Thirty-Fourth Issue: The Golden Age of Islam
I know I JUST sent a newsletter last week, but I read a really cool book called When Asia Was the World and got really excited to share what I learned. It got me intrigued by the Islamic Golden Age, which was from the 700s to the 1300s. That in turn led me to read about specific scholars of the time (Ibn Battuta and Ibn Sina seem to be the most interesting so I’m going to dedicate a separate issue of this newsletter to them specifically) as well as Chinese society during this time and also the Jewish Golden Age in Spain. I’m sure I’m going to get sidetracked and start reading about India and Egypt too, as well as the Mongols – the world was so interconnected at this time and there was so much interaction and sharing of language, food, culture, and goods. Anyway, here goes. I’m going to start with the Islamic Golden Age. Here is a map of the Muslim world at the time:
During this time period, Muslims were invested in the search for knowledge. Part of this is that the Quran values education and the importance of learning – the very first word that Prophet Muhammed heard from God was ‘Read’. The various Islamic rulers at this time also heavily funded scholars, which helped. Muslims specifically were interested in translating and combining the knowledge from the various civilizations that they lived in and around. They translated books from Greek, Persian, Sanskrit, Chinese, Egyptian and more into Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, and Latin. These works may have otherwise been totally lost forever.
It also helped that paper was common and cheaper, and there was a writing system that was pretty easy to learn. Paper came from China in the 8th to 10th century. It was easier to make, and could absorb ink better than parchment could. There aren’t any real numbers on literacy rates, but it is almost certain they were higher than they were in Europe at this time, but then again, that’s kind of the theme here – the rest of the world figured out a lot of things before Europe did.
Kids started school informally, learning Arabic and the Quran at home or in a school attached to a mosque. Madrasas were established in the 11th and 12th centuries and were first only for rich kids. Your diploma would be given to you directly by a teacher instead of a school, so student and teacher relationships were stronger than they would normally be. Only boys went to school, but many girls were taught at home how to read, write, and learn about religious texts. When kids were taught at home, sometimes girls learned with boys. Here is a picture of the Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo where students were taught from the 10th century onwards.
Here are a few things that Muslim scholars studied and discovered at this time:
Above is a picture of some of the geometric designs on the Ottoman Green Mosque.
Speaking of medicine, Islamic hospitals were quite advanced for the time – between the 10th and 15th century. They were divided into departments much like they are now, with a fever section, an infections section, a digestive issue section, a surgery section, and an orthopedics section. There were libraries and lecture halls. There were sanitary inspectors who made sure everything was clean (this was DEFINITELY beyond the scope of what European hospitals did, I just read about the Great Stink in 19th century London yesterday actually). At first hospitals closed at night but by the 10th century they were kept open 24 hours. There were also outpatient clinics and urgent care clinics in busy places. There were mobile units of doctors and pharmacists who travelled to remote areas. Baghdad had a whole separate hospital just for convicts.
Medical students accompanied doctors and learned skills hands on. Medical diplomas were required to license doctors, and the test was administered by the government. The test had a written exam and an oral exam. Salaries were fixed and so were the hours that doctors worked. If a patient died, a chief physician would review the case to see if the death was natural or negligent, and if it was the latter then the doctor who was responsible had to pay the family. There were women’s and men’s sections of the hospital, and women physicians as well, though they mostly focused on obstetrics.
Hospitals were not allowed to turn away patients even if they couldn’t pay. Here’s a quote that shows the philosophy that was behind hospitals of the time:
"...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."
Below is a picture of the entrance to a hospital complex.
Trade was big at this time. There weren’t many rivers in the Middle East, so people travelled by sea. There were detailed maps and large merchant vessels going here and there. During the Sung Dynasty in China, Muslims basically dominated the import/export industry between the Muslim world and China (there was overlap between the two of course). Muslims travelled to China, Chinese people travelled to the Middle East, and there were also Muslim Chinese people. I’m going to talk more about this in the next issue.
The Golden Age of Islam came to an end slowly by the invasion of the Mongols led by Genghis Khan, but when the Ottomans took over the Middle East in the 16th century they still encouraged the sciences and education, so it continued to flourish, but in a different way under Turkish control.
During this time period, Muslims were invested in the search for knowledge. Part of this is that the Quran values education and the importance of learning – the very first word that Prophet Muhammed heard from God was ‘Read’. The various Islamic rulers at this time also heavily funded scholars, which helped. Muslims specifically were interested in translating and combining the knowledge from the various civilizations that they lived in and around. They translated books from Greek, Persian, Sanskrit, Chinese, Egyptian and more into Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, and Latin. These works may have otherwise been totally lost forever.
It also helped that paper was common and cheaper, and there was a writing system that was pretty easy to learn. Paper came from China in the 8th to 10th century. It was easier to make, and could absorb ink better than parchment could. There aren’t any real numbers on literacy rates, but it is almost certain they were higher than they were in Europe at this time, but then again, that’s kind of the theme here – the rest of the world figured out a lot of things before Europe did.
Kids started school informally, learning Arabic and the Quran at home or in a school attached to a mosque. Madrasas were established in the 11th and 12th centuries and were first only for rich kids. Your diploma would be given to you directly by a teacher instead of a school, so student and teacher relationships were stronger than they would normally be. Only boys went to school, but many girls were taught at home how to read, write, and learn about religious texts. When kids were taught at home, sometimes girls learned with boys. Here is a picture of the Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo where students were taught from the 10th century onwards.
Here are a few things that Muslim scholars studied and discovered at this time:
- Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi helped develop algebra, arithmetic, and Hindu-Arabic numbers.
- The mixture of geometry and art in Islamic art in mosques, specifically in tiles, was prevalent at this time and can be seen and studied even today, specifically in Moroccan architechture.
- Ibn Mu’adh al-Jayyani basically invented trigonometry, coming up with the law of sines in his book The Book of Unknown Arcs of a Sphere in the 1000s.
- Ibn al-Haytham is called the “world’s first true scientist” for his work in the scientific method and experimentation.
- Ibn Sina worked on rules on testing effectiveness of drugs, specifically that the cure had to be demonstrated after many different tries to know if it worked.
- Rhazes said that if you wanted to study the effects of a drug on a patient you needed a control group to compare results with.
- Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi was one of the first people to see the Andromeda Galaxy, which he described as a “nebulous spot” in his Book of Fixed Stars.
- Alhazen discovered that we see things by the reflection of light off an object to our eyes.
- Al-Kindi said in the 9th century that alchemy didn’t work. Europeans kept trying to make metals into gold well into the 18th century.
- Ibn al-Nafis was the first to argue that blood did not pass between ventricles in the heart, and instead the blood that goes to the left ventricle goes through the lung first.
- Nasir al-Din al-Tusi believed that humans came from advanced animals like apes, and Ibn Khaldun said that man slowly arose from the world of the monkeys.
- Ibn Zuhr proved that scabies is caused by the itch mite and if you get rid of the mite there’s no need to purge or bleed or any of the more harmful treatments common at the time.
- Rhazes found the difference between smallpox and measles, which were believed to be the same thing.
- Al-Zahrawi was the first to figure out that haemophilia was hereiditary. He also performed the first mastectomy to treat breast cancer, and the first thyroidectomy.
Above is a picture of some of the geometric designs on the Ottoman Green Mosque.Speaking of medicine, Islamic hospitals were quite advanced for the time – between the 10th and 15th century. They were divided into departments much like they are now, with a fever section, an infections section, a digestive issue section, a surgery section, and an orthopedics section. There were libraries and lecture halls. There were sanitary inspectors who made sure everything was clean (this was DEFINITELY beyond the scope of what European hospitals did, I just read about the Great Stink in 19th century London yesterday actually). At first hospitals closed at night but by the 10th century they were kept open 24 hours. There were also outpatient clinics and urgent care clinics in busy places. There were mobile units of doctors and pharmacists who travelled to remote areas. Baghdad had a whole separate hospital just for convicts.
Medical students accompanied doctors and learned skills hands on. Medical diplomas were required to license doctors, and the test was administered by the government. The test had a written exam and an oral exam. Salaries were fixed and so were the hours that doctors worked. If a patient died, a chief physician would review the case to see if the death was natural or negligent, and if it was the latter then the doctor who was responsible had to pay the family. There were women’s and men’s sections of the hospital, and women physicians as well, though they mostly focused on obstetrics.
Hospitals were not allowed to turn away patients even if they couldn’t pay. Here’s a quote that shows the philosophy that was behind hospitals of the time:
"...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."
Below is a picture of the entrance to a hospital complex.
Trade was big at this time. There weren’t many rivers in the Middle East, so people travelled by sea. There were detailed maps and large merchant vessels going here and there. During the Sung Dynasty in China, Muslims basically dominated the import/export industry between the Muslim world and China (there was overlap between the two of course). Muslims travelled to China, Chinese people travelled to the Middle East, and there were also Muslim Chinese people. I’m going to talk more about this in the next issue.
The Golden Age of Islam came to an end slowly by the invasion of the Mongols led by Genghis Khan, but when the Ottomans took over the Middle East in the 16th century they still encouraged the sciences and education, so it continued to flourish, but in a different way under Turkish control.
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