Throughout history, Muslim cultures have been diverse ethnically, linguistically and regionally. According to
M. M. Knight, this diversity includes diversity in beliefs, interpretations and practices and communities and interests. Knight says perception of Muslim world among non-Muslims is usually supported through introductory literature about Islam, mostly present a version as per scriptural view which would include some
prescriptive literature and abstracts of history as per authors own point of views, to which even many Muslims might agree, but that necessarily would not reflect Islam as lived on the ground, 'in the experience of real human bodies'.
Classical culture File:Mahmud in robe from the caliph.jpg|Sultan
Mahmud of Ghazni receiving a richly decorated robe of honor from the caliph
al-Qadir in 1000. Miniature from the Rashid al-Din's
Jami' al-tawarikh File:1541-Battle in the war between Shah Isma'il and the King of Shirvan-Shahnama-i-Isma'il.jpg|
Battle between
Ismail of the
Safaviyya and the ruler of
Shirvan,
Farrukh Yassar File:Shah Abbas I and Vali Muhammad Khan.jpg|
Shah of
Safavid Empire Abbas I meet with
Vali Muhammad Khan. File:Mir Sayyid Ali - Portrait of a Young Indian Scholar.jpg|Mir Sayyid Ali, a scholar writing a commentary on the
Quran, during the reign of the
Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan File:Ottoman Dynasty, Portrait of a Painter, Reign of Mehmet II (1444-1481).jpg|Portrait of a painter during the reign of
Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II File:6 Dust Muhammad. Portrait of Shah Abu'l Ma‘ali. ca. 1556 Aga Khan Collection.jpg|A
Persian miniature of
Shah Abu'l Ma‘ali, a scholar File:DiezAlbumsStudyingTheKoran.jpg|
Ilkhanate Empire ruler,
Ghazan, studying the
Quran File:Laila and Majnun in School, New-York.jpg|
Layla and Majnun studying together, from a
Persian miniature painting The term "
Islamic Golden Age" has been attributed to a period in history during which
science, economic development and cultural works in most of the Muslim-dominated world flourished. The age is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign of the
Abbasid caliph
Harun al-Rashid (786–809) with the inauguration of the
House of Wisdom in
Baghdad, where scholars from various parts of the world sought to translate and gather all the known world's knowledge into Arabic, and to have ended with the collapse of the Abbasid caliphate due to
Mongol invasions and the
Siege of Baghdad in 1258. The Abbasids were influenced by the Quranic injunctions and hadiths, such as "the ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr," that stressed the value of knowledge. The major Islamic capital cities of Baghdad,
Cairo, and
Córdoba became the main intellectual centers for science, philosophy, medicine, and education. During this period, the Muslim world was a collection of cultures; they drew together and advanced the knowledge gained from the ancient
Greek,
Roman,
Persian,
Chinese,
Vedic,
Egyptian, and
Phoenician civilizations.
Ceramics , nearly complete
shatranj (
chess) set, glazed
fritware, 12th century Between the 8th and 18th centuries, the use of
ceramic glaze was prevalent in Islamic art, usually assuming the form of elaborate
pottery.
Tin-opacified glazing was one of the earliest new technologies developed by the Islamic potters. The first Islamic opaque glazes can be found as blue-painted ware in
Basra, dating to around the 8th century. Another contribution was the development of
fritware, originating from 9th-century Iraq. Other centers for innovative ceramic pottery in the Old world included
Fustat (from 975 to 1075),
Damascus (from 1100 to around 1600) and
Tabriz (from 1470 to 1550).
Literature File:Brooklyn Museum - Manuscript of the Hadiqat al-Su`ada (Garden of the Blessed) of Fuzuli - Muhammad bin Sulayman known as Fuzuli2.jpg|
Hadiqatus-suada by
Oghuz Turkic poet
Fuzûlî File:Princess Parizade Bringing Home the Singing Tree.jpg|The story of
Princess Parizade and the
Magic Tree File:Cassim (cropped).jpg|
Cassim in the Cave by
Maxfield Parrish File:Vasnetsov samolet.jpg|The
Magic carpet The best known work of fiction from the Islamic world is
One Thousand and One Nights, a compilation of
folk tales from
Sanskrit, Persian, and later Arabian
fables. The concept had been influenced by a pre-Islamic Persian prototype
Hezār Afsān (Thousand Fables) that relied on particular
Indian elements. It reached its final form by the 14th century; the number and type of tales have varied from one manuscript to another. This work has been very influential in the West since it was translated in the 18th century, first by
Antoine Galland. Imitations were written, especially in France. Various characters from this epic have themselves become
cultural icons in
Western culture, such as
Aladdin,
Sinbad the Sailor and
Ali Baba. An example of
Arabic poetry and
Persian poetry on
romance is
Layla and Majnun, dating back to the Umayyad era in the 7th century. It is a
tragic story of undying love.
Ferdowsi's
Shahnameh, the national epic of
Greater Iran, is a mythical and heroic retelling of
Persian history.
Amir Arsalan was also a popular mythical Persian story.
Ibn Tufayl (Abubacer) and
Ibn al-Nafis were pioneers of the
philosophical novel. Ibn Tufail wrote the first Arabic novel
Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (
Philosophus Autodidactus) as a response to
Al-Ghazali's
The Incoherence of the Philosophers, and then Ibn al-Nafis also wrote a novel
Theologus Autodidactus as a response to Ibn Tufail's
Philosophus Autodidactus. Both of these narratives had
protagonists (Hayy in
Philosophus Autodidactus and Kamil in
Theologus Autodidactus) who were
autodidactic feral children living in seclusion on a
desert island, both being the earliest examples of a desert island story. However, while Hayy lives alone with animals on the desert island for the rest of the story in
Philosophus Autodidactus, the story of Kamil extends beyond the desert island setting in
Theologus Autodidactus, developing into the earliest known
coming of age plot and eventually becoming the first example of a science fiction novel.
Theologus Autodidactus, written by the
Arabian polymath Ibn al-Nafis (1213–1288), deals with various science fiction elements such as
spontaneous generation,
futurology, the
end of the world and doomsday,
resurrection, and the
afterlife. Rather than giving supernatural or mythological explanations for these events, Ibn al-Nafis attempted to explain these plot elements using the
scientific knowledge of
biology,
astronomy,
cosmology and
geology known in his time. Ibn al-Nafis' fiction explained Islamic religious teachings via science and
Islamic philosophy. Translations of Ibn Tufail's
Philosophus Autodidactus appeared in Latin (1671), English (1708), German, and Dutch. These European-language translations may have later inspired
Daniel Defoe's
Robinson Crusoe and
Robert Boyle's
The Aspiring Naturalist. Islamic philosophy, in this definition is neither necessarily concerned with religious issues, nor is exclusively produced by Muslims. Another figure from the
Islamic Golden Age, Avicenna, also founded his own Avicennism school of philosophy, which was influential in both Islamic and Christian lands. Yet another influential philosopher who had an influence on
modern philosophy was
Ibn Tufail. His philosophical novel,
Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, translated into Latin as
Philosophus Autodidactus in 1671, developed the themes of empiricism, tabula rasa,
nature versus nurture,
condition of possibility,
materialism, and
Molyneux's problem. European scholars and writers influenced by this novel include
John Locke,
Gottfried Leibniz,
Melchisédech Thévenot,
John Wallis,
Christiaan Huygens,
George Keith,
Robert Barclay, the
Quakers, and
Samuel Hartlib. Islamic philosophers continued making advances in philosophy through to the 17th century, when
Mulla Sadra founded his school of
Transcendent theosophy and developed the concept of
existentialism. Other influential Muslim philosophers include
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), a pioneer of
phenomenology and the
philosophy of science and a critic of
Aristotelian natural philosophy and Aristotle's concept of
place (topos);
Al-Biruni, a critic of Aristotelian natural philosophy; Ibn al-Nafis, a pioneer of the philosophical novel;
Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi, founder of
Illuminationist philosophy;
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, a critic of Aristotelian logic and a pioneer of
inductive logic; and
Ibn Khaldun, a pioneer in the
philosophy of history.
Sciences Ibn al-Haytham is also regarded as the father of optics, especially for his empirical proof of the
intromission theory of light.
Jim Al-Khalili stated in 2009 that Ibn al-Haytham is 'often referred to as the "world's first true scientist".'
al-Khwarzimi's invented the log base systems that are being used today, he also contributed theorems in trigonometry as well as limits. Recent studies show that it is very likely that the Medieval Muslim artists were aware of advanced
decagonal
quasicrystal geometry (discovered half a millennium later in the 1970s and 1980s in the West) and used it in intricate decorative tilework in the architecture. Muslim physicians contributed to the field of medicine, including the subjects of
anatomy and
physiology: such as in the 15th-century Persian work by
Mansur ibn Muhammad ibn al-Faqih Ilyas entitled
Tashrih al-badan (
Anatomy of the body) which contained comprehensive diagrams of the body's structural,
nervous and
circulatory systems; or in the work of the Egyptian physician Ibn al-Nafis, who proposed the theory of
pulmonary circulation.
Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (also known as
Abulcasis) contributed to the discipline of medical surgery with his
Kitab al-Tasrif ("Book of Concessions"), a medical encyclopedia which was later translated to Latin and used in European and Muslim medical schools for centuries. Other medical advancements came in the fields of
pharmacology and
pharmacy. Some most famous scientists from the medieval Islamic world include
Jābir ibn Hayyān,
al-Farabi,
Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi,
Ibn al-Haytham,
Al-Biruni,
Avicenna,
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, and
Ibn Khaldun.
Technology is believed to have been invented in the medieval era (of what is now the
Greater Middle East), it is considered to be an important device that contributed greatly to the advancement of the
Industrial Revolution. (Scene from
Al-Maqamat, painted by
al-Wasiti 1237) In technology, the Muslim world adopted
papermaking from China. Advances were made in
irrigation and farming, using new technology such as the
windmill. Crops such as
almonds and
citrus fruit were brought to Europe through
al-Andalus, and sugar cultivation was gradually adopted by the Europeans. Arab merchants dominated trade in the Indian Ocean until the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th century.
Hormuz was an important center for this trade. There was also a dense network of
trade routes in the
Mediterranean, along which Muslim-majority countries traded with each other and with European powers such as
Venice,
Genoa and
Catalonia (see also:
Indo-Mediterranean). The
Silk Road crossing Central Asia passed through Islamic states between China and Europe. The emergence of major economic empires with technological resources after the conquests of
Timur (Tamerlane) and the resurgence of the
Timurid Renaissance include the
Mali Empire and the
Bengal Sultanate in particular, a major global trading nation in the world, described by the Europeans to be the "richest country to trade with". Muslim engineers in the Islamic world made a number of innovative industrial uses of
hydropower, and early industrial uses of
tidal power and
wind power. The industrial uses of
watermills in the Islamic world date back to the 7th century, while horizontal-
wheeled and vertical-wheeled water mills were both in widespread use since at least the 9th century. A variety of industrial mills were being employed in the Islamic world, including early
fulling mills,
gristmills,
paper mills,
hullers,
sawmills,
ship mills,
stamp mills,
steel mills,
sugar mills,
tide mills and windmills. By the 11th century, every province throughout the Islamic world had these industrial mills in operation, from al-Andalus and North Africa to the Middle East and Central Asia. Muslim engineers also invented
crankshafts and
water turbines, employed
gears in mills and water-raising machines, and pioneered the use of dams as a source of water power, used to provide additional power to watermills and water-raising machines. Such advances made it possible for industrial tasks that were previously driven by
manual labour in
ancient times to be
mechanized and driven by machinery instead in the medieval Islamic world. The transfer of these technologies to medieval Europe had an influence on the
Industrial Revolution, particularly from the
proto-industrialised Mughal Bengal and
Tipu Sultan's Kingdom, through the conquests of the
East India Company.
Arts The term "
Islamic art and
architecture" denotes the works of art and architecture produced from the 7th century onwards by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by culturally Islamic populations.
Architecture Aniconism No Islamic visual images or depictions of
God are meant to exist because it is believed that such artistic depictions may lead to
idolatry. Muslims describe God by the
names and attributes that, according to Islam, he revealed to his creation. All but one
sura of the Quran begins with the phrase "
In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful". Images of Mohammed are likewise prohibited. Such
aniconism and
iconoclasm can also be found in Jewish and some Christian theology.
Arabesque Islamic art frequently adopts the use of geometrical floral or vegetal designs in a repetition known as
arabesque. Such designs are highly nonrepresentational, as Islam forbids representational depictions as found in
pre-Islamic pagan religions. Despite this, there is a presence of depictional art in some Muslim societies, notably the
miniature style made famous in
Persia and under the
Ottoman Empire which featured paintings of people and animals, and also depictions of Quranic stories and Islamic traditional narratives. Another reason why Islamic art is usually abstract is to symbolize the transcendence, indivisible and infinite nature of God, an objective achieved by arabesque.
Islamic calligraphy is an omnipresent decoration in Islamic art, and is usually expressed in the form of Quranic verses. Two of the main scripts involved are the symbolic
kufic and
naskh scripts, which can be found adorning the walls and domes of mosques, the sides of
minbars, and so on. The role of domes in Islamic architecture has been considerable. Its usage spans centuries, first appearing in 691 with the construction of the
Dome of the Rock mosque, and recurring even up until the 17th century with the
Taj Mahal. And as late as the 19th century, Islamic domes had been incorporated into European architecture. File:Interlaced-Triangles quasi-Arabesque Brunnian-link.svg|Example of an Arabesque File:Brunnian-link-12crossings-nonBorromean-quasi-Arabesque.svg|Example of an Arabesque File:Interlaced-Triangles Brunnian-link alternate.svg|Example of an Arabesque
Girih File:Girih tiles.svg|
Girih tiles File:Darbeimam subdivision rule.svg|The subdivision rule used to generate the
Girih pattern on the spandrel File:Girih compass straightedge example.svg|
Girih pattern that can be drawn with
compass and straight edge Islamic calligraphy File:Kufic Quran, sura 7, verses 86-87.jpg|Kufic script from
an early Qur'an manuscript, 7th century (Surah 7: 86–87) File:Bismillah.svg|
Bismallah calligraphy File:Seven sleepers islam.jpg|Islamic calligraphy represented for
amulet of sailors in the
Ottoman Empire File:Shiite Calligraphy symbolising Ali as Tiger of God.svg|Islamic calligraphy praising
Ali File:Planets by ibrahimabutouq.jpg|Modern Islamic calligraphy representing various
planets
Calendar Two calendars are used all over the Muslim world. One is the
lunar calendar that is most widely used among Muslims and known in the West as the "
Islamic calendar". The other one is a
solar calendar officially used in
Iran. Both measure time in the
Hijri era: the lunar calendar counts
lunar years (of twelve
lunar months) and the solar calendar counts
solar years.
Islamic lunar calendar Solar Hijri calendar == Women ==