Lesson video

Hello there.

This is Mr. Cooper tuning in for lesson three of your four lesson inquiry on how mediaeval Baghdad was connected to the wider world.

So third lesson, and this lesson we're going to be talking about what is known as the Golden Age of the Abbasid Caliphate.

So what was happening in Baghdad? Why was it such a exciting place to be over a thousand years ago? What was happening there? So same routine as always.

Piece of paper or your book, date of whatever day you're doing this lesson on, title underline both.

Tidy notes, tidy mind.

Hide your phone, but it away, just leave it for a few seconds.

Your friends will be fine without you.

So when you've done that, restart the video and off we go, third lesson.

So if you could please make sure you got the title, The Islamic Golden Age written into your books or your notes, underline it as always and write the date of whatever day it is that you're doing this lesson on.

And when you've done that, restart the lesson.

So just to remind you, in the last two lessons, we've been looking at the Muslim world, the Islamic world, and we've been looking in particular at the city of Baghdad.

And the location where the orange arrow is pointing at.

So Baghdad, as we discovered in the last lesson, was the centre of the Caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate, and became a very, very important city, very, very rich, very, very powerful.

And one of the reasons this happened was, well many reasons, but one of the big reasons was that it was located on the Silk Road, the pink line, showing the route along which valuable goods, like silk, were traded across the world.

So Baghdad became very rich and powerful city in the mediaeval world.

Richer and more powerful than any other city in, especially in Europe, the middle East.

Now, what was this money spent on? So what we see happening in this period from the 750 for about 200 or 300 years, we have what we call a Golden Age and it's called Golden Age because this is when Islamic culture, building, writing, arts, science flourishes, and flourishes means to grow and to become bigger, to become more beautiful.

And on the screen, we have two towers built in this period, at the start of this period.

So these are very, very ancient towers.

These are called minarets.

And at the top of the minarets a Muslim would call to prayer, the faithful worshipers of Islam.

And so we have these buildings being built in Baghdad, around Baghdad, in the Caliphate.

And I mean, if you look at the design, it's not just a case of putting a brick on top of a brick, the skill that's required in order to build this, not only so that it continues to stand, but also that the shape is constant.

And it's a really, really amazing piece of work.

So we have here two examples of Golden Age building that was very common at the time.

And here we have another form of art of design that became very common in the Abbasid period and the Islamic Golden Age, and the beautiful decoration that we see chiselled into the stone.

This would have been a very common sight all over the Abbasid Caliphate, but especially in Baghdad.

Lots of detail, lots of beautiful, beautiful work there.

And we also see, and this is one of the earliest bits of Arabic writing.

So Arabic writing, it was because of the design.

It became very, very beautifully written.

And we call this calligraphy.

Calligraphy is when you use writing to create art.

And here we have one of the earliest examples of the Arabic script being used to right now, this is from the Quran.

The Quran is the Holy Book of Islam, which records the sayings and teachings of the prophet, Mohammed.

And this Quran, as we see here, it's kind of the equivalent, I don't say the equivalent to the Bible, 'cause it has a different kind of status in Islam, but certainly there are power levels and the book of Islam, the Quran, became a really important place to explore and not only to teach the faithful, but also as artwork in it's own right.

So what I'd like you to do is simply fill in the gaps using the words below and restart the video when you've done so.

So, here we go.

People in Baghdad became very rich and liked to spend their money on beautiful things, New styles of religious building and art became common that were unique to the Arab world.

Beautiful mosques were built all over the city.

The Quran, the Holy Book of Islam, was written in a special way called calligraphy.

So you've got a few words there that you might not have come across before.

The word unique is a really good word to use in this way.

Unique means one of the kind or special or particular.

So what we see happening in the Islamic Golden Age with Baghdad at the centre, is this unique styles that come to be developed by the Muslim world.

Now, it wasn't just beautiful buildings that created.

So with this money, the caliph built, the caliph's the leaders of the Caliphate, they built beautiful palaces.

They built cities, they created the city of Baghdad.

They also encouraged learning.

And now this is a really important point.

And to really understand this point, what we have to think about actually what's going on in Europe at the time.

So in Europe, in the 800's and 900's, there was learning, there was, but there wasn't a lot, a lot of learning was lost because the focus in Europe was very much on religious writing, the Bible, the lives of saints.

And as a result, a loss of the very ancient wisdom, the learning, the advances made in the Greek and Roman eras of the ancient world, were lost in Europe.

What happened was that the caliphs in Baghdad, they realised, so what happened was that they realised the caliphs in.

So what happened was that they realised the importance of learning, not just because it was impressive or it made them rich, but just because they realised that learning mattered.

And so what the caliphs do, the caliphs paid men to come from all over the world, Christians, Muslims, Jews, to Baghdad.

And these people were, and women as well, I'm sorry, I should've have said there were, there were also very important women that came along as well.

And they were known as scholars.

Now, a scholar it's from the same root of the word of school.

So they learned, they talked, they discussed, they wrote, they studied.

And Baghdad became a very, very important centre of learning.

And on the screen, we have an image of a library.

So we have a group of men discussing something of importance and behind you have the bookshelves.

And the books, obviously, were different kinds to the kind of books we are familiar with today, but this was an image of The House of Wisdom, The House of Wisdom.

And this was a very important place in Baghdad.

Baghdad became known as the city of libraries, the city of books.

Books printed on everything.

Science, math, astronomy, so the stars or the planets.

And also very importantly, the subject of philosophy.

Now, you might not have come across the word philosophy.

Philosophy is the study of why things are the way they are.

What does it mean to be a human? So quite deep stuff.

And Baghdad became a centre of learning and all of these very ancient texts and books that were written by the ancient Romans and the ancient Greeks, they were lost in Europe.

They were kept alive and they were kept safe in Baghdad in places like The House of Wisdom.

And this is one example of the building.

This is a building that was built, sorry, this was a building, a university, that was set up during the Golden Age.

So we have universities set up in Baghdad, the Muslim world where people would spend all their time reading, writing, and learning.

This was not happening in Europe at the time.

It took many hundreds of years for Europe to catch up.

And this is the kind of thing that was made.

So this is an astrolabe, and this is something that allows you to navigate.

So it allows you to travel using the position of the stars and the sun to work out where you are.

So you can see the Arabic words around the outside.

So this is what ships were using.

And this was kind of like a really, really complicated compass actually.

So this is the kind of thing that was designed and built during the Islamic Golden Age.

It's a beautiful piece of work.

Very, very complex.

We also have map making.

So this is a map.

Now, actually the map is upside down.

So just to complicate matters.

So if you were to turn it upside round, you would see the Mediterranean Sea, the blue splodge down in the lower right hand corner of the map.

And then we have, yeah, so we have it turned upside down, but map making was a very important thing that came out of Baghdad.

And this is an eye.

As I said, the scholars in Baghdad, they studied the human body as well.

And this is one of the earliest images we have of the inside of an eye.

So little bit gory thinking about how they work this out, but what they discovered was that the eye was connected to the brain.

Now, this might seem a bit obvious to us, if you're doing biology, you might've looked at this already, but the connection between the sense of sight and the brain, this was something that Muslim scholars discovered.

So just very quickly on the screen, you've got four things that were potentially studied at The House of Wisdom.

Just very quickly, which one was not studied at The House of Wisdom? Astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, and cookery? And the answer is cookery.

So this was not to say, this is not a very important topic, but The House of Wisdom was a location of academic subjects.

So, for our five questions, you've done this hopefully a few times before.

So all you need to do is pause this video in a moment, minimise the video, click next in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, go to the next part of lesson, and then read through the slides and then answer these five questions in full sentences.

I really, really can't emphasise this enough, full sentences.

Otherwise this activity is a waste.

So make sure you do full sentences and there you go.

So pause the video now, read the slides and answer the comprehension questions.

So, first question, and just to let you know, you can pause at any moment, if you want to make sure your answers are as full as possible.

So the first question, "who did the caliphs invite to Baghdad?" Acceptable answer, scholars.

Good answer, the caliphs invited scholars to Baghdad.

Now, it might not seem like a big difference.

They're both true, but the second one is a full sentence.

And the reason this matters is that when you return to your notes, your book, in a few months time, if you see the sentence, the caliphs invited scholars to Baghdad, that's a useful sentence that all that makes sense.

If you've just got the word scholars written in your book, then that's just a word that doesn't mean anything anymore.

So this is why we do full sentences just to make this activity more useful in the long term.

Two, "what did these people do?" Acceptable answer, they read books.

The good answer, scholars in Baghdad came together to study complicated subjects, translate books into Arabic, and teach each other.

So again, clearly a lot more going on in the good answer.

Three, "what did people in Baghdad learn to do from China?" Acceptable answer, make paper and print books.

Good answer, from China, people in Baghdad learned how to make paper and to print books.

So the Silk Road, of course, Baghdad located on the Silk Road, this meant that not only were valuable goods transported along the Silk Road, but also ideas, and new technologies that allowed the people in Baghdad thought, "ah, that's something we should be doing as well".

For example, book printing.

Book printing actually didn't make it to Europe until the 15th century.

So 300 or 400 years later.

Four, "what was the difference between Europe "and the Islamic world at this time?" Acceptable answer, in Europe, people didn't read or write.

Good answer, the difference between Europe and the Islamic world at this time was that in Europe, very few people could read or write.

So there's a very big difference here.

So in Europe at this time, there was reading and writing and there were people making books, but it was a much lower level.

So learning, as we know it, was less common in Europe than it was in the Muslim world at that time.

This is one of the reasons Baghdad became so important and one of the reasons we call this the Islamic Golden Age.

Five, ""what advances did scholars in Baghdad make?" Acceptable answer, scientific advances.

Good answer, in Baghdad scholars made lots of advances in learning, including in maths, astronomy, and medicine.

So three very particular areas that Muslims and scholars, not just Muslims. It's very important to recognise that, yes, it was a city in the Muslim world and there were lots of Muslim scholars, but there were also Christian scholars, Jewish scholars.

It was absolutely fine to belong to a different religion at this time.

So, the writing activity.

"Why is the Islamic Golden Age described as golden?" So we're going to be bringing together now what we've looked at in this lesson into a nice paragraph, nothing too long, just to practise writing, having done some readings.

So what I'd like to do now is simply write down as many examples as you can, of what happened in Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age.

So all of the images, think of the pictures that I've shown you, all the different things that were happening or that were being built or discovered or made, think about those things, and then just jot them down on your piece of paper and it doesn't need to be full sentences, just as many ideas as you can think of.

So have a go at that now and then restart when you're done.

So I have just off the top of my head, I can think of these.

So first one book writing and copying.

So lots of books that were lost in Europe were then moved to the Muslim world.

So book writing and copying.

These are things that was happening in Baghdad at this time.

Two, studying philosophy, math, science, building.

So again, we have all these different subjects, these areas of study that's happening in Baghdad during the Golden Age.

Three, studying the Quran.

So this is very, very important.

The Quran, the words of the revelation as recorded by the prophet, Mohammed.

A very, very Holy book, indeed.

And there was lots of religious studying that happened as well.

Four, building mosques and palaces.

So I've shown you lots have images of beautiful mosques, mosques being the place where Muslims worship.

Christians worship in churches, mosques are where Muslims worship.

So we have lots of beautiful buildings being constructed or being built.

Five, painting pictures and words.

So we have lots of images, beautiful paintings being painted as well.

And we have the particular thing where words are turned into art, which we call calligraphy.

Six, writing poetry.

I might not have touched on that too much actually, but one of the things that was going on in the Islamic Golden Age, beautiful poetry, as well was being was being written by some very famous poets and usually for the caliphs, but lots of this poetry has survived.

So we've got these six different things that were happening in Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age.

Couple that, if you think of that, all that stuff that's happening, we also didn't have the markets full of silks, spices.

We have these beautiful leisure palaces, people really just enjoying life.

There was a real sort of, it was a really positive time for a lot of people in this period, which is why we call it the Islamic Golden Age and why we've used the word golden to describe this.

So, the last part of the lesson, and what I've done, I've started each section for you to make this a bit easier.

So why is the Islamic Golden Age described as golden? So what I want you to do, is each of these sentences on the screen, simply copy the sentence out and then write an example for it, because as historians, what we need to do, we make a claim or we say something that we think is correct, but we have to prove that we are correct.

We have to prove that this is not just a made up opinion.

So what I've done and just to talk you through the first example, the Islamic Golden Age is described as golden because during this time there were new forms of art.

And then what we have to do is give an example.

So an example of this is, so particularly I'm thinking of the calligraphy or the way that the Quran was written.

So you turned that into a sentence.

Then another reason it is described as golden is because there was lots of building.

An example of this is, so again, we have these images of mosques, palaces, archways, all these beautiful buildings that we've seen in the last few lessons.

And then in addition, this is a great way to start another paragraph, or another point, in addition, it is described as golden because of the studying that happened in Baghdad.

An example of this is, so we talk about what was happening in The House of Wisdom, what subjects were being studied.

And then we bring the whole paragraph together by saying overall, the Islamic Golden Age was a time of what? So how would we summarise, how would we describe this period? So have a go at this and pause the video now, and then have a go at writing this paragraph.

It shouldn't be taking you more than five or 10 minutes maximum, and this is just to practise the writing.

So we get better at writing as well as reading as we have done in this lesson so far.

So pause now and have a go.

So if you'd like to, you can ask your parent or your carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

This is not compulsory, but I would love to see the work that you're producing.

So if you'd like to, please do what I just suggested.

So that brings us to the end of today's lesson, lesson three that is, of our four lesson inquiry on how mediaeval Baghdad was connected to the wider world.

Hope you found interesting.

Just to make sure you've got the key bits of information stuck in your brain, which is the goal of what we're doing here, do the quiz, don't forget it, and then have a great day wherever you are.

And I'll see you for the last of our four lessons on this topic.