e living in shacks by the side of the river." Science, philosophy and mathematics flourished in Cordoba, as well as commerce; over 80,000 shops were available to consumers in the commercial districts, and more than 13,000 weavers produced fine woolen garments and silk fabrics that became a known commodity around the world at that time.
             Meanwhile, during the time of the reign of Caliph Harun al-Rashid (786-809), which ended at about the time the above-described city of Baghdad was in its glory years, the Abbasid culture was ruled by an "old-style absolute monarch," author Karen Armstrong points out (Armstrong 53).
             However, al-Rashid did create an environment for a "great cultural renaissance" with his love of the arts and scholarship. The disciplines of mathematics, astronomy, literary criticism, philosophy, medicine and poetry flourished in the cities of Baghdad, Kufah, Basrah, Jundayvebar and Harran.
             Muslim intellectuals began making scientific discoveries, more than "in the whole of previ
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