Charlemagne & Baghdad

My oldest student is doing a special year-long project on World History and we are beginning her study with the Fall of Rome and the Middle Ages. Our main resource is The World of Walls: The Middle Ages in Western Europe by Polly Schoyer Brooks and Nancy Zinsser Walworth. Here are my notes from teaching this block in the past.

When we got to Charlemagne's chapter in The World of Walls, we also read The Elephant from Baghdad by Mary Tavener Holmes and John Harris, and it got us really interested in knowing more about Baghdad's role as a flourishing center of world knowledge while Europe was mouldering in the Dark Ages. Here is the beginning of my brainstorm and list of resources:

When Baghdad was centre of the scientific world
The Guardian - Sep 26, 2010


Islamic Golden Age
Wikipedia



Muhammad
by Demi
from my World Religions Booklist - Abrahamic Religions



The Arabs in the Golden Age (Peoples of the Past)
by Mokhtar Moktefi and Veronique Ageorges



The House of Wisdom
Florence Parry Heide and Judith Heide Gilliland

In the article from The Guardian, Jim Al-Khalili writes,

"By the eighth century, with western Europe languishing in its dark ages, the Islamic empire covered an area larger in expanse than either the Roman empire at its height or all the lands conquered and ruled by Alexander the Great. So powerful and influential was this empire that, for a period stretching over 700 years, the international language of science was Arabic."

We are fascinated to learn more about this time which is not well enough represented in our History resources. Let me know if you have suggestions!

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