Islamic Golden Age Research Paper
Islamic Golden Age
The Islamic Golden Age or the Islamic Renaissance, is traditionally dated from the 8th to 13th centuries A.D., but has been extended by one scholar to at least the 15th century by recent scholarship. During this period, artists, engineers, scholars, poets, philosophers, geographers and traders in the Islamic world contributed to agriculture, the arts, economics, industry, law, literature, navigation, philosophy, sciences, sociology, and technology, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding inventions and innovations of their own. Howard R. Turner writes: "Muslim artists and scientists, princes and laborers together made a unique culture that has directly and indirectly influenced societies on every continent." …show more content…
During the Muslim conquests of the 7th and early 9th centuries, Rashidun armies established the Caliphate, or Islamic Empire, one of the largest empires in history. 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 the newly founded city Baghdad. The Abbassids were influenced by the Qur'anic injunctions and hadith such as "The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of martyrs" stressing the value of knowledge. During this period the Muslim world became the unrivaled intellectual centre for science, philosophy, medicine and education as the Abbasids championed the cause of knowledge. They established the "House of Wisdom" (Arabic:بيت الحكمة) in Baghdad, where scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, sought to gather and translate all the world's knowledge into Arabic in the Translation Movement. Many classic works of antiquity that would otherwise have been forgotten were translated into Arabic and later in turn translated into Turkish, Persian, Hebrew and Latin. During this period the Muslim world was a cauldron of cultures which collected, synthesized and significantly advanced the knowledge gained from the ancient Mesopotamian, Roman, Chinese, Indian, Persian, Egyptian, North African, Greek and Byzantine civilizations. Rival Muslim dynasties such as the Fatimids of Egypt and the Umayyads of al-Andalus were also major intellectual centres with cities such as Cairo and Córdoba rivaling Baghdad.[6] According to Bernard Lewis, the Caliphate was the first "truly universal civilization," which brought together for the first time "peoples as diverse as the Chinese, the Indians, the people of the Middle East and North Africa, black Africans, and white Europeans."[7]
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.[11][12]
Religious freedom, though society was still controlled under Islamic values, 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.[6] Another reason the Islamic world flourished during this period was an early emphasis on freedom of speech, as summarized by al-Hashimi (a cousin of Caliph al-Ma'mun) in the following letter to one of the religious opponents he was attempting to convert through reason:[13]
"Bring forward all the arguments you wish and say whatever you please and speak your mind freely. Now that you are safe and free to say whatever you please appoint some arbitrator who will impartially judge between us and lean only towards the truth and be free from the empary of passion, and that arbitrator shall be Reason, whereby God makes us responsible for our own rewards and punishments. Herein I have dealt justly with you and have given you full security and am ready to accept whatever decision Reason may give for me or against me. For "There is no compulsion in religion" (Qur'an 2:256) and I have only invited you to accept our faith willingly and of your own accord and have pointed out the hideousness of your present belief. Peace be upon you and the blessings of God!"
Another common feature during the Islamic Golden Age was the large number of Muslim polymath scholars, who were known as "Hakeems", each of whom contributed to a variety of different fields of both religious and secular learning, comparable to the later "Renaissance Men" (such as Leonardo da Vinci) of the European Renaissance period.[33][34] During the Islamic Golden Age, polymath scholars with a wide breadth of knowledge in different fields were more common than scholars who specialized in any single field of learning.[
A significant number of inventions were produced by medieval Muslim engineers and inventors, such as Abbas Ibn Firnas, the Banū Mūsā, Taqi al-Din, and most notably al-Jazari.
Some of the inventions believed to have come from the Islamic Golden Age include the camera obscura, coffee, soap bar, tooth paste, shampoo, pure distillation, distilled alcohol, uric acid, nitric acid, alembic, valve, reciprocating suction piston pump, mechanized waterclocks, quilting, scalpel, bone saw, forceps, surgical catgut, vertical-axle windmill, inoculation, smallpox vaccine, fountain pen, cryptanalysis, frequency analysis, three-course meal, stained glass and quartz glass, Persian carpet, and celestial globe.[73]
A number of musical instruments used in classical music are believed to have been derived from Arabic musical instruments: the lute was derived from the al'ud, the rebec (ancestor of violin) from the rebab, the guitar from qitara, naker from naqareh, adufe from al-duff, alboka from al-buq, anafil from al-nafir, exabeba from al-shabbaba (flute), atabal (bass drum) from al-tabl, atambal from al-tinbal,[201] the balaban, the castanet from kasatan, sonajas de azófar from sunuj al-sufr, the conical bore wind instruments,[202] the xelami from the sulami or fistula (flute or musical pipe),[203] the shawm and dulzaina from the reed instruments zamr and al-zurna,[204] the gaita from the ghaita, rackett from iraqya or iraqiyya,[205] the harp and zither from the qanun,[206] canon from qanun, geige (violin) from ghichak,[207] and the theorbo from the …show more content…
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The Golden Age of Greece
The Classical Period or Golden age of Greece, from around 500 to 300 BC, has given us the great monuments, art, philosophy, architecture and literature which are the building blocks of our own civilization.
The two most well known city-states during this period were the rivals: Athens and Sparta. It was the strengths of these two societies that brought the ancient world to its heights in art, culture and with the defeat of the Persians, warfare. It was the same two Greek states whose thirst for more power and territory, and whose jealousy brought about the Peloponnesian wars which lasted 30 years and left both Athens and Sparta mere shadows of their former selves.
The Spartans
The Spartans who were founded by Lycurgus around 800 BC were known for their militaristic society. These Spartans, known as the Lacedemonians controlled the Peloponessos. The Spartans had no always lived in such a society. Earlier in their history they had produced art, poetry and music and seemed to be on the same course as the rest of Greek civilization which might have led them to give us some of the famous names that have been passed down through
history
The Spartan Constitution was credited to Lycurgus who in his travels had studied governments in Crete and Ionia, had read the epics of Homer which strongly influenced his ideas on how a nation should be run. Maybe the most frightening of the Spartan institutions were the Crypteia, where young boys were sent to the countryside to live off the land similar to 'Outward Bound' except for a critical difference. These boys were permitted to kill any helot they ran into. This pretty much kept the helots at home.
The Spartans not only feared their own subjugated population but they also feared ideas (like democracy for instance) entering and polluting their system
The Spartans were known for their wit and their ability to say a lot without wasting words. In his final act as leader Lycurgus informed the Spartans that there was one thing more that had to be done and that he needed to go to Delphi to ask the Oracle how best to implement this final piece of the puzzle. He made the Kings and the people of Sparta take an oath that they would not change any of his laws until he returned. He left the city and disappeared forever.
The Athenians
The primary rivals of the Spartans were the Athenians who were founded by Theseus around 1300. At the age of sixteen Theseus was given the task of lifting the heavy stone where his father had put a sword and sandals. Successful in his efforts he walked to Athens to find his father, defeating monsters and evil along the way. After arriving in Athens as a hero he volunteers to go to Crete where King Minos has been demanding a sacrifice of young men and virgins to a monster called the Minotaur. Theseus defeats the Minotaur and returns to Athens
The Olympics
Every 4 years men from all over the Greek world came to the town of Olympia to compete in the Olympic Games. Though there were other games in classical Greece, the Olympics were the most important. During the period of the games a sacred truce was in effect so competitors could go through hostile territories to get to Olympia. The game were held on the second full moon of the summer solstice and was not restricted to athletic events. There were also feasts, competitions between orators, poets, prayers and sacrifices since it was in actuality a religious festival, dedicated to Zeus, for his enjoyment as well as for the Greek love of competition and the Homeric value of arête or excellence which was perhaps the most important quality of the Greek heroes of the Iliad.
The Islamic Golden Age or the Islamic Renaissance, is traditionally dated from the 8th to 13th centuries A.D., but has been extended by one scholar to at least the 15th century by recent scholarship. During this period, artists, engineers, scholars, poets, philosophers, geographers and traders in the Islamic world contributed to agriculture, the arts, economics, industry, law, literature, navigation, philosophy, sciences, sociology, and technology, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding inventions and innovations of their own. Howard R. Turner writes: "Muslim artists and scientists, princes and laborers together made a unique culture that has directly and indirectly influenced societies on every continent." …show more content…
During the Muslim conquests of the 7th and early 9th centuries, Rashidun armies established the Caliphate, or Islamic Empire, one of the largest empires in history. 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 the newly founded city Baghdad. The Abbassids were influenced by the Qur'anic injunctions and hadith such as "The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of martyrs" stressing the value of knowledge. During this period the Muslim world became the unrivaled intellectual centre for science, philosophy, medicine and education as the Abbasids championed the cause of knowledge. They established the "House of Wisdom" (Arabic:بيت الحكمة) in Baghdad, where scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, sought to gather and translate all the world's knowledge into Arabic in the Translation Movement. Many classic works of antiquity that would otherwise have been forgotten were translated into Arabic and later in turn translated into Turkish, Persian, Hebrew and Latin. During this period the Muslim world was a cauldron of cultures which collected, synthesized and significantly advanced the knowledge gained from the ancient Mesopotamian, Roman, Chinese, Indian, Persian, Egyptian, North African, Greek and Byzantine civilizations. Rival Muslim dynasties such as the Fatimids of Egypt and the Umayyads of al-Andalus were also major intellectual centres with cities such as Cairo and Córdoba rivaling Baghdad.[6] According to Bernard Lewis, the Caliphate was the first "truly universal civilization," which brought together for the first time "peoples as diverse as the Chinese, the Indians, the people of the Middle East and North Africa, black Africans, and white Europeans."[7]
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.[11][12]
Religious freedom, though society was still controlled under Islamic values, 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.[6] Another reason the Islamic world flourished during this period was an early emphasis on freedom of speech, as summarized by al-Hashimi (a cousin of Caliph al-Ma'mun) in the following letter to one of the religious opponents he was attempting to convert through reason:[13]
"Bring forward all the arguments you wish and say whatever you please and speak your mind freely. Now that you are safe and free to say whatever you please appoint some arbitrator who will impartially judge between us and lean only towards the truth and be free from the empary of passion, and that arbitrator shall be Reason, whereby God makes us responsible for our own rewards and punishments. Herein I have dealt justly with you and have given you full security and am ready to accept whatever decision Reason may give for me or against me. For "There is no compulsion in religion" (Qur'an 2:256) and I have only invited you to accept our faith willingly and of your own accord and have pointed out the hideousness of your present belief. Peace be upon you and the blessings of God!"
Another common feature during the Islamic Golden Age was the large number of Muslim polymath scholars, who were known as "Hakeems", each of whom contributed to a variety of different fields of both religious and secular learning, comparable to the later "Renaissance Men" (such as Leonardo da Vinci) of the European Renaissance period.[33][34] During the Islamic Golden Age, polymath scholars with a wide breadth of knowledge in different fields were more common than scholars who specialized in any single field of learning.[
A significant number of inventions were produced by medieval Muslim engineers and inventors, such as Abbas Ibn Firnas, the Banū Mūsā, Taqi al-Din, and most notably al-Jazari.
Some of the inventions believed to have come from the Islamic Golden Age include the camera obscura, coffee, soap bar, tooth paste, shampoo, pure distillation, distilled alcohol, uric acid, nitric acid, alembic, valve, reciprocating suction piston pump, mechanized waterclocks, quilting, scalpel, bone saw, forceps, surgical catgut, vertical-axle windmill, inoculation, smallpox vaccine, fountain pen, cryptanalysis, frequency analysis, three-course meal, stained glass and quartz glass, Persian carpet, and celestial globe.[73]
A number of musical instruments used in classical music are believed to have been derived from Arabic musical instruments: the lute was derived from the al'ud, the rebec (ancestor of violin) from the rebab, the guitar from qitara, naker from naqareh, adufe from al-duff, alboka from al-buq, anafil from al-nafir, exabeba from al-shabbaba (flute), atabal (bass drum) from al-tabl, atambal from al-tinbal,[201] the balaban, the castanet from kasatan, sonajas de azófar from sunuj al-sufr, the conical bore wind instruments,[202] the xelami from the sulami or fistula (flute or musical pipe),[203] the shawm and dulzaina from the reed instruments zamr and al-zurna,[204] the gaita from the ghaita, rackett from iraqya or iraqiyya,[205] the harp and zither from the qanun,[206] canon from qanun, geige (violin) from ghichak,[207] and the theorbo from the …show more content…
tarab.[
The Golden Age of Greece
The Classical Period or Golden age of Greece, from around 500 to 300 BC, has given us the great monuments, art, philosophy, architecture and literature which are the building blocks of our own civilization.
The two most well known city-states during this period were the rivals: Athens and Sparta. It was the strengths of these two societies that brought the ancient world to its heights in art, culture and with the defeat of the Persians, warfare. It was the same two Greek states whose thirst for more power and territory, and whose jealousy brought about the Peloponnesian wars which lasted 30 years and left both Athens and Sparta mere shadows of their former selves.
The Spartans
The Spartans who were founded by Lycurgus around 800 BC were known for their militaristic society. These Spartans, known as the Lacedemonians controlled the Peloponessos. The Spartans had no always lived in such a society. Earlier in their history they had produced art, poetry and music and seemed to be on the same course as the rest of Greek civilization which might have led them to give us some of the famous names that have been passed down through
history
The Spartan Constitution was credited to Lycurgus who in his travels had studied governments in Crete and Ionia, had read the epics of Homer which strongly influenced his ideas on how a nation should be run. Maybe the most frightening of the Spartan institutions were the Crypteia, where young boys were sent to the countryside to live off the land similar to 'Outward Bound' except for a critical difference. These boys were permitted to kill any helot they ran into. This pretty much kept the helots at home.
The Spartans not only feared their own subjugated population but they also feared ideas (like democracy for instance) entering and polluting their system
The Spartans were known for their wit and their ability to say a lot without wasting words. In his final act as leader Lycurgus informed the Spartans that there was one thing more that had to be done and that he needed to go to Delphi to ask the Oracle how best to implement this final piece of the puzzle. He made the Kings and the people of Sparta take an oath that they would not change any of his laws until he returned. He left the city and disappeared forever.
The Athenians
The primary rivals of the Spartans were the Athenians who were founded by Theseus around 1300. At the age of sixteen Theseus was given the task of lifting the heavy stone where his father had put a sword and sandals. Successful in his efforts he walked to Athens to find his father, defeating monsters and evil along the way. After arriving in Athens as a hero he volunteers to go to Crete where King Minos has been demanding a sacrifice of young men and virgins to a monster called the Minotaur. Theseus defeats the Minotaur and returns to Athens
The Olympics
Every 4 years men from all over the Greek world came to the town of Olympia to compete in the Olympic Games. Though there were other games in classical Greece, the Olympics were the most important. During the period of the games a sacred truce was in effect so competitors could go through hostile territories to get to Olympia. The game were held on the second full moon of the summer solstice and was not restricted to athletic events. There were also feasts, competitions between orators, poets, prayers and sacrifices since it was in actuality a religious festival, dedicated to Zeus, for his enjoyment as well as for the Greek love of competition and the Homeric value of arête or excellence which was perhaps the most important quality of the Greek heroes of the Iliad.