Larrey

1+2. The political development in the Middle East until the Crusades was one of political fragmentation. It created precisely a situation of city-states ruled by locally strong dynasties. The Crusades helped force political reunification. Not that it was stable. Lack of politically stable political institutions in the Islamic world might as well be presented as a factor.

3. Egypt and Mesopotamia always had huge demographic potential. At least Egypt didn't again reach peak Roman population levels until the 20th c. The argument seems definitely circular — because they did not have a demographic take-off like the European one, they couldn't have one... QED.

4. They weren't closed off from overland trade along the Silk Road, and the Red Sea and Persian Gulf allowed access to the Indian Ocean, which for most of the period in question was for the most part a body of water ringed by states under Muslim dynasties. (The Europeans had to be inventive however, as they were relatively closed off.) Access to China and the western Pacific was no problem. Massive information exchange on matters like medicine and philosophy took place along the trade routes between China and the Mid East. That is, at least until the Portugese turned up with the two specific European technological advantages: ship-building and naval artillery.

You do seem to be putting the cart before the horse on these points.

nander

I still maintain that the vatican knows how cycles work.
If you wish to built a system of your own that you can control, first you must destroy what already exists.
That's what they did, that's what the power hungry always do.
I would not compare 'their' medieval european 'achievements' with what was lost: the greek culture that was assimilated by the roman empire.

Even recent history shows that the vatican is still very much into the control game.

nander

Strange that Newton is still considered a great or even a superior scientist, after 100 years of quantum physics that has proven his mechanical approach to be totally wrong.
His glorification is simply school book mind control, an attempt to keep us in the dark ages.
As Walter Russel pointed out long ago Newton's science must be completely discarded because Newton started from the erroneous assumption that there is such a thing as matter being different from energy.
As said, for almost 100 years now we know that to be not true. Matter = energy.
There are many more (33) fatal flaws in classical Newtonian 'science'.
In short, it is nothing more than a religion, a belief system.

Newton & Darwin caused humanity to make a wrong turn that has cost us - and our planet - dearly.
It brought us slavery and destruction, as planned by those who promoted and sponsored these and many other scientists, the shadowy Powers That Be who use national governments as their population control departments.
We are only now slowly recovering from it.

Patkinson

This is a pretty good point. Which most defiantly would help if they did have contact and traded knowledge.

How ever I believe the main reason the Islamic states rose to be the leaders in this aspect and were so far a head of the European countries is more a product of the differences in practices. The Islamic states were fond of the scientific process of asking questions and trial & error. Now the church in Europe strictly was against this and as we all know tried to put away with anything that had to do with science. When King Fredrick lead 7Th crusade (I think it was the 7th) in 1226 he saw the benefits of the scientific method and brought it back to Europe.

As far as the fall of science in Islam I would have to say it is 100% due to the Mongol invasion. When the Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1245 they intended on wiping Islam and anyone who did not pay tribute from history. They burnt libraries, destroyed books, killed most and left the unlucky survivors with literally nothing, no buildings, animals or food. On top of it all they ruined the soil and their ability to transport water for crop growing.

BrowniesRule

If the ''fall of the sciences of Islam'' were indeed 100% due to the Mongol Invasion, then that would mean that all the intellectual baggage was concentrated in Baghdad. No surprise, that's utterly false. Baghdad was indeed a great center of learning, so were other big urban centers like Cordoba or Damascus (concentrated more on Islamic jurispreudence and theology, but still). The tradition of learning in the medieval middle-east was different than what was going on in Europe at the time, and the very activity of these scholars and intellectuals depended on whoever had the capacity of attracting them. The intellectual baggage is therefore mobile and dynamic, although depending from time to time.

Second, if the ''sciences of Islam'' dissapeared after the sack of Baghdad, how do you explain the existence of Samarkand in Timurid times (notably Ulu Beg, the prince-astronomer) and the subsequent developpement of mathematics and medecine in Safavid Iran?

That is the proof that all the knowledge was not and could not be concentrated in one place. As for the irrigation and hydraulic techniques that were apparently disrupted by the Mongols, it's interesting that the same was said about the Seljukid invasion of the 11th century. Folks like Ibn al Athir and Rachid al-Din never forget to always underline how destructive the Mongol invasion was, but in some cases they largely extrapolated. The Seljukid sultanate (and subsequent fragmented kingdoms) or the Ilkhanate couldn't have lasted at all if the agricultural production ceased entirely. There were certainly some chaos and destruction, but a large proportion of Mongols were given land and eventually settled down, like the Seljuks before them.

Atrahasis

true, but don't believe that science in Islam is only greek ; far of that, you have to consider that they are syriac, mesopotamian, indian, pre-islamic arab and arab !

Efendi

As far as I know pre-islamic Arabs didn't have considerable advancement in science.

Atrahasis

ok, can you source that ?


For you it's a "political decentralization"???

bagdad had never decided to decentralize anything !

spellbanisher

Huh???

Mohammed the Persian

Islam is a religion, ya know
Persian, Arab, Indian (and some Greeks!) Muslim scientists contributed towards the sciences.