List of inventions in the medieval Islamic

world
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A number of inventions were made in the medieval Islamic world, a geopolitical region

that has at various times extended fromSpain and Africa in the west to Afghanistan and
the Indian subcontinent in the east.[1][page  needed] The inventions listed here were developed
during the medieval Islamic world, which covers a period from the early Caliphate to the
later Ottoman, Safavid andMughal empires.[2] In particular, the majority of inventions here
date back to the Islamic Golden Age, which is traditionally dated from the 8th to the 13th
centuries.[3][4] During this period, artists, engineers, scholars, poets, philosophers,
geographers and traders in the Islamic world contributed to agriculture,
the arts, economics, industry, islamic
law, literature, navigation, philosophy, sciences,sociology, and technology, both by
preserving earlier Greco-Roman philosophy, inventions and discoveries, then by adding
inventions and innovations of their own.[5]
The interiors of the Alhambra in Spain are decorated with arabesque designs.

At 72.5 meters, the Qutab Minar was the tallest minaret until the twentieth century, and remains the
tallest brick and stone minaret in the world.
 Contents
  [hide] 

 1Mathematics
 2Food production
 3Drugs and medicine
 4Military
 5Music
 6Pottery
 7See also
 8Notes
 9External links

Mathematics[edit]
 Cryptanalysis and frequency analysis: In cryptology, the first known recorded
explanation of cryptanalysis was given by 9th-century Arabian polymath, Al-Kindi (also
known as "Alkindus" in Europe), in A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic
Messages. This treatise includes the first description of the method of frequency
analysis.[6][7]

Food production[edit]
 Bridge mill: The bridge mill was a unique type of watermill that was built as part of
the superstructure of a bridge. The earliest record of a bridge mill is from Córdoba,
Spain in the 12th century.[8]
 Vertical-axle windmill: A small wind wheel operating an organ is described as
early as the 1st century AD by Hero of Alexandria.[9][10]The first vertical-axle windmills
were eventually built in Sistan, Persia as described by Muslim geographers. These
windmills had long vertical driveshafts with rectangle shaped blades.[11] They may have
been constructed as early as the time of the second Rashiduncaliph Umar (634-644
AD), though some argue that this account may have been a 10th-century amendment.
[12]
 Made of six to twelve sails covered in reed matting or cloth material, these windmills
were used to grind grains and draw up water, and used in the gristmilling and
sugarcane industries.[13] Horizontal axle windmills of the type generally used today,
however, were developed in Northwestern Europe in the 1180s. [9][10]

Drugs and medicine[edit]

Further information: Medicine in the medieval Islamic world

 Mercuric chloride (formerly corrosive sublimate): used to disinfect wounds.[14]

Smoking The Hookah

 Hookah or waterpipe: according to Cyril Elgood (PP.41, 110), the physician Irfan

Shaikh, at the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar I (1542- 1605 AD) invented the
Hookah or waterpipe used most commonly for smoking tobacco.[15][16][17][18]

Yemen is thought to be where coffee drinking began

Al-Kindi's 9th-century Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messageswas the first book on

cryptanalysis and frequency analysis.

 Coffee: The earliest credible evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the
coffee tree appears in the middle of the 15th century, in the Sufi monasteries of
 the Yemen in southern Arabia.[19][20] It was in Yemen that coffee beans were first roasted
and brewed as they are today. From Mocha, coffee spread to Egypt and North Africa,
[21]
 and by the 16th century, it had reached the rest of the Middle
East, Persia and Turkey. From the Muslim world, coffee drinking spread to Italy, then to
the rest of Europe, and coffee plants were transported by the Dutch to the East
Indies and to the Americas.[22]

Military[edit]
 Marching band and military band: The marching band and military band both
have their origins in the Ottoman military band, performed by the Janissary since the
16th century.[23]
 Hybrid trebuchet: The term Al-Ghadban (The Furious One) was applied to the
hybrid trebuchet, though the usage of the term was not consistent and may have taken
on a broader meaning.[24]
 Early Torpedoes: Syrian Al-Hassan er-Rammah's manuscript "The Book of
Fighting on Horseback and With War Engines"(1280) includes the first known design
for a rocket driven torpedo.[25]

Music[edit]
 Guitar: the modern guitar is thought to have developed from the earlier Arabic
instrument "Oud." Introduced through medieval Spain, the guitar was initially referred to
as guitarra moresca (moorish guitar) in the 12th century.[26][27]
 Lute: while pre-Islamic Arabs had similar instruments, the Lute is thought to have
been invented in the 11th century, and spread from Iraq to other areas under Muslim
provinces.[26][28]

Pottery[edit]
Main article: Islamic pottery

 Albarello: An albarello is a type of maiolica earthenware jar originally designed to

hold apothecaries' ointments and dry drugs. The development of this type of pharmacy
jar had its roots in the Islamic Middle East.
 Fritware: It refers to a type of pottery which was first developed in the Near East,
where production is dated to the late 1st millennium AD through the second millennium
AD Frit was a significant ingredient. A recipe for "fritware" dating to c. 1300 AD written
by Abu’l Qasim reports that the ratio of quartz to "frit-glass" to white clay is 10:1:1.
[29]
 This type of pottery has also been referred to as "stonepaste" and "faience" among
other names.[30] A 9th-century corpus of "proto-stonepaste" from Baghdad has "relict
glass fragments" in its fabric.[31]
 Hispano-Moresque ware: This was a style of Islamic pottery created in Islamic
Spain, after the Moors had introduced two ceramic techniques to Europe: glazing with
an opaque white tin-glaze, and painting in metallic lusters. Hispano-Moresque ware
was distinguished from the pottery of Christendom by the Islamic character of its
decoration.[32]
 Iznik pottery: Produced in Ottoman Turkey as early as the 15th century AD[33] It
consists of a body, slip, and glaze, where the body and glaze are "quartz-frit." [34] The
"frits" in both cases "are unusual in that they contain lead oxide as well as soda"; the
lead oxide would help reduce the thermal expansion coefficient of the ceramic.
[35]
 Microscopic analysis reveals that the material that has been labeled "frit" is
"interstitial glass" which serves to connect the quartz particles. [36]
 Lusterware: Lustre glazes were applied to pottery in Mesopotamia in the 9th
century; the technique soon became popular in Persia andSyria.[37] Earlier uses of lustre
are known.
 Tin-glazing: The tin-glazing of ceramics was invented by Muslim potters in 8th-
century Basra, Iraq. The first examples of this technique can be found as blue-painted
ware in 8th-century Basra.[38] The oldest fragments found to-date were excavated from
the palace of Samarra about 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Baghdad.[39]

See also[edit]
 Islamic Golden Age
 Science in medieval Islam
 Timeline of science and engineering in the Islamic world
 Islam and science

Islamic Golden Age

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scholars at an Abbasid library. Maqamat of al-Hariri Illustration by Yahyá al-Wasiti, Baghdad 1237

The Islamic Golden Age refers to the period in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from
the 8th century to the 13th century, when much of the historically Islamic world was ruled
by various caliphates, experiencing a scientific, economic and cultural flourishing time
period.[1][2][3] This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign of
the Abbasidcaliph Harun al-Rashid (786 to 809) with the inauguration of the House of
Wisdom in Baghdad, where scholars from various parts of the world with different cultural
backgrounds were mandated to gather and translate all of the world's classical knowledge
into Arabic.[4][5] It is traditionally said to have ended with the collapse of the Abbasid
Caliphate with the Mongol invasions and the Sack of Baghdad in 1258,[6] though several
contemporary scholars place the end of the Islamic Golden Age around the 15th to 16th
centuries.[1][2][3]
 Contents
  [hide] 

 1History of the concept

 2Causes
o 2.1Religious influence
o 2.2Earlier cultural influence
o 2.3Government sponsorship
o 2.4New technology
 3Philosophy
 4Mathematics
o 4.1Algebra
o 4.2Geometry
o 4.3Trigonometry
o 4.4Calculus
 5Scientific method
 6Physics
o 6.1Astronomy
o 6.2Optics
 7Chemistry
 8Biology
o 8.1Anatomy
o 8.2Medicine
 9Engineering
 10Social sciences
 11Institutions
o 11.1Healthcare
o 11.2Education
 12Commerce and travel
 13Culture
o 13.1Poetry
o 13.2Art
o 13.3Architecture
o 13.4Freedom of expression
 14Decline
o 14.1Invasions
o 14.2Free thought
o 14.3Economics
 15See also
 16Notes
 17References
 18Further reading
 19External links

History of the concept[edit]

Expansion of the Islamic Caliphate, 622–750.

  Expansion under Muhammad, 622–632

  Expansion during the Rashidun Caliphate, 632–661

  Expansion during the Umayyad Caliphate, 661–750

The metaphor of a golden age began to be applied in 19th-century literature about Islamic

history, in the context of the western aesthetic fashion known as Orientalism. The author of
a Handbook for Travelers in Syria and Palestine in 1868 observed that the most beautiful
mosques of Damascus were "like Mohammedanism itself, now rapidly decaying" and relics
of "the golden age of Islam". [7]
There is no unambiguous definition of term, and depending on whether it is used with a
focus on cultural or on military achievement, it may be taken to refer to rather disparate
time spans. Thus, one author would have it extend to the duration of the caliphate, or to
"six and a half centuries",[8] while another would have it end after only a few decades of
Rashidun conquests, with the death of Umar and the First Fitna.[9]
During the early 20th century, the term was used only occasionally, and often referred to
the early military successes of the Rashidun caliphs. It was only in the second half of the
20th century that the term came to be used with any frequency, now mostly referring to the
cultural flourishing of science and mathematics under the caliphate during the 9th to 11th
centuries (between the establishment of organised scholarship in the House of
Wisdom and the beginning of the crusades),[10] but often extended to include part of the late
8th or the 12th to early 13th centuries.[11] Definitions may still vary considerably. Equating
the end of the golden age with the end of the caliphate is a convenient cut-off point based
on a historical landmark, but it can be argued that Islamic culture had entered a gradual
decline much earlier; thus, Khan (2003) identifies the proper golden age as being the two
centuries between 750–950, arguing that the beginning loss of territories under Harun al-
Rashid worsened after the death of al-Ma'mun in 833, and that the crusades in the 12th
century resulted in a further weakening of the Abbasid empire from which it never
recovered.[12]

Causes[edit]
Religious influence[edit]
Main article: Islamic attitudes towards science

The various Quranic injunctions and Hadith, which place values on education and

emphasize the importance of acquiring knowledge, played a vital role in influencing the
Muslims of this age in their search for knowledge and the development of the body of
science.[13][14][15]
Earlier cultural influence[edit]
Main articles: Greek contributions to Islamic world, Indian influence on Islamic
science, Christian influences in Islam, and Chinese influences on Islamic pottery

During this period, the Muslims showed a strong interest in assimilating the scientific
knowledge of the civilizations that had been conquered. Many classic works of antiquity
that might otherwise have been lost were translated
from Greek, Roman, Persian, Indian, Chinese, Egyptian, and Phoenician civilizations into
Arabic and Persian, and later in turn translated into Turkish, Hebrew, and Latin. [5]
Christians (particularly Nestorian Christians) contributed to the Arab Islamic Civilization
during the Ummayad and the Abbasid periods by translating works of Greek
philosophersto Syriac and afterwards to Arabic.[16][17][18] During the 4th through the 7th
centuries, scholarly work in the Syriac and Greek languages was either newly initiated, or
carried on from the Hellenistic period. Centers of learning and of transmission of classical
wisdom included colleges such as the School of Nisibis, and later the School of Edessa,
and the renowned hospital and medical academy of Jundishapur; libraries included
the Library of Alexandria and the Imperial Library of Constantinople; other centers of
translation and learning functioned at Merv, Salonika, Nishapur and Ctesiphon, situated just
south of what later became Baghdad. [19][20] Nestorians played a prominent role in the
formation of Arab culture,[21] especially at Jundishapur school.[22] Notably, eight generations
of the Nestorian Bukhtishu family served as private doctors to caliphs and sultans between
the 8th and 11th centuries.[23][24]
Government sponsorship[edit]
The Muslim government heavily patronized scholars. The money spent on the Translation
Movement for some translations is estimated to be equivalent to about twice the annual
research budget of the United Kingdom’s Medical Research Council.[25] The best scholars
and notable translators, such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq, had salaries that are estimated to be
the equivalent of professional athletes today.[25] The House of Wisdom was
a library, translation institute, and academy established in Abbasid-era Baghdad, Iraq by
CaliphHarun al-Rashid and his son al-Ma'mun.[26][27]
New technology[edit]

A manuscript written on paper during the Abbasid Era.

With a new and easier writing system, and the introduction of paper, information was
democratized to the extent that, for probably the first time in history, it became possible to
make a living from simply writing and selling books.[28] The use of paper spread from China
into Muslim regions in the eighth century, arriving in Al-Andalus on the Iberian peninsula,
present-day Spain in the 10th century. It was easier to manufacture than parchment, less
likely to crack than papyrus, and could absorb ink, making it difficult to erase and ideal for
keeping records. Islamic paper makers devised assembly-line methods of hand-copying
manuscripts to turn out editions far larger than any available in Europe for centuries. [29] It
was from these countries that the rest of the world learned to make paper from linen. [30]

Philosophy[edit]
Main article: Islamic Philosophy
Islamic architecture inAlhambra, Al-Andalus, in modern-day Spain

Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina played a major role in saving the works of Aristotle, whose ideas
came to dominate the non-religious thought of the Christian and Muslim worlds. Ibn Sina
and other philosophers such as al-Kindi and al-
Farabi combined Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through
Islam.[citation needed] Arabic philosophic literature was translated into Latin and Ladino,
contributing to the development of modern European philosophy. During this period, non-
Muslims were allowed to flourish relative to treatment of religious minorities in the
Christian Byzantine Empire. The Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, who lived in
Andalusia, is an example.[citation needed]
Avicenna argued his "Floating Man" thought experiment concerning self-awareness, in
which a man prevented of sense experience by being blindfolded and free falling would still
be aware of his existence.[31]
In epistemology, Ibn Tufail wrote the novel Hayy ibn Yaqdhan and in response Ibn al-
Nafis wrote the novel Theologus Autodidactus. Both were concerning autodidacticism as
illuminated through the life of a feral child spontaneously generated in a cave on a desert
island.

Mathematics[edit]
Main article: Mathematics in medieval Islam

Algebra[edit]
Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī played a significant role in the development
of algebra, algorithms, and Hindu-Arabic numerals.
Geometry[edit]
Geometric patterns: an archway in the Sultan’s Lodge in the Ottoman Green Mosquein Bursa,
Turkey (1424), itsgirih strapwork forming 10-point stars and pentagons

Main article: Islamic geometric patterns

Islamic art makes use of geometric patterns and symmetries in many of its art forms,
notably in girih tilings. These are formed using a set of five tile shapes, namely a
regular decagon, an elongated hexagon, a bow tie, a rhombus, and a regular pentagon. All
the sides of these tiles have the same length; and all their angles are multiples of 36°
(π/5 radians), offering fivefold and tenfold symmetries. The tiles are decorated
withstrapwork lines (girih), generally more visible than the tile boundaries. In 2007, the
physicists Peter Lu and Paul Steinhardt argued that girih from the 15th century
resembled quasicrystalline Penrose tilings.[32][33][34][35] Elaborate geometric zellige tilework is a
distinctive element in Moroccan architecture.[36] Muqarnas vaults are three-dimensional but
were designed in two dimensions with drawings of geometrical cells. [37]
Trigonometry[edit]

A triangle labelled with the components of the law of sines. Capital A, B and C are the angles, and
lower-case a, b, c are the sides opposite them. (a opposite A, etc.)

Ibn Muʿādh al-Jayyānī is one of several Islamic mathematicians to whom the law of sines is
attributed; he wrote his The Book of Unknown Arcs of a Sphere in the 11th century. This
formula relates the lengths of the sides of any triangle, rather than only right triangles, to
the sines of its angles.[38] According to the law,
where a, b, and c are the lengths of the sides of a triangle, and A, B, and C are the
opposite angles (see the figure).
Calculus[edit]
Alhazen discovered the sum formula for the fourth power, using a method that could be
generally used to determine the sum for any integral power. He used this to find the
volume of a paraboloid. He could find the integral formula for any polynomial without
having developed a general formula. [39]

Scientific method[edit]
Main article: Islamic science

See also: List of inventions in the medieval Islamic world

Ibn Al-Haytham (Alhazen) was a significant figure in the history of scientific method,

particularly in his approach to experimentation, [40][41][42][43] and has been described as the
"world's first true scientist".[44]
Avicenna made rules for testing the effectiveness of drugs, including that the effect
produced by the experimental drug should be seen constantly or after many repetitions,
to be counted.[45] The physician Rhazes was an early proponent of experimental
medicine and recommended using control for clinical research. He said: "If you want to
study the effect of bloodletting on a condition, divide the patients into two groups,
perform bloodletting only on one group, watch both, and compare the results." [46]
Jim Al-Khalili gives the example of the classification of materials as a sign of new ways
of thinking.[47] While the classification of the material world by the
ancient Indians andGreeks into Air, Earth, Fire and Water was more philosophical,
medieval Islamic scientists used practical, experimental observation to classify
materials.[47] Rhazes, for example, classified minerals into six groups based on their
observed chemical properties: Spirits, which were flammable, Material Bodies, which
were shiny and malleable, Salts, which could dissolve in water, Vitriols,
Stones,and Boraxes.[47]

Physics[edit]
Main article: Islamic physics

Astronomy[edit]
Main article: Astronomy in medieval Islam

Tusi couple

In about 964 AD, the Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, writing in his Book of
Fixed Stars, described a "nebulous spot" in theAndromeda constellation, the first
definitive reference to what we now know is the Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest spiral
galaxy to our galaxy.[48]
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi invented a geometrical technique called a Tusi-couple, which
generates linear motion from the sum of two circular motions to replace Ptolemy's
problematic equant[49] The Tusi couple was later employed in Ibn al-Shatir's geocentric
model and Nicolaus Copernicus' heliocentric Copernican model[50] although it is not
known who the intermediary is or if Copernicus rediscovered the technique
independently.
Optics[edit]
Alhazen played a significant role in the development of optics, experimental physics,
and theoretical physics.

Chemistry[edit]
Al-Kindi warned against alchemists attempting the transmutation of simple, base
metals into precious ones like gold in the ninth century. [45][51]

Biology[edit]
In his survey of the history of the ideas which led to the theory of natural
selection, Conway Zirkle noted that al-Jahiz was one of those who discussed a
"struggle for existence", in his Kitab al-Hayawan (Book of Animals), written in the 9th
century.[52]
Anatomy[edit]

The eye, according toHunain ibn Ishaq. From a manuscript dated circa 1200.

In the cardiovascular system, Ibn al-Nafis in his Commentary on Anatomy in

Avicenna's Canon was the first to contradict the contention of theGalen School that
blood could pass between the ventricles in the heart through the cardiac inter-
ventricular septum that separates them, saying that there is no passage between the
ventricles at this point.[53] Instead, he correctly argued that all the blood that reached the
left ventricle did so after passing through the lung. [53] He also stated that there must be
small communications, or pores, between the pulmonary artery andpulmonary vein, a
prediction that preceded the discovery of the pulmonary capillaries of Marcello
Malpighi by 400 years. The Commentary was rediscovered in the twentieth century in
the Prussian State Library in Berlin; whether its view of the pulmonary
circulation influenced scientists such as Michael Servetus is unclear.[53]
In the nervous system, Rhazes stated that nerves had motor or sensory functions,
describing 7 cranial and 31 spinal cord nerves. He assigned a numerical order to the
cranial nerves from the optic to the hypoglossal nerves. He classified the spinal nerves
into 8 cervical, 12 thoracic, 5lumbar, 3 sacral, and 3 coccygeal nerves. He used this to
link clinical signs of injury to the corresponding location of lesions in the nervous
system.[54]
Medicine[edit]
Main article: Islamic medicine

Rhazes differentiated through careful observation the two

diseases smallpox and measles, which were previously lumped together as a single
disease that caused rashes.[55]This was based on location and the time of the
appearance of the symptoms and he also scaled the degree of severity and prognosis
of infections according to the color and location of rashes.[56]
On hygienic practices, Rhazes, who was once asked to choose the site for a new
hospital in Baghdad, suspended pieces of meat at various points around the city, and
recommended building the hospital at the location where the meat putrefied most
slowly.[46]
For Islamic scholars, Indian and Greek physicians and medical
researchers Sushruta, Galen, Mankah, Atreya, Hippocrates, Charaka,
and Agnivesa were pre-eminent authorities.[57] In order to make the Indian and Greek
tradition more accessible, understandable, and teachable, Islamic scholars ordered
and made more systematic the vast Indian and Greco-Roman medical knowledge by
writing encyclopedias and summaries. Sometimes, past scholars were criticized, like
Rhazes who criticized and refuted Galen's revered theories, most notably, the Theory
of Humors and was thus accused of ignorance. [46] It was through 12th-century Arabic
translations that medieval Europe rediscoveredHellenic medicine, including the works
of Galen and Hippocrates, and discovered ancient Indian medicine, including the works
of Sushruta and Charaka.[58][59] Works such asAvicenna's The Canon of Medicine were
translated into Latin and disseminated throughout Europe. During the 15th and 16th
centuries alone, The Canon of Medicine was published more than thirty-five times. It
was used as a standard medical textbook through the 18th century in Europe. [60]

Engineering[edit]
The Banū Mūsā brothers, in their Book of Ingenious Devices, describe
an automatic flute player which may have been the first programmable machine.[61] The
flute sounds were produced through hot steam and the user could adjust the device to
various patterns so that they could get various sounds from it.[62]

Social sciences[edit]
Ibn Khaldun is regarded to be among the founding fathers of modern sociology,[n
1]
 historiography, demography,[n 1] and economics.[63][n 2]

Institutions[edit]
Healthcare[edit]
Hospitals in this era were the first to require medical diplomas to license doctors. [64] In
the medieval Islamic world, hospitals were built in most major cities. The hospitals were
typically run by a three-man board comprising a non-medical administrator, a physician
who served as mutwalli (dean) and the shaykh saydalani, the chief pharmacist, who
oversaw the dispensary.
By the ninth century, there was a rapid expansion of private pharmacies in many
Muslim cities. Initially, these were unregulated and managed by personnel of
inconsistent quality. Decrees by Caliphs Al-Ma'mun and Al-Mu'tasim required
examinations to license pharmacists and pharmacy students were trained in a
combination of classroom exercises coupled with day-to-day practical experiences with
drugs. To avoid conflicts of interest, doctors were banned from owning or sharing
ownership in a pharmacy. Pharmacies were periodically inspected by government
inspectors called muhtasib, who checked to see that the medicines were mixed
properly, not diluted and kept in clean jars. Violators were fined or beaten. [45]
Medical facilities traditionally closed each night, but by the 10th century laws were
passed to keep hospitals open 24 hours a day, and hospitals were forbidden to turn
away patients who were unable to pay.[65] Eventually, charitable
foundations called waqfs were formed to support hospitals, as well as schools. [65] This
money supported free medical care for all citizens.[65] In a notable example, a 13th-
century governor of Egypt Al Mansur Qalawun ordained a foundation for the Qalawun
hospital that would contain a mosque and a chapel, separate wards for different
diseases, a library for doctors and a pharmacy.[66] The Qalawun hospital was based in a
former Fatimid palace which had accommodation for 8,000 people - [67] "it served 4,000
patients daily."[68] The waqf stated,
"...The hospital shall keep all patients, men and women, until they are completely
recovered. All costs are to be borne by the hospital whether the people come from afar
or near, whether they are residents or foreigners, strong or weak, low or high, rich or
poor, employed or unemployed, blind or sighted, physically or mentally ill, learned or
illiterate. There are no conditions of consideration and payment, none is objected to or
even indirectly hinted at for non-payment." [66]
Education[edit]

An entrance to the Al Azhar University, Cairo

Introductory summary overview map from al-Idrisi's 1154 world atlas (note that South is at the
top of the map).

The Guinness World Records recognizes the University of Al Karaouine, founded in

859 AD, as the world's oldest degree-granting university.[69]
The Al-Azhar University was the first university in the East, and perhaps the oldest in
history. The madrasa is one of the relics of theFatimid dynasty era of Egypt, descended
from Fatimah, daughter of Muhammad. Fatimah was called Az-Zahra (the brilliant), and
it was named in her honor.[70] It was founded as a mosque by the Fatimid commander
Jawhar, at the orders of the Caliph Al-Muizz as he founded the city for Cairo. It was
(probably on Saturday) in Jamadi al-Awwal in the year 359 A.H. Its building was
completed on the 9th of Ramadan in the year 361 A.H. Both Al-'Aziz Billah and Al-
Hakim bi-Amr Allah added to its premises. It was further repaired, renovated, and
extended by Al-Mustansir Billah and Al-Hafiz Li-Din-illah. Fatimid Caliphs always
encouraged scholars and jurists to have their study-circles and gatherings in this
mosque, and thus it was turned into a university. Al Azhar University now has the claim
of being the oldest University still functioning.[71]
The intellectual life in Egypt during the Fatimid era reached a great degree of progress
and activity due to the number of scholars who either lived in Egypt, or came from
outside, as well as the number of books available. The Fatimid Caliphs gave prominent
positions to the scholars in their courts and encouraged the students. Fatimids paid
attention to establishing libraries in their palaces so that the scholars might polish up
their knowledge and benefit from what their predecessors had done. [71]

Commerce and travel[edit]

Apart from the Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates, navigable rivers were uncommon in the
Middle East, so transport by sea was very important. Navigational sciences were highly
developed, making use of a rudimentary sextant (known as a kamal). When combined
with detailed maps of the period, sailors were able to sail across oceans rather than
skirt along the coast. Muslim sailors were also responsible for reintroducing large,
three-masted merchant vessels to the Mediterranean. The name caravel may derive
from an earlier Arab boat known as the qārib.[72]
During the Fatimid era, Egypt flourished and the Fatimids developed an extensive trade
network in both the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Their trade and diplomatic
ties extended all the way to China and its Song Dynasty, which eventually determined
the economic course of Egypt during the High Middle Ages.[citation needed]

Culture[edit]
Poetry[edit]
The 13th century Persian poet Rumi wrote some of the finest Persian poetry and is still
one of the best selling poets in America.[73][74]
Art[edit]
Main article: Islamic art

A Seljuq shatranj (chess) set, glazedfritware, 12th century

Marquetry and tile-top table from the year 1560

The golden age of Islamic art lasted from 750 to the 16th century, when ceramics
(especially lusterware), glass, metalwork, textiles,illuminated manuscripts, and
woodwork flourished.[citation needed] Manuscript illumination became an important and greatly
respected art, and Persian miniature painting flourished in
the Persianate world. Calligraphy, an essential aspect of written Arabic, developed in
manuscripts and architectural decoration.
The Fatimid era was also known for their exquisite arts. A type of ceramic, lustreware,
was prevalent during the Fatimid period. Glassware and metalworking was also
popular.
Architecture[edit]
Main article: Islamic architecture

The Great Mosque of Kairouan (in Tunisia), the ancestor of all the mosques in the

western Islamic world,[75] is one of the best preserved and most significant examples of
early great mosques. Founded in 670, it dates in its present form largely from the 9th
century.[76] The Great Mosque of Kairouan is constituted of a three-tiered square
minaret, a large courtyard surrounded by colonnaded porticos, and a
huge hypostyle prayer hall covered on its axis by two cupolas.[75]
The Great Mosque of Samarra in Iraq was completed in 847. It combined the hypostyle
architecture of rows of columns supporting a flat base, above which a huge
spiralling minaret was constructed.
The beginning of construction of the Great Mosque at Cordoba in 785 marked the
beginning of Islamic architecture in Spain and Northern Africa. The mosque is noted for
its striking interior arches. Moorish architecture reached its peak with the construction
of the Alhambra, the magnificent palace/fortress of Granada, with its open and breezy
interior spaces adorned in red, blue, and gold. The walls are decorated with stylized
foliage motifs, Arabic inscriptions, and arabesque design work, with walls covered
in geometrically patternedglazed tiles.
Many traces of Fatimid architecture exist in Cairo today, the most defining examples
include the Al Azhar University and the Al Hakim mosque.

 Islamic architecture


The Great Mosque of Kairouan, also known as the Mosque of Uqba, founded in 670, dates
in its present state from the 9th century; one of the masterpieces of Islamic architecture.
[77]
 Located inKairouan, Tunisia.
 
 

Dome of the Treasury of the Great Mosque of Damascus, built in 789.

 

Laser scan data image of the Bab al-Barqiyya Gate in the 12th-century AyyubidWall. This
fortified gate was constructed with interlocking volumes that surrounded the entrant to
provide greater security and control than typical city wall gates.
 

Alhambra Palace, Granada, Spain
 


Court of the Lions, Alhambra
 

The Al-Hakim Mosque in Cairo, of Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, the sixth Caliph, as renovated
by Dawoodi Bohra
 

The Al-Azhar Mosque, of medieval Islamic Cairo

Freedom of expression[edit]
Perhaps the most significant feature of the Fatimid era were the freedoms given to the
people and liberties given to the mind and reason. People could believe whatever they
liked provided they did not infringe other's rights. The Fatimids reserved separate
pulpits for different Islamic sects, and scholars expressed their ideas in whatever
manner they pleased. The Fatimids gave patronage to scholars and invited them from
every place, financially supported them, and ignored what they believed in, even when
it went against Fatimid beliefs. [71][78]

Decline[edit]
Invasions[edit]
Trade routes inherited by the Muslim civilization were ruined by invading Mongols, which
according toIbn Khaldun ruined economies. Later the European Age of Explorationbypassed the
land routes

The Crusades put the Islamic world under pressure with invasions in the 11th and 12th
centuries, but a far greater threat emerged from the East during the 13th century: in
1206, Genghis Khan established a powerful dynasty among the Mongols of central
Asia. During the 13th century, this Mongol Empire conquered most of the Eurasian land
mass, including China in the east and much of the old Islamic caliphate (as well
as Kievan Rus) in the west. The destruction of Baghdad and the House of
Wisdom by Hulagu Khan in 1258 has been seen by some as the end of the Islamic
Golden Age.[79] Later Mongol leaders, such as Timur, destroyed many cities,
slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people, and did irrevocable damage to the
ancient irrigation systems of Mesopotamia. Muslims in lands subject to the Mongols
now faced northeast, toward the land routes to China, rather than toward Mecca.
In the Iberian Peninsula, the Catholic Monarchs completed the Reconquista with a war
against the Emirate of Granada that started in 1482 and ended with Granada's
complete annexation in early 1492, which also marks, for some historians, the end of
the Islamic Golden Age. The Ottoman conquest of the Arabic-speaking Middle East in
1516-17 placed the traditional heart of the Islamic world under Ottoman Turkish control.
Starting in the 16th century, the opening by the European powers of new sea trade
routes to East Asia and the Americas bypassed the Islamic economies, greatly
reducing prosperity by the start of the 17th century.
Free thought[edit]
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, there is evidence that political mismanagement and the stifling
of ijtihad (independent reasoning) in the 12th century in favor of
institutionalised taqleed (imitation) thinking played a part. The caliph al-Mutawakkil (r.
847–861) enforced a more literal interpretation of
the Qur'an and Hadith. Science and rationalism were dismissed in favor of revelation,
and Greek philosophy was condemned as anti-Islamic. [80][full citation needed]
Economics[edit]
To account for the decline of Islamic science, it has been argued that the Sunni Revival
in the 11th and 12th centuries produced a series of institutional changes that
decreased the relative payoff to producing scientific works. With the spread of
madrasas and the greater influence of religious leaders, it became more lucrative to
produce religious knowledge.[81]
Ahmad Y. al-Hassan has rejected the thesis that lack of creative thinking was a cause,
arguing that science was always kept separate from religious argument; he instead
analyzes the decline in terms of economic and political factors, drawing on the work of
the 14th-century writer Ibn Khaldun. Al-Hassan extended the golden age up to the 16th
century, noting that scientific activity continued to flourish up until then. [3] Several other
contemporary scholars have also extended it to around the 16th to 17th centuries, and
analysed the decline in terms of political and economic factors. [1][2]

See also[edit]
Islam portal

 Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain

 Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences
 Islamic astronomy
 Islamic studies
 List of Iranian scientists
 Ophthalmology in medieval Islam
 Timeline of Islamic science and technology
 Emirate of Sicily