When did Islam's fall from grace begin?

[Leo Caesius]

I assume this is being asked for use in the development of AH timelines?

Can we see some discussion here steering it in that direction?

The question really should be when did Islam's core area start to lag behind the rest of the world, and there are economic, social, and political reasons for this. If the Middle East had remained Christian to this very day, I don't think it would be any better off. Likewise, if all of Europe had become Muslim, I don't think the Middle East would be better off for it.

There's two potential AH timelines right there.

 

[Straha]

Some parts of it like Egypt and the ottomans had the potential to join the modern world as recently as the 19th century. The only one that's really joined the west politically has been turkey which was the center of the ottomans at one time so myp
oint still stands

 

[MarkA]

There are plenty of Christian countries that are poor and backward. Africa is a prime example. Many South American countries have a massive disparity betwen rich and poor as does the US.

Religion has little or nothing to do with it.

Books and people were burned with regularity in the west. Knowledge was supressed (or attempted) as a matter of course. Individual freedoms are still under attack and collective freedoms too even though most of the existing ones were only gained between and just after the world wars.

 

[Max Sinister]

The positive side of Europe: There's always another little country you can flee to if your prince doesn't like what you say / doesn't encourage science.

 

[Midgard]

This is a borderline thread in terms of wheter it should be here or in chat.

I assume this is being asked for use in the development of AH timelines?

Can we see some discussion here steering it in that direction?

It was 50/50 - I thought some interesting PODs could develop from here, hopefully not the standard "Muslims win at Tours/take Constantinople/conquer everything", but more along the lines of Islamic world becoming a lot more like the Western world with a different religion, but similar humanist values, similar development of technology, culture, etc. Also, part of the question involved what a "progressive" Muslim world would look like, which is an interesting speculation in any case.

 

[Straha]

Egypt modernizing in the 19th century seems interesting...

 

[Midgard]

The positive side of Europe: There's always another little country you can flee to if your prince doesn't like what you say / doesn't encourage science.

I think you might be hitting it straight on the head - feudalism, and decentralization that came from it, along with internecine warfare, numerous people with major, age-long differences and scores to settle all resulted in true empires not arising until much later in the period, when renaissanse could not have been stopped. Islamic world, other than a few border areas (Iberia being the main one) never quite developed Western European-style feudalism, which meant states tended to be more centralizes, and had less competition against each other.

Finally, geography in Europe was almost certainly of help - Europe was surrounded by water or large, hard-to-defeat nations, and as such, competition was not only intense, but there was very little easy pickings left for any ambitious power, prompting eventual development of technology, society, etc etc. With the Muslim world, much of it lay on the periphery of the explored world, and therefore did not necessarily have to develop technology or society to compete with the most advanced nations out there - merely sufficient technology and social advances to get by. This was also the reason why the Ottomans managed to conquer vast swathes of territory as quickly as they have - they, unlike the other powers, were in constant conflict with the advanced and powerful foes, and developed tactics, social structures, bureacracy (even if much of the latter two was directly or indirectly borrowed from the Byzantines), and such to match.

 

[Leo Caesius]

The positive side of Europe: There's always another little country you can flee to if your prince doesn't like what you say / doesn't encourage science.

For most of history, refugees from Europe came to the Middle East. There was very little traffic in the other direction. That stopped around the time of the Enlightenment.

 

[Chengar Qordath]

It has always been my opinion that part of the reason behind Europe's rise and the decline of the Middle East is simple economics; Europe was blessed with all the natural resources one needs to develop a thriving industrial economy, while the Middle East was not so lucky. With the decline of trade incomes others have mentioned, and the rise of industry-based ecnomics, it seems to me like the Middle East was going to suffer a major economic decline no matter what religion was in charge of it.

 

[Max Sinister]

For most of history, refugees from Europe came to the Middle East. There was very little traffic in the other direction. That stopped around the time of the Enlightenment.

Very interesting to know... what kind of people (besides the Iberian muslims, and some Jews maybe), why did they leave, and why did it stop then, and not earlier or later?

 

[Soyuz]

First of all, Islam didn't fall from grace. It has 1.4 billion worshipers, and no signs of faltering. It would be more accurate to say that it was Christianity that fell from grace.

Secondly, the Middle East didn't fall from grace either. It was rather Europe who outpaced the entire world. And all Muslim territories were still intact until the 19th century, when Europeans took the final advantage of ruling the waves.

A better question would be why Arab countries were so successful initially.

 

[Quiet_Man]

The Islamic slide started when their conquests of more technically advanced (relatively speaking) nations stopped. Whilst there is some debate as to Islamic acheivements much of what they did was taken from the cultures they conquered. Once conquered the local inhabitants were encouraged to become Muslims by force or by [FONT=&quot]Jizzya[/FONT] taxation 80% normally and 150% in harsher times. Having become Muslims the society stagnates as everything revolves around the Koran and the rulers and individual expression ends. Much of what the west sees as Islamic progress (advanced by Muslims themselves as propaganda) was actually the result of conquering Assyrian Christians of the first University in Nisibis. Just about every Islamic scientific claim can in some sense be refuted and laid at the door of Assyrian Christianity.

Once converted these advances died out, once Islam stopped conquering, it lost the ability to advance scientifically. Hence the stagnation you can observe in a lot of Arabic Islamic countries.

Any POD would have to contain a different interpretation of the Koran along the lines of if science contradicts the Koran, then the Koran hasn't been interpretted correctly. Which is easier to do as the Koran itself being translated from Arabic can be interpretted many different ways.

 

[Max Sinister]

150% of what? Certainly not of income... and AFAIK, some Muslim rulers forbad conversion, because they needed the tax money.

 

[Ghost 88]

If the question is when did the Islamic countries begin to fall behind the west?

I would say during The Renissance or maybe even the The Enlightenment. Til these Times the Ottomans at least were on a par with the West. As a lot of the Islamic world occupied a more harsh envioroment, especially the Middle East and North Africa,and this was the "Center" of Islam this may have been unavoidable.
This is more food for thought ,than hard this is the answer. It just seems to me that the Ottomans did not really begin to decline as a world power till after 1600 maybe a bit later.

 

[Quiet_Man]

150% of what? Certainly not of income... and AFAIK, some Muslim rulers forbad conversion, because they needed the tax money.

150% over and above as in 100% being double taxation

 

[Leo Caesius]

150% over and above as in 100% being double taxation

First of all, the jizya only applies to adult non-Muslim males (those belonging to the age of military service). Second of all, it was generally a fixed sum dependent upon one's profession, on a sliding scale of income, unless you were a trader, in which case it amounted to 10% of your income through trade - in either case, way below the level of taxation demanded by modern countries, Islamic or otherwise. Also note that Muslims were also forced to pay their own tax, the zakat.

While I have a lot of respect for Assyrian Christians, I think you're severely overstating your case with them.

Very interesting to know... what kind of people (besides the Iberian muslims, and some Jews maybe), why did they leave, and why did it stop then, and not earlier or later?

Actually, it was LOTS of Jews, including the entire community of Iberian Jews in 1492. There were also Christians of various heretical stripes (who, more often than not, converted once they settled down - these were called muhtadis) and other sorts of rebels and renegades, not necessarily religious ones.

 

[Hendryk]

Actually, it was LOTS of Jews, including the entire community of Iberian Jews in 1492.

Indeed. I know some descendants of these Sephardic Jews; one came from a community that had settled in what was then Ottoman Greece, and his family speaks an archaic patois of Spanish to this day. Another is a friend whose patronym is Sultan, a sign that, at one point, her ancestors enjoyed the direct patronage of the Sultan of Tunis.

 

[Quiet_Man]

First of all, the jizya only applies to adult non-Muslim males (those belonging to the age of military service). Second of all, it was generally a fixed sum dependent upon one's profession, on a sliding scale of income, unless you were a trader, in which case it amounted to 10% of your income through trade - in either case, way below the level of taxation demanded by modern countries, Islamic or otherwise. Also note that Muslims were also forced to pay their own tax, the zakat.

While I have a lot of respect for Assyrian Christians, I think you're severely overstating your case with them.

Actually, it was LOTS of Jews, including the entire community of Iberian Jews in 1492. There were also Christians of various heretical stripes (who, more often than not, converted once they settled down - these were called muhtadis) and other sorts of rebels and renegades, not necessarily religious ones.

The evidence whilst empirical does appear to speak for itself, once an area has been Islamicised all progress ceases as religion not progress becomes the focus of society.

If you are interested google up the history of Babylonian mathematics, the statutes of the school of Nisibis, you could also read an online book called "How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs" by De Lacy O'Leary http://www.aina.org/books.html

Good source of reference material for an Assyrian POD

 

[Leo Caesius]

The evidence whilst empirical does appear to speak for itself, once an area has been Islamicised all progress ceases as religion not progress becomes the focus of society.

Rubbish. The whole point to Islam is that it isn't a religion, it's a way of life. You're talking about the Medieval Middle East in terms of the post-Christian West and implying that once people become Muslims they spend all of their time in mosques engaged in prayer to the detriment of anything else. Anyone can see that wasn't the case.

If you are interested google up the history of Babylonian mathematics,

I don't need to google it, I studied with David Pingree who practically wrote the book on it. If anything, the Indians were far more influential in preserving the exact sciences of antiquity than the Church of the East; the preponderant majority of literature in Syriac is dedicated to theology and Church history, not to exact sciences like mathematics. The Indians, on the other hand, were the source of quite a lot of mathematical and linguistic knowledge that eventually made its way to Europe through the Arabs.

 

[Quiet_Man]

Rubbish. The whole point to Islam is that it isn't a religion, it's a way of life. You're talking about the Medieval Middle East in terms of the post-Christian West and implying that once people become Muslims they spend all of their time in mosques engaged in prayer to the detriment of anything else. Anyone can see that wasn't the case.

The whole point of Islam is that it is a religion, certain things have to be done in order to appease Allah, those who diverged from the mainstream were marginalised. Once an area had been assimilated all progress stopped, the evidence speaks for itself, there has been no purely Islamic/Muslim advance. That is why the Middle east became a backwater, not through lack of trade, but lack of ability to overcome the restrictions of their faith.