Hamza Yusuf Hanson in Bradford

Islam and the west; a Journey of Discovery. "Islamic contributions to civilization." Hamza Yusuf Hansen
Alhambra Theatre, Bradford, 28/04/04. The speaker: euro-American -west coast USA, convert [in 1977] to Islam. These are the note I took of the lecture last night.

Civilization implies civil society and civility. So we are now not experiencing a clash of civilizations but of barbarities. islam has included many different civilisations and even, as a civilization other faiths.

Surah 49.13. Diversity of humanity is "so that you may come to know one another." Each civilisation in history has its time. The western sense of the chain of civilizations in the west has a gap -the dark ages. Actually the Islamic fits there, drawing on and feeding other civilisations.

Debt to Islamic civilization: mediated tea to west. Carbonated water. Coffee [coffee arabica -from Yemen. Mocha is a town in Yemen]. Turkey gave us coffee house. Spices. Sweets ['candy' is from the Arabic 'andy, sugar from sukr]. Sorbet and sherbet. Banana is an Arabic word.
Guitar derives from Moorish guitar [guitarra murisco] and musical movements from a persian musician in Cordoba.
Islamic civilization mediated many fabrics; silk, cotton. Pai jamah is a muslim garment.
Leather tanning largely from berber sources taught to Spanish and Italians.
Stained glass is from Syria. Crusaders brought glass back from mid-east.
Gardens with water ultimately from Persian idea of paradise. Windmills are a Persian invention spread by muslim civilization.
Mathematics -Al- Khawarismi- intro'd 0. Invented algebra, arabic numerals, dimensional geometry, spherical trigonometry. Robotics -8th century Iraq -using hydrolics. Clocks are Arab invention. Astronomy well developed by arabs/muslims and so also navigation and cartography.
Avicenna brought medicine and hospitals to Europe. First ever hospital in modern sense built in Iraq -open to all -free- gardless of religion. Science of medicine was well advanced.
Academic terms/trads often from muslim civilization; chair, gowns, sash in morter board, diplomas, idea of colleges. C.15% of early Muslim scholars were women [including in transmission of qur'an].
Literature. Arabian Nights influential.
Language; al-quhal is arabic.
Military band is Turkish invention -as a means of dterring combat -give opportunity for surrender.
Religious toleration was practical policy in Ottoman empire. [What of dhimmi-tude?].
He ended with an appeal to Muslims to recognize that the 'caravan of civilization' has moved on but that values of toleration etc, which are also Islamic, are part of today's civilization and can be affirmed.

My reaction? Presentation often made it seem that Muslims invented many things when in fact they preserved and developed them or transmitted tgem [eg from China to Europe or Greece and Rome to Renaissance Europe]. Also what is Arab or Turkish and what specifically Muslim? -given also Jewish and Christian dimensions in Arab society. It was good to be reminded that ther is a debt of gratitude owed to Muslim civilisation and that at its best it practiced a great deal of humanistic good [the term 'humanist' was used of Islam by the man who introduced the talk]. What I am left with is the sense of the interdependence of civilisations and the desire that the humanisitc Islam portrayed and embodied in this lecture would be more prominent. It is clearly a matter of pain to the platform party that is isn't.