The Historian

In the period between 786-809, during the reign of Haroun al-Rashid, a Persian nobleman wrote a letter to his father describing Baghdad as the 'City of Wonders'. He wrote, "It is difficult for me, with this pen which is of limited substance, to describe the glorious qualities of the city which are but a small part of the honor it achieves, as such that it prides itself in the splendor of power..." So much was told, back then, of this magnificent city of gold and wealth, that philosophers and scholars ventured to Baghdad to be taught the Greek and Roman classics. They named themselves the 'falsafa' or philosophers of the Arabian and Islamic world and spread their wealth of knowledge on architecture, politics, astronomy, math, and medicine to areas of Spain, Sicily, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Persia, and the Hindu Kush. Without the falsafa, a Renaissance in the West would never have happened. In the 8th century, Rome looked like an agricultural playing field, open to...