History of Western Art: Ancient to Medieval
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IslamicGoldenAge.ppsxThe Islamic Golden Age
1. Expansion under Muhammad, 622–632
2. Expansion during the Rashidun Caliphate, 632–661
3. Expansion during the Umayyad Caliphate, 661–750
Islamic civilization experienced a golden age under the Abbassid Dynasty, which ruled from the mid 8th century until the mid 13th century.
Under the Abbassids, Islamic culture became a blending of Arab, Persian, Egyptian, and European traditions. The result was an era of stunning intellectual and cultural achievements.
It is said to have ended with the collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate with the Mongol invasions and the Sack of Baghdad in 1258. Several contemporary scholars, however, place the end of the Islamic Golden Age to be around the 15th to 16th centuries.
Influences for the Golden Age
Religious: The Abbasids were influenced by the Quranic injunctions and hadiths, such as "the ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr," that stressed the value of knowledge.
Government sponsorship
The Muslim governments heavily patronized scholars. The best scholars and notable translators, such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq, had salaries that are estimated to be the equivalent of professional athletes today.
The House of Wisdom was a library, translation institute, and academy established in Abbasid-era Baghdad, Iraq by Caliph Harun al-Rashid and his son al-Ma'mun.
The House of Wisdom is where both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars sought to translate and gather all the world's knowledge into Arabic. Many classic works of antiquity that would otherwise have been lost were translated into Arabic and Persian and later in turn translated into Turkish, Hebrew and Latin.
From the translations, the Arab world became a collection of cultures which put together, synthesized and significantly advanced the knowledge gained from the ancient Roman, Chinese, Indian, Persian, Egyptian, Greek, and Byzantine civilizations.
New technology
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.
Learning from History…
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.
Philosophy
Ibn Rushd founder of the Averroism school of philosophy, was influential in the rise of secular thought in Western Europe.
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. They would also absorb ideas from China, and India, adding to them tremendous knowledge from their own studies.
Math
Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī played a significant role in the development of algebra, algorithms, and Hindu-Arabic numerals.
In geometry, Medieval Islamic art from the 15th century intuitively echoed principles of quasicrytalline geometry, which were discovered 500 years later. The art uses symmetric polygonal shapes to create patterns that, without leaving gaps, can continue indefinitely without repeating its pattern, in a way that can be directly compared to what are now considered quasi-crystals.
Physics
In about 964 AD, Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, writing in his Book of Fixed Stars, described a "nebulous spot" in the Andromeda constellation, the first definitive reference to what we now know is the Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest spiral galaxy to our galaxy.
Science
Ibn Al-Haytham, scientific method, experimentation and has been referred to as the “world’s first true scientist.”
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.”
Medicine
Intense efforts for translation and analysis of the works of Hippocrates, Rufus of Ephesus, Dioscurides, and Galen took place. Arab scholars synthesized and further elaborated the knowledge they had gathered from ancient manuscripts, adding their own experience.
Numerous Arab pioneers are mentioned in medical history. Among the most famous are: Yuhanna ibn Massuwayh who performed dissections and described allergy; Abu Bakr Muhummad ibn Zakariyya ar-Razi who differentiated smallpox from measles, described the laryngeal branch of the recurrent nerve, introduced mercurial ointments and hot moist compresses in surgery, investigated psychosomatic reactions, and wrote the famous Al-Hawi, a medical encyclopedia of 30 volumes
Az-Zahrawi, known as the father of surgery, who performed tracheotomy and lithotomy, introduced the use of cotton and catgut, and described extra-uterine pregnancy, cancer of the breast, and the sex-linked inheritance of hemophilia
Ibn Sina who differentiated meningitis from other neurologic diseases, described anthrax and tuberculosis, introduced urethral drug instillation, stressed the importance of hygiene, and dietetics, and the holistic approach to the patient [his work al-Qanun fil Tibb (The Canon of Medicine), represented the absolute authority in medicine for 500 years
Progress was apparent in all medical fields, including anatomy, surgery, anaesthesia, cardiology, ophthalmology, orthopaedics, bacteriology, urology, obstetrics, neurology, psychiatry (including psychotherapy), hygiene, dietetics, and dentistry
Hospitals in this era were the first to require medical diplomas to license doctors. In the medieval Islamic world, hospitals were built in most major cities.
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. Eventually, charitable foundations called waqfs were formed to support hospitals, as well as schools. This money supported free medical care for all citizens.
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. The Qalawun hospital was based in a former Fatimid palace which had accommodation for 8,000 people – "it served 4,000 patients daily."
The Guinness World Records recognizes the University of Al Karaouine, founded in 859 AD, as the world's oldest degree-granting university.
Al Azhar University was the first university in the East, and perhaps the oldest in history.
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 and 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 golden age of Islamic art lasted from 750 to the 16th century, when ceramics (especially lusterware), glass, metalwork, textiles, illuminated manuscripts, and woodwork flourished. 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 Great Mosque of Kairouan (in Tunisia), the ancestor of all the mosques in the western Islamic world, is one of the best preserved and most significant examples of early great mosques.
Architecture
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.
