Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi was born near Cordoba, Spain, when it was part of the Islamic Empire. He was a physician, surgeon and chemist. He is best remembered for his encyclopedia of medicine, the Al-Tasrif li man ajaz an-il-talif (An Aid for Those Who Lack the Capacity to Read Big Books), known as the al-Tasrif. This became a standard reference in Islamic and European...

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...

Summary: History needs men and women of thought and those of action. In the 8th and 9th centuries, the Arabs, Persians, Spaniards and Africans had laid the intellectual foundation of Islam. In the 10th century, the Turks provided the primal energy to renew Islamic civilization and supplied the men and women of action who propelled it for over a thousand years. The Turks tower over the...