currently accommodated within a mosque constructed in that location), the Twelfth Imam set in motion the clock of the End Times which start with his reappearance.

However, back at those days, Al Hallaj experienced already what all the people will finally learn when Muhammad ibn al-Askari appears finally in public; but in the tumultuous ordeal of their days, the two extraordinary men undoubtedly constituted the only poles of serenity in a tormented world: the former due to his interminable and eccentric utterances and the latter because of his absolute and concentric silence. All the same, we now understand that the great mystic knew very well that every sound corresponds to a line and, by pronouncing the words and the letters that he did, he generated Truth-emitting signs that exist until all things end.