THE MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC WORLD FROM CENTRAL ASIA TO ANATOLIA:
THE HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT
With its rapid expansion to the status of world
people that for over a millennium, since Alexan-
power, the Islamic world became increasingly
der the Great (r 356–323 bc), had been subject
open culturally to the transmission and active
to varying degrees of Hellenisation
appropriation of ancient learning from Graeco-
Throughout the Umayyad period (41/661–
Roman and Indo-Iranian sources The westward
132/750), and possibly beyond the mid-eighth
movement of the culture of Western Central Asia,
century, Greek was widely current in greater Mes-
in particular that of greater Khurasan, resulted
opotamia and Palestine as the native language of
not only in an outflow of savants and artists from
a significant portion of the population4 and was
this region but in a general tendency to “Easter-
moreover cultivated in the many Christian mon-
nise ” This coincided with the westward migra-
asteries and cloisters The cultivation of Hellenis-
tion of ever-growing numbers of Turkic-speaking
tic philosophy and science at centres of learning
tribes into Western Asia which increased from the
that had flourished during the first six centuries
late tenth century onwards From the end of the
of the Christian era was well entrenched and fur-
eleventh century until the onslaught of the Mon-
ther developed in the regions that were part of the
gols in the mid-thirteenth century, the Saljuqs
Roman, later the Byzantine and Sasanian empires,
and their “successor states” ruled a large region
and finally the caliphate, throughout the Fertile
from India to Egypt, perpetuating the heritage of
Crescent, from Edessa (al-Ruhā) and Qinnasrīn
Western Central Asian art and culture in their
in the west, through Nisibis and Mosul in north-
new homeland
ern Mesopotamia to Jundaysābūr in Khūzistān,
Two major currents profoundly influenced the
well into western Iran 5 To these should be added
formation of the Islamic world from its incep-
at least two other major centres of Hellenistic
tion One was the transmission of ancient learn-
science and learning, Ḥarrān (ancient Carrhae) in
ing from the Greek, Central Asian (in particular
northwestern Mesopotamia just south of Edessa
the Iranian) and Indian cultural realms, provok-
In 47/667 the Muslim armies crossed the river
ing an intense intellectual ferment in the Islamic
Oxus and by 95/713 Transoxania had come within
world 1 This was linked with and reflected by the
the expanding fold of Islam The Eurasian heart-
second, which saw the culture of Western Central
lands, in particular the cities of Marw and Balkh
Asia flowing westwards, facilitated by the large-
in Khurasan (covering a wide extent of land com-
scale migrations of Turkish-speaking people
prising regions in present-day Afghanistan, Turk-
into Islamic lands from the late tenth century
menistan and Iran),6 which were well-known for
onwards 2
their libraries until their destruction by the Mon-
With the establishment of the Islamic polity
gols in the early thirteenth century, constituted an
( dār al-islām, “abode of Islam”) in the wake of
important locus for integrating and transmitting
the Arab conquests after the death of the Prophet
knowledge 7
Muḥammad in 10/632, the lifting of political and
After the ʿAbbasid revolution, the transfer of
religious barriers from Morocco to India pro-
the seat of the caliphate from Syria to Iraq and
moted greater movement of goods, people and
the building in 145/762 of a new capital, Bagh-
ideas across a vast region 3 It united areas and
dad (close to the ruins of the Sasanian capital of
1
3
The most in-depth monograph on the Graeco-Arabic
Gutas, 1998, p 13; Bauer, 1995, pp 34–6
4
translation movement and the political and social factors
Gutas, 1998, p 117
5
involved in it is certainly that of Gutas, 1998
Idem, p 14
2
6
While the migratory routes of peoples were mostly from
Idem, p 14
7
east to west, there were also significant concurrent flows in
Ruska, 1926 Cf Needham and Wang, 1965, p 369;
the opposite direction as well as southwards
Gutas, 1998, p 50 and n 39
16