04. The Dark Ages...How Dark Were They, Really? Part 2.
More important than the Persian-style monarchy that the Abbasids tried to set up was their openness to foreigners and their ideas. That tolerance and curiosity ushered in a golden age of Islamic learning centered in Baghdad.
The Abbasids oversaw an efflorescence of culture unlike anything that had been seen since Hellenistic times. Arabic replaced Greek not only as the language of commerce and religion, but also of culture.
Philosophy, medicine, and poetry were all written in Arabic (although Persian remained an important literary language.) And Baghdad was the world's center of scholarship with its House of Wisdom and immense library. Muslim scholars translated the works of the Greek Philosophers including Aristotle and Plato as well as scientific works by Hippocrates, Archimedes and especially the physician Galen.
And they translated and preserved Buddhist and Hindu manuscripts that might have otherwise been lost. Muslims made huge strides in medicine as well. One Muslim scholar ibn Sina, wrote the Canon of Medicine, which became the standard medical textbook or centuries in both Europe and the Middle
East. And the Islamic empire adopted mathematical concepts from India such as the zero, a number so fascinating and beautiful that we could write an entire episode about it but instead I'm just gonna write it a little love poem: Oh, zero.
Pretty little zero.
They say you're nothing but you mean everything to mathematical history ....and me. Oh it's time for the Open Letter? [Scoots to chartreuse throne of pure velvety awesomeness]
An Open Letter to Science and Religion: But first lets see what's in the Secret Compartment. Oh, champagne poppers? Stan, what am I supposed to do with these? Dear Science and Religion,
You're supposed to be so irreconcilable and everything, but not so much in the Abbasid Empire. I mean, Muslim mathematicians expanded math to such a degree that we now call the base ten number system and the symbols we use to denote it “Arabic numerals.” And religion was at least part of what pushed all that learning forward.
Like the great philosopher Ibn Rushd argued that the only path to religious enlightenment was through Aristotelian reasoning. And Muslim mathematicians and astronomers developed algebra partly so they could simplify Islamic inheritance law. Plus they made important strides in trigonometry so that people understand where to turn when trying to turn toward Mecca.
You were working so well together, science and religion, but then like Al and Tipper Gore, just couldn't last forever. Nothing gold can stay in this world, nothing gold can stay.
Best wishes, John Green Baghdad wasn't the only center of learning in the Islamic world. In Spain, Islamic Cordoba became a center for the arts, especially architecture. This is perhaps best exemplified by the Great Mosque at Cordoba, built by the Umayyad ruler Abd al-Rahman I In 785-786 CE.
That's right, this building, still standing today and one of the most amazing mosques in the world, was built in a year, whereas medieval cathedrals typically took, like, a million years to finish. The Muslims of Spain were also engineers who rivaled the Romans. Aqueducts in Cordoba brought drinkable water into the city, and Muslim scholars took the lead in agricultural science, improving yields on all kinds of new crops, allowing Spanish lives to be longer and less hungry.
Everybody wanted to live in Spain, even the greatest Jewish philosopher, Maimonides, wanted to live in Spain, but sadly he was expelled and ended up in Alexandria Egypt. There he wrote his awesomely titled defense of rationality, A Guide for the Perplexed. I'm translating the title, of course, because the original text was written …in Arabic. Meanwhile, China was having a Golden Age of its own: The Tang Dynasty made China's government more of a meritocracy, and ruled over 80 million people across four million square miles. And they might've conquered all of Central Asia had it not been for the Abbasids, whom they fought at the most important Battle You've Never Heard Of, the Battle of the Talas River. This was the Ali-Frasier of the 8th century. The Abbasids won, which ended up defining who had influence where with the -- with the Abbasids dominating to the west of the river and China dominating to the east.
The Tang also produced incredible art that was traded all throughout Asia. Many of the more famous sculptures from the Tang Dynasty feature figures who are distinctly not-Chinese, which again demonstrates the diversity of the empire.
The Tang was also a golden age for Chinese poetry with notables like Du Fu and Li Bo plying their craft, encouraged by the official government. And the Song Dynasty, which lasted from 960 to 1258, kicked even more ass-it's-not-cursing-if-you're-talking-about-donkeys. By the 11th century, Chinese metalworkers were producing as much iron as Europe would be able to produce in the 18th century. Some of this iron was put to use in new plows, which enabled agriculture to boom, thereby supporting population growth.
Porcelain was of such high quality that it was shipped throughout the world, which is why we call it “china.” And there was so much trade going on that the Chinese ran out of metal for coins, leading to another innovation - paper money. And by the 11th century, the Chinese were writing down recipes for a mixture of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal, that we now know as gunpowder.
That becomes kind of a big deal in history, paving the way, as it does, for modern warfare and arena rock pyrotechnics, and - ohhhh, THAT'S WHY. [Pulls Champagne popper along with a mysterious lady hand from behind chalkboard.]
Not so dark after all.
Thanks for watching. We'll see you next week. Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller, our script supervisor is Danica Johnson. [bazinga!] The graphics team is ThoughtBubble, and show is written by my high school history teacher Raoul Meyer and myself.
Last week's Phrase of the Week was also good advice: "Quit Smoking!" If you want to suggest future Phrases of the Week or guess at this week's, you can do so in comments where you can also ask questions about today's video that will be answered by our team of historians. If you liked today's video please click the thumb's up button. You can also follow us on Twitter @thecrashcourse or on Facebook. There are links in the video info.
Our writer and historian, Raoul Mayer, also tweets awesome Crash Course pop quizzes, so there's a link to follow him as well, and me, you know, because I'm a narcissist. [music outro]
We get to be a continent, even though we're not a continent... [music outro]
We get to be a continent, even though we're not a continent... [music outro]
We get to be a continent, even though we're not a continent...
