00:00:13
[narrator] The alphabet...
00:00:16
seafaring and trade...
00:00:18
the foundations of globalization.
00:00:20
Their roots go back thousands
of years to the Carthaginians.
00:00:27
The Germanic peoples
shaped the map of Europe.
00:00:30
The Arabs transmitted the rich knowledge
of the ancient world,
00:00:34
revolutionizing mathematics and medicine.
00:00:39
They all created a new world.
00:00:44
The Carthaginians,
the Germanic peoples, and the Arabs:
00:00:49
their achievements
produced modern Europe.
00:00:57
They lived in a host of tribes as farmers,
traders and nomads.
00:01:03
What first united them was Islam,
founded by the Prophet Muhammed.
00:01:08
They conquered an empire
that spanned three continents.
00:01:11
In their capital, Baghdad,
they founded the "House of Wisdom,"
00:01:15
an oasis of scholarship.
00:01:17
They transmitted the learning of
the ancient world and the East to Europe.
00:01:27
Whether it was medicine...
00:01:31
architecture...
00:01:33
or astronomy...
00:01:38
as patrons of science, they were
far ahead of their contemporaries.
00:01:54
Arabia.
00:01:55
The largest peninsula on Earth,
00:01:58
with endless seas of sand
from north to south.
00:02:02
For millennia, it was home to nomads
who journeyed from oasis to oasis.
00:02:07
Only in the southwest
did monsoon rains
00:02:10
make the mountains
and coastal strip green and fertile.
00:02:21
Traditionally, the people of this land
lived in small tribes and clans,
00:02:26
without a state or a common leader.
00:02:29
Although they had been there
since time immemorial,
00:02:32
no common name for them
was recorded until the ninth century BC.
00:02:37
That was when the first document
named them as "Arabs,"
00:02:40
probably derived from abara,
00:02:42
which means, in Arabic and Hebrew,
"to wander or pass by."
00:02:52
Before Islam, the Arabs
are one of the peoples in Arabia,
00:02:58
probably the most dominant one.
00:03:00
The main characteristics are
that they speak dialects of Arabic
00:03:05
and they're mostly pastoralists,
00:03:09
but also organized in tribes,
00:03:12
though some are also town dwellers,
living in oases.
00:03:15
They become almost like
an immigrant society, you'd say.
00:03:18
They absorb many different peoples
from this huge area.
00:03:21
All of them gradually, many of them,
start to define themselves as Arabs,
00:03:25
in the sense that they speak Arabic
and they belong to this Arab empire.
00:03:33
[narrator] In the dry north, there were
small kingdoms and some splendid cities,
00:03:37
such as the stone city of Petra,
in what is now Jordan.
00:03:45
Or Palmyra, a trading metropolis in Syria.
00:03:49
Some of its remains were recently
vandalized by ISIS.
00:03:54
In the fertile south of Arabia,
agriculture flourished.
00:03:58
Kingdoms emerged there too.
00:04:00
They benefited from the revenue
of the legendary Incense Road,
00:04:05
the ancient caravan route
by which incense, silk and precious stones
00:04:08
were transported
to the Mediterranean world.
00:04:11
The trade brought riches.
00:04:16
That is why the Romans called
the south Arabia Felix,
00:04:19
happy Arabia;
00:04:21
the north, Arabia Petraea,
stony Arabia;
00:04:24
and the center, Arabia Deserta,
desolate Arabia.
00:04:29
And that was the location of Mecca.
00:04:37
The city lay in a dry valley.
00:04:40
At most, passing caravans could hope
00:04:42
to pick up some dates,
or animal hides there.
00:04:45
Nevertheless, Mecca was an important
center of the Arabian world,
00:04:49
as it had another asset: sacred springs.
00:04:52
[man speaks Arabic]
00:04:53
And a special shrine, the Kaaba,
which rose up between the mud huts.
00:05:04
During holy months,
pilgrims came from everywhere
00:05:06
to walk around the Kaaba
in a special ceremony
00:05:09
and to pay homage to their gods.
00:05:17
For the merchants,
this was the great opportunity.
00:05:20
Everyone brought his wares to Mecca.
00:05:23
Not only did the people of the city
have to be fed, but so did the pilgrims,
00:05:28
and there was a trade
in religious mementoes.
00:05:36
There were plenty of customers.
00:05:38
After all, the Kaaba was the oldest
and most important sacred site in Arabia.
00:05:48
So we don't really know
the ancient origins of the Kaaba.
00:05:52
Possibly it was a meteorite,
00:05:55
but it became a shrine for the Arabs
of West Arabia,
00:06:00
in a pagan capacity, presumably, at first,
00:06:03
but then it became associated, obviously,
in Muhammed's time,
00:06:08
with the site of the one god.
00:06:12
[narrator] In ancient Arabia, there was
one high god and many local gods.
00:06:17
People feared the djinns,
demons who lived in the darkness.
00:06:23
The chief god of Mecca was Hubal.
00:06:25
At his side were Al-Lat,
a kind of goddess of war;
00:06:29
Al-Uzza, the goddess of the morning star;
00:06:32
and Al-Manat, the goddess of destiny.
00:06:36
Trees and springs, and often stones,
were sacred objects.
00:06:40
Some, like the black stone on the Kaaba,
were said to have fallen from heaven.
00:06:46
Not all the tribes were pagan;
some were Christian or Jewish.
00:06:54
The sites dedicated to the different gods
were administered by particular clans.
00:07:00
In Mecca, the Quraysh clan
controlled the Kaaba
00:07:03
and so, made up the city's elite.
00:07:09
The Quraysh also had a monopoly
on the considerable revenue
00:07:12
from the pilgrim trade,
so there were often disputes.
00:07:16
Hey!
00:07:18
Hey!
00:07:20
Hey, leave! This is our area.
00:07:22
You shouldn't be here.
Do you understand?
00:07:25
I'm telling you to go!
00:07:28
[narrator] Competition was frowned upon,
00:07:32
so a wealthy few dominated
00:07:37
and many others felt excluded.
00:07:43
But the world of many gods
was swept away by one man
00:07:47
who was born in Mecca in 570 AD:
Muhammed.
00:07:53
He propelled the tribes of Arabia
into the center of world events
00:07:56
because he founded a new religion.
00:08:03
It is said that Muhammed often withdrew
to a cave in order to meditate.
00:08:07
In his seclusion, he had
a supernatural encounter.
00:08:11
Known to history as the "Night of Power,"
00:08:14
it marks the birth date of Islam,
00:08:17
which means
"submission to the will of God."
00:08:28
Muhammed said that the archangel Gabriel
had commissioned him to persuade men
00:08:32
to cast aside paganism and convert
to belief in the one true God: Allah.
00:08:39
To his followers, Muhammed was
the "Seal of the Prophets,"
00:08:42
the last and highest of all the prophets.
00:08:46
There was Abraham,
00:08:47
the patriarch of the three great religions
of the Book...
00:08:54
Moses, the highest prophet of the Jews...
00:08:57
and Jesus, the Savior of the world
and founder of Christianity.
00:09:02
According to the Koran,
which Gabriel would go on to reveal,
00:09:06
Jesus had prophesied the coming
of Muhammed as his successor.
00:09:12
So it's said that there were some people
who were seeking after the truth
00:09:17
or who had heard rumors
that there might be a prophet
00:09:20
who would bring a new religion.
00:09:23
It's difficult to say whether we should
believe these or not.
00:09:25
But also, we know from the Koran
that he faced opposition.
00:09:29
Quite a proportion of the Koran is taken
up by dialogue between Muhammed
00:09:35
and an opposition who accuse him
of various things,
00:09:39
of maybe just being a magician,
00:09:40
a sorcerer, bringing false messages,
and so on.
00:09:44
So, one imagines that he faced
quite a lot of opposition,
00:09:49
and it took him some time
to win over followers.
00:09:55
[narrator] Mecca's elite saw
Muhammed's message as a threat.
00:09:58
For them, worshipping only one god
was out of the question.
00:10:02
What's more, the gods that Muhammed
was cursing as idols,
00:10:05
had been revered since the earliest times.
00:10:11
The new prophet and his few supporters
got a hostile reaction.
00:10:15
The community was divided.
00:10:19
One day, his opponents made a decision:
Muhammed had to die.
00:10:29
[in Arabic] Is this Muhammed?
00:10:31
Who else, you idiot?
Come on. Finish him off.
00:10:46
Damn it.
00:10:48
He's not here.
00:10:50
[man] Shut up!
I know where to find him.
00:10:53
Let's go.
00:11:01
[narrator] The attempt failed.
00:11:03
Muhammed, knowing his days
were numbered if he stayed in Mecca,
00:11:06
had urged his supporters
to get away while they could.
00:11:12
[man whistles]
00:11:13
His adversaries were too strong.
00:11:18
And he had also planned
his own escape long ago.
00:11:23
They've fled.
00:11:26
[narrator] It was said that Gabriel
00:11:28
had warned the prophet
and that God had protected him.
00:11:32
Muhammed's flight from Mecca,
known as the Hijra,
00:11:35
came in July 622 AD;
00:11:39
the year that now marks
the beginning of the Islamic calendar.
00:11:43
He took refuge in a mountain cave
and soon reached the city of Yathrib,
00:11:48
which offered him protection.
00:11:50
Its people hoped that he would
at last end their tribal feuds.
00:11:55
And Muhammed's faith
and his new laws did unite them.
00:11:58
They renamed their city in his honor
00:12:01
to Madinat an-Nabi, Medina,
City of the Prophet.
00:12:07
A couple of main reasons why Islam
is particularly attractive initially
00:12:12
is, one, simplicity.
00:12:15
There's none of this complicated
"three gods in one" or anything like that.
00:12:20
God is one, that's it.
00:12:23
There's a series of messengers
00:12:24
who've been sent
from the time of Adam onwards,
00:12:27
always bringing the same message,
so it's very clear and concise.
00:12:32
There's also a clear sense of community,
which is still, you can sense today,
00:12:37
in a sense, the ummah,
the Muslim community is one.
00:12:43
All Muslims should help each other,
00:12:46
and all people are members
of that one community.
00:12:51
Just by right of believing.
00:12:53
[narrator] In just ten years,
Muhammed succeeded
00:12:55
in doing what no one had ever done:
00:12:57
uniting all the tribes of Arabia
through faith in Allah.
00:13:05
After a few battles,
Mecca too embraced Islam.
00:13:08
Muhammed made a pilgrimage
to his hometown
00:13:10
and walked around the Kaaba,
as millions of Muslims still do today.
00:13:17
The shrine of the deities of antiquity
was seized for the new faith
00:13:21
and became Islam's holiest shrine.
00:13:29
After Muhammed's death,
Arab armies pushed north.
00:13:34
They destroyed the Persian Empire
00:13:36
and drove the Christian Byzantines
out of large parts of the Middle East
00:13:40
and North Africa.
00:13:45
They conquered an area stretching
as far east as Turkmenistan
00:13:48
and the borders of China.
00:13:53
In the west, they overran North Africa
and the Iberian Peninsula.
00:14:01
They stormed Sicily
and invaded southern France.
00:14:06
In the eighth century,
the Arabs ruled a world kingdom
00:14:09
that was larger than the Roman Empire.
00:14:14
Many different groups
join the Arab conquerors
00:14:17
for many different reasons,
00:14:20
but compulsion wasn't generally
one of them.
00:14:23
The most usual scenario is that a group
that had been excluded from the mainstream
00:14:28
for different reasons,
00:14:30
saw their chance now to become
one of the conquerors, the top dogs.
00:14:35
So for example, in Libya,
there is one particular tribe
00:14:39
of the Berbers called the Lawata.
00:14:42
They had been excluded
00:14:44
when the Byzantines reconquered Africa
in the 540s
00:14:49
and pushed basically outside
the Byzantine Empire.
00:14:54
So they now saw their chance
when the Arab conquerors came along
00:14:57
to join them and to become top dogs,
if you like, to join the elite.
00:15:03
[narrator] By 700 AD, the Arabs ruled
over approximately 60 million people.
00:15:09
At the very top of the empire
was the caliph.
00:15:12
However, there were often heated disputes
00:15:14
over who had the better right
to the position.
00:15:20
[caliph groans]
00:15:23
Below the caliph were
the provincial governors,
00:15:26
whose main role was to collect taxes.
00:15:29
Muslims paid only
a contribution to the poor.
00:15:32
The bulk of the taxes were paid
by non-Muslims,
00:15:35
classified as dhimmi, "protected persons."
00:15:39
The revenue was administered
by financial authorities called the Diwan.
00:15:43
They also distributed the taxes.
00:15:46
The kind of upholstered bench often found
in these offices is still called a divan.
00:15:55
Muhammed urged his followers
to strive for knowledge
00:15:58
"from the cradle to the grave."
00:16:02
There was probably no one who took this
as seriously as the Caliph Al-Ma'mun.
00:16:08
[in Arabic] Look!
Just as I told you, master.
00:16:14
[narrator] Al-Ma'mun ruled in Baghdad
in the ninth century.
00:16:18
He had a dream:
00:16:19
to make his city the greatest center
of scholarship in the world.
00:16:23
[smashing]
00:16:24
It happened again.
00:16:29
[snaps fingers]
00:16:30
Come and have a look.
00:16:34
Isn't this amazing?
00:16:37
Yes, master.
00:16:39
Always. Always.
00:16:43
[narrator] It was Al-Ma'mun's
great grandfather
00:16:45
who had laid the city's foundation stone.
00:16:50
Baghdad was built
00:16:51
between the Euphrates and the Tigris
on an important trade route
00:16:56
in what is now Iraq.
00:16:58
The metropolis was probably planned
as a round city.
00:17:03
All its districts were arranged
on a ring-shaped ground plan,
00:17:07
and all its roads led
to a gigantic central square
00:17:11
that contained the caliph's palace
and the central mosque.
00:17:18
Baghdad quickly expanded
beyond its original walls.
00:17:22
In 800 AD, the city had
around a million people,
00:17:25
making it one of the largest
cities in the world.
00:17:29
It was a magnet for specialists
and scholars from far-flung lands,
00:17:33
a haven of invention and scholarship.
00:17:39
It seems that the Caliph Al-Ma'mun
was completely obsessed
00:17:42
with science and scholarship.
00:17:44
Uh, he brought together a group
of astronomers.
00:17:47
He commissioned them
to write new star charts.
00:17:51
He was aware of the astronomy
of the ancient Greeks
00:17:53
and wanted to go beyond it,
so he commissioned the building
00:17:55
of new observatories
in Baghdad and Damascus.
00:17:59
It's said he had a dream early in life
00:18:01
that the Greek philosopher Aristotle
came to him and told him
00:18:05
to seek knowledge wherever he could.
00:18:07
And from that moment on,
I think he devoted his life to science.
00:18:14
[narrator] Caliph Al-Ma'mun
founded the Arab Empire's
00:18:17
most famous scholarly institution,
the House of Wisdom.
00:18:22
There, Arabs and Persians, Christians
and Jews collected and translated
00:18:27
the most important writings
from all over the world.
00:18:29
What do we have, ibn Harun?
00:18:36
Very well, sir.
00:18:38
We have, my Lord,
the science of mathematics.
00:18:41
The science of mathematics.
00:18:43
Good.
00:18:44
We have astrology from Persia.
00:18:48
Good.
00:18:50
Astrology.
00:18:51
From India, too.
00:18:53
As you can see, my Lord.
00:18:58
And also from India we have...
00:19:00
Brahmasphut.
00:19:03
It's something about mathematics.
00:19:05
Mm. Ibn Harun...
00:19:07
Anything interesting from the Greeks?
00:19:10
-[bell jingles]
-[door opens]
00:19:15
Euclid!
00:19:16
He has just returned
from Constantinople, my Lord.
00:19:29
After a great effort, my Lord,
00:19:31
I have brought you Euclid.
00:19:33
And also here is Pythagoras.
00:19:37
I have long waited for this moment.
00:19:41
This is amazing!
00:19:43
You are a great man, ibn Nazim,
you are a great man.
00:19:48
Thank you, my Lord.
00:19:50
Give him the money.
00:19:54
Translate these books
as soon as possible.
00:19:58
Clear?
00:20:01
They had inherited the discovery
of the manufacture of paper from China.
00:20:06
They were producing books
in large numbers.
00:20:08
And they realized they sat
in a part of the world
00:20:10
which was at the center of so many
earlier flourishing civilizations.
00:20:15
And I think they felt that somehow
00:20:17
they needed to catch up
with the rest of the world.
00:20:19
The Greeks, the Byzantines, the Romans,
the Persians, the Indians.
00:20:22
They had a lot of catching up to do,
00:20:25
to gather and assimilate
all this knowledge.
00:20:29
[narrator] The scholarly work in Baghdad
reached its peak
00:20:32
in the ninth and tenth centuries.
00:20:35
The Banu Musa brothers
were talented all-rounders
00:20:38
who invented what must be the world's
first programmable machine,
00:20:42
an automatic horse trough.
00:20:46
Hunayn ibn Ishaq, a doctor,
is considered the father of ophthalmology.
00:20:50
-[bystander vomits]
-He even operated on tumors.
00:20:55
The philosopher Al-Kindi was
the greatest universal scholar of Baghdad.
00:21:00
He analyzed secret scripts,
but also worked on music theory.
00:21:06
The Persian mathematician
and astronomer Al-Khwarizmi
00:21:09
made Indian numbers known to the Arabs
and introduced the decimal number system.
00:21:18
The numbering system we use today,
one to nine, and zero,
00:21:22
the decimal system, goes back to India.
00:21:25
So, more accurately it should be
referred to as Hindu-Arabic numerals.
00:21:30
But certainly it was passed on
to the Arabic-speaking world
00:21:32
and then on to Europe.
00:21:34
Great mathematicians like al-Khwarizmi
00:21:36
were very keen
on using this decimal system.
00:21:39
And, indeed, European mathematicians
like Fibonacci,
00:21:42
who travelled widely in the Middle East
and learned about Al-Khwarizmi,
00:21:46
then translated his work into Latin
and took it back to Europe.
00:21:51
[narrator] Roman numerals could not be
used for direct calculations.
00:21:55
For that, coins and lines were needed.
00:21:58
For example, adding 126 on the left
and 157 on the right.
00:22:04
Each number is divided into
hundreds, tens and ones,
00:22:08
with the fives and fifties
on lines in between.
00:22:12
Three ones make three.
00:22:14
Two fives make ten,
so one coin has to be moved up.
00:22:18
With the three tens, the fifty,
and the two hundreds, it makes 283.
00:22:23
It's pretty complicated.
00:22:25
With the new numerals, it was much easier:
00:22:28
126 plus 157 equals 283.
00:22:35
What Al-Khwarizmi did
for the very first time
00:22:39
was talk about "the unknown quantity."
00:22:41
Today we would call it "x," in algebra.
00:22:45
He said, for example, if you have
two times "x" and add one to it,
00:22:51
if that answer is five,
00:22:53
he then gave the set of instructions
that allow us to determine what "x" is.
00:22:59
So, for example, here we would say, well,
00:23:01
let's subtract one
from both sides of the equation.
00:23:05
So, on the left we only have two "x,"
00:23:08
and if I take one away from five,
I have four.
00:23:11
The next step is to divide both sides
of the equation by two.
00:23:15
So all I have now is "x"
and on this side I have two.
00:23:19
And here we have our answer.
00:23:21
The "x" is revealed for this
particular case to have the value of two.
00:23:26
We only get there
by following al-Khwarizmi's algorithm.
00:23:30
[narrator] Neither mathematics nor physics
could work without formulas.
00:23:34
Einstein expressed
his theory of relativity
00:23:37
in the famous formula E = mc².
00:23:42
The modern age would also
be unthinkable without algorithms.
00:23:46
Every computer and calculator works
on the basis of algorithms.
00:23:50
Translated into programming languages,
they are the basis of the digital world.
00:23:57
There is hardly anyone these days
who doesn't use apps or a computer.
00:24:01
They are indispensable,
even in the remotest parts of the world.
00:24:10
The introduction of Arabic numerals
00:24:12
put an end to calculations
with Roman numerals.
00:24:15
The word "cipher,"
from the Arabic for zero,
00:24:18
still reminds us of
the mathematical legacy of the Arabs.
00:24:25
The knowledge of the scholars
of Baghdad reached Europe,
00:24:28
both peacefully...
00:24:31
and by conquest.
00:24:42
In 711 AD,
00:24:44
an Arab and Berber army
crossed from North Africa into Spain.
00:24:56
The Arabs defeated the Visigoths,
00:24:59
who had ruled Spain
since the fall of Rome.
00:25:04
They conquered the whole
of the Iberian Peninsula
00:25:07
and even entered France.
00:25:16
With the conquest of Spain,
00:25:18
the expansion of Arab power
in the northwest reached its peak.
00:25:22
The new ruler was
from the Umayyad dynasty.
00:25:25
He founded the Emirate of Córdoba,
00:25:27
the first Arab empire to be independent
of the caliphs in the East.
00:25:39
Córdoba, the new Umayyad capital,
00:25:41
soon became
the largest metropolis in Europe.
00:25:45
The caliphs commissioned huge buildings...
00:25:48
masterpieces of Moorish architecture.
00:25:55
One of them was the Córdoba mosque,
00:25:58
now a cathedral and a World Heritage Site,
like the Alhambra Palace in Granada.
00:26:06
Andalusia benefited enormously
from the new rulers.
00:26:10
The Arabs introduced many previously
unknown crops, including citrus fruit,
00:26:15
artichokes, cotton and rice,
00:26:18
and they taught the farmers
how to irrigate more effectively.
00:26:27
They introduced the hundreds of windmills
that are, today, the symbol of Andalusia.
00:26:35
[in German] Rising productivity
and increasing trade
00:26:38
made the Andalusian cities
very wealthy.
00:26:42
The Umayyad rulers used this wealth
to promote culture,
00:26:47
that is, to invite scientists
and creative people to their courts.
00:26:52
This also applied to philosophy,
mathematics, astronomy,
00:26:55
and all kinds of subjects,
medicine, of course.
00:26:58
And Córdoba began to exert
a magnetic attraction,
00:27:04
particularly in Europe,
00:27:06
where people suddenly
became aware
00:27:09
of a cultural flowering
that simply wasn't happening in Europe.
00:27:16
[narrator] Scholars, artists
and creative people
00:27:19
were drawn to the Córdoba court,
as if by a magnet,
00:27:22
from all over the Arab Empire.
00:27:27
Word got around that the arts and sciences
were promoted there
00:27:32
and that talent was handsomely rewarded.
00:27:39
[man] Wa-oo!
00:27:41
[narrator] The new star was
a musician and free spirit
00:27:44
by the name of Ali ibn Nafi,
known as Ziryab, "the Jaybird,"
00:27:49
because of his beautiful voice.
00:27:54
[in Arabic] Where is it?
00:27:56
Where is my oud pick?
00:28:03
Sahar!
00:28:04
[narrator] Ziryab came to Spain
from Baghdad via North Africa in 822 AD.
00:28:10
He was a cosmopolitan,
with a knowledge of many fields.
00:28:13
He wrote poetry to accompany his melodies,
00:28:16
and he showed society in the Emirate
what the Eastern lifestyle was like.
00:28:21
[tunes oud]
00:28:27
Ziryab introduced the people
of Córdoba to Eastern fashions
00:28:30
and taught them
to change their clothing
00:28:32
according to the occasion and the season.
00:28:36
He urged men to groom their beards,
00:28:38
to clean their fingernails
and to use deodorant.
00:28:44
He showed them
how delicious asparagus was,
00:28:47
how to play chess, and how
to drink wine out of crystal glasses.
00:28:51
He advocated the three-course menu.
00:28:54
-[crowd cheers]
-He was the trendsetter of his age,
00:28:56
a cultural guru.
00:28:59
[crowd oohs]
00:29:03
But above all,
Ziryab revolutionized music.
00:29:07
The oud he brought with him
evolved into the guitar,
00:29:10
the key instrument of Spanish music,
particularly flamenco.
00:29:14
And he established
Córdoba's first music school,
00:29:17
for men and women.
00:29:23
[in Arabic] Hello, Master Ziryab.
00:29:24
Welcome. Great to have you here.
00:29:31
Abed al-Rahman...
00:29:33
Start with the first verse.
00:29:38
♪ My darling ♪
00:29:41
♪ Regardless of time or distance ♪
00:29:45
♪ Or travel ♪
00:29:47
♪ Or absence ♪
00:29:49
♪ You are always close to my heart ♪
00:29:52
Dreadful singing!
00:29:55
Hunaida, show him how to sing it.
00:30:00
[sings in Arabic]
00:30:16
[narrator] The scholars of Andalusia
stimulated innovations in every field.
00:30:20
Ziryab's patrons
also sponsored ibn Firnas,
00:30:24
a court poet and multi-talent.
00:30:27
He initiated the first known
attempt to fly.
00:30:32
The later Caliph al-Hakam II
had a library built
00:30:36
that is said to have housed
400,000 books,
00:30:40
more than in the rest
of Western Europe put together.
00:30:44
Many Moorish scientists were polymaths,
writing on astronomy, philosophy,
00:30:49
mathematics, medicine and mechanics.
00:30:54
Not only Muslims,
but also Jews and Christians
00:30:57
took part in this research,
00:30:58
and even women,
working as translators or librarians.
00:31:03
The term "Arabic science"
to define this period is very important.
00:31:07
Notice, we don't call it "Arab science,"
00:31:09
because many of these scholars
weren't Arabs.
00:31:11
They came from different parts
of the empire.
00:31:13
Many of them, for example, were Persian.
00:31:15
We also don't refer to it
as "Islamic science,"
00:31:18
because many of those scholars
were not Muslims.
00:31:20
There were Christians,
Jews and many others.
00:31:22
So it doesn't matter what religion
these scholars practiced
00:31:25
or which part of the empire
they came from,
00:31:28
but what united them was the lingua franca
of the empire at the time:
00:31:32
Arabic was the official language.
00:31:34
It was the language
of the holy book, the Koran.
00:31:37
And therefore everyone, if they wanted
to succeed in science and scholarship,
00:31:41
had to write in the Arabic language.
00:31:43
In the same way that today
international science is English.
00:31:49
[narrator] The heritage
of Moorish Andalusia
00:31:51
is evident in many areas.
00:31:53
It contributed words like "alcohol,"
"mattress" and "carafe."
00:32:00
The Andalusian style of singing to the oud
influenced the medieval troubadours,
00:32:05
who travelled Europe with their lutes.
00:32:07
It therefore sowed the seed for the music
of the modern singer-songwriters.
00:32:16
The Eastern lifestyle influenced customs
at European courts,
00:32:20
which adopted both chess
and the new table manners.
00:32:24
Voltaire, Goethe and Lessing
even glorified Andalusia's golden age
00:32:29
as a model of tolerance.
00:32:37
Córdoba was also
an important center of medicine.
00:32:41
Doctor Al-Zahrawi was one
of the leading medical practitioners.
00:32:48
Ahmed!
00:32:49
Yes, sir?
00:32:51
[narrator] There were already
50 hospitals in the city,
00:32:54
and it had its own medical school.
00:32:59
[patient groans]
00:33:01
It hurts!
00:33:04
Can you see his face?
00:33:08
Come closer.
00:33:10
And now?
00:33:13
Take another step.
00:33:15
And now?
00:33:16
I can't see clearly.
00:33:19
A cataract, then.
00:33:23
You want to pierce my eyes?
How is this helpful?
00:33:27
Your lens is becoming clouded.
00:33:29
We have to fold it down behind the pupil
so light can come into your eye again.
00:33:35
Very scary! Will I be better afterwards?
00:33:40
Usually it is.
00:33:42
I've done this operation
a number of times.
00:33:45
[narrator] Al-Zahrawi was considered
an expert in his specialty of surgery.
00:33:49
He even made his own instruments
and invented new ones.
00:33:57
The scalpel, scissors and dogleg clamps
00:34:00
were used in operations
on the nose and ears,
00:34:03
and in the throat or the urethra.
00:34:07
The lancet was used to treat cataracts,
00:34:10
by pushing the clouded lens
to the bottom of the eye.
00:34:14
Most of the instruments from that time
00:34:16
are barely distinguishable
from their modern surgical equivalents.
00:34:25
[in Spanish] Medicine certainly had
a major advance.
00:34:28
Pharmacy or chemistry
also had a major advance.
00:34:35
And the Arab-Islamic world of that time
was in some sense
00:34:40
the real heir of Greek science
and that of the Roman world,
00:34:45
and fortunately that science,
00:34:49
with great improvements
and obvious progress,
00:34:53
was transmitted to the Christian world
00:34:55
through the Translation Movement.
00:34:58
[narrator] The first Christian centers
of medical learning
00:35:00
grew up on the borders of the Arab Empire
from the 11th century on.
00:35:05
In Montpellier, in what is now France,
and in Salerno in southern Italy,
00:35:10
they had close contacts
with the Arab medical schools
00:35:13
in southern Spain and Sicily.
00:35:15
In this way, the vast knowledge
of the Arabic-speaking doctors
00:35:19
became more widely known.
00:35:27
[in Arabic] How are you?
00:35:30
I'm well.
00:35:33
I'm not blinded by the light.
00:35:37
I can even make out colors!
00:35:40
But I still can't see clearly.
00:35:45
You'll have to get used to that.
00:35:47
It's not going to be 100%.
00:35:51
It's important to see,
even if it's a little bit.
00:35:55
Wait here. I have something for you.
00:36:00
[narrator] Al-Zahrawi is
also regarded as a pioneer
00:36:03
of the use of medication
to treat pain, and in psychotherapy.
00:36:07
He also manufactured medicines
based on opium.
00:36:12
Make infusions out of these herbs
and anoint your eyes, they'll heal.
00:36:17
And this...
00:36:19
[chuckles]
00:36:22
...is for getting you in the mood.
00:36:26
[chuckles]
00:36:28
Thank you, sir!
00:36:30
[chuckles]
00:36:32
That isn't to say it was a fully
scientific method as we think of it today.
00:36:36
Consider, for example,
that there were astrologers
00:36:42
who calculated the exact dose of medicine
00:36:46
that a person should take,
00:36:49
owing to the influence of factors...
00:36:53
Well, apart from those
somewhat peculiar things
00:36:58
that we find a little strange,
00:37:01
the leap that occurred
through observation,
00:37:04
through the improvement of drugs
00:37:09
in Islamic medicine was very large.
00:37:14
[narrator] The Arabs had learned
from the Greeks
00:37:16
about the theory of the four "humors":
00:37:19
black bile, yellow bile,
phlegm and blood.
00:37:23
Personality, illness and treatments were
based on the mixture of these humors.
00:37:28
If black bile predominated,
the person was melancholic.
00:37:32
Yellow bile indicated
a choleric temperament,
00:37:35
and too much phlegm, a phlegmatic one.
00:37:38
Plentiful blood produced the most positive
temperament, the sanguine.
00:37:43
A good treatment rebalanced
the individual humors.
00:37:50
The medicine is definitely more advanced
in the Islamic world
00:37:54
than in the European north.
00:37:57
That's mainly because the caliphate
is hugely richer than northern Europe.
00:38:02
So it has the money to spend.
00:38:05
It also has access to the rich traditions,
00:38:11
both of Greece, ancient Greece,
00:38:13
so the works of Galen,
Hippocrates and so on,
00:38:16
which had been translated in the course
of the late eighth and ninth centuries,
00:38:20
but also the Persian and Indian worlds.
00:38:24
This is always important
to remember for the Islamic world.
00:38:26
It's not just drawing
on the Mediterranean,
00:38:28
it's also drawing on Persia and India,
00:38:33
which are also extremely ancient,
rich traditions of knowledge.
00:38:37
And the Islamic world
is able to combine these.
00:38:40
[narrator] The new knowledge
of medications became a model
00:38:43
for the first pharmacies
of Middle Ages Europe.
00:38:47
The Arabs founded the medical
specializations of dentistry,
00:38:51
pharmacology, anatomy and surgery,
00:38:54
all of them disciplines that were still
to be developed in the West.
00:39:02
Arabic textbooks were
compulsory reading for centuries,
00:39:06
above all Avicenna's Canon of Medicine,
00:39:09
and, of course,
the encyclopedia of Al-Zahrawi,
00:39:12
who was better known
to Europeans as Abulcasis.
00:39:17
It was only when bacteria,
viruses and parasites were discovered
00:39:21
that the next completely new era
of medicine began.
00:39:27
Europe lay in the shadow
of the Islamic world for centuries.
00:39:31
In the 11th century, however,
00:39:33
the Christian reconquest
of the Iberian Peninsula, the Reconquista,
00:39:38
launched from
the green mountains of Asturia,
00:39:41
had its first major victories.
00:39:43
In addition, an appeal for help
arrived from Byzantium.
00:39:49
The Byzantine world is under
really serious threat from the Turks.
00:39:54
In 1071, the Byzantines suffer
a catastrophic defeat at Manzikert,
00:39:59
so they are really keen to try
and get extra military help,
00:40:04
and so they appeal to the West
and try and make it appealing.
00:40:09
"Wouldn't this be wonderful if we could
recapture for the Christians
00:40:12
the Holy Land
and the Holy City of Jerusalem?"
00:40:16
[narrator] And indeed,
at the end of the 11th century,
00:40:19
knights and peasants, men in search
of salvation and men without means,
00:40:23
all set out to win back the Holy City.
00:40:32
The Crusade ended in a victory
and a massacre.
00:40:36
But peace did not come to Jerusalem.
00:40:38
The city was taken and retaken many times
00:40:41
in a war that went on
for almost 150 years.
00:40:48
[shouting]
00:40:50
As is so often the case, power politics
were in play behind the fighting.
00:40:57
In Europe, the popes are fighting a battle
with the secular authorities,
00:41:03
particularly the Holy Roman Emperor,
to try and assert their primacy.
00:41:09
So they see this as an occasion
00:41:11
to grab the upper hand and they say,
00:41:16
"We can actually
make political decisions."
00:41:20
So they also decide to back this idea
that the Byzantines put to them.
00:41:25
And they, the Pope, encourages
sermons to be preached
00:41:29
about Muslim iniquities, terrible things
they're doing to the Christians,
00:41:33
and how it's important to us now
to retake for Christianity
00:41:37
the Holy Land of Palestine and Jerusalem.
00:41:42
[narrator] In Spain, too,
the struggle went on.
00:41:45
The Christians wrested more
and more land back from the Muslims,
00:41:48
in a virtually uninterrupted
small-scale war.
00:41:52
The Emirate of Al-Andalus was fragmented
00:41:55
and could do little
to counter the onslaught.
00:41:57
In 1085, Christian knights took back
the first large city, Toledo.
00:42:04
After Córdoba,
00:42:05
it was the most important center
of Arab scholarship on European soil.
00:42:10
The conquerors grasped
that a great treasure had fallen
00:42:13
into their hands.
00:42:15
In what became known
as the Translation Movement,
00:42:17
they threw open the city's libraries
to their own scholars.
00:42:25
Christian scholars, primarily monks,
00:42:27
came from all over Europe
to unearth the treasure.
00:42:31
They set to work side by side
with their Jewish colleagues.
00:42:38
Multilingual teams labored
on the huge task
00:42:41
of translating documents by Arabs,
Persians and Greeks
00:42:45
as literally as possible
from Arabic into Latin.
00:42:54
Toledo was important because
it had a very large Christian population
00:43:01
before it had a very broad Arab culture.
00:43:05
They had large libraries.
00:43:07
The Christians came
into very direct contact
00:43:14
with the Arab culture.
00:43:15
Many people were fluent
in the two languages.
00:43:20
They spoke Arabic well
and understand Latin very well.
00:43:26
They were ideally placed to effect
that transfer of knowledge
00:43:32
from the Muslim world
to the Christian world.
00:43:36
[narrator] By the beginning
of the 13th century,
00:43:38
the most important books
of the ancient world were completed:
00:43:42
the works of the brilliant Ptolemy;
00:43:44
the standard works of
the fathers of mathematics,
00:43:47
Archimedes and Euclid;
00:43:49
and the philosophy of Aristotle.
00:43:51
In addition, there were the writings
of Persians, Indians and Arabs,
00:43:56
ranging from mathematics and optics,
to medicine and philosophy.
00:44:03
The translation of their books
raised Europe's knowledge
00:44:06
to an entirely new level.
00:44:13
The King of Castile, Alfonso the Wise,
00:44:16
was among the most significant patrons
of the Translation Movement.
00:44:21
He even had scientific and literary works
translated into Spanish,
00:44:25
setting an example for other countries
00:44:27
to commission translations
into their own languages.
00:44:30
It promised education for all,
even for laypeople who did not know Latin.
00:44:42
A collection of fables had a lasting
impact: the Kalila wa-Dimna.
00:44:47
It was read throughout Europe,
00:44:49
and there are echoes of it
in Reynard the Fox
00:44:51
and the fables of La Fontaine.
00:44:54
So far, it has been translated
into more than 60 languages.
00:45:01
Kalila wa-Dimna was very important
because that knowledge,
00:45:07
that literary tradition
that had arrived in the Arab world
00:45:12
from the Persian world, which had
taken it from the Hindu world,
00:45:16
was the basis of half
00:45:21
of the story collections in Castilian
00:45:25
in practically all of the Middle Ages.
00:45:29
We find that these works
were imitated or reused
00:45:35
in many collections of stories.
00:45:38
[narrator] The knowledge of the Arabs
spread like a wave from Spain and Sicily,
00:45:42
which was under Arab rule
for a long time,
00:45:45
but also from Istanbul.
00:45:47
An intellectual golden age followed,
00:45:49
leading to the founding of several
universities during the Middle Ages.
00:46:00
Scholars, educated
in the writings of Aristotle,
00:46:03
had a decisive influence
on Western philosophy.
00:46:09
Inspired by the Arabic books on optics,
monks ground the first "reading stones."
00:46:17
In 15th-century Florence,
central perspective was discovered,
00:46:21
thanks to the theory of light rays
put forward by a Muslim scholar in Cairo.
00:46:26
It revolutionized much more than
the painting of the Renaissance.
00:46:36
And in the 16th century, Copernicus,
00:46:39
who deduced that the earth
goes round the sun,
00:46:41
was still studying the works
of Arab astronomers.
00:46:48
The prime of the Arab caliphates
was nearing its end.
00:46:52
The descent of the Mongols spread terror
both in the East and in Europe.
00:46:56
It was a severe blow when Genghis Khan
and his successors
00:47:00
first advanced as far as the Mediterranean
00:47:03
and then conquered large parts
of the Middle East.
00:47:06
In 1258, they took Baghdad
and razed it to the ground.
00:47:17
The House of Wisdom,
00:47:18
the most important center
of Arab scholarship,
00:47:21
was destroyed at the same time.
00:47:23
The wealth of knowledge
built up by generations was lost.
00:47:30
Countless books
were thrown into the Tigris.
00:47:32
It is said that the river
ran black with ink.
00:47:35
The Caliph of Baghdad was killed.
00:47:42
And later, the Crusaders in Spain
reclaimed the last piece of European soil
00:47:46
from Arab rule, the Emirate of Granada.
00:47:57
To this day, the Alhambra symbolizes
the Moorish culture in Spain.
00:48:02
Its walls had just been completed
when the Christians reclaimed the city.
00:48:07
Their construction was therefore
the climax of a glorious age,
00:48:11
as well as a symbol of its end.
00:48:20
The Arab Empire is long gone.
00:48:23
The stories of a once magnificent Baghdad
00:48:26
and its caliphs with their thirst
for knowledge are embellished and retold,
00:48:31
but they no longer have
any connection with the lives
00:48:33
of most people in the Arab world.
00:48:38
More than 400 million people
now live in the Arab League countries,
00:48:42
spread over Africa and the Middle East.
00:48:45
Most of them live modestly.
00:48:47
Only a very few are part
of a vast, glittering world.
00:48:56
For the most part, Arab society
is no longer cosmopolitan.
00:49:00
Many conservatives
reject science as Western
00:49:04
and incompatible with their faith.
00:49:08
A faith that was once taken out
into the world from Mecca
00:49:11
by the Prophet Muhammed,
who reportedly said,
00:49:14
"The ink of the scholar is holier
than the blood of the martyr."
00:49:26
I think given today's political climate,
00:49:28
it's certainly important for us
in the West to appreciate
00:49:32
that there was a time
when the Arabic-speaking world
00:49:36
led the rest of us when it came
to science and scholarship.
00:49:39
But it's also important
in the Islamic world,
00:49:42
particularly for the next generation
of young Arabs,
00:49:45
to appreciate their own cultural heritage,
00:49:49
that their ancestors once
could have been spoken of
00:49:52
in the same breath
as the greatest scientists,
00:49:55
such as Newton, Einstein and Galileo.
00:49:59
[narrator] Beside its Greco-Roman
and Judeo-Christian roots,
00:50:02
Europe also has roots in a third culture:
the Arab-Islamic one.
00:50:08
It was Arab scholars and rulers
who collected the knowledge
00:50:11
of the ancient world
over a thousand years ago
00:50:14
and continued to develop it.
00:50:16
They promoted "global scholarship,"
00:50:19
the free exchange of ideas
beyond political and religious borders,
00:50:23
to develop knowledge
that still serves all of humanity.
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