The exceptional individual virtues of scientists and the problem of mathematical calculations

The well-known physician and philosopher Abu Bakr al-Razi (311 AH) tells that he was so patient and diligent that he "wrote more than 20,000 papers with the same script in incantations in one year."

He said, "I stayed in the work of (the Great Mosque) for 15 years, working day and night until my eyesight was weak, and I had a fracture in the muscle of my hand that prevents me at this time from reading and writing, and I am as I am and do not leave them as much as I can, and I always seek help from someone who reads and writes for me."

A few days ago, I published this news on my Facebook page; One of the brothers commented questioning the accuracy of the number mentioned by Al-Razi, saying, “If he actually wrote 20,000 papers in a year, then this means that he was writing about 60 papers per day. That he was writing about 7 and a half papers an hour in a fine handwriting without reading or revising anything in a source here or there, and in this way a page takes about 8 minutes.With this calculation, it would be a great exaggeration to talk about writing 20,000 papers, but in fact it is inhuman."

This article is not in defense of Al-Razi. I did not write it in order to confirm the number mentioned by Al-Razi (which is writing 20,000 papers in a year), but to show that this number falls within the circle of the rationally possible;

Al-Razi’s report is an occasion that helps us to think critically or criticize criticism;

Especially since such an approach has been applied to the hadiths of the Prophet, but rather to Sahih al-Bukhari in particular, and I previously refuted some of the allegations related to it in a previous article entitled “Lies about al-Bukhari.”

This criticism raises several questions for me;

It is a critical criticism (i.e. related to the body or content of the historical news), and it essentially begs a mathematical calculation to end up with a rational judgment denying the authenticity or accuracy of the news.

This is something that tempts me - personally - to discuss the methodological origin on which this criticism is based, which is the method of historical criticism that was popular in the 19th century.

This article is not in defense of Al-Razi. I did not write it in order to confirm the number mentioned by Al-Razi (which is writing 20,000 papers in a year), but it is to show that this number falls within the circle of the rationally possible;

Al-Razi’s report is an occasion that helps us to think critically or criticize criticism;

Especially since such an approach has been applied to the hadiths of the Prophet, and indeed to Sahih al-Bukhari in particular, and I have previously refuted some of the allegations related to it in a previous article entitled “Lies about al-Bukhari.”

The historical criticism approach was applied to the analysis of literary and written texts first before it was used in the field of Islamic heritage. This approach is based on main elements, namely:

This approach was based on a central principle;

It is the rejection of the reliability that allegedly prevailed in the Islamic tradition, and that it is an issue that has been exaggerated and received without sufficient criticism!

If we return to Al-Razi’s report, we will find that the critic’s criticism here relates to the third element specifically, which is the principle of analogy, or the assumption that there are “natural laws”, and that what we know of our conditions must apply to Al-Razi himself;

Because we are all subject to the same human laws, two central things must be made clear here to refute this claim:

The first thing:

that mental analysis imposes the importance of distinguishing between what is usual or normal in human behavior, and what is exceptional; Because of objective factors governed by temporal, spatial, and human contexts related to personal abilities and faculties (whether innate or acquired), and people’s disparities in what God has bestowed on them, their ijtihad, their goals, and their personal and scientific careers as well. All of this prevents the establishment of a single law and its expulsion of all individuals in all places and times, and that what is happening with Al-Razi in the third century AH must take place strictly on the person of the 21st century.

Al-Razi narrates this story about himself in the “philosophical biography” which he wrote to argue against some of his critics who did not consider him among the philosophers. It means the virtuous or perfect person who obtains happiness through his request for wisdom, and this means that he stands at the top of the ladder, a degree that is different from the common people; Indeed, some of them, such as al-Farabi (d. 339 AH), for example, made philosophy a higher degree than the degree of prophecy, and al-Razi was imitated by his imam and the imam of the philosophers Socrates (d. 399 BC). He wants to prove to his reader that his biography is a philosophical biography that conforms to the conditions, and deserves the title of philosopher; Compared to non-philosophers. He followed the approach of the great philosophers in view and action (that is, in both scientific and practical wisdom, which are two parts of philosophy), and therefore he is not like other people.

Patience, perseverance, defending desires, asceticism in life and contentment with it for what is most needed, preserves the survival of the soul, repels pain from it, and preserves its balance and moderation, according to the scale of the philosophers; All are virtues that a philosopher must possess. This necessitates leaving a lot of permissible things as well, because they are not worthy of the philosopher, and they are necessary to exercise the rational (or mental) power so that it can control the rest of the soul’s forces so that it controls its lustful and angry powers, and reaches its perfection that leads it to happiness, which is the supreme goal that the philosopher seeks.

The path to this happiness is the acquisition of theoretical knowledge (or theoretical wisdom); Knowledge is the greatest virtue, and if every virtue has two sides; It is the mediator between two extremes (excessiveness and negligence). Wisdom (or theoretical knowledge) has no two sides; Because it is all a virtue and there are no limits to its request. For this reason, Al-Razi spoke in his biography of repelling harm and asking for sources in the sentence; However, when he came to seek knowledge, he said, “even if that leads to harm.” Rather, the harm he tells of Al-Razi occurred due to the rupture of the muscle of his hand and the weakening of his eyesight. To exaggerate the request for knowledge, and if he were to follow in his practical course the way of ordinary people, all this would not have happened to him, and the meaning he is trying to prove to his reader would be corrupted and he would be invoked by those who object to his being a philosopher.

It was from the nature or qualities of Al-Razi that he described himself when he said: “As for my love for knowledge, my eagerness for it, and my diligence in it, it is known to those who accompanied me and witnessed that from me that I have not remained - from my youth until this time - on it, to the extent that when a book comes to me I have not read it. Or a man I did not meet, I did not turn to a job at all - even if it would cause great harm to me - without coming to the book and knowing what the man has.” He only says this or writes it after he was afflicted by the damage that befell him, and after he wrote nearly 200 books, articles and treatises until the date of writing his treatise called "The Philosophical Biography".

Accordingly, the "human and non-human" - which is mentioned in the critic's commentary - is a minimum level for the common people, not the degree of perfection of people that the philosopher seeks, and therefore what the critic of Al-Razi's report here considers as "human", the philosopher considers a defect in his right that brings him down to the rank of the common, and degrades it from both virtue and happiness; Because his request for theoretical wisdom (philosophy) is the one who reached this amount in his opinion, and then the number mentioned by Al-Razi is rationally possible, and evidence of its owner reaching the degree of wisdom or philosophy, and this leads us to the need to distinguish here between the possible and the impossible in the mind, and writing this huge number From the pages it is not impossible, but it is certainly beyond the ordinary and beyond the reasonable.

The second matter:

that mathematical calculations are not carried out on a general law other than in its abstract mathematical field;

Because its applications differ according to different people, because there are objective factors and individual differences that make it true in the right of people without people, or in the right of ordinary people without exceptional ones, and in this case the mathematical calculation does not refer the validity of the news to a mind, but it transfers its owner from the rank of the ordinary to the rank of the exceptional, and then it is presented The foregoing considerations justify the exceptional being exceptional.

Let us consider the mathematical calculation carried out by the critic of Al-Razi’s news here. We will find that it is based on misconceptions represented in the points:

First point:

It measures the person of al-Razi and his practice on an ordinary person who works for only 8 hours out of 24 hours in a day; Although Al-Razi himself talks about continuing day and night in his work and his request for knowledge, and that he does not consider the harm in the pursuit of knowledge harm to be avoided, and I doubt that a capable scholar at any time, reads and writes only for 8 hours, or that he follows the Europeans’ approach in sanctifying Weekend days and he does not continue his work on them, not to mention that he is a philosopher who adopts the philosophical biography that Al-Razi spoke about. Rather, he himself has shown that whoever seeks wisdom in his spare time does not reach it, and whoever wants to acquire it in a short period of time does not smell its scent; Because dedication and perseverance are two necessary conditions for achieving it in its fullest form. Like other industries and sciences, it has been said: If you give knowledge to all of you, it gives you some of it. So how can my poetry be correct for a scholar or an educated person to suffice with 8 hours a day, or how to compliment himself and leave until a time passes - no matter how short - without contemplating or learning!

The second point:

that the number assigned by Al-Razi was not the intention; Rather, his goal is to clarify his dedication and the extent of his patience and perseverance in seeking knowledge, and what kind of soul he possesses, and that it is a soul in which the conditions of a philosophical biography are fulfilled. the calculation, its criteria and the accuracy of its results, such as the number of hours of writing; Knowing that the day is 24 hours, and the number of hours he sleeps, especially since we know from the biography of Al-Razi that the virtuous philosopher behaves in bodily pleasures the way he asks of them “what is necessary” only without enjoying it, that is, he asks of them what is limited to mere repelling pain, especially since Pleasure, according to Al-Razi, is to repel pain and return to the natural state.

One of the questions that must be answered before the mathematical calculation is also: What is written here?

We know that the nature of the written affects the rate of speed, so was he summarizing previous works for himself or creating works of construction?

Was this huge number written in the stage of maturity or in the initiation stage?

We know that the scholar in every art goes through stages in his quest for knowledge: initiation, mediation, and maturity. For this reason, compilations have been created that are an insight for the beginner and a reminder to the finished. There is no doubt that each stage differs from the other in the degree of mastery, and therefore the need to review the sources varies.

Hence, the mathematical calculation must differ;

Due to the different calculated laws and the factors surrounding the context.

In addition, writing on paper and with a pen is a skill, and it differs in speed and slowness, clarity and ruggedness, art and turbulence of handwriting, between writer and writer.

It is hardly even readable.

Third point:

The element of time and its blessing is a very important issue here, and it does not follow a single law between the people of the early centuries and the people of the centuries of modernity. Modernization has created many needs that have become more like necessities. A person thinks that his life is not straightforward without it, and it consumes time, effort and thought, while the people of In the early times, their needs were modest and their times brighter and broader, and their attainment and production richer and deeper, in addition to how they invested their time. Otherwise, how do we understand a phenomenon that we find in the books of scholars’ biography, which is that their average age (and perhaps the ages of people of their time as well) is between 50 and 60 Hijri years (in Gregorian date). It will be approximately two years less), then Al-Shafi’i (d. 204 AH) lived about 54 years, Al-Ghazali (d. 505 AH) lived about 55 years, Al-Nawawi (d. 676 AH) lived about 45 years, Al-Zarkashi (d. 794 AH) lived about 49 years, and Al-Suyuti (d. 911 AH) lived about 62 year, and Ibn Najim (d. 970 AH) lived for about 44 years, and most of them formed distinguishing marks, and before the existence of electricity, comfortable means of life and modern writing techniques on theComputers, etc., and before the existence of digital search engines.

Al-Suyuti’s writings amounted to about 600 books, and they contain huge encyclopedias, a phenomenon that prevailed in the Mamluk era. The context here required us to focus on mathematical calculation and quantity rather than quality. Otherwise, there is an apparent discrepancy between the aforementioned names in quality and measure. Among them is the originator, and among them is the author, whether he is a collective editor or an investigator of issues of science.

The central point that forms the focus of this discussion is the imbalances in the comparison between humans with the difference in time, place, capabilities and individual traits that characterize the children of each generation; Although there are many factors sufficient to explain the difference, it is even inevitable to study the historical here and explore the laws prevailing in each era separately, and if we were to examine the accuracy of the number mentioned by Al-Razi; The method is not to do a mathematical calculation like what the critic of Al-Razi did, but to return to the current scientific tradition among distinguished scholars and copyists (that is, those who were considered exceptions), in order to realize the condition of Al-Razi among his peers within the category of exceptional and not the category of ordinary, and in the pre-modern era specifically; Because of the similarities that marked their era in terms of educational attainment and writing techniques.

Here it is necessary to distinguish between two types of writing; writing by scholars and writing by scribes; It is assumed that the work of a scribe is a technical work, and the assumed writing rate is greater and faster than the work of a creative workbook, and I found that the writing rate of the expanding world is 4 booklets per day and night, and it may exceed that, and this is possible based on models that seem rare but do not reach 9 booklets , which was very excluded by Ibn Khallikan (d. 681 AH), and considered it to be contrary to the rational possibility. As for the writing rate of the scribe, it may reach in rare cases 10 booklets per day and night.

The brochure is a piece of paper inside of each other (i.e., like a notebook or a nice-sized part), and more than one of the scholars reported that it consisted of 10 papers, and Abdul Qadir Al-Nuaimi (d. 927 AH) reported that it included 15 lines, and some written copies of the book “Al-Kunya wa al-Asma’” Imam Muslim bin Al-Hajjaj (d. 261 AH) was divided into 5 pamphlets in 62 leaves, and the number of each pamphlet was 12 leaves, except for the first pamphlet, which was 14 leaves, a copy written in the fourth century AH, and based on this calculation;

Writing 60 papers per day is possible and close to the exceptional reality of the highlighters.

I will suffice to mention 3 examples of scholars who wrote a lot to show the amount of writing they reached during the day and night:

The first model:

Abu al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597 AH):

He wrote a great deal of writing and classification, and he wrote more than can be counted, and he wrote in his handwriting a lot, and he did not waste anything of his time, and the books of translations mentioned that he used to write 4 pamphlets a day, and every year of his writing he increased between 50 to 60 volumes .

He had a share in every science, and he took into account the preservation of his health, his temperament, and what would benefit his mind strength, and his mind sharpness.

delusions were taken of him;

Because, as Imam al-Dhahabi said, “Categorize something if he lived a second life, he would not have the right to liberate and perfect it.”

Ibn Khallikan criticized some of the exaggerations mentioned by some translators regarding the large number of Ibn al-Jawzi writing, and he said, “People go to extremes in that until they say: The pamphlets he wrote were collected and the duration of his life was calculated, and the pamphlets were divided by the duration, so what was allocated to each day was 9 pamphlets, and this is a great thing that hardly The mind accepts it.

Ibn Khalkan increased number 9 here by looking at the age of the man, while other translation books agreed on the number 4 for each day.

The second model: Taqi al-Din ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728 AH)

He was also a great deal of compilation, until they said in his translation: If he - may God have mercy on him - or someone else wanted to list his works, they would not have been able to;

Because he is still writing, and his translators have mentioned among his students that God has bestowed upon him the speed of writing, and he was writing from his memorization without transferring, that is, he did not have what he needed while writing and reviewed the books, as his student Al-Dhahabi explained that.

His student Ibn Abd al-Hadi (d. 744 AH) said, "More than one told me that he wrote a nice volume in one day, and more than once wrote 40 papers in one sitting and more, and I counted what he wrote and his eggs in one day, so it was 8 notebooks on one of the most difficult issues, and he wrote on one question a volume. As for an answer in which 50 sheets, 60, 40 and 20 are written, that is a lot.”

He also said, "Our sheikh dictated the issue known as the Hamwiyah between Zuhr and Asr," and this issue in its written version that I have before me reached 43 pages.

The third: Abd al-Razzaq bin Ahmed bin al-Fawti (723 AH)

The Muhaddith, Historian, Akhbari, and Philosopher with classifications, worked on Nasir al-Din al-Tusi in Baghdad with early sciences, literature, systems and prose, and a dowry in history, and the translation books stated that he had “a fluid mind, a fast pen, and a beautiful handwriting to the end. It was said that he wrote from that superior line. Al-Ra'iq has 4 notebooks, and writes while sleeping on his back.

As for the scribes who were known for their abundance of writing, I will suffice to mention 4 examples of them, and they are:

The first model: Ali bin Al-Hassan bin Tawus bin Sukkar

(And it was seized in some translation books: Sugar) known as Taj Al-Qura (d. 483 or 484 AH), he used to write every day - if dictated to him - about 4 pamphlets, and wrote something a lot, and he mentioned more than once that he copied 81 or 83 seals, and about From 30 thousand sheets.

The second model: Ali bin Abdul Rahman bin Ali Al-Bakri (630 AH)

He is the son of Abi Al-Faraj bin Al-Jawzi, and his translators mentioned that he used to write 10 pamphlets a day, but he had little knowledge.

The third model: Ahmed bin Abdul-Daim (668 AH)

Scholar, Musnad al-Waqat, Abu al-Abbas al-Maqdisi al-Hanbali, a copyist.

He wrote in his swift, beautiful handwriting the indescribable, whether for himself or for a fee, and he used to write 9 or more pamphlets per day when he was free, and he would write two and three pamphlets in a day and night while he was busy with his interests.

He wrote “Mukhtasar Al-Kharqi” in Hanbali jurisprudence on a day and a night.

The transcription required 50 years or more, and his handwriting was not dotted or controlled.

And in some of the translation books he said: I wrote with these two fingers more than two thousand volumes, and it was harmful at the end of his life.

Salah al-Din bin Aybak al-Safadi (764 AH) narrated a tale about him that it was said that he was writing al-Qadduri's summary of Hanafi jurisprudence in one night, and then said, "And to me, this is impossible."

And I looked at the handwritten copy that I had of Al-Qadduri’s Mukhtasar and found that it amounted to 192 sheets, and this is too much and is unimaginable.

The fourth model: Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Dimashqi (830 AH)

He had accompanied Sheikh Bahaa al-Din al-Kazaruni for a while and copied a lot, "and he was one of the individuals who copied a lot, so that he used to copy 5 pamphlets a day, and when he got tired he lay on his side and wrote 5 others as he writes while sitting, and he wrote what is not included in the list." Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar says of him, "He was unparalleled in intelligence and speed of perception, except that his mind became dull by the abundance of copies."

The previous models show the reasonable amount in the historical scientific practice of the tradition of writing before the modern era, and that there are special features indicative of the virtues of individuals among the distinguished scholars and scribes, and these are individual traits that cannot be generalized and measured against everyone;

Because they are individual virtues in which they become distinct or exceptional, and therefore the sports law does not cancel their exceptionalism;

Because it only applies to ordinary cases, especially since those models - especially from scholars - enjoyed characteristics that enabled their owners to be an exception;

Such as the speed of writing, the flow of the mind, the extensive memorization without the need to review the sources, the rare intelligence, the investment of time, and the dedication to science.

As for the scribes, those who have been skilled in writing for decades and have enjoyed special skills such as writing in different conditions, sitting and reclining, there is no doubt that their rate of production will be greater.

God belongs to whomever He wills.