In the reign of the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid (786-809 A.D.) and the Caliph al-Ma'mun (813-817 A.D.), Islamic world reached its zenits of civilization. One of its characteristics was that the progress of intellectual activities. Muslim and non-Muslim scholars along with their works, commentaries, translations and inventions were not compared to any others. The light of Islamic civilization turned to decline after the Mongols captured Baghdad in 1258 A.D. Thousands of books, manuscripts and collections of intellectual works in Bayt al-Hikmah, center of Muslim education whose major function was academic research during the Abbasids, were burned down.However, the attitude of learning and scholarship among Muslims never fades away. Many verses in the Holy Koran (Alquran) and the Prophet Traditions (Alhadis) motivate to, oblige to, stress on the importance of learning. Also, Muslim educational centers and institutions like sufi ribats, khanqahs, zawiyahs, and madrasahs were continuously¬ established everywhere in the Islamic world ¬following the early period of Islam. The hattitude of learning and scholarship in Islam kept on filling the heritage of the Islamic civilization.



