The Astronemer & Mathematics

Astonemy was huge for the Muslims, they made it big.  Muslims had many uses for astronemy, like compasses and astrolobes were used to locate direction, mostly of Makkah.  These helped those who were praying to pray in the correct direction.  Ramadan figured exact times for prayer.  Eventually, they realized that the Earth rotated.  many also questioned the fact that the Earth was the center of the universe.  Soon they found the Earth travels around the sun.




The Muslims also enhanced mathematics.  Basing things off of ideas from India and Greece.  One scholar, Al-Khwarizmi, was a mathematician and astronemer was best known as "the father of algebra".  The word algebra comes from the title of one of his books.  Alegbra was used to solve problems with unknown numbers.  Al's book on algebra was translated into Latin in the 12th century, being the most important mathematic text in the European universities.Muslims learned fractions, decimals from Indian scholars.  To this day we still use Arabic numerals.

Relationship between Islam, Judaism & Christianity

In the start, many Arab pilrims were converting to become Islamic.  As Muhammad developted a new Muslim community, more Arabs converted to Islam. As for the followers of Muhammad they were told to respect the Christians & Jews.  All these religons believed in one god, called the "People of the Book". The Islam religon spread wide across Arabia. 

The Importance of the Qur'an

The Qur'an was special because it told the story of Muhammad taking a winged horse to Jerusalem.  This was the city that directed prayers towards them.  This is where he met Abraham, Moses & Jesus.  Soon he began to pray with them all.  Soon enough meeting the seven levels of heaven, where he met God.

Muhammad on his winged horse.

Life & the Teachings of Muhammad

Muhammad's life was a struggle when his mother sent him off to live with a desert nomad family. Later he returned to the city with his mother, sadly she died soon after.  Muhammad took on duties throughout his life whether it was watching the sheep or later on, trading. His teachings soon began. It all started when Muhammad received the call to become a prophet, or messenger of God, which was called a Allah. Receiving the teachings from Gabriel and the response to his question, he was terrified.  As years went by Muhammad began preaching to other Makkan's.  Believing that everyone must worship one god, and one god only.  He believed that all believers in God were equal.  Many people joined him, from clans all over, strangly though many Makkan's rejected Muhammad's preaching along with the teaching.

Life in Arabia Before Muhammad

The city Makkah, was very wealthy and it had many trade routes around the western area of Arabia.  Being a merchant at that time was a good job because it provided a good living. Since there was so much trading going on they made much money.  For the Arabs they pledged loyalty to their clan memebers. Though, the Arabs were not a united nation before Muhammad was born. There was no central government in Arabia. Tribes would occasionally launch raids to capture territories of others, to catch their animals, goods,wires & watering places. A honoring was done when someone was killed during a raid, they honored-bound to avenge that death. 


The Arabs  were on the peninsula, even though they were not a united nation, they still shared languages & culture. Arab people celebrated many ties with poetry.  Celebrating their life. At markets & pilgrimages often held  competitions. This is where poets and singings would perform.