Islamic

Scholarship & Learning

• Valued in Islamic culture
• Promoted by acceptance of Arabic language
• Arabic: language of scholarship and science (8)

MUSLIM RULERS BUILT CENTERS FOR LEARNING

Major Centers of Learning

Baghdad

• Major center for learning
• Persian influences combined w/Arabic heritage of Islam
• Caliph al-Ma'mun founded House of Wisdom in 830

Cairo

• Rival against Baghdad
• Hall of Wisdom opened in 10th century
• University was most advanced in Muslim world

Cordoba

• Large and Wealthy
• Muslims, Jews, Christians worked/studied
• City had a huge library (400,000 volumes)
• Library contained works of Greek philosophers (Aristotle and Plato)

Logic to Prove Truths

Ibn Sina

• Persian; Known as Avicenna in Europe
• Islam's Most Famous Philosopher
• Wrote in Early 11th Century
• Knowledge came from God
• Truth: Revelation and Reason

Islamic