The House of Wisdom
         The role of Islamic scholarship in the development of “western” education is generally little known or acknowledged.  For five hundred years, from the 8th to the 12th century, the Islamic world developed an educational culture that produced great scholars in every field.  Literacy was the norm while at the same time in Europe illiteracy was the rule.  The 11th and 12th centuries have been described as the golden age of Islamic education, incorporating Hellenistic, Hindu, and Persian science and philosophy into an Islamic framework.  The works of Averroes (Abu al-Walid ibn Rushd), Avicenna (ibn Sind), and al-Khwarizmi became highly influential as Europeans discovered the richness of Islamic thought.
           
            Jonathan Lyons provides a thorough, thoughtful, and highly readable assessment of this period of time in his 2009 book The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization.    Click here to see a short video of his talk on the subject to a conference in 2013.

In  Mathematics Education Across Time and Place

 
            Abdul-Haqq ibn Talib al-Baghdadi, was a mathematics teacher in the madrasas of 11th-century Baghdad, and later employed as a private tutor in the library salons of the palaces of the wealthy (Chapter 2: The Islamic Influence).  In a conversation with his nephew Nahim, he describes something of the great Bayt al-Hikma (House of Wisdom).


           And so it was that in our history, especially during the time of Caliph al-Ma’mun, that learning was highly regarded.  You already mentioned the Bayt al-Hikma of al-Ma’mun.  This was a great centre for the translation of ancient texts from Greece, Persia, India and China.  Missionaries were sent out all over, looking for important books to translate.  Monumental libraries were formed, holding books on medicine, astronomy, mathematics, logic and many other subjects.  There was also an astronomical observatory built by al-Ma’mun, for astronomy is so important for Islam.
            We owe much gratitude that Allah, Ar-Razzaq [the Provider], gave to us men such as Tabit ibn Qorra, blessings upon his descendants, who translated so many of these great works:  The Elements of Euclid, The Sphere and The Cylinder of Archimedes, the Conics of Apollonius, just to name a few.  Ibn Qorra also made many of his own contributions, including a beautiful exposition on numbers that are called “amicable.”
            In fact there have been many who have written and made significant developments.  I cannot begin to name them all, we have been so blessed, praised be Allah.  I have already made mention of al-Khwarizmi through whom we received Hindu arithmetic and development of our numeral system.  These numerals greatly simplified very complicated mathematical tasks. He also gave us what is called al-jabr, which has been advanced to such a far degree by others such as Abu Kamil Shuja al-Hasib and Abu Bakr al-Karaji. 
            And not long ago lived Abu l-Rayhan al-Biruni, who made significant advancement in calculating latitude and longitude.  And Abu’l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi, who developed the use of decimal fractions.