The great Moslem cities of Bagdad, Damascus, Cairo, and
Cordova were not only seats of government for the different divisions of the
Arabian Empire; they were also the centers of Arabian civilization. The
conquests of the Arabs had brought them into contact with highly developed
peoples whose culture they absorbed and to some extent improved. They owed most
to Persia and, after Persia, to Greece, through the empire at Constantinople,
In their hands there was somewhat the same fusion of East and West as Alexander
the Great had sought to accomplish. Greek science and philosophy mingled
with the arts of Persia and other Oriental lands. Arabian civilization, for
about four centuries under the Ommiad and Abbasid caliphs, far surpassed
anything to be found in western Europe.
AGRICULTURE
Many improvements in agriculture were due to the Arabs.
They had a good system of irrigation, practiced rotation of crops, employed
fertilizers, and understood how to graft and produce new varieties of plants
and fruits. From the Arabs we have received cotton, flax, hemp, buckwheat,
rice, sugar cane, and coffee, various vegetables, including asparagus,
artichokes, and beans, and such fruits as melons, oranges, lemons, apricots,
and plums.
