6 ms·

Ismail al-Jazari – the medieval 'Father of Robotics'

87 points by mih 6y ago

2Gkashmiri 6y ago
in my family there has been a simple question being raised for as many years i can remember but there has never been a satisfactory answer yet. "if early muslims had all the science, mathematics, geography, philosophy and all fields of science including hundreds of scientists who laid down the foundations of modern science with their works, what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?" Then years ago i read "origin" by "Dan brown" where an interesting line caught my attention “By the end of the eleventh century,” Edmond said, “the greatest intellectual exploration and discovery on earth was taking place in and around Baghdad. Then, almost overnight, that changed. A brilliant scholar named Hamid al-Ghazali—now considered one of the most influential Muslims in history—wrote a series of persuasive texts questioning the logic of Plato and Aristotle and declaring mathematics to be ‘the philosophy of the devil.’ This began a confluence of events that undermined scientific thinking. The study of theology was made compulsory, and eventually the entire Islamic scientific movement collapsed.” Since reading this, i've been trying to understand 2 things. 1, is this just fiction on the part of author and in that case, isnt it slander, spreading false information about a scholar who many hold to high regards and 2, if this is true, then this fucking asshole is responsible for causing immeasurable harm to "science" as a human idea on the whole. While i think just one person "might not" be responsible for single-handedly causing such a travesty on his own, there is no doubt "something" happened that caused this change. This author says it was this ghazali guy, maybe there were others also. I don't know but i surely would want to know
- spoonjim 6y ago
  Modern Islamic governments are, on average, profoundly anti-liberal, anti-progress, and anti-rights, and that cannot coexist with a thriving culture of scientific inquiry. It’s possible that all of this traces back to al-Ghazali but I suspect that there is quite a bit more to it than him alone.
- noufalibrahim 6y ago
  This is an oft repeated piece of idle scholarship that atheists and orientalists use to "explain" the decline of the so called "Islamic Golden Age". I've seen Steven Weinberg mention this as well as Neil Tyson. The factors were complex. There were economic and socio-political events that affected the stability and life in these societies. Several other reasons contributed to this downfall and it finally happened. To pin all the blame on a single scholar is disingenuous. Al Ghazzali's "Incoherence of the philosophers" was a warning against some of the techniques philosophers used especially in the context of interpreting the primary texts of Islam to come up with religious rulings. There were also philosophical arguments against scientific (read material) explanations precluding the hand of God in material affairs but this wasn't one killing blow against centuries of scientific scholarship. Here are a few articles that discuss this from a traditional Muslim point of view if you're interested. https://mohamedghilan.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/an-illusion-of-intellectualism/ https://mohamedghilan.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/an-illusion-o... https://traversingtradition.com/2020/11/19/science-history-and-athiesm-qa-with-asadullah-ali/ https://traversingtradition.com/2020/11/19/science-history-a.... I had something that addressed it more directly but can't find it right now.
  - 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
    no. You are not answering my question. you are simply saying dont blame ghazali. My question is, what caused the death of "desire for scientific temper" and economic conditions do not change someones quest for knowledge or for that matter, influence an entire population away from science who took to avoid it like the plague. I had this talk with a guy last week and when i mentioned ghazali, he said something on the lines of "are you talking about his first phase or second phase?" then when i showed him this quote, this person goes "yes. obviously his first phase. in his second phase he rejected his earlier texts and even started learning the same thing he rejected earlier but the damage was done". You cant just tell a population to reject a way of thinking but apparently someone did manage to do that
    - artem247 6y ago
      >> economic conditions do not change someones quest for knowledge In my country science almost ceased to exist after the fall of Soviet Union. So economic conditions do play a role. The western Age of Reason in XVIII also has relationship to complex changes in the society - rise of merchant class, acceptance of usury, etc. And I would say that "whole population avoids science like a plague" would be a strong overstatement more echoing the modern view on Islamic countries with strong Salafi influence.
- bitdizzy 6y ago
  Anyone who tells you history is shaped by the opinions of scholars is ill informed on the mechanisms of the world. What is true is that political forces will rationalize the actions they take for their material interests by finding a convenient fig leaf. The people who spread this theory about the decline of the Islamic golden age likely also believe that the Iconoclasm was really about graven images or that the ascendancy of the West was due to the people with all the power accepting the arguments of bookish nerds during the enlightenment. There were emperors of China who used Laozi to justify the burning of books. Do you think they were just being principled in their hyperliteralist reading?
  - selimthegrim 6y ago
    If you believe Joseph Needham (who according to George Steiner was not above telling a white lie or two) one would think they were getting rid of rival Mohist siege engineers
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  > what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished? A big part of the answer is the Sack of Baghdad in 1258 by the Mongol armies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)#Destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)#Destru... >Contemporary accounts state Mongol soldiers looted and then destroyed mosques, palaces, libraries, and hospitals. Priceless books from Baghdad's thirty-six public libraries were torn apart, the looters using their leather covers as sandals.[36] Grand buildings that had been the work of generations were burned to the ground. The House of Wisdom (the Grand Library of Baghdad), containing countless precious historical documents and books on subjects ranging from medicine to astronomy, was destroyed. Claims have been made that the Tigris ran red from the blood of the scientists and philosophers killed.[37][38] Tales of the destruction of books - tossed into the Tigris such that the water turned black from the ink - seem to originate from the 14th century.[39][40] Baghdad at the time was the religious, political, and intellectual center of Islam. You could think of it as the combined New York, Washington DC, and Silicon Valley of the Islamic world. Think what would happen to American culture if all of a sudden, those 3 were suddenly destroyed. How would that shift the balance of culture? Something very similar happened to Islam in 1258, and I would say, we are probably still seeing the fallout of that to this day.
  - christkv 6y ago
    This happened to China as well yet it recovered better.
    - RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
      China was different. Kublia Khan actually preserved a lot of the Chinese institutions but put himself on top. There was not the wholesale destruction of books and scholars. This would have been like Hulagu going to Baghdad, converting to Islam and making himself Caliph and reigning from Baghdad. That is not what happened to Baghdad.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- idlewords 6y ago
  There is a book you should read, Lost Enlightenment: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691165851/lost-enlightenment https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691165851/lo... The flourishing of Islamic science took place not in Baghdad, but in Central Asia, and it was already in steep decline when al-Ghazali wrote his polemics. The reasons for both the rise and decline of the Central Asian enlightenment are fascinating and complex. The tl;dr is that these cities (most now ruins) relied on very complicated irrigation systems that required a high degree of technical skill to maintain, and were also quite cosmopolitan places culturally, since they were never Arabized and lay on major trade routes, guaranteeing them exposure to ideas and scholarly texts from India (although interestingly, not so much from China). Anyway, it's a great book and will put the rise and decline of this period in context for you.
  - 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
    thank you. I will be going through this book as early as possible.
    - selimthegrim 6y ago
      Nitpick: “...as soon as possible” sounds more natural to native speakers Ulugh Beg’s observatory was what Ottomans’ short lived one was built to compete with
      - idlewords 6y ago
        What sounds most natural to native speakers is not correcting people's language unasked.
        selimthegrim 6y ago
        Fair enough, but he and I share a native non-English language, so I thought I was being helpful.
        6y ago
- Zariff 6y ago
  Neil deGrasse Tyson also mentioned this. User noufalibrahim already gave a good response to that. But if you're interested, Mohammed Hijab also replied to that claim in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfRnYNig9jU&t=36s&ab_channel=MohammedHijab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfRnYNig9jU&t=36s&ab_channel...
- keiferski 6y ago
  History is really not that simple and you should always be wary of anyone trying to ascribe blame to a single person or event. There were many events that led to the “end of the Islamic Golden Age,” but a closer analysis reveals that nothing really ended, but simply was moved around. Consider that the Ottomans were technologically superior to Europeans until about the 17th century, or that Al-Andalus was around until the 15th century. But, overall, the single biggest event to impact the era was probably the Mongol sacking of Baghdad. That ended a lot of intellectual culture in rather violent fashion.
  - jbay808 6y ago
    > But, overall, the single biggest event to impact the era was probably the Mongol sacking of Baghdad. Just goes to show how Eurocentric my history education was; I never heard about this. Fascinating.
    - andrepd 6y ago
      I never learned that my country used forced labour in its colonies until the 60s, or that we dropped napalm on civilian villages as a reprisal. I'm very skeptical about the quality of history lessons in school, no matter the country.
- abdulhaq 6y ago
  Lots of big mistakes here. His name was Abu Hamid alGhazali. If you read his "almunqidh min aD-Dalaal" (Deliverance From Error) which was an autobiography and summary of his thought, he states that e.g. "MATHEMATICS. This embraces arithmetic, plane geometry and solid geometry. None of its results are connected with religious matters, either to deny or to affirm them. They are matters of demonstration which it is impossible to deny once they have been understood and apprehended." "LOGIC. Nothing in logic is relevant to religion by way of denial or affirmation.", "Just as it is not a condition of religion to reject medical science, so likewise the rejection of natural science is not one of its conditions, except with regard to particular points". You can find the text at https://ghazali.org/books/md/gz101.htm https://ghazali.org/books/md/gz101.htm, for me this was a very influential book.
- gerash 6y ago
  Disclaimer: I'm no historian. But my guess is it's often not a simple cause. This is a lot like how, say, tech companies evolve. For example is there a simple answer to why, say, HP isn't considered the most successful tech companies right now while it was at some point in time? My guess is other groups of people learn from them and surpass them overtime. This can also be true even within a single company where one org used to be the most important one but over time another org brings in more money and becomes more important
- kbk 6y ago
  > in my family there has been a simple question being raised for as many years i can remember but there has never been a satisfactory answer yet if that is the case you should read to Malek Bannabi[1]: The Conditions of Renaissance, Question of Ideas in Muslim World, The Ideological Struggle in Third World Countries ... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malek_Bennabi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malek_Bennabi
- qersist3nce 6y ago
  The sudden "thing" that happened was Mongol Invasion[0]. Imagine Germany in 1945 losing the war, only having one major library, and the allies burn it down, decimate the population to 10% of the prior count[1], and throw the books down to Rhine River "...in such quantities that the river ran black with the ink from the books"[2]. The Mongols just invaded, pillaged and killed in a mind-less fashion. Middle-east was unlucky cause it was just geographically near them. They also wreaked havoc on China, Korea and Russia. Japan was lucky that storm sank their ships (which were forcibly built by conquered Chinese) I have not studied al-Ghazali but I think the good'ol war had the major role in this decline and the current state of the middle east. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_Empire#cite_note-7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_E... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom#Destruction_by_the_Mongols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom#Destruction_by...
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    Besides early historical events, there are ongoing issues with Islamic practice. The main goals of Islam are to worship Allah and revere the Prophet Mohammed. Praying 5 times per day plus more on Friday is an extremely inefficient use of time. The devout aspire to spend all their waking time on religious devotion. Since the Koran is thought to be "perfect" to believers, pseudo-science as written in there has stunted adherents since the 7th century. (The West's rapid progress in the science of arms in the 1700s is why the Ottomans, etc. were defeated ultimately. Scimitars don't work against cannons.) In addition, when Islam spreads to another country, it replaces the culture and history of that new region (perhaps with the exception of Indonesia, which still superficially uses original dress and languages despite being 90% Muslim. However, the creeping takeover is inexorable, as seen in TV commercials which have become Islamized in the past 20 years.) So the endgame is a 7th century monoculture "borg" that replaces any national uniqueness of ideas. It's death by a thousand cuts where Islam retards the ummah (global diaspora.) There is no way to improve this because "reform" in Islam means going back to a literal interpretation of the Koran (ie. back to the 7th century.) One of the positive things one can say about Islam is that the nuclear family is prized (for making babies), unlike anti-family Marxist ideology as practised in the West.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mavelikara 6y ago
  > , if this is true, then this fucking asshole is responsible for causing immeasurable harm to "science" as a human idea on the whole. Irrespective of what you think of the theory, it will help us all if we could identify and prevent the people among us now who could cause such harm to humanity.
- Cyph0n 6y ago
  As others have already mentioned, blaming the decline solely on al-Ghazali is the simplistic, orientalist view. Neil deGrasse Tyson recently helped propagate this argument as well. The reality was much more complex. If you’re interested, I’d suggest checking out Dr. George Saliba’s writings on this topic. A good start is “Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance”. For a shorter intro, check out this lecture [1]. [1] https://youtu.be/66bV1rdMois https://youtu.be/66bV1rdMois
- you_know_the_ 6y ago
  I would say the crusade to blame for the decline of Muslims golden age. When the crusade started around 12 century, it brought devision among Muslims and Christians in places such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. For centuries, Muslims, Christians and Jews lived next to each other and collaborated with each other but the crusade killed that friendship.
  - Haga 6y ago
    A friendship that comes with taxes and reduced rights, is the type of friendship you could have in the cotton fields of the south.
- rramadass 6y ago
  First off, don't rely on History lessons from "Dan Brown" :-) The topic of decline of "Scientific Temper" in the Islamic World is a complex and nuanced subject with contributing various factors. Here are some major points; * Much of the "Golden Age of Islam" is actually attributable to cultures which were originally not Islamic at all eg: Persia, The Levant, Mediterranean, Central Asia, Indian subcontinent. The decline started with the "Islamization" of these cultures by the Arabs who were far more "primitive". This is the worst of brawn over brain. * The rise of "fundamental" Islam; most notably the Ash'ari within Sunni sect (al-Ghazali was just one of the most well known of this group) to the detriment of all the other "forward looking" sects in Islam. * The Mongol invasion which wiped out a unified Islamic empire leading to more internecine strife within Islam. * The Christian Crusades. * The general ossification and fossilization of beliefs in Islamic cultures causing them to turn away from the "Modern Scientific Enlightenment" movement which started in Europe. Note that similar decline of cultures have happened before due to similar (but not same) reasons; most notably with Ancient China and India though not to the same degree.
- yumraj 6y ago
  > what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?" To me it has always seemed like this was simply a side effect of Islam taking deep root. Before this the older, pre-Islamic culture was still there, but as time passed Islam, as evidenced by the conservative Islam we see today, took hold leading the Islamic territories away from math and science.
- andrepd 6y ago
  I really feel like I shouldn't have to say this, but perhaps it is not a good idea to take history lessons from a DAN BROWN NOVEL! Funnily enough: searching for 30secs on AskHistorians leads to an answer debunking the precise theory that you expound on your post! [0] TL;DR: The major cause of the end of the Islamic Golden Age was the catastrophic destruction of Bagdhad in 1258, and of surrounding Mesopotamia. It's a bit irresponsible to propagate misconceptions like this, especially when the source is Dan f*cking Brown. :) [0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/97rd7e/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/97rd7e/
- N1H1L 6y ago
  You are forgetting the Mongols. They said the Euphrates ran black for a month due to the books dumped into the river. The Siege of Baghdad killed all of what you described
- O_H_E 6y ago
  I agree with many of the sibling replies but I would like to address different point. > "including hundreds of scientists who laid down the foundations of modern science with their works, what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?" That science didn't "just vanish". If it did, how would it have "laid down the foundations of modern science"? Yes, definitely the "Siege of Baghdad" [1] had a major impact but lot (no claims about how much) of knowledge later influenced the western "awakening". [2] The awesome thing is: non of this is new. Humanity always worked that way. For example wikipedia also have articles on the Greek and Indian influences to that "enlightenment" era in the islamic world. [3][4] DISCLAIMER: I don't actually know much about the history in detail, I am sure there is much more that can be said, due to some past cursory knowledge I was just able to look things up. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258) 2.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_world_contributions_to_Medieval_Europe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_world_contributions_... 3. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_contributions_to_the_Islamic_world https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_contributions_to_the_I... 4. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_influence_on_Islamic_science https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_influence_on_Islamic_...
- dingoegret 6y ago
  This is an extremely reductive and anti-Muslim revision of history. Spread by hate groups and anti-Muslim ideologue types. Explanation for the current state of affairs is a vastly complex subject. Ranging from the Mongols, Seljuks, destruction of learning centers, lack of coal, competition with colonialism. There are so many reasons that aren't simply some cartoon evil religious man had said "science bad".
christkv 6y ago
I’ve always wondered if the Ottoman Empire in many ways was the root of the problem as it traded stability of empire over anything else.
- keiferski 6y ago
  Al-Jazari lived centuries before the Ottomans existed. Otherwise, having studied the Ottomans extensively, I wouldn’t say they chose stability over anything else. Their slow downfall was due more to a gradual fossilization of their institutions. For example, the Janissaries went from a highly-trained elite force to essentially a social club that everyone wanted to join. The sultans themselves also gradually became less competent. Also of note is that the Ottomans were initially on the cutting edge of military technology and even exported quite a lot of it to the Mughals, who then had an advantage over their opponents. So, they certainly weren’t “behind” technologically. Pretty much the same pattern as any empire, really. Initial warrior class conquers land, their immediate descendants develop a refined culture, and it’s all downhill from there as following generations aim but fail to recapture the magic.
  - selimthegrim 6y ago
    Two black marks in my book Selim I banning the printing press and and destruction of Taqiuddin’s observatory under Murad III
    - Cyph0n 6y ago
      The printing press ban probably had a huge impact. It was much easier to spread ideas if you didn’t have to transcribe them by hand.
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    > Their slow downfall was due more to a gradual fossilization of their institutions. Sounds like an inevitable phase in the life cycle of empires.
  - christkv 6y ago

87 points by mih 6y ago

in my family there has been a simple question being raised for as many years i can remember but there has never been a satisfactory answer yet. "if early muslims had all the science, mathematics, geography, philosophy and all fields of science including hundreds of scientists who laid down the foundations of modern science with their works, what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?" Then years ago i read "origin" by "Dan brown" where an interesting line caught my attention “By the end of the eleventh century,” Edmond said, “the greatest intellectual exploration and discovery on earth was taking place in and around Baghdad. Then, almost overnight, that changed. A brilliant scholar named Hamid al-Ghazali—now considered one of the most influential Muslims in history—wrote a series of persuasive texts questioning the logic of Plato and Aristotle and declaring mathematics to be ‘the philosophy of the devil.’ This began a confluence of events that undermined scientific thinking. The study of theology was made compulsory, and eventually the entire Islamic scientific movement collapsed.” Since reading this, i've been trying to understand 2 things. 1, is this just fiction on the part of author and in that case, isnt it slander, spreading false information about a scholar who many hold to high regards and 2, if this is true, then this fucking asshole is responsible for causing immeasurable harm to "science" as a human idea on the whole. While i think just one person "might not" be responsible for single-handedly causing such a travesty on his own, there is no doubt "something" happened that caused this change. This author says it was this ghazali guy, maybe there were others also. I don't know but i surely would want to know

spoonjim 6y ago
Modern Islamic governments are, on average, profoundly anti-liberal, anti-progress, and anti-rights, and that cannot coexist with a thriving culture of scientific inquiry. It’s possible that all of this traces back to al-Ghazali but I suspect that there is quite a bit more to it than him alone.
noufalibrahim 6y ago
This is an oft repeated piece of idle scholarship that atheists and orientalists use to "explain" the decline of the so called "Islamic Golden Age". I've seen Steven Weinberg mention this as well as Neil Tyson. The factors were complex. There were economic and socio-political events that affected the stability and life in these societies. Several other reasons contributed to this downfall and it finally happened. To pin all the blame on a single scholar is disingenuous. Al Ghazzali's "Incoherence of the philosophers" was a warning against some of the techniques philosophers used especially in the context of interpreting the primary texts of Islam to come up with religious rulings. There were also philosophical arguments against scientific (read material) explanations precluding the hand of God in material affairs but this wasn't one killing blow against centuries of scientific scholarship. Here are a few articles that discuss this from a traditional Muslim point of view if you're interested. https://mohamedghilan.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/an-illusion-of-intellectualism/ https://mohamedghilan.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/an-illusion-o... https://traversingtradition.com/2020/11/19/science-history-and-athiesm-qa-with-asadullah-ali/ https://traversingtradition.com/2020/11/19/science-history-a.... I had something that addressed it more directly but can't find it right now.
- 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
  no. You are not answering my question. you are simply saying dont blame ghazali. My question is, what caused the death of "desire for scientific temper" and economic conditions do not change someones quest for knowledge or for that matter, influence an entire population away from science who took to avoid it like the plague. I had this talk with a guy last week and when i mentioned ghazali, he said something on the lines of "are you talking about his first phase or second phase?" then when i showed him this quote, this person goes "yes. obviously his first phase. in his second phase he rejected his earlier texts and even started learning the same thing he rejected earlier but the damage was done". You cant just tell a population to reject a way of thinking but apparently someone did manage to do that
  - artem247 6y ago
    >> economic conditions do not change someones quest for knowledge In my country science almost ceased to exist after the fall of Soviet Union. So economic conditions do play a role. The western Age of Reason in XVIII also has relationship to complex changes in the society - rise of merchant class, acceptance of usury, etc. And I would say that "whole population avoids science like a plague" would be a strong overstatement more echoing the modern view on Islamic countries with strong Salafi influence.
bitdizzy 6y ago
Anyone who tells you history is shaped by the opinions of scholars is ill informed on the mechanisms of the world. What is true is that political forces will rationalize the actions they take for their material interests by finding a convenient fig leaf. The people who spread this theory about the decline of the Islamic golden age likely also believe that the Iconoclasm was really about graven images or that the ascendancy of the West was due to the people with all the power accepting the arguments of bookish nerds during the enlightenment. There were emperors of China who used Laozi to justify the burning of books. Do you think they were just being principled in their hyperliteralist reading?
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  If you believe Joseph Needham (who according to George Steiner was not above telling a white lie or two) one would think they were getting rid of rival Mohist siege engineers
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
> what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished? A big part of the answer is the Sack of Baghdad in 1258 by the Mongol armies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)#Destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)#Destru... >Contemporary accounts state Mongol soldiers looted and then destroyed mosques, palaces, libraries, and hospitals. Priceless books from Baghdad's thirty-six public libraries were torn apart, the looters using their leather covers as sandals.[36] Grand buildings that had been the work of generations were burned to the ground. The House of Wisdom (the Grand Library of Baghdad), containing countless precious historical documents and books on subjects ranging from medicine to astronomy, was destroyed. Claims have been made that the Tigris ran red from the blood of the scientists and philosophers killed.[37][38] Tales of the destruction of books - tossed into the Tigris such that the water turned black from the ink - seem to originate from the 14th century.[39][40] Baghdad at the time was the religious, political, and intellectual center of Islam. You could think of it as the combined New York, Washington DC, and Silicon Valley of the Islamic world. Think what would happen to American culture if all of a sudden, those 3 were suddenly destroyed. How would that shift the balance of culture? Something very similar happened to Islam in 1258, and I would say, we are probably still seeing the fallout of that to this day.
- christkv 6y ago
  This happened to China as well yet it recovered better.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
    China was different. Kublia Khan actually preserved a lot of the Chinese institutions but put himself on top. There was not the wholesale destruction of books and scholars. This would have been like Hulagu going to Baghdad, converting to Islam and making himself Caliph and reigning from Baghdad. That is not what happened to Baghdad.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
idlewords 6y ago
There is a book you should read, Lost Enlightenment: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691165851/lost-enlightenment https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691165851/lo... The flourishing of Islamic science took place not in Baghdad, but in Central Asia, and it was already in steep decline when al-Ghazali wrote his polemics. The reasons for both the rise and decline of the Central Asian enlightenment are fascinating and complex. The tl;dr is that these cities (most now ruins) relied on very complicated irrigation systems that required a high degree of technical skill to maintain, and were also quite cosmopolitan places culturally, since they were never Arabized and lay on major trade routes, guaranteeing them exposure to ideas and scholarly texts from India (although interestingly, not so much from China). Anyway, it's a great book and will put the rise and decline of this period in context for you.
- 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
  thank you. I will be going through this book as early as possible.
  - selimthegrim 6y ago
    Nitpick: “...as soon as possible” sounds more natural to native speakers Ulugh Beg’s observatory was what Ottomans’ short lived one was built to compete with
    - idlewords 6y ago
      What sounds most natural to native speakers is not correcting people's language unasked.
      - selimthegrim 6y ago
        Fair enough, but he and I share a native non-English language, so I thought I was being helpful.
        6y ago
Zariff 6y ago
Neil deGrasse Tyson also mentioned this. User noufalibrahim already gave a good response to that. But if you're interested, Mohammed Hijab also replied to that claim in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfRnYNig9jU&t=36s&ab_channel=MohammedHijab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfRnYNig9jU&t=36s&ab_channel...
keiferski 6y ago
History is really not that simple and you should always be wary of anyone trying to ascribe blame to a single person or event. There were many events that led to the “end of the Islamic Golden Age,” but a closer analysis reveals that nothing really ended, but simply was moved around. Consider that the Ottomans were technologically superior to Europeans until about the 17th century, or that Al-Andalus was around until the 15th century. But, overall, the single biggest event to impact the era was probably the Mongol sacking of Baghdad. That ended a lot of intellectual culture in rather violent fashion.
- jbay808 6y ago
  > But, overall, the single biggest event to impact the era was probably the Mongol sacking of Baghdad. Just goes to show how Eurocentric my history education was; I never heard about this. Fascinating.
  - andrepd 6y ago
    I never learned that my country used forced labour in its colonies until the 60s, or that we dropped napalm on civilian villages as a reprisal. I'm very skeptical about the quality of history lessons in school, no matter the country.
abdulhaq 6y ago
Lots of big mistakes here. His name was Abu Hamid alGhazali. If you read his "almunqidh min aD-Dalaal" (Deliverance From Error) which was an autobiography and summary of his thought, he states that e.g. "MATHEMATICS. This embraces arithmetic, plane geometry and solid geometry. None of its results are connected with religious matters, either to deny or to affirm them. They are matters of demonstration which it is impossible to deny once they have been understood and apprehended." "LOGIC. Nothing in logic is relevant to religion by way of denial or affirmation.", "Just as it is not a condition of religion to reject medical science, so likewise the rejection of natural science is not one of its conditions, except with regard to particular points". You can find the text at https://ghazali.org/books/md/gz101.htm https://ghazali.org/books/md/gz101.htm, for me this was a very influential book.
gerash 6y ago
Disclaimer: I'm no historian. But my guess is it's often not a simple cause. This is a lot like how, say, tech companies evolve. For example is there a simple answer to why, say, HP isn't considered the most successful tech companies right now while it was at some point in time? My guess is other groups of people learn from them and surpass them overtime. This can also be true even within a single company where one org used to be the most important one but over time another org brings in more money and becomes more important
kbk 6y ago
> in my family there has been a simple question being raised for as many years i can remember but there has never been a satisfactory answer yet if that is the case you should read to Malek Bannabi[1]: The Conditions of Renaissance, Question of Ideas in Muslim World, The Ideological Struggle in Third World Countries ... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malek_Bennabi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malek_Bennabi
qersist3nce 6y ago
The sudden "thing" that happened was Mongol Invasion[0]. Imagine Germany in 1945 losing the war, only having one major library, and the allies burn it down, decimate the population to 10% of the prior count[1], and throw the books down to Rhine River "...in such quantities that the river ran black with the ink from the books"[2]. The Mongols just invaded, pillaged and killed in a mind-less fashion. Middle-east was unlucky cause it was just geographically near them. They also wreaked havoc on China, Korea and Russia. Japan was lucky that storm sank their ships (which were forcibly built by conquered Chinese) I have not studied al-Ghazali but I think the good'ol war had the major role in this decline and the current state of the middle east. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_Empire#cite_note-7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_E... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom#Destruction_by_the_Mongols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom#Destruction_by...
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  Besides early historical events, there are ongoing issues with Islamic practice. The main goals of Islam are to worship Allah and revere the Prophet Mohammed. Praying 5 times per day plus more on Friday is an extremely inefficient use of time. The devout aspire to spend all their waking time on religious devotion. Since the Koran is thought to be "perfect" to believers, pseudo-science as written in there has stunted adherents since the 7th century. (The West's rapid progress in the science of arms in the 1700s is why the Ottomans, etc. were defeated ultimately. Scimitars don't work against cannons.) In addition, when Islam spreads to another country, it replaces the culture and history of that new region (perhaps with the exception of Indonesia, which still superficially uses original dress and languages despite being 90% Muslim. However, the creeping takeover is inexorable, as seen in TV commercials which have become Islamized in the past 20 years.) So the endgame is a 7th century monoculture "borg" that replaces any national uniqueness of ideas. It's death by a thousand cuts where Islam retards the ummah (global diaspora.) There is no way to improve this because "reform" in Islam means going back to a literal interpretation of the Koran (ie. back to the 7th century.) One of the positive things one can say about Islam is that the nuclear family is prized (for making babies), unlike anti-family Marxist ideology as practised in the West.
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mavelikara 6y ago
> , if this is true, then this fucking asshole is responsible for causing immeasurable harm to "science" as a human idea on the whole. Irrespective of what you think of the theory, it will help us all if we could identify and prevent the people among us now who could cause such harm to humanity.
Cyph0n 6y ago
As others have already mentioned, blaming the decline solely on al-Ghazali is the simplistic, orientalist view. Neil deGrasse Tyson recently helped propagate this argument as well. The reality was much more complex. If you’re interested, I’d suggest checking out Dr. George Saliba’s writings on this topic. A good start is “Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance”. For a shorter intro, check out this lecture [1]. [1] https://youtu.be/66bV1rdMois https://youtu.be/66bV1rdMois
you_know_the_ 6y ago
I would say the crusade to blame for the decline of Muslims golden age. When the crusade started around 12 century, it brought devision among Muslims and Christians in places such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. For centuries, Muslims, Christians and Jews lived next to each other and collaborated with each other but the crusade killed that friendship.
- Haga 6y ago
  A friendship that comes with taxes and reduced rights, is the type of friendship you could have in the cotton fields of the south.
rramadass 6y ago
First off, don't rely on History lessons from "Dan Brown" :-) The topic of decline of "Scientific Temper" in the Islamic World is a complex and nuanced subject with contributing various factors. Here are some major points; * Much of the "Golden Age of Islam" is actually attributable to cultures which were originally not Islamic at all eg: Persia, The Levant, Mediterranean, Central Asia, Indian subcontinent. The decline started with the "Islamization" of these cultures by the Arabs who were far more "primitive". This is the worst of brawn over brain. * The rise of "fundamental" Islam; most notably the Ash'ari within Sunni sect (al-Ghazali was just one of the most well known of this group) to the detriment of all the other "forward looking" sects in Islam. * The Mongol invasion which wiped out a unified Islamic empire leading to more internecine strife within Islam. * The Christian Crusades. * The general ossification and fossilization of beliefs in Islamic cultures causing them to turn away from the "Modern Scientific Enlightenment" movement which started in Europe. Note that similar decline of cultures have happened before due to similar (but not same) reasons; most notably with Ancient China and India though not to the same degree.
yumraj 6y ago
> what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?" To me it has always seemed like this was simply a side effect of Islam taking deep root. Before this the older, pre-Islamic culture was still there, but as time passed Islam, as evidenced by the conservative Islam we see today, took hold leading the Islamic territories away from math and science.
andrepd 6y ago
I really feel like I shouldn't have to say this, but perhaps it is not a good idea to take history lessons from a DAN BROWN NOVEL! Funnily enough: searching for 30secs on AskHistorians leads to an answer debunking the precise theory that you expound on your post! [0] TL;DR: The major cause of the end of the Islamic Golden Age was the catastrophic destruction of Bagdhad in 1258, and of surrounding Mesopotamia. It's a bit irresponsible to propagate misconceptions like this, especially when the source is Dan f*cking Brown. :) [0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/97rd7e/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/97rd7e/
N1H1L 6y ago
You are forgetting the Mongols. They said the Euphrates ran black for a month due to the books dumped into the river. The Siege of Baghdad killed all of what you described
O_H_E 6y ago
I agree with many of the sibling replies but I would like to address different point. > "including hundreds of scientists who laid down the foundations of modern science with their works, what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?" That science didn't "just vanish". If it did, how would it have "laid down the foundations of modern science"? Yes, definitely the "Siege of Baghdad" [1] had a major impact but lot (no claims about how much) of knowledge later influenced the western "awakening". [2] The awesome thing is: non of this is new. Humanity always worked that way. For example wikipedia also have articles on the Greek and Indian influences to that "enlightenment" era in the islamic world. [3][4] DISCLAIMER: I don't actually know much about the history in detail, I am sure there is much more that can be said, due to some past cursory knowledge I was just able to look things up. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258) 2.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_world_contributions_to_Medieval_Europe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_world_contributions_... 3. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_contributions_to_the_Islamic_world https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_contributions_to_the_I... 4. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_influence_on_Islamic_science https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_influence_on_Islamic_...
dingoegret 6y ago
This is an extremely reductive and anti-Muslim revision of history. Spread by hate groups and anti-Muslim ideologue types. Explanation for the current state of affairs is a vastly complex subject. Ranging from the Mongols, Seljuks, destruction of learning centers, lack of coal, competition with colonialism. There are so many reasons that aren't simply some cartoon evil religious man had said "science bad".

christkv 6y ago

I’ve always wondered if the Ottoman Empire in many ways was the root of the problem as it traded stability of empire over anything else.

keiferski 6y ago
Al-Jazari lived centuries before the Ottomans existed. Otherwise, having studied the Ottomans extensively, I wouldn’t say they chose stability over anything else. Their slow downfall was due more to a gradual fossilization of their institutions. For example, the Janissaries went from a highly-trained elite force to essentially a social club that everyone wanted to join. The sultans themselves also gradually became less competent. Also of note is that the Ottomans were initially on the cutting edge of military technology and even exported quite a lot of it to the Mughals, who then had an advantage over their opponents. So, they certainly weren’t “behind” technologically. Pretty much the same pattern as any empire, really. Initial warrior class conquers land, their immediate descendants develop a refined culture, and it’s all downhill from there as following generations aim but fail to recapture the magic.
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  Two black marks in my book Selim I banning the printing press and and destruction of Taqiuddin’s observatory under Murad III
  - Cyph0n 6y ago
    The printing press ban probably had a huge impact. It was much easier to spread ideas if you didn’t have to transcribe them by hand.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  > Their slow downfall was due more to a gradual fossilization of their institutions. Sounds like an inevitable phase in the life cycle of empires.
- christkv 6y ago