The Islamic Golden Age was a period when the Islamic world was more tolerant and learned than its neighbours, particularly Medieval Europe.
The Foundations
In the 600s, many societies embraced Islam (Persian, Greek, Egyptian, Byzantine, Syrian, Hindu and Jewish) and integrated the intellectual sophistication of these cultures. They also drew on pagans and non-Orthodox Christians who fled from the sectarian persecutions of Christianity to the more liberal and tolerant world of Islam. Bernard Lewis wrote in What Went Wrong? that Islamic governments inherited "the knowledge and skills of the ancient Middle east, of Greece and of Persia, it added to them new and important innovations from outside, such as the manufacture of paper from China and decimal positional numbering from India."
The Arts
The golden age of Islamic art lasted from AD 750 to the mid-11th century, when ceramics, glass, metalwork, textiles, illuminated manuscripts, and woodwork flourished. Lustered glass 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.
The Philosophers
Three speculative thinkers, the Persians al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and Avicenna, combined Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam.
From Spain the Arabic philosophic literature was translated into Hebrew and Latin, contributing to the development of modern European philosophy. The philosopher Moses Maimonides (who was Jewish) and the sociologist-historian Ibn Khaldun were also important, and from Carthage Constantine the African translated Greek medical texts while Al-Khwarzimi's collation of mathematic techniques was considerable.
Sciences
Opposing Views
Some commentators have derided the idea as a myth, intended to distract attention from Islam's present situation. Islamic regimes, such as the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad under Harun ar-Rashid or al-Andalus were very wealthy in comparison with their neighbours and preserved a large amount of Greek philosophy and transmitted Eastern ideas such as Indian numbering (still known as Arabic numerals). It is argued that all this flourished in spite of Islam rather than because of it.
The caliphate and other Islamic governments emphasized rigid Qur'anic orthodoxy and deployed Greek philosophy and science solely to buttress its authority. Persecution, exile and death were frequently meted out to philosophers whose writings did not conform to the Islamic canon. An example was the treatment of Ibn Rushd (Averroës) who attempted to reconcile Aristotle's writings to Islam (although Ibn Rushd is still considered an authority in one of the four classical schools of Islamic law).
See also
Last updated: 08-23-2005 13:08:12
