The Golden Age of Islam

by Maurice Lombard

In this book, Maurice Lombard portrays the Islamic world as the center of civilization at a time when the West was primitive and backward. Its reach extended from Córdoba to Samarkand, and it maintained and developed the tradition of wealth, cultural and artistic achievement, and thriving urban life that it had absorbed from its predecessors, the civilizations of Greece, Egypt, and Persia, and the ancient cities of the Middle East. It is this Islamic economy and civilization that the author portrays at its height and brilliantly sets into its context of satellite, in part semi-civilized, peripheral worlds―black North Africa, the barbarian West, the region of Russian rivers, and the Byzantine Empire. The book is considered a masterpiece of the Annales school of French historians.

Genres: History, Islam, Medieval

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

Reviews

[Eugene Kernes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book presents the setting behind the rise and Golden age of Islam circa eight to eleventh century. This time period is marked with the rise of Islamization (religion), Arabization (language), and Semitization (civilization). Islamic conquest of many regions was relatively easy as the people in those regions wanted to remove their own leaders. The conquests did not change much of the administration of the people which meant organization was not ruined. Conquered people could keep their religions, institutions, offices, and currency but needed to pay a tax. The conquest had very little destructive force in terms of burning and looting cities.

The rise of Islam in the East facilitated the rise of the West in a later time period. While the West was in the Dark Ages, the East was culturally vibrant. Due to no powerful nation in the West to protect trade, trade was heavily reduced, only to become more important with the Muslim Worlds’ protection of trade. Commerce is not the only institution which Islam facilitated in the West. Cordoba and Baghdad were two intellectual centers. When Cordoba fell to the Christians, they found a wealth of knowledge which brought about improvements in medicine and mathematics.

During a time, gold was scarce in Islam but with the rise of Islam, gold tended to flow to into the Muslim world. The influx of gold reduced its value, providing motivations to reinvest the gold before it loses more value. This incentive helped expand the economy, with the merchant class benefiting the most causing social unrest. Trade for the Muslim World was highly important as many regions lacked many resources such as wood and metals. Trade was the only way to obtain the scarce resources. Another trade item were slaves. Many of the available resources were extracted by use of slaves. Lombard mentioned the Muslim World was based on slavery, but not only as a labor force. Slaves had political influence and were used in expansion wars. Trade was needed with soundings countries to obtain slaves as protected subjected could not become slaves.

There is no narrative in this book as only a few events are represented. The story is told in the form of cities and regions with respect to monetary, resource, and social aspects. Quickly going from city/region to city/region and quickly moving time periods makes this book difficult to read. There is little explanation of what caused the rise of Islam and how it obtained the Golden age, making understanding the rise of the Muslin World difficult.

[AC]

An interesting, though somewhat outdated and eccentric (as the editor, Jane Hathaway, points out) Annaliste approach to classical Islam - requires a much deeper knowledge of the 'surface' material that I possess. In other words, I don't know enough at this point to read a book like this critically and profitably.