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of his book on medicine, pharmacy and materia medica, Kitab alSaydmah fi'l-Tibb. With enthusiasm and eloquence, he expresses his
dedication to Arabic language and heritage (al-turath al-'Arabi). He praises the beauty of the language, its clarity and capacity to become the lingua franca throughout the Golden Age in Islam. He appreciates its flexibility and power of expression to accommodate various scientific, religious, technical, and philosophical terminologies and nomenclatures. Overwhelmed by its superiority to other regional languages familiar to him, Beruni states: "Our religion and the state are both Arabic and twins. On the
former the divine power flaps its wings, and on the latter stretches the heavenly hand for blessings. Many highly placed governmental officials (of non-Arab origins, a'jam), and famous kings and rulers attempted, but in vain, to replace Arabic with one or more of the other local languages. They have failed and will surely and continually fail as long as the Muezzin announces to Muslims everywhere, in the Arabic language, five times daily calling them to prayers to perform their religious duties, traditional recitations and supplications that go with them. All these, notwithstanding, are derived from the Arabic Holy Qur'an repeated and recited by the believers, prostrating humbly, row after row, behind the prayer leader (the imam). "It is indeed in Arabic also, that the sermons daily and on Friday in
particular are preached from the pulpits in the houses of worship and mosques (al-masajid) exhorting all adherents to live clean moral lives, to shun evil and to perform good deeds so that the ties of faith will never sever, split or separate, and its stronghold of the will not be destroyed. Furthermore, the sciences and arts of many cultures were translated into Arabic which had the capacity to embrace them inclusively. The eloquence and beauty of the language coalesce in the hearts of Muslims, transmitted, nourished and blended into their lives, flowing, as it were, into their arteries and veins."23 Beruni climaxes his discourses in upholding human dignity and
rights. With a charitable spirit, he seeks happiness and gratitude in each segment of the Muslim society. At the government level, he defends the 'Abbasid Caliphate against its shu'ubiyah enemies (anti-conservative, anti-Arab hostile elements). At the commercial level, he discusses in detail the topic of jewels and minerals put in logical suggestions as well as objective, historical setting and reasoning. He explains that "all human kind are the seeds of Adam, our ancestor. They have the same make-up, and have the same rights and privileges under God with no partiality". Among them, however, there are jealousies, rivalries and |
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