بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم
Islamic Civilization 1
There was a time in the history of Islamic civilization that is affectionately called “The Islamic Golden Age” by Muslims and historians alike.
Scholars would argue about the exact dates that constitute the Islamic golden age, but the general consensus is that it started shortly after the rise of the Islamic empire – early 7th century – and lasted until sometime between the 13th and the 15th century.
The Muslims were influenced by the Qur'anic injunctions and hadith such as "the ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr" stressed the value of knowledge. The rise of Islam was instrumental in uniting the warring Arab tribes into a powerful empire. During Golden Age the Islamic world became an intellectual center for science, philosophy, medicine and education; the Abbasids established the House of Wisdom (Bait-ul-Hikmat) at Baghdad,[3] where both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars sought to translate and gather all the world's knowledge into Arabic. The Arabs showed a strong interest in assimilating the scientific knowledge of the civilizations they had overrun. Many classic works of antiquity that might otherwise have been lost were translated into Arabic and Persian and later in turn translated into Turkish, Hebrew and Latin. During this period the Islamic world was a collection of cultures which put together, synthesized and significantly advanced the knowledge gained from the ancient Roman, Persian, Greek, Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, Byzantine and Phoenician civilizations. Notable fields of inquiry
The roots of Islamic science drew primarily upon Arab, Persian, Indian and Greek learning. The extent of Islamic scientific achievement is not as yet fully understood, but it is extremely vast.[1]
These achievements encompass a wide range of subject areas; most notably: Medicine
As early as the 10th century, Muslim physicians were treating eye diseases and even performing cataract surgery. Al-Mawsili, an Iraqi ophthalmologist and physician, designed a special needle to remove cataract by suction. And, an amazingly complete text book on eye disease ‘Notebook of the Oculist’ was written by Ali Ibn Isa also in the 10th century Baghdad. On Ibn Isa’s valuable reference was based the European knowledge of modern ophthalmology.
Ibn al-Nafis, the Syrian Muslim scholar, described in a treatise written in 1210 AC the role of the heart and lung in blood purification and elaborated on Ibn-Sina’s description of the pulmonary circulation. Ibn al-Nafis accurately described the anatomical structure of heart chambers and the fine structure of the circulatory system hundreds of years before Western discoveries.
Early Muslims also laid the foundation of modern day pharmacology through the early work of Sabur ibn Sahl, Al-Razi and Ibn-Sina in the early 9th century. Later on, in the 11th century, Al-Biruni wrote his famous master piece ‘The Book of Pharmacology’ compiling an amazing work on drugs and remedies. Al-Zahrawi’s writings ‘Al-Tasrif’(Dispensing) further taught methods of drug preparations and formulation starting from simple remedies all the way to complex compounding Healthcare
Hospitals in this era were the first to require medical diplomas to license doctors. In the medieval Islamic world, hospitals were built in most major cities; in Cairo for example, the Qalawun hospital had a staff that included physicians, pharmacists, and nurses.
Medical facilities traditionally closed each night, but by the 10th century laws were passed to keep hospitals open 24 hours a day and hospitals were forbidden to turn away patients who were unable to pay. Eventually, charitable foundations called waqfs were formed to support hospitals, as well as schools.[30] This money supported free medical care for all citizens.
The first institutions for the care of mentally ill people were also established.
Features of hospitals
As hospitals developed during the Islamic civilization, specific characteristics were attained. Bimaristans were secular. They served all people regardless of their race, religion, citizenship, or gender.[38] The Waqf documents stated nobody was ever to be turned away.[39] The ultimate goal of all physicians and hospital staff was to work together to help the well-being of their patients.[39]There was no time limit a patient could spend as an inpatient;[40] the Waqf documents stated the hospital was required to keep all patients until they were fully recovered.[38] Men and women were admitted to separate but equally equipped wards.[38][39] The separate wards were further divided into mental disease, contagious disease, non-contagious disease, surgery, medicine, and eye disease.[39][40] Patients were attended to by same sex nurses and staff.[40] Each hospital contained a lecture hall, kitchen, pharmacy, library, mosque and occasionally a chapel for Christian patients.[3][40] Recreational materials and musicians were often employed to comfort and cheer patients up.[40]
The hospital was not just a place to treat patients, it also served as a medical school to educate and train students.[39] Basic science preparation was learned through private tutors, self-study and lectures. Islamic hospitals were the first to keep written records of patients and their medical treatment.[39] Students were responsible in keeping these patient records, which were later edited by doctors and referenced in future treatments.[40]
During this era, physician licensure became mandatory in the Abbasid Caliphate.[40] In 931 AD, Caliph Al-Muqtadir learned of the death of one of his subjects as a result of a physician's error.[3]He immediately ordered his muhtasib Sinan ibn Thabit to examine and prevent doctors from practicing until they passed an examination.[3][40] From this time on, licensing exams were required and only qualified physicians were allowed to practice medicine Astronomy
A significant number of stars in the sky, such as Aldebaran and Altair, and astronomical terms such as alidade, azimuth, and almucantar, are still referred to by their Arabic names.[8] A large corpus of literature from Islamic astronomy remains today, numbering approximately 10,000 manuscripts scattered throughout the world, many of which have not been read or catalogued. Even so, a reasonably accurate picture of Islamic activity in the field of astronomy can be reconstructed.[9]
The period when a distinctive Islamic system of astronomy flourished. The period began as the Muslim astronomers began questioning the framework of the Ptolemaic system of astronomy. These criticisms, however, remained within the geocentric framework and followed Ptolemy's astronomical paradigm; one historian described their work as "a reformist project intended to consolidate Ptolemaic astronomy by bringing it into line with its own principles."[17]
Between 1025 and 1028, Ibn al-Haytham wrote his Al-Shukuk ala Batlamyus (meaning "Doubts on Ptolemy"). While maintaining the physical reality of the geocentric model, he criticized elements of the Ptolemic models. Many astronomers took up the challenge posed in this work, namely to develop alternate models that resolved these difficulties
The first systematic observations in Islam are reported to have taken place under the patronage of al-Mamun. Here, and in many other private observatories from Damascus to Baghdad, meridian degrees were measured, solar parameters were established, and detailed observations of the Sun,Moon, and planets were undertaken.
In the 10th century, the Buwayhid dynasty encouraged the undertaking of extensive works in Astronomy, such as the construction of a large scale instrument with which observations were made in the year 950. We know of this by recordings made in the zij of astronomers such as Ibn al-Alam. The great astronomer Abd Al-Rahman Al Sufi was patronised by prince Adud o-dowleh, who systematically revised Ptolemy's catalogue of stars. Sharaf al-Daula also established a similar observatory in Baghdad. And reports by Ibn Yunus and al-Zarqall in Toledo and Cordoba indicate the use of sophisticated instruments for their time.
It was Malik Shah I who established the first large observatory, probably in Isfahan. It was here where Omar Khayyám with many other collaborators constructed a zij and formulated the Persian Solar Calendar a.k.a. the jalali calendar. A modern version of this calendar is still in official use in Irantoday.
The most influential observatory was however founded by Hulegu Khan during the 13th century. Here, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi supervised its technical construction at Maragha. The facility contained resting quarters for Hulagu Khan, as well as a library and mosque. Some of the top astronomers of the day gathered there, and from their collaboration resulted important modifications to the Ptolemaic system over a period of 50 years. Mathematics
In calculus, Alhazen discovered the sum formula for the fourth power, using a method readily generalizable to determine the sum for any integral power. He used this to find the volume of a paraboloid. He could find the integral formula for any polynomial without having developed a general formula.[22]
In geometry, Medieval Islamic art from the 15th century intuitively echoed principles of quasicrytalline geometry which were discovered 500 years later.[23][24] The art uses symmetric polygonal shapes to create patterns that, without leaving gaps, can continue indefinitely without repeating its pattern, in a way which can be directly compared to what are now considered quasi-crystals.[25] It was previously thought Islamic design was done with straightedge rulers and compasses, but Lu and Steinhart now argue that the patterns were created by tessellating a small number of different tiles with complex shapes, evolving into what would now be described as quasi-periodic shapes by the fifteenth century.[24] The Swedish Academy, which granted Dan Shechtman theNobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of quasicrystals in molecular structures, stated, "Aperiodic mosaics, such as those found in the medieval Islamic mosaics of the Alhambra Palace in Spain and the Darb-i Imam Shrine in Iran, have helped scientists understand what quasicrystals look like at the atomic level".[25]
In trigonometry, Ibn Muʿādh al-Jayyānī introduced the general Law of sines in his The book of unknown arcs of a sphere in 11th century. This formula relates the lengths of the sides of an arbitrary triangle (not just limited to right triangles) to the sines of its angles Physics
One field in physics, optics, developed rapidly in this period. By the ninth century, there were works on physiological optics as well as mirror reflections, and geometrical and physical optics.[5] In the eleventh century, Ibn al-Haytham not only rejected the Greek idea about vision, he came up with a new theory.[6] He believed that light was reflected upon different surfaces in different directions, thus causing different light signatures for a certain object that we see. It was certainly a different approach than what was previously thought by Greek scientist such as Euclid orAristotle, who believed light was emitted by either our eyes or by the object to our eyes. He explains this in his book "Book of Optics".[7] Ibn al-Haytham, with this new theory of optics, was able to study the geometric aspects of the visual cone theories without explaining the phsysiology of perception Education
Great centers of religious learning were also centers of knowledge and scientific development. Such formal centers began during the Abbasid period (750-1258 A.D.) when thousands of mosque schools were established. In the tenth century Baghdad had some 300 schools. Alexandria in the fourteenth century had 12,000 students. It was in the tenth century that the formal concept of the Madrassah (school) was developed in Baghdad. The Madrassah had a curriculum and full-time and part-time teachers, many of whom were women. Rich and poor alike received free education. From there Maktabat (libraries) were developed and foreign books acquired. The two most famous are Bait al-Hikmah in Baghdad (ca. 820) and Dar al-Ilm in Cairo (ca. 998). Universities such as Al-Azhar (969 A.D.) were also established long before those in Europe.
The Guinness World Records recognizes the University of Al Karaouine, founded in 859, as the world's oldest degree-granting university.