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Islamic Golden Age
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Islamic Golden Age, also known as the Islamic Renaissance,[1] is usually dated from the 8th century to the 13th century,[2] though some extend it to the 14th or 15th centuries.[3] During this period, engineers, scholars and traders of the Islamic world contributed enormously to the arts, agriculture, economics, industry, literature, navigation, philosophy, sciences, and technology, both by preserving and building upon earlier traditions and by adding many inventions and innovations of their own.[4] Muslim philosophers and poets, artists and scientists, and princes and laborers, created a unique culture that has influenced societies on every continent.[4]
Contents |
- Further information: Early reforms under Islam, Constitution of Medina, and Muslim conquests
During the Muslim conquests of the 7th and early 8th centuries, nomadic Arab armies established the Islamic Empire, the largest empire the world had yet seen. The Islamic Golden Age was soon inaugurated by the middle of the 8th century by the ascension of the Abbasid Caliphate and the transfer of the capital from Damascus to Baghdad.[5] The Abbassids were influenced by the Qur'anic injunctions and hadith such as "the ink of scientists is equal to the blood of martyrs" stressing the value of knowledge.[5] During this period the Muslim world became the unrivaled intellectual center for science, philosophy, medicine and education as the Abbasids championed the cause of knowledge and established a "House of Wisdom" in Baghdad; where both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars sought to translate and gather all the world's knowledge into Arabic.[5] Many classic works of antiquity that would otherwise have been lost were translated into Arabic and later in turn translated into Turkish, Persian, Hebrew and Latin.[5] During this period the Muslim world was a cauldron of cultures which collected, synthesized and significantly advanced the knowledge gained from the ancient Chinese, Indian, Persian, Egyptian, North African, Greek and Byzantine civilizations.[5] Rival Muslim dynasties such as the Fatimids of Egypt and the Umayyads of al-Andalus were also major intellectual centers with cities such as Cairo and Córdoba rivaling Baghdad.[5] Religious freedom, though limited, helped create cross-cultural networks by attracting Muslim, Christian and Jewish intellectuals and thereby helped spawn the greatest period of philosophical creativity in the Middle Ages from the 8th to 13th centuries.[5]
A major innovation of this period was paper - originally a secret tightly guarded by the Chinese.[6] The art of papermaking was obtained from prisoners taken at the Battle of Talas (751), resulting in paper mills being built in Samarkand and Baghdad.[6] The Arabs improved upon the Chinese techniques of using mulberry bark by using starch to account for the Muslim preference for pens vs. the Chinese for brushes.[6] By AD 900 there were hundreds of shops employing scribes and binders for books in Baghdad and even public libraries began to become established,[6] including the first lending libraries. From here paper-making spread west to Fez and then to al-Andalus and from there to Europe in the 13th century.[6]
Much of this learning and development can be linked to geography. Even prior to Islam's presence, the city of Mecca served as a center of trade in Arabia and the Islamic prophet Muhammad was a merchant. The tradition of the pilgrimage to Mecca became a center for exchanging ideas and goods. The influence held by Muslim merchants over African-Arabian and Arabian-Asian trade routes was tremendous. As a result, Islamic civilization grew and expanded on the basis of its merchant economy, in contrast to their Christian, Indian and Chinese peers who built societies from an agricultural landholding nobility. Merchants brought goods and their faith to China, India (the Indian subcontinent now has over 450 million followers), Southeast Asia (which now has over 230 million followers), and the kingdoms of Western Africa and returned with new inventions. Merchants used their wealth to invest in textiles and plantations.
Aside from traders, Sufi missionaries also played a large role in the spread of Islam, by bringing their message to various regions around the world. The principal locations included: Persia, Ancient Mesopotamia, Central Asia and North Africa. Although, the mystics also had a significant influence in parts of Eastern Africa, Ancient Anatolia (Turkey), South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia. [7][8]
- Further information: Early Islamic philosophy, Early reforms under Islam, Constitution of Medina, and Islamic democracy
Many medieval Muslim thinkers pursued humanistic, rational and scientific discourses in their search for knowledge, meaning and values. A wide range of Islamic writings on love poetry, history and philosophical theology show that medieval Islamic thought was open to the humanistic ideas of individualism, occasional secularism, skepticism and liberalism.[9][10]
- Further information: Madrasah and Bimaristan
The first universities which issued diplomas were the Bimaristan medical university-hospitals of the medieval Islamic world, where medical diplomas were issued to students of Islamic medicine who were qualified to be practicing doctors of medicine from the 9th century. Sir John Bagot Glubb wrote:[11]
"By Mamun's time medical schools were extremely active in Baghdad. The first free public hospital was opened in Baghdad during the Caliphate of Haroon-ar-Rashid. As the system developed, physicians and surgeons were appointed who gave lectures to medical students and issued diplomas to those who were considered qualified to practice. The first hospital in Egypt was opened in 872 AD and thereafter public hospitals sprang up all over the empire from Spain and the Maghrib to Persia."
The Guinness Book of World Records recognizes the University of Al Karaouine in Fez, Morocco as the oldest university in the world with its founding in 859.[12] Al-Azhar University, founded in Cairo, Egypt in the 10th century, offered a variety of academic degrees, including postgraduate degrees, and is often considered the first full-fledged university.
By the 10th century, Cordoba had 700 mosques, 60,000 palaces, and 70 libraries, the largest of which had 600,000 books, while as many as 60,000 treatises, poems, polemics and compilations were published each year in al-Andalus.[13] The library of Cairo had more than 100,000 books, while the library of Tripoli is said to have had as many as three million books before it was destroyed by Crusaders. The number of important and original Arabic works on science that have survived is much larger than the combined total of Greek and Latin works on science, though only a fraction of these surviving scientific Arabic works have been published.[14]
Another common feature during the Islamic Golden Age was the large number of Muslim polymaths or "universal geniuses", scholars who contributed to many different fields of knowledge. Muslim polymaths were known as "Hakeems" and they had a wide breadth of knowledge in many different fields of religious and secular learning, comparable to the later "Renaissance Men", such as Leonardo da Vinci, of the European Renaissance period. Polymath scholars were so common during the Islamic Golden Age that it was rare to find a scholar who specialized in any single field at the time. Notable Muslim polymaths included Muhammad, Jafar al-Sadiq, Geber, al-Khwarizmi, al-Kindi, the Banū Mūsā, Abbas Ibn Firnas, al-Jahiz, al-Farabi, al-Masudi, al-Muqaddasi, Alhacen, al-Biruni, Avicenna, Omar Khayyám, al-Ghazali, al-Khazini, Avempace, Abubacer, Averroes, al-Jazari, Ibn al-Nafis, Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī, Ibn al-Shatir, Ibn Khaldun, and Taqi al-Din, among many others.[15]
- Further information: Muslim age of discovery and Muslim navigational technology
- See also: Ibn Battuta and Pre-Columbian Islamic contact theories
The earliest forms of globalization began emerging during the Islamic Empire and the Islamic Golden Age, when the knowledge, trade and economies from many previously isolated regions and civilizations began integrating due to contacts with Muslim explorers, sailors, scholars, traders, and travelers. Some have called this period the "Pax Islamica" or "Afro-Asiatic age of discovery", in reference to the Muslim Southwest Asian and North African traders and explorers who travelled most of the Old World, and established an early global economy[16] across most of Asia and Africa and much of Europe, with their trade networks extending from the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Indian Ocean and China Sea in the east.[17] This helped establish the Islamic Empire (including the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates) as the world's leading extensive economic power throughout the 7th-13th centuries.[16] Several contemporary medieval Arabic reports also suggest that Muslim explorers from al-Andalus and the Maghreb may have travelled in expeditions across the Atlantic Ocean, possibly even to the Americas, between the 9th and 14th centuries.[18]
The Islamic Golden Age witnessed a fundamental transformation in agriculture known as the "Muslim Agricultural Revolution", "Arab Agricultural Revolution", or "Green Revolution".[19] Due to the global economy established by Muslim traders across the Old World, this enabled the diffusion of many plants and farming techniques between different parts of the Islamic world, as well as the adaptation of plants and techniques from beyond the Islamic world. Crops from Africa such as sorghum, crops from China such as citrus fruits, and numerous crops from India such as mangos, rice, and especially cotton and sugar cane, were distributed throughout Islamic lands which normally would not be able to grow these crops.[20] Some have referred to the diffusion of numerous crops during this period as the "Globalisation of Crops",[21] which, along with an increased mechanization of agriculture (see Industrial growth below), led to major changes in economy, population distribution, vegetation cover,[22] agricultural production and income, population levels, urban growth, the distribution of the labour force, linked industries, cooking and diet, clothing, and numerous other aspects of life in the Islamic world.[20]
During the Muslim Agricultural Revolution, sugar production was refined and transformed into a large-scale industry by the Arabs, who built the first sugar refineries and sugar plantations. The Arabs and Berbers diffused sugar throughout the Islamic Empire from the 8th century.[23]
Muslims introduced cash cropping[24] and the modern crop rotation system where land was cropped four or more times in a two-year period. Winter crops were followed by summer ones, and in some cases there was in between. In areas where plants of shorter growing season were used, such as spinach and eggplants, the land could be cropped three or more times a year. In parts of Yemen, wheat yielded two harvests a year on the same land, as did rice in Iraq.[20] Muslims developed a scientific approach to agriculture based on three major elements; sophisticated systems of crop rotation, highly developed irrigation techniques, and the introduction of a large variety of crops which were studied and catalogued according to the season, type of land and amount of water they require. Numerous encyclopaedias on farming and botany were produced, with highly accurate precision and details.[25]
The origins of capitalism and free markets can be traced back to the Caliphate,[26] where the first market economy and earliest forms of merchant capitalism took root between the 8th-12th centuries, which some refer to as "Islamic capitalism".[27] A vigorous monetary economy was created on the basis of the expanding levels of circulation of a stable high-value currency (the dinar) and the integration of monetary areas that were previously independent. Innovative new business techniques and forms of business organisation were introduced by economists, merchants and traders during this time. Such innovations included the earliest trading companies, credit cards, big businesses, contracts, bills of exchange, long-distance international trade, the first forms of partnership (mufawada) such as limited partnerships (mudaraba), and the earliest forms of credit, debt, profit, loss, capital (al-mal), capital accumulation (nama al-mal),[24] circulating capital, capital expenditure, revenue, cheques, promissory notes,[28] trusts (waqf), startup companies,[29] savings accounts, transactional accounts, pawning, loaning, exchange rates, bankers, money changers, ledgers, deposits, assignments, the double-entry bookkeeping system,[30] and lawsuits.[31] Organizational enterprises similar to corporations independent from the state also existed in the medieval Islamic world.[32][33] Many of these early capitalist concepts were adopted and further advanced in medieval Europe from the 13th century onwards.[24]
The systems of contract relied upon by merchants was very effective. Merchants would buy and sell on commission, with money loaned to them by wealthy investors, or a joint investment of several merchants, who were often Muslim, Christian and Jewish. Recently, a collection of documents was found in an Egyptian synagogue shedding a very detailed and human light on the life of medieval Middle Eastern merchants. Business partnerships would be made for many commercial ventures, and bonds of kinship enabled trade networks to form over huge distances. Networks developed during this time enabled a world in which money could be promised by a bank in Baghdad and cashed in Spain, creating the cheque system of today. Each time items passed through the cities along this extraordinary network, the city imposed a tax, resulting in high prices once reaching the final destination. These innovations made by Muslims and Jews laid the foundations for the modern economic system.
Though medieval Islamic economics appears to have been closer to capitalism, some scholars have also found a number of parallels between Islamic economic jurisprudence and communism, including the Islamic ideas of zakat and riba.[34]
- Further information: Muslim Agricultural Revolution: Industrial growth and Inventions in the Muslim world
Muslim engineers in the Islamic world were responsible for numerous innovative industrial uses of hydropower, the first industrial uses of tidal power, wind power, steam power,[35] and fossil fuels such as petroleum, and the earliest large factory complexes (tiraz in Arabic).[36] The industrial uses of watermills in the Islamic world date back to the 7th century, while horizontal-wheeled and vertical-wheeled water mills were both in widespread use since at least the 9th century. A variety of industrial mills were first invented in the Islamic world, including fulling mills, gristmills, hullers, paper mills, sawmills, shipmills, stamp mills, steel mills, sugar mills, tide mills, and windmills. By the 11th century, every province throughout the Islamic world had these industrial mills in operation, from al-Andalus and North Africa to the Middle East and Central Asia.[37] Muslim engineers also invented crankshafts and water turbines, first employed gears in mills and water-raising machines, and pioneered the use of dams as a source of water power, used to provide additional power to watermills and water-raising machines.[23] Such advances made it possible for many industrial tasks that were previously driven by manual labour in ancient times to be mechanized and driven by machinery instead in the medieval Islamic world. The transfer of these technologies to medieval Europe later laid the foundations for the Industrial Revolution in 18th century Europe.[38]
Many industries were generated due to the Muslim Agricultural Revolution, including the earliest industries for agribusiness, astronomical instruments, ceramics, chemicals, distillation technologies, clocks, glass, mechanical hydropowered and wind powered machinery, matting, mosaics, pulp and paper, perfumery, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, rope-making, shipping, shipbuilding, silk, sugar, textiles, water, weapons, and the mining of minerals such as sulfur, ammonia, lead and iron. The first large factory complexes (tiraz) were built for many of these industries. Knowledge of these industries were later transmitted to medieval Europe, especially during the Latin translations of the 12th century, as well as before and after. For example, the first glass factories in Europe were founded in the 11th century by Egyptian craftsmen in Greece.[39] The agricultural and handicraft industries also experienced high levels of growth during this period.[17]
- Further information: Muslim Agricultural Revolution - Labour
The labour force in the Caliphate were employed from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, while both men and women were involved in diverse occupations and economic activities.[40] Women were employed in a wide range of commercial activities and diverse occupations[41] in the primary sector (as farmers for example), secondary sector (as construction workers, dyers, spinners, etc.) and tertiary sector (as investors, doctors, nurses, presidents of guilds, brokers, peddlers, lenders, scholars, etc.).[42] Muslim women also had a monopoly over certain branches of the textile industry.[41]
- Further information: Inventions in the Muslim world and Muslim Agricultural Revolution: Industrial growth
- See also: Timeline of science and technology in the Islamic world
A significant number of inventions were produced by medieval Muslim scientists and engineers, including inventors such as Abbas Ibn Firnas, Taqi al-Din, and especially al-Jazari, who is considered the "father of robotics"[43] and "father of modern day engineering".[44]
Some of the other inventions and discoveries from the Islamic Golden Age include the camera obscura, coffee, hang glider, flight controls, soap bar, shampoo, pure distillation, liquefaction, crystallisation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation, filtration, distilled alcohol, uric acid, nitric acid, alembic, crankshaft, valve, reciprocating suction piston pump, mechanical clocks driven by water and weights, programmable humanoid robot, combination lock, quilting, pointed arch, scalpel, bone saw, forceps, surgical catgut, windmill, inoculation, smallpox vaccine, fountain pen, cryptanalysis, frequency analysis, three-course meal, stained glass and quartz glass, Persian carpet, modern cheque, celestial globe, explosive rockets and incendiary devices, torpedo, and artificial pleasure gardens.[43]
- Further information: Muslim Agricultural Revolution: Urbanization
As urbanization increased, Muslim cities grew unregulated, resulting in narrow winding city streets and neighborhoods separated by different ethnic backgrounds and religious affiliations. These qualities proved efficient for transporting goods to and from major commercial centers while preserving the privacy valued by Islamic family life. Suburbs lay just outside the walled city, from wealthy residential communities, to working class semi-slums. City garbage dumps were located far from the city, as were clearly defined cemeteries which were often homes for criminals. A place of prayer was found just near one of the main gates, for religious festivals and public executions. Similarly, Military Training grounds were found near a main gate.
Muslim cities also had advanced domestic water systems with sewers, public baths, drinking fountains, piped drinking water supplies,[45] and widespread private and public toilet and bathing facilities.[46] By the 10th century, Cordoba had 700 mosques, 60,000 palaces, and 70 libraries.[13]
- Further information: Timeline of science and technology in the Islamic world and List of Muslim scientists
A number of modern scholars, notably Robert Briffault, Will Durant, Fielding H. Garrison, Alexander von Humboldt, Muhammad Iqbal, and Hossein Nasr, consider modern science to have begun from Muslim scientists, who were pioneers of the scientific method and introduced a modern empirical, experimental and quantitative approach to scientific inquiry. Some scholars, notably Donald Routledge Hill, Ahmad Y Hassan,[47] Abdus Salam,[48] and George Saliba,[3] have referred to their achievements as a "Muslim scientific revolution".[49][50]
- Further information: Islamic science: Scientific method
The modern scientific method was first developed in the Muslim world, where significant progress in methodology was made, especially in the works of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) in the 11th century, who was the pioneer of experimental physics.[51] The most important development of the scientific method was the use of experimentation and quantification to distinguish between competing scientific theories set within a generally empirical orientation. Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) wrote the Book of Optics, and he is known as the father of optics for empirically proving that vision occurred because of light rays entering the eye, as well as for inventing the camera obscura to demonstrate the physical nature of light rays.[52][53]
Ibn al-Haytham has also been described as the "first scientist" for his introduction of the scientific method,[54] and some also consider him the founder of psychophysics and experimental psychology,[55] for his pioneering work on the psychology of visual perception.[56][57]
The first documented description of a peer review process is found in the Ethics of the Physician written by Ishaq bin Ali al-Rahwi (854–931) of al-Raha, Syria, who describes the first medical peer review process. His work, as well as later Arabic medical manuals, state that a visiting physician must always make duplicate notes of a patient's condition on every visit. When the patient was cured or had died, the notes of the physician were examined by a local medical council of other physicians, who would review the practising physician's notes to decide whether his/her performance have met the required standards of medical care. If their reviews were negative, the practicing physician could face a lawsuit from a maltreated patient.[58]
Geber is considered the father of chemistry,[59][60] for introducing an early experimental scientific method, as well as the alembic, still, retort, and the chemical processes of pure distillation, liquefaction, crystallisation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation, and filtration.[43]
The study of traditional alchemy and the theory of the transmutation of metals were first refuted by al-Kindi,[61] followed by Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī,[62] Avicenna,[63] and Ibn Khaldun. In his Doubts about Galen, al-Razi was the first to prove both Aristotle's theory of classical elements and Galen's theory of humorism false using an experimental method.[64] Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī stated an early version of the law of conservation of mass, noting that a body of matter is able to change, but is not able to disappear.[65] Alexander von Humboldt and Will Durant regarded the Muslim chemists as the founders of chemistry.[66][67]
- Further information: Ophthalmology in medieval Islam and Bimaristan
Muslim physicians made many significant advances and contributions to medicine, including anatomy, experimental medicine, ophthalmology, pathology, the pharmaceutical sciences, physiology, surgery, etc. They also set up some of the earliest dedicated hospitals, including the first medical schools and psychiatric hospitals.[68]
Al-Kindi wrote the De Gradibus, in which he first demonstrated the application of quantification and mathematics to medicine and pharmacology, such as a mathematical scale to quantify the strength of drugs and the determination in advance of the most critical days of a patient's illness.[69] Al-Razi (Rhazes), the father of pediatrics,[70] discovered measles and smallpox, and in his Doubts about Galen, proved Galen's humorism false.[64]
Abu al-Qasim (Abulcasis), the father of modern surgery,[71] wrote the Kitab al-Tasrif, in which he invented numerous surgical instruments, including the first instruments unique to women,[72] as well as the surgical uses of catgut and forceps, the ligature, surgical needle, scalpel, curette, retractor, surgical spoon, sound, surgical hook, surgical rod, and specula,[73] and bone saw.[43] Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) made important advances in eye surgery, as he correctly explained the process of sight and visual perception for the first time in his Book of Optics.[72]
Avicenna, the father of modern medicine, wrote The Canon of Medicine, and was responsible for introducing systematic experimentation and quantification in physiology,[74] the discovery of contagious disease, introduction of quarantine to limit their spread, introduction of experimental medicine, evidence-based medicine, clinical trials,[75] randomized controlled trials,[76][77] efficacy tests,[78][79] and clinical pharmacology,[80] the first descriptions on bacteria and viral organisms,[81] distinction of mediastinitis from pleurisy, contagious nature of phthisis and tuberculosis, distribution of diseases by water and soil, skin troubles, sexually transmitted diseases, perversions, nervous ailments,[68] use of ice to treat fevers, and separation of medicine from pharmacology.[72]
Ibn al-Nafis, the father of circulation theory,[82] was the first to describe the pulmonary circulation and coronary circulation,[83] which form the basis of the circulatory system, for which he is considered one of the greatest physiologists in history.[84] He also described the earliest concept of metabolism,[85] and developed new systems of physiology and psychology to replace the Avicennian and Galenic systems, while discrediting many of their erroneous theories on humorism, pulsation,[86] bones, muscles, intestines, sensory organs, bilious canals, esophagus, stomach, etc.[87]
Ibn al-Lubudi rejected the theory of humorism, and discovered that the body and its preservation depend exclusively upon blood, women cannot produce sperm, the movement of arteries are not dependant upon the movement of the heart, the heart is the first organ to form in a fetus' body, and the bones forming the skull can grow into tumors.[88] Ibn Khatima and Ibn al-Khatib discovered that infectious diseases are caused by microorganisms which enter the human body.[89] Mansur ibn Ilyas drew comprehensive diagrams of the body's structural, nervous and circulatory systems.[4]
- Further information: Islamic science: Optics and Islamic science: Mechanics
The study of experimental physics began with Ibn al-Haytham,[90] the father of optics, who pioneered the experimental scientific method and used it to drastically transform the understanding of light and vision in his Book of Optics, which has been ranked alongside Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica as one of the most influential books in the history of physics.[91]
The experimental scientific method was soon introduced into mechanics by al-Biruni,[92] and early precursors to Newton's laws of motion were discovered by several Muslim scientists. The law of inertia, known as Newton's first law of motion, and the concept of momentum, part of Newton's second law of motion, were discovered by Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen)[93][94] and Avicenna.[95][96] The proportionality between force and acceleration, a fundamental law of classical mechanics foreshadowing Newton's second law of motion, was discovered by Hibat Allah Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdaadi,[97] while the concept of reaction, foreshadowing Newton's third law of motion, was discovered by Ibn Bajjah (Avempace).[98] Theories foreshadowing Newton's law of universal gravitation were developed by Ja'far Muhammad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir,[99] Ibn al-Haytham,[100] and al-Khazini.[101] It is known that Galileo Galilei's mathematical treatment of acceleration and his concept of impetus[102] grew out of earlier medieval Muslim analyses of motion, especially those of Avicenna[95] and Ibn Bajjah.[103]
- Further information: Maragheh observatory, List of Muslim astronomers, and Islamic astrology
Some have referred to the achievements of the Maragha school and their predecessors and successors in astronomy as a "Maragha Revolution", "Maragha School Revolution" or "Scientific Revolution before the Renaissance".[3] Advances in astronomy by the Maragha school and their predecessors and successors include the construction of the first observatory in Baghdad during the reign of Caliph al-Ma'mun,[104] the collection and correction of previous astronomical data, resolving significant problems in the Ptolemaic model, the development of universal astrolabes,[105] the invention of numerous other astronomical instruments, the beginning of astrophysics and celestial mechanics after Ja'far Muhammad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir discovered that the heavenly bodies and celestial spheres were subject to the same physical laws as Earth,[106] the first elaborate experiments related to astronomical phenomena and the first semantic distinction between astronomy and astrology by Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī,[107] the use of exacting empirical observations and experimental techniques,[108] the discovery that the celestial spheres are not solid and that the heavens are less dense than the air by Ibn al-Haytham,[109] the separation of natural philosophy from astronomy by Ibn al-Haytham and Ibn al-Shatir,[110] the first non-Ptolemaic models by Ibn al-Haytham and Mo'ayyeduddin Urdi, and the first empirical observational evidence of the Earth's rotation by Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī and Ali al-Qushji.[111]
Several Muslim astronomers also considered the possibility of the Earth's rotation on its axis and perhaps a heliocentric solar system.[112][66] It is known that the Copernican heliocentric model in Nicolaus Copernicus' De revolutionibus was adapted from the geocentric model of Ibn al-Shatir and the Maragha school (including the Tusi-couple) in a heliocentric context,[113] and that his arguments for the Earth's rotation were similar to those of Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī and Ali al-Qushji.[111]
Among the achievements of Muslim mathematicians during this period include the development of algebra and algorithms (see Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī), the invention of spherical trigonometry,[114] the addition of the decimal point notation to the Arabic numerals, the discovery of all the trigonometric functions besides sine, al-Kindi's introduction of cryptanalysis and frequency analysis, al-Karaji's introduction of algebraic calculus and proof by mathematical induction, the development of analytic geometry and the earliest general formula for infinitesimal and integral calculus by Ibn al-Haytham, the beginning of algebraic geometry by Omar Khayyam, the first refutations of Euclidean geometry and the parallel postulate by Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī, the first attempt at a non-Euclidean geometry by Sadr al-Din, and numerous other advances in algebra, arithmetic, calculus, cryptography, geometry, number theory and trigonometry.
- Further information: Early Muslim sociology and Historiography of early Islam
Many other advances were made by Muslim scientists in biology (anatomy, botany, evolution, physiology and zoology), the earth sciences (anthropology, cartography, geodesy, geography and geology), psychology (experimental psychology, psychiatry, psychophysics and psychotherapy), and the social sciences (demography, economics, sociology, history and historiography).
Some of the most famous scientists from the Islamic world include Geber (polymath, father of chemistry), Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī (father of algebra and algorithms), al-Farabi (polymath), Abu al-Qasim (father of modern surgery),[115] Ibn al-Haytham (polymath, father of optics, founder of experimental psychology, pioneer of scientific method, "first scientist")[55], Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (polymath, father of Indology[116] and geodesy, "first anthropologist"),[117] Avicenna (polymath, father of momentum[118] and modern medicine),[119] Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (polymath), and Ibn Khaldun (father of demography,[120] cultural history,[121] historiography,[122] the philosophy of history, sociology,[123] and the social sciences),[124] among many others.
The Great Mosque of Xi'an in China was completed circa 740, and the Great Mosque of Samarra in Iraq was completed in 847. The Great Mosque of Samarra combined the hypostyle architecture of rows of columns supporting a flat base above which a huge spiraling minaret was constructed.
The Spanish Muslims began construction of the Great Mosque at Cordoba in 785 marking the beginning of Islamic architecture in Spain and Northern Africa (see Moors). The mosque is noted for its striking interior arches. Moorish architecture reached its peak with the construction of the Alhambra, the magnificent palace/fortress of Granada, with its open and breezy interior spaces adorned in red, blue, and gold. The walls are decorated with stylized foliage motifs, Arabic inscriptions, and arabesque design work, with walls covered in glazed tiles.
Another distinctive sub-style is the architecture of the Mughal Empire in India in the 15-17th centuries. Blending Islamic and Hindu elements, the emperor Akbar constructed the royal city of Fatehpur Sikri, located 26 miles (42 km) west of Agra, in the late 1500s and his son Shah Jahan had constructed the mausoleum of Taj Mahal for Mumtaz Mahal in the 1650s, though this time period is well after the Islamic Golden Age.
- Further information: Islamic calligraphy, Arabesque, Iranian art, and Persian miniature
The golden age of Islamic (and/or Muslim) art lasted from 750 to the 16th century, when ceramics, glass, metalwork, textiles, illuminated manuscripts, and woodwork flourished. Lusterous glazing became the greatest Islamic contribution to ceramics. Manuscript illumination became an important and greatly respected art, and portrait miniature painting flourished in Persia. Calligraphy, an essential aspect of written Arabic, developed in manuscripts and architectural decoration.
- Further information: Arabic literature, Arabic epic literature, and Persian literature
The most well known fiction from the Islamic world was The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), which was a compilation of many earlier folk tales. The epic took form in the 10th century and reached its final form by the 14th century; the number and type of tales have varied from one manuscript to another.[125] All Arabian fantasy tales were often called "Arabian Nights" when translated into English, regardless of whether they appeared in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, in any version, and a number of tales are known in Europe as "Arabian Nights" despite existing in no Arabic manuscript.[125]
This epic has been influential in the West since it was translated in the 18th century, first by Antoine Galland.[126] Many imitations were written, especially in France.[127] Various characters from this epic have themselves become cultural icons in Western culture, such as Aladdin, Sinbad and Ali Baba. Part of its popularity may have sprung from the increasing historical and geographical knowledge, so that places of which little was known and so marvels were plausible had to be set further "long ago" or farther "far away"; this is a process that continues, and finally culminate in the fantasy world having little connection, if any, to actual times and places.