The Essay

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and over twenty episodes, we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, mathematics, innovation and philosophy.In today's essay, Iraqi-born scientist, writer and broadcaster Jim Al-Khalili tells us about the legacy of al-Khwarizmi. Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, astrologer geographer and a scholar in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. The House of Wisdom was a renowned centre of scientific research and teaching in his time - attracting some of the greatest minds of the Islamic Golden Age. Al-Khwarizmi was born in Persia around 780 and was one of the learned men who worked in the House of Wisdom under the leadership of Caliph al-Mamun, the son of the caliph Harun al-Rashid, who was made famous in the Arabian Nights.Producer: Mohini Patel.

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and in these twenty essays, we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, mathematics, innovation and philosophy. In today's essay, Narguess Farzad, senior fellow in Persian at SOAS (School of African and Oriental Studies), recounts the tale of two remarkable and influential women poets, Rabia Balkhi and Mahsati Ganjavi.Rabia Balkhi was said to be a great beauty of royal birth who died a tragic death. She lived in the southern part of Afghanistan and from a young age, she loved to write poems on love and beauty. She fell in love with her brother's Turkish slave, Baktash. They began to meet in secret and write poetry to each other. When her brother, Hares, found out, he ordered her jugular vein be cut and that she be left to die a slow and painful death imprisoned and alone in her bathroom. As she was dying, Rabia found the strength to write her final poems with her blood on the walls of the bathroom. Her poems were not recited in public during her life time but won hearts and minds throughout the ages.Mahsati Ganjavi was an eminent Iranian poetess and composer of quatrains. She grew up in Ganjeh, now the second largest city of Azerbaijan. Mahsati was contemporary to Seljukid Dynasty who ruled most parts of Iran from 1037 to 1194 AD. She was a poetess laureate to the courts of Sultan Mahmud II (1118-1131) and his uncle Sultan Sanjar (1131-1157). Her quatrains (Rubaiyat), were full of joy and optimism - on the joy of living and the fullness of love.Producer: Mohini Patel.

The Islamic Golden Age rediscovered through portraits of key achivements and figures. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, innovation and philosophy. Professor Julia Bray explores the figure of Harun al-Rashid known to many from the Thousand and One Night tales.Julia separates fact from fiction and sheds light on Harun's life. What was his Baghdad really like? Was it as Tennyson said 'A goodly place, a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid'. Harun is remembered as a champion of the arts, as a romantic hero, a benevolent ruler. However, there's plenty of evidence to the contrary and that his failure to plan properly for the future led to chaos and bloodshed.Producer: Sarah Taylor.

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, innovation and philosophy. Professor Jonathan Bloom on how the Islamic scholars and thinkers were the early adopters of paper - far ahead of their European contemporaries.Producer: Sarah Taylor.

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and over twenty episodes, we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, innovation and philosophy. Baroness Warsi, the first Muslim member of the British Cabinet, gives her personal take on Persian scholar Imam Bukhari.Producer: Sarah Taylor.

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, innovation and philosophy. Professor Robert Gleave continues the series with an essay featuring Ali ibn Abi Talib and the origins of Shi'ism.Producer: Sarah Taylor.

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, innovation and philosophy. Professor Hugh Kennedy begins the series with an introductory essay explaining how the Islamic state established itself.Producer: Sarah Taylor.

Writer Adam Gopnik sees Cubism, far from being a premonition of abstraction, as a new form of poetic modern realism, a way of capturing the syncopated, quick paced, ecletic mix of high and low that marks our civilization. Its tragedy, he argues, is that it captured that spirit just as the civilization it celebrated was about to commit suicide. Producer: Sara Davies.

Among the memorable publishing highlights of 1913 Paris, Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes has become one of France's best-loved and most revered novels. Writer Michele Roberts looks at why it occupies such a privileged place in French hearts, and assesses the cultural and literary landscape from which it emerged.Producer: Sara Davies.

Guillaume Apollinaire's volume of poetry, Alcools, met with astonishment, admiration and a good deal of outrage when it was published in Paris in 1913. In its experiments with subject, structure and style it blazed a bold trail for the modernist poetry of the 1920s, claims Martin Sorrell of Exeter University.Producer: Sara Davies.