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The Russians, in the snow and frosts of the north of the globe, were never far away from Islam and their adjacent Muslim peoples in Central Asia, the Caucasus, Anatolia, and Eastern European countries. Since the tenth century, the Russians have converted to Orthodox Christianity, becoming followers of the Eastern Church in Constantinople, the capital of Byzantines, or Istanbul, and this new alliance has produced a kind of hostility and common hatred for Islam, given the wars that have not subsided between Muslims since The Age of Prophecy and the adult caliphs and the Umayyads and then the Abbasids and those who followed them, and between the Byzantines in Asia Minor and Eastern Europe on the other.

Relations between the two groups continued in this way, until the Russian Empire expanded from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century AD, and was able to seize control of the Muslim Tatar areas in the northern Caspian Sea, and then entered into bitter conflicts with the neighboring Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries By the time of World War I (1914-1918), before the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia to communism in 1917, the Russian Tsars had taken the side of Christian countries fighting World Manichaeans, such as Greece, Montenegro and Armenia, and helped them with all their strength [1].

When the Ottomans were defeated in that war, the Russians rushed to seize the countries of Central Asia, the Crimea and the Black Sea coasts and assert their control over the Caucasus. The Russians took over the conquest of areas where most of their peoples were still Muslims. Russian to compete with his European and American counterparts since the beginning of modern times, and to get us this field a group of giants of Orientalists who, despite the Russian hostility and occupation of large areas of the Islamic world Astalaiah the history and anthropology of the Arab and Islamic worlds.

The great orientalist was Vasily Vladimir Barthold, a man who had left nearly 400 books and studies on the history of Islamic peoples, ideas, civilization and the Islamic world in different periods of Islamic history, and had an equitable role in exposing the long-held European lies and claims. . So who is Barthold? What distinguishes it in the study of Islamic history? And how do I do justice to Islamic civilization compared to the Orientalists, historians and Western politicians of his time?

A passion for studying the East and criticizing the Western mind

Vasily Vladimir Bartol (networking sites)

Vasily Vladimir Barthold was born in the city of St. Petersburg in the far west of Russia in 1869 to a family of Germans who settled in Russia, and his family was rich in wealth and helped him in his studies and travels. In 1891, after graduation, he decided to travel to listen to the great orientalists of his time. He went to Germany. Peoples ver Aha view of the eye [2].

Barthold returned to Russia, decided to complete his graduate studies at the University of Petersburg, and focused on the study of master's in medieval Islamic history, and chose the "history of Turkestan" as the subject of his research.I was impressed by the committee set up to discuss his research very much, and decided to grant him the highest degree in the universities of Russia instead of masters. In 1892 he was awarded the title of lecturer, and he joined the academic corps at the University of Petersburg and from there to the highest ranks; a member of the Soviet Academic Academy to have the largest role in the publication of a scientific journal specialized in the study of Islam, the magazine "World of Islam", which became its editor [3].

In 1894, Barthold began to publish his articles on Islam, such as "Contemporary Islam and Its Missions", and "Islamic Science in Mecca", which he published the following year, and six years later, where he studied Islamic sources in history and thought, without adhering to clichés Or the rigid judgments that prevailed among the European Orientalists at the time about Islam and Arabs and the hot climate that influenced the backwardness of these peoples, Barthold published his study "Theocratic Thoughts and Urban Power in the Islamic State".

Barthold revealed that Cromer was too intolerant towards Islam and the Eastern peoples, and that he did not want to address the factors that contributed to the spread of Arab civilization and culture.

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In this study, Barthold dealt with the intellectual and ideological structure of the concept of power in Islam from the time of the adult caliphate to the moments of the Ottoman weakness, which was contemporary at the end of the nineteenth century. Barthold's talent emerged as a scholar of history of Islamic culture and civilization, and then began to publish his articles on the peoples of Central Asia and its history under Islam, and studies and articles were no less sober and science than its predecessors [4].

In these articles and studies, Barthold deservedly established a solid scientific basis for the study of this field, the need to criticize the "centrality of the European mind", and to refute the wrong patterns and results that have been addressed over the centuries among Western scholars of Islamic science, about the eastern mind, and the oriental lifestyle in general. He was the greatest historian and orientalist criticizing Lord Cromer's book, A History of Prevailing Thoughts in Islam, [5] a British politician who had long been overly hostile to Islam and his heritage, and was the British High Commissioner and the absolute ruler of Egypt for a quarter of a century.

He proved that with the expansion of the Arabs and the prosperity of their trade, they invented many scientific theories in chemistry, algebra, maritime science and others.

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Barthold revealed that Cromer was very intolerant towards Islam and the Eastern peoples, and that he did not want to address the historical, social and economic factors that contributed to the spread of Arab civilization and culture, and their significant role among the peoples who entered Islam, as well as scientific reasons that led to the stagnation and delay of this civilization He even expanded the criticism of other European Orientalists who wrote about Islam in an unjust manner, such as the French father Lamens, who, through his focus on geography and climate change, tried to prove some racist ideas, such as the idle of the Eastern Islamic mind, and his love. It relates to traditions and ideas inherited from ancient times, and the inability of man living in the hot desert climate to create and create [6].

Barthold proved the lie and claim of this fanatic French priest, and proved that with the expansion of the Arabs and the prosperity of their trade, they invented many scientific theories in chemistry, algebra, maritime science, etc. Samarkand, Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo [7] and Barthold considered that the Western methodology in dealing with Western history and civilization is a very wrong method because it does not take into account the scientific method based on reading the original sources correctly, but based on rigid patterns and conclusions developed by parents only Chrac old and has been the subject of reverence for decades and Muslims unavoidable!

Equity of Islamic civilization

After 1916, Barthold departed to write simplified booklets with a sound scientific methodology on Islam and Arab civilization. He issued his first book, "Islam", which is located in 60 pages, followed by his book "Islamic Civilization" and then the book "World of Islam", which are still the most important evidence of equity In the field of Orientalist studies of Islam and its peoples and culture, although marred by some shortcomings or error [8], but compared to what was produced in the West at the time is considered one of the best and most important, and still very important after one hundred years of its issuance!

In his book "Islamic Civilization," Barthold marched on his new scientific method, which revolutionized the field of Western Orientalism in his approach to Islamic history, namely, not neglecting the socio-economic factors and the historical development of Islamic civilization, with the need to rely on original sources, not rigid views that do not present the truth. But lying and fraud.

"History of Islamic Civilization" by Vasily Barthold (Links)

Western orientalists have argued that Arabs forced non-Arabs to Islam and learn Arabic during and after the conquests in Asia and North Africa. Barthold refutes this lie in his book The History of Islamic Civilization, because of what these peoples saw as the spiritual and linguistic development of the Arabs, and because of the Qur'an. The house was in Arabic, and that Arabic was a developed language at the time, and was viewed by non-Arab peoples from this perspective, and is not evidenced by the entry of the Mongols in Islam, who defeated Muslims militarily, but they soon condemned this advanced civilization.

Barthold proceeded to talk about the scientific renaissance in the Abbasid era, and recognizes, and stresses that Basra, Harran and Baghdad were the most important centers of science and civilization, and Baghdad was attracting scientists from all parts of the Islamic world, especially different Central Asia, was the astronomer and mathematician Abu Muasher rival Canadian in Baghdad from Balkhi's origin is Abu Zayd, one of his well-known pupils from Balkh, who also lived in Baghdad, the famous mathematician Abu Musa al-Khwarizmi, a Central Asian country, and the philosopher Abu Nasr al-Farabi, a Turkish-educated man, appeared in Baghdad and died in Damascus. 9].

As Barthold acknowledges the scientific progress of Muslims and cites several examples, he acknowledges their progress in administration, war and politics. He says: "Muslims' progress in civilization began in state systems as well as in the conduct of war and peacetime. A book on politics "[10].

Encyclopedia of Vasily Barthold's Russian-language Encyclopedia (Links)

Barthold also denies the Islamic civilization of slavery in its abhorrent sense, and distinguishes it from the slavery of the West, deciding that "slavery associated with the land (Qen) may not have existed in one of the Islamic kingdoms; no one prevented farmers from leaving their land, and the owners of mud They can take their muds from farms to rent them to another farmer who pays more, but the land-based system of reward or gift has increased in Muslim countries and spread much, but it was not cut off and they live on them as it was in medieval Europe, and in Russia in the ninth century Ten, but cut alone "[11].

As for the new part that Barthold added to his book "Islamic Civilization" above his fairness, and that he hopes to reflect on the phases of this civilization, he deals with the role of the Turkish and Persian ethnicities in the development of this civilization. The Persian in the march of this civilization and its development in the fields of culture, thought and war [12].

In 1931, the great Orientalist Barthold died at the age of sixty-one years old after a scientific biography full of the study of Islam, its history and its peoples, a biography characterized by huge scientific production, and the rare and exceptional fairness of the Islamic civilization among the Orientalists of his time, with a conscious criticism of the myths of Western Orientalism and its lies, as well. His studies sober for aspects that remained mysterious in this history, especially about the history of Turkestan and the peoples of Central Asia, and his studies and works are still of great importance and status after nearly a century after his death!