Islamic Empires

Teachers: Mr. Ott - Period 1 & 2 /Mr. Ott (General Ed.) & Mr. Tieri (Special Ed.) Period 5,6

Islamic Empires Contributions Lesson Plan

Aim: What were the contributions of the Islamic Empires to Western & Eastern Civilizations?

Do Now: Associate People with these words

Philosopher
Scientist
Historian
Astronomer
Great Thinker
Mathematician
Poet
Architect
Contributors in Medicine

Lesson Overview:

Item	Approx Time
Do Now	20 Min
Activity	60 Min
Discussion	15 Min

Historical Context

Algebra & Trigonometry

Medieval Muslims made invaluable contributions to the study of mathematics, and their key role is clear from the many terms derived from Arabic. Perhaps the most famous mathematician was Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (ca. 800-ca. 847), author of several treatises of earth-shattering importance. His book On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals, written about 825, was principally responsible for the diffusion of the Indian system of numeration (Arabic numerals) in the Islamic lands and the West.

Traditional systems had used different letters of the alphabet to represent numbers or cumbersome Roman numerals, and the new system was far superior, for it allowed people to multiply and divide easily and check their work. The merchant Leonardo Fibonacci of Pisa, who had learned about Arabic numerals in Tunis, wrote a treatise rejecting the abacus in favor of the Arab method of reckoning, and as a result, the system of Hindu-Arabic numeration caught on quickly in Central Italy. By the fourteenth century, Italian merchants and bankers had abandoned the abacus and were doing their calculations using pen and paper, in much the same way we do today.

In addition to his treatise on numerals, al-Khwarizmi also wrote a revolutionary book on resolving quadratic equations. These were given either as geometric demonstrations or as numerical proofs in an entirely new mode of expression. The book was soon translated into Latin, and the word in its title, al-jabr, or transposition, gave the entire process its name in European languages, algebra, understood today as the generalization of arithmetic in which symbols, usually letters of the alphabet such as A, B, and C, represent numbers. Al-Khwarizmi had used the Arabic word for "thing" (shay) to refer to the quantity sought, the unknown. When al-Khwarizmi's work was translated in Spain, the Arabic word shay was transcribed as xay, since the letter x was pronounced as sh in Spain. In time this word was abbreviated as x, the universal algebraic symbol for the unknown.

Robert of Chester's translation of al-Khwarzmi's treatise on algebra opens with the words dixit Algorithmi, "Algorithmi says." In time, the mathematician's epithet of his Central Asian origin, al-Khwarizmi, came in the West to denote first the new process of reckoning with Hindu-Arabic numerals, algorithmus, and then the entire step-by-step process of solving mathematical problems, algorithm.

Engineering

Medieval Muslim scientists often focused on practical matters, particularly hydraulic engineering, as water was always a precious resource in the arid lands where Islam traditionally flourished. Engineers designed various kinds of water-raising machines, some powered by animals, others powered by rivers and streams. The waterwheels along the Orontes River in Syria were used to irrigate until modern times. Watermills were used to grind corn and other grains, though in Iran water power was often supplemented or replaced by wind.

Bridges and dams were needed to channel water. In addition to the standard beam, cantilever and arch bridges, engineers also designed bridges of boats to span rivers. Dams were widely used to divert rivers into irrigation canals. Perhaps the most ingenious hydraulic technologies were the distribution networks of canals and qanats, subterranean aqueducts that sometimes carried water for hundreds of miles. Cisterns and underground ice-houses were used for storage. Various instruments were used to measure water flow, and the Nilometer built in 861-62 still stands on Rawda Island in Cairo.

In addition to these machines and technologies related to water, Muslim engineers also designed several types of siege engines, notably the traction and the counterweight trebuchet. Their ingenuity is clear from the many kinds of fine machines they also perfected, ranging from clocks and automata to fountains. Some were meant for practical purposes but others were designed for amusement or aesthetic enjoyment, and their components and techniques were of great importance for the development of machine technology.

Astronomy

As in the other sciences, astronomers in the Muslim lands built upon and greatly expanded earlier traditions. At the House of Knowledge founded in Baghdad by the Abbasid caliph Mamun, scientists translated many texts from Sanskrit, Pahlavi or Old Persian, Greek and Syriac into Arabic, notably the great Sanskrit astronomical tables and Ptolemy's astronomical treatise, the Almagest. Muslim astronomers accepted the geometrical structure of the universe expounded by Ptolemy, in which the earth rests motionless near the center of a series of eight spheres, which encompass it, but then faced the problem of reconciling the theoretical model with Aristotelian physics and physical realities derived from observation.

Some of the most impressive efforts to modify Ptolemaic theory were made at the observatory founded by Nasir al-Din Tusi in 1257 at Maragha in northwestern Iran and continued by his successors at Tabriz and Damascus. With the assistance of Chinese colleagues, Muslim astronomers worked out planetary models that depended solely on combinations of uniform circular motions. The astronomical tables compiled at Maragha served as a model for later Muslim astronomical efforts. The most famous imitator was the observatory founded in 1420 by the Timurid prince Ulughbeg at Samarkand in Central Asia, where the astronomer Ghiyath al-Din Jamshid al-Kashi worked out his own set of astronomical tables, with sections on diverse computations and eras, the knowledge of time, the course of the stars, and the position of the fixed stars. Essentially Ptolemaic, these tables have improved parameters and structure as well as additional material on the Chinese Uighur-calendar. They were widely admired and translated even as far away as England, where John Greaves, professor at Oxford, called attention to them in 1665.

Medicine

Medieval Muslims revolutionized the science and practice of medicine, as physicians began to question the medical traditions inherited from both East and West and distinguish one disease from another. For example, Ibn al-Haytham (ca. 965-1039), the so-called "father of optics," explained how human vision takes place by integrating physical, mathematical, experimental, physiological, and psychological considerations. His treatise had an enormous impact on all later writers on optics, both in the Muslim world and through a medieval Latin translation in the West.

Similarly, the great Egyptian physician Ibn al-Nafis (d. 1288), discovered the minor, or pulmonary, circulation of the blood. Ibn Sina (980-1037), known in the West as Avicenna, synthesized Aristotelian and later Greek theories with his own original views, and his Canon of Medicine became the most famous medical book in the East or West, translated at least 87 times.

Muslims also expanded the practice of medical schools and hospitals. The Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid used the Sasanian academy of Jundishapur in southwestern Iran as his model when he founded his own hospital in Baghdad (ca. 800). Hospitals were soon established throughout the empire. They were staffed by dozens of specialists, from physiologists, oculists, and surgeons, to bonesetters. They even had special wards for the mentally ill and separate wings for men and women. These hospitals were often incorporated into large charitable foundations and were supported by endowments made by powerful and wealthy individuals. One of the most famous was that founded by the Mamluk sultan Qalawun in Cairo. In addition, traveling clinics and dispensaries provided services to rural areas.

Paper and Publishing

Muslims were responsible for the transfer of papermaking from China, where it had been invented in the centuries before Christ, to Europe, where it fueled the print revolution in the late fifteenth century. Muslims encountered paper when they conquered Central Asia in the eighth century. Paper quickly supplanted papyrus (which was made only in Egypt) and parchment (which was made from animal skins), for it could be made virtually anywhere from rags and waste fibers. Although it was not cheap, paper had the great advantage of being difficult to erase, an important consideration when documents and records had to be secure from forgery. The use of paper soon spread from government offices to all segments of society. By the middle of the ninth century the Papersellers' Street in Baghdad had more than one hundred shops in which paper and books were sold.

Medieval Islamic society had a paper economy, where both wholesale and retail merchants conducted commerce on credit. Orders of payment, the equivalent of modern checks (the Persian word sakk is the origin of our word "check"), were drawn in amounts upwards from one dinar (a gold coin roughly equivalent to half a month's salary). By the ninth century paper was used for copying scientific and other types of utilitarian texts, although it took longer for Muslims to accept the use of paper as a fitting support for God's word. The first paper manuscript of the Koran to survive dates from 972, but from this date paper soon became standard for all books. Medieval Islamic libraries had hundreds of thousands of volumes far outstripping the relatively small monastic and university libraries in the West.

Architecture

The art of building was popular in virtually all times and places in the Islamic lands, providing places of communal worship, social service, and stately residence. The most important type of religious building was the congregational mosque, which had to provide sufficient space for the Muslim community to gather for weekly worship on Friday at noon. Famous examples include, the Great Mosque in Damascus, the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo, and the Great Mosque (now the Cathedral) of Cordoba. Muslims also commissioned many other building types, ranging from small mosques to use for daily worship, such as the Mosque of Shaykh Lutfallah in Isfahan, to madrasas, or religious schools, and commemorative structures, such as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Taj Mahal in Agra.

Like rulers everywhere, Muslims also commissioned great palaces, such as the Alhambra in Granada or the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. These universal types of buildings were erected using local materials and forms that suited the climate and geography. For example, builders in the Mediterranean region initially favored post-and-beam structures built of stone and decorated with mosaic, whereas builders in Iran and the eastern lands built arched and vaulted structures of brick decorated with plaster. Over time, Islamic civilization brought about the easy movement of artisans and led to the interchange of artistic ideas and techniques. Muslim patrons everywhere appreciated exuberant and colorful decoration. The extravagant use of color, particularly tiles, is one of the hallmarks of Islamic architecture.

Art

It is often said that Islam bans images of people or animals, but this is false. The Koran itself has very little to say on the subject and the Traditions of the Prophet are open to various interpretations. As Muslims believe that God is unique and without associate, He cannot of course be represented. As He is worshipped directly without intercessors, images of saints, as in Christian or Buddhist art, have no place in Islam. As the Koran is not a narrative like the Torah or the Gospels, there is little reason for Muslims to tell religious stories through pictures.

Instead, Islamic religious art has focused on the glorification of God's word, specifically by writing it beautifully, and accompanying the Arabic script with geometric and floral designs known as arabesques, in which plants grow according to the laws of geometry rather than nature. Some people believe that these designs have deep spiritual and mystical meaning, while others believe they are simply beautiful patterns. Believers are free to see in these designs whatever they like — this sense of ambiguity is one of the hallmarks of Islamic art. Examples of religious art range from beautifully calligraphied manuscripts of the Koran to intricately carved and inlaid pulpits or minbars, from which the Friday sermon is given in the mosque.

Islamic secular art, on the other hand, might or might not have representations of living beings, depending on the local cultural traditions and the preferences of the artist and patron. For example, North Africans have generally shown little taste for images, while Iranians have always enjoyed them, sometimes even in religious settings. Much of Islamic secular art, like religious art, is decorated only with geometric and vegetal patterns and inscriptions, but many objects, whether glazed ceramics, carved ivories, intricately woven silks, or luxurious carpets, are decorated with lively human and animal figures set individually or in scenes. Unlike much Christian art, which largely developed for the use of the Church, Islamic secular art has been characterized by the transformation of everyday objects, whether bowls for eating or carpets and cushions to sit on, into things of transcendent beauty.

Given the Islamic fascination with God's word, the art of the book has always been one of the favorite forms of Islamic art, and calligraphers in the Islamic lands have the fame accorded painters and sculptors in the West. Although transcribing the Koran and decorating the pages with beautiful designs was always revered, calligraphers and painters, particularly in Iran, India and Turkey, also prepared manuscripts of epic and lyric poetry, history and geography with beautiful calligraphy and exquisite miniatures.

Literature

Literature is one of the arts most valued by Muslims. Medieval Muslims fostered the art known as adab, which came to imply the sum of intellectual knowledge that makes a man courteous and urbane. Based on pre-Islamic poetry, the art of oratory, and the historical and tribal tradition of the ancient Arabs, as well as the corresponding sciences of rhetoric, grammar, lexicography, and metrics, adab literature included long compilations of poetry, works for instruction, and manuals for princes meant to entertain sophisticated audiences.

Literature pitched at a more popular level was correspondingly broad, ranging from the legends of pre-Islamic poets to the stories epitomized by the Thousand and One Nights. In addition to works in Arabic, Muslims also fostered a thousand-year tradition of classical Persian poetry, ranging from short quatrains to long epics. With the spread of Islam to other regions, there has been a corresponding growth in literature in other languages, ranging from Swahili to Malay.

Classwork & Homework

Lesson Video:

Islam: Empire of Faith - Parts 2 (53:55 Start)
Islam: Empire of Faith - Parts 3

Lesson Activity:

Research:

Homework: Assignments

Special Education Modifications

Teaching Model: Co-Teaching
Special Education Teacher will work with All students General Ed and Special Ed.
- Special Ed Students:
  - Teacher will read-aloud to students when necessary.
  - Teachers will break down assignments into smaller tasks.
  - Teachers will work with students on vocabulary acquisition by breaking down words into prefixes/suffixes and etymology.
  - Teachers will group students according to learning style inventory as a homogeneous group.
  - Teachers will keep students on-task by managing distractions and on-task behavior.
  - Teachers will modify note-taking by modeling notes from PowerPoint to chalkboard/whiteboard.
  - Teachers will differentiate lessons by using; verbal cues for auditory learners, graphic organizers for visual learners, and hands-on cues for kinesthetic learners.