Middle East Civilization I (His Term Paper

Muslims excelled in ornate and intricate designs since they rejected drawing and sculpting the human image for fear of idolatry. Their artistic style consists of rugs, silks, leatherwork, metal work, cotton textiles, highly glazed ceramics, and fine glass, as well as wall hangings, tiles, inlaid metalwork, carved wood, and furniture. Another art polished to sheen by Muslims was calligraphy, or stylized form of penmanship that developed into a form of the lesser arts and with which they decorated their manuscripts and books. Calligraphy was also used to beautify mosques, palaces, mausoleums, and shrines (as illustrated by the Alhambra and the Dome of the Rock) where painted and highly glazed tiles decorated the interior and the exterior of their buildings, whilst gold leafing and gold ink were used to decorate the Quran, and floral designs and geometric patterns, with bold borders on each page, employed to enhance Muslim books and manuscripts.

4. Recreation

The two most accessible types of recreation for all classes of society in the Muslim World were music and poetry. Religious poetry was a favorite played to the accompaniment of musical instruments. Some of the instruments that were used consisted of short-necked lutes, flutes, drums, and fiddles. Another popular Islamic recreation included board games, of which two of the more popular were backgammon and chess. Chess, in fact, was introduced to the Islamic World through India.

Muslims also enjoyed bathing. Public baths were arenas which upper-class men and women frequented separately in order to relax. They were open to the separate sexes on alternate days, and would double as private clubs where people could fraternize, gossip, and catch up onto the latest news. Their soak, steam, and massage would often be accompanied by music. In fact, music was a favorite occupation.

Muslims of the Classical Period also engaged in outdoor sports such as archery, javelin throwing, fencing, polo, hunting, horse racing (the sport of royalty in the Middle East with Arabian horses the steed most chosen due to their breeding and pedigree), and a ball game that simulated, and may have influenced, tennis.Hawking and falconry, forms of hunting with birds of prey, were also popular.

The first Islamic era cookbook dates back to the 800's. Whilst the wealthy employed professional chefs to create intricate dishes from delicacies such as lamb, chicken, game, and fish, the poor subsisted on staples such as wheat bread, vegetables, and olive oil.

5. Agriculture

The most important resource for successful agriculture in the Middle East was water. Irrigation techniques were perfected to bring water to the field, and one of the crops (one of the earliest in fact- that most profited from this method) was dates which Muslim families took great pride in and evaluated according to flavor, sweetness, and moisture. Dates, mentioned in the Koran more than 20 times, are in fact important to a Muslim diet, since they are healthy and filling and are used much of the time during Ramadan. Irrigation technology, seeds, and cutting were introduced from India by sailors and merchants from Oman and Yemen, since Muslims would take specimens of crops on their travels including on their pilgrimage to Mecca. Arabs also used pollination - the sprinkling of pollen on the field to assist fertilization of plants -- in order to insure production of strong crops.

Agricultural knowledge passed to Christian Europe by Arabs writing manuals on farming and botany which were then taken as far West as Muslim Spain, which, in turn, introduced that knowledge to its neighboring Christian countries. It was in this manner that Europeans of the Middle Ages, impressed by Islamic agricultural developments, studied….....