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When did the Muslem world loose it's technical advantage? (1 Viewer)

longview

longview

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I was watching Ancient Discoveries last night about the significant contributions
to Science and Engineering from the Arab world.
Most of these advances were between 900 and 1500 AD
I have read stories about European travelers in the 15the century
marveling at how refined the culture of Spain was
compared to the rest of Europe.
I wonder what changed in the Arab world that slowed or stopped their
desire to advance Science?
 
longview said:
I was watching Ancient Discoveries last night about the significant contributions
to Science and Engineering from the Arab world.
Most of these advances were between 900 and 1500 AD
I have read stories about European travelers in the 15the century
marveling at how refined the culture of Spain was
compared to the rest of Europe.
I wonder what changed in the Arab world that slowed or stopped their
desire to advance Science?
Click to expand...

Muhammad the "prophet" once his teachings started to become widely accepted.
 
It's "lose", as in loser.
 
The Islamic world was better that Europe but it was almost all due to it getting tech from it's eastern neighbors. China had been far more advanced but had gone backwards.

The West got better when it decided to start looking at the world and solving problems for it's self.
 
longview said:
I was watching Ancient Discoveries last night about the significant contributions
to Science and Engineering from the Arab world.
Most of these advances were between 900 and 1500 AD
I have read stories about European travelers in the 15the century
marveling at how refined the culture of Spain was
compared to the rest of Europe.
I wonder what changed in the Arab world that slowed or stopped their
desire to advance Science?
Click to expand...

I would say sometime during the Enlightenment era, during the 1600s and 1700s is when the Europeans began to overtake Middle Eastern cultures from a scientific and technological point of view. There was a period during the Ottoman era when it began to decline as all empires eventually do, I don't know if we can truthfully measure their the lag of their scientific achievements. That being said, after the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the subsequent era of British and French colonialism certainly didn't help to develop the Middle Eastern world from an economic and technological perspective.
 
chad1389 said:
Muhammad the "prophet" once his teachings started to become widely accepted.
Click to expand...

Nope, those teachings had become widely accepted long before the 900AD to 1500AD period that longview mentions. Try a different narrative.
 
The word lose is spelled L-O-S-E.
 
Tim the plumber said:
The Islamic world was better that Europe but it was almost all due to it getting tech from it's eastern neighbors. China had been far more advanced but had gone backwards.

The West got better when it decided to start looking at the world and solving problems for it's self.
Click to expand...

In actuality the root of scientific and technological inquiry in the Arab world was rooted mostly in the ancient classics, like the Greeks, Persians, and possibly Indians.
 
StillBallin75 said:
Nope, those teachings had become widely accepted long before the 900AD to 1500AD period that longview mentions. Try a different narrative.
Click to expand...

When enough people are killed for questioning the science in the koran over a period of time, you generally stop trying to question it.
 
longview said:
I was watching Ancient Discoveries last night about the significant contributions
to Science and Engineering from the Arab world.
Most of these advances were between 900 and 1500 AD
I have read stories about European travelers in the 15the century
marveling at how refined the culture of Spain was
compared to the rest of Europe.
I wonder what changed in the Arab world that slowed or stopped their
desire to advance Science?
Click to expand...

There are many aspects here.

1.) The "Christian" European powers were dominated by the Catholic Church and the Vatican. The leftovers of the Roman Empire were weak politically and economically. It was called the dark ages for a reason. This mean the religious dogma as dictated by various crack pop Popes and other religious "scholars" out of Rome and locally dominated politics during the the years you listed. Among the things brought to us in this marvel of ignorance was the anti-scientific aspect of the Christian faith.

2.) The Islamic world on the other hand was just starting out and growing.. both through conquest but also by peaceful means. While the Christian church went out of its way to rid it self of the knowledge of the Romans and Greeks, the Islamic world embraced it and saved much of the knowledge from destruction. One of the biggest havens of knowledge was Al-Andalus, which by many historians is seen as one of the glowing jewels of civilization in human history. Al-Andalus was for centuries the center of knowledge for the whole world (well European areas and Middle East and Africa) and scholars, both Muslim, but especially Christian and Jewish, flocked to the courts of Al-Andalus who welcomed them with open arms. All this created an atmosphere to for more inventions and knowledge to be created. Yes think about it.. Jews, Muslims and Christians lived in peace and almost equals (Jews and Christians paid more in taxes) for centuries in Al-Andalus.

3) The reformation came around and the Christian Church was split which resulted in bloody civil wars that cost millions of lives. The French Religious wars are estimated to have cost 10-30% of the population their lives. In the end the Catholic Church was split into the Orthodox Church and the Protestant Church (and a bunch of other smaller groups) and Europe was some what divided up. The Byzantium Empire to the East was the cradle of the Orthodox Church (and soon to fall), the Vatican was the cradle of the Catholic Church and dominated Portugal, Spain, what is known as Italy today and had serious influence in France, Austria and parts of what is known as Germany. The Protestants moved into most of Northern Europe, UK, and parts of France. Point is that Christianity had its civil war, and came out in a stalemate. By the time the civil war was over, the Islamic world was at its pinnacle and the Christian Kingdoms saw something they wanted and went after it.

4.) Lack of a reformation in Islam. This plagues us even to this day, and ultimately cost the Islamic world its domination. The Ottomans unified the Islamic faith under their Sultan by taking over the mantel of Caliphate in 1517. For centuries the Ottomans were the major power in Europe. But complacency and wars and the complicated tribal nature of their empire plus the added flair of religious disagreements within Islam ultimately lead to the downfall of the Ottoman Empire and hence the the Islamic world domination. And then Atturk happened. In 1924 he dismantled the Ottoman Caliphate.. the only thing that had held together the Islamic world and driven it for centuries to excel.. and we all know how it has gone since then.
 
chad1389 said:
When enough people are killed for questioning the science in the koran over a period of time, you generally stop trying to question it.
Click to expand...

Err no. It was the Christians that killed people for science.. Muslims embraced science and knowledge. Dont think for one second that the Muslims of today are anything like that of the Islamic world in the 1000s or 1500s.
 
PeteEU said:
Err no. It was the Christians that killed people for science.. Muslims embraced science and knowledge. Dont think for one second that the Muslims of today are anything like that of the Islamic world in the 1000s or 1500s.
Click to expand...

Christianity and the Birth of Science

"Clue #1. The founders/fathers of modern science were shaped by a culture that was predominantly Christian.

The founders of modern science were all bunched into a particular geographical location dominated by a Judeo-Christian world view. I'm thinking of men like Louis Aggasiz (founder of glacial science and perhaps paleontology); Charles Babbage (often said to be the creator of the computer); Francis Bacon (father of the scientific method); Sir Charles Bell (first to extensively map the brain and nervous system); Robert Boyle (father of modern chemistry); Georges Cuvier (founder of comparative anatomy and perhaps paleontology); John Dalton (father of modern atomic theory); Jean Henri Fabre (chief founder of modern entomology); John Ambrose Fleming (some call him the founder of modern electronics/inventor of the diode); James Joule (discoverer of the first law of thermodynamics); William Thomson Kelvin (perhaps the first to clearly state the second law of thermodynamics); Johannes Kepler (discoverer of the laws of planetary motion); Carolus Linnaeus (father of modern taxonomy); James Clerk Maxwell (formulator of the electromagnetic theory of light); Gregor Mendel (father of genetics); Isaac Newton (discoverer of the universal laws of gravitation); Blaise Pascal (major contributor to probability studies and hydrostatics); Louis Pasteur (formulator of the germ theory)."
 
SlevinKelevra said:
Thread: When did the Muslem world loose IT IS technical advantage?


really?
Click to expand...

It lost it's advantage because in this case the advantage belonged to it thus the s after it needs an apostrophe before it. That's the "s".
 
chad1389 said:
Christianity and the Birth of Science

"Clue #1. The founders/fathers of modern science were shaped by a culture that was predominantly Christian.

The founders of modern science were all bunched into a particular geographical location dominated by a Judeo-Christian world view. I'm thinking of men like Louis Aggasiz (founder of glacial science and perhaps paleontology); Charles Babbage (often said to be the creator of the computer); Francis Bacon (father of the scientific method); Sir Charles Bell (first to extensively map the brain and nervous system); Robert Boyle (father of modern chemistry); Georges Cuvier (founder of comparative anatomy and perhaps paleontology); John Dalton (father of modern atomic theory); Jean Henri Fabre (chief founder of modern entomology); John Ambrose Fleming (some call him the founder of modern electronics/inventor of the diode); James Joule (discoverer of the first law of thermodynamics); William Thomson Kelvin (perhaps the first to clearly state the second law of thermodynamics); Johannes Kepler (discoverer of the laws of planetary motion); Carolus Linnaeus (father of modern taxonomy); James Clerk Maxwell (formulator of the electromagnetic theory of light); Gregor Mendel (father of genetics); Isaac Newton (discoverer of the universal laws of gravitation); Blaise Pascal (major contributor to probability studies and hydrostatics); Louis Pasteur (formulator of the germ theory)."
Click to expand...

Dude... you even understand the thread? Have you seen when most of these people you mentioned lived? Long after the start of the decline of the Islamic world. One sticks out.. Johannes Kepler, an Austrian.. pretty much the first Christian kingdom/empire that started to embrace science again after the dark ages... in the late 1500s early 1600s. The rest are pretty much 1800s or later are they not?

I know you want to be a good Christian, but denying the anti-science centuries aka the dark ages of the Christian faith and the Christian civil war wont help your argument. The Islamic world took over from the Romans and kept it going till the 1500s-1600s when the Christian world came out of its dark ages for good. You can simply not deny the impact the Islamic world has had on history and what technologies we have today, either by invention (most basic medical instruments) or by saving knowledge from the Christian dark ages.
 
I think its a matter of cultural differences: the Chinese basically invented almost everything in the ancient world but they never applied it to resource allocation and conquest unlike the West did, so in this regard the reason why the West eventually took over the world is because their culture changed to expansion and resource acquisition as opposed to the Chinese and Muslims.
 
PeteEU said:
Dude... you even understand the thread? Have you seen when most of these people you mentioned lived? Long after the start of the decline of the Islamic world. One sticks out.. Johannes Kepler, an Austrian.. pretty much the first Christian kingdom/empire that started to embrace science again after the dark ages... in the late 1500s early 1600s. The rest are pretty much 1800s or later are they not?

I know you want to be a good Christian, but denying the anti-science centuries aka the dark ages of the Christian faith and the Christian civil war wont help your argument. The Islamic world took over from the Romans and kept it going till the 1500s-1600s when the Christian world came out of its dark ages for good. You can simply not deny the impact the Islamic world has had on history and what technologies we have today, either by invention (most basic medical instruments) or by saving knowledge from the Christian dark ages.
Click to expand...

I'm not denying it. You wrote that Christians killed people for science. I gave you an article on Christians who were not killed for science and helped to further what is modern science. I'm also not denying the impact the Arabic world on history or technology. I gave a reason as to why it started to decline.

"The Islamic Golden Age refers to the period in the history of Islam during the Middle Ages when much of the Muslim world was ruled by various caliphates, experiencing a scientific, economic, and cultural flourishing. This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (786 to 809) with the inauguration of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, where scholars from various parts of the world sought to translate and gather all the known world's knowledge into Arabic. It is taken to have ended with the collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate with the Mongol invasions and the Sack of Baghdad in 1258. Several contemporary scholars, however, place the end around the 15th to 16th centuries." -Wikipedia

Mongol Invasions lead by Genghis Khan, who although did not practice Islam, did approve of it, meaning he allowed it to be taught after conquering it.
 
longview said:
I was watching Ancient Discoveries last night about the significant contributions
to Science and Engineering from the Arab world.
Most of these advances were between 900 and 1500 AD
I have read stories about European travelers in the 15the century
marveling at how refined the culture of Spain was
compared to the rest of Europe.
I wonder what changed in the Arab world that slowed or stopped their
desire to advance Science?
Click to expand...

I think that perhaps money shifted due to trade and the dying off of old world empires and dynasties. I know that I have seen in documentaries some beautiful tile work inside of ME mosks with great domed architecture from the Middle Ages, but there older work is just astounding.

Yeah, I think that interests shifted and people moved away from empire to religion.
 
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