What Do You Know About the Islamic Golden Age?

Known collectively as the Banu Musa brothers, these three sons of a respected astronomer were among the most important scholars at the House of Wisdom. In 850 CE, they published the “Book of Ingenious Devices,” or “Book of Tricks,” which detailed 100 innovations in technologies such as automation, pneumatics, timing systems, robotics, and more.

Based in the Persian city of Isfahan, Abd al Rahman al-Sufi was one of the most important Muslim scientists. He used the work of the ancient Greek mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy to create a new star catalog, “Book of the Fixed Stars,” published around 964 CE. Among his discoveries was what is now known as the Andromeda Galaxy, which wasn’t rediscovered by Western astronomers until the 17th century.

Like Al-Zahrawi, ibn Firnas worked for the Cordoba caliphate and was a musician and poet as well as a scientist. In the mid-ninth century, hundreds of years before the Wright Brothers’ historic flight, he built the first glider, made of silk and feather-wrapped wooden planks. Al-Zahrawi made the first heavier-than-air flight by jumping off a local mosque.

Al-Zahrawi was the court physician to the caliph of Cordoba, in Islamic Andalusian Spain. Around 1000 CE he published a 30-volume guide to surgery called Al-Tasrif, or “The Method.” It included designs for more than 200 surgical instruments and the first descriptions of diseases such as hemophilia. “The Method” remained one of the most influential books in Western medicine for 500 years.

The first vertical-axle windmills appeared in what is now Afghanistan and Iran in the ninth century, and they soon became commonplace around the Muslim world. They were usually two stories tall and had cloth or palm leaf-covered sails to catch wind, which was then converted into energy to produce grain and provide cooling.

A scholar at the House of Wisdom, Al-Khwarizmi wrote one of the first books outlining the principles of algebra, around the year 820 CE. He was also one of the first people to introduce the concept of Arabic numerals — the numbers we use today — to the Western world. This numerical system was first developed around the seventh century by Hindus in India before making its way to Muslim scholars.

Born in Tunisia, Fatima al-Fihri moved to Fez in modern-day Morocco as a child. After inheriting a large fortune from her father and husband, she founded a local mosque around 859 CE, which quickly grew into one of the most important educational organizations in the world. Now known as the University of al-Qarawiyyin, it is the world’s oldest degree-granting educational institute.

Coffee beans were first cultivated in modern-day Yemen and Ethiopia. The drink, known as qahwa, first came into use during the 14th and 15th centuries as a concentration aid for mystic Sufi students, who used it to stay awake during hours-long religious services. Within decades, coffee houses had popped up in several Islamic cities, and the drink made its way to Europe in the 1600s.

Founded by Baghdad’s most famous caliphs, or rulers, in the ninth century, the House of Wisdom was at one time the world’s largest repository of books. Scholars traveled to Baghdad from around the world to study medicine, math, and science. The library inspired others in the Muslim world, including institutes in Cairo, Egypt, and Toledo, Spain. The structure was destroyed by Mongol invaders in the 13th century.

The Islamic Golden Age was a period of great scientific and cultural achievement that lasted from the eighth century to the 14th century CE. Key to this period of learning was the translation of thousands of ancient scholarly texts, primarily written in Greek, into Arabic – known as the Graeco-Arabic translation movement. These texts fueled Islamic advancements in science and philosophy, and preserved knowledge for future generations.