Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, (780 – 850 CE), was the grandfather of computer science and the father of Algebra. He was the popularizer of Arabic numerals, adopter of zero (the symbol, that is) and the decimal system, astronomer, cartographer, in briefs an encyclopedic scholar. BAYT Al-HIKMA (House of Wisdom) In the year 832, Caliph Al Ma’mun [b. Baghdad, 786,...

The Murabitun revolution was one of the few genuine mass movements in Islamic history. Growing out of the womb of Africa, it engulfed two continents and played a decisive role in historical developments in Africa and Spain alike. As a mass movement, European as well as Muslim scholars have studied it extensively. Ibn Khaldun used it as a basis for his theory of the rise and fall of...

History is not created with a big bang. It moves in subtle, almost imperceptible steps in which all men and women participate. It is an edifice on which the action of every human, no matter how humble, has left its imprint. Great events do occur, but they merely mark the milestones in the continuing unfolding of history. In recreating the critical moments in Islamic history that have molded...

History is infinitely elastic. The actions of one person in any age cause ripples that affect the lives of thousands who live downstream. Mahmud of Ghazna is important in Islamic history because his actions set the tone for the interaction between the world of Islam and the world of the Hindus. The tone of that interaction created a bitterness that has been exploited by extremists in the...

There are brief moments in history when nature lifts its veil to the human intellect so that it may witness the majesty of divine creation and pass on the wisdom gained from this encounter to succeeding generations. One such intellect was that of Al Kindi. Abu Yusuf Yaqub Ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, one of the most celebrated of the philosophers and natural scientists of the classical age of Islam,...