No to Intellectual or Racial Superiority

The inhabitants of the East are more firmly rooted in the craft of scientific instruction and in all the other crafts than Maghribis.

Many Maghribis who have traveled to the East in quest of knowledge, have noted that the intellect of the people of the East is more perfect than that of the Maghribis. They have:

• supposed their rational souls were by nature more perfect than those of the Maghribis.
• claimed that there exists a difference in the reality of humanity between ourselves the Maghribis and them.
  • This is because of their cleverness in the sciences and crafts.

This is not so.

There is no difference between the East and the West great enough to be considered a difference in the reality of human nature, which is one and the same everywhere.

Such a difference does in fact exist in the intemperate zones, such as the first and the seventh zones. The tempers there are intemperate, and the souls are correspondingly intemperate.

The superiority of the inhabitants of the East over those of the West lies in the additional intelligence that accrues to the soul from the influences of sedentary culture, as has been stated before in connection with the crafts. 56 We are now going to comment on that and to verify it.

Sedentary people observe a particular code of manners in everything they undertake and do or do not do. They thus acquire certain ways of:

• making a living
• finding dwellings
• building houses
• handling their:
  • religious and worldly matters
  • customary affairs
  • dealings with others
  • the rest of their activities.

These manners constitute a kind of limitation which may not be transgressed. At the same time, they are crafts that later generations take over.

Each craft that has its proper place within the arrangement of the crafts, influences the soul and causes it to acquire an additional intelligence. This prepares the soul for accepting still other crafts.

The intellect is thus conditioned for a quick reception of knowledge.

The Egyptians have achieved things hardly possible in the teaching of the crafts.

For instance, they teach domestic donkeys and other dumb animals, quadrupeds and birds, to speak words and to do things that are remarkable for their rarity and that the inhabitants of the Maghrib would not be capable of understanding, let alone teaching.

Good habits in scientific instruction, in the crafts, and in all the other customary activities, add insight to the intellect of a man and enlightenment to his thinking.

This is because the soul thus obtains many habits. The soul grows under the influence of the perceptions it receives and the habits accruing to it.

Thus, the people of the East become more clever because their souls are influenced by scientific activity.

Their intellectual superiority is an artificial effect, not a natural one.

If one compares sedentary people with Bedouins, one notices how much more insight and cleverness sedentary people have.

One might, thus, come to think that they really differ from the Bedouins in the reality of humanity and in intelligence. This is not so.

The only reason for the difference is that sedentary people have refined technical habits and manners as far as customary activities and sedentary conditions are concerned, all of them are unknown to the Bedouins.

Sedentary people possess:

• numerous crafts
• the habits that go with them
• good methods of teaching the crafts.

Therefore, those who do not have such habits think that:

• sedentary people hvae an innate exclusive intellectual perfection
• the Bedouins are naturally inferior

This is not so.

Bedouins whose understanding, intellectual perfection, and natural qualifications are of the highest rank.

The seeming superiority of sedentary people is merely the result of a certain polish the crafts and scientific instruction give them.

It influences the soul. The inhabitants of the East are more firmly grounded and more advanced in scientific instruction and the crafts than the Maghribis.

The Maghribis are closer to desert life.

This leads superficial people to think that the inhabitants of the East are distinguished from the Maghribis by a certain perfection of theirs touching the reality of humanity.

That is not correct.