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The Islamic Golden Age from the 8th century to the 13th century witnessed a fundamental transformation in agriculture known as the Muslim Agricultural Revolution, Arab Agricultural Revolution, or Green Revolution. Due to the global economy established by Muslim traders across the Old World, this enabled the diffusion of many crops and farming techniques between different parts of the Islamic world, as well as the adaptation of crops and techniques from beyond the Islamic world. Crops from Africa such as sorghum, crops from China such as citrus fruits, and numerous crops from India such as mangos, rice, and especially cotton and sugar cane, were distributed throughout Islamic lands which normally would not be able to grow these crops. Some have referred to the diffusion of numerous crops during this period as the Globalisation of Crops, which, along with an increased mechanization of agriculture (see Industrial growth below), led to major changes in economy, population distribution, vegetation cover, agricultural production and income, population levels, urban growth, the distribution of the labour force, linked industries, cooking and diet, clothing, and numerous other aspects of life in the Islamic world.

Age of discovery

See also: Muslim navigational technology, Ibn Battuta, and Pre-Columbian Islamic contact theories

During the Muslim conquests of the 7th and early 8th centuries, nomadic Arab armies established the Islamic Arab Empire, the largest empire the world had yet seen. The earliest forms of globalization soon began emerging during the Islamic Golden Age, when the knowledge, trade and economies from many previously isolated regions and civilizations began integrating due to contacts with Muslim explorers, sailors, scholars, traders, and travelers. Some have called this period the Pax Islamica or Afro-Asiatic age of discovery, in reference to the Muslim Southwest Asian and North African traders and explorers who travelled most of the Old World, and established an early global economy across most of Asia and Africa and much of Europe, with their trade networks extending from the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Indian Ocean and China Sea in the east. This helped establish the Arab Empire (including the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates) as the world's leading extensive economic power throughout the 7th-13th centuries.

Apart from the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, navigable rivers were uncommon, so transport by sea was very important. Navigational sciences were highly developed making use of a magnetic compass and a rudimentary sextant known as a kamal, used for celestial navigation and for measuring the altitudes and latitudes of the stars. When combined with detailed maps of the period, sailors were able to sail across oceans rather than skirt along the coast. Muslim sailors were also responsible for introducing the lateen sails and large three-masted merchant vessels to the Mediterranean. The origins of the caravel ship, used for long distance travel by the Spanish and Portuguese since the 15th century, also date back to the qarib used by Andalusian explorers by the 13th century.

Ibn Battuta (1304-1368) was a traveler and explorer, whose account documents his travels and excursions over a period of almost thirty years, covering some 73,000 miles (117,000 km). These journeys covered most of the known Old World, extending from North Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in the west, to the Middle East, Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China in the east, a distance readily surpassing that of his predecessors and his near-contemporary Marco Polo.

Several contemporary medieval Arabic reports suggest that Muslim explorers from Islamic Spain and Northwest Africa may have travelled in expeditions across the Atlantic Ocean, possibly even to the Americas, between the 9th and 14th centuries. Ali al-Masudi (896-956) reported that the navigator Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad, from Cordoba, Islamic Spain, sailed from Delba (Palos) in 889, crossed the Atlantic, reached an unknown land, and returned with fabulous treasures. Another Muslim navigator, Ibn Farrukh, from Granada, sailed into the Atlantic on February 999, landed in Gando (Canary islands) visiting King Guanariga, and continued westward where he eventually saw and named two islands, Capraria and Pluitana. He arrived back in Spain in May 999. Other theories suggest that explorers from the Muslim West African Mali Empire may have reached the Americas, or possibly the Hui Chinese Muslim explorer Zheng He according to the 1421 hypothesis. When Christopher Columbus made his first voyage to the Americas in 1492, he was accompanied by a number of Muslim sailors (Andalusian Moors), who travelled with him to the New World.

Agricultural innovations

Muslims introduced cash cropping and the modern crop rotation system where land was cropped four or more times in a two-year period. Winter crops were followed by summer ones, and in some cases there was in between. In areas where plants of shorter growing season were used, such as spinach and eggplants, the land could be cropped three or more times a year. In parts of Yemen, wheat yielded two harvests a year on the same land, as did rice in Iraq. Muslims developed a scientific approach based on three major elements; sophisticated systems of crop rotation, highly developed irrigation techniques, and the introduction of a large variety of crops which were studied and catalogued according to the season, type of land and amount of water they require. Numerous encyclopaedias on farming and botany were produced, with highly accurate precision and details. The earliest cookbooks on Arab cuisine were also written, such as the Kitab al-Tabikh (The Book of Dishes) of Ibn Sayyiir al-Warraq (10th century) and the Kitab al-Tabikh of Muhammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi (1226).

During the Muslim Agricultural Revolution, sugar production was refined and transformed into a large-scale industry by the Arabs, who built the first sugar refineries and sugar plantations. The Arabs and Berbers diffused sugar throughout the Arab Empire from the 8th century.

As early as the 9th century, an essentially modern agricultural system became central to economic life and organization in the Arab caliphates, replacing the largely export driven Roman model. The great cities of the Near East, North Africa and Moorish Spain were supported by elaborate agricultural systems which included extensive irrigation based on knowledge of hydraulic and hydrostatic principles, some of which were continued from Roman times. In later centuries, Persian Muslims began to function as a conduit, transmitting cultural elements, including advanced agricultural techniques, into Turkic lands and western India. The Muslims introduced what was to become an agricultural revolution based on four key areas:

  • Development of a sophisticated system of irrigation using machines such as norias, water mills, water raising machines, dams and reservoirs. With such technology they managed to greatly expand the exploitable land area.
  • The adoption of a scientific approach to farming enabled them to improve farming techniques derived from the collection and collation of relevant information throughout the whole of the known world. Farming manuals were produced in every corner of the Muslim world detailing where, when and how to plant and grow various crops. Advanced scientific techniques allowed leaders like Ibn al-Baytar to introduce new crops and breeds and strains of livestock into areas where they were previously unknown.
  • Incentives based on a new approach to land ownership and labourers' rights, combining the recognition of private ownership and the rewarding of cultivators with a harvest share commensurate with their efforts. Their counterparts in Europe struggled under a feudal system in which they were almost slaves (serfs) with little hope of improving their lot by hard work.
  • The introduction of new crops transforming private farming into a new global industry exported everywhere, including Europe, where farming was mostly restricted to wheat strains obtained much earlier via central Asia. Spain received what she in turn transmitted to the rest of Europe; many agricultural and fruit-growing processes, together with many new plants, fruit and vegetables. These new crops included sugar cane, rice, citrus fruit, apricots, cotton, artichokes, aubergines, and saffron. Others, previously known, were further developed. Muslims also brought to that country lemons, oranges, cotton, almonds, figs and sub-tropical crops such as bananas and sugar cane. Several were later exported from Spanish coastal areas to the Spanish colonies in the New World. Also transmitted via Muslim influence, a silk industry flourished, flax was cultivated and linen exported, and esparto grass, which grew wild in the more arid parts, was collected and turned into various articles.
File:Al-jazari pump.png
The valve-operated reciprocating suction piston pump with crankshaft-connecting rod mechanism invented by al-Jazari, the father of modern day engineering.

Many other agricultural innovations were introduced by Muslim farmers and engineers, such as new forms of land tenure, improvements in irrigation, a variety of sophisticated irrigation methods, the introduction of fertilizers and widespread artificial irrigation systems, the development of gravity-flow irrigation systems from rivers and springs, the first uses of noria and chain pumps for irrigation purposes, the establishment of the sugar cane industry in the Mediterranean and experimentation in sugar cultivation, numerous advances in industrial milling and water-raising machines (see Industrial growth below), and many other improvements and innovations.

The Caliphate understood that real incentives were needed to increase productivity and wealth, thus enhancing tax revenues, hence they introduced a social transformation through the changed ownership of land, where any individual of any gender or any ethnic or religious background had the right to buy, sell, mortgage and inherit land for farming or any other purposes. They also introduced the signing of a contract for every major financial transaction concerning agriculture, industry, commerce, and employment. Copies of the contract was usually kept by both parties involved.

The two types of economic systems that prompted agricultural development in the Islamic world were either politically-driven, by the conscious decisions of the central authority to develop under-exploited lands; or market-driven, involving the spread of advice, education, and free seeds, and the introduction of high value crops or animals to areas where they were previously unknown. These led to increased subsistence, a high level of economic security that ensured wealth for all citizens, and a higher quality of life due to the introduction of artichokes, spinach, aubergines, carrots, sugar cane, and various exotic plants; vegetables being available all year round without the need to dry them for winter; citrus and olive plantations becoming a common sight, market gardens and orchards springing up in every Muslim city; intense cropping and the technique of intensive irrigation agriculture with land fertility replacement; a major increase in animal husbandry; higher quality of wool and other clothing materials; and the introduction of selective breeding of animals from different parts of the Old World resulting in improved horse stocks and the best load-carrying camels.

Botany

During the Muslim Agricultural Revolution, Muslim scientists made significant advances in the field of botany. They developed a scientific approach to botany and agriculture based on three major elements; sophisticated systems of crop rotation, highly developed irrigation techniques, and the introduction of a large variety of crops which were studied and catalogued according to the season, type of land and amount of water they require. Numerous encyclopaedias on botany were produced, with highly accurate precision and details.

Muslim botanists and agriculturists demonstrated agrotechnical and economic knowledge in areas such as meteorology, climatology, hydrology, soil occupation, and the economy and management of agricultural enterprises. They also demosntrated agricultural knowledge in areas such as pedology, agricultural ecology, irrigation, preparation of soil, planting, spreading of manure, killing herbs, sowing, cutting trees, grafting, pruning vine, prophylaxis, phytotherapy, the care and improvement of cultures and plants, and the harvest and storage of crops.

Another innovation during this period was the application of astronomy to agriculture and botany. As weather forecasting predictions and the measurement of time and the onset of seasons became more precise and reliable, farmers became informed of these advances and often employed them in agriculture. They also benefitted from the compilation of calendars with information on when to plant each type of crop, when to graft trees, when and how to fertilize crops, when to harvest, and what to eat and what to avoid at each time of year. These advances made it possible for farmers to plan the growth of each of their crops for specific markets and at specific times of the year.

Commerce

Guilds were officially unrecognized by the medieval Islamic city, but trades were supervised by an official recognized by the city. Each trade developed its own identity, whose members would attend the same mosque, and serve together in the militia. Slaves were often employed on sugar plantations and salt mines, but more likely as domestic house servants or professional soldiers.

Technology and Industry of Islamic civilization was highly developed. Distillation techniques supported a flourishing perfume industry, while chemical ceramic glazes were developed constantly to compete with ceramics imported from China. A scientific approach to metallurgy made it easier to adopt and improve steel technologies from India and China. Primary exports included manufactured luxuries, such as wood carving, metal and glass, textiles, and ceramics.

The systems of contract relied upon by merchants was very effective. Merchants would buy and sell on commission, with money loaned to them by wealthy investors, or a joint investment of several merchants, who were often Muslim, Christian and Jewish. Recently, a collection of documents was found in an Egyptian synagogue shedding a very detailed and human light on the life of medieval Middle Eastern merchants. Business partnerships would be made for many commercial ventures, and bonds of kinship enabled trade networks to form over huge distances. Networks developed during this time enabled a world in which money could be promised by a bank in Baghdad and cashed in Spain, creating the cheque system of today. Each time items passed through the cities along this extraordinary network, the city imposed a tax, resulting in high prices once reaching the final destination. These innovations made by Muslims and Jews laid the foundations for the modern economic system.

Transport was simple yet highly effective. Each city had an area outside its gates where pack animals were assembled, found in the cities markets were large secure warehouses, while accommodations were provided for merchants in cities and along trade routes by a sort of medieval motel.

Capitalist market economy

The origins of capitalism and free markets can be traced back to the Caliphate, where the first market economy and earliest forms of merchant capitalism took root between the 8th-12th centuries, which some refer to as "Islamic capitalism". A vigorous monetary economy was created on the basis of the expanding levels of circulation of a stable high-value currency (the dinar) and the integration of monetary areas that were previously independent. Innovative new business techniques and forms of business organisation were introduced by economists, merchants and traders during this time. Such innovations included the earliest trading companies, big businesses, contracts, bills of exchange, long-distance international trade, the first forms of partnership (mufawada) such as limited partnerships (mudaraba), and the earliest forms of credit, debt, profit, loss, capital (al-mal), capital accumulation (nama al-mal), circulating capital, capital expenditure, revenue, cheques, promissory notes, trusts (waqf), startup companies, savings accounts, transactional accounts, pawning, loaning, exchange rates, bankers, money changers, ledgers, deposits, assignments, and the double-entry bookkeeping system. Organizational enterprises similar to corporations independant from the state also existed in the medieval Islamic world. Many of these early capitalist concepts were adopted and further advanced in medieval Europe from the 13th century onwards.

A market economy was established in the Islamic world on the basis of merchant capitalism. Capital formation was promoted by labour in medieval Islamic society, and financial capital was developed by a considerable number of owners of monetary funds and precious metals. Riba (usury) was prohibited by the Qur'an, but this did not hamper the development of capital in any way. The capitalists (sahib al-mal) were at the height of their power between the 9th-12th centuries, but their influence declined after the arrival of the ikta (landowners) and after production was monopolized by the state, both of which hampered the development of industrial capitalism in the Islamic world.

During the 11th-13th centuries, the "Karimis", the earliest multinational corporation, enterprise and business group controlled by capitalistic entrepreneurs, came to dominate much of the Islamic world's economy. The group was controlled by about fifty Muslim merchants labelled as "Karimis" who were of Yemeni, Egyptian and sometimes Indian origins. Each Karimi merchant had considerable wealth, ranging from at least 100,000 dinars to as much as 10 million dinars. The group had considerable influence in most important eastern markets and sometimes in politics through its financing activities and through a variety of customers, including Emirs, Sultans, Viziers, foreign merchants, and common consumers. The Karimis dominated many of the trade routes across the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean, and as far as Francia in the north, China in the east, and sub-Saharan Africa in the south, where they obtained gold from gold mines. Innovations introduced by the Karimis include the use of agents, the financing of projects as a method of acquiring capital, and a banking institution for loans and deposits. Another important difference between the Karimis and other entrepreneurs before and during their time was that they were not tax collectors or landlords, but their capitalism was due entirely to trade and financial transactions.

Economic thought

Main article: Early Muslim sociology - Economic thought

Crops

Hundreds of crops were diffused as a result of the Muslim Agricultural Revolution, some of which include:

Industrial growth

Further information: Inventions in the Muslim world
Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber) is considered the father of chemistry, particularly for introducing the experimental method in chemistry. He also established the chemical industry and perfumery industry.

Muslim engineers in the Islamic world were responsible for numerous innovative industrial uses of hydropower, the first industrial uses of tidal power, wind power, steam power, and fossil fuels such as petroleum, and the earliest large factory complexes (tiraz in Arabic). 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 first invented in the Islamic world, including fulling mills, gristmills, hullers, paper mills, sawmills, shipmills, 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, first 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 many 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 later laid the foundations for the Industrial Revolution in 18th century Europe.

Many industries were generated due to the Muslim Agricultural Revolution, including the earliest industries for agribusiness, astronomical instruments, ceramics, chemicals, distillation technologies, clocks, glass, mechanical hydropowered and wind powered machinery, matting, mosaics, pulp and paper, perfumery, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, rope-making, shipping, shipbuilding, silk, sugar, textiles, water, weapons, and the mining of minerals such as sulfur, ammonia, lead and iron. The first large factory complexes (tiraz) were built for many of these industries. Knowledge of these industries were later transmitted to medieval Europe, especially during the Latin translations of the 12th century, as well as before and after. For example, the first glass factories in Europe were founded in the 11th century by Egyptian craftsmen in Greece. The agricultural and handicraft industries also experienced high levels of growth during this period.

Labour

The labour force in the Caliphate were employed from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, while both men and women were involved in diverse occupations and economic activities. Women were employed in a wide range of commercial activities and diverse occupations in the primary sector (as farmers for example), secondary sector (as construction workers, dyers, spinners, etc.) and tertiary sector (as investors, doctors, nurses, presidents of guilds, brokers, peddlers, lenders, scholars, etc.). Muslim women also had a monopoly over certain branches of the textile industry.

The division of labour was diverse and had been evolving over the centuries. During the 8th-11th centuries, there were 63 unique occupations in the primary sector of economic activity (extractive), 697 unique occupations in the secondary sector (manufacturing), and 736 unique occupations in the tertiary sector (service). By the 12th century, the number of unique occupations in the primary sector and secondary sector decreased to 35 and 679 respectively, while the number of unique occupations in the tertiary sector increased to 1,175. These changes in the division of labour reflect the increased mechanization and use of machinery to replace manual labour and the increased standard of living and quality of life of most citizens in the Caliphate.

An economic transition occurred during this period, due to the diversity of the service sector being far greater than any other previous or contemporary society, and the high degree of economic integration between the labour force and the economy. Islamic society also experienced a change in attitude towards manual labour. In previous civilizations such as ancient Greece and in contemporary civilizations such as early medieval Europe, intellectuals saw manual labour in a negative light and looked down on them with contempt. This resulted in technological stagnation as they did not see the need for machinery to replace manual labour. In the Islamic world, however, manual labour was seen in a far more positive light, as intellectuals such as the Brethren of Purity likened them to a participant in the act of creation, while Ibn Khaldun alluded to the benefits of manual labour to the progress of society.

Technology

Further information: Inventions in the Muslim world and Timeline of science and technology in the Islamic world

A significant number of inventions and technological advances were made in the Muslim world, as well as adopting and improving technologies centuries before they were used in the West. For example, papermaking was adopted from China many centuries before it was known in the West. Iron was a vital industry in Muslim lands and was given importance in the Qur'an. The knowledge of gunpowder was also transmitted from China to Islamic countries, where Muslim chemists were the first to purify saltpeter to the weapons-grade purity for use in gunpowder, as potassium nitrate must be purified to be used effectively. This purification process was first described by Ibn Bakhtawayh in his Al-Muqaddimat in the early 11th century. Gunpowder weapons were employed by Muslim armies against Christian armies during the Crusades and Byzantine-Ottoman wars. Knowledge of chemical processes (alchemy and chemistry) and distillation (alcohol, kerosene and other chemical substances) also spread to Europe from the Muslim world. Numerous contributions were made in laboratory practices such as "refined techniques of distillation, the preparation of medicines, and the production of salts." Advances were made in irrigation and farming, using 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.

Muslim engineers pioneered two solutions to achieve the maximum output from a water mill. The first solution was to mount them to piers of bridges to take advantage of the increased flow. The second solution was the shipmill, a unique type of water mill powered by water wheels mounted on the sides of ships moored in midstream. This was first employed along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in 10th century Iraq, where large shipmills made of teak and iron could produce 10 tons of flour from corn every day for the granary in Baghdad. Industrial water mills were also employed in the first large factory complexes built in al-Andalus between the 11th and 13th centuries. Fulling mills, paper mills, steel mills, and other mills, spread from Islamic Spain to Christian Spain by the 12th century.

Windmills were first built in Sistan, Afghanistan, from the 7th century. These were verticle axle windmills, which had long vertical shafts with rectangle shaped blades. The first windmill was built by the Rashidun caliph Umar (634-644). Made of six to twelve sails covered in reed matting or cloth material, these windmills were used to grind corn and draw up water, and were used in the gristmilling and sugarcane industries.

After paper was introduced into the Islamic world by Chinese prisoners following the Battle of Talas, Muslims made significant improvements to papermaking and built the first paper mills in Baghdad, Iraq, as early as 794. Papermaking was transformed from an art into a major industry as a result. This allowed the manufacturing of paper in the Islamic world to be performed using water power rather than manual labour. The first fulling mills were later invented in the 10th century, followed by the first stamp mills and steel mills in the 11th century.

The first gristmills were invented by Muslim engineers in the Islamic world, and were used for grinding corn and other seeds to produce meals, and many other industrial uses such as fulling cloth, husking rice, papermaking, pulping sugarcane, and crushing metalic ores before extraction. Gristmills in the Islamic world were often made from both watermills and windmills. In order to adapt water wheels for gristmilling purposes, cams were used for raising and releasing trip hammers to fall on a material. The first water turbine, which had water wheels with curved blades onto which water flow was directed axially, was also first invented in the Islamic world, and was described in a 9th century Arabic text for use in a watermill.

Many dams, acequia and qanat water supply systems, and "Tribunal of Waters" irrigation systems, were built during the Islamic Golden Age and are still in use today in the Islamic world and in formerly Islamic regions of Europe such as Sicily and the Iberian Peninsula, particularly in the Andalusia, Aragon and Valencia provinces of Spain. The Arabic systems of irrigation and water distribution were later adopted in the Canary Islands and Americas due to the Spanish and are still used in places like Texas, Mexico, Peru, and Chile.

Noria and chain pump (saqiya) machines became more widespread during the Muslim Agricultural Revolution, when Muslim engineers made a number of improvements to the device. These include the first uses of noria and chain pumps for irrigation purposes, and the invention of the flywheel mechanism, used to smooth out the delivery of power from a driving device to a driven machine, which was first invented by Ibn Bassal (fl. 1038-1075) of al-Andalus, who pioneered the use of the flywheel in the saqiya and noria.

The chemical industry and petroleum industry were established in the 8th century, when the mineral acids (such as sulfuric acid) were first produced through dry distillation, and when the streets of Baghdad were paved with tar, derived from petroleum through destructive distillation. In the 9th century, oil fields were exploited in the area around modern Baku, Azerbaijan, to produce naphtha. These fields were described by Masudi in the 10th century, and by Marco Polo in the 13th century, who described the output of those oil wells as hundreds of shiploads. Petroleum was distilled by al-Razi in the 9th century, producing chemicals such as kerosene in the alembic, which he used to invent kerosene lamps for use in the oil lamp industry.

The first industrial use of steam power dates back to the perfumery industry established by Muslim chemists such as Geber, al-Razi, and Avicenna, who pioneered and perfected the extraction of fragrances and essential oils through steam distillation, introduced new raw ingredients, and developed cheap methods for the mass production of perfumery and incenses. Both the raw ingredients and distillation technology significantly influenced Western perfumery. Muslim traders had wide access to a variety of different spices, herbs, and other fragrance materials. In addition to trading them, many of these exotic materials were cultivated by the Muslims such that they could be successfully grown outside of their native climates. Two examples of this include jasmine, which is native to South Asia and Southeast Asia, and various citrus fruits native to East Asia. Both of these ingredients are still highly important in modern perfumery.

In 1206, al-Jazari invented a variety of machines for raising water, which were the most efficient in his time, as well as water wheels with cams on their axle used to operate automata. He invented the crankshaft and connecting rod, and employed them in a crank-connecting rod system for two of these water-raising machines. His invention of the crankshaft is considered the most important single mechanical invention after the wheel, as it transforms continuous rotary motion into a linear reciprocating motion, and is central to modern machinery such as the steam engine and the internal combustion engine. Al-Jazari's most sophisticated water-raising machine featured the first suction pipes and suction pump, the first use of the double-action principle, the first reciprocating piston engine, the earliest valve operations, and the use of a water wheel and a system of gears. This invention is important to the development of modern machinery, including the steam engine, modern reciprocating pumps, internal combustion engine, artificial heart, bicycle, bicycle pump, etc.

In 1551, after the decline of the golden age, the Egyptian engineer Taqi al-Din invented the first practical steam turbine as a prime mover for rotating a spit. This was the first time steam power was used to operate a practical machine or appliance. A similar steam turbine later appeared in Europe a century later, which eventually led to the steam engine and Industrial Revolution in 18th century Europe.

Fielding H. Garrison wrote in the History of Medicine:

"The Saracens themselves were the originators not only of algebra, chemistry, and geology, but of many of the so-called improvements or refinements of civilization, such as street lamps, window-panes, firework, stringed instruments, cultivated fruits, perfumes, spices, etc..."

The programmable automata of al-Jazari, the father of robotics.

A significant number of other inventions were also produced by medieval Muslim scientists and engineers, including inventors such as Abbas Ibn Firnas, Taqi al-Din, and especially al-Jazari, who is considered the "father of robotics" and "father of modern day engineering".

Some of the other inventions and discoveries from the Islamic Golden Age include the camera obscura, coffee, hang glider, flight controls, soap bar, shampoo, pure distillation, liquefaction, crystallisation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation, filtration, distilled alcohol, uric acid, nitric acid, alembic, crankshaft, valve, reciprocating suction piston pump, mechanical clocks driven by water and weights, programmable humanoid robot, combination lock, quilting, pointed arch, scalpel, bone saw, forceps, surgical catgut, windmill, inoculation, smallpox vaccine, fountain pen, cryptanalysis, frequency analysis, three-course meal, stained glass and quartz glass, Persian carpet, modern cheque, celestial globe, explosive rockets and incendiary devices, torpedo, and artificial pleasure gardens.

Urbanization

There was a significant increase in urbanization during this period, due to numerous scientific advances in fields such as agriculture, hygiene, sanitation, astronomy, medicine and engineering. This also resulted in a rising middle class population.

As urbanization increased, Muslim cities grew unregulated, resulting in narrow winding city streets and neighborhoods separated by different ethnic backgrounds and religious affiliations. These qualities proved efficient for transporting goods to and from major commercial centers while preserving the privacy valued by Islamic family life. Suburbs lay just outside the walled city, from wealthy residential communities, to working class semi-slums. City garbage dumps were located far from the city, as were clearly defined cemeteries which were often homes for criminals. A place of prayer was found just near one of the main gates, for religious festivals and public executions. Similarly, Military Training grounds were found near a main gate.

While varying in appearance due to climate and prior local traditions, Islamic cities were almost always dominated by a merchant middle class. Some peoples' loyalty towards their neighborhood was very strong, reflecting ethnicity and religion, while a sense of citizenship was at times uncommon (but not in every case). The extended family provided the foundation for social programs, business deals, and negotiations with authorities. Part of this economic and social unit were often the tenants of a wealthy landlord.

State power normally focused on Dar al Imara, the governor's office in the citadel. These fortresses towered high above the city built on thousands of years of human settlement. The primary function of the city governor was to provide for defence and to maintain legal order. This system would be responsible for a mixture of autocracy and autonomy within the city. Each neighborhood, and many of the large tenement blocks, elected a representative to deal with urban authorities. These neighborhoods were also expected to organize their young men into a militia providing for protection of their own neighborhoods, and as aid to the professional armies defending the city as a whole.

The head of the family was given the position of authority in his household, although a qadi, or judge was able to negotiate and resolve differences in issues of disagreements within families and between them. The two senior representatives of municipal authority were the qadi and the muhtasib, who held the responsibilities of many issues, including quality of water, maintenance of city streets, containing outbreaks of disease, supervising the markets, and a prompt burial of the dead.

Another aspect of Islamic urban life was waqf, a religious charity directly dealing with the qadi and religious leaders. Through donations, the waqf owned many of the public baths and factories, using the revenue to fund education, and to provide irrigation for orchards outside the city. Following expansion, this system was introduced into Eastern Europe by Ottoman Turks.

While religious foundations of all faiths were tax exempt in the Muslim world, civilians paid their taxes to the urban authorities, soldiers to the superior officer, and landowners to the state treasury. Taxes were also levied on an unmarried man until he was wed. Instead of zakat, the mandatory charity required of Muslims, non-Muslims were required to pay the jizya, a discriminatory religious tax, imposed on Christians and Jews. During the Muslim Conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries conquered populations were given the three choices of either converting to Islam, paying the jizya, or dying by the sword.

Animals brought to the city for slaughter were restricted to areas outside the city, as were any other industries seen as unclean. The more valuable a good was, the closer its market was to the center of town. Because of this, booksellers and goldsmiths clustered around the main mosque at the heart of the city.

Muslim cities also had advanced domestic water systems with sewers, public baths, drinking fountains, piped drinking water supplies, and widespread private and public toilet and bathing facilities. By the 10th century, Cordoba had 700 mosques, 60,000 palaces, and 70 libraries, the largest of which had 600,000 books, while as many as 60,000 treatises, poems, polemics and compilations were published each year in al-Andalus. The library of Cairo had more than 100,000 books, while the library of Tripoli is said to have had as many as three million books. The number of important and original Arabic works on science that have survived is much larger than the combined total of Greek and Latin works on science.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Zohor Idrisi (2005), The Muslim Agricultural Revolution and its influence on Europe, FSTC.
  2. ^ Andrew M. Watson (1974), "The Arab Agricultural Revolution and Its Diffusion, 700-1100", The Journal of Economic History 34 (1), p. 8-35.
  3. ^ Thomas F. Glick (1977), "Noria Pots in Spain", Technology and Culture 18 (4), p. 644-650.
  4. The Globalisation of Crops, FSTC
  5. Andrew M. Watson (1983), Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 052124711X.
  6. ^ John M. Hobson (2004), The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation, p. 29-30, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521547245.
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References

  • Donald Routledge Hill, Islamic Science And Engineering, Edinburgh University Press (1993), ISBN 0-7486-0455-3
  • George Sarton, The Incubation of Western Culture in the Middle East, A Geroge C. Keiser Foundation Lecture, March 29, 1950, Washington DC, 1951
  • Maya Shatzmiller (1994), Labour in the Medieval Islamic World, Brill Publishers, ISBN 9004098968
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