Indeed, al-Khwarizmi’s celebrated book Kitab Surat al-Ard (Book on the Shape of Earth) was a pioneering work in the field of geography which later inspired other Muslim scientists and geographers to pursue advanced research in this subject.
It was during his stay in Basrah that al-Mas’udi recorded his ideas and thoughts on a wide range of subjects (including history, geology and geography) in the form of a book. He paved the way for other Muslim thinkers, such as Ibn Khaldun, to pursue their sociological analysis of culture and society. The accounts of his journeys were accurate, vivid and comprehensive. Considered to be one of the most comprehensive works ever written on the subject of history, geology and geography, al-Mas’udi completed the first draft of his book in 947. He later revised it in 956 and a French translation was published in Paris between 1861 and 1877 in nine bulky volumes.
In addition to being a pioneering explorer, a gifted geologist and an outstanding geographer, al-Mas’udi was also a historian of the highest caliber. Along with al-Baladhuri, al-Tabari, al-Isfahani, Ibn al-Athir and Ibn Khaldun, he is today considered to be one of the Muslim world’s greatest historians.
Hailed as a masterpiece, al-Mas’udi’s work has recently been published in English in thirty-eight volumes. He did not collect a large quantity of information and compile it in chronological order; instead he adopted a critical approach to writing and interpreting history.
Toward the end of his life, al-Mas’udi left Basrah and moved to Syria for a period. He then went to Cairo where he composed another voluminous work on history. Entitled Akhbar al-Zaman (An Account of Times), this work on history and culture consisted of around thirty volumes.
Al-Mas’udi became known as the ‘Herodotus and Pliny of the Arabs’. He died at the age of sixty-two and was buried in al-Fustat, Egypt.
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Abul Hasan al-Shadhili (1197-1258): According to a famous Prophetic tradition (Hadith), at the turn of every century there will emerge a Mujaddid (or religious regenerator) who will call the Muslims back to the original, pristine message of Islam. Eminent Sufi sages like Hasan al-Basri, Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, Jalal al-Din Rumi, Khwajah Naqshband, Shihab al-Din Umar Suhrawardi, Mu’in al-Din Chishti and Najm al-Din Kubra (who contributed immensely to the preservation and dissemination of Islam as a religion and a way of life) were not considered to be Mujaddid. Of the numerous Sufi Orders (Tariqah) which emerged in the Muslim world over the last fourteen centuries, the Qadiriyyah, Naqshbandiyyah and the Chishtiyyah are considered to be the most popular and prominent. However, the Sufi Order founded by Abul Hasan al-Shadhili, the great North African Sufi scholar and sage, also played a pivotal role in the preservation of Islamic thought and practices in North Africa, as well as the dissemination of Islam across Europe and America.
Abul Hasan Ali ibn Abdullah al-Shadhili, known as Imam Shadhili for short, was born in the district of Ghumara, located close to modern Ceuta in Morocco. Living during this relatively peaceful rule of the al-Mohads (this dynasty was founded in the middle of the twelfth century by Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Tumart, a prominent North African Islamic reformer of the time), Shadhili became a devout student of Islam from an early age.
His time with Shaykh Mashish represented a major turning point in Shadhili’s life, for it was during this period that he mastered the rigorous methods of Sufism and began to experience Islamic spirituality in its highest form. After completing his training with Shaykh Mashish, Shadhili left his native Morocco and moved to a town called Shadhila in Tunisia; henceforth he became known as Imam Shadhili. The movement started by him later became known as Tariqah al-Shadhiliyyah (or the Shadhiliyyah Sufi Order). Islamic spirituality – as championed by Shadhili – thus spread across Tunisia, Morocco and many other parts of North Africa during his own lifetime.
In 1244, at the age of forty-seven, Shadhili claimed to have been blessed with another vision wherein he was instructed to leave Tunisia and go to Egypt to propagate Islam there. Accompanied by his family, friends and disciples, he left North Africa and moved to Alexandria where he established a Shadhiliyyah Zawiyyah.
To prove there was no contradiction between the Prophetic way (Minhaj al-sunnah) and the ways of Tasawwuf, Shadhili took part in the Battle of al-Mansura, where the Muslims fought against the Crusaders led by St. Louis of France. He insisted on taking part in the battle, despite being blind, and thereby proved that one does not have to become a hermit to be a Sufi.
The age of Shadhili was indeed one of the most significant periods in the annals of Sufism. These influential Sufis inspired the Muslim masses to reject the forces of materialism and self-indulgence which threatened to overwhelm Islamic societies both in the East and the West. At the same time, the Muslim world faced a serious political and military threat from the Mongol hordes. As it transpired, the Mongols soon overran the fragile defense put up by the Muslims and marched into Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, in 1258 and reduced the great city to rubble.
Unlike, for example, Jalal al-Din Rumi or Ibn al-Arabi, Shadhili did not write any books or treatises. The main focus of his teachings was the attainment of inner purification and spiritual illumination through the incessant practice of dhikr, or invocation of Divine Names and Attributes (al-asma wa’l Sifat). After Shadhili’s death at the age of sixty-one, collections of his invocations, or litanies (Adkhar), were published by his prominent disciples (such as Abul Abbas al-Mursi) and later became the bedrock of Shadhiliyyah teachings.
Buried in the village of Humaithra on the coast of the Red Sea, Imam Shadhili’s enduring message of Islamic morality, ethics, spirituality and gnosis continues to influence millions of Muslims across North Africa, Egypt, Sudan, Turkey, Iran, parts of East Africa and the Balkans to this day.
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Abul Qasim al-Zahrawi (936-1013): After the Umayyads were ousted from power by the Abbasids in 750, Prince Abd al-Rahman ibn Muawiyah fled Damascus and arrived in North Africa. From there he reached Cordova, the capital of al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) in 756, and swiftly assumed control of that country. By unifying Spain under his able leadership, he also inaugurated one of the most memorable periods in European history. Under the guidance of his descendants such as Abd al-Rahman II and Muhammad I, Spain became one of the most advanced European nations of the time. Caliph Abd al-Rahman III and his successors turned Cordova into a thriving center of intellectual, cultural and literary activities. Al-Zahrawi was one such outstanding scholar and scientist whose contribution and achievement in the field of medicine and surgery was unique and unprecedented.
Abul Qasim Khalaf ibn Abbas al-Zahrawi, known in medieval Europe as Abulcasis, was born in the royal suburb of al-Zahra in Cordova during the glorious reign of Caliph Abd al-Rahman III. After completing his early education in Arabic and aspects of Islamic and physical sciences, al-Zahrawi developed a keen interest in the medical sciences. He went on to serve the Caliph in the capacity of personal physician until the latter died in 961 at the age of seventy-one, having ruled Islamic Spain for no less than half a century. Al-Zahrawi was barely twenty-five when al-Hakam ascended the throne in Cordova and asked him to serve as hi personal physician.
The libraries of Cordova were packed with books and manuscripts on all the sciences of the day. Such was al-Hakam’s enthusiasm for learning and scholarship that the historians have compared him with the Abbasid Caliph Abdullah al-Ma’mun who was also a formidable champion of higher education and learning.
As a pioneer of surgical anatomy, al-Zahrawi performed a large number of operations, ranging from simple Caesarean sections, to more complex and delicate eye operations. He not only invented a large number of surgical tools, but also performed numerous operations using the same tools and equipment. He also trained midwives to carry out emergency Caesarean operations and other clinical procedures on women. As an accomplished dentist, he was
