This article seems to reiterate a lot of theories that I don't think enjoy much currency any more; the criticism of al-Ghazali in particular is I think often co

This article seems to reiterate a lot of theories that I don't think enjoy much currency any more; the criticism of al-Ghazali in particular is I think often considered an orientalist trope that turns out to be a meh argument, mostly because the stuff he was arguing against was not necessarily anything that promoted science. Similarly, the article suggests Mu'tazalites were more influential than they were. But they were not a major factor in why the Islamicate* world was ahead scientifically, so their demise as a school of thought or sect in Islam wouldn't have been a factor in Arab/Muslim science's decline. * Seems to me a good term to use--as the article illustrates, there has been a degree of discussion about which term applies. We are referring to a region that was under Muslim rule and whose societies were naturally influenced by Islam, but whose populations were not all Muslim--in many places, not even majority Muslim for a while, and whose leading thinkers were not all Muslim in terms of faith (Jewish intellectualism flourished at this time and place as well), nor all Arab in terms of race/ethnicity (many Muslim scientists and philosophers of the Islamic Golden Age were Irani).