Prologue
Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, (2 January 1895 – 22 October 1971), also commonly referred to as "H. A. R. Gibb", was a Scottish scholar of Islam and the Middle East. He was one of the greatest orientalist ever, he has many books and Islamic literatures that used as main book in Europe. 3 main topic that become his attention more are: Islamic History, Arabic Literature, and Political Religion thought in Islam.
During 1913-1918 he endured military training, and he sent-out to the war at France and Italy. He got many awards and titles, because he’s famous with his precious masterpieces and his translation toward Islamic literature. He studies about Smith languages, such Arabic, Ibriah, and Aram, and also Japanish language, Until he was a retired professor in 1964 at Harvard University, caused got stroke, but he still director overthere.
His Biography (his life)
Born in Alexandria, Egypt, Gibb returned to Scotland for education at the age of 5 after the death of his father. He attended the Royal High School, Edinburgh. Studies at the University of Edinburgh were interrupted by World War I, during which he served in France and Italy in the Royal Field Artillery. For his service, he was awarded a 'war privilege' MA. After the war he studied Arabic at the School of Oriental Studies of London University and obtained an MA in 1922.
His thesis, later published by the Royal Asiatic Society as a monograph, was written on the Arab conquests of Central Asia. He married Helen Jessie Stark (Ella) the same year, and together they had one son and one daughter.
In 1926-1927, he visited the east-side of north Africa, and he studied modern Arabic literature. And he was Successor of Thomas Arnold In 1930 as responsible of Arabic teacher at Oxford University.
From 1921 to 1937 Gibb taught Arabic at the School of Oriental Studies becoming a professor there in 1930. He served as an editor of the Encyclopedia of Islam in this period. In 1937 Gibb succeeded D. S. Margoliouth as Laudian Professor of Arabic with a fellowship at St. John's College at Oxford, and remained there for 18 years. Gibb's Mohammedanism, published in 1949, became the basic text used by Western student of Europ for generations.
In 1955, Gibb became James Richard Jewett as Professor of Arabic and University Professor at Harvard University. Later, he became director of Harvard's Center For Middle Eastern Studies, and in this capacity he became a leader of the movement in American universities to set up centres of regional studies, bringing together teachers, researchers and students in different disciplines to study the culture and society of a region of the world. A library at Harvard, the Gibb Islamic Seminar Library, is named in his honor.
His Book
• Arabic Literature - An Introduction (1926), also (1963), Clarendon Press.
• Ibn Batuta, 1304-1377 (1929), (Arabic: Tuhfat al-'anzar fi ghara'ib al-'amsar), English translation by Gibb.
• The Consquest in Central Asia, it’s the first of his bok
• Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1354 (1929), translated and selected with an introduction and notes, R. M. McBride. ISBN 8120608097
• Note by Professor H. A. R. Gibb (1939), from Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, Part I.
• Modern Trends in Islam (1947).
• Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey (1949) retitled Islam: An Historical Survey (1980), Oxford.
• Islamic Society and the West with Harold Bowen (vol. 1 1950, vol. 2 1957). Was the most of his Monumental book ever.
• Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam (1953), edited with J. H. Kramers, Brill.
• The Encyclopedia of Islam (1954- ), new ed. Edited by a number of leading orientalists, including Gibb, under the patronage of the Internatsional Union of Academies. Leiden: Brill, along with that edited by J. H. Kramers, and E. Levi-Provençal.
• Islamic Biographical Literature, (1962) in Historians of the Middle East, eds. Bernard Lewis and P. M. Holt, Oxford U. Press.
• Studies on the Civilization of Islam (1982), Princeton U. Press.
• Al-Adab al-Araby, (English language) dedicated for Europe people who doesn’t able to Arabic language, 1926
• Islamic Society in the Eighteenth Century / Two Vols.
His view in Islamic Concept
Islam, Secularity And Modernization
1. Cultural Identity
WEBSTER'S defines "identity" as used within the context of this paper as "the distinguishing character or personality of and individual." When one speaks of "cultural identity," it means then the distinguishing value of an individual, a tribe or nation. It is the sum total of its value system, or the standard norm with which community distinguishes between good and bad, the desirable and the detested.
Other Asian leaders have been stressing the same basic thinking, namely the need to be true to one's cultural identity, if nation building is to succeed. This has been stressed by Sun Yat-sen in his "Three Principles of Nationhood," also by Sukarno in his "Pancasila," by Ayub Khan of Pakistan in his "Basic Democracy,”.
2. Modernization
For the Asian eye, then, "modernization," as expressed in the Western experience, was a fundamental break from the spiritual. Western culture is the product of a series of nagations of tradition while the culture of the East is the continuous preservation of tradition. Speaking about the European experience, Max Weber explained that "modernization" equals "secularization," a unique European experience.
Secularization as the product of "modernism" , can be traced back to the "Idea of Progress," where man, which up to that time was perceived as "a religious animal endowed with reason," proclaimed his independence from "religious bondage" and came to rely solely on reason only! "I think, therefore, I am!" Western "modernization" cannot be discussed separate from the role of Religion.
3. Islam
Muslims have turned again to the glories of their past to seek identification and guidance in the trying circumstances of the modern world. After several centuries in which it seemed to lose vitality, Islam is once more on the rise. The Muslims, who form one seventh or more of the world's population, are daily increasing in number, wealth and importance.
He introduced that some basic tenets of this world view or way of life about Islam below:
(1) Islam is an all-embodying system of civilization (H. A. R. Gibb) underlined by a system of law (Iwamura Shinobu). The system of law is composed of (a) The Quraan; (b) The Hidith; and (c) The system of Ijma. Ijma is the pronouncement of legal scholars-in-assembly when dispensing of new problems.
(2) Quraanic verses, the paramount source of Islamic law, are divided into "usuul" and "furuq." The first category deals with matters of "faith" and "morality." In other words, those matters which fall within the scope of the relations between God and man and the duties emanating therefrom.
(3) Islamic law is divided into five categories.
a. Matters which fall under absolute duties.
b. Matters which do not fall within absolute duty, but when not performed are looked at with lenience.
c. Matters which preferably are avoided, but when performed do not meet reproach.
d. Matters which are undesirable but when performed do not meet with punishment.
e. Matters which must be avoided at all cost and when performed meet with punishment.
(4) Islam does not distinguish between the "scared" and the "secular." Islam looks at man as an irreconcilable duality of spirit and matter. In Islam, God and the universe, spirit and matter, church and state, are organic to each other. Man is not a citizen of a profane world to be renounced in the interest of a world spirit situated somewhere else. To Islam matter is spirit realizing itself in space and time.
(5) Islam stands for Unity of Faith and Reason. And He will dispense with quoting from the Quraan pertaining to Faith. (A3)
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