Muslims were urged throughout the Quran to seek knowledge. This was a great incentive for reflection and understanding. This Quranic urge meant that all over the Muslim world, advanced subjects were taught in mosques, schools, colleges, hospitals, observatories, and the homes of scholars.
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Feature Stories
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Secret Source: Top Five Fountains in the Gardens of Muslim Civilisation
Blue skies, lush greenery, and brightly-coloured flowers. A garden offers shade, serenity and inspiration whether it’s in the grounds of a luxurious palace or hidden within a modest courtyard. Add the soothing sounds of water gushing from a fountain, and the picture is complete.
Rise of Glass Industry in Golden Age of Muslim Civilisation
From Ibn Al-Haytam’s optical lenses to a mosque lamp of Amir Qawsun, Muslim Civilisation played a major role in inspiring the growth of the glass industry. Mosques, houses and cities were transformed into centres of rich decoration with glass. Muslim Civilisation turned a craft into an industry, employing large numbers of workers.
Rediscovering a Lost History – Radio Interview with Glen Cooper
Professor Glen Cooper discusses the Golden Age of Muslim Civilisation. During the European Dark Ages, when science, art and literature seemed to flounder for centuries, there actually was a lot of discover in places like Iraq, Persia and Syria. Professor Cooper explains how science of medicine, mathematics and astronomy flourished.
Piri Reis’ Map: A Map to Intrigue East and West Alike
In 1929, scholars working in Turkey’s Topkapi Palace Museum discovered a section of an early 16th-century Turkish world map. It was signed by a captain named Piri ibn Hajji Mohammed Reis (meaning “admiral”), and it was dated 1513. Now known as the famous “Map of America,” it was made only 21 years after Christopher Columbus had reached the New World...
On the Coffee Trail
Coffee is a global industry and the second-largest commodity-based product; only oil beats it.
Master Navigators From Muslim Civilisation
A time when Muslim merchants could travel virtually unobstructed from Morocco to Southeast Asia, and navigators from Ming China could boast of enormous naval expeditions reaching as far west as Hormuz, Aden, and Mombasa, Western Europeans remained almost totally confined, both physically and intellectually, to a small slice of the world...
Map Making in Muslim Civilisation: The first map to show Europe, Asia, and North Africa
A thousand years ago, accurate plans of countries, continents, and waterways were unknown. But as more people began to travel the world for trade, exploration, and religious reasons, the demand for good maps increased. Some of the world’s most precious maps were drawn by great scholars of Muslim civilization, who assembled all the geographical knowledge available to them...
Major Works on Nature and the Environment from a Thousand Years Ago
The World Environment Day, celebrated annually since 1972, has grown to become one of the main vehicles through which the United Nations stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and encourages political attention and action.
Major Works on Herbal Medicine from a Thousand Years Ago
As the Muslim lands grew, merchants, scholars, and travellers came across exotic plants, trees, seeds, and spices previously unknown to them. They collected and brought back a huge number of samples of raw ingredients, along with knowledge and information about their use, combing the world and its harshest of environments, going as far afield as the steppes of Asia and the Pyrenees...
Lunar Formations and Astronomers from Muslim Civilisation
In 1651, Joannes Baptista Riccioli, a Jesuit professor of astronomy and philosophy in Bologna, Italy, compiled a comprehensive work on astronomy, called Almagestum Novum, with a complete map of the Moon. He named the lunar formations after distinguished astronomers of the Middle Ages. Ten were given the names of Muslim astronomers and mathematicians...
Keep your distance – health lessons from the history of pandemics
From a simple cold to a serious illness, humans have always lived with the risk of catching diseases from one another. Pandemics affecting millions are fortunately rare, but the bubonic plague of the 14th century and the 1918 influenza outbreak have left a dark shadow on history.
