Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T22:39:17.048Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Probable Influence of Islam on Western Public and International Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Marcel A. Boisard
Marcel A. Boisard
Affiliation:
Geneva
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

On the occasion of the fifteenth century of the hijra, many scholarly publications will deal with various aspects of Islamic history, among which is the contribution of the Arabo-Muslim culture to Western civilisation. Philosophical and scientific contributions have already been discussed many times. The legacy of Islam in the field of international law has, however, not yet been studied at length.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , July 1980 , pp. 429 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1 See Hamidullah, Muhammad, Muslim Conduct of State (5th ed.; Lahore: Ashraf, 1968);Google Scholaral-Ghunaimi, Mohammad T., The Muslim Concept of International Law and Western Approach (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1968);CrossRefGoogle ScholarBoisard, Marcel A., L'Humanisme de l'Islam (Paris: Albin Michel, 1979).Google Scholar

2 Among the numerous available publications, see the various works of Daniel, Norman, esp. The Arabs and Medieval Europe (London: Longmans, 1975);Google ScholarArnold, Thomas and Guillaume, Alfred, eds., The Legacy of Islam (Oxford: University Press, 1965: repr. of 1931 ed.);Google Scholar and, from a less scientific approach, Akkad, Abbas M., The Arab Impact on European Civilisation, Kashmire, Ismail and Hadi, Mohammad El, trans. (Cairo: Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, n.d.).Google Scholar

3 Duby, Georges, Des societes medievales (Paris: Gallimard N. R. F., 1975), p. 46.Google Scholar

4 One that we are trying to undertake. This essay is a résumé of a wider research, to be published later.Google Scholar

5 de Ray, G., Les invasions des Sarrasins en Provence (Marseille, 1971; repr. of 1878 ed.), p. 203.Google Scholar

6 Hunke, Sigrid, Le soleil d'Allah brille sur l'Occident: notre heritage arabe, de Laléne, Solange and de Laléne, Georges, trans., from the German (Paris: Albin Michel, 1963).Google Scholar

7 We should perhaps extend this idea further. Muslims were installed for more than one century in Provence, maintaining continuous contacts with their fellow Muslims in Spain. It is probably from Catalonia that the bull was imported into Camargue, to use an example that does not directly concern our argument.Google Scholar

8 Sherwani, Haroun K., Muslim Colonies in France, Northern Italy, and Switzerland, being an English translation of Reinaud's “Invasion des Sarrasins en France, et de France en Savoie, au Piemont Ct en Suisse” (2d ed. rev.; Lahore: Ashraf, 1964), pp. 236 ff.Google Scholar

9 Such was the case of Alphonse VI who, upon becoming king and victorious, married the Khalifs daughter.Google Scholar

10 See Lévi-Provençal, Evariste, Histoire de l'Espagne musulmane (new ed.; 3 vols.; Paris: Maisonneuve, 1950), I, 396 ff.Google Scholar

11 Nasr, Seyyed H., Islam:Perspective et realities, Cres, H.., trans. (Paris: Buchet/Chastel, 1975), pp. 201–203.Google Scholar

12 de Clerq, Alexandre and de Vallat, C., Guide pratique des Consulats (5th ed.; 2 vols.; Paris: Pedone, 1898), I, 2 ff.Google Scholar

13 Khadduri, Majid, The Islamic Law of Nations, trans. of Shaybani's Abwab al-Siyar fi Ard al Harb (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1966), esp. pp. 158–194.Google Scholar

14 Wansbrough, John, “A Mamluk Commercial Treaty Concluded with the Republic of Florence, 894/1489” in Stern, S. M., ed., Documents from Islamic Chanceries, Oriental Studies III (Oxford: Cassirer, B., 1965), pp. 39–79.Google Scholar

15 Stone, Julius, Legal Control of International Conflict (rev. ed.; Sydney: Maitland, 1959), pp. 457 ff.Google Scholar

16 Jados, Stanley S., Consulate of the Sea and Related Documents (Alabama: University Press, 1975).Google Scholar

17 Fahmy, Mohamed, Muslim Naval Organisation in the Eastern Mediterranean from the Seventh to the Tenth Century (2d ed.; Cairo: National Publication, 1966).Google Scholar

18 Massignon has shown the Muslim influence on the creation of such “guilds” in Western Europe. It is beyond the scope of this article to elaborate on this aspect.Google Scholar

19 Goitein, S. D., Jews and Arabs: Their Contacts through the Ages (5th ed.; New York: Schoecken Books, 1970), pp. 89 ff.Google Scholar

20 Agus, Jacob B., L'evolution de la pensée juive des temps bibliques au debut de l'`re moderne (Paris: Payot, 1961), pp. 183–184.Google Scholar

21 Guillaume, Alfred, “Philosophy and Theology” in Arnold, Legacy, p. 268.Google Scholar

22 One of these, an Auvergnat monk called Gerbert, became Pope, taking the name of Sylvester II, between 999 and 1003.Google Scholar

23 Levi-Provençal, Espagne, I, 76.Google Scholar

24 Las Siege Partidas del Sabio Rey Don Alonso el IX, edited with Latin comments by Gregorio Lopez (3 vols.; Madrid (Leon Amarita) 1829; impression of the edition of 1555 in old Castillan), I, 399–702.Google Scholar

25 Practices that had been introduced also in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. See Nys, Ernest: Etudes de droit international et de droit politique (3 vols.; Brussels: Castaigne, 1896), I, 84.Google Scholar

26 Hauser, Henri, La prépondérance espagnole, 1559–1660 (3d ed.; Paris: 1973), introduction by Pierre Chaunu.Google Scholar

27 Hunke, Soleil d'Allah, pp. 285 ff.Google Scholar

28 Atiya, Aziz S., Crusade, Commerce and Culture (New York: 1966).Google Scholar

29 For example, the striking of Muslim maxims onto gold pieces and exhortations to abstain from the eating of pork.Google Scholar

30 Hitti, Philip K., Memoirs of an Arab-Syrian Gentleman: Translation of the Memoirs of Usamah ibn-Munqidh (Kitab Al-l'tibar) (Beirut: Khayats, 1964,) pp. 213 ff.Google Scholar

31 Grousset, René, L'épopée des Croisades (Paris: Plon, 1957), p. 199.Google Scholar

32 We should be reminded that one of these abbeys was an open window onto Muslim Spain.Google Scholar

33 Guardini, Romano, La fin des temps modernes, trans. Jeanne, Ancelet-Hustache (Paris: Seuil, 1952), pp. 32–33.Google Scholar

34 The fact that the names of the principal philosophers and learned Muslims passed into the West under latinised forms, not only proves that they were known there before the Renaissance, but also leads us to suppose that they had an influence on the clergy, by a process of cultural transmission.Google Scholar

35 For a review of their contribution to a knowledge of Islam, see Henninger, Joseph, “Sur la contribution des missionnarires à la connaissance de l'Islam surtout pendant Ic moyen âge,” Nouvelle revue de sciences missionnaires (Fribourg), 9 (1953), 161–185, esp. pp. 174 ff.Google Scholar

36 The Franciscans counted among their number St. Bonaventure, Robert Grossetête, Raymond Lull, Duns Scotius, and Bacon, by way of example.Google Scholar

37 With their successors. See Gorny, Léon, Croisés et Templiers (Paris: André Bonne, 1974).Google Scholar

38 See Eydoux, Henri-Paul, Saint-Louis et son temps (Paris: Larousse, 1971,) pp. 154 ff.Google Scholar

39 Guardini, Termps modernes, pp. 35 ff. He shows that both humanist criticism and experimental science drew from the same sources.Google Scholar

40 Tyan, Emile, Histoire de l'organisation judiciaire en pays d'Islam (2d ed.; Beirut, 1961,) pp. 23 ff.Google Scholar

41 We have even been able to read that it was not “a pure coincidence that the palace of Louis IX … became … the Palace of Justice” (in Paris). In Dunoyer, Jean-Marie, “La force de Saint-Louis,” Le Monde 18/19 October 1970.Google Scholar

42 Quoted by Klein, Charles, Saint-Louis, un roi aux pieds des pauvres, Paris: S. O. S., 1970,) pp. 60–61.Google Scholar

43 To enable this a gate was opened called “The Gate of Justice” or Bab El Adl, under which they came to sit for a weekly audience. It is not without interest to mention in this context that the popular contemporary press unconsciously rejected any notions of value for those Muslim traditions which were maintained, out of a necessary desire to draw an ethnocentric parallel. We can read, for example, concerning the audience given by the King of Saudi Arabia in the work by Michel Clerc, “Le roi Fayçal ne reverra pas Jerusalem,” Paris Match, no. 1349, April 1975: “It was St. Louis at the foot of the oak, seven centuries late” (“c'était, avec sept siècles de retard (sic), Saint-Louis au pied du chêne”!).Google Scholar

44 Taube, Baron, quoted by Hamidullah: Muslim Conduct, p. 64.Google Scholar

45 Hitti, Islam and the West, pp. 80 ff.Google Scholar

46 Grousset, Epopdée, p. 79.Google Scholar

47 Declinchamps, Philippe Dupuy, La Chevalerie, “Que sais-je” (3d rev. ed.; Paris: P.U. F., 1973), p. 11.Google Scholar

48 Hunke: Soleil d'Allah, pp. 282 ff.Google Scholar

49 (After capture) “either liberation or ransom, until the war lays down its burden” (XLVII [Mohammed] 4).Google Scholar

50 Zananiri, Gaston, Eglise et Islam (Paris: Spes, 1969,) who demonstrates on pages 208–209 that “these monks wore habits of white wool and a cloak and scapular emblazoned with a red and blue cross”. The concordance of evidence is interesting even if we cannot extrapolate from this the influence that this might have had on the organisation created by Dunant seven centuries later.Google Scholar

51 See critical commentaries of a very incisive nature in Hassan, AbulNadawi, A., Islam and the World (2d ed.; Lahore: Ashraf, 1967,) pp. 118 ff.Google Scholar

52 Hamdullah: Muslim Conduct, pp. 67–68.Google Scholar

53 The Spaniard Michel Servet, for example, paid with his life in the Calvinist Geneva of the sixteenth century for his “discovery”, which was in fact nothing but a compilation or even simple translation of a thirteenth-century Arab work.Google Scholar

54 Did not Erasmus have to explain himself after having put the “holy” nature of war against Islam into doubt?Google Scholar

55 Abwab al-Siyarfi Ard el-Harb, trans. into English with the title: The Islamic Law of Nations Shaybani's Siyar by Khadduri, Majid (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1961).Google Scholar