Islamic Golden Age

Photo taken from medieval manuscript by Qotbeddin Shirazi (1236–1311), a Persian Astronomer. The image depicts an epicyclic planetary model.

This is a sub-article to Islamic history and Islamic science.

During the Islamic Golden Age (fl. 622 - 1258), scholars and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to philosophy, science, and technology, both by preserving and building upon earlier traditions and by adding their own inventions and innovations. Scientific and intellectual achievements blossomed in the Golden age, and passed on to Europe to be expanded upon in the Renaissance.

Foundations

During the early Muslim conquests, the Muslim Arabs led by Khalid ibn al-Walid conquered the Persian Empire and much of the Roman Empire, establishing the Arab Empire across the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa, followed by further expansions across Pakistan, southern Italy and the Iberian Peninsula. As a result, the Islamic government inherited "the knowledge and skills of the ancient Middle East, of Greece, of Persia and of India. They added new and important innovations from outside, such as positional numbering from Ancient India," as Bernard Lewis wrote in What Went Wrong?

Another innovation was paper - originally a secret tightly guarded by the Chinese. The art of papermaking was obtained from two prisoners at the Battle of Talas (751), resulting in paper mills being built in Samarkand and Baghdad. The Arabs improved upon the Chinese techniques using linen rags instead of mulberry bark.

Much of this learning and development can be linked to geography. Even prior to Islam's presence, the city of Mecca served as a center of trade in Arabia and Prophet Muhammad was a merchant. The tradition of the pilgrimage to Mecca became a center for exchanging ideas and goods. The influence held by Muslim merchants over African-Arabian and Arabian-Asian trade routes was tremendous. As a result, Islamic civilization grew and expanded on the basis of its merchant economy, in contrast to their Christian, Indian and Chinese peers who built societies from an agricultural landholding nobility. Merchants brought goods and their faith to China (resulting in a significant population of an estimated 37 million Chinese Muslims, mainly ethnic Turkic Uyghur whose territory was annexed to China), India (the Indian subcontinent now has over 450 million followers), Southeast Asia (which now has over 230 million followers), and the kingdoms of Western Africa and returned with new inventions. Merchants used their wealth to invest in textiles and plantations.

Aside from traders, Sufi missionaries also played a large role in the spread of Islam, by bringing their message to various regions around the world. The principal locations included: Persia, Ancient Mesopotamia, Central Asia and North Africa. Although, the mystics also had a significant influence in parts of Eastern Africa, Ancient Anatolia (Turkey), South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia. [1] [2] [3]

Islamic art

A Seljuk manuscript from the 13th century depicting Socrates (Soqrāt) in discussion with his pupils.

Main article: Islamic art

The golden age of Islamic (and/or Muslim) art lasted from 750 to the 16th century, when ceramics, glass, metalwork, textiles, illuminated manuscripts, and woodwork flourished. Lusterous glazing became the greatest Islamic contribution to ceramics. Manuscript illumination became an important and greatly respected art, and portrait miniature painting flourished in Persia. Calligraphy, an essential aspect of written Arabic, developed in manuscripts and architectural decoration.

Philosophy

Main article: Islamic philosophy

Only in philosophy were Islamic scholars prevented from putting forth unorthodox ideas. Nevertheless, Persian scientists like Ibn Sina and Arab scientists like al-Kindi, and Ibn Rushd played a major role in saving the works of Aristotle, whose ideas came to dominate the non-religious thought of the Christian and Muslim worlds. They would also absorb ideas from China, and India, adding to them tremendous knowledge from their own studies. Three speculative thinkers, al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and Ibn Sina, fusedAristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam.

From Spain the Arabic philosophic literature was translated into Hebrew, Latin, and Ladino, contributing to the development of modern European philosophy. The Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, sociologist-historian Ibn Khaldun, Carthage citizen Constantine the African who translated Greek medical texts and Al-Khwarzimi's collation of mathematical techniques were important figures of the Golden Age.

Ghazali, the famous Persian Jurist and Philosopher, wrote a devastating critique in his Tahafut al-Falasifa on the speculative theological works of Kindi, Farabi and Ibn Sina. Philosophy in the Muslim world never recovered from this critique, even though Ibn Rushd responded strongly in his Tahafut al-Tahafut to many of the points Ghazali raised.

Sciences

Main article: Islamic science

Further information: Islamic mathematics and Islamic astronomy

The difference in attitudes of Byzantine scientists and their medieval Muslim peers was firm. Byzantium added little to no new knowledge of science of medicine to the Greco-Roman scientific tradition, stagnating in awe of their classical predecessors. This could perhaps be explained by the fact that the initial Islamic surge out of Arabia had captured three of its most productive cities: Alexandria, Carthage, and Antioch. Because of the loss of a highly skilled and centralized government, as well as continuous and devastating Arab conquests into Anatolia, most Byzantine cities could not support the arts and sciences, and there was a mass return to subsistence farming.

The modern scientific method was first developed in the Muslim world, where significant progress in methodology was made, especially in the works of Alhazen in the 11th century. The most important development of the scientific method was the use of experiments to distinguish between competing scientific theories set within a generally empirical orientation.

Most notable Islamic scientists lived and practiced during the Islamic Golden Age. Among the achievements of Muslim scientists and mathematicians during this period included the development of algebra and algorithm (see Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī), the invention of spherical trigonometry, the beginning of modern optics and the development of the scientific method (see Ibn al-Haytham), and significant advances in astronomy. These advances included the construction of the first observatory in Baghdad during the reign of Caliph Al-Ma'mun, the collection and correction of previous astronomical data, resolving significant problems in the Ptolemaic model, and improvements of the astrolabe.

Medicine

An Arabic manuscript in describing the eye back to the 12th century

Main article: Islamic medicine

Medicine was a central part of medieval Islamic culture. Responding to circumstances of time and place, Islamic physicians and scholars developed a large and complex medical literature exploring and synthesizing the theory and practice of medicine. (from the National Library of Medicine digital archives)

Islamic medicine was built on tradition, chiefly the theoretical and practical knowledge developed in Persia, Greece and Rome, and for Islamic scholars, Galen and Hippocrates were pre-eminent authorities, followed by Hellenic scholars in Alexandria. Islamic scholars translated their voluminous writings from Greek into Arabic and then produced new medical knowledge based on those texts. In order to make the Greek tradition more accessible, understandable, and teachable, Islamic scholars ordered and made more systematic the vast and sometimes inconsistent Greco-Roman medical knowledge by writing encyclopedias and summaries. (from the National Library of Medicine digital archives)

It was through Arabic translations that the West learned of Hellenic medicine, including the works of Galen and Hippocrates. Of equal if not of greater influence in Western Europe were systematic and comprehensive works such as Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine, which were translated into Latin and then disseminated in manuscript and printed form throughout Europe. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries alone, The Canon of Medicine was published more than thirty-five times. (from the National Library of Medicine digital archives)

In the medieval Islamic world, hospitals were built in all major cities; in Cairo for example, the Qalawun Hospital could care for 8,000 patients, and a staff that included physicians, pharmacists, and nurses. One could also access a dispensary, and research facility that led to advances in understanding contagious diseases, and research into optics and the mechanisms of the eye. Indeed, Muslim doctors were removing cataracts with hollow needles over 1000 years before Westerners dared attempt such a task.

Hospitals were built not only for the physically sick, but for the mentally sick also. One of the first ever hospitals that cared for the mentally ill was built in Cairo. While doctors in the Islamic empire treated the mentally ill as patients, they were elsewhere being burnt at the stake and killed in other similar manners due to the horrendous belief that they were possessed by evil spirits.

Commerce and urban life

File:Avicenna Persian Physician.jpg

Renowned 11th century Persian physician Avicenna, the author of "The Canon of Medicine".

From the very beginning, the foundation of Islamic civilization was urban and business oriented, and its growth in population and agriculture is mirrored through its global trade network. Muslim cities grew unregulated, resulting in narrow winding city streets and neighborhoods separated by different ethnic backgrounds and religious affiliations. These qualities proved efficient for transporting goods to and from major commercial centers while preserving the privacy valued by Islamic family life. Suburbs lay just outside the walled city, from wealthy residential communities, to working class semi-slums. City garbage dumps were located far from the city, as were clearly defined cemeteries which were often homes for criminals and prostitutes. A place of prayer was found just near one of the main gates, for religious festivals and public executions. Similarly, Military Training grounds were found near a main gate.

While varying in appearance due to climate and prior local traditions, Islamic cities were almost always dominated by a merchant middle class. Some peoples' loyalty towards their neighborhood was very strong, reflecting ethnicity and religion, while a sense of citizenship was at times uncommon (but not in every case). The extended family provided the foundation for social programs, business deals, and negotiations with authorities. Part of this economic and social unit were often the tenants of a wealthy landlord.

State power normally focused on Dar al Imara, the governor's office in the citadel. These fortresses towered high above the city built on thousands of years of human settlement. The primary function of the city governor was to provide for defence and to maintain legal order. This system would be responsible for a mixture of autocracy and autonomy within the city. Each neighborhood, and many of the large tenement blocks, elected a representative to deal with urban authorities. These neighborhoods were also expected to organize their young men into a militia providing for protection of their own neighborhoods, and as aid to the professional armies defending the city as a whole.

The head of the family was given the position of authority in his household, although a qadi, or judge was able to negotiate and resolve differences in issues of disagreements within families and between them. The two senior representatives of municipal authority were the qadi and the muhtasib, who held the responsibilities of many issues, including quality of water, maintenance of city streets, containing outbreaks of disease, supervising the markets, and a prompt burial of the dead.

Another aspect of Islamic urban life was waqf, a religious charity directly dealing with the qadi and religious leaders. Through donations, the waqf owned many of the public baths and factories, using the revenue to fund education, and to provide irrigation for Orchards outside the city. Following expansion, this system was introduced into Eastern Europe by Ottoman Turks.

While religious foundations of all faiths were tax exempt in the Muslim world, civilians paid their taxes to the urban authorities, soldiers to the superior officer, and landowners to the state treasury. Taxes were also levied on an unmarried man until he was wed. Instead of zakat, the mandatory charity required of Muslims, non-Muslims were required to pay the jizya, a kind of poll tax.

Animals brought to the city for slaughter were restricted to areas outside the city, as were any other industries seen as unclean. The more valuable a good was, the closer its market was to the center of town. Because of this, booksellers and goldsmiths clustered around the main mosque at the heart of the city.

Guilds were officially unrecognized by the medieval Islamic city, but trades were supervised by an official recognized by the city. Each trade developed its own identity, whose members would attend the same mosque, and serve together in the militia. Slaves were often employed on sugar plantations and salt mines, but more likely as domestic house servants or professional soldiers.

Technology and Industry of Islamic civilization was highly developed. Distillation techniques supported a flourishing perfume industry, while chemical ceramic glazes were developed constantly to compete with ceramics imported from China. A scientific approach to metallurgy made it easier to adopt and improve steel technologies from India and China. Primary exports included manufactured luxuries, such as wood carving, metal and glass, textiles, and ceramics.

The systems of contract relied upon by merchants was very effective. Merchants would buy and sell on commission, with money loaned to them by wealthy investors, or a joint investment of several merchants, who were Muslim, Christian and Jewish. Recently a collection of documents were found in an Egyptian synagogue shedding a very detailed and human light on the life of medieval middle eastern merchants. Business partnerships would be made for many commercial ventures, and bonds of kinship enabled trade networks to form over huge distances. Networks developed during this time enabled a world in which money could be promised by a bank in Baghdad and cashed in Spain, creating the check system of today. Each time items passed through the cities along this extraordinary network, the city imposed a tax, resulting in high prices once reaching the final destination. Regardless, the Muslim world never completely relied on foreign markets, remaining completely self sufficient throughout this period.

Transport was simple yet highly effective. Each city had an area outside its gates where pack animals were assembled, found in the cities markets were large secure warehouses, while accommodations were provided for merchants in cities and along trade routes by a sort of medieval motel.

Apart from the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, navigable rivers were uncommon, so transport by sea was very important. Navigational sciences were highly developed making use of a rudimentary sextant known as a kamal to altitudes of stars, and a magnetic compass. When combined with detailed maps of the period, sailors were able to sail across oceans rather than skirt along the coast. Muslim sailors were also responsible for reintroducing large three masted merchant vessels to the Mediterranean. The caravels used by Italian explorer Christopher Columbus were in fact, based on designs by earlier Muslim Andalusian vessels. An artificial canal linking the Nile with the Gulf of Suez was constructed, conversely linking the Red Sea with the Mediterranean although it silted up several times.

A tradition from Muhammad advises his followers to "even travel to China if it means obtaining knowledge." And not long after Muhammad's death, during the Islamic Golden Age, one can observe such travel and exchange with far away lands taking place.

For example, Ala'eddin, is honoured in the official history of China's Yuan Dynasty, for having constructed the Counterweight Trebuchet for Kubilai. (see p119)

And we now know that in fact Islam learned paper making from China as a result of this contact, but made the crucial decision to use linen as the raw material for paper, rather than mulberry bark, or other organic matter. The transfer of Chinese technology and the innovation in the use of linen provided a writing material more economical than parchment and more durable than papyrus. It was from Islam that the rest of the world learned to make paper from linen. (from the digital archives of The National Library of Medicine)

Architecture and engineering

The Kharaghan twin towers, built in 1067 AD, Persia, contain tombs of Seljuki princes.

Main articles: Islamic architecture and Islamic inventions

The Great Mosque of Xian in China was completed in circa 740. The Great Mosque of Samarra in Iraq was completed in 847. It combined the hypostyle architecture of rows of columns supporting a flat base above which a huge spiraling minaret was constructed.

The Moors began construction of the Great Mosque at Cordoba in 785 marking the beginning of Islamic architecture in Spain and Northern Africa (see Moors). The mosque is noted for its striking interior arches. Moorish architecture reached its peak with the construction of the Alhambra, the magnificent palace/fortress of Granada, with its open and breezy interior spaces adorned in red, blue, and gold. The walls are decorated with stylized foliage motifs, Arabic inscriptions, and arabesque design work, with walls covered in glazed tiles.

The Qol Sharif Mosque of Kazan in Russia was completed in circa 1000. It is still the largest mosque in eastern Europe today.

Another distinctive sub-style is the architecture of the Mughal Empire in India in the 15-17th centuries. Blending Islamic and Hindu elements, the emperor Akbar constructed the royal city of Fatehpur Sikri, located 26 miles (42 km) west of Agra, in the late 1500s and his son Shah Jahan had constructed the mausoleum of Taj Mahal for Mumtaz Mahal in the 1650s.

Mongolian Invasion and the end of the Golden Age

In 1206, Genghis Khan established a powerful dynasty among the Mongols of central Asia. The murder of a Mongolian ambassador to the Caliph in Baghdad [4] resulted in Hulagu Khan's sack of Baghdad in 1258. The Mongols conquered most of the Eurasian land mass, including both China in the east and much of the old Islamic caliphate, as well as Russia and Eastern Europe in the west, and subsequent invasions of the Levant. Later Mongol leaders, such as Timur, destroyed many cities, slaughtered thousands of people and did irrevocable damage to the ancient irrigation systems of Mesopotamia.

Eventually, the Mongols that settled in Western and Central Asia converted to Islam and in many instances became assimilated into various Muslim Iranian or Turkic peoples (for instance, one of the greatest Muslim astronomers in later times, Ulugh Beg, was a grandson of Timur). The Ottoman Empire rose from the ashes, but the Golden Age was theoretically over.

Causes of Decline

"The achievements of the Arabic speaking peoples between the ninth and twelfth centuries are so great as to baffle our understanding. The decadence of Islam and of Arabic is almost as puzzling in its speed and completeness as their phenomenal rise. Scholars will forever try to explain it as they try to explain the decadence and fall of Rome. Such questions are exceedingly complex and it is impossible to answer them in a simple way.

The Islamic civilisation which had at the outset been creative and dynamic in dealing with issues, began to struggle to respond to the challenges and rapid changes it faced during the 12th and 13th century onwards towards the end of the Abbassid rule. Despite a brief respite with the new Ottoman rule, the decline continued until its eventual collapse and subsequent stagnation in the 20th century.

Despite a number of attempts by many writers, historical and modern, none seem to agree on the causes of decline.

The main views on the causes of decline comprise the following: political mismanagement after the early Caliphs in the 8th century, closure of the gates of ijtihad (independant reasoning) in the 12th century and the institutionalisation of taqleed (imitation) rather than ijtihad and creativity, foreign involvement by invading forces and colonial powers (11th, 13th and 19th centuries) and disruption to the cycle of equity (based on Ibn Khaldoon's famous model of the rise and fall of civilisations).

Criticism of Ascribing The Golden Age to Islam

The issue of Islamic Civilization being a misnomer has been raised by a number of recent scholars such as the secular Iranian historian, Dr. Shoja-e-din Shafa in his recent controversial books titled Rebirth (Persian: تولدى ديگر) and After 1400 Years (Persian: پس از 1400 سال) manifesting the intrinsic contradiction of expressions like "Islamic civilization", "Islamic science", "Islamic medicine", "Islamic astronomy", "Islamic scientists", etc. Shafa states that while religion has been a cardinal foundation for nearly all empires of antiquity to derive their authority from, it does not possess adequate defining factors to advance a kingdom or domain in accumulation and furtherance of science, technology, arts, and culture in a way to justify attribution of such developments to existence and practice of a certain faith within that realm. While various empires in the course of mankind's history advocated and officialized the religion they deemed most appropriate to exercise their absolute authority over the masses, we never ascribe their achievements to the faith they practied. Ergo, using Islamic attribute for the abovementioned terms is as impertinent as arbitrary concocted namings such as "Christian Civilization" for totality of "Roman Empire" as of Constantine I's reign onwards, "Byzantine Empire" and all subsequent European empires that advocated Christianity one way or another; or "Zoroastrian Architecture" for all the architectural innovations and marvels that pre-Islamic Persian Empire later subsequently loaned to its Muslim conquerers.

References

• Donald R. Hill, Islamic Science And Engineering, Edinburgh University Press (1993), ISBN 0-7486-0455-3
• George Sarton, The Incubation of Western Culture in the Middle East, A Geroge C. Keiser Foundation Lecture, March 29 1950, Washington DC, 1951
• Shoja-e-din Shafa, Rebirth (1995) (Persian Title: تولدى ديگر)
• Shoja-e-din Shafa, After 1400 Years (2000) (Persian Title: پس از 1400 سال)

See also

• Timeline of Islamic science and technology
• Islamic studies
• Islamic scholars
• Islamic medicine
• Islamic science
• Ophthalmology in medieval Islam
• Astronomy in Islam
• List of Iranian scientists
• Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain

External links

• Golden age of Arab and Islamic Culture
• Islamic web
• MuslimHeritage.com
• Sufism: General Essay
• The Islam Project: Overview of Muslim History
• The Spread of Islam: The Role of the Sufi Mystics
• The Story of Islam's Gift of Paper to the West
• Wiet, Gaston. "Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate." Chapter 5
• Free, downloadable PDF's online version of Lane's Arabic-English dictionary