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3. Connections and Interactions

Connections across the Islamic World

by 1200, millions of peoples in very different cultural settings shared common faith and spoke Arabic

Spain and West Africa across Middle East to India and Southeast Asia

Trading zone

vast trading zone of hemispheric dimensions

central location in Afro-Eurasian world

breaking down of earlier political barriers between Byzantine and Persian empires

predicable framework for exchange across many cultures

commerce valued positively within Islamic teaching

laws regulating it were prominent in sharia

pilgrimage to Mecca, urbanization of growth of Islamic civilization also fostered commerce

Baghdad (capital of Abbasid Empire, est. 756)

magnificent city of half million people

urban elites want for luxury goods stimulated craft production and desire for foreign products

became prominent, sometimes dominant players in all major Afro-Eurasian trade routes

Mediterranean Sea

Silk Roads

Sahara

Indian Ocean basin

Arab, Persian traders established commercial colony in southern China

linked Islamic heartland with Asia’s other giant economy

banking partnerships, business contracts, instruments for granting credit facilitated long-distance economic relationships

Ecological change

agricultural products and spices spread from one region to another

food crops circulated:

sugarcane

rice

apricots

artichokes

eggplants

lemons

oranges

almonds

figs bananas

water-management practices

important to arid, semi-arid environments of parts of Islamic world

Persian-style reservoirs, irrigation technologies spread as far as Tunisia, Morocco, northern Sahara, Spain, Yemen

contributed to “Islamic Green Revolution” of increased food production, population growth, urbanization, industrial development

Technology

widely diffused

Muslim technicians improved rockets from China

one carried a small warhead

another was used to attack ships

paper-making entered Abbasid Empire from China (8th)

paper mills soon operated in Persia, Iraq, Egypt

strengthened bureaucratic governments

passed from Middle East into India and Europe

spurred emergence of books and written culture (compared to oral)

Spread of ideas

Islam drew heavily and openly on Jewish, Christian procedures

Persian contributions:

bureaucratic practice

court rituals

poetry

Persian became major literary language in elite circles

scientific, medical, philosophical texts (especially ancient Greek, Hellenistic, Indian) systematically translated into Arabic

enormous boost to Islamic scholarship, science for several centuries

House of Wisdom established in Baghdad by Abbasid caliph al-Mamun in 830

academic center for this research and translation

stimulated by Greek texts

school of Mutazalites (”those who stand apart”, Islamic thinkers)

argued reason, not revelation, was the best way to learn the truth

emphasis on logic, rationality, laws of nature

subject to growing criticism by those who believed only Quran, sayings of Prophet, or mythical experience were genuine paths to God

Contributions to learning

Arab scholars developed algebra

used Indian numerical notation

original work in astronomy and optics

tradition in medicine and pharmacology

built on earlier Greek and Indian practice

Arab physicians (e.g. al-Razi, Ibn Sina) accurately diagnosed many diseases

hay fever

measles

smallpox

diphtheria

rabies

diabetes

treatments emerged from Arab doctors

mercury ointment for scabies

cataract and hernia operations

filling teeth with gold

first hospitals, traveling clinics, examinations

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Contributions to learning

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