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There is also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilisation owe to the Islamic world… which stems from the straightjacket of history, which we have inherited…. Because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society, and system of belief, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history.'

 In the land of Islam, learning (ilm), by which is meant the whole world of the intellect, Pedersen holds, engaged the interest of Muslims more than anything else during `the golden age of Islam and for a good while thereafter’ (8<sup>th</sup>-13<sup>th</sup> century).[1] The life that evolved in the mosques spread outward to put its mark upon influential circles everywhere. Princes and rich men gathered people of learning and letters around them, and it was quite common for a prince, one or more times a week, to hold a concourse (majlis), at which representatives of the intellectual life would assemble and, with their princely host participating, discuss those topics that concerned them, just as they were accustomed to do when meeting in their own millieu.[2] `Never before and never since', admits Briffault `on such a scale has the spectacle been witnessed of the ruling classes throughout the length and breadth of a vast empire given over entirely to a frenzied passion for the acquirement of knowledge. Learning seemed to have become with them the chief business of life. Caliphs and emirs hurried from their Diwans to closet themselves in their libraries and observatories. They neglected their affairs of the state to attend lectures and converse on mathematical problems with men of science.'[3]

 Science became hobby; paupers and kings competing to obtain knowledge; Islam's religious encouragement of science `breaking the monopolies of the hermits, of churches and temples,’ note al-Faruqui.[4] During `the most splendid period' of Islamic Spain, Scott remarks, ignorance was regarded so disgraceful that those without education `concealed the fact as far as possible, just as they would have hidden the commission of a crime.'[5] In Muslim Spain, Scott notes, there was not a village where `the blessings of education’ could not be enjoyed by the children of the most indigent peasant, and in Cordova were eight hundred public schools frequented alike by Muslims, Christians, and Jews, and where instruction was imparted by lectures. The Spanish Muslim received knowledge at the same time and under the same conditions as the literary pilgrims from Asia Minor and Egypt , from Germany, France, and Britain.[6]

   As early as in the 9^th century were established centres for advanced learning in the Muslim world; and by the end of the 11^th century `university-type institutions' were established in most of the chief cities.[7] The earliest such institution was the first scientific academy of its genre: Bayt al-Hikma, or House of Wisdom, was established in Baghdad in the 9^th century. It was primarily a research institute, with, as Artz lists, a library, scientific equipment, a translation bureau, and an observatory. Instruction was given in rhetoric, logic, metaphysics and theology, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, physics, biology, medicine, and surgery.[8] In 1065, a great university was founded in Baghdad, and then, in 1234, a second, even more advanced, was set up; this one, Artz notes, had magnificent buildings, including quarters for four law faculties.[9] The university also maintained dormitories, a hospital, and a huge library, where it was easy to consult the books, and where pens and paper and lamps were supplied free to the students.[10]

In all other early Islamic institutions of higher learning, which were established around then (Al-Azhar: Cairo ; Al-Qarrawiyyin: Fes..) the students were maintained thanks to endowments of diverse sorts. In the curriculum, scientific subjects took a large place, including astronomy and engineering at Al-Azhar,[11] medicine also at Al-Azhar and the mosque of Ibn Tulun in Egypt ;[12] courses on grammar, rhetoric, logic, elements of mathematics and astronomy at Al-Qarrawiyyin,[13] and possibly history, geography and elements of chemistry.[14] At Al-Qayrawan and Zaytuna in Tunisia, alongside the Quran and jurisprudence were taught grammar, mathematics, astronomy and medicine.[15] At Al-Qayrawan, classes in medicine were delivered by Ziad. B. Khalfun, Ishak B. Imran and Ishak B. Sulayman,[16] whose works were subsequently translated by Constantine The African in the 11^th century to establish the first faculty of medicine in Western Europe: Salerno. In Iraq, pharmacology, engineering, astronomy and other subjects were taught in the mosques of Baghdad, and students came from Syria, Persia and India to learn these sciences.[17]

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