It was the golden age of Islam. It was not the fabulous wealth of the empire or the fairy tales of the Arabian Nights that made it golden; it was the strength of its ideas and its contributions to human thought. As the empire had grown, it had come into contact with ideas from classical Greek, Indian, Zoroastrian, Buddhist and Hindu civilizations. The process of translation and understanding of global ideas was well underway since the time of al Mansur. But it received a quantum boost from Harun and Mamun.
Harun al Rashid was the son of al Mansur and was the fourth in the Abbasid dynasty. Ascending the throne as a young man of twenty-two in the year 786, he immediately faced internal revolts and external invasion. Regional revolts in Africa were crushed, tribal revolts from the Qais and Quzhaa in Egypt were contained and sectarian revolts from the Alavis were controlled. The Byzantines were held at bay and forced to pay tribute. For 23 years he ruled an empire that had welded together a broad arc of the earth extending from China, bordering India and Byzantium through the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean.
Harun established a School of translation Bait ul Hikmah (house of wisdom) and surrounded himself with men of learning. Commenting on the role of Harun in establishing the House of Wisdom, Bozkurt says: “It is known as Bayt al-Hikmah. The idea of building such a grand library came to fruition during Harun Rashid’s term. He started bringing books from across the world for translation. During his son Al Ma’mun’s term, the process went further.” Bayt al-Hikmah served as a bridge between ancient Greek and modern Western philosophy. It collected ancient Greek artefacts from Egyptian, Byzantine, Sassanid and Roman countries and prevented them from disappearing.
His administration was in the hands of viziers of exceptional capabilities, the Bermecides. His courtiers included great doctors, poets, musicians, logicians, mathematicians, writers, scientists, men of culture and scholars of Fiqh. Ibn Hayyan, who invented the science of chemistry, worked at the court of Harun. The scholars who were engaged in the work of translation included Muslims, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and Hindus. From Greece came the works of Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Galen, Hippocratis, Archimedes, Euclid, Ptolemy, Demosthenes and Pythagoras. The Muslims learned from these sources and gave to the world algebra, chemistry, sociology and the concept of infinity.
What gave the Muslims the confidence to face other civilizations was their faith. With a confidence firmly rooted in revelation, the Muslims faced other civilizations, absorbing that which they found valid and transforming it in the image of their own belief. The Qur’an invites men and women to learn from nature, to reflect on the patterns therein, to mold and shape nature so that they may inculcate wisdom. ”We shall show them our Signs on the horizon and within their souls until it is manifest unto them that it is the Truth” (Qur’an, 41:53).
It is during this period that we see the emergence of the archetype of classical Islamic civilization, namely the Hakim (meaning, a person of wisdom). In Islam, a scientist is not a specialist who looks at nature from the outside, but a man of wisdom who looks at nature from within and integrates his knowledge into an essential whole. The quest of the Hakim is not just knowledge for the sake of knowledge but the realization of the essential Unity that pervades creation and the interrelationships that demonstrate the wisdom of God.
It is believed that the House of Wisdom was an intellectually vibrant place that was mainly driven by its cosmopolitanism, something that was "never seen before."
Harun al Rashid was the son of al Mansur and was the fourth in the Abbasid dynasty. Ascending the throne as a young man of twenty-two in the year 786, he immediately faced internal revolts and external invasion. Regional revolts in Africa were crushed, tribal revolts from the Qais and Quzhaa in Egypt were contained and sectarian revolts from the Alavis were controlled. The Byzantines were held at bay and forced to pay tribute. For 23 years he ruled an empire that had welded together a broad arc of the earth extending from China, bordering India and Byzantium through the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean.
Harun established a School of translation Bait ul Hikmah (house of wisdom) and surrounded himself with men of learning. Commenting on the role of Harun in establishing the House of Wisdom, Bozkurt says: “It is known as Bayt al-Hikmah. The idea of building such a grand library came to fruition during Harun Rashid’s term. He started bringing books from across the world for translation. During his son Al Ma’mun’s term, the process went further.” Bayt al-Hikmah served as a bridge between ancient Greek and modern Western philosophy. It collected ancient Greek artefacts from Egyptian, Byzantine, Sassanid and Roman countries and prevented them from disappearing.
His administration was in the hands of viziers of exceptional capabilities, the Bermecides. His courtiers included great doctors, poets, musicians, logicians, mathematicians, writers, scientists, men of culture and scholars of Fiqh. Ibn Hayyan, who invented the science of chemistry, worked at the court of Harun. The scholars who were engaged in the work of translation included Muslims, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and Hindus. From Greece came the works of Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Galen, Hippocratis, Archimedes, Euclid, Ptolemy, Demosthenes and Pythagoras. The Muslims learned from these sources and gave to the world algebra, chemistry, sociology and the concept of infinity.
What gave the Muslims the confidence to face other civilizations was their faith. With a confidence firmly rooted in revelation, the Muslims faced other civilizations, absorbing that which they found valid and transforming it in the image of their own belief. The Qur’an invites men and women to learn from nature, to reflect on the patterns therein, to mold and shape nature so that they may inculcate wisdom. ”We shall show them our Signs on the horizon and within their souls until it is manifest unto them that it is the Truth” (Qur’an, 41:53).
It is during this period that we see the emergence of the archetype of classical Islamic civilization, namely the Hakim (meaning, a person of wisdom). In Islam, a scientist is not a specialist who looks at nature from the outside, but a man of wisdom who looks at nature from within and integrates his knowledge into an essential whole. The quest of the Hakim is not just knowledge for the sake of knowledge but the realization of the essential Unity that pervades creation and the interrelationships that demonstrate the wisdom of God.
It is believed that the House of Wisdom was an intellectually vibrant place that was mainly driven by its cosmopolitanism, something that was "never seen before."
It was the golden age of Islam. It was not the fabulous wealth of the empire or the fairy tales of the Arabian Nights that made it golden; it was the strength of its ideas and its contributions to human thought. As the empire had grown, it had come into contact with ideas from classical Greek, Indian, Zoroastrian, Buddhist and Hindu civilizations. The process of translation and understanding of global ideas was well underway since the time of al Mansur. But it received a quantum boost from Harun and Mamun.
Harun al Rashid was the son of al Mansur and was the fourth in the Abbasid dynasty. Ascending the throne as a young man of twenty-two in the year 786, he immediately faced internal revolts and external invasion. Regional revolts in Africa were crushed, tribal revolts from the Qais and Quzhaa in Egypt were contained and sectarian revolts from the Alavis were controlled. The Byzantines were held at bay and forced to pay tribute. For 23 years he ruled an empire that had welded together a broad arc of the earth extending from China, bordering India and Byzantium through the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean.
Harun established a School of translation Bait ul Hikmah (house of wisdom) and surrounded himself with men of learning. Commenting on the role of Harun in establishing the House of Wisdom, Bozkurt says: “It is known as Bayt al-Hikmah. The idea of building such a grand library came to fruition during Harun Rashid’s term. He started bringing books from across the world for translation. During his son Al Ma’mun’s term, the process went further.” Bayt al-Hikmah served as a bridge between ancient Greek and modern Western philosophy. It collected ancient Greek artefacts from Egyptian, Byzantine, Sassanid and Roman countries and prevented them from disappearing.
His administration was in the hands of viziers of exceptional capabilities, the Bermecides. His courtiers included great doctors, poets, musicians, logicians, mathematicians, writers, scientists, men of culture and scholars of Fiqh. Ibn Hayyan, who invented the science of chemistry, worked at the court of Harun. The scholars who were engaged in the work of translation included Muslims, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and Hindus. From Greece came the works of Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Galen, Hippocratis, Archimedes, Euclid, Ptolemy, Demosthenes and Pythagoras. The Muslims learned from these sources and gave to the world algebra, chemistry, sociology and the concept of infinity.
What gave the Muslims the confidence to face other civilizations was their faith. With a confidence firmly rooted in revelation, the Muslims faced other civilizations, absorbing that which they found valid and transforming it in the image of their own belief. The Qur’an invites men and women to learn from nature, to reflect on the patterns therein, to mold and shape nature so that they may inculcate wisdom. ”We shall show them our Signs on the horizon and within their souls until it is manifest unto them that it is the Truth” (Qur’an, 41:53).
It is during this period that we see the emergence of the archetype of classical Islamic civilization, namely the Hakim (meaning, a person of wisdom). In Islam, a scientist is not a specialist who looks at nature from the outside, but a man of wisdom who looks at nature from within and integrates his knowledge into an essential whole. The quest of the Hakim is not just knowledge for the sake of knowledge but the realization of the essential Unity that pervades creation and the interrelationships that demonstrate the wisdom of God.
It is believed that the House of Wisdom was an intellectually vibrant place that was mainly driven by its cosmopolitanism, something that was "never seen before."
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