AL ASHARI SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

 Here’s the English translation:

*The Golden Days of the Arabs*

Arab intelligence was flung across the world a thousand years ago more swiftly and dramatically than that of the Greeks. The intellectual stimulation of the entire world west of China, the breaking up of old ideas, and the development of new ones all at once were immense. 

In Persia, this freshly awakened Arab mind came into contact not only with Manichaean, Zoroastrian, and Christian doctrine, but also with Greek scientific literature preserved not in Greek but in Syriac translations. It also discovered Greek learning in Egypt. Everywhere, and especially in Spain, it encountered an active Jewish tradition of speculation and discussion. 

In Central Asia it met Buddhism and the material achievements of Chinese civilization. From the Chinese it learned the manufacture of paper, which made printed books possible, and finally it came into contact with Indian mathematics and philosophy. 

Very quickly the self-sufficiency of the early days of the faith — the intolerance which made the Qur’an the only possible book — was abandoned. Learning began everywhere in the footsteps of the Arabs. By the 8th century there was an educational organization throughout the entire Arabicized world. 

In the 9th century, learned men in the schools of Cordoba were corresponding with learned men in Cairo, Baghdad, Bukhara, and Samarkand. The Jewish mind assimilated very easily with the Arab, and for a long time the two Semitic races worked together through the medium of Arabic. 

Long after the political break-up and weakening of the Arabs, this intellectual community of the Arabic-speaking world continued to exist. It was still yielding very important results in the 13th century. 

Thus it was the systematic accumulation and criticism of facts, first begun by the Greeks, that was resumed in this astonishing renaissance of the Semitic world. There were great advances in mathematics, medicine, and physical science. 

Roman numerals were replaced by Arabic numerals, which we use to this day, and the zero sign was used for the first time. The very name _algebra_ is Arabic. The word _chemistry_ is also Arabic. The names of stars such as Algol, Aldebaran, and Boötes preserve the mark of Arab conquest of the heavens. 

Their philosophy was destined to animate the medieval philosophy of France, Italy, and the entire Christian world. Arab experimental chemists were called alchemists, and they were still barbaric enough to keep their methods and results as secret as possible.