The
Golden Age
Some
of the Islamic principles that were core elements
in bringing about the Islamic "Golden Age,"
8th through 15th century are:
In
803 AD, it was Caliph Mamoun el Rashid's zest
for knowledge that lead to the opining of a special
academy in Baghdad, the "House of Wisdom"
to translate the Greek documents into Arabic.
He
appointed the Nestorian Christian Hunayn Ibn Ishaq
as the head of the academy.
Islam's
outstanding principles were directly responsible
for the creation of the old world trade route
from China to Spain, thereby connecting world
nations, and combining world civilizations and
trade.
Islam,
with its considerable wealth of goodness for humanity,
easily grew to cover one half of the old world
in less than one century, and established the
greatest intellectual revolution in history that
made the renaissance a reality.
Past
President Richard Nixon, in his resignation speech
said: "We have made a
friendship with the Arabs so that the cradle of
this civilization would not be its grave."
The
Golden Age was a period of unrivaled intellectual
activity in all fields: science, technology, and
(as a result of intensive study of the Islamic
faith) literature - particularly biography, history,
and linguistics.
Scholars,
for example, in collecting and reexamining the
hadith, or (traditions) - the sayings
and actions of the Prophet - compiled immense
biographical detail about the Prophet and other
information, historic and linguistic, about the
Prophet's era. This led to such memorable works
as Sirat Rasul Allah, the (Life of the Messenger
of God,) by Ibn Ishaq, later revised by Ibn
Hisham; one of the earliest Arabic historical
works, it was a key source of information about
the Prophet's life and also a model for other
important works of history such as al-Tabari's
Annals of the Apostles and the Kings and his massive
commentary on the Quran.
During the Golden Age Muslim scholars also made important and original contributions to mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and chemistry. They collected and corrected previous astronomical data, built the world's first observatory, and developed the astrolabe, an instrument that was once called "a mathematical jewel."
In medicine they experimented with diet, drugs, surgery, and anatomy, and in chemistry, an outgrowth of alchemy, isolated and studied a wide variety of minerals and compounds. Important advances in agriculture were also made in the Golden Age.
The 'Abbasids preserved and improved the ancient network of wells, underground canals, and waterwheels, introduced new breeds of livestock, hastened the spread of cotton, and, from the Chinese, learned the art of making paper, a key to the revival of learning in Europe in the Middle Ages.
The Golden Age also, little by little, transformed the diet of medieval Europe by introducing such plants as plums, artichokes, apricots, cauliflower, celery, fennel, squash, pumpkins, and eggplant, as well as rice, sorghum, new strains of wheat, the date palm, and sugarcane.
Astrolabe
Map
of Europe
Piri Reis
Windmill
from the 7th Century- During the rule of the Second
Caliph, Umar Ibn Al Khttab, 634-644
CE
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Arabic-Hebrew-English
Astronomers
discussing the 
