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The Golden Age of Islam saw an explosion of ideas, inventions and learning.

Baghdad became the centre for science, maths and more!

• The Abbasid caliphs (leaders) wanted people to learn.
• The city had a number of libraries, universities, hospitals, schools and the famous House of Wisdom.

• The House of Wisdom was a huge academy where people studied.

• It had a big library and even an observatory where people could look at the night sky.

• Lots of important books were kept in the House of Wisdom.

• People translated ancient Roman and Greek texts into Arabic so more people could read them.

• Islamic astronomers improved the astrolabe.
• It was a device that allowed travellers to find their way, a bit like a compass.
• People used the astrolabe to identify the position of the sun and stars to plan their routes.
• Muslims could also use it to find the direction of Mecca for prayer.

• Today, we use the Hindu Arabic number system (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) which was founded in India.

• Mathematicians in the early Islamic world like Al-Khwarizmi introduced the system to Europe.

• It was much simpler to use than Roman numbers.

Ibn al-Haytham was a scientist who carried out experiments. He studied how the human eye worked. He invented an early type of camera that helped explain how the eye sees.

• Hospitals in the early Islamic civilisation were some of the first in the world and treated rich and poor people.

• They also had special hospitals for teaching.

• Doctors studied the body and how to treat it for different diseases.

• They wanted to find out more about organs like the heart and how they worked.

Look at the table below to find out more about important figures in early Islamic medicine.