What happened to Islam after the 17th century

dpqt

I have been reading up a lot lately about the history of Islam, and have also been watching many videos on the history of Islamic civilisation, and in particular the area surrounding this civilisation's contribution to the world from medicine to astronomy to art to architecture and so on. One thing that strikes me is how advanced the Islamic world was in comparison to Europe for the greater part of a 1000 years. When Medieval European doctors were proscribing leaches and all manner of quack treatments for ill patients, Islamic doctors and surgeons from Arabia to Spain were treating illnesses with sophisticated instruments and medicine. When Europeans were drinking their water from the same rivers they used to dump waste (human and otherwise), cities across the Muslim world from Baghdad to Cordoba had running water and sewage systems.

Also worthy of mention is Medieval Islam's contributions to agriculture, astronomy and architecture, as the beautiful monuments to that past can attest to, including in the now Christian cities of Southern Spain such as Cordoba, Grenada and Seville. However, it seems that sometime in the 17th century, the Islamic world went into decline and was overtaken by the West. Why did this happen, given that Islam for nearly a 1000 years was so much more advanced than European civilisation?

hivizman

This is a very big question, and it would take a long time to answer fully. Also, the various explanations that are offered are highly contested, particularly as some of them were developed by "orientalists" attempting to demonstrate the inferiority of Islam.

Among the explanations are:

1. Intellectual: some time in the Middle Ages, Muslim thinkers moved away from a belief in the primacy of rational thought and its application to the world, and emphasised faith over reason.

2. Economic: from the 15th century CE, the Middle East became less important for world trade, as the opening of sea routes round the Cape of Good Hope to India and the Far East meant that European trade no longer needed to pass through the Middle East. With the opening up of America, countries such as Spain, Portugal, France, England and the Netherlands became economically powerful, and Muslim countries began to experience relative economic decline.

3. Political: the economic ascendancy of the "Atlantic" countries was followed by political ascendancy, as first trading companies and then colonies were established in Muslim countries. By the 19th century, virtually all of the Muslim world was either a colonial possession of western countries or under economic domination.

These are, of course, very crude stories, and a more nuanced account would challenge some of the simplifications in the above explanations.

doctoremma

hivizman wrote: »

1. Intellectual: some time in the Middle Ages, Muslim thinkers moved away from a belief in the primacy of rational thought and its application to the world, and emphasised faith over reason.

Nature published an issue dedicated to Islam and science, back in 2006. It might be interesting and is presented as a series of easily-digested short reports:
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/islamandscience/index.html

It seems that science does not usually flourish under totalitarian regimes, for example, Stalin got rid of scientists except those working towards his political aims. And it might be reasonable to describe *some* Islamic countries as totalitarian? Although where Iran (a relative big spender in science) comes into that, I don't know (unless, of course, their science budget is taken up by research that might fulfil their political aims....). It's not necessarily a function of wealth - Saudi Arabia can easily afford to fund world-leading scientific endeavour but chooses not to. Is science and discovery a threat to power, a path from faithful to secular society (scientifically-literate countries have higher proportions of atheists)?

The above is merely conversation, not an expert analysis

hivizman

doctoremma wrote: »

Nature published an issue dedicated to Islam and science, back in 2006. It might be interesting and is presented as a series of easily-digested short reports:
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/islamandscience/index.html

Thanks for the link.

doctoremma wrote: »

It seems that science does not usually flourish under totalitarian regimes, for example, Stalin got rid of scientists except those working towards his political aims. And it might be reasonable to describe *some* Islamic countries as totalitarian? Although where Iran (a relative big spender in science) comes into that, I don't know (unless, of course, their science budget is taken up by research that might fulfil their political aims....). It's not necessarily a function of wealth - Saudi Arabia can easily afford to fund world-leading scientific endeavour but chooses not to. Is science and discovery a threat to power, a path from faithful to secular society (scientifically-literate countries have higher proportions of atheists)?

The above is merely conversation, not an expert analysis

I believe that Saudi Arabia, and indeed the Gulf Cooperation Council countries in general, are conscious of the fact that they lag behind in terms of investment in science and technology. The GCC governments are putting very large sums of money into building and staffing new universities and research institutes, as well as supporting their nationals in studying in countries such as the USA and UK. Whether this will be effective in the medium to long term remains to be seen.

I don't think that the "totalitarian government as inherently anti-science" argument works back in the 17th century, as it's not obvious to me that there were dramatic differences in the political structures of countries in which scientific advances were taking place as compared to the Muslim world.

Jaafa

doctoremma wrote: »

Nature published an issue dedicated to Islam and science, back in 2006. It might be interesting and is presented as a series of easily-digested short reports:
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/islamandscience/index.html

It seems that science does not usually flourish under totalitarian regimes, for example, Stalin got rid of scientists except those working towards his political aims. And it might be reasonable to describe *some* Islamic countries as totalitarian? Although where Iran (a relative big spender in science) comes into that, I don't know (unless, of course, their science budget is taken up by research that might fulfil their political aims....). It's not necessarily a function of wealth - Saudi Arabia can easily afford to fund world-leading scientific endeavour but chooses not to. Is science and discovery a threat to power, a path from faithful to secular society (scientifically-literate countries have higher proportions of atheists)?

The above is merely conversation, not an expert analysis

On your Iran point its seems they are doing quite well for themselves in terms of science and economics.

Iran for example,recently became 17th in the world for PPP (Purchasing power Parity), overtaking Poland and Australia. Due to heavy sanctions Iran has had to invest heavily in domestic manufacturing and scientific R+D. Its contribution to world science has increased at 11 times the world rate between 1980-2009. Combining the scientific output of Iran and Turkey (if you go by order it goes Turkey,Iran,Israel) you get a result bigger than the rest of the middle east put together, including Israel.
As you can see from the link below, in terms of scientific output other countries in the region such as Saudi Arabia are dwarfed by Iran Turkey and Israel. On top of this Iran is largely independent of other nations for much of it's manufacturing needs. Iran is also quite advanced in areas such as chemistry,nuclear physics and nanotechnology.

The main link I see between these 3 countries is they have all had relative stability for the last 30 years and are largely free of outside intervention.Yet the same can be said for Saudi and Jordan for example and the same results have not been produced there. Why? I don't know the answer, but their are several possibilities, two of which Ill mention now.

Is it too do with religion? Iran is a theocracy yet far surpasses Saudi Arabia and Jordan with their monarchies. It is well documented that at it's core the Quran encourages rational thought, and the accusation of ALL knowledge. Perhaps then it is the perversion of this message that lies at the heart of the problem, as with many of the problems in religions today. I have seen some evidence to suggest that Saudi Arabia suppresses a lot of scientific en-devours and education in general in some round about method of keeping the public under control, but still this isn't the full story.

Perhaps the main reason, is Saudi and Jordan have had a heavy reliance on Western nations to supply them with capital, workers, expertise, weapons and other equipment, with little effort to develop their own. Whereas in Iran and Turkey this reliance on foreign countries is temporary, only long enough for them to learn the tricks of the trade themselves before continuing on their own.

That's my take on it anyway, and I know the OP was talking about a historical decline, but I think the modern situation has a relevance too.

A short paper on the above with the relevant info.

Mark Hamill

Jaafa wrote: »

A short paper on the above with the relevant info.

That paper seems to be looking at it in a very simplistic manner. It is simply adding up the number of journals published by each region and saying who published the most. It doesn't seem to take account of the quality of the journals published (it doesn't say what resources it used to find the journals, or attempt to measure the impact of the journals it looks at). There are plenty of low impact journals that it could be using to make its numbers, full of papers that would be laughed out of the likes of JACS or Nature. I've never seen a paper from a middle eastern university (although I work in chemistry and Iran is probably more represented in physics).

doctoremma

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I've never seen a paper from a middle eastern university (although I work in chemistry and Iran is probably more represented in physics).

I am a biologist and I see a fair few coming out of Israel (which probably doesn't count for this discussion). None that I can remember from Saudi/Iran/other large Middle East countries. As you say, I suspect many of these universities focus on physics/geology/etc.

I had an Iranian PhD student who had a much-lauded Bachelors from home somewhere and her standard of knowledge was dreadful. Of course, that's anecdotal, and it's also possible that different education structures spit out students at different levels in global terms.

As for (nominally) Muslim countries that perform well in science, I think you have to go further afield. Malaysia is making a run for it, I've seen several North African universities producing decent research (although technically, North Africa isn't really "further afield"!) and a handful from Pakistan.

Jaafa

Mark Hamill wrote: »

That paper seems to be looking at it in a very simplistic manner. It is simply adding up the number of journals published by each region and saying who published the most. It doesn't seem to take account of the quality of the journals published (it doesn't say what resources it used to find the journals, or attempt to measure the impact of the journals it looks at). There are plenty of low impact journals that it could be using to make its numbers, full of papers that would be laughed out of the likes of JACS or Nature. I've never seen a paper from a middle eastern university (although I work in chemistry and Iran is probably more represented in physics).

Well I'm not surprised you don't see many papers from the middle east, as you can see from that link the numbers published are very low. I was speaking about mainly Iran specifically just because it happens to be the one I know most about, their main area's of research seem to be physics, nanotechnology and medicinal sciences. Here is a more detailed study which also talks about the quality of Iranian publishing's.

It seems the standard of Iranian papers is fairly good, the problem being their indexing, which may explain why you wont see many here.

Although reliable studies revealed considerable improvement in Iranian science production and in its global academic ranking, only few Iranian journals have been indexed by reputable databases like Web of Science and Medline. According to the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) only 3 Iranian journals were indexed in Web of Science until 2005.
One of the main reasons for the improvement of Iranian scientific ranks in regional and international academic ranking systems is the growing process of indexing Iranian journals especially medical journals by major information databases. According to Akbari Sari, the present director of CAIMJ, most Iranian medical journals have been indexed in Index Medicus for the Eastern Mediterranean Region and Index Copernicus. He reported that out of 134 Iranian medical journals, 52 were in general fields while 82 journals were related to specific fields in medicine and health science. Ninety eight journals were in Persian language but most of them included English abstracts as well. The remaining 36 were in English and most of them covered specific topics in medicine. He believed that although the quality and quantity of Iranian medical journals were rapidly increasing, a large number of them needed further improvement to be indexed in major international databases.18 By increasing the quality and decreasing publication frequency of the journals, a larger number of Iranian journals may find suitable places in reputable databases.19

Just out of curiosity how many Chinese or Turkish Russian papers do you see?

Mark Hamill

Jaafa wrote: »

Well I'm not surprised you don't see many papers from the middle east, as you can see from that link the numbers published are very low. I was speaking about mainly Iran specifically just because it happens to be the one I know most about, their main area's of research seem to be physics, nanotechnology and medicinal sciences.

Iran not in the middle east?

Jaafa wrote: »

Here is a more detailed study which also talks about the quality of Iranian publishing's.

It seems the standard of Iranian papers is fairly good, the problem being their indexing, which may explain why you wont see many here.

You understand though that their indexing is a function of the impact and quality of their journals? They are indexed by third parties based on the third parties assessment of their journals publishing standards. The standard of a hand full are considered good, the rest need to be improved, thats what your quoted paper says.

Jaafa wrote: »

Just out of curiosity how many Chinese or Turkish Russian papers do you see?

Seen a few Chinese papers (fairly recent), a fair few old Russian papers (in old Russian journals from the 60s-70s) which I could never actually access, never seen a Turkish one, as far as I know.

doctoremma

Affiliations in the current issue of Nature, over 17 research articles/letters (by country only, multiple authors from one country counted only once):
USA (14)
UK (5)
Australia, Canada (3 each)
Germany, Switzerland, Holland (2 each)
France, Sweden, Italy, South Africa (1 each)

Affiliations in the current issue of Science, over 15 research reports (counted as above):
USA (8)
Germany (3)
China (2)
Australia, France, Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Vietnam, Canada (1)

I was bored

Clearly, top research is coming from the USA, with Europe second (UK and Germany most prominent). Very little from Asia, none from Middle East.

Jaafa

Iran not in the middle east?

It is. I'm not sure what your question is. I don't doubt you haven't seen any middle eastern papers or papers from the middle east in general, I'm merely trying to find an explanation as to why.

You understand though that their indexing is a function of the impact and quality of their journals? They are indexed by third parties based on the third parties assessment of their journals publishing standards. The standard of a hand full are considered good, the rest need to be improved, thats what your quoted paper says.

I understand that. I'm not trying to say Iran is the pinnacle of science or anywhere near European standards, but considering the disadvantages they've had in the past 30 years (devastating 8 year long war, many years of sanctions, brain drain etc), they're doing pretty well.

Seen a few Chinese papers (fairly recent), a fair few old Russian papers (in old Russian journals from the 60s-70s) which I could never actually access, never seen a Turkish one, as far as I know.

And where would you place Chinese and Russian globally? Does the fact that we don't see their papers mean they aren't any good? Or is there some practical reason why we wouldn't see nearly as many papers from countries like that compared to Europe and America? Not trying to grill you, honest questions here.

Calibos

I wonder if the rise in prominance and power of Christian Fundamentalism and anti intellectualism in the USA is analgous to Islam in the 17th century. A backlash from the more fundamentalist against the moderates. ie. The very success of islamic intellectual endeavour up till then in effect caused its own downfall. Is the same happening in the USA today which might turn the USA into an irrelevent backwater in terms of science in 100 years??

Mark Hamill

Jaafa wrote: »

It is. I'm not sure what your question is. I don't doubt you haven't seen any middle eastern papers or papers from the middle east in general, I'm merely trying to find an explanation as to why.

You said:

Well I'm not surprised you don't see many papers from the middle east, as you can see from that link the numbers published are very low. I was speaking about mainly Iran specifically

Jaafa wrote: »

I understand that. I'm not trying to say Iran is the pinnacle of science or anywhere near European standards, but considering the disadvantages they've had in the past 30 years (devastating 8 year long war, many years of sanctions, brain drain etc), they're doing pretty well.

War is actually pretty good catalyst for certain types of scientific research - medicine (war casualties), physics (from weapons research).

Jaafa wrote: »

And where would you place Chinese and Russian globally? Does the fact that we don't see their papers mean they aren't any good? Or is there some practical reason why we wouldn't see nearly as many papers from countries like that compared to Europe and America? Not trying to grill you, honest questions here.

Well, the papers need to pass the criteria that the journals set (pass peer review). Good journals are considered good because they have very thorough peer review. A lot of these poor papers end up in homegrown journals which may not have the strictest peer review. This happens everywhere, by the way, there are creationist "journals" in America that are full of crap, stuff that you couldn't get published as science fiction. Its just that there are plenty of good journals, and the output of the US and EU (and a few other places, like Japan) is of sufficent quality and quantity that we don't notice the bad from these reasons as much.

Jaafa

You said:

Perhaps I didn't make my self clear, I said the middle east in general publishes few papers, so when talking about one country specifically, your even less likely to see papers from just that country alone.

War is actually pretty good catalyst for certain types of scientific research - medicine (war casualties), physics (from weapons research).

Not in Iran's case. While it's true that as a result of the isolation Iran faced during the war they tried to reduce their dependence on foreign manufacturing, weapons and other products, but there wasn't anything for them to 'discover' through research that could aid in war. They didn't develop new medicines or new weapons, they reverse engineered western weapon systems and copied already available medicines. Which was a logical step considered their situation financially and politically. They started playing catch up and still are, but I overall financially and politically their situation has vastly improved since them and I think we will start to see new developments coming from them in the coming decades.

Well, the papers need to pass the criteria that the journals set (pass peer review). Good journals are considered good because they have very thorough peer review. A lot of these poor papers end up in homegrown journals which may not have the strictest peer review. This happens everywhere, by the way, there are creationist "journals" in America that are full of crap, stuff that you couldn't get published as science fiction. Its just that there are plenty of good journals, and the output of the US and EU (and a few other places, like Japan) is of sufficent quality and quantity that we don't notice the bad from these reasons as much.

I understand this. It's mainly an issue of quality your saying. The above study I published also mentioned this, but said that the language and financial aspects come into it too. How much much do you think they contribute to it?

Mark Hamill

Jaafa wrote: »

Perhaps I didn't make my self clear, I said the middle east in general publishes few papers, so when talking about one country specifically, your even less likely to see papers from just that country alone.

Ok

Jaafa wrote: »

I understand this. It's mainly an issue of quality your saying. The above study I published also mentioned this, but said that the language and financial aspects come into it too. How much much do you think they contribute to it?

Most scientific journals are in English. The more obscure a language is, the less it would or could be read outside of its native country. Financial aspects directly effect the quality of the paper and the journals (both need sufficient funding to properly assess scientific discoveries or reports). While the more wealthy universities generally produce a higher quality and quantity of papers, small universities can still produce good quality material - usually just less of it. So both language and funding would be fairly important aspects, however simply throwing money at iranian groups willing to report entirely in English wouldn't necessarily mean higher quality papers.

Jaafa

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Ok


Most scientific journals are in English. The more obscure a language is, the less it would or could be read outside of its native country. Financial aspects directly effect the quality of the paper and the journals (both need sufficient funding to properly assess scientific discoveries or reports). While the more wealthy universities generally produce a higher quality and quantity of papers, small universities can still produce good quality material - usually just less of it. So both language and funding would be fairly important aspects, however simply throwing money at iranian groups willing to report entirely in English wouldn't necessarily mean higher quality papers.

Ok thank you for answering my questions. I'll let the thread get back to the original topic now.

doctoremma

Just to add my two pennies to this:

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Most scientific journals are in English. The more obscure a language is, the less it would or could be read outside of its native country.

This is very true. Non-English papers are unlikely to be published in high-impact journals, likely to be ignored by English-only speakers on database searches and not get cited frequently i.e. not achieve any level of "fame". All these things are necessary to promote your research and secure funding.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Financial aspects directly effect the quality of the paper and the journals (both need sufficient funding to properly assess scientific discoveries or reports). While the more wealthy universities generally produce a higher quality and quantity of papers, small universities can still produce good quality material - usually just less of it.

Also to note that aside from basic research costs, many journals have high charges for publication costs, to produce colour figures, to cover open-access (running to £1000s). This can be a significant burden for a less-wealthy group.

doctoremma

Calibos wrote: »

I wonder if the rise in prominance and power of Christian Fundamentalism and anti intellectualism in the USA is analgous to Islam in the 17th century. A backlash from the more fundamentalist against the moderates. ie. The very success of islamic intellectual endeavour up till then in effect caused its own downfall. Is the same happening in the USA today which might turn the USA into an irrelevent backwater in terms of science in 100 years??

There are relatively few areas of scientific endeavour which intersect (or trample over) the "scientific" beliefs of the religious conservatives (at least, in a manner obvious to the religious conservatives). Surveys show that the elite of American scientists are majority atheist and I can only see that figure increasing.

However, is it fair to say that the elite institutions come from the more liberal north and west? I suspect so. I've never read a paper from the University of Alabama, the majority US papers I read come out of New England and the West Coast. Is that down to lower levels of religious belief promoting scientific freedom or simply a function of higher wealth? I suspect the triumverate of wealth/religion/science are inextricably linked, with no single cause-and-effect.