The Islamic Golden Age may be recognized for its remarkable advancements in science and technology, but that doesn’t mean those were the only fields that prospered during this time. Literature and the arts grew to staggering heights as classic works arose and beautiful innovative designs were produced. The Golden Age began to give Islamic art a category of its own, and as the Islamic Empire continued to grow, so did its creative side. In fact, if contributions were never made in these fields, the world would truly miss something incredible.
Literature during the Golden Age was characterized by a variety of [...]

Among its many accomplishments, the Islamic Empire was also renowned worldwide for its incredible textile and blacksmith industries. Textiles characterized by rich colors and details, and steel that was notorious for its matchless precision, characterized the quality and marvelousness of Islamic creations that later civilizations aspired to recreate with little success.
Byzantine and Sasanian served as the building blocks for the evident rise of the textile industry in the early Islamic period.  Textiles were common in wealthy households in the forms of clothing, household furnishings, and forms of portable residence.   Alongside, the ongoing trade was directly affecting this industry.  The items [...]

The Islamic Empire’s great endeavors and developments in trade proved to be a major benefit to the Muslims, as well as to the rest of the world. International trade increased and maintained expansion of the empire. Materials for manufacturing purposes, luxuries, and food were in great demand and supply among the people. The flow of products taken in for sale at the lowest possible prices improved the revenue of merchants, bettered the speed of import, and advanced the influence of traders internationally. Major countries such as India and China exported pepper, spices, valued stones, fine cloth, and ceramics to the [...]

Just as Islam began to gain a formidable reputation in the West in terms of the technological advancements its scholars had produced, the message of Islam was being brought to other parts of the world that knew little about the Prophet or Allah . One of the first areas introduced to Islam after Arabia was the continent of Africa. By 790 AD, a series of campaigns ventured by the Umayyad dynasty against the Byzantines had claimed almost all of northern Africa for Islam, leaving a religious legacy that is still felt today.1
But before all of Africa had been [...]

After the death of the Prophet Muhammad , the Islamic religion was spreading rapidly all across the Middle East and the world. Because of this, there was an increased demand for mosques and spiritual gathering places. The construction of these designated places of worship marked the beginning of the influential architectural creations of the Muslims.
Islamic architecture is undeniably one of the most beautiful forms of man-made symmetry and designs. It has evolved within Muslim cultures throughout Islamic history, inspired by spiritual essence.
An important factor in every work of Islamic art and architecture is abstract decoration of the surface, whether [...]

Paper (or in Arabic, waraqa), a material which is used for so many things in our lives, can trace back its origins to over 2000 years ago in China. However, the Islamic Empire was responsible for spreading the use of paper throughout the world and sparked the start of its use in Europe hundreds of years later after Muslims established paper mills in Spain. It was because of the Muslim discovery of paper that it would begin to have widespread use across Asia and Africa, and eventually reach and be used in Europe earlier than it would have otherwise.
Muslims most [...]

Throughout history, Islam has distinguished itself in many areas of science – one of them being optics, the study of the behavior and properties of light. One may assume that optics aren’t nearly as important as, for example, math, but you’d be surprised at what far-reaching advancements the Islamic Empire made – and how such developments led to the invention of modern day devices, such as the camera.
Before Muslim scientists took over the field of optics, it was believed that the eye is the source of light and that the world would be dark without it. There were also no [...]

With Islam’s growing contributions to every part of academia, it’s no surprise that Muslim scholars did not leave advancements in medicine for their Western counterparts, either. Even Geoffrey Chaucer, an English writer and diplomat in the 14th century whose life’s work had very little to do with medicine, knew that Muslim medical scholars had influenced the study of the subject the most alongside the Greeks. Chaucer’s description of the physician from The Canterbury Tales lists off two medical scholars whose teachings had contributed to his status as an exceptional doctor: Razis or al-Razi and Avicenna or Ibn Sina.1
Al-Razi was a [...]