Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES UNDER MOORS
Andalusi civilization, which extended, approximately, from

93/711 to 897/1492, witnessed no scientific development in the field of the exact sciences until the reign of the amir Abdur Rahman II (206/821-238/852), who, according to a late anonymous Maghribi source, was the first to introduce astronomical tables in al-Andalus. Before that period we can only discern the survival of a Latin astrological tradition and suppose that it probably coexisted with an Arabic tradition of folk astronomy dealing mainly with weather predictions based on the anwa’ system and with miqat problems, such as determining the qibla in order to establish the more or less correct orientation of the mihrab in the new mosques. The middle of the

3rd/9th century saw the beginning of a period of easternization in Andalusi culture, favouied both by the common practice of a rihla to the East designed to complete the education of young men from any family which could afford it and, also, by the cultural policy of the Umayyad amirs, who encouraged Eastern scholars to establish themselves in Cordova and did their best to buy the new books published in the great capitals of the Mashriq. This period lasted at least until the fall of the Uma>yad Caliphate (422/1031), which entailed the loss of political umt\. but was followed by a subsequent

x-Cf. Political and Cultural History of Islam

pet,.^d of fifty years (422/1031-479/1086) which may be regarded as tlj ’ Golden Age of the exact sciences and of all the other m jfestations of Andalusi cultural life. Sovereigns of the ”petty k- Joms” (muluk-al-tawa’if) encouraged the development of Sc- ,ice, and one of them.
Yusuf al-Mu’taman of Saragossa (474/1081-478/1085), was
pr «ably the most important mathematicians in the history of al-
A ialus. This period also witnessed the scientific activity in Toledo
a , Cordova, of Abu Ishaq Ibrahim b. Yahya’l-Naqqash, known as
JL al-Zarqalluh or Ibn al-Zarqali (d. 493/1100), who became.
v^jout any doubt, the most original and influential astronomer in al-
A Jalus. On the other hand, this golden half century also entailed a
D ^ressive slowing down in contacts with the Mashriq, which meant
th , the development of the exact sciences in al-Andalus from the
m.jdle of the 5th/llth century became somewhat original and
•^pendent of the East. This loss of contact with a cultural area
w. |ch, especially from the 7th/13th century on words, was producing
n ^ ideas in the field of astronomy was also one of the main reasons
-j- the decay of Andalusi science, the first symptoms of which
a .eared during the 6th/12th century.4 Now we study in detail the
„ ijiiral history of Muslim Spain.