The Golden Age of Islam, an Introduction

When you go out in the middle of the night and look at the seemingly billions of stars, you start to realize your position and scale in a massive and indifferent universe but how many of those stars can you name? I can name around five, Vega, Betelgeuse, Algol, Altair (yes, like Altair from Assassin’s Creed) and Fomalhaut. All of these names are actually Arabic. In fact, around two thirds of the stars that HAVE names, have Arabic names and we have one period of history to thank for that, the Islamic Golden Age.

When Petrarch decided to call the centuries between the fifth and the fifteen centuries the "Dark Age", maybe he didn't have any right to do so, maybe he did but during that time, as the Western civilization went away from scientific studies and into trying to decide how many angels would fit on the head of a pin, the Islamic World illuminated itself with research. They carried the baton from the Greeks and the Romans for the next thousand years till they handed it to the Renaissance-era scholars.

Without them, maybe you wouldn't be watching this video. So, here's to celebrating them!

Additional Facts:

1) Al-Khwarizmi is famous for having said, “The only bra I open is AlgeBRA”.

2) By “Hindu”, I don’t mean only Hindus but also Buddhist and Jain scholars who made scientific progress under the Gupta Dynasty during India’s own Golden Age.

3) On 25th of January, 750 CE, The Abbasid army defeated the Umayyads, sealing their fates. It was also the -1270th anniversary of my 24th Birthday.

4) Since we’re discussing art, I’d like to add something here. Many of these miniatures aren’t from the medieval period. They were created probably recently as tourist souvenirs.

5) Papyrus was a type of writing surface used in the ancient world before Paper. It was made from a plant called Cyperus papyrus.

Related Links:

NerdSync's Video on Inspiration

My video about how the Abbasids rose to power

My video about the early Islamic conquests

More of my Calligraphic Portraits

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Disclaimer: The maps and flags in the video are not 100% accurate. Some maps and flags are difficult to find and so, are estimations.

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Music by epidemicsound.com

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