Art & Architecture
This religious belief allowed Islamic artists to perfect calligraphy and the use of geometry in art.
What is the forbidding of human/animal images?
The Ottoman Turks took over this city and renamed it, allowing monks with Byzantine and Classical knowledge to flee to Europe, igniting the Western Renaissance, in 1453.
What is Constantinople / Istanbul?
Often called "The Islamic Romeo & Juliet" this tale of love and sorrow reminds us that we should love people as they are, not as we imagine them to be, lest it drive us mad.
What is The Tale of Layla & Majnun?
This mathematical concept was introduced to the European world by Arabic speakers in Spain, and included a placeholder that meant "nothing".
What are numerals / numbers?
This religious, political, and military leader recorded what we know as the Quran and brought the world the religion we know as Islam.
Who is the Prophet Muhammad?
This style of manuscript is similar to many throughout the world, but only shares its name with that of the Byzantines.
What is an illuminated manuscript?
The Prophet Muhammad died before naming his successor, leaving his followers to choose between his close friend Abu Bakhar and his son-in-law Ali, and creating these two factions that still exist today.
What are Sunni and Shia?
This Persian poet wrote thousands of verses on universal love, peace, the beauty of life and death, and much more.
Who is Rumi?
This branch of mathematics, commonly taught today, deals with solving quadratic equations and other concepts is named after Muhammad Ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi's treatise on mathematics, titled "Al-Jabr wa-al Muqabilah".
What is Algebra?
These stops along the silk road and other trade routes provided a way for the long-distance passage of commerce, information, culture, and people throughout the Islamic empire. They also often included a place to stay, eat, and do business.
What is a kārvānsarāy (caravanserai)?
This substance is used to create the designs and unique style of ceramics in the Medieval Islamic world.
What is "stone paste"?
Escaping religious persecution from Polytheists, the Prophet Mohammad led his followers from this place to this other place in 630 CE, an event known as the Hijrah.
What is Mecca/Medina?
The legend of this book says that the Queen Consort Scheherazade told her cruel husband a new story every night in order to save her life. Today, many of the stories are still told in various forms today-- books, movies, cartoons, ballet, etc.
What is "The Thousand and One Nights"?
This book, written by three brothers working at Baghdad's House of Wisdom, described in great detail how to construct and operate around 100 machines and inventions.
What is the Book of Ingenious Devices?
This mathematically rigorous series of logical instructions allows people and computers to solve problems or perform computations and is named after the mathematician Muhammad Ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi.
What is an algorithm?
This style of mosque includes a decorative colonnade, and likely comes from an exaggeration of the typical post-courtyard style of a traditional mud-brick Arabic home.
What is a hypostyle mosque?
This fortified palace in Granada, Spain is the best-preserved secular building of the Islamic world and was built on the site of a Visigothic iron age fort.
What is the Alhambra?
This lute-like instrument was often used alongside a drum in Islamic-style music of the Medieval period.
What is an oud?
10th-Century physician and surgeon Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrwai invented, refined, and described over 200 of these, many of which are still in use today.
What are surgical tools? (Specifically, catgut sutures, cauterizing tools, forceps, scalpels, etc.)
In 859 CE, the young princess Fatimi al-Firhi founded the first one of these in Fez, Morocco. Still operating almost 1200 years later, the world's oldest one of these is still used as a pattern for higher education.
What is a (degree-offering) University?
This feature of a mosque is also known as a "prayer niche", is often the most highly decorated part of a mosque, and indicates the direction of prayer to devotees and visitors to the mosque.
What is a "mihrab"?
This break-off sect from Sunni Islam emerged in reaction to the opulence of the Umayyad Caliphate, and helped believers seek a simpler, more spiritual life, hoping to dedicate their lives to study and ethical practice. Some followers of this branch practice a type of "active meditation" that has become a classic folk tradition, wherein they spin in repetitive circles while listening to music in an effort to focus on God.
What is Sufism?
This astronomer and scholar also wrote "The Rubaiyat" and philosophized on the fleeting nature of life.
Who is Omar Khayyam?
Created and described 500 years before European versions, this critical mechanical device, which coverts reciprocating motion into rotational motion (or vice versa) was invented by the Banū Mūsā brothers and used to lift water and rotate mechanisms.
What is a crankshaft?
Widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of medicine, Abū Bakr al-Rāzī decided on a location for this revolutionary style of building by hanging slabs of fresh meat in various places throughout the city to find the place where the meat rotted the slowest.
What is a hospital (with wards/divisions)?