Muslim Advances

            "Muslim society had a sophistication matched at that time only by the Tang Empire of China." (Mcdougal Littell, 242) The Muslim society was very advanced in many ways compared to the societies of other major civilizations. They made great advancements in the blending of cultures, math and science, and arts and literature. All this made possible the a semblance of the House of Wisdom, a combination library academy, and translation center.
             Muslim culture was centered around its four social classes. It included the born Muslims at the top. Converts were in the next class and had to pay higher taxes than the born Muslims. Next came the non-Muslim people who paid the most taxes of them all. The lowest class were the slaves, all of whom were non-Muslim. Muslims believed that math was the basis of all knowledge. A Muslim first described "al-jabr", which we still use today as Algebra. Many of the Muslim's researched of math lead to scientific discoveries. Astronomy and Optics were two fields in which the Muslims greatly excelled in. Ibn Haytham was the person to discover that rays pass from object to eyes. Literature was a strong tradition to the culture All literature stemmed from things such as bravery, love, generosity, and hospitality. All the culture's literature was based on the sacred Qur"an. Muslims also had a deep interest in art, though they had to come up with interesting ways to do it. Islam forbid the painting of humans. So artist came up with creative ways to do it, for example using calligraphy. But the most beautiful thing from their culture was the architecture. Though Muslims are now regarded as back-wards in their ways of women. In this particular time period Muslim women had more rights than most women. Poor women could work along side their husbands and the rich ones overlooked servants and could even get an education.