22. 193.

It was towards the middle of the fourth century of the Hijra (ca. A.D.
970) that the craftsmen gradually began to assume their rightful place
in the community. This was possible with the estab- lishment of a.snif
(guilds). The beginning of the guild movement in Islam is closely
connected with the foundation of the sect, known after the name of
its founder, IHamdan Qarmat, as the Qarmatians, in the last decades i
19. Abu'l-Faraj al-IsfahSni, Kitdb al Aghini, Bulaq, 1285, III, p. 126, 21. 120. I.
Goldziher, op. cit., p. zo5. 121. Le livre des beautis et des antitheses attribui A4bu
Othman Amr ibn Bahr al-Djahiz, ed. G. van Vloten, Leyden, I898, and the translation
by O. Rescher (Pseudo-) 'ahiz, Das kitdb el-mahdsin wa'l-masd"A, Constantinople,
1926, p. 148. 122. About "anti-dhimmi movement," see G. von Grune- baum, op. cit.,
pp. I82f. 123. Three essays of Abu 'Othman 'Amr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz (d. 869), ed. J.
Finkel, Cairo, I926, p. i6, 14-16. The translation quoted is by J. Finkel, "A RisSla
of al-Jrhiz," in Journal of the American Oriental Society, XLVII, 1927, p. 326. [Prof. Arthur
Jeffery of Columbia University has kindly pro- vided a translation of this passage which is
more accurate than Finkel's, as follows: "Had the (Muslim) people known that the
Christians (of Western Asia) and the Byzantines had no science, no rhetoric, no reflective
literature, but only skill in handicrafts, in the way of wood-turning, carpentry, figure
drawing and silk weaving, they would have rejected them from the ranks of men of
letters and removed them from the register of philosophers." In other words, J.hiz does
not say that the Byzantines lack culture, and he is not condemning the arts. Jbhiz simply
points out the difference between the arts, on the one hand, and literature, science and
philosophy, on the other hand.] See also I. S. Allouche, "Un trait6 de polemique
chr&tienne-musulmane du IXe siecle," Hesptris, xxvI, 1939, p. I34. 124. I am fully aware
of the character of J.hiz's literary style and his frequent inconsistencies. As J. Finkel
pointed out in his translation, p. 326, n. 47, in another of his writings J.hiz considered the
Arabs, Persians, Hindus, and Byzantines as the only people of culture. 125. G. E.
von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, p. 215; his next sentence is: "Pagan Mecca had
been a state of merchants, Mohammed had been engaged in trade, and Islam
favored commerce as well as the crafts." [Under the Umayyads, true Arabs, there was
no such condemnation of artists and crafts- men; on the contrary they were
encouraged. For instance, when the Umayyad mosque at Medina was being built (A.D.
706-710) the governor of the city was so pleased with the beauty of the mosaics that
he gave to the mosaic artist a bonus of 30 dirhams (Jean Sauvaget, La Mosquie
Omeyyade de Medine, p. 81). And in the Umayyad period artists' signatures begin to
appear; they signed their names as proudly as had any Greek vase painter.] This
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REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER OF ISLAMIC ART 193 of the third
century of the Hijra (A.D. 902-912). Being of a strong social and
political character, the Qarmatian movement brought under its
influence the mawadl as well as Jewish and Christian communities,
and it was among these oppressed non-Arab subjects of the caliphate,
who were mostly traders and craftsmen, that the first guilds in the
Islamic social structure came into being.2"' The earliest reference to
Islamic guilds is found in the Rasadil of the Ikhwan al-Safa', an
eclectic philo- sophical school strongly permeated with Hellenistic
ideas. It is evident from the Rasd'il, where a special discussion has
been devoted to sharaf al-Sand'i', i.e., "the eminence of the crafts,"
that social recognition was attained by some branches of the arts and
crafts in the middle of the fourth century of the Hijra. To quote von
Grunebaum's summary: "The crafts, the Ikhwan explain, differ in
virtue when considered from these five angles: (I) the material on
which they work: here gold- smith and perfumer have the
advantage; (2) the product they achieve: the makers of complicated
instruments like the astrolabe rank highest; (3) the urgency with which
their work is needed: this viewpoint favors the weaver, the farmer,
and the builder; (4) utility for the general public: bath- keepers and
scavengers are vitally important for the weal of the city; and (5)
when taken per se, as skills, without regard to utility, etc.,
prestidigitators, painters (mu.sawwir) and musicians are justified by
their accomplishments as such.""' Such an observation defining the
merits of crafts is a distinct departure from the attitude nurtured only half
a century earlier. The intellectual members of society gathered in
the Ikhwdn al-Safi' went so far as to advise the inheritance of crafts
within a family as being a commendable practice.28 Such an institution
had been operative among Jewish and Christian communities for many
centuries. In the course of the formation of their organizational system,
complete with complicated rituals, each occupational guild adopted a
Biblical prophet or one of the ashdb as the originator of their
particular profession. These were patron saints. Adam was the first
tiller, Seth the first weaver, David the first armorer, and so on. The
idea itself was, however, not an innovation of the Islamic guild
system. It was a survival of the patron saints of Greek professional
associations and Roman collegia,"1 with the difference that the
protective functions of pagan gods and Christian saints were
transferred to the Islamic prophets and as.ib.