- What was the Abbasid Revolution of 750?
- The Abbasid Revolution (747–750) was an uprising led by Abu Muslim al-Khorasani that overthrew the Umayyads and brought the Abbasids, descendants of al-'Abbas, the uncle of the Prophet ﷺ, to power. The black banners of Khorasan marched from the east on Damascus. The revolution joined Arab theology to Persian administrative experience, a combination that made the Golden Age possible.
- What was the Islamic Golden Age?
- The Golden Age (c. 800–1258) was the period in which Muslim scholars in Baghdad, Cairo, Córdoba and Bukhara led the world in mathematics (al-Khwarizmi, the algorithm), medicine (ar-Razi, Ibn Sina), astronomy, optics (Ibn al-Haytham), philosophy (al-Farabi, Ibn Rushd) and theology. The question was not whether faith and reason could go together, but how a person might serve both: a spiritual attitude that set the whole world in motion.
- Who was Harun ar-Rashid?
- Harun ar-Rashid (reigned 786–809) was the fifth Abbasid caliph and ruled at the height of the empire. Baghdad under Harun was the richest and largest city in the world. He corresponded with Charlemagne, received Byzantine envoys and is remembered as the patron of scholars and poets. His name lives on in the One Thousand and One Nights, a reminder that he became not only a ruler but the symbol of an age.
- What was the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma)?
- The Bayt al-Hikma was an academic institute in Baghdad, formally established under al-Maʼmun (reigned 813–833), where Greek, Persian, Indian and Syriac works were translated into Arabic. It was at once a library, a translation bureau, an observatory and a think tank. For the first time since Alexandria, knowledge was gathered consciously and systematically across the boundaries of language, an achievement Europe later received back through Toledo and Sicily.
- How did Baghdad fall in 1258?
- In February 1258, Hülegü Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, besieged and sacked Baghdad. Caliph al-Mustaʼsim was executed; according to the chronicles he was rolled in a carpet and trampled by horses so that no royal blood would be spilled. The Tigris was said to have run red with blood and black with the ink of the libraries. The fall of Baghdad marked more than the end of a dynasty: it was the catastrophe from which the Ummah would take five hundred years to recover.