The Lights · 350 true things
Things that happened, one at a time
350 Lights of history and science, each with its date, and its source where the card names one, in 96 subjects, the largest first.
Quran · 38
- Seventy reciters died and the Qur'an was gatheredYamama and Madinah · 633 CE
- He wrote the Qur'an from memory on Robben IslandBo-Kaap, Cape Town · 1794
- The Qur'an was gathered into one book after a battleZayd ibn Thabit · Madinah, c. 633 CE
- Uthman sent a master copy to each garrison cityUthman ibn Affan · Madinah, c. 650 CE
- The book makes a claim about its own survivalSurah al-Hijr, a Makkan chapter
- The Qur'an most people read was typeset over seventeen yearsCairo · begun 1907, published July 1924
- The first printed Arabic Qur'an survives in a single copyVenice · 1537 to 1538, rediscovered 1987
- A blind Andalusian put the seven readings into verseAl-Shatibi · Xativa 1144 to Egypt 1194
- The first words revealed sit at chapter ninety six114 chapters, ordered by length
- The Qur'an names one of its own chapters in passingSurah al-Fatiha, seven verses
- The longest verse in the Qur'an is about debtSurah al-Baqarah, verse 282
- Different cities counted the verses differentlyKufan, Basran, Madinan, Makkan, Syrian
- Some chapters are built as a ring around a centreFarahi, Islahi, Cuypers, Farrin
- Most chapter names come from one word, not the themeChapter names taken from a rare word
- Only one woman is named in the Qur'anSurah Maryam, chapter 19
- Umar tried to stop a man reciting and was correctedUmar and Hisham ibn Hakim, Madinah
- A Baghdad scholar chose seven readings out of manyIbn Mujahid · Baghdad, died 936 CE
- The Qur'an in Morocco is recited differently from EgyptHafs, Warsh, Qalun and al-Duri
- One man's book settled the readings at tenIbn al-Jazari · 1350 to 1429 CE
- The command to recite slowly created a whole disciplineSurah al-Muzzammil, verse 4
- The small letters above the line tell you where to stopAl-Sajawandi · died c. 1165 CE
- A reciter's licence lists every teacher back to the sourceIjaza and sanad in Qur'anic recitation
- Printed Qur'ans keep a spelling a thousand years oldRasm Uthmani, the consonantal skeleton
- Ramadan was when the text was checked against its sourceIbn Abbas, on the Prophet ﷺ in Ramadan
- One sentence about memory is repeated four times overSurah al-Qamar, four times
- The measure given was learning it and passing it onReported by Uthman ibn Affan
- The opening formula appears exactly 114 timesSurah al-Naml, verse 30
- Twenty nine chapters open with letters nobody can explainAl-huruf al-muqatta'a, 29 chapters
- He was asked which verse was greatest and answered at onceUbayy ibn Ka'b · al-Baqarah, verse 255
- The verse after the Throne verse forbids compelling beliefSurah al-Baqarah, verses 255 and 256
- A verse about nearness sits inside the rules on fastingSurah al-Baqarah, verse 186
- The verse of light sits between rules about privacySurah al-Nur, verse 35
- Seven oaths in a row open one short chapterSurah al-Shams, verses 1 to 10
- One of the earliest chapters swears by the penSurah al-Qalam, verse 1
- A three verse chapter swears by time itselfSurah al-Asr, three verses
- The word for a verse is the word for a signAyah, a verse and a sign
- One missing letter changes the King into the OwnerSurah al-Fatiha, verse 4
- A blind man interrupted and the Qur'an took his sideAbdullah ibn Umm Maktum · Makkah
Arabic · 25
- Arabic sounds were mapped by where they are madeMakharij and sifat in tajwid
- Arabic got its dots and vowels after the Qur'anBasra and Kufa · late seventh century
- Mercy and the womb come from the same three lettersRoot r h m, mercy and the womb
- Patience in Arabic is a word about restraintRoot s b r, to bind and restrain
- God consciousness is built on a word meaning to shieldRoot w q y, to guard and to shield
- The Qur'an's name for itself is a word about memoryRoot dh k r, to remember and to mention
- Faith and safety are the same word in ArabicRoot a m n, faith and safety
- The word for prayer also means blessing the ProphetSurah Ta-Ha, verse 14
- The word for alms means growth, not deductionRoot z k w, growth and purity
- Islam and peace and the greeting share three lettersRoot s l m, wholeness and peace
- The Qur'an uses the word for disbeliever to mean farmerRoot k f r, to cover over
- Gratitude shares a root with a beast that thrives on littleRoot sh k r, a return larger than the gift
- Trust in God uses a word from commercial lawRoot w k l, to appoint an agent
- Excellence was defined as working as if you were watchedThe hadith of Jibril
- Manners and literature are the same word in ArabicRoot a d b, banquet, manners, letters
- One name of God means keeping your temperRoot h l m, forbearance
- Provision in Arabic is a portion allotted, not earnedRoot r z q, an allotted share
- Blessing comes from the word for a camel kneeling downRoot b r k, to kneel and to settle
- The word for human nature also means breaking a fastRoot f t r, to split open
- The Qur'an names three states of the selfRoot n f s, breath and self
- The Arabic word for heart means the thing that turnsRoot q l b, to turn over
- Spirit, wind and relief are one word family in ArabicRoot r w h, breath, wind, relief
- Arabic dictionaries file every word under a three letter rootIbn Manzur · Lisan al-Arab, c. 1311
- Arabic builds tools by pouring a root into a mouldThe Arabic pattern system, al-awzan
- The word for a Qur'an copy also gives journalistRoot s h f, sheet, codex, press
Practice · 22
- The toothbrush of the sunnah is a frayed twigAbu Hurayra · daily practice, Madinah
- A boy's hand wandering across a dish got three instructionsUmar ibn Abi Salamah, as a boy · Madinah
- He drank in three breaths and said it was betterAnas ibn Malik · Madinah
- He never once spoke against a plate of foodAbu Hurayra · Madinah
- He mended his own sandal and helped in the houseAisha, asked about him at home · Madinah
- Greet the ones you know and the ones you do notAbdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As · Madinah
- He greeted children first and kept doing itAnas ibn Malik · Madinah
- The lowest branch of faith is clearing the roadAbu Hurayra · Madinah
- A smile counts as charity in the ledgerAbu Dharr al-Ghifari · Madinah
- Five things one Muslim owes another, and one is a visitAbu Hurayra · Madinah
- Sleep was treated as a departure with instructionsAl-Bara ibn Azib · Madinah
- He cupped his hands, recited three suras, and wipedAisha · Madinah, nightly
- The last third of the night is when the door opensAbu Hurayra · the last third of the night
- The deeds He loves most are the small repeated onesAisha · Madinah
- A man urinated in the mosque and was left aloneAnas ibn Malik · the mosque at Madinah
- A man asked for advice and got two words, repeatedAbu Hurayra · Madinah
- A woman was punished over a cat she shut inReported from Ibn Umar · Madinah
- A man climbed into a well for a thirsty dogAbu Hurayra · reported in two collections
- The longest verse in the Qur'an is a loan agreementSurah Al-Baqarah, verse 282
- He died with his armour pledged to a Jewish neighbourAisha · Madinah, 632 CE
- A stranger entering could not tell which man he wasDescribed by several companions · Madinah
- He never saw me without smiling at meJarir ibn Abdullah al-Bajali · Madinah
Astronomy · 18
- Two teams walked in opposite directions to measure the earthPlain of Sinjar · c. 830 CE
- A little cloud in his star book was another galaxyAl-Sufi · Isfahan, 964 CE
- A prince measured a thousand stars and timed the yearUlugh Beg · Samarkand, 1437 CE
- Maragha was an observatory with a budget and a staffNasir al-Din al-Tusi · Maragha, from 1259
- Letters home from Samarkand describe how an observatory ranAl-Kashi at Ulugh Beg's court · 1420s
- Istanbul's observatory was demolished three years after it openedTaqi al-Din · Istanbul, 1577 to 1580
- He measured the year and was off by two minutesAl-Battani · Raqqa, died 929 CE
- One hill in the Punjab was enough to measure the earthAl-Biruni · Nandana fort, c. 1018 CE
- His eclipse timings were still useful eight hundred years laterIbn Yunus · Cairo, died 1009 CE
- Two rolling circles turn a circle into a straight lineNasir al-Din al-Tusi · Maragha, 1247
- A mosque timekeeper's lunar model matches Copernicus exactlyIbn al-Shatir · Damascus, c. 1304-1375
- He argued nothing observable rules out a turning earthAli Qushji · Samarkand and Istanbul, died 1474
- Columbus sailed on a number he had converted wronglyAl-Farghani · Baghdad, c. 833 CE
- A Toledo instrument maker ended up correcting PtolemyAl-Zarqali · Toledo, c. 1029-1100
- An observatory in Iran hired astronomers from as far as ChinaMaragha, Iran · founded 1259
- Istanbul's observatory was built in 1577 and demolished in 1580Galata, Istanbul · 1577 to 1580
- We sent down iron, and what that verb does elsewhereSurah al-Hadid 57:25
- The sun is called a radiance and the moon a lightSurah Yunus 10:5
Women · 16
- A former slave ruled Egypt with coins in her own nameShajar al-Durr · Cairo, 1250 CE
- Four women ruled Aceh in a row for fifty eight yearsAceh, Sumatra · 1641 to 1699
- She built a network of women teaching women across SokotoNana Asma'u · Sokoto, 1793-1864
- In 1988 a woman took office as prime minister of PakistanIslamabad · 2 December 1988
- The earliest named Muslim nurse worked in a tentRufayda al-Aslamiyya · Madinah, 620s CE
- The first Muslim was a businesswoman of fortyKhadijah bint Khuwaylid · Makkah, c. 610 CE
- Senior companions came to her with their hardest questionsAisha bint Abi Bakr · died 58 AH, 678 CE
- Her advice saved the treaty at HudaybiyyahUmm Salamah bint Abi Umayyah · Hudaybiyyah, 628
- She went to Uhud with a waterskin and ended up fightingNusaybah bint Ka'b, Umm Ammarah · Uhud, 625
- She tore her belt in two and gained a nameAsma bint Abi Bakr · died 73 AH, 692 CE
- Her dowry was that he become MuslimUmm Sulaym bint Milhan · Madinah
- A tent in the mosque was the first field hospitalRufaida al-Aslamia · Madinah, 627 CE
- She asked for a servant and was taught a formulaFatimah and Ali · Madinah
- The first person killed for this religion was a slave womanSumayyah bint Khayyat · Makkah, c. 615 CE
- He appointed a caller to prayer for her householdUmm Waraqah bint Abdullah · Madinah
- She spent an inheritance on a mosque that became a universityFatima al-Fihri · Fez, 859 CE
Medicine · 12
- He corrected Galen on the heart and was lost for centuriesIbn al-Nafis · Cairo, c. 1242 CE
- A Cairo hospital was endowed to turn nobody awayBimaristan al-Mansuri · Cairo, 1284 CE
- Hospitals were paid for by endowments, not by patientsBimaristans · Baghdad c. 981, Damascus 1154
- Al-Razi wrote down the cases where he was wrongAl-Razi · Rayy and Baghdad, died c. 925
- The first book to tell smallpox from measlesAl-Razi · Kitab al-Jadari wa'l-Hasba
- One textbook was taught in Europe for six centuriesIbn Sina · Canon of Medicine, c. 1025
- Ibn Sina set the conditions for judging a drugIbn Sina · Canon, Book Two, c. 1025
- Nobody knows whether Europe read Ibn al-Nafis on the heartIbn al-Nafis · Cairo, c. 1242
- Baghdad examined its physicians after one patient diedBaghdad · 931 CE, reported by Ibn abi Usaybi'a
- An Iraqi oculist drew a cataract out through a needleAmmar al-Mawsili and Ali ibn Isa · c. 1000 CE
- A Damascus hospital of 1154 charged nobody and taught medicineBimaristan al-Nuri · Damascus, 1154
- A drink of varying colours in which there is healingSurah al-Nahl 16:69
Architecture · 9
- The oldest dated Qur'anic text is written on a wallJerusalem · 72 AH, 691 CE
- The Taj Mahal is a tomb built for one named womanAgra · begun 1632
- The minaret in Xi'an is a wooden pagoda in a gardenXi'an, China · standing buildings from 1384
- A brick tower in Bukhara has stood since 1127Bukhara, Uzbekistan · 1127 CE
- Tigers and a human faced sun sit above a college doorRegistan, Samarkand · 1420 to 1660
- Delhi's first mosque was built from demolished temples and says soDelhi · begun 1192
- Akbar built a sandstone capital and left it fourteen years laterFatehpur Sikri, India · 1571 to c. 1585
- He became chief architect at fifty and worked fifty more yearsMimar Sinan · c. 1490 to 1588
- Honeycomb vaults were drawn as flat plans before they were builtTopkapi Scroll and al-Kashi · 15th century
Hajj · 9
- The farewell sermon was delivered from the back of a camelPlain of Arafah · Dhul Hijjah, 10 AH, 632 CE
- Pilgrims funded a railway to Madinah by subscriptionDamascus to Madinah · opened 1 September 1908
- No days are better for good work than these tenIbn Abbas · the first ten days of Dhul Hijjah
- Hajj done cleanly returns a person to day oneAbu Hurayra · the pilgrimage
- Neither the meat nor the blood reaches HimSurah Al-Hajj, verse 37
- Umar was told which verse deserved a festivalUmar ibn al-Khattab · Arafah, 632 CE
- Two hills of a woman's search now stand inside a mosqueMasjid al-Haram, Makkah
- A pilgrim who misses this afternoon has missed the HajjPlain of Arafat, near Makkah
- Mina is a city of tents empty fifty weeks a yearMina, near Makkah
Manuscripts · 9
- An enslaved man in Carolina wrote his life in ArabicOmar ibn Said · North Carolina, 1831
- Two leaves in Birmingham dated to within a lifetime of revelationUniversity of Birmingham · 22 July 2015
- Birmingham's two leaves belong to a book kept in ParisMingana 1572a and BnF Arabe 328(c)
- A wall in Sana'a gave up a paper hoard in 1972Great Mosque of Sana'a, Yemen · 1972
- One Sana'a manuscript was written over an older textThe Sana'a palimpsest, Yemen
- A Tübingen fragment holds a quarter of the Qur'anUniversitätsbibliothek Tübingen, Ma VI 165
- The Istanbul codex called Uthman's was written laterTopkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul
- A Qur'an went from Samarkand to Russia and backHast Imam library, Tashkent · 1868 to 1924
- A Qur'an written in gold on indigo dyed parchmentNorth Africa · 9th or 10th century
Water · 7
- A caliph's wife paid for the water on the Makkah roadZubayda bint Ja'far · died 831 CE
- A Persian water tunnel older than Islam spread west with itQanats · Iran and westward, from c. 500 BCE
- The water wheel came west and left its words behindNorias of Hama · Apamea mosaic, 469 CE
- Zamzam is a shallow well in a dry valley floorWadi Ibrahim, Makkah
- Cairo put a school for children above the drinking fountainCairo · Ottoman period
- A sultan wrote the advertisement for his own fountainIstanbul · 1728
- Made from water every living thingSurah al-Anbiya 21:30
Instruments · 6
- An astrolabe is a model of the sky you holdOldest dated example by Nastulus · 927 CE
- One line in one book records a woman who made astrolabesAl-Ijliyya of Aleppo · named in the Fihrist, c. 987
- Mosques put an astronomer on the payrollThe muwaqqit · Egypt and Syria, from the 1200s
- The largest instrument yet built sank under its own weightAl-Khujandi · Rayy, c. 994 CE
- One sentence in one book is all we know of herMariam al-Ijliya · Aleppo, 10th century
- Fez has a water clock nobody has managed to restartDar al-Magana, Fez · 1357
Libraries · 6
- Cordoba's caliph read the books before he shelved themAl-Hakam II · Cordoba, died 976 CE
- Timbuktu's manuscripts were smuggled out in footlockersTimbuktu to Bamako · 2012 to 2013
- The world's oldest working library reopened in 2016Fez, Morocco · restored 2012 to 2016
- A 1531 endowment in Sarajevo still pays for its own librarySarajevo · endowed 1531
- The House of Wisdom was probably a library, not an academyBaghdad · 8th and 9th centuries
- A Damascus library's own catalogue survives with 2,000 titlesAshrafiya library, Damascus · 13th century
Ramadan · 6
- The meal before dawn was made a practice on purposeAnas and Zayd ibn Thabit · Ramadan
- Break the fast early and the community stays wellSahl ibn Sa'd · Ramadan
- Leaving food is not wanted if false speech staysAbu Hurayra · Ramadan
- He was most generous in Ramadan, like a loosed windIbn Abbas · Ramadan
- He spent the last ten nights of Ramadan in the mosqueAisha · the last ten nights of Ramadan
- Aisha asked what to say if she found the nightAisha · the last ten nights of Ramadan
Andalus · 5
- Gibraltar is a rock named after a Berber commanderJabal Tariq · 711 CE
- Cordoba declared itself a caliphate in January 929Abd al-Rahman III · Cordoba, 929 CE
- Al-Andalus ended with a treaty that was broken in ten yearsGranada · 2 January 1492
- Cordoba's double arches made short columns carry a high roofCordoba · begun 785 CE
- One sentence is carved thousands of times across the AlhambraGranada · Nasrid work, 1238 to 1391
Makkah · 5
- The year he lost his wife and his uncleMakkah and Ta'if · c. 619 CE
- The city that expelled him was told to go homeMakkah · Ramadan, 8 AH, 630 CE
- The Haram at Makkah began as an open space between housesMasjid al-Haram, Makkah · 638 CE to the present
- The cave of the first revelation is smaller than most roomsJabal al-Nour, Makkah
- The cave in the Qur'an held two men for three nightsJabal Thawr, Makkah · 622 CE
Algebra · 4
- Algebra had no symbols for four hundred yearsAbu Kamil · Egypt, c. 850-930 CE
- The man who freed algebra also wrote about underground waterAl-Karaji · Baghdad, c. 953-1029 CE
- He wrote his algebra book at nineteenAl-Samawal al-Maghribi · Baghdad, c. 1130-1180
- Khayyam solved cubic equations by crossing two curvesOmar Khayyam · Samarkand and Isfahan, c. 1070
Calligraphy · 4
- One Qur'an in Ibn al-Bawwab's hand survives, in DublinChester Beatty Library, Dublin · 391 AH
- He measured letters in dots and lost his writing handIbn Muqla · Baghdad, c. 885 to 940 CE
- He cut the pen at an angle and changed the lettersYaqut al-Musta'simi · died 1298 CE
- An Ottoman calligrapher copied forty seven Qur'ansShaykh Hamdullah · Amasya 1436 to 1520
Engineering · 4
- A palace engineer drew fifty machines and how to build themAl-Jazari · Diyarbakir, 1206 CE
- Three brothers designed machines that regulated themselvesBanu Musa · Baghdad, c. 850 CE
- His famous crank turns up on a Roman reliefAl-Jazari · Diyarbakir, 1206 CE
- The oldest windmills stood on a plain of constant windSistan and Nashtifan · attested from the 9th c.
Independence · 4
- Indonesia was declared in a front garden in 35 wordsJakarta · 17 August 1945
- Pakistan was created on a date chosen for convenienceKarachi and Delhi · 14 August 1947
- Malaya's independence was announced with one word, seven timesKuala Lumpur · 31 August 1957
- Algeria chose the anniversary of its own conquestAlgiers · 5 July 1962
Learning · 4
- Al-Azhar was founded by one sect and outlived itCairo · founded 970, first prayer 972
- The Seljuk state paid students to study, from 1065Nizam al-Mulk · Baghdad, 1065 CE
- Baghdad's 1233 college taught four schools of law at onceBaghdad · opened 1233
- The certificate was written on your copy of the bookIjaza · classical Muslim scholarship
Madinah · 4
- The first mosque was built by hand at QubaQuba, outside Yathrib · Rabi al-Awwal, 622 CE
- The Prophet's mosque began with palm trunks and a gravel floorAl-Masjid al-Nabawi, Madinah · 622 CE onward
- He walked out to Quba every Saturday to pray two unitsQuba, Madinah · 622 CE
- A mountain the Prophet said loves us and we love itJabal Uhud, Madinah · battle 3 AH, 625 CE
Mathematics · 4
- The numbers we use came to Baghdad from India in 773Court of al-Mansur, Baghdad · 773 CE
- A Samarkand mathematician held the record for pi for 180 yearsAl-Kashi · Samarkand, 1424 CE
- The caliph's best mathematician was not a MuslimThabit ibn Qurra · Harran and Baghdad, died 901
- The sine of one degree, to ten sexagesimal placesAl-Kashi · Samarkand, 1420s
Surgery · 4
- He tried the operation on a goat firstIbn Zuhr · Seville, died c. 1162
- Only one of his thirty volumes is about surgeryAl-Zahrawi · Cordoba, c. 936-1013
- A surgeon in Cordoba stitched with thread the body dissolvesAl-Zahrawi · Kitab al-Tasrif, c. 1000 CE
- What the surgeons used for pain is less than claimedArabic and Latin surgery · 9th to 13th centuries