Was Islam responsible for the Islamic Golden Age?

Answer 1

If you consider the Secular Islam and Mu'tazilite Islam to be acceptable forms of Islam, then yes, but Sunni and Shiite Orthodoxy both had nothing to do with the Islamic Golden Age, and, more often than not, actively opposed it. There are several reasons for this:

1) Irreligious and Mu'tazilite Leaders: For the most part, the rulers of both the Umayyad and Abbassid Caliphate were not traditional Sunni Muslims. While the Umayyads were nominally Sunni, they were not well seen as Sunnis and had much the same reputation as the Secular Arab Dictators (like Sissi, Qadhafi, and Saddam Hussein) have today. They frequently drank alcohol. Almost all of them had harems and more than four wives. All of them disrespected the call for humility and lived in luxurious palaces. They spent much more on internal infrastructure than on mosques or theology. In fact the entire Sufi movement developed as a rejection of the Umayyad Caliphs' religious authority and this actually began the tradition in the Islamic World of having religious and sovereign authority vested in two distinct individuals. (For example in the later Turkish Empires, there would be a Caliph with religious authority and a sultan with sovereign power.)

The Abbassids were more religious than the Umayyads, but they were not Sunnis; they were Mu'tazilites, which is a now-dead sect of Islam that believed exclusively that God could be understood through rational analysis. They even performed as an Inquisition against Sunni and Shiite Islamic Orthodoxy, turning Ibn Hanbal (the founder of the Hanbali School of Jurisprudence) into a martyr by killing him over this theological dispute. Since the Abbassids valued literature and knowledge as religious imperatives, things that would be rejected by their Sunni Successors, they supported the creation of vast libraries, translating academies, and became patrons of the arts. It should not be surprising that as the power of the Abbassids waned (due to invasions from Sunni Seljuqs and Ismaili Shiite Fatimids) the Islamic Golden Age came to a close, even as the territory remained under powerful Islamic Empires.

2) Incorporation of Pre-Islamic Nobility & Mawali: The majority of the scientists in the Islamic Golden Age were not Arabs, but were Persians, Amazigh (Berber), Byzantines, Muladi (Spaniards), and Turkic Peoples. The reason for this was that the academic skills and knowledge were vested in these groups of people prior to the Arab conquest and the Umayyads and Abbassids had the good sense to allow these people to continue in their positions. To avoid the jizya and retain influence, many of these individuals converted to Islam, but they still retained their expertise. It is for this reason that we have a burst of brilliance among Mawali (Non-Arab Muslims) that we do not see among Arab Muslims in the same degree. If it was Islam that was motivating science and discoveries, we should see a similar or higher percentage of Arabs making discoveries than Non-Arabs since they have been indoctrinated in the religion for longer. However, what we see is the reverse, with almost all discoveries coming from Non-Arabs.

3) Neo-Platonism vs. Occasionalism: Neo-Platonism, which allows for a scientific vision of the world that complements theology, has generally been correlated with successful and technologically progressive societies. During the period of 800-1100, Neo-Platonism was dominant in the Islamic Caliphates. Thinkers like al-Farabi supported and promoted it. Conversely in the 1100s, al-Ghazali lead a counter-movement called Occasionalism, which basically held that science and maths are attempts to remove God from the world and understanding it. This would make science and maths effectively into blasphemies. His work fundamentally changed the landscape and Neo-Platonism was effectively defeated in the Islamic World. Ibn Rushd tried to resuscitate it, but by his time, it was too late.

4) Who Is Counted: Often times, people who were seen as Atheists or Non-Muslims worthy of death by the Muslim community of their time are now being counted as part of the Islamic Golden Age. While their contributions are noteworthy, they were fundamentally opposed by Muslims. Some such examples include Ibn Rushd (who was physically threatened for violating Sunni Islamic Orthodoxy), Ibn Sina (who was called an apostate by al-Ghazali), Maimonides (who was chased from his home by the Fundamentalist Sunni Almohads), Ibn Kamuna (who was hounded by Sunni Muslim mobs), Omar Khayyam (who was ostracized from his Sufi community).

Answer 2

The divine knowledge of Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq a.s was the reason for Islamic golden age.