Golden Age of Islam Timeline

The Islamic Golden Age is traditionally dated from the mid-7th century to the mid-13th century during which Muslim rulers established one of the largest empires in history.

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.

Also at that time, the Muslim world became a major intellectual center for science, philosophy, medicine, and education. In Baghdad, they established the “House of Wisdom“ (The Grand Library of Badhdad), where scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, sought to gather and translate the world’s knowledge into Arabic in the Translation Movement.

Some modern day ‘scholars’ regard this House of Wisdom’ to be a myth. I will leave you to decide on what you think happened to the narrative here.

Medieval Islamic mathematicians were responsible for inventing or expanding much of the advanced mathematics we use today. For example:

Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Arithmetic, and Algorithms.

Here are a few of the major or more interesting notable mathematicians (there a many, many more. Here is a fairly comprehensive list)

AL-KHWARIZMI (780 – 850 CE)

Muhammad Ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi, the father of algebra, was a mathematician and astronomer. From the title of his work, Hisab Al-Jabr wal Mugabalah (Book of Calculations, Restoration and Reduction), Algebra (Al-Jabr) derived its name.

A Latin translation of a Muslim arithmetic text was discovered in 1857 CE at the University of Cambridge library. Entitled ‘Algoritimi de Numero Indorum’, the work opens with the words: ‘Spoken has Algoritimi. Let us give deserved praise to God, our Leader and Defender’. It is believed that this is a copy of Al-Khowarizmi’s arithmetic text which was translated into Latin in the twelfth century by an English scholar. Al-Khowarizmi left his name to the history of mathematics in the form of Algorism (the old name for arithmetic).

Al-BATTANI (850-929 CE)

Muhammad Ibn Jabir Ibn Sinan Abu Abdullah, the father of trigonometry, was an Arab prince and governor of Syria, he is considered to be the greatest Muslim astronomer and mathematician.

Al-Battani raised trigonometry to higher levels and computed the first table of cotangents.

SUTAYTA AL MAHAMALI (930-987 CE)

Sutayta Al Mahamali was born and raised in Baghdad, a city that was the center of mathematics
development during the 10th century. Sutayta grew up in an environment where discovery was
booming – known as the Islamic Golden Age.

Sutayta’s father, Abu Abdallah al-Hussein was a judge who published a few books on Islamic
jurisprudence, and he wanted to make his daughter an Islamic scholar. Education was important to
Abdallah al-Hussein and Sutayta religious education began with him at home. By 935 AD, it was
obvious Sutayta was talented in mathematics and her father chose to focus on both instead of only
religious education.

At age of 10, Sutayta started helping people from her community with mathematics, especially inheritance mathematics.

As a young woman she often pondered the math of inheritance, cubic equations and algebraic
theories. Her expertise in mathematics was known to people who worked at the House of Wisdom. She poured all her time and energy into mathematics, especially inheritance mathematics.

To the medieval Muslim astronomers and scientists, the heavens provided a heady language of admiration and thoughtful reflection. Numerous verses in the Quran, the earliest surviving text from early Islam, instruct believers to ponder over the signs of God scattered all over the heavens.

Later generations of Muslim thinkers came up with ingenious ways to study and reflect on the heavens.

As early as the ninth century CE Muslims constructed observational posts and built observatories that helped them discover constellations and distant stars. That is why most of the present-day stars and constellations bear Arabic names, such as Achernar, Acrab, Caph, Furud, Lesath, Maaz, Thuban, and Zurac.

Two observatories were founded during the reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Maʾmun (r. 813-833): the Shammasiyyah, in Baghdad, and the Qasiyun, in Damascus.

They also devised instruments to map out the night sky and put forward arguments for a spherical earth and heliocentric planetary model. They paid attention to the sun and moon to arrive at precise descriptions of lunar and solar eclipses. 

Several works of Islamic astronomy were translated to Latin starting from the 12th century.

(Adapted from: https://www.newarab.com/features/staring-heavens-astronomy-medieval-islam#:~:text=As%20early%20as%20the%20ninth,and%20the%20Qasiyun%2C%20in%20Damascus.)

>Other areas of Excellence

Zoology.

Muslim scholars made great advances in zoology, the scientific study of animals, during the Golden Age. Because for years Muslims’ lifestyle and economy were dependent on animals-for trade and travel- there was interest in the study of animals. Al-Jahiz was one of the foremost scholars to explore zoology.

(From: https://www.wsfcs.k12.nc.us/cms/lib/NC01001395/Centricity/Domain/6742/Cultural%20Achievements%20of%20Islam.doc#:~:text=Muslim%20scholars%20made%20great%20advances,foremost%20scholars%20to%20explore%20zoology.)

Navigation.

Muslim scholars made advances to the mapmaking traditions of earlier cultures, particularly the Hellenistic geographers Ptolemy and Marinus of Tyre.

Islamic geography had three major fields: exploration and navigation, physical geography, and cartography and mathematical geography.

Islamic geography reached its apex with Muhammad al-Idrisi in the 12th century.

(From: https://handwiki.org/wiki/Earth:Geography_and_cartography_in_medieval_Islam)

Art.

Islamic art is a part of Islamic culture and encompasses the visual arts produced since the 7th century CE by people who lived within territories inhabited or ruled by Muslim populations.

It often includes Islamic calligraphy and geometric patterns in styles that are typically found in a wide variety of media, from small objects in ceramic or metalwork to large decorative schemes in tiling on the outside and inside of large buildings, including mosques.

Other forms of Islamic art include Islamic miniature painting, artefacts like Islamic glass or pottery, and textile arts, such as carpets and embroidery.

(Adapted from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_art)

Architecture.

The architectural heritage of the Islamic world is staggeringly rich. Here are a few of the most iconic mosques, palaces, tombs, and fortresses:

The Friday Mosque: Esfahan, Taj Mahal, Great Mosque of Samarra, Suleymaniye Mosque complex: Istanbul, The Dome of the Rock, Great Mosque of Córdoba, The Citadel of Aleppo, The Alhambra.

Science & Technology.

A lot more can be found here. It’s worth a quick glance through. Some are surprising.

Part Four: The End of The Golden Age of Islam

>The End

In 1206, Genghis Khan established the Mongol Empire which, during the 13th century, conquered most of the Eurasian land mass, including China in the east and much of the old Islamic caliphate (as well as Kievan Rus’) in the west. The destruction of Baghdad in 1258 has been seen by some as the end of the Islamic Golden Age.

However, there are a few alternative timelines. Some scholars extend the end date of the golden age to around 1350, while others place the end of the Islamic Golden Age as late as the end of 15th to 16th centuries, including the rise of the Islamic gunpowder empire.

---

Details

Part Five – The Islamic World Today