dbmk1@stc.UUCP (Derek Bergin) (08/05/85)
In article <257@jenny.UUCP> jbdp@jenny.UUCP (Julian Pardoe) writes: >What puzzles me and what I hope one of you bright people out there can tell >me is what went wrong. For several hundred years (I wouldn't like to give >exact dates) Islam was perhaps the most powerful culture west of China, the >best organized and the most scientifically and culturally advanced. It kept >the kept the torch of western learning alight at a time when Christian >society was in the depths of ignorance and barbarism. Yet, by the nineteenth >century Islam was quite unable to resist the scientific and economic power of >the Christian world and its capitalist values. When and why did things go >wrong? OK - I'll have a go. The following is my recollection of a theory proposed by James Burke on his recent BBC series _The Day The Universe Changed_ which concerned itself with trying to trace the major influencing factors in the developement of our current world position. Should anyone else who watched to series disagree with my interpretation of Mr Burkes theories then c'est la vie and please keep the flames down to medium broil level. During the period known as the Dark Ages most of western Europe was a barbaric society with little or no science and with all law being split between church and state. What little law there was existed in northern Italy where books of Roman Law had been rediscovered and were being applied (although not with the greatest success). What little civilising influence there was came from Moorish (muslem/arabic) Spain. Here was one of the greatest libraries in Medieval history and a collection of scientific knowledge unrivalled in the world at that time. This situation existed until the 1100's when the whole thing started to fall apart. The internal rivalries of the muslem society was exacerbated by the influx of greater numbers of christians into the area, who brought along their mercenary armies. These mercenary armies were soon composed of an equal mixture of christians and muslems and fought anyone and everyone, depending on who paid. (Historically the most murderous and unpleasant of these mercenary leaders was El Cid - somehow Charlton Heston never quite got that across :-) ). At the collapse of the mulsem society the libraries and knowledge became available to christian scholars who drifted into the area, thus the heritage of the greeks was returned to the rest of western Europe. Most of this knowledge scared the ****'s out of the church leaders of the time because it basically turned their world upside down, and despite attempts to reconcile church and science (the idea of observed truth - what you could see ; and revealed truth - what was handed down from God; being one the major ones) there were fundamental incompatabilities between them which were to completely change everything and institute the habit of constant change the culmination of which we see today. By contrast the muslem religous leaders encouraged scientific thought and so this basic split never developed. The application of knowledge and the 'invention' of technology was due to yet another religous split - this time within the christian religion. By the seventeenth century western Europe was well split between Catholic and Protestant sects which were beginning to co-exist more or less peacefully. In the nature of religion, however, this was too good to last and so the protestants promptly started religous persecution of various other protestant sects. One result of this was the exclusion of quakers and non-conformists from all important state positions in Britain, similarly universities and the army. The only road upwards left for these people was commerce - at the time(and it hasn't changed much) despised by many people as below them. Fortunately at this time Britain's colonies were producing much surplus wealth within the home country ( and no I'm not commenting on the moral issues involved here) and this found itself a home in starting up the industrial revolution. Hence the non-conformists set up their own universities and taught science and engineering, the graduates giving the rich a means of investing their surplus wealth to create more surplus wealth. This has gone on for too long already but I think I have managed to express the underlying concept - ie that religous intolerance and conservatism pushed science forward in christian Europe whereas it's acceptance in muslem society meant that there was no impetus or reason for developement. For anyone wanting to know what Mr Burke really wanted to say (after all had he wanted me to screw up his ideas I'm sure he would have asked :-) ) I suggest contacting BBC publications and getting the book of the series. Regards Derek !seismo!mcvax!ukc!stc!dbmk1 I used to think I was expressing an opinion - but there again people used to think the world was flat.