1. THE ABBASID DYNASTY 750-1258 AD Founder: Abu al-Abbas The Abbasids are the longest-lived dynasty. Stretched from Qairawan, Morocco to Bukhara in Central Asia

2. BAGHDAD: CITY OF GOD

3. BAGHDAD The second caliph, al-Mansur, established the new city of Baghdad as the capital of the empire in 762. Baghdad was a circular city where the palace, government buildings and masjid formed a kind of omphalos, a nucleus, dominating the centre of the city. It was a huge fortified palace in a circular enclosure 2,300 metres in diameter. Perimeter walls were divided into quarants by four equidistant gates surrounded by gilded domes, and the whole city was encircled by a ditch. Baghdad reflected the importance of knowledge. In 891 there were a hundred book shops in the capital.

4. HOUSE OF WISDOM BAYT AL-HIKMA Caliph Al-Mamun (813-833) built the House of Wisdom. Academy included scientists, translators, copyists, and binders. Scholars came from far and wide. Attached to the Academy were two observatories, one in Baghdad and the other in Damascus.

5. MUSLIM REVOLUTIONARIES IN CHEMISTRY Three Muslims stand out prominent in Chemistry. JABIR IBN HAYYAN (Iran, 722-815) Muhammad Ibn Zakariya al-Razi (Iran, 865-925 Al-Kindi (Iraq, 801- 873)

6. JABIR IBN HAYYAN Jabir ibn Hayyan or Geber is the author of Great Book of Chemical Properties, The Weights and Measures, The Chemical Combination, and the Dyes. He divided minerals into three groups: (a) spirits (b) metals (c) non- malleable (quartz, sandstone and limestone). He mentioned nitric acid and described many processes for the industrial application of chemistry.

7. AL-RAZI: THE RHAZES Al-Razi known in the West as the Rhazes, wrote the Book of the Secret of the Secrets. He has left a valuable description of the equipment in his laboratory and of the chemical processes known to him such as distillation, solution, calcination (burning, combustion), evaporation, crystallisation, sublimation (in acceptable forms) filtration, amalgamation and ceration.

8. CHEMISTRY Al-Kindi wrote a book on perfumes called Book of the Chemistry of Perfume and Distillations. Was born in Kufa, Iraq, he was best known as a philosopher, but also a physician, pharmacist, ophthalmologist, physicist, mathematician, geographer, astronomer and chemist. He was also involved with music, the manufacture of swords and even the art of cookery.