What was the Golden Age of Islam?

Welcome to History's Not Boring by Kidopoly.com. I'm Mira. And I'm Finn! Before we dive in today, we have some huge shout-outs. First, a big hello to Ollie, who is six, and travelling the world in a van with his family and his little sister, Luna.

Whoa, a van travelling the whole world? That is so cool!

Ollie asked to learn about Muslim history and culture because they are heading to Egypt soon. And we also want to say a huge happy sixth birthday to Charlie in North Carolina.

Happy birthday, Charlie! And a very happy seventh birthday on Halloween to Elizabeth in Huntersville, North Carolina, who is listening with her brother Anderson.

Happy birthday, Elizabeth! If you haven't already, tap follow wherever you're listening so you never miss an episode.

So since Ollie and Luna are going to Egypt, what are we talking about today?

We are travelling back in time to the Golden Age of Islam. And Finn, what if I told you that a thousand years ago, while much of Europe was struggling just to read and write, one city in the Middle East had over a million people. A million people?

In one city a thousand years ago?

Yep, and they built a library in Spain with 400,000 handwritten books and invented actual robots.

Wait, robots in the Middle Ages? No way.

We are talking about a time period roughly between the year 790 and 1258. It's known as the Islamic Golden Age.

Where exactly did this happen? Was it just in Egypt, where Ollie and Luna are going?

It actually stretched across a huge part of the world. From Spain and Europe all the way across North Africa, the Middle East, and into Asia. But the heart of it started in a brand new city called Baghdad, in modern day Iraq. The one with a million people. Exactly! In the year 762, the Abbasid Caliph named Al-Mansur decided to build a new capital, and he built it as a perfect giant circle, about a mile and a half across.

A completely round city? That sounds like something from a sci-fi movie.

It had massive defensive walls, beautiful parks, and in the middle, something incredible. In the late 8th century, they created the House of Wisdom. The House of Wisdom? Was that like a giant school? It was a massive academy, a library, and a translation centre all rolled into one. The rulers, called caliphs, believed that knowledge was the most valuable thing in the world, so they wanted to gather all of it in one place.

But people all over the world spoke different languages. How did they read it all?

They paid hundreds of scholars to translate ancient texts from Greek, Persian, and Indian into Arabic. It is said that some caliphs even paid the best translators the weight of the book in pure gold. Pure gold?

I'd be writing the heaviest, thickest books ever.

unknown Ha ha!

I bet you would. Because of this massive effort, they saved the writings of ancient Greek philosophers and mathematicians that might have been completely lost to history. Because they gathered all this knowledge, Baghdad became a magnet for the smartest people on Earth. Like a famous mathematician named Al-Khwarizmi, who lived around the year 800.

Al-Khwarismi? Wait, did he invent something I use today?

He wrote a groundbreaking book called Al-Jabad, which taught a brand new way to solve complicated math problems. Today we call it algebra.

Oh man, so he's the reason we have to find the letter X in math class.

Yes, but he also did something even more important. He travelled and studied and helped introduce the Hindu Arabic numeral system to the rest of the world. You know, the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Wait, didn't people already have those numbers? Nope. In Europe, they were still using Roman numerals.

Imagine trying to do long division with an X, a V and an I.

That sounds like a total nightmare. I would fail math immediately. Exactly.

Al Qarismi's work made complex math so much easier. In fact, his name translated into Latin was Algorithmi, which is where we get the word algorithm.

Whoa! So every computer today uses a word named after a guy from Baghdad a thousand years ago.

Yep, and they didn't just study math on paper. Astronomers built massive observatories to map the night sky with incredible precision. Did they have huge telescopes back then? No telescopes yet, but they perfected a brass navigation device called an astrolabe to measure the stars. They mapped them so well that today many of the brightest stars in the sky, like Betelgeuse, Aldibaran, and Rigel, still have the Arabic names they gave them.

That is so cool. They literally wrote their names in the stars for us to see a thousand years later.

But they didn't just look up at the sky, they looked at the human body too. In the year 872, a massive hospital was built in Cairo, Egypt, called the Ahmad ibn Tulun Hospital.

Uh-oh. Hospitals back then? Let me guess, they used leeches and unwashed sores and gross stuff.

Actually, these were the first proper modern hospitals, called Bimaristans. They had separate wards for different diseases, so germs wouldn't spread. And real pharmacies that gave out measured medicine.

Wait, really? That sounds surprisingly normal and clean. It was!

The hospitals were completely free for anyone who needed them, rich or poor. They even had running water and hired live musicians to play relaxing music in the halls for the patients to help them heal.

Free healthcare and live music. That's amazing! But wait, earlier you mentioned robots. You promised me robots.

Yes. Enter a genius engineer named Al Jazari. In the year 1206, he wrote the Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices. What kind of devices are we talking about? Like simple gears? Way more than that. He built a gigantic water clock shaped like a life-sized Indian elephant. Every hour, a mechanical bird would chirp, a metal Chinese dragon would move, and a mechanical man would strike a cymbal.

A giant mechanical elephant clock? That is insane.

But that's not all. He built a physical wooden boat that floated on a lake to entertain guests at royal parties. On the boat were four mechanical robot musicians that actually played real music.

A robot band! A thousand years ago! How did they even do that without electricity?

Flowing water powered a spinning drum with wooden pegs on it, which bumped into little levers to make the robot drummers play different rhythms. By moving the pegs, you could change the song. It was the first programmable drum machine in history.

I can't believe they had programmable robots and free hospitals, while most of Europe was just trying to survive the dark ages.

It really was an incredible era, and it wasn't just in the Middle East. Over in Spain, in a region they called Al Andalus, the city of Cordoba was a shining jewel of the world.

What was so special about Cordoba? Was it as big as Baghdad?

It was huge! By the 10th century, the streets were completely paved, and they even had streetlights at night. And remember that library I mentioned in the beginning? Oh yeah, the one with 400,000 books. Exactly. The Caliph of Cordoba sent agents all over the world to buy the rarest books. Just the catalogue that listed the book titles took up 44 entire volumes.

At a time when the biggest libraries in Christian Europe had maybe a few hundred books.

Just the list of books was 44 books long. That is mind-blowing.

Yep. And they built incredible buildings, like the Great Mosque of Cordoba, with its famous red and white striped horseshoe arches. All the intricately carved stone domes of Cairo and the towering domes of Samakand, covered in thousands of brilliant shining blue tiles.

So what happened to all of this? Why did the Golden Age come to an end?

In the year 1258, an army of Mongols from Asia invaded and completely destroyed Baghdad, including the magnificent House of Wisdom. They threw so many handwritten books into the Tigris River that people said the water turned black from the ink.

That is absolutely tragic. All that knowledge and history just washed away.

It was a terrible loss. But thankfully, the knowledge wasn't completely erased. Because the Islamic world stretched so far, copies of those precious books survived in places like Spain and Egypt. When Europe finally started the Renaissance, they learned from those very books. Phew! Good thing they made backup copies.

And here's a weird fun fact. To make bad-tasting medicine easier for kids to swallow, Islamic doctors in the hospitals figured out how to coat pills in a hard shell of sugar, so they practically invented medicinal candy.

Yes, I knew there was a reason I like these guys. Alright, Finn, quiz time! Okay, I'm ready.

First question. What city was built in a perfect circle and had a million people? Next one. What was the name of the great academy in Baghdad that collected the world's knowledge? Question three. Which mathematician gave us the word algorithm and helped spread the numbers zero to nine? Here's number four.

What kind of animal was the centrepiece of Al Jazari's famous water clock? Last question. How many books were in the massive library of Cordoba in Spain? Great job! Let's see how you did. The first answer is Baghdad. A completely round city. For question two, it was the house of wisdom.

Where books were worth their weight in gold.

Number three, the answer is Alchorismi.

The father of algebra. Question four, it was an elephant. A giant mechanical water clock elephant.

And the final answer is 400,000 books.

That is a lot of reading.

Learning about the golden age of Islam is just so mind-blowing. To think they were building robots and mapping stars a thousand years ago.

I know. The fact that doctors were using sugar to coat medicine all the way back then makes me appreciate history so much more.

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And if you want a shout out on the show, or just want to say hi, email us at hello at kidopoly.com.

See you next time on History's Not Boring. Bye.

What was the Golden Age of Islam?

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