With exquisite illustrations, this book offers an overview of the tremen - dous cultural and scientific innovations of Islam, which have continued to in - fluence our world today

Great starter text for understanding Islam and the religion's contributions to science, math, art, agriculture, artitecture and many other facets of modern civilization. Very detailed, but easy to understand for upper elementary readers and beyond. Lots of illustrations offer more insight into Islam's influence on practices and tools we see/use today. Great for educators in diverse classrooms trying to incorporate multicultural education into their lessons and the climate of their room, could be used across any curriculum. ( )

In this era there probably isn’t a more misunderstood religion, and this book gives a historical account of the beginning of Islam and its contributions to modern culture (and serving as a bridge from antiquity to modernity).

I recently learned that roughly 75% of students in Louisiana public schools, starting next year, will probably never get a World History class at any point in their high school career. This omission is a travesty for future generations entering a more and more globalized society. Books such as this are vital to students’ understanding of the interconnectedness of history. I won’t claim this is the best introduction to the impact of Islam of world history, technology, and culture, but it is a decent one. The art is colorful and the layout is fairly clean. Each section covers a different topic, such as astronomy, writing, trade, or mathematics, and Barnard does a good job of drawing comparisons between historical cultural realities and things that kids would know in a contemporary setting – such as the equating of Arabic script on goods traded with Europe as a status symbol similar to Gucci or Nike logos (11). This effective use of ideas that kids are already familiar with is key to keeping their attention, at times, and I rank this book a bit higher for that reason alone. The target audience seems to be elementary or middle school students, but I imagine some excerpts could be useful for class discussion in high school, as well – particularly in the contemporary American, often anti-Islamic paradigm. ( )

In my opinion this is a wonderful book because of its organized information and clear figures. First, I liked how the beginning pages presented a map of the Islamic world during AD 622-750. The map helps make the text easier to understand, and gives a great visual of where different groups were located. The last pages of the book included a map of the Islamic world during 1500 CE. Secondly, I noticed that this book did not contain one real photograph, only illustrations, pictures, diagrams and symbols. I really liked how the book was separated into different sections, and provided visuals and text for each. For instance one section called “Insight” talked about inventions and discoveries that were made by medieval Islamic scientists. I learned that Muslim insights advanced the science of optics and how doctors treated the human eye. Also, I learned that the written Arabic language evolved from other types of script. The book showed four different types of written script in different colors. For example, the book compares Kufic, Naskh, Thuluth and Diwani script. I think that the information is accurate and current because it talks about how Islam helped change the world in many ways, and the book provides several sources at the end. Lastly, each picture and symbol has a clear caption, which helps make the main text easier to comprehend.
I feel that the main idea of this book is to teach readers about Islamic history, and how Muslims have contributed to the modern world. In every part of the book, the author always manages to link the text with something that helped change the future. For instance, the book discussed how Islamic people perfected the Greek’s invention of the compass. Muslims made the compass able to determine specific direction, and made it universal. If it was not for this contribution, we would not have our current use of today’s GPS. ( )