Superphysics
Monuments to Dynasties
6 minutes • 1218 words
16. The monuments of a given dynasty are proportionate to its original power
This is because monuments owe their origin to the power that brought the dynasty into being. The impression the dynasty leaves is proportionate to (that power).
The monuments of a dynasty are its buildings and large (edifices, haykal). They can materialize only when there are many workers and united action and cooperation.
When a dynasty is large and far-flung, with many provinces and subjects, workers are very plentiful and can be brought together from all sides and regions. Thus, even the largest monument (haykal) can materialize.
Examples are:
- the works of the people of ‘Ad and Thamfid in the Qur’an.
- the Nave of al-Walid in Damascus
- the Umayyad Mosque in Cordoba
- the bridge over the river at Cordoba
- the arches of the aqueduct over which water is brought into Carthage
- the monuments of Cherchelin the Maghrib
- the pyramids of Egypt
The Reception Hall of Khosraw (Iwan Kisra), a powerful achievement of Persian (architecture).
Ar-Rashid intended to tear it down and destroy it. He could not do so for all his trouble. He began the work, but then was not able to continue.
The story of how he asked Yahya b. Khalid for advice in that affair is well known.
One dynasty was able to construct a building that another dynasty was not able to tear down, even though destruction is much easier than construction.
That illustrates the great difference between the two dynasties.
The works of the ancients were possible only through engineering skill and the concerted labor of many workers.
Only thus could these monuments (haykal) and works be constructed.
One should not think, as the common people do, that it was because the ancients had bodies larger in size than our own.
Human beings do not differ in this respect as much as monuments (haykal) and relics differ. Storytellers have seized upon the subject and used it to make exaggerated (fables).
They have written stories in this vein about the ‘Ad and the Thami d and the Amalekites, which are complete lies.
One of the strangest of these stories is about Og, the son of Anak, one of the Canaanites against whom the children of Israel fought in Syria.
According to these storytellers, he was so tall that he took fish out of the ocean and held them up to the sun to be cooked.
To their ignorance of human affairs, the storytellers here add ignorance of astronomical matters. They believe that the sun is heat and that the heat of the sun is greatest close to it.
They do not know that the heat of the sun is (its) light and that (its) light is stronger near the earth (than it is near the sun) because of the reflection of the rays from the surface of the earth when it is hit by the light.
Therefore, the heat here is many times greater (than near the sun). When the zone in which the reflected rays are effective is passed, there will be no heat there, and it will be cold. (That is) where the clouds are. The sun itself is neither hot nor cold, but a simple uncomposed substance that gives light.
The storytellers say that Og, the son of Anak, was one of the Amalekites or Canaanites 110 who fell prey to the children of Israel when they conquered Syria.
Now, even those of the children of Israel who at that time were the tallest in body, had bodies in size very like our own bodies. This is proven by the gates of Jerusalem.
They were destroyed and have been restored. But their (original) shape and measurements have always been preserved. How, then, could there have been such a difference in size between Og and his contemporaries?
The error of (the storytellers) here results from the fact that they admired the vast proportions of the monuments left by nations (of the past), but did not understand the different situation in which dynasties may find themselves with respect to social organization and co-operation.
They did not understand that superior social organization together with engineering skill, made the construction of large monuments possible. Therefore, they ascribed such monuments to a strength and energy derived by the peoples of the past from the large size of their bodies. But this is not so.
On the authority of the philosophers, al-Mas`udi hypothesized:
“When God created the world, the nature (element) that gives bodies their form was completely round [?] and as strong and perfect as could be.
Life lasted longer and bodies were stronger, because the nature (element) was then perfect. Death can come only through dissolution of the natural powers.
When they are strong, life lasts longer. Thus, in the beginning, the world had (people whose) lives had their full duration and whose bodies were perfect.
Because of the deficiency of matter it steadily deteriorated to its present condition, and it will not stop deteriorating until the time of (complete) dissolution and the destruction of the world.”
This is is just a hypothesis. There is no natural or logical reason for it.
We can see with our own eyes the dwellings and doorways of the ancients and the (construction) methodsemployed by them in producing their buildings, their monuments (haykal), their houses, and (other) dwellings such as the houses of the Thamud, which were hewn out of solid rock, and they were small houses with narrow doors.
Muhammad indicated that those rock dwellings were the houses of the Thamud. He prohibited the use of their water and ordered that the dough for which the water had been used be thrown out and the water poured on the ground.
The same reasoning applies to the land of Ad, to Egypt, Syria, and all the other regions of the earth in the East and the West.
Another kind of monument (to the greatness) of a dynasty is the way it handled weddings and (wedding) banquets, as we have mentioned in connection with the wedding of Burin and the banquets of al-Hajjaj and Ibn Dhi n-Nun.
Another monument (to the greatness) of a dynasty is the gifts it made. Gifts are proportionate to (the importance of a dynasty).
This rule is operating even when the dynasty is close to senility. The aspirations of the members of the dynasty are proportionate to (the strength of) their royal authority and their superiority over the people.
These aspirations remain with them until the final destruction of the dynasty.
One may compare the gifts Ibn Dhi Yazan presented to the Qurashite ambassadors. He gave each of them ten pounds (ritl) of gold and silver and ten slaves and maidservants and one flask of ambergris. To ‘Abd-al-Muttalib, he gave ten times as much.
Ibn Dhi Yazan’s realm, as it was located in the Yemen, was under the complete control of the Persians at that time. His (generosity), however, was caused by his high-mindedness, which stemmed from the royal authority that his family, the Tubba’s, had possessed in the Yemen, and from the superiority they had once exercised over the nations of the two ‘Irags, India, and the Maghrib.
