9th January 2008, 7:43 PM
N-Man Wrote:Yeah... so between Christ and the Islamic revolution, there's about 2000 years, including 500 or so of which are referred to as the Islamic Golden age (roughly from the Hegira to the invasions of the Seljukid Turks in the 11th and 12th centuries). During that time, the Arabs made great strides in disciplines like astronomy, medicine, chemistry and mathematics, which would eventually be brought back to Europe through the Crusades and lead to the Renaissance. They notably conserved several works of Greek authors that were long gone from Europe, and for a long time Europeans had to rely on Arabic translations of Aristotle and the like (until earlier Greek versions were dug up from the dusty basements of monasteries over the course of several centuries). The Middle East, politically, was united under one caliphate, then under two or three as the situation degraded, but it really was nowhere near as bad as in Europe.
As for the Persian empire, it has about a gazillion incarnations (Medes, Achaemenids, Parthians, Sassanids, Khorezm...) so it would be nice to know which one you're referring to, but there generally wasn't an independent Persian polity during those days - it was subordinate to the Caliph, at least for some time.
edit: amusingly, it's precisely this golden age that groups like Al-Qaeda aspire to and wish to bring back. Of course, they don't realize that their interpretation of Islam is probably 100% more hardcore than the one they had back then.
The acharmenid is generally regarded as the Persian empire The Sassinid also counts as a 2nd empire; but the Parthian and Khorezm weren't culturally Persian empires. The safavid shia empire counts as one
From what I understand is that the loss of Cordoba to the Spanish and also the destruction of Baghdad to golden horde Mongols eliminated the centers of knowledge but what really killed it and prevented a revival was religious fundamentalist and the ideas of a famous theologian that ridiculed philosophy as satanic and destroyed the friendly environment which free thinkers and innovators previously came from just at the same time Europe and the church were becoming more open minded .