Geography

Timeline

The Abbasid Khilafah


752 CE, 134 A.H Beginning of Abbasid Khilafah.

755 CE, 137 A.H Revolt of Abdullah bin Ali. Murder of Abu Muslim.

756, 138 A.H Abdul Rahman founds the Umayyad state in Spain.

763 CE, 145 A.H Foundation of Baghdad. Defeat of the Abbasids in Spain.

767 CE, 150 A.H Khariji state set up by Ibn Madrar at Sijilmasa.

786 CE, 169 A.H Haroon Rashid becomes Khalifah.

792 CE, 175 A.H Invasion of South France.

800 CE, 184 A.H Scientific method is developed. Algebra is invented by Al-Khawarizmi.

805 CE, 189 A.H Campaigns against the Byzantines. Capture of the islands of Rhodes and Cypress.

809 CE, 193 A.H Death of Haroon Ar-Rashid. Accession of Amin.

814 CE, 198 A.H Civil war between Amin and Mamun. Amin killed and Mamun becomes the Khalifah. Bayt-ul-Hikmat is founded in his time.

900 CE, 287 A.H Pendulum developed by Yunus Al-Masri.

976 CE, 365 A.H Muhammad bin Ahmad introduces the number Zero.

1000 CE, 390 A.H Al-Haytham discovers that white light consists of various rays of colored light. The building of the Great Mosque of Cordoba is completed.

1005 CE, 395 A.H Mahmood Ghaznavi captures Multan and Ghur.

1055 CE, 447 A.H Baghdad is conquered by the Seljuk Turks. Abbasid-Seljuk rule starts, which lasts until 1258 when Mongols destroy Baghdad.

1085 CE, 477 A.H Christians get Toledo (in Spain).

1091 CE, 484 A.H Normans capture Sicily, ending Muslim rule there.

1095 CE, 488 A.H The first crusade takes place.

1099 CE, 492 A.H Crusaders capture Jerusalem. They mercilessly slaughter everyone inside its walls.

1100 CE, 493 A.H Muslims introduce negative numbers.

1144 CE, 538 A.H Imam-ud Din captures Edessa from Christians. Second crusade takes place.

1187 CE, 583 A.H Salahuddin captures Jerusalem from Christians in the most peaceful way possible. Third crusade takes place in which Christians only get Acre after months of bloodshed.

1194 CE, 590 A.H Muslims occupy Delhi, India.

1236 CE, 633 A.H Christians conquer Cordoba (in Spain).

1258 CE, 656 A.H Mongols sack Baghdad. Thousands of people killed and great libraries burned. Fall of Baghdad. End of Abbasid rule

Stephen George

Islamic Golden Age

During the Abbasid Period:
*They held to a Qur'anic hadith that "the ink of scientists is more holy than the blood of martyrs."
*The muslim world became a melting pot of culture and they began the process of collecting and advancing knowledge from around the world which included Roman, Chinease, Indian, Persian, Greek, and Egyption influences.
*The Calisphates established a "House of wisdom" in Baghdad, which became the intellectul center of science, philosophy, medicine and education.
*Muslim and non-muslims were attempting to gather all of the worlds knowledge and transfer it into Arabic.
Last of all in the area of Science the Calisphate recovered much of the ideas of Alexandrian Mathmatics, geometric and astonomical knowledge and enhanced these ideas with Arab scholars.
The advances of math, astronomy, knowledge, Philosophy, and literature in this period is why its called the Golden age of Islam.



Algebra was pioneered by Persian scientist Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, from a text called, "Kitab al-jabr wal- mugabala," and this is where the term Algebra came from. Muhammad Khwarizimi is considered the father of Algebra because he introduced all sorts of new mathmatical concepts he created:
Algorisms, algorythms, Arabic numerals, and the Hindu-Arabic numeral system.
Medicine advances:
Over 800 doctors in the Arab World
understanding of anatomy and diseases
the diffrence between Measles and small pox was discovered
and many authors produced medical encyclopedias that influenced many later Wetern European cultures during the Rennisance period.

Matthew Morton

The great wealth made the Abbasids able to support learning and arts. Muslims believed long before Columbus's time that the earth was round. They invented algebra. They wrote the first accurate descriptions of measles and smallpox. They had clean hospitals. They built the Bayt-al-Hikmah (House of Wisdom) in which scholars from different lands came and studied. It served as a museum, library, translation office, school, and meeting center. Books about mathematics, meteorology, optics, mechanics, astronomy, philosophy, medicine, etc. were translated into Arabic from Hebrew, Greek, Persian, Syriac, and other languages. Al-Razi, Ibn Sina, Al-Biruni, and Al-Khwarizmi were some of the famous scholars of that time. Muslims collected writings of the schools of Alexandria and the best philosophical works of ancient Greek. There were special departments under qualified professors for promotion and prosecution of special branches of study. Astronomical observations were made in Mamun's reign. Among these equinoxes, eclipses, the apparitions of comets and other celestial bodies was most important. The size of the earth was calculated from the measurement of a degree on the shores of the Red Sea. At this time, Europe was asserting the flatness of the earth. Abul Hassan invented the telescope. The telescope was improved and used in the observatories of Maragha and Cairo with great success. The first observatory of Islam was made in Mamun's reign at Shamassia on the plains of Tadmur. Afterwards several more were created.

Stephen George

Baghdad became the new capital of the Caliphate under the Abbasid's and thus became the intellectual capital as well.
*Astronomical observitories in Baghdad included one at the famous "House of Wisdom" and the second in the Shammasiya section of the Tigris river.
*Astronomer al-khwarizmi (850) is the father of the Algorythm which the name comes from his name.

Mamun-
The Abbasid Caliph responsible for creating the "House of Wisdom" in Baghdad that become a science, astronomy, philosophy, religous and cultural center of the Arab world.
*He was also responsible for the translation of greek words into arabic and this allowed an influx of new information gathered from the hellenistic, roman, european, chinease, and Byzantine civilizations to be translated as well.

The diffrent technologies that were founded under the Abbasid Caliphate:
1) Paper Making: the muslim's advanced the Chinease paper making technology and developed paper and pulp mills as well as saw mills.
2) Industrial advances: Hydro power, wind power, and fossil fuels such as petroleum.
3) Pharmaceuticals, astronomical instraments, glass, clocks, agra-business advances such as the windmill, and the mining of lead, sulfer, and iron.

Matthew Morton

Pre-Islamic tales of poetry were very popular in the Abbasid kingdom and poets from all over gathered in Baghdad to write new epic tales of their ancestors.
These poets included:
Bashar ibn Burd- an erotic poet of sorts
Abbas ibn Ahnaf- wrote "Power of Love" to debase lewd poetry.
Abu Nuwas- The greatest bacchic poet and had an infatuation with love, scandal, and blasphemies.



The most well known book from the Abbasid period was, "The book of 1001 Nights. (Arabian Nights) This book was a collection of Arabian folk tales and includes such famous characters as Aladdin, Ali Baba, and Sinbad the Sailor. Stories from the arabian nights book have been included in film, book form, television, and video games.
For example, the early 1990's Aladdan films and 1001 Rabbit tales of Looney toons fame are loosley based upon the Arabian Nights tales of Aladdin and Ali-Baba.




1001 Nights tales include:
Aladdin and the wonderful lamp
The seven voyages of sinbad the sailor
Ali-baba and the fourty thieves: famous for the words "Open simsim" or also translated as open sesame.
The fisherman and the jenni
1001 Nights
The Angel of death with the proud and the devout man
Story of Larrikin and the cook
The sleeper and the walker
The Three Calanders tales,
and many more...

Matthew Morton

Architecture

During this period, a distinctive style emerged and new techniques were developed that spread throughout the Muslim realm and greatly influenced Islamic art and architecture. In Samarra’, a new way of carving surfaces, the so-called beveled style, as well as a repetition of abstract geometric or pseudo-vegetal forms, later to be known in the West as "arabesque," were widely used as wall decoration and became popular in other media such as wood, metalwork, and pottery.In pottery, Samarra’ also witnessed an extensive use of color in decoration and, possibly, the introduction of the technique of luster painting over a white glaze. Admired for its glittering effect reminiscent of precious metal, luster painting, the most notable technical achievement at the time, spread in the following centuries from Iraq to Egypt, Syria, Iran, and Spain and eventually also contributed to the development of ceramic decoration in the Western world.Following the capture of Baghdad by the Buyids (932–1062) and Seljuqs (1040–1194) in 945 and 1055, cAbbasid caliphs retained little more than moral and spiritual influence as the heads of Orthodox Sunni Islam. The cAbbasid realm witnessed a brief revival under caliphs al-Nasir (r. 1180–1225) and al-Mustansir (r. 1226–42), when Baghdad once again became the greatest center for the arts of the book in the Islamic world and the Mustansiriyya Madrasa (1228–33), the first college for the four canonical schools of Sunni law, was built. However, this burst of artistic vitality came to a temporary halt with the sack of Baghdad by the Ilkhanid branch of the Mongols in 1258.

Stephen George