Two millennia of science-fiction
Lucian of Samosata
- The True History
- Icaromenippus, An Aerial Expedition
Ibn al-Nafīs - Theologus Autodidacticus
Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain - Sultana's Dream
Naif Al-Mutawa - The 99: Origins
Sometimes when reading old things that have been called "early science-fiction" I think "Well, that's not really very science-y," but while I was reading these I thought more about what was known of science in the times they were written, and about how even some modern stuff doesn't fit my sometimes exacting preferences for storytelling, and decided that these all definitely count each in their ways. Lucian does the fantastic voyage; Ibn al-Nafīs the message story; Hussain the utopia. And of course the 99 doesn't need any explanations, it's just a modern superhero series.
Lucian of Samosata (lived about 125-180 AD in Assyria / modern Turkey; though he wrote in Greek and his work has thus come solidly into the Western classics, he described himself as a "Syrian", "Assyrian" and "barbarian" and my understanding, though remaining rather confused, is that he was of a non-dominant ethnicity).
The True History
Lucian prefaces this by saying, "[A]s I myself, thanks to my vanity, was eager to hand something down to posterity, that I might not be the only one excluded from the privileges of poetic licence, and as I had nothing true to tell, not having had any adventures of significance, I took to lying." [I appear to have taken these notes from another translation but the gist remains.]
He then narrates the story of how he sets sail and, getting caught up in a storm, ends up visiting the moon and taking part in a space battle between the armies of the moon, the sun, and numerous stars.
Some notes I read somewhere say that much of his humour is now lost, but much also remains. He keeps congratulating himself throughout on how honestly he's telling his tale: for example, that "the severest torments were reserved for those who in life had been liars and written false history; the class was numerous, and included Ctesias of Cnidus, and Herodotus. The fact was an encouragement to me, knowing that I had never told a lie." And I love the anti-climax when he describes the army of the moon as being composed of horse-vultures, salad-wings, millet-throwers, garlic-men, flea-archers, wind-coursers, ostrich-slingers and horse-cranes; the helmets are made of giant beans, the breastplates of overlapping lupine-husks as tough as horn, and "as to shields and swords, they were of the Greek type."
I also have to mention in passing my love for the passing mention that, "The King wished us to remain and take part in founding the colony, and, women not existing in the Moon, offered me his son in marriage."
After he leaves the moon it's not nearly as science-fictional, but it's still a great read.
Icaromenippus, An Aerial Expedition is a dialogue where Menippus tells a friend how he worked out how to get to the moon - this one starts a bit more tell-ish and less story-like in its approach, and comes across feeling more scientific/technical (inasmuch as fastening wings to your arms in order to fly to the Moon seems scientific these days, but still it wins out over being conveyed there in a storm).
Ibn al-Nafīs ('Alā' al-Dīn 'Alī ibn Abi l-Haram, 1213-1288 AD, lived in Syria and Egypt)
The Theologus Autodidacticus (Wikipedia entry) starts with a cave filling with mud of different types which correspond to the different organs of a human, and Allah therefore creating it as a man, Kāmil. Kāmil comes out of the cave fully grown but has to reason about the world by himself. He starts off by investigating his own senses and abilities, then dissecting animals to understand physiology, then the rest of the natural world to understand cosmology and so forth -- there's a very science-fictional flavour to all this.
He then reasons into the existence of a god (basically an argument from first causes) and then reasons from that to the prophets, the last prophet, religious laws, how society should be set up etc. I felt this gave me a good introduction (if obviously a wildly insufficient understanding) of a religion I want to know more about and -- thinking about how soapboxy some modern-day science-fiction can be; the rumours I've heard of Atlas Shrugged, for example -- it didn't feel at all out-of-genre though I did have a bit of a "Oh, we're going in a new direction now, right" moment.
Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain (1880-1932 AD, a Muslim feminist who lived in then-India, modern-Bangladesh)
Sultana's Dream uses the frame of a dream for the narrator (Sultana) to meet a woman (Sara) from a utopia where women have used science and technology to run their country to ensure peace, freedom, and plenty. She explains to Sultana why letting men roam the streets free while women are kept shut away for their own 'safety' is backwards:
"[Y]ou do not think it wise to keep sane people inside an asylum and let loose the insane?'
'Of course not!' said I laughing lightly.
'As a matter of fact, in your country this very thing is done! Men, who do or at least are capable of doing no end of mischief, are let loose and the innocent women, shut up in the zenana!'
Naif Al-Mutawa (can't find a birth-year but here's his blog)
The 99 (website, free download of The 99 Origins, pdf) is a superhero comic with characters "built neither on the Western style of individual heroes [...] nor in the Eastern mould of Pokemon where teamwork and shared values can overcome all. They are an amalgam of East-meets-West, an appropriate compromise given the foundation of Islam and the geography of the Middle East" (quote from the creator).
The story opens with scientist Dr. Ramzi Razem telling the history of the sack of the library in Baghdad (as a librarian I already knew the story of how the Tigris is said to have run black with all the ink from the books destroyed), and how the librarians managed to smuggle out the knowledge contained therein by distilling it into 99 gems. Over the following years the gems were lost and Dr Ramzi's life goal is to find them again. Origins tells of him finding one, which has given superstrength to a young man (now named Jabbar - "powerful": the superheroes and their attributes are inspired by the 99 attributes of Allah) but also introduces us to Rughal, a scientist who supposedly died when the gems were lost centuries ago, and whose motives now I'm not quite so certain about...
Also of interest: Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad's website Islam and Science Fiction.
- The True History
- Icaromenippus, An Aerial Expedition
Ibn al-Nafīs - Theologus Autodidacticus
Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain - Sultana's Dream
Naif Al-Mutawa - The 99: Origins
Sometimes when reading old things that have been called "early science-fiction" I think "Well, that's not really very science-y," but while I was reading these I thought more about what was known of science in the times they were written, and about how even some modern stuff doesn't fit my sometimes exacting preferences for storytelling, and decided that these all definitely count each in their ways. Lucian does the fantastic voyage; Ibn al-Nafīs the message story; Hussain the utopia. And of course the 99 doesn't need any explanations, it's just a modern superhero series.
Lucian of Samosata (lived about 125-180 AD in Assyria / modern Turkey; though he wrote in Greek and his work has thus come solidly into the Western classics, he described himself as a "Syrian", "Assyrian" and "barbarian" and my understanding, though remaining rather confused, is that he was of a non-dominant ethnicity).
The True History
Lucian prefaces this by saying, "[A]s I myself, thanks to my vanity, was eager to hand something down to posterity, that I might not be the only one excluded from the privileges of poetic licence, and as I had nothing true to tell, not having had any adventures of significance, I took to lying." [I appear to have taken these notes from another translation but the gist remains.]
He then narrates the story of how he sets sail and, getting caught up in a storm, ends up visiting the moon and taking part in a space battle between the armies of the moon, the sun, and numerous stars.
Some notes I read somewhere say that much of his humour is now lost, but much also remains. He keeps congratulating himself throughout on how honestly he's telling his tale: for example, that "the severest torments were reserved for those who in life had been liars and written false history; the class was numerous, and included Ctesias of Cnidus, and Herodotus. The fact was an encouragement to me, knowing that I had never told a lie." And I love the anti-climax when he describes the army of the moon as being composed of horse-vultures, salad-wings, millet-throwers, garlic-men, flea-archers, wind-coursers, ostrich-slingers and horse-cranes; the helmets are made of giant beans, the breastplates of overlapping lupine-husks as tough as horn, and "as to shields and swords, they were of the Greek type."
I also have to mention in passing my love for the passing mention that, "The King wished us to remain and take part in founding the colony, and, women not existing in the Moon, offered me his son in marriage."
After he leaves the moon it's not nearly as science-fictional, but it's still a great read.
Icaromenippus, An Aerial Expedition is a dialogue where Menippus tells a friend how he worked out how to get to the moon - this one starts a bit more tell-ish and less story-like in its approach, and comes across feeling more scientific/technical (inasmuch as fastening wings to your arms in order to fly to the Moon seems scientific these days, but still it wins out over being conveyed there in a storm).
Ibn al-Nafīs ('Alā' al-Dīn 'Alī ibn Abi l-Haram, 1213-1288 AD, lived in Syria and Egypt)
The Theologus Autodidacticus (Wikipedia entry) starts with a cave filling with mud of different types which correspond to the different organs of a human, and Allah therefore creating it as a man, Kāmil. Kāmil comes out of the cave fully grown but has to reason about the world by himself. He starts off by investigating his own senses and abilities, then dissecting animals to understand physiology, then the rest of the natural world to understand cosmology and so forth -- there's a very science-fictional flavour to all this.
He then reasons into the existence of a god (basically an argument from first causes) and then reasons from that to the prophets, the last prophet, religious laws, how society should be set up etc. I felt this gave me a good introduction (if obviously a wildly insufficient understanding) of a religion I want to know more about and -- thinking about how soapboxy some modern-day science-fiction can be; the rumours I've heard of Atlas Shrugged, for example -- it didn't feel at all out-of-genre though I did have a bit of a "Oh, we're going in a new direction now, right" moment.
Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain (1880-1932 AD, a Muslim feminist who lived in then-India, modern-Bangladesh)
Sultana's Dream uses the frame of a dream for the narrator (Sultana) to meet a woman (Sara) from a utopia where women have used science and technology to run their country to ensure peace, freedom, and plenty. She explains to Sultana why letting men roam the streets free while women are kept shut away for their own 'safety' is backwards:
"[Y]ou do not think it wise to keep sane people inside an asylum and let loose the insane?'
'Of course not!' said I laughing lightly.
'As a matter of fact, in your country this very thing is done! Men, who do or at least are capable of doing no end of mischief, are let loose and the innocent women, shut up in the zenana!'
Naif Al-Mutawa (can't find a birth-year but here's his blog)
The 99 (website, free download of The 99 Origins, pdf) is a superhero comic with characters "built neither on the Western style of individual heroes [...] nor in the Eastern mould of Pokemon where teamwork and shared values can overcome all. They are an amalgam of East-meets-West, an appropriate compromise given the foundation of Islam and the geography of the Middle East" (quote from the creator).
The story opens with scientist Dr. Ramzi Razem telling the history of the sack of the library in Baghdad (as a librarian I already knew the story of how the Tigris is said to have run black with all the ink from the books destroyed), and how the librarians managed to smuggle out the knowledge contained therein by distilling it into 99 gems. Over the following years the gems were lost and Dr Ramzi's life goal is to find them again. Origins tells of him finding one, which has given superstrength to a young man (now named Jabbar - "powerful": the superheroes and their attributes are inspired by the 99 attributes of Allah) but also introduces us to Rughal, a scientist who supposedly died when the gems were lost centuries ago, and whose motives now I'm not quite so certain about...
Also of interest: Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad's website Islam and Science Fiction.