Mr. Burnett;

One theory is that the golden age was golden only because it was living off conquests, in which case much of the hard work of governance is abated. Not only wealth but ideas flowed in to the Ummah in that time period. It is when Islam ceased to expand that it began to ossify and decay.

In the West, dramatic economic, scientific and technological progress went hand in hand with the growth of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages

Not everyone would agree. Also, it isn't true that Judaism "has never been an obstacle to success and progress", depending on how "success and progress" are defined. Likewise for Protestantism.

But to address Peter Burnet's point, Arab countries are backward because Islam has served as a brake on innovation. Arab Muslims call innovation bida'ah; it is anathema to them, a dirty word.

Islam began to ossify in 935, and became fully hindbound with Ibn Taymiyya.

In the period until Ibn Taymiyya, there was something in Islam called khalam, which might imperfectly be translated as theology. Although the discourses were dominated by Muslims, as is natural, Jewish "philosophers" (for want of a better description) played an important part in the khalam. Influenced in part by Aristoteles, Muslims, Christians and Jews debated proofs for the existence of G.d and argued about how the Almighty created the cosmos.

The "Golden Age" of Islam ended more or less at the same time that lively discourse in khalam was shut down.

I agree, the muslim world was living off the cultural fruits of it's conquests during it's 'golden age'. Many of the 'great philosiphers and scientists' they claim were Persian. Once Islam, a fascist, suffocating Arab cult, re-asserted it's hold, the culture stagnated.

Islam survived off it's sheer propensity for violence, fanatical group-think and suicidal bravery, major assets for an expansionist empire during the dark ages, alot less valuable today in the age of the sattilite-guided bomb.

I find it weird you think Islam is the same as Christianity, do you think a society would flourish under any theocratic regime? What about a nation dominated by scientology for example?

Amos - good point. Remember Lysenko. Cultic states do not like the sunlight.

So what happened to the Arabs?

The answer, of course, is nothing. They're just as advanced as they were in the 14th century.

Only a western thinking with faith in Progress, a belief that change is inevitable and for the better would feel a need to explain this. It is, instead, the advancement of western civilization that needs explaining, and the stability of which ought rightly to be viewed with a sceptical eye.

Perhaps the comparison for Islam shouldn't be with Christianity but with the Roman Republic and its transition to the Principate. In both cases conquest fueled the "glory days", and when expansion stopped, it was still several centuries before the effects became apparent. But I leave any further details (or more likely, the refutation) to someone with more historic knowledge than I.

Eugene S.,

To my knowledge, the earlier Arabs practiced Islam under Mutazilism, a form of it based on Greek rationalism. But it fell to Asharism - strict dogma only; don't you dare think for yourself - and the stagnation began.

Why Mutazilism could not retain its dominant position is one of the great q's of history. Such a loss. Was it the Mongols? Was it theological power-brokers justifying their position? Was it inevitable? I wish I knew.

Peter:

Never mind computers and films.

How about safe drinking water, sewage sytems and modern dentistry?

Luckily for us, Christianity never got in the habit of being the state, although not necessarily for lack of trying. Islam has overweening state power written right into its scriptures.

Additionally--and forgive me if my memory is misleading me--but doesn't Islam preach predestination? That sort of thing would seem to leave a mark on society.

BTW--the growth of the Catholic Church in Spain was absolutely antithetical to technological progress--even literacy took a beating.

"One theory is that the golden age was golden only because it was living off conquests, in which case much of the hard work of governance is abated. Not only wealth but ideas flowed in to the Ummah in that time period. It is when Islam ceased to expand that it began to ossify and decay."

Muslim states were hardly at war continuously and a society which could only feed off war booty would have collapsed in a couple of generations. And how would it explain the prosperity of Muslim states which only bordered other Muslim states for centuries upon end?

To me that explanation is about as convincing as someone claiming that the current prosperity of the West is based on the spoils of colonialism.

"Perhaps the comparison for Islam shouldn't be with Christianity but with the Roman Republic and its transition to the Principate. In both cases conquest fueled the "glory days", and when expansion stopped, it was still several centuries before the effects became apparent. But I leave any further details (or more likely, the refutation) to someone with more historic knowledge than I."

As far as I can tell from my reading of Gibbon,it wasn't the lack of expansion which killed the Roman Empire which seemed to prosper well enough in the age of the Antonines.Cripplingly high levels of taxation, a dysfunctional political culture which produced one murdered emperor after another and encouraged continual coups and an irresponsible elite which used slave labour and a continual expansion of their estates to demolish middle-class land holdings.

Why did the Muslims decline? I suppose the most handy reason is plain cultural arrogance. Like the Chinese, they didn't think they had anything to learn from the non-Muslim world.

M. Ali:

Good points. Bernard Lewis writes of the era when the Muslim (Ottomans) saw the West as a contagion and, like the Chinese and Japanese, actively sought to shut out all influence. But that doesn't hold anymore, except maybe to some extent in Saudi, and what bugs me about the "blame Islam" argument is you have to imagine all Muslims as confused, psychological automatons to make it work. Tens of thousands have been educated in the West and millions now live here. They have tasted the fruits of freedom and certainly have no antipathy to progress. If it were as obvious that Islam is the brake as it seems to mainstream Western thinking, many of them would jettison it mighty quick.

Like Raoul, I'm a little out of my depth here, but modern secular antipathy to religion in general and a cherished universal historical template that we want to believe fits everywhere seem to be driving this as much as any sound critical analysis of Islam. The Western mind simply cannot compute that many in the Muslim world look at the West, especially the social culture, and are repelled on rational, one might even say scientific, grounds.

Jeff: I didn't realize Spanish literacy rates were so high in the Dark Ages.

mike earl:

Since the Western World has managed to avoid toppling into anarchy since, say, 476 AD, it seems likely that we have a few more years before the handbasket reaches Hell.

Peter B:

Because many Muslims are repelled by Britney Spears and Diet Coke, they also reject modern medicine and hygiene ?

Although you're probably right about the false template that casual observers of Islam attempt to make fit, dismissing Islam as the source of the problem also seems facile.

If it isn't Islam, what is it ?
What else has remained constant ?
Unless you're proposing that a series of unfortunate events and philosophies has befallen almost all Muslim cultures...

It's an interesting puzzle, but moot, as within my lifetime all Muslims will either be dead, live in cultures not dissimilar to mine, or be living in backwater reservations, where they can't get into too much mischief.
(Note that I expect to live for a very long time).

Michael: There are poor, messed-up countries which aren't Muslim-dominated you know.

Michael:

Where do you get the idea that Muslims reject modern medicine and hygiene? Do you know what many of them say about young Western tourists?

Peter:

Spanish literacy suffered for centuries following the Inquisition.

Whatever the Muslims say about modern medicine and hygiene, the delivery of it has, by and large, flummoxed them.

Remember the UN report of roughly a year ago discussing the state of the Arab world?

re secularism, per se, and the rise of technology: Newton was a religious fanatic, even more so than he was a fanatic about the natural world. Newton would not have recognized secularism as a good in any way.

Islam forbids the lending of money at interest, a necessary element in the creation of even a minimally sophisticated economy. Islam, in contrast with Protestantism, Judaism and Confucianism, does not encourage scholarship by ordinary people. They are read the Koran they do not read the Koran. Often they are told the Koran by another illiterate who was told the Koran by someone else.

During its 'Golden Age' Islam simply got lucky. By the 11th century, the building blocks of the resentful zealotry that is modern Islam were already appearing in Spain. Maimonides had to flee it for his life.

M Ali:

Absolutely, but in the case of African countries, we know what went wrong, and how to fix it, if we're willing to pay the cost.

In any case, if we're breaking the world into Muslim and non-Muslim nations, it's apparent that although there are poor, messed up non-Muslim nations, they're the minority in the non-Muslim bloc.
In the Muslim bloc, they're the majority.
Coincidence ?

The life of the prophet was violent and formed by a superstititious misunderstanding of monotheism. The Arab world was the last in the region to abandon its paganism. The combination of Mohammed's view toward temporal government and his peculiar religion was a disater waiting to happen. There is a clear distinction between temporal government and religion within Christianity which clearly differentiates it from both Judaism and Islam. Christianity, however, is thought of as the fullfillment of Jewish prophecy and so it's universal application of traditional Jewish monotheism. Islam has rejected both views on the word of a strange and angry man who's habit of preaching violence against all who see things differently than he is a decidedly non-Christian or Jewish scpitural approach. Mohammed seems to have been more interested in control in the here and now than in any eternal and universalist salvation through the redemption of sin. The sin most concerning the prophet and his followers appears to have been dialogue of any kind with the founders and universalizers of monotheism.

Bart:

"During its 'Golden Age' Islam simply got lucky."

Anybody want to buy an unread set of the Durants' on civilization or Gibbon?

Jeff:

"Remember the UN report of roughly a year ago discussing the state of the Arab world?"

And your point is...?

Peter:

Well, I could swear I had a point in there somewhere.

The report, one of the few to come from the UN with even a whiff of credibility, highlighted the manifest shortcomings of Arab Muslim society. Just for one example, the entire Arab world translates fewer foreign language books into Arabic in five years than Spain alone does in one (or numbers roughly along those lines).

Why bother when your book contains all Truth?

" Islam, in contrast with Protestantism, Judaism and Confucianism, does not encourage scholarship by ordinary people."

Bulls**t. Admonitions to encourage learning and education are ten-a-penny. Prisoners of war in the early days of Islam were given their freedom if they could teach Muslims to read.

"The report, one of the few to come from the UN with even a whiff of credibility, highlighted the manifest shortcomings of Arab Muslim society. Just for one example, the entire Arab world translates fewer foreign language books into Arabic in five years than Spain alone does in one (or numbers roughly along those lines)."

And what does that have to do with religion? Saudi Arabia aside, the Arab world is not particularly religious. The lack of intellectual activity is primarily due to heavily socialised economies and how Arabs in oil-rich states simply don't need to encourage research when they can ship it out of the ground and count their money.

"There is a clear distinction between temporal government and religion within Christianity which clearly differentiates it from both Judaism and Islam."

Tell that to the Byzantines.

"Mohammed seems to have been more interested in control in the here and now than in any eternal and universalist salvation through the redemption of sin."

I don't think you know much about Islam.

Michael:

"if we're breaking the world into Muslim and non-Muslim nations, it's apparent that although there are poor, messed up non-Muslim nations, they're the minority in the non-Muslim bloc."

South and Central America, China, the Caribbean, Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Indochina, Myanmar, the Balkans and Russia are your idea of nations with their acts together?

Ali:

I'm not sure what translations have to do with the religion.

I'm just going witht the BroJudd Industries editorial style page that says everything has to do with religion.

Muslim prosperity was based largely on the fact that most Muslims, for a long time, were the descendants of classical farmers.

Agriculture was the basis of wealth, and so Islamic areas were far wealthier than the parts of Europe that had been taken over by non-farming Germans.

The secular decay of Sicily, once the richest province of Europe, following the expulsion (not conversion) of the Moors is the textbook case.

The Muslims, unlike the Christians, did not keep up their inheritance from the Greeks, and, in fact, before 1000 had executed the Syrian commentators on Aristotle that they had inherited.

Europe leaped ahead, economically and militarily, once the Church was pushed aside by the secularists (who were, spiritually, believers, as noted of Newton), who managed to compartmentalize two functions.

By 1509, when Albuquerque destroyed Muslim seapower in the Indian Ocean, the writing was on the wall, and exactly 200 years later it was all over, when the last Muslim to control a really powerful army died.

The method that left Islam in the dust, the skeptical, experimental, rational scientific method, was always available to Islam.

It was never adopted. Hard to doubt that religion was not the most influential reason.

Ali,

There isn't a single halfway decent university in the entire Arab world, with the possible exception of St. Joseph.

Since about the 11th century, the Islamic world has been an intellectual sinkhole, producing nothing except the recapitulation of old texts, in ways which even medieval monks would have found slavish. There are no discoveries, no originality, no innovation, no general improvement in the quality of life. Even now, only in the Islamic world and in non-Christian sub-saharan Africa is illiteracy increasing.

Peter B:

Sub-Saharan Africa contains several Muslim nations.

Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Columbia, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Mexico, Russia, China, Hungary, and South Africa are all rich nations with endless opportunity for advancement, compared to the member states of the Organization of Islamic Conferences.

In fact, many of those nations are rich, period.

If you strip out income from oil, timber, and tourism based on natural wonders or to view ancient achievements, we can see that Muslim nations are largely still stuck in an agricultural age, three hundred years behind the West.
Albania, Pakistan, and Turkey are about the only Muslim nations with any kind of industrial manufacturing base.

Bart:

I don't disagree. But don't blame the doctrine for the mediocrity of the followers.

Why not?