Could the centuries of direct colonial rule by the Ottomans and Europeans played a role? The Ottomans were by no measure gentle but the Europeans were nothing short of barbaric. Take Palestine. To solidify their hold the British simply rounded up and executed fighting age men the moment rebellion started brewing.
The stakes are high and the Europeans knew this. The Arabs sat on oil. Lots of it. Colonialism is doomed to fail because the uncivilized eventually rise up (imagine that). Enter Sykes-Picot and neo-colonialism. Give them the illusion of being free, back brutal dictators over the people, and divide and conquer along sectarian lines.
Finally enter Israel. To really support for Israel Herzl, the founder of Zionism, wrote that Israel would “form part of a wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism.”. And they played their part. They are the wildcard ready to bomb any middle eastern country should they rise up and crawl towards independence. See all the nuclear power plants they bombed while they were still being built.
Because the ways Japan and Middle East were neo-colonized was different. After the bombs Japan wasn’t allowed to hold any army of significance and was enforced to have democratic institutions, which makes it very difficult for any dictatorial player to emerge, whereas in the middle east dictatorial regimes were not only embraced but even sometimes installed in the hopes that they could be easily controlled.
Authoritarianism wreaks havoc on meritocratic processes such as scientific knowledge production, intellectual property rights and other institutions democracies take for granted to flourish.
Having a true democracy would be a bless for sure, but don't think that will magically produce scientists, or revolutionary new points of view. You need to seed, nurture, care for and harvest decades later. And this is one of the causes of decline of science. Everybody is now planned, arranged and forced to fit in chunks of 4 years, so the people now in power can take all the credit.
As bad as dictators are, a stable dictatorship could ironically lead to a much more comfortable environment for scientists than a democracy. The first thing that many politicians do after stepping in power is to fire the scientists identified with the previous government (or discredit their work, or remove their funds...).
The author is also including in Contemporary Islam, SEA countries like Malaysia.
He also discusses Pakistan and ancient Indian civilizations as separate entities, which have geographical overlap, because Pakistan (and Bangladesh) is far behind India in terms of research productivity.
The theory that the US "does not allow" the establishment of academic institutions in Islamic countries is equally wrong.
edit - There is a common attitude among Arabs (evident in this poster's comments in this thread) that everything bad in Arab countries is due to some combination of the US and Israel. One of my teachers, a Jordanian, told me how his father would poke fun at this attitude: when something in the house would break, his father would ironically blame Israel for it.
American foreign policy in the Arab world is complicated. It seems to me that many Arab countries oscillate between Islamist democracies and secular dictatorships. The US prefers the latter to the former. I think it's fair to criticize this stance but my sense is that the US would support a secular democracy, were it possible. The Obama administration supported the secular opposition to Assad...but it has turned out that the biggest faction of the Syrian opposition are Sunnis motivated by Islamism, hence America backing away from Syria.
To prove that your arrogant comment is wrong: I didn't mention that Israel is responsible for anything, I was mainly talking about the US. And I didn't say that all of the problems caused by them.
Agree. But to be fair, not all is rosy. Israel has been signaled as the responsible of serial killings of scientists "of interest" in other countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Iranian_nucle...
This means that we have less people in the planet able to find a solution for the problem of managing nuclear residues, for example. Something that would have greatly benefited Israel itself.
And there are more than 300 cases of teachers being kidnapped, tortured and/or assasinated by US army (or other agents).
http://www.iraqsolidaridad.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/...
The idea of a country systematically killing 320 academics in Occident would be clearly seen as something atrocious. This should be treated exactly the same by international organisms.
I am curious what you think of https://www.hudson.org/research/9881-the-muslim-brotherhood-... (yes, I know this is written by an Israeli)
No, I don't think the MBH would accept ALL the results of science. But I do think they would have made what they could to make the education system better.
But again this is not the point, What about after the MBH? Maybe someone else would came to establish a better system. But now it is all gone. No real elections, and no peaceful transfer of power.
I don't have links or videos saved with me right now, but I am an Egyptian and followed all of what happened. I can get it if I wanted, but it will take time. But I think you can easily find it. Listen to professor Chomsky's lectures for example.
As far as I remember, this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLPYN82xHck) contains most of his opinions about it. But I would have to watch it again to be sure.
Even "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" was joking about how Obama didn't admit the coup to keep giving them aid, but I also don't have the link of the episode here.
So I think it is obvious if you wanted to see it. But pick your opinion as you wish. It is a free world, right?
Chomsky does accuse the US government of not wanting a democratic government in Egypt, but doesn't actually blame them for the failure of the Morsi government. Instead he blames his friends in the left Liberal movement of Egypt for supporting the Military coup.
As for Obama fudging the question of whether it was a coup, that's exactly the useless after the fact hand-wringing I'm talking about. At that point the coup was a done deal.
It may even be true that western leaders prefer to deal with Middle Eastern autocrats, but (a) when given the opportunity that's not what they set up in Iraq. And (b) they don't actually get to decide who rules any Arab countries anyway. Even in Iraq which they conquered, because they handed that decision over to the electorate.
I know that there are a lot of people in the west who are honest about their values. But we don't see that at all from the governments. So don't blame us thinking that the US never cared about their values.
I am saying that they supported the coup before it even happens. They communicated with the military before the coup, giving them the green light to do it.
As I said, I didn't save the sources, but I know what I have read. But I can't ask you to believe me in that case.
While I won't judge the US by what someone like Trump says, but those words were very true. Obama wasn't just that stupid to announce it like that.
"A preliminary caution must be taken about both parts of the term “Arabic science.” This is, first, because the scientists discussed here were not all Arab Muslims. Indeed, most of the greatest thinkers of the era were not ethnically Arab. This is not surprising considering that, for several centuries throughout the Middle East, Muslims were a minority (a trend that only began to change at the end of the tenth century). The second caution about “Arabic science” is that it was not science as we are familiar with it today.[...]"
Its main point is that Islam's rules apply to public and personal life so universities and government budgets get controlled by religion. Fundamentalism retards scientific discovery. (I was taught fundamentalism as a child and I confirm this is true.) So when fundamentalism spread through the Islamic world, they stopped discovering new science.
A second point is that Arab culture doesn't value science. The Abbasid empire was controlled by Arabs. The empire translated scientific literature into Arabic for political reasons, not for the pursuit of knowledge. The existence of the large body of accessible scientific literature enabled highly intelligent folks to make scientific progress. The translation was not done in enduring institutions like universities. So the Golden Age of Arabic Science happened by accident, not because Arab culture or the empire valued scientific progress.
That being said, it would require (for me at least) some study to prove some of the claims you made.
Egypt, while has a majority of muslims, is a secular country. Not in the sense that they have some worldview and understanding in political systems, they just don't rule with religion. So, I wasn't taught much about religion in my studying years.
So, claims like "Arab culture doesn't value science" and "translated scientific literature into Arabic for political reasons, not for the pursuit of knowledge", would require me to read a lot in history to make a judgement.
For example, I know that the chemistry that existed in their days was actually alchemy, so I think it was reasonable for them to reject it.
The part of "Translations were for political reasons" needs a lot of research, or maybe I just don't know about it.
I also think that those boundaries between cultures are almost gone by now. While there are some extreme groups (which I believe it does exist everywhere), young people here worship Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, and old people have their version of Fox News. It is the same shit everywhere. They don't have a 'culture' or some philosophy to reject science using it as you might think. They know nothing about Islam, and they know nothing about science. That is the majority of people, not all of them of course.
I will exclude from that most of the young people who were active during the revolution. While the revolution changed us and made us more open to the world, it was a huge shock. [You might find this interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tTdlSzIANo]
I realize that the situation was fucked up before the US gets into the picture. But a lot of people realized now that we need a real change and they will accept a lot of western ideas more than you think. But we saw the people getting killed in the streets, and the US supported the killer happily. So I don't really know where the situation goes from here.
Yeh, that sums up the the article pretty well
In my opinion, blaming religion for any decline of science is completely accepted even if there's no direct correlation between both, which is very bad because it's creates a false believe that religious people aren't educated.
This is a common misconception - the church was fundamental to the development of the scientific methods, and a long list of scientific contributors were men(and was almost exclusively men) of faith[1]. To do ground-breaking science, you had to have free time and this meant you had to be independently wealthy, or had benefactor (e.g. church) sponsor your upkeep. I suspect clergy and peerage are overrepresented in science because everyone else had to work the fields (or boats) and upward mobility wasn't yet a thing.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_clergy_scient...
"Say: 'Travel through the earth, and reflect on how he [god] started the creation." - 20 Al-'Ankabut.
As long as it does not come in form of satiric cartoons, it seems...
Free speech without blasphemy laws, and being able to express new ideas or discuss new points of view without fearing to lose your life by that, is -absolutely- essential for having good science.
The whole point of Islam being against people in artwork, is to reduce egoism and superficiality. To not put anyone on a pedestal. Sure, it’s quite an extreme take, however...
Would you disagree that this is an issue in modern society? Selfies and social media perception above real life?
Not saying I agree in any absolute fashion with “no people in art” etc, but to argue in bad faith against Islam’s scientific position is just obtuse and argumentative. There is merit there.
And of course, this should go without saying but sadly cannot: extremist Muslims who commit violence in the name of these beliefs are horrible and wrong and guess what - not actually considered to be “good Muslims” by any true good Muslims out there, who value their fellow humans as also prescribed by their faith.
If you mean that some muslims won't accept some scientific results because of their islamic beliefs, then you are very much correct.
I would even say that some Quranic verses don't sound scientific at all, but it is somehow complex to judge it, since it is not intended to be a science book.
Anyway, this is far from my point. My point is the US wants the situation to be like that, period.
If you get rid of the dictator you end up like Iraq and Libya after Saddam and Gaddafi were removed. Its better to deal with the devil you know.
And it is very funny that you mentioned two countries which the US were responsible for their destruction.
Kidnapping is a risk for travellers in Egypt. Violent crime can happen. Take extra care if you're a women and alone. Terrorists have attacked places popular with tourists in recent years.
So you are just going to ignore the hundreds of thousands of people getting killed in the warzone?
Is that the price for freedom and peace?
Do you think democracy and freedom comes out of nothing? Check the french revolution, history of the UK and other democracies. There is always blood before things go back to be better.
and you conveniently ignored my point about Egypt
Take the first paragraph
> Contemporary Islam is not known for its engagement in the modern scientific project. But it is heir to a legendary “Golden Age” of Arabic science frequently invoked by commentators hoping to make Muslims and Westerners more respectful and understanding of each other. President Obama, for instance, in his June 4, 2009 speech in Cairo, praised Muslims for their historical scientific and intellectual contributions to civilization.
So first it says Contemporary "Islam" is not known for its engagement in the modern scientific project.
Then it says Golden Age of "Arabic" science.
Funny distinction. If you gonna use 'Arabic', use it everywhere.
Also another funny thing that the "Idealistic" president, Obama, who they say praised muslims for their historical scientific and intellectual contributions to civilization, had no problem working with dictators who are the main reason for the decline of scientific study in the region. And also had no problem supporting Al Sisi coup after the Egyptian revolution.
Edit: Adding that the Obama administration didn't want to admit it is a coup to be able to keep giving aid to the Egyptian military, which is prevented by the American constitution in case of a coup. Professor Chomsky always said that the US won't allow true democracy in the middle east. He even had a lecture in 2011 just after the revolution started predicting exactly what happened.
So the US uses its power to keep the situation as it is, then the very much honest westerners come and say that we are backward in scientific study. Thanks guys. You are very wise and honest.