How the West Won : The Islamic Worldview and the End of Science

Muslim scientists were once the best in the world. A professor of the history of science at the University of Oklahoma says, "Nothing in Europe could hold a candle to what was going on in the Islamic world until about 1600."

The question of how they achieved it and then lost it is more than of academic interest. Many analysts believe one motive for September 11 was Islamic resentment against the United States for having displaced it in science and technology.

The book, THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE AND NATURE WRITING OF 2002, contains a thought-provoking article titled "How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science" by Dennis Overbye. Overbye says that by the Middle Ages, Islamic academics had invented algebra, named the stars, and produced a million-word medical encyclopedia. And the requirement to face Mecca when praying required knowledge of the size and shape of the earth.

A science advisor to former Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat said knowledge was part of Islam's creed. "When you know more, you'll see more evidence of God."

For five centuries, the Muslim world pioneered cutting-edge science. Today, by contrast, Abdus Salam, the first Muslim to win a Nobel Prize in physics, calls modern Islamic science "abysmal." Dr. Osman Bakar, of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, says, "Muslims have a kind of nostalgia for the past, when they could contend that they were the dominant cultivators of science." But a Pakistani physicist says that now, although Muslims are almost 20 percent of the world's population, they produce fewer than one percent of the world's scientists.

What dimmed the light of Islamic scholarship? A Pakistani professor says one major factor is an increasing emphasis on rote learning based on the QUR'AN. In his words, "The notion that all knowledge is in the Great Text is a great disincentive to learning. It's destructive if we want to create . . . someone who can analyze, question, and create." A Muslim astrophysicist in Paris adds that Islamic fundamentalists reject science "simply because it is Western."

On the extreme edge, some groups have abandoned the principle of cause and effect. For example, the Institute for Policy Studies in Pakistan once issued guidelines recommending that physical effects not be related to causes. Allegedly the Islamic worldview prohibited saying that combining hydrogen and oxygen would make water. A Pakistani physicist explained, "You were supposed to say that when you bring hydrogen and oxygen together, then, by the will of Allah, water was created."

That would be as if Sir Isaac Newton observed an apple falling, but shrugged off any thought of gravity by simply saying, "God did it," without asking how God did it.

So what made Islamic science great for centuries? Worldview: embracing the universe as God's creation and studying it as God's handiwork. And what caused Islamic science to decline? A change of worldview: rejecting science as the invention of "the great Satan."

The Muslim world needs to revisit its past and get over its anger toward the West. But there's a lesson here for Christians, as well as for Muslims: A healthy worldview promotes healthy science. A flawed, or false, worldview leaves you in the dark.

Byzantium may have prevented inroads of Islam into Eastern Europe. But it was those same German hoards of which you speak which prevented it from making inroads into Western Europe, and their elimination from Spain i.e. Franks and Visigoths. The stasis argument you used earlier (which Paul Kennedy quite reasonably proposes in the Rise and Decline of the Great Powers) can easily be applied to the Byzantines as a reason for their defeat at the hands of the Turks.

The Jewish contribution to the Ottomans I believe had more to do with helping them form a stable political system for ruling their empire. The days of Byzantium were well over after 1453.

Such as the accidents of history go. The impetus for maritime exploration by Europe probably goes back to the introduction of spices and silks back into Europe as a result of the Crusades and the closing off of most of those routes by the Ottomans. And the industrial revolution probably is rooted in the fact the British had ample coal reserves in mines which were frequently flooded.

In 1003, 1000 years ago, the West was dead. The Byzantines and the Muslims were definitely alive. The Byzantines and the Muslims got along fairly well. When the West came out of its stupor, Arabic scholarship was the source of much of the light that came into the West. That was then, of course, and this is now. A lot has happened in the meantime.

Nope, that's just another set of myths. Even at the beginning of the very beginning of the millenium just past, western Europe (then more commonly known as "Latin Christendom") was ahead of both Islam and Byzantium in terms of practical engineering. Europe was drawing ahead of the rest of its region of Eurasia technologically as early as the 11th century -- in the application of inanimate power sources, for instance. Other peoples used wind and water mills, but nobody used them on anything like the same scale.

By the late medieval period (14th-15th centuries) Europe was ahead in most fields of technology. Everything involving gearing and power-trains (clocks, for instance); milling (use of wind and water power for hundreds of different functions, and on a far greater scale than anyone else), in mining, ferrous metallurgy (ahead of everyone but the Chinese, there, and ahead of the Chinese in some techniques like heavy castings), agriculture, accounting techniques, etc.

Muslim travellers in Europe as early as 1500 were astonished by the size of European libraries, by the fact that they had scholars who studied other cultures (Islam was profoundly disinterested in the Dar 'al Harb, for the most part), and that there were thousands of Arabic and Persian books in Europe. In fact, that distressed them and they tended to regard the books as captives or prisoners and tried to get them back.

Link is here to my prvious response: Islam's Other Victim: India

Reading some of the posts still being apologetic of the Crusades and other claims without any basis, what is known as Europe then was backward races and primitive cultures resembling what Africa is like today. They closely resembled the aboriginal tribes of today by being inbred and not being injected with some external gene pools by some immigration or by invasions which leads to growth. When Romans invaded Britain they found backward tribes to who they brought civilization. There are those who proudly look back upon their original ancestors purity but strict purity of race creates a stunted aboriginal race and no growth.

Further the advent of Christianity really began the civilization of the backward Europeans whereas Chinese, Egyptian, Persian, and Indian civilzations had flourished for thousands of years before and still were. The closest to the East were the Greeks and then the Romans who developed civilizations now claimed by Europe but in their day was considered in the East. The transformation of Europe into civilized races by Christianity (by monks who were the scholars) took many hundreds of years or over a millenium to achieve from Christ's coming. This aspect is something forgotten by those currently who delude themselves into thinking Africans can self-rule with just a few decades of colonialism (or civilization).

The Christian monks brought back the mysteries of the East and started centres of education and were responsible for opening the eyes in Europe. Pilgrims (from whom tourism has evolved) to Holy Lands brought back the wonders of the East. But this was slow and picked up when the Arab mussalmen began their destructive drive in the East which led to many in the East to flee to Europe and bring knowledge. Charles Martell stopped the scourge of the mussalmen and saved Europe from its destructive traits. Europe were able to take advantage of the creativity and progress of Christianity. But the bridge to the East was in Arab hands including the Holy Lands. The Crusades further opened the eyes of Europe and were extremely important in setting the seeds of Europe's growth but was nearly lost until the Mongol Golden Hordes of Genghiz Khan led to a long stable and peaceful time by suppressing Arabic hate. This led to resumption of trade with the East via the Silk Road which began the acceleration of European civilization: to flex its youthful curiousity and search for the legendary Prester John in the Indies to help rid of the mussalmen in Europe especially in Spain.

When the Mongols eventually inbred with the Arabs and once again the ugliness of the mussalmen restricted the West from the East, the Europeans now more civilized now looked for ways to go to the Indies leading to breaking the Arab monopoly and the likes of "wrong-way Columbus" to open the route to America. The printing press which allowed the Bible to now be in the common man's hands helped develop individuality in Europe with Christian creativity. Knowledge became widespread with more books available. Eventually Europe overtook the East(most of it stagnating under Islam) by the 19th Century but Christianity was its driving force.

The above is a very condensed version expalining things. Like the Sun rising in the East, Civilization as we know of its origins began in the East and progressed Westwards. India, China, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Goths,Barbarians, Franks, Britons, then the USA then to Japan - a FULL CIRCLE completed!! Has the Sun set yet?

The specific accident I refer to is the fact that Europe was one culture (christian) with many poltical entities ... it was an advantage in terms of cultural and technological evolution... I call it an accident because NOBODY EVER ADVOCATED THIS IN EUROPE AS A GOOD THING. EVEN TODAY!

It was an accident of history because the external pressure and geography just made Europe difficult to control as a single political entity -- unlike say China. But always the European kings jostled to make a "Holy Roman Empire" or some European superstate ... from the days of Charlemagne, then in 1500 or so Charles V trying to create a European hegemony - all the way down to Napoleon and Hitler.

They never succeeded - thankfully.

And Even today 'everyone" wants "unity" in Govt: EU and UN etc. ... EXCEPT FOR THAT STRANGE BAND OF ANTI_UN, SMALL GOVT GROUP CALLED "FREEPERS" ... but that tribe wasnt even born until the like of Locke (1688) and Jefferson (1776) showed up. Even since then, thouhgh, there has been little recognition of the benefits of political DISunity and diversity and far too little distrust of central govt in Europe.

:-)

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