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Excerpt from The English Cyclopaedia, Vol. 1: A New Dictionary of Universal Knowledge, Biography
The throne was for some years contested between his two sons, Amin and Mamun; but in 813 Mamun came to the sole and undis putod possession of it. His reign (813-833) forms an important epoch in the history of science and literature, the cultivation of which was conspicuously patronised by that kalif. The Arabs were avowed bor rowers in science; they were chie¿y indebted to the Hindoos and the Greeks; and even what they received from these nations seems often to have exceeded their comprehension. Their claims to originality of invention, and to the merit of having made real additions to the stock of our knowledge, are not great but they are entitled to our gratitude for having kept alive and diffused the light of letters, and for having preserved a sort of scientific tradition from classical antiquity, during an age when science and literature in Europe lay buried under ignor ance and barber-ism. Mamun founded colleges and libraries in the princi towns of his dominions. Such as Baghdad, Bassora, Kufa, and N isha ar. Syrian physicians, and Hindoo mathematicians and astro nomers. Lived at his court; and works on astronomy, mathematics, metaphysics, natural philosophy, and medicine, were translated from the Sanscrit and Greek into Arabic. Mamun took personally a parti cular interest in astronomy. He built observatories, had accurate instruments constructed, improved by their means the astronomical tables, and caused a degree of the meridian to be measured in the sandy desert between Palmyra and Racca on the Euphrates. At his command, mohammed-ben-musa wrote an elementary treatise on algebra, the earliest systematic work extant on that branch of mathe matics, for their knowledge of which, as well as for much of their astronomy. The Arabs seem to be chie¿y indebted to the Hindoos. The investigation of the structure of their own language, and the systematic development of the Mohammedan theology and jurispru dence, both founded chie¿y on the Koran, afforded an Opportunity of applying practically the principles of the Aristotelian philosophy.
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