<P> The Islamic Golden Age is the era in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 13th century, during which much of the historically Islamic world was ruled by various caliphates, and science, economic development and cultural works flourished . This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign of the Abbasid caliph Harun al - Rashid (786 to 809) with the inauguration of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, where scholars from various parts of the world with different cultural backgrounds were mandated to gather and translate all of the world's classical knowledge into the Arabic language . This period is traditionally said to have ended with the collapse of the Abbasid caliphate due to Mongol invasions and the Siege of Baghdad in 1258 AD . A few contemporary scholars place the end of the Islamic Golden Age as late as the end of 15th to 16th centuries . </P> <P> The metaphor of a golden age began to be applied in 19th - century literature about Islamic history, in the context of the western aesthetic fashion known as Orientalism . The author of a Handbook for Travelers in Syria and Palestine in 1868 observed that the most beautiful mosques of Damascus were "like Mohammedanism itself, now rapidly decaying" and relics of "the golden age of Islam". </P>

Who ruled during the golden age of the abbasid caliphate