Hasan A. Yahya, a writer from Palestine
During the two hundred years after AD. 750, the intellectual ferment did not lessen for a single moment. Even limited to the names of those scholars, writers, and poets who absolutely should be known, the list is an impressive one.
Even before the founding of Baghdad, whose well-earned fame grew for at least four centuries, the caliph Mansur sullied his own reputation by having Ibn Muqaffa', the creator of secular Arabic prose, put to death for what were probably political reasons. The writer was only thirty-six years old when he was executed in 757. The caliph thus did away with the reputed translator of the Fables of Bidpai, known today under the title of Kalila and Dimna. It is a masterpiece of Arabic prose, whose literary qualities have never been denied by Arab writers.
Mamun was the caliph who was largely responsible for cultural expansion. An Arab historian states the following: "He looked for knowledge where it was evident, and thanks to the breadth of his conceptions and the power of his intelligence, he drew it from places where it was hidden. He entered into relations with the emperors of Byzantium, gave them rich gifts, and asked them to give him books of philosophy which they had in their possession. These emperors sent him those works of Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen, Euclid, and Ptolemy which they had. Mamun then chose the most experienced translators and commissioned them to translate these works to the best of their ability. After the translating was done as perfectly as possible, the caliph urged his subjects to read the translations and encouraged tbem to study them. Consequently, the scientific movement became stronger under this prince's reign. Scholars held high rank, and the caliph surrounded himself with learned men, legal experts, traditionalists, rationalist theologians, lexicographers, annalists, metricians, and genealogists. He then ordered instruments to be manufactured."
Astronomical observation was begun in Baghdad in an observatory in the Shammasiya section, on the left bank of the Tigris, east of Rusafa. The staff set to work measuring the ecliptic angle and fixing the position of the stars. In addition, the caliph ordered that two terrestrial degrees be calculated in order to determine the length of the solar year. (This work was not to be taken up again for seven centuries.) The engineer Ibrahim Fazari, who helped plan the founding of Baghdad, was the first in the Arab world to make astrolabes. (The Bibliothque Nationale in Paris has perhaps the oldest instrument of this type, one dating from the year 905. It was probably made in Baghdad, since it has on it the name of an heir apparent to the caliphate, a son of the caliph Muktafi.).
People of the West should publicly express their gratitude to the scholars of the Abbasid period, who were known and appreciated in Europe during the Middle Ages. There were the astronomer al-Khwarizmi (850), from whose name comes the word "algorithm"; Farghani, whom we call Alfraganus (about 850); the physician Yahya ibn Masawayh, called Mesua in the West; the astronomer Abu Ma'shar, the Albumasar of the Europeans (545 words) www.askdryahya.com
Source:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/wiet.html and Islamic History,
Yahya, Hasan A. Brief Islamic History, 2010, Createspace
About the Author:Professor, Dr. Hasan A. Yahya is an Arab American writer, scholar, and professor of Sociology lives in the United States of America, originally from Palestine. He graduated from Michigan State University with 2 Ph.d degrees. He published 55 books plus (40 Arabic and 15 English), and 250 plus articles on sociology, religion, psychology, politics, poetry, and short stories. Philosophically, his writings concern logic, justice and human rights worldwide. Dr. Yahya is the author of Crescentologism: The Moon Theory, and Islam Finds its Way, on Amazon. He's an expert on Race Relations, Arab and Islamic cultures, he is also, interested in religion, world affairs and global strategic planning for justice and human rights. www.dryahyatv.com
