Golden Age of Muslim Civilization

Ch.10 Sect. 3

Islam Society and Economy

• Cultures include Arab, Persian, Egyptian, African, European, Mongol, Turks, Indians, and SE Asian

• Muslim society absorbed and blended many cultures

Social Classes

• Enjoy social mobility• Religious, scholarly, or military achievements• Slavery common from conquered people• Muslims couldn’t be slaves and converts

didn’t earn freedom right away but children did.

• Islamic law encouraged freeing of slaves

International Trade Network

• Merchants honored in Muslim world• 750-1350 they built a vast trade network that

spread Islam as well• Camel caravans were the “ships of the desert”

• Traveled Silk Road and monsoon winds took them to India as well

• Set up partnerships, bought and sold on credit, formed banks to change currency

• Developed first checks, Arabic word sakk• Branches in all major cities

Manufacturing

• Organized by guilds• Authority to regulate prices, weights and

measures, methods of production, and quality of product being produced

• Work done by wage workers

Agriculture• Produced sugar cane, cotton, dyes, medicinal herbs,

fruits, vegetables, and flowers• Desert everywhere so scarcity of water• Massive irrigation projects and drained swamplands

between Tigris and Euphrates

Art and Literature

• Scholars studied Quran and produced own works interpreting its meaning

Design• Quran banned worship of idols or portraying God

or human figures• Walls and ceilings decorated with abstract and

geometric patterns called arabesque

Architecture• Used domes of Byzantine buildings• Domed mosques and high minarets dominated

Muslim cities

Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem

Poetry• Passed down orally• Important themes were chivalry and romance of

nomadic life• Influenced medieval European literature and music

• Firdawsi (fihr dow see)- masterpiece Shah Namah or Book of Kings tells story of history of Persia

• Omar Khayyam (ki yahm)- scholar and astronomer wrote The Rubaiyaat (Roo bi yaht)

Tales• Art of story telling• The Thousand and One Nights• Many of these stories set in

Baghdad of Huran al-Rashid• Aladdin and His Magic Lamp• Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

Arab scholars made many mathematical advances.

Arab mathematicians developed what became our modern number system.

The study of algebra was pioneered by al-Khwarizmi in the 800s.

Building on the work of the Greeks, Muslims greatly advanced medicine and public health.

• Physicians and pharmacists had to pass tests.

• There were hospitals and physicians who traveled to rural areas.

• Pharmacists mixed bitter-tasting medicines with sweet-tasting syrups and gums for the first time.

Muhammad al-Razi studied measles and smallpox. He also stressed the need to treat the mind as well as the body.

Ibn Sina compiled a huge encyclopedia of all known medical knowledge called the Canon on Medicine.

Muslim physicians made great advances in medicine.

Arabic physicians could even perform cataract surgery using hollow needles.