Global Intifada

I’ve received several complaints from people that I post articles that are too long. For those of you who don’t feel like reading the entire thing or would like some background before delving into it, the following comments are my “cliff notes summary” of this excellent piece by Professor George Saliba.

Professor Saliba has written a response to a professor who is criticizing him for his own criticism of the latter’s work. Professor Huff has argued that the decline of science in the Muslim world was related to the absence of freedom, which was present in the West and allowed scientific development to occur.

Professor Saliba makes the following points:

(1) He is critical of the paradigm that interprets scientific development along racial, ethnic, or religious divides. (i.e. is classifying science along Greek, Arab, or European lines based more on the historical record or a preconceived ideological statement?)

(2) He points out that plenty of scientific communities have developed in the absence of “freedom”, such as those in Europe (Catholic monarchies, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, etc). After all, how can early modern Europe be attributed to the rise of science when there were specific instances of an absence of freedom (Michael Servitus being burned at the stake, the Catholic Church forcing Galileo to renounce his beliefs and later on placing Copernicus’s works on the Index of banned books)? For Professor Saliba, the concept of “modern science” is predicated a circular argument that serves no other purpose than to support the ahistorical thesis that “European” science was something distinct from science which was shared knowledge between various cultures and generations in order to support the notion of European “superiority” over “primitive” or “savage” cultures. 

(3) He challenges the entire notion that there was a “decline” of science in the Muslim world at all. He argues that (a) Muslims scientists were still making advances up until the 1600s or so, (b) science didn’t “decline” but couldn’t keep up with the advanced rate of development in the Western world, and also points out that even if a “decline” occurred, it wasn’t true because (c) most educational institutions in the Muslim world were relatively free.

(4) He argues that the real distinction that explains the surge in scientific development in the West was attributed to colonialism which brought an influx of wealth into Europe that was used by power elites to subsidize scientific learning. Patronage, not freedom, was the source of the spike in scientific discoveries in Europe. Professor Saliba looks at Islamic history and attributes periods of scientific development and points out that they coincide with patronage by Muslim rulers. What is most interesting about this specific argument is that he is able to list specific examples of the relationships between rulers and scientists through patronage in order to support further colonialism or to benefit from it.

Overall, an excellent article that also deconstructs Eurocentric and Orientalist arguments that insinuate a “decline” of the Muslim world.

This argument coincides with the work of the other author’s I’ve been posting (especially Pomeranz and Goldstone). The period of scientific development in the West coincides with the discovery of the New World, whereas old cultures were locked into a Malthusian trap in the Ottoman Empire, India, and China (according to Pomeranz). Coupled with Goldstone’s argument, these demographic, economic, and sociological pressures resulted in state fragmentation right when Western powers were expanding. These three sources, pieced together, create a far more accurate account of history in the past few hundred years that go beyond the classical narrative (reason, religious reform, scientific development) but free of the excessive generalizations of Marxism or reactionary Islamists.

Now that I’ve summarized the basic points of the article, here is Professor George Saliba’s “Flying Goats and Other Obsessions - A Response to Toby Huff’s Reply.”

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