Barbarians in Arab Eyes

Al‐Azmeh, Aziz

doi:10.1093/past/134.1.3

Cited by 34 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…aqālīm ) rapidly became an inalienable part of Islamic high learning” (Karamustafa, 1992, p. 76). Much as the Greeks, Islamic scholars placed themselves at the center of their “habitable world,” continuing a perhaps inevitable naturalization of the supposed superiority or suitability of any given author's native climate (Al‐Azmeh, 1992; Cosgrove, 2001).…”

Section: Genealogies Of Imperial Definitions Of Habitabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Histories of habitability from the oikoumene to the Anthropocene

Fleetwood¹

2023

WIREs Climate Change

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The IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report warns in stark terms that many long inhabited parts of the world are now on course to become uninhabitable. As astronomers continue to search the universe for new habitable planets, it is equally essential to historicize the consequences of changing habitability on this one. This article reviews how scholars have engaged with the widely noted but rarely theorized categories of “habitability” and “uninhabitability.” While tracing longer imperial genealogies, the primary focus is on notions of habitability in relation to European global empires in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and their postcolonial legacies. The article traces three key themes in the literature: that habitability was inherently limited, and beyond those limits allegedly lay uninhabitability; that habitability was differential and that certain places were habitable for some groups but not others (but that this might be changed by technological interventions); and finally, that the limits of habitability were not static, but could change for both better and worse. Here the links between colonialism and ideas of acclimatization, terraforming, “improvement,” deliberate uninhabitability, and an “Anthropocene” have all been central to the literature. These have often been closely associated with insidious forms of environmental determinism, which are taking on new forms in an age of crisis (especially in narratives around climate and migration). By drawing together previously disparate literatures, this article ultimately calls on scholars to embrace habitability studies more widely, and to expand on their interdisciplinary potential for communicating the societal consequences of a changing climate.This article is categorized under: Climate, History, Society, Culture > Ideas and Knowledge

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Section: Genealogies Of Imperial Definitions Of Habitabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Histories of habitability from the oikoumene to the Anthropocene

Fleetwood¹

2023

WIREs Climate Change

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“…This point was recognized by al-Azmeh, who was careful to emphasize that, despite the environmental determinism which underpinned the worldview of many Muslim scholars, "it was social judgement which ultimately determined the degree to which credence would be given to geographical determinism". 72 Owing to lack of space and the sheer volume of literature, both primary and secondary, focusing on the Islamic ethnography and ethnology of barbarism, I will investigate here just one aspect of the relationship of medieval Islamic ethnography with humoral theory and the climes: namely, the notion of a barbarous polarity between the denizens of the far north and the far south. It is hoped that this brief investigation will spur further research into a complex and fascinating topic.…”

Section: Medieval Islamic Ethnographymentioning

confidence: 99%

The world in Arab eyes: A reassessment of the climes in medieval Islamic scholarship

Olsson

2014

Bull. Sch. Orient. Afr. stud.

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Many Arabic geographical texts from the medieval period portray the oecumene as comprising seven latitudinal climes. In general the middle clime, in which the majority of Muslim territories were located, was viewed as possessing the best environmental conditions, which progressively deteriorated the further one travelled north or south of this central territory. This theory of the climes was combined with ideas of humoral pathology in order to argue that those living in the central zones of the oecumene received numerous physiological and psychological benefits. Conversely, those like the Africans and the Turks, living at the peripheries of the oecumene, had neither rationality nor proportionate physiognomies because their humours were distorted by the harsh environmental conditions of these regions. This article, however, seeks to nuance the outline given above. While secondary studies have generally been happy to adopt uncritically this superficial understanding of the medieval Islamic worldview, which is gained from skimming the introductions to a few geographical works, few have questioned what (and where) is meant by the centre of the world, where did human habitation supposedly end, and was the medieval understanding of the seven climes uniform. These are some of the questions posed by the present investigation. I then go on to assess how far the notions derived from the theory of the climes were implemented in ethnological accounts of the inhabitants of the far north and south. In doing so I shall conclude that the standard conception of the medieval Islamic worldview masks numerous disagreements and debates in the writings of medieval scholars.

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“…In the Islamic period Arabs considered their lands superior due to benevolent climate. 30 Judah Halevi, a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher in the twelfth century, considered the Land of Israel superior, because it was lying in the middle of the climates and thus represented the center of the world 13 (p. 243). The German philosopher and theologian Albertus Magnus took up the theory of seven climatic zones and considered those people the strongest and bravest living in the best climate.…”

Section: The Hippocratic Revivalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In many cultures since ancient times discourses of climate were entwined with theories of the development of civilization. In the Islamic period Arabs considered their lands superior due to benevolent climate 30. Judah Halevi, a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher in the twelfth century, considered the Land of Israel superior, because it was lying in the middle of the climates and thus represented the center of the world13 (p. 243).…”

Section: The Hippocratic Revivalmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolution of climate ideas and knowledge

Heymann

2010

WIREs Climate Change

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Ideas and knowledge about climate have changed considerably in history. Ancient philosophers like Hippocrates and Aristotle shaped the understandings of climate, which remained very influential until well into the eighteenth century. The Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century gave rise to new ways of systematic instrument-based observation of and increased public interest in weather and climate. These developments led to a mechanistic understanding and a reductionist physical description of climate in the twentieth century, eventually in the form of a complex earth system. Furthermore, different understandings of climate coexisted in many periods of time. Only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries specific scientific concepts of climate (a geographical understanding of climate in climatology until about the mid-twentieth century and a physical understanding of climate in climate science in the second half of the twentieth century) gained superior social credibility and cultural dominance. The understanding of climate involved more than the accumulation of scientific knowledge. It was rooted in social processes and cultural interests, which shaped different ideas of climate in different communities of actors and different historical times .  2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. WIREs Clim Change 2010 1 581-597 'Ideas on climate change are changing faster than climate itself' [1, p. 257].

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Barbarians in Arab Eyes

Cited by 34 publications

References 0 publications

Histories of habitability from the oikoumene to the Anthropocene

Histories of habitability from the oikoumene to the Anthropocene

The world in Arab eyes: A reassessment of the climes in medieval Islamic scholarship

The evolution of climate ideas and knowledge

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