E-GALLERY: Essays

Islamic History Month Canada is inviting writers to send us creative work related to IHMC to be shown free in exhibitions for one year — from October 1, 2007 through September 30, 2008 — on our E-Gallery.

Please make sure your submissions reach us before October 1, along with a brief (300 words) autobiography/artist’s statement and contact information. Please state clearly the personal information about yourself that you wish to be made public (such as web site, email address, phone number, etc.).

The maximum number of submissions per person is five (5). Copyrights remain the sole property of the creator of each submission; they are not transferred to IHMC. Here is the format to follow:

Accepted Essays: From 700 to 1000 words in length.
(Currently only essays in English can be accepted.)

Craig Kaplan: Computer Generated Islamic Star Patterns
By: Craig S. Kaplan, Waterloo

Craig S. Kaplan is a member of the Computer Graphics Lab at the University of Waterloo, where he studies the use of computer graphics in the creation of geometric art and ornament. He is one of the associate editors for the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, a new journal by Taylor & Francis that began publishing in 2007.

If it is true that “you can take the man out of the village but you cannot take the village out of the man,” it must also be true that you can take Dr. Ibrahim Shalabi out of Jerusalem but you cannot take Jerusalem out of Dr. Ibrahim Shalabi’s heart and soul. The two are destined to complement each other.

When he was asked to describe his relationship with Jerusalem, Dr. Shalabi said: “I don’t dwell in Jerusalem, but Jerusalem dwells in me.” He went on to address the Holy City by saying: “Although I am living far away from you, you never left my memory. I have always adored your captivating vision and fallen in love with your eternal beauty. How often I was carried away on the wings of longing to your gates, your old lanes, yearning for a chat with members of the extended family, for a short stay with old friends to reminisce about the ‘good old days,’ and to submerge myself in the depths of your enchanting history, so that I may quench my perennial thirst for the flower of all cities, for the beloved ones who dwell on her mesmerizing terrain. You live in my soul and in my whole being, day and night, in my sleep and in my awaking. I walk through your narrow streets, flirt with your balconies, anchor on your windows, exhilarated by the call to prayer emanating from the minarets of your mosques and the bells of your churches.”

Dr. Shalabi’s paintings are a living testament to his enduring love for the generous land of Palestine, its tenacious people, its deep sorrows, its luminous hopes and shining dreams.

It was not for nothing that the renowned Syrian artist Sherif Moharram described Dr. Shalabi’s artistic work as “a dancing river poem,” celebrating as it does the joys and tribulations of Palestinian life, transcending the experience of its own creator, and speaking for the millions of displaced people all over the world who have lived suspended between their old and new worlds.

English enriched by centuries of borrowed Arabic words
By: Dr. Mohamed Elmasry, Waterloo

For 1000 years, Arabic was the primary international language of commerce, scholarship and politics, much as English is in today’s world. In fact, over the centuries English adopted many words that were either borrowed directly from Arabic-speakers, or were absorbed indirectly through other languages, especially Spanish.

Even today, Arabic still accounts for the greatest number of Eastern elements in English. The lists of examples that follow are only a brief sampling of the many more words available; perhaps some will surprise you!

No computer, nuclear plant or microchip design could have been possible without the words and concepts we know as algorithm, algebra, and zero – all of which come from Arabic.

The names of many musical instruments — like lute and guitar – as well as a number of technical performance terms and styles, are also from Arabic roots.

Many names of familiar animals, plants, spices, herbs and drinks began as Arabic nouns: saffron, henna, camphor, cotton, apricot, lemon, lime, orange, tamarind, lilac, sherry, mango, coffee, artichoke, spinach, jasmine, ginger, tulip, lotus, shrub, giraffe, gazelle, cobra, zebra, cheetah.

If you have ever taken a chemistry course, the word chemistry itself originates with Arabic, as well as nitro, alkali, alcohol, calibre, antimony, arsenic.

In your household and daily life, you might easily run into Arabic words that are so common we never give them a second thought: shampoo, sofa, cable, atlas, magazine, pie, pajama, bungalow, mattress, sack, khaki, candy, caramel, jar, sherbet, sugar, syrup, cinnamon, ribs, silk, cheque, chatty, sandal.

And, as you might expect, Arabic is very present in slightly more exotic or emphatic English words and proper names: tycoon, carat, chess, checkmate, Sahara, almanac, rum, musk, sesame, tariff, cashmere, mummy, coral, sapphire, jubilee, jargon, thug, Satan, fake, jungle, alchemy, zenith, safari, talc, tartar, zircon, chiffon, amber, Bedouin, Ariel.

In military vocabulary, frequently-used terms like hazard, admiral, arsenal and assassin all owe their use to Arabic.

But reference books devoted to tracing the English words borrowed from Arabic are rare. Most were written some time ago and do not include contemporary scholarship or changes in our language. The most recent is more than three decades old — Arabic Contributions to the English Vocabulary, by James Peters and Habeeb Salloum (1973). Two other useful, but dated, titles are: A History of Foreign Words in English, by Mary S. Serjeantson (1935) and Arabic Words in English, by Walt Taylor (1933).

Words are much like organic living creatures whose character and meanings evolve over time and circumstance. Those Arabic words that made it into English must have had a fascinating history, much of which has been lost over the centuries. It makes one wonder; Who used the original Arabic words and what were they like? How did these words first come to be spoken by non-Arabs? How many variations did they go through before appearing in English dictionaries? Why are some much easier to trace back to their Arabic roots than others? Linguists have answered some of these questions but there is still much more to be known. Here is a project worthy of far greater attention. Any takers?

Why Islamic Civilization must be re-discovered?
By: Dr. Mohamed Elmasry, Waterloo

You could hardly call Islamic civilization “lost” – not in the sense of fabled Atlantis, for example — but few people today know very much about it, or are even conscious of how many aspects of Western society owe their very existence to Islamic roots.

In some way, we all come in daily contact with microchips, space travel, medicine, physical sciences, mathematics, engineering, music, literature, arts, architecture, and spirituality. But do any of us – including contemporary Muslims themselves – fully realize how directly all of these advances and disciplines have been built upon more than a millennium of achievements by Muslim scientists, scholars, engineers and artists? Probably not.

It is high time for Islamic civilization to be rediscovered and celebrated by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, especially in the West. And it is equally important that we ignore all those who, for political reasons, have a longtime vested interest in dismissing or suppressing Islamic civilization, to the point where it has become scarcely known and not even a footnote on most school and university curricula.

The need to share and celebrate (before it is too late) the remarkable diversity, beauty and ingenuity of Islamic achievement is what motivated Canadian Muslims to declare October as Islamic History Month (islamichistorymonth.com). It is a creative and unprecedented venture that deserves to be emulated by other Western countries.

As one who has long been fascinated by Islamic history and culture, I was delighted recently to encounter an excellent book that positively addresses the same issues being promoted across this country by Islamic History Month Canada.

It is Michael Hamilton Morgan’s Lost History; the Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers and Artists. It is published by the distinguished National Geographic Society and includes a foreword by King Abdullah II of Jordan.

Lost History has been read by other significant authors on contemporary political and cultural issues, such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who said that Morgan’s book “delivers a missing link to the story of an interconnected world: the achievements of Muslim civilization and its influence on East and West.” I wholeheartedly agree with Carter’s praise.

What makes this book so unique is that a post-9/11 American intellectual has dared to advocate for understanding the history of Islamic civilization and its many contributions. Being on the “side” of an entire culture targeted by association in the American-invented War on Terror is a risky business for any author. But Morgan pulled it off.

Why did he even bother to swim against the pro-Bush current in popular publishing? This is how Morgan’s own introduction answers the inevitable question:

“To lose the conscious memory of an entire civilization is especially tragic and dangerous, because each civilization, no matter how grand or flawed, is a laboratory of human ideas and ideals, of dreams and nightmares. We can learn from all of them . By writing Lost History, I hope to show not only the contributions of an old and rich civilization. I hope to show, as Caliph al-Mamun concluded, that reason and faith can be the same, that by fully opening the mind and unleashing human creativity, many wonders — including peace — are possible.”

While each chapter of Lost History focuses on a specific historical era, it opens with interesting dramatized “what-if” scenarios that challenge the reader to connect both past and present.

By writing this book, Morgan explains, “I am entering a potential minefield. The minefield is now given greater intensity by the current convergence of radical Islamist terrorism, the rise in ‘literalist’ fundamentalist religious models for organizing societies and individual lives, continuing battles between Israel and her neighbors, outbursts of anti-Semitism, the United States’ invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and its ‘war on terrorism,’ and political and economic crises in selected Muslim societies.”

He continues: “Most Americans, including American Muslims, and even many Muslims from other parts of the world, know only the dimmest outlines of Muslim history, i.e., ‘they were great once, they invented arithmetic, but then they fell behind.’ Most Westerners have been taught that the greatness of the West has its intellectual roots in Greece and Rome, and that after the thousand-year-sleep of the Dark Ages, Europe miraculously reawakened to its Greco-Roman roots. In the conventional telling, this rediscovery of classical Greece — combined with the moral underpinning of the Judeo-Christian faith — led to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and the scientific and industrial revolutions. The intellectual contributions of Arabs, Persians, Indians, Chinese, Africans, and others in the Muslim world are relegated to mere footnotes.”

And finally, he concludes, “. I hope that non-Muslims can gain greater respect and deeper understanding of their Muslim cousins than current headlines and policies would suggest and that today’s Muslims can see how Islam was once applied in a way to support creativity, invention, tolerance, and diversity of thought and behavior in both society and in individual lives.

“Then . maybe we can begin to understand the issues of today that will never be solved by force. Because if there is no other lesson to be drawn from Lost History, it is that force rarely [if] ever positively resolves issues of the spirit and the soul – whether in individuals or in civilizations.”

I can only respond; Amen, Brother Michael, Amen!

Please send your literary and artwork submissions before October 1, 2007 to: gallery@islamichistorymonth.com

IHMC exhibit adjudicators reserve the right to decline any submissions that do not meet sufficient aesthetic and/or technical standards for online display.