The Armour Archive

PartsAndTechnical wrote:To whit I highly recommend this series. Burke is a profound historian.

According to wikipedia, he's a journalist with an MA in Middle English. It sounds like he knows his Chaucer, but I wouldn't call him a historian by any stretching of the term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Burk ... _historian)

I think that one problem I have with the 'Islam as The Borg approach is that it absolutely FAILS to take into account the various base cultures - the Turkic cultures are vastly different from the Persians (and I include a large swath of Central Asia in 'Persian'), who are in turn radically different from either the North African cultures OR the Levantine Arabs - all of whom have been centers of the Islamic world at various points.

Accounting for the culture under the veneer of religion makes the argument both more interesting and more accurate...

Like P&T, I am pleased that the conversation has been interesting and civil

Alric of Drentha wrote:Parts, you need to work on your chronology and geography. You've got a lot of high culture in the Umayyad dynasty in the 8th century. Your simply wrong when you say that Muslims were nomadic for the first three centuries after Mohammed. You're also saying that Europeans borrowed culture from Africa and Asia, but all of Northern Africa (the part Europe came into contact with) was Islamic, as were most of the parts of Asia with which Europe was able to interact.

.

This is very imprecise, and incorrect, really. All of North Africa had been Eastern Roman, and in the time you quote, a large number of the Berbers, other North Africans and Egyptians were still Christian. THe culture was very much Hellenistic, with the arabs in the region being conquerors and overlords.

You're right, though that was in response to Parts' discussion of influences on the 12th century renaissance, which is past most scholars' estimates of significant surviving Christian communities and Hellenic culture.

I think the problem we have here in essence is attribting to religion cultural and scientific developments with areas rich in the heritage of ancient cultures. Most of the areas with rich cultural development booming during Islams influence over the region have strong, solid foundations of rich culture. The very areas Saha points out as centers of culture were also the centers of culture under the Persian empire, and pan-Hellenisim in the Eastern Med.

It is akin to attributing the flowering of the Renaissance in Italy directly to Christianity, instead of attributing it in large part to a re-kindling of intrest, and increased knowledge of Greco-Roman culture. Another view of it would be attributing Newtons discoveries to his peruke, Gallileo's to his overgown, or Arabic mathematicians to their turban. I don't know if these exterior, superficial glosses can be attributed as the principle behind the thought going on in the various intellectuals heads.

Alric of Drentha wrote:

PartsAndTechnical wrote:To whit I highly recommend this series. Burke is a profound historian.

According to wikipedia, he's a journalist with an MA in Middle English. It sounds like he knows his Chaucer, but I wouldn't call him a historian by any stretching of the term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Burk ... _historian)

Alric

To address the Burke .....please watch the series, it is very enlightening. He is a technology historian but that series deals with changes in world outlook based on culture and technology. Dont dismiss the work until youve watched it. Someone can have a degree in nursing and wind up running a fortune 500 company. His work and approach is taught at the university and graduate levels and is backed by some fairly prominent historians and professionals in the sciences.


http://www.k-web.org/public_html/vision.htm
http://www.k-web.org/public_html/boarddiradv.htm


Alric wrote:

Your arguments - that 13th century decline was caused by religious prohibitions, and that Islamic high culture was an aberration only enjoyed by deviants

NO, this is a mischaracterization of my argument...and one of the reasons Ive said that western thinking does not allow us to understand this very well. Your use of the term "high culture" and "deviants" is what caught my eye because a culture can be very detailed, organized with strict mannerisms, but still remain largely technologically stagnant. Im not suggesting great minds were deviants or mischief makers. Nay, what Im trying to explain is a feel for Islamic teaching, the 'essence' of it. There is a strong theme in the Koran, among other books, that God must not be challenged. Remember that Islam literally means to submit to God. Dont take that lightly by western thinking. Learning about Gods universe through science or the arts is one thing, but one is repeated taught over and over again to glorify God, not man, and to avoid challenging God through anything that might smack of arrogance. For example, the general shunning of artistic depiction is a good window into this theme because, in keeping with Koranic teachings, man is not the creator...God is the creator! Thus, man would be arrogant in depicting something that only God can truly create. Now, this theme begins to loosen up as we approach the high medieval and late medieval periods, but its a principle that remains true. One of the reasons for the fancy idealized writing styles in Islam is to compensate for this warning against artistic depiction. In a sense, it was like 'safely' skirting the rules.

First, you need to read the religious texts from the period and see whether they support your claim that Muslims considered high culture to be against the Koran.

Yes, I have. Im not an expert but Ive read the Koran (several times) and have about 20 hours course work in Islamic, Mid east and African history; taught by people who have lived there. Youre right though, I need to cite more passages because there are areas that we can explore to better underscore my points. My physical copy of the Koran is not here, Ill get it when i drop by my book storage in a few days.

you need to look at other causes, because historical events are rarely caused by a single factor. What political changes were happening, economic shifts or climatic events (both important because your culture will probably focus less on high culture if its people are starving), military threats, etc.

a] there are a lot of comparative statements of Islams presumably superior culture but compared to ???. This seems like a double edge sword. On the one hand its presumed this culture is better, more durable, more robust, more sophisticated, more advanced, ad infinitum....okay, so why did it decline technologically? I feel like the Capt of the Rhetorical Drum Core by asking this same question repeatedly. If we claim it was so advanced (culturally durable and technological sophisticated) by virtue of these notions, it should not have become stagnant and declined. Yet it did.


b] As far as I am aware, there is no serious climate change, cataclysmic earthquake, mother of all tsunamis, or giant genie that overran the Islamic world causing this cease in technological advance. And this is why I again turn your attention to socio-philasophical discussion because there is a very wrongheaded assumption that technology begets itself (no, humans do) and that humans inevitably want to advance it. Sometimes technology does not advance because the connections are not in place....people dont have a need for something so that technological route is not pursued. And other times, the socio religious philosophy can tend to retard technological advancement. ....and hearkening back to an earlier point, this is a western appraoch of viewing world history that is not allowing us to view those underlying socio-philisophical religious rationales in Islam....not reasons mind you, rationales!




I am in total agreement the the Borg analogy is not totally inclusive (good analogy btw).

And Chef makes a great point about the base cultures.

None of what any of us says is totally blanket truths or water tight. I think we are just trying to identify trends, and themes.

...one is repeated taught over and over again to glorify God, not man, and to avoid challenging God through anything that might smack of arrogance.

Did they teach this in the 13th century? That's the historical question you need to answer. The Koran doesn't teach or speak with its own voice - people teach from the Koran, and that teaching has changed through the 1300 years of Islam as interpretations changed. You need to cite 13th Islamic scholarship on the Koran to show how it influenced people in the 13th century. It's not enough to read a 7th century text and assume that people in the 13th century shaped their lives around it in the way that you think they should have, without some historical evidence that it actually happened that way (again, that's like assuming that American Christians won't work on Sunday because the Bible says not to).

Until we bring some 13th century sources into this discussion, it's not going to get beyond supposition and generalization.

Alric of Drentha wrote:

...one is repeated taught over and over again to glorify God, not man, and to avoid challenging God through anything that might smack of arrogance.

Alric of Drentha wrote: Did they teach this in the 13th century? That's the historical question you need to answer.

As far as I know, yes, it is a long held interpretation.

Alric of Drentha wrote: The Koran doesn't teach or speak with its own voice - people teach from the Koran, and that teaching has changed through the 1300 years of Islam as interpretations changed

Exactly my point earlier. The tribal and dynastic conflicts starting when the prophet Mohamed died caused a major split that continued for centuries. The very lack of a major figurehead equivalent to the pope for example caused endless friction (warring tribes, sects) and debate about interpretations. And because of this decentralized element and predicated tendency for violent conflict resolution, the periods of peace reflected that sectarian interpretation; it is a theme that we still see today I'm afraid.

You need to cite 13th Islamic scholarship on the Koran to show how it influenced people in the 13th century. It's not enough to read a 7th century text and assume that people in the 13th century shaped their lives around it in the way that you think they should have, without some historical evidence that it actually happened that way (again, that's like assuming that American Christians won't work on Sunday because the Bible says not to). Until we bring some 13th century sources into this discussion, it's not going to get beyond supposition and generalization.

I agree more needs to be cited; I will haul over some of the texts I have this weekend. I also have some articles I can post in the next few days Here are some articles. Many are written by Muslim scholars with a degree of bias, we we have to view it carefully (not skeptically just carefully), just like a history of early Christianity from a Christian author.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/islam/islamsbook.html

Good luck, and let us know what you find.

Chef's reference to the Renaissance finally triggered something I needed to remember. The Bonfires of the Vanities, and how much of the Italian Renaissance was lost by a sudden wave of repression from the Church at the time. Look up Savonarola. It is an interesting parallel.



Z

Alric of Drentha wrote:

...one is repeated taught over and over again to glorify God, not man, and to avoid challenging God through anything that might smack of arrogance.

Did they teach this in the 13th century? That's the historical question you need to answer. The Koran doesn't teach or speak with its own voice - people teach from the Koran, and that teaching has changed through the 1300 years of Islam as interpretations changed. You need to cite 13th Islamic scholarship on the Koran to show how it influenced people in the 13th century. It's not enough to read a 7th century text and assume that people in the 13th century shaped their lives around it in the way that you think they should have, without some historical evidence that it actually happened that way (again, that's like assuming that American Christians won't work on Sunday because the Bible says not to).

Until we bring some 13th century sources into this discussion, it's not going to get beyond supposition and generalization.

This. I'm happy, fascinated even, to discuss specific examples. Broad generalizations belong in politics.

I'll note, in passing, that I was not ascribing the flowering of the Caliphate to assimilation but to the economic surge that most conquering nations enjoy during their period of expansion. Such systems frequently expand by leaps and bounds, coast along on the fruits of the expansion and then, being unable to flourish without expanding, begin to turn inward and shrink.

Ziad wrote:Chef's reference to the Renaissance finally triggered something I needed to remember. The Bonfires of the Vanities, and how much of the Italian Renaissance was lost by a sudden wave of repression from the Church at the time. Look up Savonarola. It is an interesting parallel.

Z

Some truth, but even this is a gross generalization. Im not disputing church interference, however the socio philosophy of the Italy, the renaissance, or the west in general did not come to such a hault.

As an example there is very profound evidence that the Inquisition as we know it, was not nearly as harsh or draconian; and in many cases may have been dramatically overstated. I remember watching a documentary a few years back on some scientist who were examining mortality lists and realized that some 90%+ of those who had died from disease, natural causes etc were curiously included on protestant lists of those who were supposedly killed by the church via the Inquisition. It raised enough of a concern, that it began a cross referencing of the mortality lists in other towns and they began to find the same supposedly "Inquisition-killed" people with alarming frequency. I dont doubt that the catholic and protestant antagonisms would have led to such altering of the books. I have several 16th and 17th century books and pages in my collection from the period and will testify to the demonization of each side. And it got so bad, people lied about all sorts of things regarding the other; even fought wars over such division.

However, we we dont see in the west, despite the religious of the 16th and 17th century is a halt in discovery, a cessation of science and technology; if anything we see a renewed blossoming of ideas and thinking, expansion. Even the plagues that took such a physical and mental toll managed to reduce the 'stubborn complexities' of the class system, did not destroy western civilization, nor halt it. And I firmly believe all of this is in keeping with western/christian socio-philosophy that is deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness. Even when people rebuke their own cultural heritage in such a way, theyre refutation ironically embodies the very nature of that heritage.

Jester wrote
I was not ascribing the flowering of the Caliphate to assimilation but to the economic surge that most conquering nations enjoy during their period of expansion.

Ya know Jester, I think this might be the key point in all this. Prior to any expansion and conquering, the previous peoples would natural be described as barbaric, uncivilized, ...."needing" to be conquered and governed, if you will.

And once conquered, the fruits of that victory thus become more touted and celebrated.

But the pivotal point is very much based on what your just said as the economic surge that most conquering nations enjoy during their period of expansion.