Islamic civilization up 1500: The Big Picture

3 Themes: Truth, Just Rule, Contact

Period	Knowing Truth	Government	Contact
Prophet ( c. 610-632)	Qur'an (revelation)	Hijra 622 begins new Islamic state	Conversion (Taxes?) vs. Conquest: Is Islam only for Arabs?
Caliphs and Umayyads (632-750)	Qur'an Hadith	Creation of Empire Assassination of Ali Shi'i critique	Who belongs? Revolution of 750 revives the universalist claim of Islam.
Abbasids (750-1258)	Qur'an Hadith Science and Philosophy Sufis	Three Caliphs: Decentralized Leadership (Baghdad, Damascus, Cordoba)	Convivencia Crusade (Pope's call, Local perceptions)

Creation of Empire: Umayyads in Damascus

First Generation Fitna (disorder): Ali vs. Mu'awiya

Second Generation Fitna: Husayn vs. Yazid

Yazid's forces kill Husayn, Muhammad's Grandson, at Karbala

Abbasids: Expansion of Empire

Ibn Sina 980-1037

Avicenna (al-Husain b. Abdallah Ibn Sina, d. 1037), Avicennae canonis libri In Latin, translated from Arabic by Gerard of Cremona Fourteenth century

The papal library also acquired copies of standard medical works used in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Portions of the twelfth-century Latin translation of Avicenna's medical encyclopedia were used as textbooks in universities, and the work as a whole served as a medical reference tool. In this copy, numerous miniatures vividly depict medical
problems--here, a patient with hemorrhoids.

Urb. lat. 241 fol. 280 recto
medbio07 NAN.01 .

"Medical Records, Patient Outcome, and Peer Review in Eleventh-Century Arab Medicine"

Ibn Rushd (Averroës), 1126-1198 CE