Don Cayo, Vancouver Sun columnist / Published: Monday, July 07, 2008
Underscoring an old link between Muslim culture and learning – Related blog post
I was an adjudicator for the first national ISTAR awards, a new level added to decades-old regional programs that recognize high achievement from Canadian Ismaili students in a variety of categories – academic excellence, arts and culture, leadership and community service, science and technology, and sports.
And when they say “high achievement,” oh boy, they mean it. I’ve judged a variety of competitions over my career, including the Jack Webster Foundation’s highly competitive Seeing the World fellowship for young B.C. journalists, and I’ve never faced such difficult choices.
CALGARY – The era when Europe was locked into or just breaking out of what we call the Dark Ages is also known as the Golden Age for Muslims. From the eighth century to the 12th and even beyond – in some places as late as the 15th or 16th century – Muslims led the western world in wealth, power and learning.
I knew this before I visited Timbuktu – a great Muslim city of yore – in 2004. At a time before the discovery of the New World’s glitzy treasures, nearly all the gold in Europe came from West Africa. The usual route it took included camel caravans across the Sahara, and they emanated from Timbuktu.
What I didn’t know before my visit was this: So great was this legendary city as a centre of learning that in some years the value of books it exported exceeded the value of its gold.
Ismailimail 