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Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe
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Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe were numerous, affecting such varied areas as art, architecture , medicine, argriculture, music, language, education, law, and technology. From the 10th to the 13th century, Europe absorbed knowledge from the Islamic civilization. In the early 20th century, a "growing number of scholars...recognize(d) that the influence of the Muslim civilization as a whole on medieval Europe was enormous in such fields as science, philosophy, theology, literature, aesthetics, than has been recognized." Contributions from the Islamic world have had a considerable effect on the development of Western civilization and contributed to the achievements of the Renaissance.
his article, "Islam" is used in the meaning of a civilization and not that of a religion.
Bernard Lewis writes the following on the historical usage of the term "Islam" in What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response:
points of contact between Europe and Islamic lands were multiple during the Middle Ages.
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Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe were numerous, affecting such varied areas as art, architecture , medicine, argriculture, music, language, education, law, and technology. From the 10th to the 13th century, Europe absorbed knowledge from the Islamic civilization. In the early 20th century, a "growing number of scholars...recognize(d) that the influence of the Muslim civilization as a whole on medieval Europe was enormous in such fields as science, philosophy, theology, literature, aesthetics, than has been recognized." Contributions from the Islamic world have had a considerable effect on the development of Western civilization and contributed to the achievements of the Renaissance.
Use of the term "Islam"
In this article, "Islam" is used in the meaning of a civilization and not that of a religion.
Bernard Lewis writes the following on the historical usage of the term "Islam" in What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response:
Transmission routes
The points of contact between Europe and Islamic lands were multiple during the Middle Ages. The main points of transmission of Islamic knowledge to Europe were in Sicilia, and in Islamic Spain, particularly in Toledo (with Gerard of Cremone, 1114-1187, following the conquest of the city by the Spanish Christians in 1085). In Sicilia, following the Islamic conquest of the island in 965 and its reconquest by the Normans in 1091, an intense Arab-Norman culture developed, exemplified by rulers such as Roger II, who had Islamic soldiers, poets and scientists at his court. One of the greatest geographical treatises of the Middle Ages was written by the Moroccan Muhammad al-Idrisi for Roger, and entitled Kitab Rudjdjar ("Tabula Rogeriana" or "The book of Roger").
The Crusades also intensified exchanges between Europe and the Levant, with Italian City Republics taking a great role in these exchanges. In the Levant, such cities as Antioch, Arab and Latin cultures intermixed intensively.
Classical knowledge
Following the fall of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the Middle Ages, many texts from Classical Antiquity had been lost to the Europeans. In the Middle East however, many of these Greek texts (such as Aristotle) were translated from Greek into Syriac during the 6th and the 7th century by Nestorian, Melkites or Jacobite monks living in Palestine, or by Greek exiles from Athens or Edessa who visited Islamic Universities. Many of these texts however were then kept, translated, and developed upon by the Islamic world, especially in centers of learning such as Baghdad, where a “House of Wisdom”, with thousands of manuscripts existed as soon as 832. These texts were translated again into European languages during the Middle Ages. Eastern Christians played an important role in exploiting this knowledge, especially through the Christian Aristotelician School of Baghdad in the 11th and 12th centuries.
These texts were translated back into Latin in multiple ways. The main points of transmission of Islamic knowledge to Europe were in Sicilia, and in Toledo, Spain (with Gerard of Cremone, 1114-1187). Burgondio of Pise (died in 1193), who discovered in Antioch lost texts of Aristotle, translated them into Latin.
Islamic sciences
Islam was not, however, a simple re-transmitter of knowledge from antiquity. It also developed its own sciences, such as algebra, chemistry, geology, spherical trigonometry, etc. which were later also transmitted to the West.
Stefan of Pise translated into Latin around 1127 an Arab manual of medical theory. The method of algorism for performing arithmetic with Indian-Arabic numerals was developed by al-Khwarizmi (hence the word “Algorithm”) in the 9th century, and introduced in Europe by Leonardo Fibonacci (1170-1250). A translation of the Algebra by al-Kharizmi is known as early as 1145, by a certain Robert of Chester. Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen, 980-1037) compiled treaties on optical sciences, which were used as references by Newton and Descartes. Medical sciences were also highly developed in Islam as testified by the Crusaders, who relied on Arab doctors on numerous occasions. Joinville reports he was saved in 1250 by a “Saracen” doctor.
Contributing to the growth of European science was the major search by European scholars for new learning which they could only find among Muslims, especially in Islamic Spain and Sicily. These scholars translated new scientific and philosophical texts from Arabic into Latin.
One of the most productive translators in Spain was Gerard of Cremona, who translated 87 books from Arabic to Latin,
including Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi's On Algebra and Almucabala, Jabir ibn Aflah's Elementa astronomica,
al-Kindi's On Optics, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathir al-Farghani's On Elements of Astronomy on the Celestial Motions, al-Farabi's On the Classification of the Sciences,
the chemical and medical works of Rhazes,
the works of Thabit ibn Qurra and Hunayn ibn Ishaq,
and the works of Arzachel, Jabir ibn Aflah, the Banu Musa, Abu Kamil Shuja ibn Aslam, Abu al-Qasim, and Ibn al-Haytham (including the Book of Optics).
Alchemy and chemistry
The chemical and alchemical works of Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan) were translated into Latin around the 12th century and became standard texts for European alchemists. These include the Kitab al-Kimya (titled Book of the Composition of Alchemy in Europe), translated by Robert of Chester (1144); and the Kitab al-Sab'een, translated by Gerard of Cremona (before 1187).
Marcelin Berthelot translated some of Jabir's books under the fanciful titles Book of the Kingdom, Book of the Balances, and Book of Eastern Mercury. Several technical Arabic terms introduced by Jabir, such as alkali, have found their way into various European languages and have become part of scientific vocabulary.
The chemical and alchemical works of Muhammad ibn Zakariya Razi (Rhazes) were also translated into Latin around the 12th century.
Astronomy and mathematics
Arabic astronomical and mathematical works translated into Latin during the 12th century include the works of Muhammad ibn Jabir al-Harrani al-Battani and Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, including The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing, one of the founding texts of algebra; and Muhammad al-Fazari's Great Sindhind (based on the Surya Siddhanta and the works of Brahmagupta).
Al-Khazini's Zij as-Sanjari (1115-1116) was translated into Greek by Gregory Choniades in the 13th century and was studied in the Byzantine Empire. The astronomical corrections to the Ptolemaic model made by al-Battani and Averroes and the non-Ptolemaic models produced by Mo'ayyeduddin Urdi (Urdi lemma), Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (Tusi-couple) and Ibn al-Shatir were later adapted into the Copernican heliocentric model. Al-Kindi's (Alkindus) law of terrestrial gravity influenced Robert Hooke's law of celestial gravity, which in turn inspired Newton's law of universal gravitation. Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni's Ta'rikh al-Hind and Kitab al-qanun al-Mas’udi were translated into Latin as Indica and Canon Mas’udicus respectively.
Fibonacci presented the first complete European account of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system from Arabic sources in his Liber Abaci (1202). Al-Jayyani's The book of unknown arcs of a sphere, the first treatise on spherical trigonometry, had a "strong influence on European mathematics", and his "definition of ratios as numbers" and "method of solving a spherical triangle when all sides are unknown" are likely to have influenced Regiomontanus.
Translations of the algebraic and geometrical works of Ibn al-Haytham, Omar Khayyám and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi were later influential in the development of non-Euclidean geometry in Europe from the 17th century.
Medicine
Hospitals began as Bimaristans in the Islamic world and later spread to Europe during the Crusades, inspired by the hospitals in the Middle East. The first hospital in Paris, Les Quinze-vingt, was founded by Louis IX after his return from the Crusade between 1254-1260. One of the most important medical works to be translated was Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine (1025), which was translated into Latin and then disseminated in manuscript and printed form throughout Europe. It remained a standard medical textbook in Europe up until the early modern period, and during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries alone, The Canon of Medicine was published more than thirty-five times. It introduced the contagious nature of infectious diseases, the method of quarantine, experimental medicine, and clinical trials. He also wrote The Book of Healing, a more general encyclopedia of science and philosophy, which became another popular textbook in Europe. Muhammad ibn Zakariya Razi's Comprehensive Book of Medicine, with its introduction of measles and smallpox, was also influential in Europe. Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi's Kitab al-Tasrif was also translated to Latin and used in European medical schools for centuries.
Ibn al-Nafis' Commentary on Compound Drugs was translated into Latin by Andrea Alpago (d. 1522), who may have also translated Ibn al-Nafis' Commentary on Anatomy in the Canon of Avicenna, which first described pulmonary circulation and coronary circulation, and which may have had an influence on Michael Servetus, Realdo Colombo and William Harvey.
Physics
One of the most important scientific works to be translated was Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics (1021), which initiated a revolution in optics and visual perception, and introduced the earliest experimental scientific method, for which Ibn al-Haytham is considered the "father of modern optics" and founder of experimental physics. The Book of Optics laid the foundations for modern optics, the scientific method, experimental physics and experimental psychology, for which it has been ranked alongside Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica as one of the most influential books in the history of physics. The Latin translation of the Book of Optics influenced the works of many later European scientists, such as Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, John Peckham, Witelo, William of Ockham, Leonardo da Vinci, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, and others. The Book of Optics also laid the foundations for a variety of Western optical technologies, such as eyeglasses, the camera, the telescope and microscope, microscopy, retinal surgery, and robotic vision. The book also influenced other aspects of European culture. In religion, for example, John Wycliffe, the intellectual progenitor of the Protestant Reformation, referred to Alhazen in discussing the seven deadly sins in terms of the distortions in the seven types of mirrors analyzed in De aspectibus. In literature, Alhazen's Book of Optics is praised in Guillaume de Lorris' Roman de la Rose and Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. In art in particular, the Book of Optics laid the foundations for the linear perspective technique and the use of optical aids in Renaissance art (see Hockney-Falco thesis). The linear perspective technique was also employed in European geographical charts during the Age of Exploration, such as Paolo Toscanelli's chart which was used by Christopher Columbus when he went on a voyage to the New World.
The theories of motion in Islamic physics developed by Avicenna and Avempace influenced Jean Buridan's theory of impetus, the ancestor of the inertia and momentum concepts, and the work of Galileo Galilei on classical mechanics. The work of Abu Rayhan al-Biruni and al-Khazini on mechanics, particularly statics and dynamics, were also adopted and further developed in medieval Europe.
Other works
Other Arabic works translated into Latin during the 12th century include the works of Razi and Avicenna (including The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine),
the works of Averroes,
the works of Thabit ibn Qurra, al-Farabi, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathir al-Farghani, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, and his nephew Hubaysh ibn al-Hasan,
the works of al-Kindi, Abraham bar Hiyya's Liber embadorum, Ibn Sarabi's (Serapion Junior) De Simplicibus,
the works of Qusta ibn Luqa,
the works of Maslamah Ibn Ahmad al-Majriti, Ja'far ibn Muhammad Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi, and al-Ghazali,
the works of Nur Ed-Din Al Betrugi, including On the Motions of the Heavens,
Ali ibn Abbas al-Majusi's medical encyclopedia, The Complete Book of the Medical Art,
Abu Mashar's Introduction to Astrology,
the works of Maimonides, Ibn Zezla (Byngezla), Masawaiyh, Serapion, al-Qifti, and Albe'thar.
Abu Kamil Shuja ibn Aslam's Algebra,
and the De Proprietatibus Elementorum, an Arabic work on geology written by a pseudo-Aristotle. By the beginning of the 13th century, Mark of Toledo translated the Qur'an and various medical works.
Ibn Tufail's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan was translated into Latin by Edward Pococke in 1671 and into English by Simon Ockley in 1708 and became "one of the most important books that heralded the Scientific Revolution." Ibn al-Baitar's Kitab al-Jami fi al-Adwiya al-Mufrada also had an influence on European botany after it was translated into Latin in 1758.
Islamic techniques
In the 12th century, Europe owed Islam an agricultural revolution (see Muslim Agricultural Revolution), due to the progressive introduction into Europe of various unknown fruits: the artichoke, spinachs, aubergines, peaches, apricots. Various mechanical and agricultural equipment was adopted from Islamic lands, such as the noria and the windmill.
Numerous new techniques in clothing, as well as new materials were also introduced: muslin, taffetas, satin, skirts. Trade mechanisms were also transmitted: tarifs, customs, bazars, magazins.
Arts
Numerous techniques from Islamic art formed the basis of Arab-Norman art: inlays in mosaics or metals, sculpture of ivory or porphyry, sculpture of hard stones, bronze foundries, manufacture of silk (for which Roger II of Sicily established a regium ergasterium, a state enterprise which would give Sicily the monopoly of silk manufacture for all Europe).
Architecture
Gothic architecture was influenced by Islamic architecture. In particular, the pointed arch was introduced to Europe after the Norman conquest of Islamic Sicily in 1090, the Crusades which began in 1096, and the Islamic presence in Spain, which all brought about a knowledge of this significant structural device. It is probable also that decorative carved stone screens and window openings filled with pierced stone also influenced Gothic tracery. In Spain, in particular, individual decorative motifs occur which are common to both Islamic and Christian architectural mouldings and sculpture.
Institutions
Europe adopted a number of educational, legal and scientific institutions from the Islamic world, including the public hospital (which replaced healing temples and sleep temples) and psychiatric hospital, the public library and lending library, the academic degree-granting university (see Madrasah), the astronomical observatory as a research institute (as opposed to a private observation post as was the case in ancient times) (see Islamic astronomy), the trust institution and charitable trust (see Waqf), the agency and aval (Hawala), and a variety of other such institutions.
Music
A number of musical instruments used in Western music are believed to have been derived from Arabic musical instruments: the lute was derived from the al'ud, the rebec (ancestor of violin) from the rebab, the guitar from qitara, naker from naqareh, adufe from al-duff, alboka from al-buq, anafil from al-nafir, exabeba from al-shabbaba (flute), atabal (bass drum) from al-tabl, atambal from al-tinbal,
the balaban, the castanet from kasatan, sonajas de azófar from sunuj al-sufr, the conical bore wind instruments, the xelami from the sulami or fistula (flute or musical pipe),
the shawm and dulzaina from the reed instruments zamr and al-zurna,
the gaita from the ghaita, rackett from iraqya or iraqiyya,
the harp and zither from the qanun,
canon from qanun, geige (violin) from ghichak,
and the theorbo from the tarab.
According to a common theory on the origins of the troubadour, a composer of medieval lyric poetry, it may have had Arabic origins. Ezra Pound, in his Canto VIII, famously declared that William of Aquitaine "had brought the song up out of Spain / with the singers and veils..." referring to the troubadour song. In his study, Lévi-Provençal is said to have found four Arabo-Hispanic verses nearly or completely recopied in William's manuscript. According to historic sources, William VIII, the father of William, brought to Poitiers hundreds of Muslim prisoners. Trend admitted that the troubadours derived their sense of form and even the subject matter of their poetry from the Andalusian Muslims. The hypothesis that the troubadour tradition was created, more or less, by William after his experience of Moorish arts while fighting with the Reconquista in Spain was also championed by Ramón Menéndez Pidal in the early twentieth-century, but its origins go back to the Cinquecento and Giammaria Barbieri (died 1575) and Juan Andrés (died 1822). Meg Bogin, English translator of the trobairitz, held this hypothesis. Certainly "a body of song of comparable intensity, profanity and eroticism [existed] in Arabic from the second half of the 9th century onwards."
Another theory on the origins of the Western solfège musical notation suggests that it may have also had Arabic origins. It has been argued that the solfège syllables (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti) may have been derived from the syllables of the Arabic solmization system Durr-i-Mufassal ("Separated Pearls") (dal, ra, mim, fa, sad, lam). This origin theory was first proposed by Meninski in his Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalum (1680) and then by Laborde in his Essai sur la Musique Ancienne et Moderne (1780).
Technology
A number of technologies in the Islamic world were adopted in European medieval technology. These included Indian inventions such as chess and various crops; Chinese inventions such as gunpowder, paper and woodblock printing; Greek inventions such as the astrolabe; and a variety of original Muslim inventions, including astronomical instruments such as the quadrant (including the Quadrans Vetus, a universal horary quadrant which could be used for any latitude, and the Quadrans Novus, an astrolabic quadrant) and sextant, a universal astrolabe invented by Abu Ishaq Ibrahim al-Zarqali known as the Saphaea in Europe, the "observation tube" (without lens) which influenced the development of the telescope, Abbas Ibn Firnas' hang glider flight which influenced Eilmer of Malmesbury's glider flight, cobwork (tabya), street lamps, waste containers and waste disposal facilities for litter collection, weight-driven mechanical clocks with escapement mechanisms, segmental gears ("a piece for receiving or communicating reciprocating motion from or to a cogwheel, consisting of a sector of a circular gear, or ring, having cogs on the periphery, or face"), distilled alcohol (ethanol) described by Muslim chemists, over 200 surgical instruments described in Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi's Al-Tasrif, explosive compositions of gunpowder, the baculus used for nautical astronomy, the lateen sail, the caravel ship and three-masted merchant vessel, and various other technologies. The importation of both the ancient and new technology from the Middle East and the Orient to Renaissance Europe represented “one of the largest technology transfers in world history.”
The Muslim Agricultural Revolution in particular diffused a large number of crops and technologies into medieval Europe, where farming was mostly restricted to wheat strains obtained much earlier via central Asia. Spain received what she in turn transmitted to the rest of Europe; many agricultural and fruit-growing processes, together with many new plants, fruit and vegetables. These new crops included sugar cane, rice, citrus fruit, apricots, cotton, artichokes, aubergines, and saffron. Others, previously known, were further developed. Muslims also brought to that country lemons, oranges, cotton, almonds, figs and sub-tropical crops such as bananas and sugar cane. Several were later exported from Spanish coastal areas to the Spanish colonies in the New World. Also transmitted via Muslim influence, a silk industry flourished, flax was cultivated and linen exported, and esparto grass, which grew wild in the more arid parts, was collected and turned into various articles. Industries established for sugar plantations, ceramics, chemicals, distillation technologies, clocks, glass, mechanical hydropowered and wind powered machinery, matting, mosaics, pulp and paper, perfumery, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, rope-making, shipping, shipbuilding, silk, sugar, textiles, water, weapons, and the mining of minerals such as sulfur, ammonia, lead and iron, were transferred from the Islamic world to medieval Europe. Factory installations and a variety of industrial mills (including fulling mills, gristmills, hullers, paper mills, sawmills, shipmills, stamp mills, steel mills, sugar mills, tide mills and windmills) were also transmitted to medieval Europe, along with the crankshaft-connecting rod mechanism (invented by al-Jazari), noria and chain pumps for irrigation purposes. These innovations made it possible for many industrial operations that were previously driven by manual labour to be driven by machinery in medieval Europe, where the foundations for the Industrial Revolution were laid.
Economics
Some writers trace back the earliest stages of merchant capitalism to the Caliphate during the 9th-12th centuries, where a vigorous monetary market economy was created on the basis of the expanding levels of circulation of a stable high-value currency (the dinar) and the integration of monetary areas that were previously independent. Innovative new business techniques and forms of business organization were introduced by economists, merchants and traders during this time. Such innovations included trading companies, bills of exchange, contracts, long-distance trade, big businesses, the first forms of partnership (mufawada in Arabic) such as limited partnerships (mudaraba) (mufawada partnership possessed features similar to those of the medieval family compagnia in Europe), and the concepts of credit, profit, capital (al-mal) and capital accumulation (nama al-mal). Many of these early capitalist ideas were further advanced in medieval Europe from the 13th century onwards.
Education
The origins of the college lies in the medieval Islamic world. The madrasah was the earliest example of a college, mainly teaching Islamic law and theology, usually affiliated with a mosque, and funded by Waqf, which were the basis for the charitable trusts that later funded the first European colleges. The internal organization of the early European college was also borrowed from the earlier madrasah, like the system of fellows and scholars, with the Latin term for fellow, socius, being a direct translation of the Arabic term for fellow, sahib. Madrasahs were also the first law schools, and it is likely that the "law schools known as Inns of Court in England" may have been derived from the madrasahs which taught Islamic law and jurisprudence.
If a university is assumed to mean an institution of higher education and research which issues academic degrees at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, then the Jami'ah which appeared from the 9th century were the first examples of such an institution. The University of Al Karaouine in Fez, Morocco is thus recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest degree-granting university in the world with its founding in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri. However, the madrasah differed from the medieval university of Europe in several important respects, namely that the degree took the form of a license (ijazah) which "was signed in the name of the teacher, not of the madrasa". In other words, "the authorization or licensing was done by each professor, not by a group or corporate body, much less by a disinterested or impersonal certifying body". The first colleges and universities in Europe were nevertheless influenced in many ways by the madrasahs in Islamic Spain and the Emirate of Sicily at the time, and in the Middle East during the Crusades.
The origins of the doctorate dates back to the ijazat attadris wa 'l-ifttd ("license to teach and issue legal opinions") in the medieval Islamic legal education system, which was equivalent to the Doctor of Laws qualification and was developed during the 9th century after the formation of the Madh'hab legal schools. To obtain a doctorate, a student "had to study in a guild school of law, usually four years for the basic undergraduate course" and ten or more years for a post-graduate course. The "doctorate was obtained after an oral examination to determine the originality of the candidate's theses," and to test the student's "ability to defend them against all objections, in disputations set up for the purpose" which were scholarly exercises practiced throughout the student's "career as a graduate student of law." After students completed their post-graduate education, they were awarded doctorates giving them the status of faqih (meaning "master of law"), mufti (meaning "professor of legal opinions") and mudarris (meaning "teacher"), which were later translated into Latin as magister, professor and doctor respectively. The term doctorate comes from the Latin docere, meaning "to teach", shortened from the full Latin title licentia docendi meaning "license to teach." This was translated from the Arabic term ijazat attadris, which means the same thing and was awarded to Islamic scholars who were qualified to teach. Similarly, the Latin term doctor, meaning "teacher", was translated from the Arabic term mudarris, which also means the same thing and was awarded to qualified Islamic teachers. The Latin term baccalaureus may have also been transliterated from the equivalent Arabic qualification bi haqq al-riwaya ("the right to teach on the authority of another").
According to Professor George Makdisi and Hugh Goddard, some of the terms and concepts now used in modern universities which have Islamic origins include "the fact that we still talk of professors holding the 'Chair' of their subject" being based on the "traditional Islamic pattern of teaching where the professor sits on a chair and the students sit around him", the term 'academic circles' being derived from the way in which Islamic students "sat in a circle around their professor", and terms such as "having 'fellows', 'reading' a subject, and obtaining 'degrees', can all be traced back" to the Islamic concepts of Ashab ("companions, as of the prophet Muhammad"), Qara'a ("reading aloud the Qur'an") and Ijazah ("license to teach") respectively. Makdisi has listed eighteen such parallels in terminology which can be traced back to their roots in Islamic education. Some of the practices now common in modern universities which Makdisi and Goddard trace back to an Islamic root include "practices such as delivering inaugural lectures, wearing academic robes, obtaining doctorates by defending a thesis, and even the idea of academic freedom are also modelled on Islamic custom." The Islamic scholarly system of fatwa and ijma, meaning opinion and consensus respectively, formed the basis of the "scholarly system the West has practised in university scholarship from the Middle Ages down to the present day." According to Makdisi and Goddard, "the idea of academic freedom" in universities was "modelled on Islamic custom" as practiced in the medieval Madrasah system from the 9th century. Islamic influence was "certainly discernible in the foundation of the first delibrately-planned university" in Europe, the University of Naples Federico II founded by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor in 1224.
Law
Since the publication of legal scholar John Makdisi's "The Islamic Origins of the Common Law" in the North Carolina Law Review, there has been controversy over whether English common law was inspired by medieval Islamic law. Several scholars have argued that several fundamental common law institutions may have been adapted from similar legal institutions in Islamic law and jurisprudence, and introduced to England after the Norman conquest of England by the Normans, who conquered and inherited the Islamic legal administration of the Emirate of Sicily (see Arab-Norman culture). In his 1999 paper, Makdisi drew comparisons between the "royal English contract protected by the action of debt" and the "Islamic Aqd", the "English assize of novel disseisin" and the "Islamic Istihqaq", and the "English jury" and the "Islamic Lafif" in classical Maliki jurisprudence, and argued that these institutions were transmitted to England by the Normans, "through the close connection between the Norman kingdoms of Roger II in Sicily — ruling over a conquered Islamic administration — and Henry II in England." Makdisi also argued that English legal institutions such as "the scholastic method, the license to teach," the "law schools known as Inns of Court" in England (which he asserts are parallel to Madrasas in Islam) and the "European commenda" (parallel to Islamic Qirad) may have also originated from Islamic law. He states that the methodology of legal precedent and reasoning by analogy (Qiyas) are also similar in both the Islamic and common law systems. Makdisi claims these similarities and influences suggest that Islamic law may have laid the foundations for "the common law as an integrated whole".
Other legal scholars such as Monica Gaudiosi, Gamal Moursi Badr and A. Hudson have argued that the English trust and agency institutions in common law, which were introduced by Crusaders, may have been adapted from the Islamic Waqf and Hawala institutions they came across in the Middle East. Dr. Paul Brand also notes parallels between the Waqf and the trusts used to establish Merton College by Walter de Merton, who had connections with the Knights Templar. Brand also points out, however, that the Knights Templar were primarily concerned with fighting the Muslims rather than learning from them, making it less likely that they had knowledge of Muslim legal institutions.
Several legal institutions in civil law were also adapted from similar institutions in Islamic law and jurisprudence during the Middle Ages. For example, the Islamic Hawala institution influenced the development of the Avallo in Italian civil law and the Aval in French civil law. The commenda limited partnership used in European civil law was also adapted from the Qirad and Mudaraba in Islamic law. The civil law conception of res judicata and the transfer of debt, which was not permissible under Roman law but is practiced in modern civil law, may also have origins in Islamic law. The concept of an agency was also an "institution unknown to Roman law", where it was not possible for an individual to "conclude a binding contract on behalf of another as his agent." The concept of an agency was introduced by Islamic jurists, and thus the civil law conception of agency may also have origins in Islamic law.
Islamic law also introduced "two fundamental principles to the West, on which were to later stand the future structure of law: equity and good faith", which was a precursor to the concept of pacta sunt servanda in civil law and international law. Another influence of Islamic law on the civil law tradition was the presumption of innocence, which was introduced to Europe by Louis IX of France soon after he returned from Palestine during the Crusades. Prior to this, European legal procedure consisted of either trial by combat or trial by ordeal. In contrast, Islamic law was based on the presumption of innocence from its beginning, as declared by the caliph Umar in the 7th century.
There is evidence that early Islamic international law influenced the development of European international law, through various routes such as the Crusades, Norman conquest of the Emirate of Sicily, and Reconquista of al-Andalus. In particular, the Spanish jurist Francisco de Vitoria, and his successor Grotius, may have been influenced by Islamic international law through earlier Islamic-influenced writings such as the 1263 work Siete Partidas of Alfonso X, which was regarded as a "monument of legal science" in Europe at the time and was influenced by the Islamic legal treatise Villiyet written in Islamic Spain.
A number of Islamic legal concepts on human rights were also adopted in European legal systems, including concepts such as the charitable trust, trusteeship of property, social solidarity, human dignity, dignity of labour, condemnation of antisocial behavior, presumption of innocence, notions of sharing and caring, universalism, fair industrial relations, fair contract, commercial integrity, freedom from usury, women's rights, privacy, abuse of rights, juristic personality, individual freedom, equality before the law, legal representation, non-retroactivity, supremacy of the law, judicial independence, judicial impartiality, limited sovereignity, tolerance, and democratic participation. Many of these concepts were adopted in medieval Europe through contacts with Islamic Spain and the Emirate of Sicily, and through the Crusades and the Latin translations of the 12th century. After Sultan al-Kamil defeated the Franks during the Crusades, Oliverus Scholasticus praised the Islamic laws of war, commenting on how al-Kamil supplied the defeated Frankish army with food:
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