Download Golden Age of Muslim Civilization

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
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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.
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Physicians and pharmacists had to pass tests.
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There were hospitals and physicians who traveled
to rural areas.
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Pharmacists mixed bitter-tasting medicines with
sweet-tasting syrups and gums for the first time.
Muslim
physicians
made great
advances in
medicine.
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.
Arabic physicians could even perform cataract
surgery using hollow needles.