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The Islamic Golden Age:
A Story of the Triumph of the Islamic Civilization
Ahmed Renima
Assistant Professor of History,
University of Chlef, Algeria
E-mail: hist45@hotmail.com
&
Habib Tiliouine
Professor of Education and Psychology
University of Oran, Algeria
htiliouine@yahoo.fr
&
Richard J. Estes
University of Pennsylvania
School of Social Policy & Practice
Philadelphia PA USA
E-Mail: restes@sp2.upenn.edu
Page 1 of 59
The Islamic Golden Age:
A story of the triumph of the Islamic civilization
Abstract
The present chapter discusses the most important forces that led to the rise of
Islam’s “Golden Age”, a period of Islamic development that lasted nearly five centuries
beginning with the reign of the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid (c. 786 to 809) and ended
with the collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate following the Mongol invasions and the sack of
Baghdad in 1258 CE. Some scholars, though, extend the period of Islam’s Golden Age to
cover a longer period of time. All, though, agree that the Golden Age, a truly remarkable
period in human history, on that encompasses the remarkable accomplishments made by
Islamic scholars, humanists, and scientists in all areas of the arts and humanities, the
physical and social sciences, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, finance, and Islamic and
European monetary systems over a period of many centuries. This chapter briefly
identifies many of the most important changes in human development brought about by the
Abbasid dynasty of Baghdad, the Fatimid dynasty of Cairo, and the Umayyad dynasty of
Andalusia. Further, the chapter presents multiple examples of the lasting contribution of
the Islamic Golden Age from ancient to modern times—many of which lay the foundation
for an optimistic future for the world-as-a-whole and for Islamic societies more
particularly.
Key Words: Islamic Golden Age; Islamic civilization; Islamic Dynasties; Islamic
Philosophy; Islamic Sciences; Islamic Art.
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The Islamic Golden Age:
A story of the triumph of the Islamic civilization
1. Introduction
Islam’s achievements during its nearly five-centuries- long Golden Age (c.786 CE to
1258 CE) have been a source of considerable pride among Muslims worldwide. Many
scholars believe that, even today, Muslims are awaiting the rebirth of its Golden Age and,
through it, the resurgence of Islam as one of the world’s renewed cultural and religious
influences. Such a hoped for outcome is a collective aspiration of Muslims and transcends
linguistic, cultural, and even ethnic differences that otherwise divide Muslims into
different, often competing, ethnic and national camps. Whether or not such a possibility
exists for the Islamic world over the near-term remains to be seen but, certainly, it
realization will depend on the ability of the these nations, particularly those of the North
Africa and West Asia region (hereafter MENA), to resolve the political and military
tensions that threaten to unravel decades of peaceful development.
Many cultures and societies contributed to the flowering of Islam’s Golden Age.
Central among them were the Persians, the predecessor people of modern Iran. Persians
were the main force behind the creation of the Abbasid Dynasty (750 CE-1258 CE), one of
the most culturally sophisticated societies that gave birth to the Golden Age. The Berbers
of North Africa, a non-Arabic population, played a major role in the emergence of the
Golden Age as did the Fatimid Dynasty (909 CE –1171 CE ) which were contemporaneous
with the Abbasids. The Andalusian Dynasties (711 CE to 1492 CE) of the Iberian
Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) also played a prominent role in the emergence of the
Golden Age. Indeed, the architectural achievements of the Andalusian dynasties made
some of the most remarkable, longest lasting, and internationally recognized Islamic
contributions even today.
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Islam’s Golden Age, however, was not just the outcome of Islamic achievements.
Indeed, the Islamic empires of the period included large numbers of Jews, Christians,
Hindus, and even Chinese who made significant and lasting contributions to Islamic socio-
cultural-scientific achievements. All worked together in relative harmony to realize the
enormous intellectual, scientific, technological, architectural, and other contributions that
formed the basis of the what now is called the Islamic Golden Age. The work of the
ancients, but especially that of the Greeks and Romans, also were respected during the
dynasties of the Golden Age and contributed, too, to Islamic philosophy and scientific
achievements. Muslims, in turn, preserved the ancient texts of these scholars and in doing
so made an enormous contribution to both Islamic and world intellectual heritage.
Greek and Roman contributions to Islamic development were made possible through
the translation of Greek, Roman, Aramaic, and other texts in Arabic—the functioning
Lingua Franca of the period. These vital contributions, in
turn, laid the foundation for much of the intellectual recovery
of Europe following the end of its extended Dark Ages (c. 500
CE – c. 1000 CE) when all non-Christian-derived knowledge
was demeaned, destroyed or otherwise discarded. The
destruction resulted in the irretrievable loss of large bodies of knowledge that had been
accumulated by ancient civilizations prior to 500 CE. Only in the secrecy of Christian
monasteries and Hebraic temples, and more particularly in those temples and monasteries
that functioned as scriptoria, were some books preserved but, on their discovery, even
these carefully preserved treasures of ancient and early human thought and imagination
were destroyed as well. What remained were only fragments of much larger works.
In short, the period of Islam’s Golden Age represented a true melting-pot for all of the
world’s many and varied cultures each of which contributed their own ideas, cultures,
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systems of thought, and philosophies to what eventually would become Islam’s Golden
Age. The level of mutual respect, tolerance, and compassion demonstrated during this
period toward people of difference reflected the core values of Islam’s and, in most cases,
those of the many groups that made up these societies. The uniqueness of the Golden Age
also is to be found in its cosmopolitan nature and its diversified sources which culminated
into huge advances in all areas of life under the auspices of many enlightened politicians
and visionary intellectuals. One of the central goals of this remarkable period was the
translation of all of the then available knowledge of mankind into Arabic for ready
transmission to Muslims and non-Muslims living in all regions of the Islamic world.
For the authors of this chapter the responsibility of capturing even the highlights of
Islamic the many and varied accomplishments during its Golden Age was a daunting one,
especially with respect to those topics on subjects that should be featured in a chapter of
their own, e.g., the philosophy, mathematics, art, and architecture of Islamic development.
However, the realization of this endeavor did prove surmountable, albeit no doubt with
have excluded many important developments in this all too brief chapter. Even so, the
chapter focuses its attention on the following set of closely inter-related questions:
1. What are the most salient and straightforwardly observed characteristics of
the Golden Age at the political, economic, educational and scientific levels?
2. What are the identifiable driving forces that made the rise of a Golden Age
in the Islamic lands possible?
3. What are the main achievements of this period in diverse fields of
knowledge, but especially in the sciences, humanities, and the arts?
4. How did the Golden Age end? In other words, what were the factors that led
to the decline of that glorious period of time in the history of Islam?
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This set of questions cannot be answered without referring to many original historical
sources, fortunately many of which have been published, that concentrate on describing
diverse facets of life during this era in Arabic, French and English languages. Internet
materials also contributed significant to the preparation of this chapter and, often, provided
access to a wealth of materials that otherwise would not have been available to us or to
readers for future reference. Nevertheless, we cannot pretend that our account records all
important historical events or is comprehensive enough to cover such a long era. Where
we have failed to cover issues or parts of the historical record that readers believe to have
been even more important than the topics we do cover we only can ask four your
indulgence. Space limitations prevent for going into depth than we already have.
To facilitate the reading of this chapter, we will try firstly to delimit the time period of
the Golden Age era and, then, determine the underlying forces that helped shape that time
period and what was to follow from those years into the future. We will devote the third
section of the chapter to some intellectual works in a selected number of fields of
knowledge. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of the main factors that contributed
to the ultimate decline of that extraordinary period of Islamic history.
2. Defining the Islamic Golden Age
The phrase “Islamic Golden Age” was coined by the 19th Century “Orientalist”
movement (Said 1978). Orientalists formed a highly influential movement of Western
academicians who engaged in studying Middle Eastern, Asian and North African societies.
As these academicians that worked at the same time as European expansion into Islamic
lands they brought with them many of the same underlying assumptions and attitudes that
the colonizers promulgated. These ideas have frequently been criticized, especially by
American-Arab scholars such as Edward Said (Said 1978), on the basis that these attitudes
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brought with them stereotypes that had little to do with Islamic societies in reality.
“Orientalism” viewed from this perspective serve as a lens through which other people
worldwide, but especially Westerners, viewed Islamic phenomena about which they really
knew very little. This was especially the case among American intellectuals who had very
limited personal experiences with Islam in general and Arabs in particular. Their
knowledge was limited to books written by Western travelers and to the lectures they gave
upon their return home. Prevailing attitudes of arrogance and intolerance dominated much
of Western scholarship through the 18th and 19th centuries. And much of this scholarship
was simply wrong inasmuch as it was seen through the lenses of European colonial
occupiers of Muslim lands, especially in the MENA region.
Historically speaking, the years encompassed by the Islamic Golden Age differ among
scholars but, in general, the Islamic Golden Age should be thought of more as a process
rather than a discrete period of years with sharp beginnings and sharp endings. If one is to
focus on military and political leadership, for example, the Golden Age spans at least seven
and a half centuries. For them, the period of the Golden Age begins around 750 CE and
continues through the inauguration of Bait el Hikma (House of Wisdom) in Baghdad in the
second half of the 8th Century CE until the
destruction of the latter city by the Mongols in
1258 CE. Other historians extend the period of
the Golden Age to the 16th Century CE but most
regard this timeline as being over reaching and
call for a return back to earlier periods of intellectual and scientific accomplishments (e.g.,
Saliba 1994, Al-Hassan et al. 2001). For us, and for purposes of this chapter, the Islamic
Golden age coincides with period of the European Dark Ages (500 CE to 1000 CE)
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through to the period of the remarkable European Renaissance (13th to 15th Century) when
Europe regained its intellectual and cultural strength.
3. The Islamic Dynasties of the Golden Age
Three main dynasties shaped the development of the Islamic Golden Age: (1) the
Abbasids in Baghdad (750 CE–1258 CE); (2) the Fatimids in Cairo (909 CE-1171 CE);
and, (3) the Umayyads in Cordoba (929 CE-1031CE) in the west (for a timeline see annex
1). Each of these dynasties and their contribution to the Islamic Golden Age is briefly
described below.
3. 1 The Abbassids of Baghdad
During the Rashidoon Caliphs’ rule (see chapter 1 of this book), Islam rapidly
expanded out of Arabia to other areas of North Africa, Central Asia and, in time, to the
Iberian Peninsula in Southern Europe. For illustration, in the year 636 CE, Muslim armies
controlled Syria and a year later arrived in and dominated Persia. In the meantime, Muslim
armies reached Jerusalem and Caliph Omar himself traveled to receive the keys of the holy
city of Jerusalem. He drafted the famous Covenant, also called the Covenant of Omar
(known also as Umar's Assurance, or al-Uhda al-Umariyya) that granted peace, protection
and freedom of all of the city’s religions and population. Four years later, Muslim armies
besieged, then entered, Alexandria of Egypt which ultimately was proven to be the key city
of the entire Byzantine Empire (330 CE-1453 CE).
On the Western front, Muslims completed their conquest of North Africa and crossed
the Mediterranean Sea to reach the Spanish portion of Iberian Peninsula in 711 CE. At the
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same time, the Byzantine Empire’s capital was attacked but was not to be conquered until
about 717 CE and 718 CE. The Umayyad dynasty of Damascus came to an end by the year
750 CE, but Muslims continued their goal of reaching China a year later. However, during
the reign of the Umayyad dynasty in Damascus (661 CE-750 CE), the Muslims had
brought together all the necessary ingredients that could make a great civilization possible,
i.e., wise political leadership, a powerful army, peace and stability, and a diversified
intellectual and economic life (Miquel 1990: 70-71). Muawiyah I proclaimed the
monarchy (602 CE-680 CE) and planned to establish a new state more powerful than the
earlier one of Medina and not less equivalent than its competitor states in the Byzantine
Empire. By that time, finance, administration and social life were all codified and scientific
and cultural institutions were founded (See chapter 1).
After periods of relative peace, military confrontations regained many of the
Ummayads-held territories primarily because the Umayyads were accused of an extreme
way of life, sectarian policies, widespread corruption, impiousness, and practicing
discrimination against non-Arabs. Opposition groups rallied around the family descendents
of Abbas, for their direct family ties to the Prophet (through his youngest uncle Abbas ibn
Abd al-Muttalib, died c. 653 CE), and worked together to institute a new Caliphate. The
rebellion was led by Abu Muslim, a Persian military leader who brought Abul Abbas al-
Saffah to enter the Shiite-dominated city of Kufa (in present day Iraq) in the year 748 CE.
Soon, Abul Abbas declared himself Caliph. Two years later, the army of Abu Muslim and
as-Saffah faced the Umayyad Caliph Marwan II at the Battle of the Zab near the Tigris
River. This latter was defeated and killed later on. As-Saffah captured Damascus and killed
all the remaining members of the Umayyad family, except Abd al-Rahman, who escaped
to Spain and proclaimed later the Umayyad Dynasty there.
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The Abbasid Caliphate built on the Umayyad military, cultural and administrative
heritage, but gained more political maturity and was militarily sufficiently powerful and
stable to turn its attention to creating scientific and cultural prosperity. For instance, the
House of Wisdom (Bayt Al Hikma) was the starting point of the Golden Age on which
most scholars agree took a process of many years of social, technological, and military
development to reach this point in time.
In many respects, the House of Wisdom, brought together into a single system all of
the known knowledge of the day. Nearly all of this knowledge was translated in Arabic
and was disseminated widely across the entire Islamic empire. Thus, the House of
Wisdom, an institution, now long gone, served as a combination library and scriptorium, a
store house of knowledge from other regions of the world, a major center of translation,
and an educational institution whose character has been unmatched by either Eastern or
Western nation.
The legendary Bagdad House of Wisdom was the equivalent in some respects to the
great library of Alexandria which survived during only until the first half of the third
century BCE (Hitti 2002, Al-Khalili 2011). It was inaugurated in the capital Baghdad,
which the Abbasid’s second Caliph, Al-Mansur (754 CE-757 CE), decided to build to
become the Capital City. The House of Wisdom became a place where scholars from
various ethnicities and confessions gathered and translated the world's known knowledge
(Al-Khalili 2011, Gregorian 2004: 26–38). It gradually became a renowned model to
follow across all Islamic territories. Some major cities became intellectual centres for
jurisprudence, education, literature, philosophy, medicine, astronomy, Mathematics,
Architecture and techniques, mainly Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Béjaïa, Fez, Samarkand,
Bokhara, Córdoba and Granada (Burlot 1982: 155; Bergé 1983: 471-472).
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However, the choice of a capital city so close to Persia reflects a growing reliance of
the Abbasids on Iraqi and Persian bureaucrats early into their regin. Therefore, unlike the
Umayyads, who focused on the Mediterranean and the southern Europe regions, the
Abbasids’ gave greater attention to the east and Central Asia of present day Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan (Encyclopedia Britannica, Abbasid Dynasty). On
the whole, they succeeded to build on the legacy of the Umayyads and enriched it with
new blood that came mainly from Persia (Miquel 1990: 98). The office of the Islamic
caliph came to resemble ancient Oriental royalty (Nigosian 2004: 27).
To some extent the Abbasids brought back justice to the then marginalized ethnic
Muslims groups which were labeled ‘Mawali’, to ensure their full adherence to the life of
the Ummah. To illustrate the type of life that people lived in Baghdad, the eminent writer
Jahidh, Jahiz (d. 869) wrote:
When we see the people of Sijistan, of the Jazira, of Yemen, the Maghreb and Uman, the
Azraqi, the Najdi, the Ibadi and the Sufri (four Kharijite sects), mawla and Arab, Persian and
nomad, slaves and women, weavers and peasants, despite their various origins and their
different homelands all fighting on the same side, we understand that it is religion which
creates this unity between them and reconciles their conflicts (quoted in Von Grunbaum 1970:
81).
For Von Grunbaum (1970) it was the idea of ‘the state’ and ‘citizenship to Rome’ that
guaranteed the universality of the spiritual and the political structure in the Roman Empire.
In the case of the Abbasids, it was religion that brought people together in harmony.
The support which the Abbasids gained from pious Muslims led them to acknowledge
publicly the emergent Islamic law and to profess to base their rule on the religious
principles. They therefore allowed for the development of diverse schools of thought, aided
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by a wide array of newly translated intellectual sources. Historical accounts emphasized
that during the Abbasid rule, the development of the Sharia neither brought a centralization
of the exercise of law and administration, nor, curiously, did the absolutism of the caliph
seriously try to establish such centralization (Von Grunbaum 1970). For Von Grunbaum
(1970) the Abbasids developed a new conception of law and state based on ‘the
underpinning of local legal practice with the prophetic tradition...’ (p. 81). Practically,
every legal maxim was weighed on the basis of contemporary understanding of the
Qur’anic text and testimonies of the behaviour and sayings of the Prophet as reported later
in the Sunnah and Hadith. This was very important since it unified the bases of law and
helped to avoid supplanting of customary procedure in the then ruled provinces. The
Hadith scholars undertook substantial efforts to consolidate the legal structure that gave to
the whole Empire its coherence in this foundational field (Burlot 1982: 68-69). For
instance, the systemization of the legal sources and the collection of their contents were
undertaken by Imam Ash-Shafii (767-820) a Palestinian educated in Medina and died in
Egypt (Von Grunbaum 1970: 81).
Moreover, Ochsenwald (2004) rightly noted that while the Abbasids originally gained
power by exploiting the social inequalities against non-Arabs in the Umayyad Empire,
ironically during Abbasid rule the empire rapidly “Arab-ized” (p. 69). As knowledge was
shared in the Arabic language throughout the empire, people of different nationalities and
religions began to speak Arabic in their everyday lives. Resources from other languages
started to be translated into Arabic with the result that a unique Islamic identity began to
form that fused previous cultures with Arab culture, creating a level of civilization and
knowledge that was considered a marvel in Europe (Ochsenwald 2004: 69). That openness
and tolerance with all cultures and traditions helped also to promote commerce, industry,
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arts, and science, particularly during the reigns of al-Mansur, Harun ar-Rashid, and al-
Maamun.
Historians agree that, in addition to other forces, the temporal power of the Abbasids
began to decline when Caliph Muatassim introduced Berbers, Slavs, and especially
Turkish mercenary forces into his personal army. Although these troops were Muslims, the
base of imperial unity weakened in response to the Army’s new cultural (and linguistic)
diversity. Some of the new army officers started to assassinate any caliph who would not
agree on their demands (Encyclopedia Britannica, Abbasid Dynasty). The Abbasids were
forced to cede authority over Andalusia and the Maghreb to one of the Umayyads’ son,
independent states of Idrisid dynasty were created in Morocco (788 CE–974 CE),
Rustamids (767 CE-909 CE) in Algeria and Aghlabids (800-909 CE-1048 CE) in Ifriqiya
(Tunisia) and the Shi'ite Caliphate of the Fatimids (909 CE-1171 CE) in Egypt. The
political power of the Abbasid caliphs largely ended with the rise of the Buyids (934 CE–
1062 CE) and the Seljuq Turks (1037 CE–1194 CE), the forerunners of the Ottoman
Empire (1299 CE–1923 CE).
The following is a comprehensive list of the Abbasid caliphs from 750 CE (131AH) to
1517 CE (923 AH). Each caliph made his own distinctive contribution to Islam and
Islam’s Golden Age.
# Abbasid Caliph AH AD
1 Abu'l Abbas As-Saffah 131–136 750–754
2Al-Mansur 136–158 754–775
3Al-Mahdi 158–169 775–785
4Al-Hadi 169–170 785–786
5Harun al-Rashid 170–193 786–809
6Al-Amin 193–198 809–813
7Al-Ma'mun 198–218 813–833
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# Abbasid Caliph AH AD
8Al-Mu'tasim 218–227 833–842
9Al-Wathiq 227–232 842–847
10 Al-Mutawakkil 232–247 847–861
11 Al-Muntasir 247–248 861–862
12 Al-Musta'in 248–252 862–866
13 Al-Mu'tazz 252–255 866–869
14 Al-Muhtadi 255–256 869–870
15 Al-Mu'tamid 257–279 870–892
16 Al-Mu'tadid 279–289 892–902
17 Al-Muktafi 289–295 902–908
18 Al-Muqtadir 295–320 908–932
19 Al-Qahir 320–322 932–934
20 Al-Radi 322–329 934–940
21 Al-Muttaqi 329–334 940–944
22 Al-Mustakfi 334–336 944–946
23 Al-Muti 336–363 946–974
24 At-Ta'i 363–381 974–991
25 Al-Qadir 382–422 991–1031
26 Al-Qa'im 422–468 1031–1075
27 Al-Muqtadi 468–487 1075–1094
28 Al-Mustazhir 487–512 1094–1118
29 Al-Mustarshid 512–530 1118–1135
30 Ar-Rashid 530–531 1135–1136
31 Al-Muqtafi 531–555 1136–1160
32 Al-Mustanjid 555–566 1160–1170
33 Al-Mustadi 566–576 1170–1180
34 An-Nasir 576–622 1180–1225
35 Az-Zahir 622–623 1225–1226
36 Al-Mustansir 623–640 1226–1242
37 Al-Musta'sim 640–656 1242–1258
Caliphs of Cairo
39 Al-Mustansir 659–660 1261–1262
40 Al-Hakim I (Cairo) 660–702 1262–1302
41 Al-Mustakfi I of Cairo 702–741 1303–1340
42 Al-Wathiq I 741–742 1340–1341
43 Al-Hakim II 742–753 1341–1352
44 Al-Mu'tadid I 753–764 1352–1362
45 Al-Mutawakkil I 764–785 1362–1383
46 Al-Wathiq II 785–788 1383–1386
47 Al-Mu'tasim 788–791 1386–1389
48 Al-Mutawakkil I (restored) 791–809 1389–1406
49 Al-Musta'in 809–817 1406–1414
50 Al-Mu'tadid II 817–845 1414–1441
51 Al-Mustakfi II 845–855 1441–1451
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# Abbasid Caliph AH AD
52 Al-Qa'im 855–859 1451–1455
53 Al-Mustanjid 859–884 1455–1479
54 Al-Mutawakkil II 884–902 1479–1497
55 Al-Mustamsik 902–914 1497–1508
56 Al-Mutawakkil III 914–923 1508–1517
3.2 The Fatimids
The Fatimid Dynasty made major additions to the Golden Age. Like the Abbasids, to
gain legitimacy, they claimed kinship to the Prophet from his
daughter, Fatima, after whom they named their dynasty. The
Fatimids professed the Shia beliefs. Some historians endorsed
this claim, notably Ibn Khaldun, and many others in modern
Maghreb. Their state initially took shape among Berbers of Kutama tribe1, localised in the
east Algeria (Ibn Khaldun 2003 reprint: 163). The Fatimids defeated the Aghlabides in
909 CE and proclaimed Ubayd Allah as a Caliph. In the same year, they established the
Tunisian city of Mahdia as their capital, consolidating their power over the Mediterranean
Sea to reach and rule Sicily from 910 CE to 969 CE. Then, they attempted to conquer
Egypt on several occasions (during the years 913, 919 and 925). They finally succeeded to
establish Cairo (Al Kahira) as a capital city in 969 CE, when General Djawhar eliminated
the Ikhshidids of Egypt and hence Egypt became the political, cultural, and religious
centre of the whole state2. The library, which the Fatimids founded in Cairo following the
1 According to many geographers, the location of the Kutama tribe and the rise of the first propagation of the
Ismali’li Shi’a was near Setif (Algeria). See historical sources for a broader discussion of this geographic
pattern: Abu al-Fida (1273 CE-1331 CE) in Taqwim al Buldan (A Sketch of the Countries), Yaqut al-
Hamawi (1179 CE-1229 CE) in Mu’jam al-buldan and al Idrisi (1099 CE-1166 CE) in Nuzhat al-Mushtaq.
2 See also, Taqouch. Muhammad Sohail, (2007), Tarikh al-Fatimiin fi Sham alIfrikiya wa Misr wa bilad as-
sham, Dar An Nafaes, Beirut. Cf: Wiet Gaston, (1961), Grandeur de l’Islam, La table ronde, p 159 sq.;
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model of Baghdad, became the most important in the Muslim world. In 970 CE, the
Fatimids dominated the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and undertook the difficult
conquest of Syria (Burlot 1982: 56).
Trade networks witnessed a great extension across the Mediterranean Sea as well as
the Indian Ocean during the rule of the Fatimids in Egypt. They maintained diplomatic
ties with countries as distant as the Chinese Song Dynasty. Their policies had fruitful
results on the economic life during the Middle Age and their tolerance towards other sects
was exemplary. They also developed specific interest in specialized areas of the art s, but
especially ceramics, glassware and metalworking. They also fostered freedom of
expression and rewarded scholars in many diverse fields of knowledge (for details see,
Brett 2001).
In the course of the 12th century, however, the Fatimid caliphate gradually declined.
In the year 1171 CE, Salah ad-Din (1138 CE-1193 CE), or Saladin who fought against the
Crusaders, arrived in Egypt and founded the Ayyubid dynasty and reincorporated many of
the Fatimid territories into the Abbasid Caliphate (Wiet 1961, Diringer, 1982, Touati
1993, Norma 2002).
3.3 The Umayyad Caliphate of al-Andalus
The Umayyad Caliphate of al-Andalus (929 CE-1031 CE) was the third state which
constituted the Golden Age. Its rule was characterized by an expansion of trade and
culture, and constructed many of al-Andalus architecture masterpieces, including the
Great Mosque of Cordoba. In January 929 CE, Abd ar-Rahman III proclaimed himself
caliph of Cordoba, the most supreme religious leader of the Muslims in Spain, in place of
his original title, Emir of Cordoba (Wasserstein 1993). Though his position as Caliph was
Miquel, A. (1990). L'Islam et sa civilisation, VII-XX siècle, Armand Colin, Paris, p 174 sq.
Page 16 of 59
not accepted outside of Spain, internally, the Spanish Umayyads considered themselves as
closer to the Prophet, and thus more legitimate rulers, than the Abbasids and hence Abd
ar-Rahman III decided to cut the last ties of submission to the Mashreq (the East). He
united al-Andalus and brought the Christian kingdoms of the north under control,
sometimes by force and in other times through diplomacy, and halted the Fatimid advance
into the caliphate’s land. At the same time, trade and cultural relations with the East
remained active and diplomatic relations with Byzantium clearly showed the power and
prestige of the Umayyad Caliphate (Wasserstein 1993). However, the weakening of
Eastern influences produced a characterized new civilization where classical Arabic
tradition was molded with western traditions (Lewis 1958). Consequently, the region
enjoyed political stability and peace which increased prosperity starting from the 10th
century.
The death of al-Hakam II in 976 CE marked the beginning of the end of the state.
Before his death, al-Hakam named his 10 year old son Hisham II (976-1008) as his
successor. This gave, Al-Mansur, the top adviser and the boy’s Guardian, the upper hand
in political decisions. In the absence of a real leadership, and the title of caliph becoming
symbolic, the state witnessed discord and violence amongst rival factions, each claiming
political power. The caliphate crumbled in 1031 into a number of independent Muluk at-
Tawaif (the community kingdoms) (Burlot 1982: 128-129).
4.0 Factors That Facilitated the Emergence of the Islamic Golden Age
Obviously a large panoply of factors helped on the way to create the wealth and
intellectual fervor known as the Islamic Golden Age. Some of these factors are political
and others relate to the strength of economy and the scientific and intellectual diversity and
dedication.
Page 17 of 59
4.1 The Political system
Governing using clearly defined legal frameworks was known in the Islamic state
since the Prophet’s time. For instance, a kind of Constitution3 was drafted by the prophet
Mohamed in Medina as a formal agreement to define clearly the rights and responsibilities
of diverse ethnic and religious communities (Sonn & Williamsburg 2004: 18)4. Drawing
from this tradition of setting up ‘constitutional’ rights and duties, the concepts of ‘Shura’
(consultancy) and community participation were reinforced in the early Islamic state of
Rashidun Caliphate. Despite the fact that Muawiyah I instituted a monarchy rule, to cut the
way against any of the people who aspired to power and also to avoid further interior
conflicts, this did not deter an Islamic political philosophy to take shape. For instance,
unlike al-Mawardi who wrote that the caliph should be from Quraysh, the tribe of the
prophet (about Al-Mawardi, see Brown 2004: 111), Al-Baqillani, Abu Hanifa an-Nu‘man
and most western regions’ Muslim scholars agree that the leader of the Muslims should
simply be chosen from the majority. Donner (1981) clarified that despite the fact that there
was no specified procedure for the shura, or consultative assembly, the standard Arabian
practice during the early Caliphates was for the prominent men of a kinship group, or tribe,
to gather after a leader's death and elect a leader from amongst them. Candidates were
usually from the same lineage as the deceased leader, but they were not necessarily his
sons. Capable men who would lead well were preferred over an ineffectual direct heir, as
there was no basis in the majority Sunni view that the head of state or governor should be
3A version of this Constitution is posted in http://www.constitutionofmadina.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/02/Constitution-of-Madina_Articles.pdf,downloaded .
4 Montgomery, W.M. (1953) gives a lot of details about the institution of Medina based on the
original text of the Biographer’s prophet Ibn Ishaq,
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chosen based on lineage alone (Wikipedia 2015). This system of state and governing was
the base of all the subsequent Islamic political systems, in spite of the adaptation of
different methods of governance. Propagating peace and justice were yet the first
conditions for any ruler to succeed. This broad vision of justice and equity dominated
political life during the golden Age (Donner 1981) and hence contributed in providing the
climate for subsequent creative works.
.24. Economy in the Islamic Golden age
The economic system of this period worked efficiently and financial activities were
codified by the Islamic law. Bentley & Ziegler (2000) noted that governments encouraged
agricultural trade and manufacturers. Peasants tilled the land as their ancestors used to do
for centuries before them, while manufacturers and merchants supported a thriving urban
economy. The Umayyad and Abbasid empires created a zone of trade exchange and
communications stretched from India to Iberia. Commerce throughout this zone served as a
vigorous economic stimulus for both the countryside and the cities of the early countries
with predominately Islamic populations (Bentley& Ziegler 2000: 315).
Travel and communication in the Islamic countries also encouraged experimentation
with agricultural methods. Cultivators paid close attention to methods of irrigation,
fertilization, crop rotation, and the like, and they outlined their findings in hundreds of
agricultural manuals. Copies of these works survive in numerous manuscripts that
circulated widely throughout the Islamic countries. Increased agricultural production
contributed to the rapid growth of cities in all parts of the Islamic countries from India to
Spain. Delhi, Samarkand, Bukhara, Merv, Nishapur, Isfahan, Basra, Baghdad, Damascus,
Jerusalem, Cairo, Alexandria, Tunis, Tangier, Palermo, Cordoba, and Toledo were all
bustling cities, some with populations of several hundred thousand people (Bentley &
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Ziegler 2000, chap. 13). All these cities had flourishing markets supporting thousands of
artisans, craftsmen, and merchants. Most of them were also important centers of industrial
production as well, particularly of textiles, pottery, glassware, leather, iron, and steel5
(Bergé 1983, Burlot 1982: 69-70). As camel transport became more common, the major
Islamic cities and central Asia built and maintained caravanserais-inns offering lodging for
caravan merchants, as well as food, water, and care for their animals (Bentley & Ziegler
2000: 317).
Furthermore, a new and highly important industry appeared in Islamic cities during the
Abbasid era--paper manufacturing. Chinese craftsmen had made paper since at least the
first century CE, but their technology did not spread far beyond China until Arab forces
defeated a Chinese army unit at the battle of Talas River in 751 CE and took prisoners who
were skilled in paper production (Bentley & Ziegler 2000: 317). Paper was cheaper and
easier to use than palm leaves and veklum among other materials and soon became popular
throughout the Islamic countries. This facilitated the keeping of administrative and
commercial records, and made possible the dissemination of books and treatises in larger
quantities than ever before. Bergé (1983) considered that “using paper was a great event in
the history of civilization, it’s similar to the invention of printing” (p. 633). By the 10th
century, mills produced paper in Persia, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt, and Spain, and the
industry soon spread further to Western Europe (Bentley & Ziegler 2000: 316). Wikipedia
(2015b) assert that papermaking in Europe was started by Muslims living on the Iberian
5 Maurice Lombard (1904-1965) conducted many studies about the economy of Islam in the
Middle age, e.g., L’Islam dans sa première grandeur: VIIIe-XIe siècle (Paris, Flammarion, 1971),
then Études d'économie médiévale: Les métaux dans l'ancien monde du Ve au XIe siècle (Vol. 38).
Paris : EHESS.
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Peninsula, and Sicily in the 10th century, and slowly spread to Italy and Sothern
France, reaching Germany by 1400.
Meanwhile, innovations in nautical technology contributed to a steady increase in the
level of maritime trade in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, and Indian Ocean. Some
historical sources reported that Arab and Persian mariners borrowed the compass from its
Chinese inventors, improved upon it, and used the compass to guide them on the high seas
(Saliba 1994). From Southeast Asian and Indian mariners, they borrowed the lateen sail, a
triangular sail that increased a ship's maneuverability. And, from the Hellenistic
Mediterranean they borrowed the astrolabe, a remarkable nautical instrument that enabled
them to calculate latitude (Bentley & Ziegler 2000: I, 317).
Islamic banks of the Abbasid period conducted business on a much larger scale and
provided a more extensive range of services than their predecessors. They not only made
loans to entrepreneurs, but also served as brokers for investments and exchanged in foreign
currency exchanges. They established multiple branches that honored letters of credit
known as “sakk”, the root term (and practice) of the modern word for "check"- drawn on
the parent bank (Bentley & Ziegler 2000). They also loaned money to the non-wealthy,
e.g., to local merchants and tradespersons. In keeping with Islamic teachings regarding
usury, interest free loans always were made to the poor and near-poor. Today, the
Grameen (“rural” or “village”) Bank of Bangladesh,
founded by Nobel Laureate and economist
Mohammed Yunus, even makes interest free small
loans to beggars for the purpose of helping them
establish micro-businesses.
Trade benefitted also from new techniques of business organization. As in the case of
banking, there were precedents for these techniques in classical Mediterranean society, but
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increasing volumes of trade enabled entrepreneurs to refine their methods of organization.
Bentley & Ziegler (2000) argued that Islamic law provided security for entrepreneurs by
explicitly recognizing certain forms of business organization. Usually Islamic businessmen
preferred not to embark on solo ventures, since an individual could face financial ruin if an
entire cargo of commodities fell victim to pirates or went down with a ship that sank in a
storm. Instead, like their counterparts in other postclassical societies, Abbasid
entrepreneurs often pooled their resources in group investments. If several individuals
invested in several cargos, they could distribute their risks and more easily absorb losses.
Furthermore, if several groups of investors rented cargo space on several different ships,
they spread their risks even more. Entrepreneurs entered into several different kinds of
joint endeavors during the Abbasid caliphate. Some involved simply the investment of
money in an enterprise, whereas others called for some or all of the partners to play active
roles in their business ventures (Bentley & Ziegler 2000: 318). The new financial climate
secured businesses and encouraged a diversified economy to flourish.
In the western parts of the Muslim world, imported crops increased the supply of food
and enriched the diet of al-Andalus, enabling merchants and manufacturers to conduct
thriving businesses in cities like Cordoba, Toledo, and Seville. Ceramics, painted tiles, lead
crystal, and gold jewelry from al-Andalus enjoyed a reputation for excellence and helped
pay for imported goods and the building of a magnificent capital city at Cordoba. During
the 10th century, Cordoba had more than sixteen kilometers (ten miles) of publicly lighted
roads, as well as free Islamic schools, an exceptionally large mosque, and a splendid
library with more than four hundred thousand volumes (Bentley & Ziegler, 2000: 319).
Around that time, the whole Middle East and North African regions were the wealthiest
compared to other regions of the world, including Western Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin
America (Maddison 2003).
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4.3 Language and education:
Arabic is the language of the Qur’an and the religious language of all Muslims, albeit
the majority of Muslims neither understand nor can write Arabic (in much the same way
that the vast majority of Catholics never understood nor could speak in Latin, the official
language of the church for more than 1500 years). It is one of the Semitic languages, like
the Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Ugaritic, but Arabic is the only surviving member
of the Ancient North Arabian dialect group as attested in pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions
dating back to the 4th century. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet, which is an abjad
script and is written from right to left.
With the spread of Islam, Arabic became a prominent language of scholarship and
religious devotion. Starting from the last centuries of the 1st millennium CE, this language
became the vehicle for research work in science, especially in medicine, optics, astronomy,
astrology, alchemy (the ancestor of chemistry), geography, botany, mathematics, as well as
in philosophy, history, ethics and literature, especially wisdom-literature, the theory of
music, jurisprudence, Islamic theology, Arabic grammar, poetry and lexicography
(Diringer 1982: 331).
The issue of education was at the forefront in the minds of the Muslims since the
establishment of the early state of Medina. Education in Arabic continued as a point of
pride and a field in which Muslims have always excelled in and for which their successive
rulers built great libraries and learning centers. Acquiring books for home libraries became
also a common practice by rich families. The first educational institutions of the Islamic
societies were established closed to or in mosques, which were used as meeting places
where people could gather around learned scholars. Some Islamic schools continue this
tradition of informal education; however, as time went on, Muslims began to build formal
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institutions dedicated to education. Many schools included residences for both students and
teachers. Curricula teaching activities usually started with practicing writing and reading
Arabic language, then reciting the Qur’an. Grammar, Islamic law and courses of
arithmetic, history and Islamic law were a constituting part of the teachings. This way most
of the local population were educated since their childhood. Later, numerous Universities
were established across the Muslim world by the Caliphs, Sultans and through personal
initiatives of rich women and men (Tiliouine 2014).
5.0 The legacy of the Islamic Golden Age
Under the following sections examples of some influential intellectuals and
scholars are cited in order to briefly illustrate our account of the Golden Age with some
well -known cases. We start with the field of Sciences, then Humanities and end with Arts
works.
5.1. Sciences
Arab science was born and developed in the same context as Philosophy, but did not
suffer the same resistance. Several verses of the Qur'an already urged Muslims to seek
science and knowledge. The scientific movement launched by the last Umayyad rulers,
then the Abbasids for several centuries, spread throughout the Islamic countries. Muslims
collected substantial legacies in the countries where Islam came to be embraced. They not
only translated these works, but also enriched them and expand them with new discoveries.
Massignon & Arnaldez explained,
The Arabs did better than transmit science: they have awakened the taste and they
began to confront the Greek concepts with experience... They endeavor a big project
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basing on the activity of critics and observations, wherever, we can see rightly a
tremendous awakening of scientific reason (quoted in Burlot 1982: 10).
In the field of Mathematics and Astronomy, during the 9th and the 10th centuries, Greek
scientists such as Euclid, Archimedes, and Apollonius were incorporated with Indian
sources such as Aryabhata. Such intellectual encounters led to important developments,
such as the decimal place-value system to include decimal fractions, the first systematized
study of algebra (named for the work of scholar al-Khawarizmi, a scholar of the House of
Wisdom in Baghdad), and also many other advances in the study of geometry and
trigonometry (Van Sertima 1992: 394).
In 770, the Abbasids adopted the decimal system and created ‘Arab’ numbers. They
used the zero (sifr: empty) which enormously facilitated operations in comparison to the
Roman numerals. The word algorithm came from the great mathematician Al-Khwarizmi
(780 CE – 846 CE) who published in 825 CE in Baghdad his famous treaty on Indian
calculation known by its Latin name (Algorithmide numero Indorum) (Allard 1997: 203).
Then, he published his famous book, Kitab al Jabr, which made him the “father of
algebra” in which he gave the solutions of quadratic equations (Bergé 1983).
These discoveries had direct practical applications. Al Khwarizmi himself declared,
I have written my book, Kitab al Jabr, in which I have condensed in the science of
computing, delicate items and the highest concepts. In practice, people need these concepts in
operations aimed at evaluating a surface, raising the course of a river, to draw the plan of a
building and other practical methods of all types and in all fields" (quoted in Bergé 1983:
348).
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The same concerns led the mathematician Abul Wafa Buzjani (940 CE - 998 CE) to
move to Baghdad. He made important innovations in spherical trigonometry, and his work
on arithmetic for businessmen contained the first instance of using negative numbers. He is
also credited with compiling the tables of sinus and tangents and the introduction of the
“sec” and “co-sec” functions. He studied also the interrelations between the six
trigonometric lines associated with an arc. His Almagest was widely read by medieval
Arabic astronomers in the centuries after his death. Unfortunately, many of his works have
not survived (HTTP://WWW-HISTORY.MCS.ST-
ANDREWS.AC.UK/BIOGRAPHIES/AVICENNA.HTML , accessed December 2014).
The great poet Omar al-Khayyam (1048 CE-1131 CE), also known as a brilliant
scientist, a Sufi mystic and theologian, wrote the influential Treatise on Demonstration of
Problems of Algebra (1070 CE), which laid down the principles of algebra, part of the
body of Islamic Mathematics that was eventually transmitted to Europe (Allard 1997). In
particular, he derived general methods for solving cubic equations and even some higher
orders. In the Treatise, he wrote on the triangular array of binomial coefficients known as
Pascal’s triangle. In 1077 CE, al-Khayyam wrote Sharh ma ashkala min musadar atkitab
Uqlidis (Explanations of the Difficulties in the Postulates of Euclid) published in English
as "On the Difficulties of Euclid's Definitions". He produced important works on
geometry, specifically on the theory of proportions. His notable contemporary
mathematicians included: Al-Khazini and Abu Hatim al-Muzaffar (Allard 1997: 227).
Astronomy was also renovated and extended by Muslim scholars. New developments
mostly took place in the Middle East, Central Asia, Al-Andalus, and North Africa, and
later in the Far East and India. It closely paralleled the genesis of other Islamic sciences in
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its assimilation of foreign material and the amalgamation of the disparate elements of that
material to create a science with Islamic characteristics.
Political leaders supported actively scientific efforts. For instance, Caliph al Ma’mun,
a passionate of philosophy and science, built an observatory within the framework of
the "House of Wisdom". Islamic astronomy later had a significant influence on
Byzantine and European as well as Chinese astronomy (Rashed 1997: 203). To
illustrate this, Al Ferghani (d. 861 CE), was an astronomer from Damascus, who
calculated terrestrial longitudes and wrote astronomical elements. Al Battani (d. 930
CE) discovered the precession of the equinoxes and inclination of ecliptic and Abd-
Rahman al-Sufi (903 CE- 986 CE), wrote about 965 fixed stars. The greatest
astronomer Ali ibnYunus (950 CE-1009 CE), worked in
Cairo, where the Fatimid Caliph al Hakem constructed an
observatory for him. In the 12th century and Nur addin al
Bitruji (d. 1204 CE), established the theory of the spiral
motion of the planets which paved the way for modern
astronomy. Trigonometry was initially considered as a
branch of Astronomy and later founded as an independent
science. They borrowed the sinus and cosines from the Indians, but developed the
tangent and cotangent (Burlot 1982: 106-107, Rashed 1997).
Muslims’ efforts also made extraordinary advances in Optics and Mechanics. For
instance, Ibn al-Haitham (965 CE-1040 CE), known as Al Hazen in Latin, authored a
treatise in optics that influenced subsequent scholars and studied the phenomena of
reflection and refraction. He was the first to advance the idea that the celestial bodies emit
their own heat (Burlot 1982: 108). In mechanics, Badi’al-Zaman al Jazari (1136 CE –1206
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CE) was a real genius. He is best known for writing The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious
Mechanical Devices6, in 1206, where he described 100 mechanical devices, some 80 of
which are trick vessels of various kinds, along with instructions on how to construct them
(Hill 1991: 64-69).
In the field of Alchemy, or Chemistry people were motivated by the idea of the
possibility of transforming the bodies by an ideal agent, the elixir or the ‘philosopher's
stone’ to make gold (Rached 1997). The great master of this field in the Islamic Golden
Age was Jabir ibn Hayyan (721 CE -780 CE). He sought to study the composition and
transformation of minerals. Jabir and other Muslim alchemists developed numerous sound
facts and processes which formed the basic building blocks for the modern science of
chemistry. In terms of practical methods, Jabir set forth a variety of hypotheses in the
almost 100 works ascribed to him. Rashed (1997) emphasizes that we are indebted to
Muslim alchemy for methods of distillation, evaporation, crystallization, filtration, and
sublimation. Methods of producing a considerable number of chemical substances are
described: nitric acid, sulphuric acid, mercury oxide, lead acetate, and others (Rashed
1997: 111).
Islamic medicine is one of the most famous and best known facets of Islamic
civilization, being one of the branches of science in which Muslims most excelled during
the Golden Age. Their medical sciences and techniques were part of the curricula of
medical schools throughout the world until about a century ago ( Nasr 1968: 184).
Nowadays and despite the rapid spread of Western medical education, Islamic medicine
continues to be studied and practiced in its home land, and is far from being merely of his-
torical interest.
6Specialized explanations on this work could be reached through the link:
http://www.muslimheritage.com/uploads/Automation_Robotics_in_Muslim%20Heritage.pdf
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According to the global vision of the Qur’anic health system and many Hadiths,
which insisted on cleanness and good nutritional behavior, scholars such as Ibn Qayyim al-
Jawziyyah (1292–1350) and al-Asfahani (d. 1038) talked about the ‘Prophetic Medicine’.
It is a kind of prevention, as deduced from the Sunna, which protects both bodies and
souls7. Furthermore, the Abbasids were particularly interested in supporting medical
research. Harun al-Rashid established the first hospital in Baghdad under the guidance of
some Christian scholars who were trained at Gundaishapur Hospital, a research institute of
the 6th century Persia. By the end of the 9th century, several other hospitals had been
reputable in Cairo, Mecca, and Medina, as well as mobile medical units for rural areas.
These hospitals treated males and females, had outpatient facilities, and offered services
for the poor. Many of the hospitals had mental wards, libraries, and classrooms (Sonn &
Williamsburg 2004: 52). The Mansuria Hospital in Cairo, built in the 13th century, is still in
use today for the treatment of the blind. By the 14th century, a number of hospitals had
been established in Islamic India as well. As in the Arab world, medical treatment was
free, supported by waqf endowments and government patronage (Sonn & Williamsburg
2004: 52).
Ophthalmology was described as the most successful branch of medical research at
the time, with the works of Ibn Al-Haitham remaining an authority in the field until early
modern times (Saunders1978). Al-Razi (Rhazes, born in 865) was one of the greatest
Islamic physicians. He wrote Kitab Al-Mansuri (Liber Almartsoris in Latin) in 10 volumes
as a treatise on Greek medicine and also published on smallpox and measles (Alphen &
Aris 2003). The works of ancient Greek and Roman physicians Hippocrates, Galen and
7 For further readings see: Ghaly, Mohammed, Prophetic Medicine, in Muhammad in History, Thought, and
Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God (2 vols.), Edited by C. Fitzpatrick and A. Walker, Santa
Barbara, ABC-CLIO, 2014, Vol. II, pp.502-506.
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Dioscorides were well incorporated in Islamic medicine (Savage-Smith1997: 155). Al-
Razi’s texts continued to be reprinted well into the 19th century. Moreover, Ibn Sina was
known in the West as “the prince of physicians”. His synthesis of Islamic medicine, al-
Qanun fi'l tibb (The Canon of Medicine), was the final authority on medical matters in
Europe for several centuries. Although Ibn Sina made advances in pharmacology and in
clinical practice, his greatest contribution was probably in the philosophy of medicine. He
created a system of medicine that today we would call holistic and in which physical and
psychological factors, drugs, and diet were combined in treating patients (Majeed 2005,
Wear et al. 1993). Another successful example is that of Ibn Al-Nafis, a 13th century Arab
physician, who described the pulmonary circulation. Surgeon Al-Zahrawi (936-1016)
wrote the Tasrif which, translated into Latin, and became the leading medical text in
European universities during the later middle ages. Al-Zahrawi was also a noted
pathologist, describing hydrocephalus and other congenital diseases, as well as developing
new surgical technologies such as catgut sutures (Burlot 1982, Majeed 2005).
Other sciences such as zoology and botany were not studied for themselves in classical
Islamic societies, but as auxiliary science of agriculture and medicine. Al-Biruni (973-
1050) had a special place in the Muslim world and is currently known as the founder of
Indology (the study of Indian cultures) (Burlot 1982: 109). He is also regarded as the
"father of geodesy" because of the details and systematized studies he made of the
measurements of the features and other geographical problems including the question of
the possible motion of the earth8 (Nasr, 1968: 99).
8 More details in Sarton, G. (1927). Introduction to the History of Science, Volume 3, Science and
learning in the fourteenth century, Carnegie Institution of Washington
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5.2 Humanities
As was the case for Science, the Golden Age was a period of great achievements in
diverse fields of Humanities: Religious sciences, Philosophy, literature, history, geography,
linguistics, etc. Because of space restrictions, we will consider in the next section only few
examples of major works in the areas of Philosophy, History and Geography.
5.2.1 Philosophy (Falsafa)
Philosophy in the Islamic Golden Age was elaborated as a systematic investigation of
problems connected with society, life, nature and sciences in a global religious vision. But, this
did not exclude many great Christian and Jewish philosophers and people from other
communities to excel in its diverse subjects (for some details see:
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/). It should be however stressed that since the early years
of Islam, the Muslim community was involved in a number of controversies which
occasionally struck at the very essence of the religion. Disputes took place on all fronts, not
just between different political factions, but also between different interpretations of the
Qur'an, opposing views on the legitimacy of government and religious behavior, in a way
that even the notion of a Muslim way of life became essentially a contested concept.
Leaman (2002) specified: ‘But none of these controversies were philosophical in the sense
that they embodied the sort of philosophical thinking which came later to be transmitted
from the Greeks to Islamic scholars. This kind of philosophy first appeared in the 9th century
under the Abbasid dynasty’ (p. 7). From the beginning of that age, two main currents might
be distinguished. The first is Kalam, which mainly dealt with Islamic theological questions,
and the other is Falsafa, which was founded on interpretations of Aristotelianism and
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Neoplatonism into Arabic. Kalam, literally means the science of speech’, speech about the
Islamic theological questions and principles using the logic and mind reflections. One of
first debates was that between partisans of the Qadarit (“to have power”), who affirmed
freewill; and the Jabarites (meaning “force”, “constraint”), who believed in fatalism
(Wolfson1976: 3-4)
According to Sonn & Williamsburg (2004) applying rational analyses of the Greek
Philosophers to revelation became later both sources for European knowledge of classical
Greek learning, and models for developing Christian and Judaic philosophies (pp 48-49).
For instance, the school of Mutazilism, was known in the 8th Century, though its origin
could be traced back to an earlier date. Mutazilism emphasized reason and rational thought,
positing that the injunctions of God are accessible to rational thought and inquiry. At the
end of this school, Mutazilits held that the Qur’an, albeit the word of God, was created
rather than uncreated, which would develop into one of the most contentious questions in
Islamic theology. The Mutazilites defended the belief that the human will is free, even
though in later times their speculations were directed more toward theologico-metaphysical
problems. De Bore (1903) concluded that the systematic statement of their doctrines must
have been influenced by the Logicians.
The Ash’arism developed as a response to Mutazila which the former considered as a
kind of heresy, which led later to its decline. Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari (874-936), urged to
the use of reason in understanding the Qur'an, but denied the possibility to deduce moral
truths by reasoning. This was opposed by the school of Maturidi, which taught that certain
moral truths may be found by the use of reason without the aid of revelation. Another point
of contention was the relative position of iman ("faith") vs. taqwa ("piety") . Such schools of
theology are summarized under Ilm al-Kalam, or "science of discourse", as opposed to
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mystical schools which deny that any theological truth may be discovered by means of
discourse or reason (Leaman 2002: 13-14).
Al Kindi, known as Alkindus (801–873 CE) was an extraordinary Philosopher who
mastered the knowledge of his time. De Boer (1903) indicated that this man’s theological
views bore a Mutazilite stamp. He wrote especially on man’s power of action, and the time
of its appearance, i.e., whether it was before the act or whether it was synchronous with the
act. He expressly emphasized the righteousness and the unity of God. In opposition to the
theory which held the belief that reason constituted the sole and sufficient source of
knowledge, he defended prophecy, while yet he sought to bring it into harmony with
reason (De Boer1903). Al Kindi concluded that the common element in the various
systems of religion which he studied was the belief that the world was the work of a First
Cause, One and Eternal, for whom our knowledge furnished us with no more precise
designation (De Boer1903).
Another famous name was Al-Farabi (870-950), who contributed considerably to other
field of knowledge, but his major additions were related to philosophy, logic and
sociology and for which he stands out as an Encyclopaedist (for more details see:
www.muslimphilosophy.com/farabi/). For Bergé (1983), Al Farabi was the first scholar to
separate philosophy from Theology in the Middle Ages. He believed in a Supreme Being
who had created the world through the exercise of balanced intelligence. He also asserted
this same rational faculty to be the sole part of the human being that is immortal, and thus
he set as the paramount human goal the development of that rational faculty.
Al-Farabi also considerably gave more attention to political theory as compared to any
Islamic philosopher (Bergé 1983: 342). He laid down in a Platonic fashion the qualities
necessary for the ruler: He should be inclined to rule by good quality of a native character
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and exhibit the right attitude for such rule. At the heart of Al-Farabi’s political philosophy
is the concept of happiness in which people cooperate to gain contentment (Tiliouine
2014a)9. The Farabian epistemology has both a Neoplatonic and an Aristotelian
dimension. The best source for al-Farabi’s classification of knowledge is his Kitab ihsa al-
ulum. This work neatly illustrated his beliefs, both esoteric and exoteric. Through all of
them run a primary Aristotelian stress on the importance of knowledge. Al Farabi also
participated in writing books of early Muslim sociology and a notable book on music
entitled Kitab al-Musiqa (The Book of Music).
9Al Farabi. The attainment of happiness.Accessible at: http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/farabi/
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Ibn Sina (980-1037), Known in the West as Avicenna, had a life dominated by the
period of great political instability. When he reached the age of thirteen, he studied
medicine and mastered that subject. Three years after, he began to treat patients. He then
studied logic and metaphysics. In his autobiography, Ibn Sina stressed that he was more or
less self-taught, but that at crucial times in his life he received help (Gohlman 1974). His
two most important works are The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine. The first
is a scientific encyclopaedia covering logic, natural sciences, psychology, geometry,
astronomy, arithmetic and music. The second, as mentioned earlier, is the most famous
single book in the history of medicine (Badawi 1984). De Boer (1903) estimated that in
the detailed treatment of his subject, lbn Sina conformed entirely to Farabi's Logic. He
frequently laid stress on the idea that the physiognomist should infer from the external
features, the character of the nature within, in a similar way to the logician who should
derive from known premises that which was unknown. Hence, both should follow a logical
rule. For Ibn Sina, a struggle with Sense is required in order that the life of representation
might be elevated to the pure truth of the Reason, through which any knowledge of a
necessary kind was gained (De Boer 1903). More details could be reached through:
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/sina/index.html.
Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (1058 CE-1111 CE), known as Al-Ghazali or Algazel to the
Western medieval world, was a Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic. In
Sunni Islamic societies, Al-Ghazali has been referred to by historians as one of the most
influential Muslim and named the Mujaddid or renewer of the comprehension of faith or
the "Proof of Islam" (Hujjat al-Islam) (more details in: www.muslimphilosophy.com).
Page 35 of 59
Others such as Ibn Rushd have cited his opposition to certain strand of Islamic philosophy
as a detriment to Islamic scientific progress. Montgomery (1953) explained that he was so
successful in criticizing Neo-Platonism that Philosophy never recovered again in Islamic
societies. He also brought orthodox views of Islam in close contact with Sufism. It became
increasingly possible for individuals to combine orthodox theology (kalam) and Sufism10,
while adherents of both camps before him developed a sense of mutual appreciation that
made sweeping condemnation of one by the other increasingly problematic (Montgomery
1953).
Al Ghazali carried on a critical examination of the method and doctrines of the
philosophers. He was the first theologian who was thoroughly schooled in the ways of the
philosophers. Muslim theologians before him either had a dread of philosophy, considering
it a dangerous study, or studied it just to qualify themselves for polemics against the
philosophers (details in the website dedicated to Al Ghazali, www. Ghazali.org ). Al-
Ghazali studied the Philosophy theses, such as those of Aristotelianism in one of the best
compendia, in Arabic entitled Maqasid al Falasifah (The Intentions of the Philosophers). It
became known to the Christian scholastics through the Latin translation made in 1145 CE
by Gondisalvus, the Spanish philosopher and translator. ‘The Intentions of the
Philosophers’ book was taken to be the work of a genuine Peripatetic. Albert the great
(d.1280 CE), Thomas Aquinas (d.1274 CE), and Roger Bacon (d.1294 CE) mentioned Al
Ghazali along with Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd as the true representatives of Arab
Aristotelianism (El Diwani, Web document). Next to this book, he went on to refute
Philosophy in Tahafut al Falasifah (The Incoherence of the Philosophers). El Diwani
10He described the meaning crisis which led him to Sufism in ‘The confessions of Al Ghazali’.
Translated into English by Claud Field in 1909, published in the ‘The wisdom of the East series’.
London: John Murray.
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concluded that in reality never did Arab Aristotelianism find a more vigorous foe than Al
Ghazali. His compendium in philosophy was just a propaedeutic to his Tahafut al
Falasifah (The Incoherence of the Philosophers) in which he carried on a devastating
attack on the doctrine of the Muslim Peripatetics.
The rise of Ibn Rushd (1126 CE – 1198 CE) of Cordoba, in present Spain, to defend
Aristotelian philosophy is considered until today a proof of a highly refined debate
between two extraordinary and brilliant intellectuals, Al-Ghazaly versus Ibn Ruchd. In his
most important original philosophical work "Tahafut al-tahafut" ("The Incoherence of the
Incoherence"), Ibn Rushd replicated to the claims of Al-Ghazali. This latter had argued
that Aristotelianism, especially as presented in the earlier writings of Avicenna, was self-
contradictory and an affront to the teachings of Islam. Ibn Rushd contended both that al-
Ghazali's arguments were mistaken, but also that, in any case, Avicenna's interpretations
were a distortion of genuine Aristotelianism, so that, in effect, al-Ghazali was aiming at the
wrong target (Aldjabiri 1998). For Ibn Rushd, there was no conflict between religion and
philosophy, believing rather that they were just different ways of reaching the same truth.
He identified two kinds of knowledge of truth: Knowledge of truth from religion (for the
unlettered multitude, based in faith and untestable); and knowledge of truth from
philosophy (the real truth), but reserved for an elite few who had the intellectual capacity
to undertake such study (Bergé 1983: 328-341).
Ibn Rushd is perhaps most famous for his detailed commentaries on the works of
Aristotle, which earned for him the title of the "The Commentator" by the Christian West
(Aldjabiri 1998). Though, his commentaries were based on imperfect Arabic translations,
not Greek originals because he was unacquainted with both Greek and Syriac, and he did
not have access to some of the texts (e.g. the"Politics"). The commentaries were organized
Page 37 of 59
into three levels: the Jami (a simplified overview), the Talkhis (an intermediate
commentary with more critical material) and the Tafsir (an advanced study of Aristotelian
thought in a Muslim context) (Aldjabiri 1998). These commentaries were translated into
Hebrew and then into Latin (or sometimes directly into Latin) in the 12th and 13th Century
CE, but some of his works on Logic and Metaphysics have been permanently lost, while
others, including some of the longer commentaries, have only survived in Latin or Hebrew
translations, and not in the original Arabic (Bergé1983: 249). However, the Averroism
movement grew up around his teachings, and his work greatly influenced the subsequent
development of Scholasticism in Western Europe and he has been described as the
founding father of secular thought (De Boer 1903).
Islamic Philosophy flowered in another direction with the publication of philosophical
parable; most notable among them was Ibn Tufayl’s (known as “Abubacer” in the West,
1105-1185) Hayy ibn Yaqdhan11. The story begins with the unfortunate Hay as an infant,
marooned on a desert island. He is suckled and nurtured by a doe. The real action begins
when his surrogate mother dies. Hayy takes the death rather badly, and not understanding
what has happened, he dissects her body to try to bring her back to life. This process sets
Hayy on the path to philosophical enlightenment (Brown 2004: 151-152). We should
mention that Ibn Tufail was a friend to Ibn Rushd and worked in Marrakesh, Morocco for
the caliph of Almohads (De Boer 1903, Aldjabiri 1998).
To end this section, it should be added that thousands of enlightened and highly
influential Muslim scholars could be found across Islamic societies worldwide during the
period of time known as the Golden Age of Islam, but because of space restrictions, we
prefer to turn our attention now to the contributions made in other fields of knowledge.
11 The parable English translation could be found in: http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/books/hayy.pdf
Page 38 of 59
5.2.2 History
History (Tarikh) was a one of the most developed disciplines in Islamic civilization; it
was more original in that it was less influenced by foreign sciences. First, it appeared as an
auxiliary between religious sciences and true history because through the writings of
people such as Ibn Ishaq (d. 767 CE) and AlWakidi (748 CE-922 CE), it informed
Muslims on the life of the Prophet and his companions, but then, for administration
purposes, the pensioners’ lists or new converted to Islam were recorded. For instance, Al-
Baladhuri (d. 892 CE) talked about the history of the Islamic expansion in the conquest of
the lands (Burlot 1982: 117). Moreover, Kalbi Mohammed (d. 763) and his son Hisham (d.
819 CE) devoted themselves to the study of pre-Islamic Arabia and the beginnings of
Islam. They Criticized the Book of Kings which gained a lot of success in that period of
time. In it, his author Ibn Al Muqaffa (d. 757 CE) was accused to try to renew the ancient
Persian pre-Islamic culture (Burlot 1982: 117).
With Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (839 CE-922 CE), the master of Muslim
historians, history made a step to universalism. Tabari studied and traveled, before settling
in Baghdad to be devoted to an intellectual life. He was a polymath and very famous,
because he authored one of the most important commentaries of the Qur'an, and a huge
universal history which has reached us as a summary in thirteen volumes. He tried to be as
neutral as possible through collecting all the traditions and exposing them uncritically. He
wrote his universal story in a way that each of the studied ethnic groups could find its past
more or less glorious. Burlot (1982) argued that Tabari worked to implement a unification
of ethnic groups in Islamic societies in accordance with the Abbasids aspiration. Also,
Rashid al-Din Hamadani (1247 CE–1318 CE) composed a more truly universal history,
Jami’ al-tawarikh “Collector of Chronicles”, which covered not only Islamic societies
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(which by then extended from Spain to northern India) but also included data on the popes
and emperors of Europe and on Mongolia and China.
Though he lived in the period when Islamic states started to weaken, history in the
Islamic states knew a big evolution with the rise of Ibn Khaldun (1332 CE-1406 CE). Ibn
Khaldum life was marked with turbulence, because of political rivalries, including a three
year refuge in a small village Qala’t Ibn Salama in Algeria, which provided him with the
opportunity to write Muqaddimah, the first volume of his world history that won him an
immortal place among historians, sociologists and philosophers. Ibn Khaldun is recognized
as the founder of Sociology and the precursor of historical criticism. In the Muqaddima or
"introduction" to his universal history, he wrote, from the first pages: ‘My present work
gives the causes of events. It contains, in short, the philosophy of history’ (Monteil 1974:
177-178, Lewis 1958: 133). Ibn Khaldun then gave an elegant description, through
observation and reasoning and in an orderly way, of the kind of understanding of the
environment in which human beings could develop (Sonn & Williamsburg 2004: 103).
5.2.3 Geography
The expansion of the Islamic territories made traveling possible from the Atlantic to
the Pacific oceans without having to cross any real frontiers. The annual big event of
pilgrimage to Mecca, the 5th pillar of Islamic faith, provided thousands of ordinary
Muslims, as well as highly educated people to travel for long distances and on their
different ways discover other places, cultures and exchange ideas with people from nearly
every part of the known world of that time. Such ease in making travels helped to enrich
Islamic geography beyond what was known to the Ancient Egyptians, Sassanid, Greeks
and Romans, or to the Medieval Latin authors.
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The most famous Muslim geographer was al-Idrisi who added many details to the
world’s maps known at his time such as Tabula Rogeriana (Houben 2002: 102-104).
Meanwhile, other geographers such as Yaqut al-Hamawi, Abu Rayhan Biruni, Ibn Battuta,
and Ibn Khaldun provided detailed accounts of their journeys and the geography of the
regions they visited. One of the earliest geniuses during the Abbasssid Dynasty was al-
Balkhi who founded the "Balkhi School" of terrestrial mapping in Baghdad. Suhrab, a late
10th century CE Muslim geographer accompanied a book of geographical coordinates, with
instructions for making a rectangular world map with equirectangular projection or
cylindrical equidistant projection (Edson 2004: 61-63 ). Also, the Muslim geographer,
Mahmud al-Kashgari (1005 CE-1102 CE) drew a world map on a linguistic basis. During
the same period, Abu Rayhan Biruni (976 CE-1048 CE) first described a polar equi-
azimuthal equidistant projection of the celestial sphere (David 1997: 173). He combined
astronomical readings and mathematical equations, in order to develop methods of pin-
pointing locations by recording degrees of latitude and longitude. He also developed
similar techniques with relation to measuring the heights of mountains, depths of the
valleys, and expanse of the horizon. His discussion went further to consider issues of
human geography and the planetary habitability of the Earth (Wikipedia, 2015a).
What has been cited so far in this chapter represents a very small number of
illustrations of the achievements of the shining era of the Golden Age of Islam. This may
reinforce the idea of the cosmopolite nature of that period of time which revolutionized the
human species’ representations, knowledge and relationship with the environments. One of
the characteristics of that period is the devotion of the political leaders who sustained
scientific projects and provided the needed environment for creative works.
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5.2.4. Islamic Arts
The term Islamic art not only describes the art created specifically to decorate worship
and religious learning spaces such as a mosques and learning centers, but also the art and
architecture historically produced in the lands ruled by Muslims, produced for Muslim
patrons, or created by Muslim artists (Yalman, October 2001a). With few exceptions and
starting from the 7th century, one of the main characteristics of Islamic art works is the
absence of figural representations. The reason for such a dearth in representing human
figures could be found in that Muslims deduced from the Prophets’ Hadith that such acts
were forbidden (Weiss 2000: 100-101). Nevertheless, the Department of the Islamic Art
highlighted four basic components of that Art: calligraphy, vegetal patterns, geometric
patterns, and figural representation (Yalman, October 2001a). However, Islamic Art as a
research area constitutes a whole discipline in modern research with contributions from a
wide range of scientific and social sciences. In a few paragraphs, we will point out to some
rudiments on the subject.
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It was the Umayyads’ of Damascus who instigated and sponsored the earliest
Islamic artistic works. But, according to Rice (1975) very little is yet known about many
features of the arts of those times, such as metal working, textile weaving and manuscript
illumination. The little that is remaining of that
period is ‘the fairly large jars covered with a blue or
green alkaline glaze which had first been developed
by the Parthians’ (p. 10). Probably, one of the first
major Umayyad architectural undertakings, which
were completed under the patronage of the caliph
Abd al-Malik (685 CE–705 CE), is the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem (691 CE). This
place deserved the great attention because it’s sacred character and its association with the
Prophet's ascent to heaven.
Some other renowned religious sites which the Umayyads extended and carefully
decorated had been: The Prophet’s Mosque and former house in Medina (706 CE-710 CE)
and the great mosque of Damascus (706 CE) which construction was initiated by caliph
Marwan II (688 CE-750 CE). This latter construction survived, but underwent major
modifications in later times. However, the nature of the mosaics, the stuccos and the
paintings attest to the birth of a different style from what was already known in preceding
civilisations such as Hellenistic or Sassanian, Nabataean or Ghassanid (Rice 1975: 10).
The creativity of the Umayyad architects has been also apparent in the Umayyad desert
palaces such as Mshatta, Qasr Amra (Jordan), Anjar (Lebanon), Khirbat al-Mafjar
(Palestine), and Qasr al-Hayr East and West (Syria), constructed during the period from
700 to 750) (Yalman, October 2001a).
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With the change of dynasty and the transfer of Caliphate’s capital to Baghdad, a
new stage begins for the Islamic Art. An imperial art flourished in the new cities of
Baghdad, Samarra and al Fustat with palaces’ flowering and huge religious buildings. But
unfortunately, most of the artistic achievements in Baghdad were destroyed because they
were constructed by very soft material such as mud brick. The flooding of the Tigris River
and political unrest, particularly the sack of the city by the Mongols in 1258 CE ruined the
city (Burlot 1982: 119). Even so, some remnants of the Abbasid’s buildings and amazing
art works of Baghdad survived, such as the Baghdad Gate which is an impressive structure
adorned with lovely ornamental brickwork. The defensive work there has been of special
interest because, in spite of subsequent additions, it would seem certain that the original
layout has been preserved (Rice, 1975: 10). Some of the methods of defense, including the
oblique approach, were later brought to the West by the Crusaders, and represent one of
the many legacies which the West owes to Islamic history (Rice, 1975: 10). The quality of
the Abbasid architecture is shown by a number of carved limestone capitals, examples of
which are preserved in various museums (Rice, 1975: 10). In Samarra, which was the
capital city from 838 CE to 892 CE, archaeologies have resurrected the plan of the main
buildings and architectural portions, but all the wonders of interior decoration were lost.
Modern archeologists discovered in Raqqa a residence created by Al Mansur in upper
Mesopotamia in 758 CE. It was earlier used as a summer residence by Harun al Rashid
(Burlot 1982: 119). Many mosques of that era still stand on many of the early sites, but
with time underwent subsequent renovations.
In the Fatimid era, new techniques for the production of pottery, glass, and
metalwork, rock-crystal, ivory, and wood carving were developed. Also, textile factories
were run by government officials, which created tiraz fabrics in the name of the caliph
in the Egyptian region. Some novel and more refined styles were developed in pottery;
Page 44 of 59
bands with small animals and inscriptions to form the major decoration in textiles and by
rock-crystal carvers (Yalman, October 2001b).
The decorations of al-Azhar University which the Fatimids founded along with the
city of Cairo (969 CE-973 CE), attest to an amazing architectural and artistic creativity.
Other surviving Fatimid structures include the Mosque of al-Aqmar (1125 CE) as well as
the monumental gates for Cairo's city walls, commissioned by the powerful Fatimid Emir
and vizier Badr al-Jamali who lived from 1073 CE to 1094 CE (Behrens-Abouseif 1989:
58-77, Contadini 1998).
In what looks as a nostalgia for the time when the Umayyads ruled Islamic countries
from Damascus, the Umayyad caliphate of Cordoba (929 CE-1031 CE), made their new
home the greatest intellectual centers of Europe, with celebrated libraries and schools
(Department of Islamic Art, October 2001). Art patronage was therefore a sign of kingship
and authority. Hispano-Umayyad art reached its apogee during the lengthy reign of Abd al-
Rahman III and his son al-Hakam II (961 CE–976 CE) and the regency of the powerful
Amirids, particularly al-Mansur (978 CE–1002 CE). They competed with the greatness of
the Abbasids and the Fatimids in their luxurious palaces, gardens, mosques, and learning
centers. Luxurious objects such as boxes of carved ivory and gilt silver, bronze animal
statuary, and richly figured silks were commissioned for palaces which were decorated
with ornate marble capitals, stucco wall panels, and marble fountains. Abd al-Rahman III's
palace city at Madinat al-Zahra’ set the standard for artistic taste in the caliphate, and al-
Hakam II's addition to the Great Mosque of Córdoba marked the imposition of a palatial
level of luxury and hierarchy on this religious monument (Jayyusi & Marín1992).
Almoravid dynasty (al-Murabitun, 1062 CE–1150 CE) in North Africa, ethnically
more Berber than Arab, conquered Morocco and founded the amazing city of Marrakesh as
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its capital city in 1062 CE. They also entered al-Andalus in response to the leaders' pleas
for help in repelling the Christian armies of northern Spain. Almoravids came to rule parts
of the Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, and controlled important ports as well as trans-Saharan
trade. In North Africa, the mosques of Algiers (1097 CE), Tlemcen (1136 CE), and
Qarawiyin in Fez (1135 CE) are important architectural examples from this period
(Department of Islamic Art October 2001b). Almohad arts in Marrakesh and Sevilla and
other cities of Morocco are subject to admiration until now.
6.0 The decline of the Islamic Golden Age
Many external invasions had attacked the heart of Islam leading to the slow decline of
an unprecedented multi-cultural and multi-ethnic civilisation. For instance, the Crusades
put predominately Islamic societies under pressure with invasions in the 11th and 12th
centuries CE. But a far greater threat emerged from the East during the 13th century. In
1206 CE, Genghis Khan established a powerful dynasty among the Mongols of central
Asia. The Mongol Empire conquered most of the Eurasian land mass, including China in
the east and much of the old Islamic caliphate in the west. The destruction of Baghdad and
the House of Wisdom by Hulagu Khan, the Mongol leader in 1258 CE has been seen by
some historians as the end of the Islamic Golden Age (Cooper & Yue 2008: 215). Later
Mongol leaders, such as Timur or Tamerlane, completed that destructive mission in many
other cities, slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people, and did irrevocable damage to
the ancient irrigation systems of Mesopotamia and to major economic infrastructure. This
in turn negatively impacted on the life of the people of the entire region and slowly ended
in the erosion of many of the civilization gains of past periods12.
12 For a parallel between these invasions and the recent American attack on Baghdad, see the
impressive article of Ian Frazier, Invaders destroying Baghdad in The New Yarker issue of April
2005, 2005 (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/04/25/invaders-3)
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Further to the West, the Catholic completed the Christian Reconquista in the Iberian
Peninsula with a war against the Emirate of Granada that started in 1482 CE and ended
with Granada's complete annexation in early 1492 CE, which also marked, for some
historians, the end of the Islamic Golden Age (Wiet 1961: 339-343) 13. There is little
agreement on the precise causes of the decline, but in addition to invasions by the Mongols
and crusaders, and the destruction of libraries and madrasas, it has also been suggested that
political mismanagement and the stifling of ijtihad (independent reasoning) in the 12th
century CE in favour of institutionalised taqleed (imitation) led to that decline. Al-Hassan
et al. (2001) has rejected the thesis that lack of creative thinking was the main cause,
arguing that science was always kept separate from religious argument. He instead
analyses the decline in terms of economic and political factors, drawing on the work of the
14th CE century writer Ibn Khaldun. Al-Hassan et al. (2001) extended the Golden Age up
to the 16th century CE, noting that scientific activity continued to flourish up until then.
Several other contemporary scholars have also extended it to around the 14th CE to 16th
CE centuries, and analysed the decline in terms of political and economic factors (Saliba
1994).
Summary and Discussion
We began this chapter with a series of questions concerning the nature, extent, and
long-lasting of the contributions made to both Islamic communities and the world-as-a-
13 For further readings about the Reconquista, see: Bishko, C. J. (1995). The Spanish and
Portuguese Reconquest, 1095-1492. The Library of Iberian Resources Online; Hazard, H. W.
(1975, Ed.). The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries . A History of the Crusades (volume 3).
University of Wisconsin Press.
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whole through the Islamic Golden Age. This chapter has provided rich details concerning
the nature and extent of the impact of the Islam’s Golden Age since the eighth century CE
forward. And the impact has been a significant one. But our historical analysis also
reveals the following:
•Though identified as Islam’s Golden Age, in fact, it is the Islamic Empire’s
Golden Age. That empire included persons from the ancient world via the
extensive library of their writings that were available at the time. Most of these
ancients were Greeks, Romans and other early thinkers of the Western world
who’s intellectual and scientific influence transcended well beyond the West into
Islam.
•But the Islamic Empire also drew on the
intellectual knowledge and skill bases of non-
Muslims living in countries as distinct religious
and cultural minorities. Such persons included
Jews, Christians, Hindus, and persons of Sino-
Japanese ancestry who already had extensive
intellectual and cultural histories of their own.
Islam’s was capable of receiving valuable intellectual inputs from other groups and
person, e.g., from people such as the world renowned and respected Spanish-
Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides who made all of his lasting contributions
during Muslims occupied of the Iberian Peninsula. It is doubtful that persons such
as Maimonides could have made their world class intellectual contributions
without the welcoming and supportive atmosphere created by Muslims during the
period.
Page 48 of 59
•Islam’s Golden Age was an authentic one and was revolutionary in virtually all
sectors of human interaction—the arts and humanities, the natural and physical
sciences, architecture, jurisprudence, philosophy, mathematics, medicine, and
many others. These centuries of unparalleled human development occurred while
other nearby nations were engaged in internal wars, political conflict, and physical
destruction of all things ancient and foreign.
•During the years of the Islamic Golden Age, Europeans contributed comparatively
little to human intellectual development until the emergence of the Renaissance
(period from the 14th to 17th centuries CE), a period of awakening for Europe and
the flourishing of philosophy, the arts, sciences, and new political systems,
including the early emergence of participatory forms of popular participation in the
framing of laws and policies under which they agreed to live.
•While intellectually sleeping, and as part of the ethos of the period, European
countries were intolerant of people of difference and certainly people of
dramatically different cultures and philosophies. And, tragically, during the
European Dark Ages all aspects of non-Western and non-Christian history were
discarded and destroyed as being irrelevant to the contemporary intellectual and
scientific needs of the periods. Entire libraries, for example, were burnt, scriptoria
were dismantled, and all things non-European were cast aside.
•Fortunately for the world, Muslims preserved, codified, and distributed in Arabic
much of the great wisdom and scientific accomplishments of the past. No other
peoples engaged in such a valiant effort and, to its credit, the Islamic Golden Age
built upon and extended the nature of knowledge within both Islamic and non-
Islamic societies.
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•The legacy of Islam’s Golden Age continues to be with us today, albeit little credit
is given to Islam and its scholars and scientists for these innovations (in writing,
science, the arts and humanities, philosophy, banking medicine, and the like).
On balance, and given the widespread poverty and great political disarray that
characterizes much of the contemporary Islamic age, little reason exists for believing that
an emergence of a second Islamic Golden Age will be realized any time in the near future.
Though a worthy goal toward which all Muslims can aspire peace, stability, and greater
cooperation between and among the many factions within Islam is necessary to bring about
the new and, with optimism, even more eventful Golden Age. Today’s Islamic world, but
especially the nations of the MENA region, Nigeria, the Sudan, and elsewhere all too
closely resemble the environment that lead to the European Dark Ages with its centuries of
social intolerance, disintegration, and mutual destruction. The few sparkling lights that we
do see in some Islamic countries, most notably in the small kingdoms of the Gulf States,
are too faint to lead to a resurgence of the glory that once was the Golden Age of Islam.
But a near-term Renaissance is possible in the Islamic world but, first, many social,
political, and economic preconditions must first be met.
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Annex 1: Timeline of the Expansion of the Muslim Rule
(Note: All dates refer to the Common Era (CE))
Period/year Main events Notes
c. 570 Birth of Prophet Muhammad (Mohammed)
in Mecca
622 The Hijrah (Hegira) or “Flight” from
persecution in Mecca to Medina (first year
of the Muslim calendar).
Shortly after the Constitution of
Medina was drafted. It established the
first Islamic state. It focused on
stability, freedom of religion, and
justice.
632 The death of the Prophet Mohammad
632–650 The “Rightly Guided Caliphs” succeeded
the Prophet in ruling of the Islamic empire
636 Muslims brought Islam to Syria (under
Omar, the second caliph).
637 Muslims reached Persia and Jerusalem
(under the second caliph, Omar).
About 638 AD the Caliph Omar
entered Jerusalem and granted its
residents a covenant of peace and
protection known as the Covenant ‘ or
the Code of Omar.
641 Muslims conquered Alexandria (Egypt)
(under the second caliph, Omar).
661–750 The Omayyad Caliphs ruled the Muslim
empire, centered in Damascus.
711 Muslims crossed over to Spain, through
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Period/year Main events Notes
North Africa.
717–718 Muslims attempted to conquer
Constantinople, then capital of the
Byzantine Empire. They also advanced in
western Europe as far as France (Franks
stop their advance).
750 Abbasids become rulers of Muslim Empire
with Baghdad as center; the Golden Age of
Islam begins.
751 Islamic Empire reached China: Arabs learn
papermaking from Chinese prisoners of
war. Papermaking helps advance learning
throughout the Arab world through books.
c. 800–
1100
Muslims established regular trade caravans
from across northern Africa;
they gradually extended routes across the
Sahara desert into the West
African kingdoms of Mali and Ghana for
the gold and salt trade. Islamic trade
network becomes very prosperous and
facilitates the exchange of ideas and
technologies among societies with which
they trade.
1055 Seljuk Turks, who are Muslim converts
living in Central Asia, begin to move into
territories of the Byzantine Empire.
Conflicts and hostilities erupt between
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Period/year Main events Notes
Christians and Muslims.
1096 Crusades begin: Pope Urban II of Rome
calls for all Christians to expel Muslims
from Jerusalem and its surrounding region
and from the Byzantine Empire.
1258 Mongols sack Baghdad, killing the caliph
and many Muslims: end of the Abbasid
caliphs.
1299 The Ottoman dynasty is founded under
Osman I in Asia Minor (Turkey).
Osman ruled until 1326.
1291 End of Crusades: Muslims defeat
Christians and remain in Holy Lands.
1453 Ottoman Turks conquer Constantinople
under the rule of Muhammad II, ending the
Byzantine Empire. The city is renamed
Istanbul, and becomes the capital of the
Ottoman Empire.
1520–1566 Suleyman the Magnificent ruled as Caliph
Sultan of the Ottoman empire and
increased its territory. The Empire reached
its peak in culture, art, literature,
architecture, and laws. The Ottoman
empire exists until the end of World War I
(1918).
His Father Sultan Salim I, conquest
Egypt and make end to the Mamluk
Sultanate and took the title of Caliph
from the last Abbasid caliph in Cairo
in 1917
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