December 23, 2017 Saturday
Bedtime Story
The Banu Musa Brothers
The Banu Musa brothers were three brothers
originally from Persia whose father was once a highway robber.
Not a great pedigree though geniuses are
more often not born to royalties since DNA recombination is a pure chance event
that neither wealth nor diet has any significant control.
Banu Musa literally translates into “Sons
of Moses” and here we have direct evidence how closely then Islam, Christianity
and Judaism were linked.
Their father eventually landed up somehow
working for the seventh Abbasid caliph who is more famous for his large scale
warfare with the neighboring Byzantine Empire.
Byzantine Empire whose center was
Constantinople was essentially a continuation of the Western Roman Empire from
fifth century AD onwards which carried the legacy of a momentous event.
That significant event whose legacy would
echo in the centuries to come was the deep vertical chasm that cleaved Christianity
into two.
From then onwards originated the term Latin
West and the Greek East.
The Greek East would eventually go on to
become the Russian Empire which to this day sees itself at conflict with the
Latin West with the only difference being that the words Latin and Greek have
been dropped out today.
Anyway, we need not care too much about the
affairs of the Empires and politics and suffice to know that during the time of
Banu Musa brothers at around 800 AD, there existed two primary empires in that
Fertile Crescent – the Abbasid Caliphate and the Byzantine Empire.
The reigning Caliph of that time was wise
enough to recognize the talent of the three brothers and took them under his
patronage.
One of the first things that he did as a
gift to the intellect of these three brothers was to enroll them in the famous
House of Wisdom.
Now I am sure in a place as elite and as
famous as House of Wisdom it would not be been an easy access without
recommendation.
Imagine yourself trying to get a position
in today’s Princeton University even in subjects on humanities.
The brothers were not only gifted but began
playing important role even in the administration of the House of Wisdom
recruiting scholars and mathematicians and arranging stipend for them.
They fully appreciated the wisdom of Greeks
and began to translate as many Greek texts into Arabic as they could get their
hands on to (They had six hands in total).
In fact they were commissioned by the
Abbasid Caliph himself to acquire and translate all the Hellenistic texts left
over in the monasteries after the fall of the Roman civilization.
It is said that had it not been for their
efforts much of the Greek texts would have lost to present human apes.
In 850 AD the Banu Musa brothers came out
probably with their finest treatise that they called: Kitab Al-Hiyal or the
Book of Ingenious Devices.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Advertisements
Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
No comments:
Post a Comment