Islamic Golden Age Quotes

The medieval Islamic world, from Central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society, and system of belief, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history.

In Islam's golden age, so much progress was made that it became the basis of the European Renaissance. We Muslims have to change ourselves, that's the main difference. We can't keep blaming America or Israel for our misery.

Science and knowledge, especially that of philosophy, came from the Arabs into the West.

To this day the Arab influence is evident in southern Italy, northern Africa and, above all, in Spain.

As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam.

Alas, Islam turned against science in the twelfth century. The most influential figure was the philosopher Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali, who argued in The Incoherence of the Philosophers against the very idea of laws of nature, on the ground that any such laws would put God's hands in chains. According to al-Ghazzali, a piece of cotton placed in a flame does not darken and smoulder because of the heat, but because God wants it to darken and smoulder. After al-Ghazzali, there was no more science worth mentioning in Islamic countries.

Maybe some people may have thought or imagined that Islam drains all creativity. In fact, when you look at history, you discover that the golden age of Spain is what actually produced what we call the guitar.

From India to Spain, the brilliant civilization of Islam flourished. What was lost to christendom at this time was not lost to civilization, but quite the contrary.

Men actually flew 1000 years ago…. An important thing about Eilmer's and Ibn Firnas's inventions of the glider is that both occurred in intellectual environments that fostered invention. Ibn Firnas lived during the Golden Age of Islamic art and science, and Eilmer belonged to the Benedictine order, which saw God Himself as a master craftsman.

Early Islam was a time of great creativity. Scholars excelled in sciences and literature.

Iraq was home of the Abbasid Caliphate, a golden age when the Muslim world was at the forefront of math, science and medicine.

The contribution of Islam to history and modern civilization is the product of the efforts of peoples of many races and tongues which came to accept its way of life.

In ancient times and in our times, Muslim communities have been at the forefront of innovation and education.

Damascus was the seat of the Ummayad Caliphate in the 7th and 8th centuries.

Our use of the phrase 'The Dark Ages' to cover the period from 600 to 1000 marks our undue concentration on Western Europe. [...] From India to Spain, the brilliant civilisation of Islam flourished. What was lost to Christendom at this time was not lost to civilisation, but quite the contrary. [...] To us it seems that West-European civilisation is civilisation, but this is a narrow view.

I think we need to recover the depth, the subtlety, the generosity of imagination, the respect for wisdom that so marked Islam in its great ages.

Once Europe existed in a Dark Age and Islam carried the torch of learning. Now we Muslims live in a Dark age.

Their chief residence was Bagdad, where they remained until the eleventh century, an age fatal in Oriental history, from the disasters of which the Princes of the Captivity were not exempt.

Old Khayyám, say you, is a debauchee;If only you were half so good as he!He sins no sins but gentle drunkenness,Great-hearted mirth, and kind adultery.But yours the cold heart, and the murderous tongue,The wintry soul that hates to hear a song,The close-shut fist, the mean and measuring eye,And all the little poisoned ways of wrong.

For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.

It flourished with the Saracens, and suffered in the obscure and fanatical days of the Middle Ages.

The superiority of the Arab civilization, especially in Spain and Sicily, was the chief agency which awakened Europe after six centuries of barbarism.

During this period the Arab world became an intellectual center for science, philosophy, medicine and education; the Abbasids championed the cause of knowledge and established the House of Wisdom (Bait-ul-Hikmat) at Baghdad, where both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars sought to translate and gather all the world's knowledge into Arabic. The Arabs displayed a remarkable capacity of assimilating the scientific knowledge of the civilizations they had overrun. Many classic works of antiquity that might otherwise have been lost were translated into Arabic and Persian and later in turn translated into Turkish, Hebrew and Latin. During this period the Arab world was a collection of cultures which put together, synthesized and significantly advanced the knowledge gained from the ancient Roman, Chinese, Indian, Persian, Egyptian, Greek, Byzantine and Phoenician civilizations.

Islam was Europe's teacher. From the eighth to the 12th centuries.

Arab civilization has collapsed. It won’t recover in my lifetime.