In one or two paragraphs, describe at least one example of how the Islamic Golden Age has
affected your life. What skill or knowledge do you most likely have because of the Islamic
Golden Age? Explain why.
Answers
Answer:
The Islamic Golden Age was a period of cultural, economic, and scientific flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 14th century.This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (786 to 809) with the inauguration of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, the world's largest city by then, where Islamic scholars and polymaths from various parts of the world with different cultural backgrounds were mandated to gather and translate all of the world's classical knowledge into Arabic and Persian. Several historic inventions and significant contributions in numerous fields were made throughout the Islamic middle ages that revolutionized human history.
Islamic Golden Age
8th century – 14th century
Islamic Golden Age montage.png
Clockwise from top: Al-Zahrawi, Abbas ibn Firnas, Al-Biruni, Avicenna, Averroes, Ibn al-Nafis, ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, Alhazen, Ibn Khaldun
Preceded by
Rashidun Caliphate
Followed by
Timurid Renaissance, Age of the Islamic Gunpowders
Monarch(s)
Umayyad, Abbasid, Samanid, Fatimid, Ayyubid, Mamluk
Leader(s)
Umar II
Harun al-Rashid
Al-Mutawakkil
Ismail Samani
Almanzor
Mahmud of Ghazni
Saladin Ayyubi
Baibars
Scholars at an Abbasid library, from the Maqamat of al-Hariri by Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti, Baghdad, 1237.
Improvements to the astrolabe were one scientific achievement of the Golden Age.
The period is traditionally said to have ended with the collapse of the Abbasid caliphate due to Mongol invasions and the Siege of Baghdad in 1258.A few scholars date the end of the golden age around 1350 linking with the Timurid Renaissance,while several modern historians and scholars place the end of the Islamic Golden Age as late as the end of 15th to 16th centuries meeting with the Age of the Islamic Gunpowders.(The medieval period of Islam is very similar if not the same, with one source defining it as 900–1300 CE.)