The sciences are numerous only in large, sedentary civilizations with a culture highly developed

This is because scientific instruction is one of the crafts, and crafts are numerous only in cities.

The quality and the number of the crafts depend on the greater or lesser extent of civilization in the cities and on the sedentary culture and luxury they enjoy, because (highly developed crafts) are something additional to just making a living.

When civilized people have more labor available than they need for mere subsistence, such surplus labor is used for activities over and above making a living.

These activities are the sciences and the crafts.

People who grow up in villages and uncivilized thinly populated cities and who have an innate desire for scientific activity, cannot find scientific instruction in those places.

Scientific instruction is technical. There are no crafts among the desert people.

They must travel and seek scientific instruction in cities where civilization is highly developed, as is the case with all crafts.

This may be exemplified by Baghdad, Cordoba, al-Qayrawan, al-Basrah, and al-Kufah.

At the beginning of Islam, the populations were large, and sedentary culture existed in them.

The sciences were then greatly cultivated there.

The people were widely versed in:

• the various technical terminologies of scientific instruction
• the different kinds of sciences
• posing problems
• inventing new disciplines.

They exceeded all who had come before them and surpassed all who came after them.

But when the civilization of those cities decreased and their inhabitants were dispersed, the picture was completely reversed.

Science and scientific instruction no longer existed in those cities, but were transplanted to other Muslim cities.

Now, science exists in Cairo in Egypt because Egypt is greatly developed and its sedentary culture has been well established for thousands of years.

This has been strengthened and preserved in Egypt by the last 200 years under the Turkish dynasty, from the days of Salah-ad-din b. Ayyub on.

This is because the Turkish amirs under the Turkish dynasty were afraid that their ruler might proceed against the descendants they would leave behind, in as much as they were his slaves or clients, and because chicanery and confiscation are always to be feared from royal authority.

Therefore, they built a great many colleges, hermitages, and monasteries, and endowed them with mortmain endowments that yielded income.

They saw to it that their children would participate in these endowments, either as administrators or by having some other share in them.

This was their intention in addition to the fact that they were inclined to do good deeds and hoped for a heavenly reward for their aspirations and actions.

As a consequence, mortmain endowments became numerous, and the income and profit (from them) increased. Students and teachers increased in numbers, because a large number of stipends became available from the endowments.

People traveled to Egypt from the Iraq and the Maghrib in quest ofknowledge. Thus, the sciences were very much in demand and greatly cultivated there.