Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

L6JIslam and Modern Science:The Colonial Era (1800–1950)The Background to the Emergence of aNew Discourse on Islam and ScienceMost general accounts of the Islamic scientific tradition as well asthose dealing with the relationship between Islam and science focuseson Baghdad, or the “City of Peace,” as the round city of Caliph al-Mansur was officially called. This is not without reason; after all, thefabled city, established by the victorious Abbasid Caliph on the siteof an ancient village, planned by four eminent architects, and builtby 100,000 workers and craftsmen over a period of four years (762 to766) was the intellectual capital of the world for five centuries. Withthe unconditional surrender of Caliph al-Mustasim to Hülegü, theMongol warlord, on February 10, 1258, Baghdad lost its glory. TheMongol victory was accompanied by the indiscriminate killing ofan estimated 800,000 to two million inhabitants, the destruction ofall major public buildings, including shrines, mosques, madrassas,and palaces, and an uprooting of intellectual life. By the end of thatcentury of destruction and decay, however, Islamic scientific traditionhad already found a new home in other lands of Islam, such aspresent-day Turkey, Syria, Egypt, and Iran. By the middle of the nextcentury, two major branches of Mongols—the Golden Horde andthe Chagatays of Transoxania—had themselves converted to Islam,providing patronage to scientists and scholars in their own newly builtmadrassas and observatories.