For centuries private households in Timbuktu have been preserving manuscripts detailing art, medicine, philosophy, and science, as well as copies of the Qur’an from the 13th century. These Timbuktu Manuscripts as they are officially known are said to number 700,000 and are the subject of many research projects by western universities and the UN.[1] Africa under Islam Timbuktu is in Mali. Today Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world but under Islam the Mali Sultanate was one of the richest countries on earth. Its wealth came from gold, copper and salt mines and the 14th century ruler of Mali was Mansa Musa who was one of the wealthiest people to ever live. When he performed hajj it is reported he give away 30 tonnes (£1.3billion) of gold causing a ten year gold recession in the cities of Cairo, Madinah, and Makkah.[2] [3] Mali was also a centre of Islamic learning. In the early 1400s, ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Tamimi, travelled to Timbuktu only to realize that the level of scholarship was so high, that he would …

Ibn Sina, known as Avicenna in the West was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age, and the father of early modern medicine. His monumental work Al-Qanun fi’l-tibb (The Canon of Medicine) is an encyclopedia of medicine in five volumes which he completed in 1025CE, and was still in use throughout 18th century in Europe, 700 years later. Islam and science Islam never had the same conflict with science that Christianity did. This is because Islam clearly defines the role of the mind, and the areas where free thinking is permitted – rational sciences – and the areas where it was restricted to the text – the religious sciences and legislation. Ibn Khaldun says, “It should be known that the sciences with which people concern themselves in cities and which they acquire and pass on through instruction, are of two kinds: one that is natural to man and to which he is guided by his own ability to think, and a traditional kind that …

If you paid a visit to the Cathedral of Córdoba in Spain today you would notice a number of features which are out of place in a church. Most notably there is a mihrab covered in Qur’anic verses which points to the Cathedral’s origins as a mosque. Construction of the mosque began in 785 (169 AH) and finished in 786 (170 AH). It was commissioned by Abd al-Rahman I who was the first Emir of the Emirate of Córdoba. In 711CE / 92H the Umayyad general Tariq bin Ziyad crossed the Mediterranean from the province of Maghreb (modern day Morocco) and landed his army on a mountain in the Iberian Peninsula. This mountain became known as Tariq’s Mountain (Jabal Tariq) which is anglicised as Gibraltar. This was the beginning of the Islamic conquests in to modern-day Spain and which established Islamic rule over the region for nearly 800 years.[1] The Problem of Disunity After the Abbasids defeated the Umayyads in 750CE, Abd al-Rahman I (Abd al-Rahman ibn Mu’awiya ibn Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik) managed to escape to Al-Andalus …

These are some of the oldest written manuscripts we have of the Holy Qur’an. They were discovered in 2015 not in Makkah or Madinah but in Birmingham University. How did they make their way to Birmingham? After defeating the Ottomans in WW1, Britain occupied Iraq and then began ‘collecting’ its treasures as it did in Egypt and India. This Qur’an manuscript is part of the Mingana Collection of more than 3,000 Middle Eastern documents gathered in the 1920s by Alphonse Mingana, a Chaldean priest born near Mosul in modern-day Iraq. He was sponsored to take ‘collecting trips’ to the Middle East by Edward Cadbury, who was part of the chocolate-making dynasty.[1] Radiocarbon dating found the Qur’an manuscript to be at least 1,370 years old, making it among the earliest in existence. Professor David Thomas of Oxford University says that some of the passages of the Qur’an were written down on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels – and a final version, collected in book form, was completed in about 650. He …

Historical objects such as artefacts, manuscripts and buildings are one of the primary sources in the study of history. Their presence or absence in a society can offer a unique insight in to the past, especially when combined with other sources such as oral narrations. They can offer a more holistic view towards society, and easily dispel the sweeping generalisations we see among those who attempt to distort Islamic history for their own nefarious purposes. If we look to alcohol consumption in Britain, we know it’s a nation of drinkers and has a history of drinking simply from observing the huge number of pubs, bars and off licenses in the country. In 2019, according to the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) there were 47,200 public houses in the UK. Bus stops are named after pubs, and they are the centre of social activity in some places. The Old Ferry Boat Inn in Holywell, England is over 1500 years old! Do we see the same in the ancient Muslim cities? In Istanbul as an example, despite decades of secularization …