Raphael Painting Reveals Secrets In the Vatican of Islam in the Dark Ages

One of the most famous painting of Raphael, School of Athens, is a wall painting in the Vatican Apostolic Palace, which displays the world's great philosophers. In the middle stand Plato and Aristotle. All around them there are figures such as Socrates, Pythagoras, and Diogenes.

Among the Greek philosophers who respected it is a Muslim: Ibn Rushdi (or Averroes, as known by Raphael). Its presence is an indication of the extent to which he became a reference for the leading figures in the Renaissance era. That he is the only Muslim philosophers in the painting also tell you something. Ibn Rushdi is one among many important thinkers of Islam are monumental, whose work became the center of the development of the Renaissance. Little is known in Europe as a Christian.

Half millennia later, the situation is not too different. The intelligentsia of the West may have heard of Ibn Rushdi and the possibility of Ibn Sina, or Avicenna as known in Europe. Little is know about the other Muslim philosophers. Conventional views is a bit of intellectual value that occurred between the peak of Greek philosophy and the development of the Italian Renaissance. Among these are the so-called "dark ages".

Actually, in the Dark Ages it developed an intellectual tradition sesubur before and after this last century. First centered in Baghdad and later in Cordoba, Arabic philosophy and science plays an important role not only in maintaining the achievements of Greece and laid the groundwork for the Renaissance and scientific revolution, but also in expanding the boundaries of knowledge.

Jim Al-Khalili is a theoretical physicist who also holds positions in the Public Engagement in Science. He has a passion to bring before a wider audience not only the facts of science but also history. Al Khalili was born in Baghdad, and the common sense someone is also a personal desire that burns to raise the city's history in which it plays such an important role.

The origins of "the golden age of Arabic science" lies in the pragmatic needs of the new Islamic world in the centuries that extends seven and eight, and finally extends from India to the Atlantic. To ensure the management and better access to technology, the new caliph translate some documents into Arabic.

In the mid-eighth century, Caliph Al-Mansur built a new city of Baghdad to become the capital of the kingdom. There, his grandson, Caliph al-Ma'mun, build a "House of Wisdom", a library and center of scholarship that helped turn Baghdad into the greatest intellectual center of his era.

In the second half of the tenth century, the translation movement ended in large part because all great works have been translated and studied. At that time a new movement begins. Movement originating from Arab scholarship, which grew from a desire to examine empirically the claim that ancient period in texts such as Ptolemy's Almagest, long considered beyond reproach as a work of astronomy. Al Mamun built an observatory near Baghdad, the first large-scale science projects funded by the state, so Al Khalil call. Together with a larger observatory was built near Tehran, the project has helped change and establish the mathematical astronomy of Copernicus without it could never arrive at heliosentrisnya model.

Not only that direvolusi astronomy. Islamic scholars find algebra, helped develop the decimal number system, basic optical building, and set the ground rules of cryptography. Seven centuries before the scientific revolution in Europe, the polymath Ibn al-Haytham effectively pioneered the scientific method, emphasizing the importance of observation and experimentation. He is, says Al Khalili, should be regarded as the world's greatest physicist of Archimedes and Newton.

The centerpiece of the development of learning Arabic is Islam Mu'tazil strand, a doctrine of the open questions and investigations. "The combination of Greek rationalism and Islamic Mu'tazilisme," said Al Khalili, "resulting in a humanitarian movement like that would never be seen until Italy entered the 15th century."

Exploring the hidden story of Islamic learning, and its importance to the modern world, obviously very important historically. But history is not just a story about the past, but also stories of today. At the present time in which the question of identity became paramount, and history became increasingly politicized, debates about Islamic traditions play a key role in defining the clash of civilizations, in shaping our thinking about the West and Islam.

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