Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #37 - The Golden Age of Islam

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Civilization #37 - The Golden Age of Islam

Okay, good morning, so today we do Islam. Some quick facts, some questions that we will look at today about the Islamic golden age. The first major question is, while Europe was in its dark ages, Islam was embarked on its golden age. So the first question is, how did this happen? Why was there, where was there, the there this divergence. The second question we're going to look at is, what ended the Islamic golden age? Why would this period come to an end?

The third question we're going to look at is, eventually how did Christian Europe overtake the Muslim world? So those are the three big questions we will look at in today's class. Some quick facts about Islam. It is the world's second largest religion. Christianity has 2 billion people. Islam has 1 billion people.

They are divided into two major sects. The Shia, which is based primarily in Iran, and the Sunni, which is everywhere else. The light green are the Sunni people, and the dark green are the Shia people. And as you can see, Islam extends all across Africa, Middle East, and Central Asia, and into India. The most populous Muslim country in the world is actually Indonesia.

The Shia and the Sunni, the only major difference is that the Shia believe that only a direct descendant of Muhammad's grandson Ali can be the leader of the religion, whereas the Sunni do not believe this. Now, this is a religion of one billion people, so there are many different belief system, many different sects within this cosmology, but this is really the major difference, okay, between the Shia and the Sunni. So Muslim means to submit yourself to God, to believe in God, and to submit yourself wholeheartedly to him.

And Islam was founded by a man named Muhammad, who the Muslims considered the prophet of God, the final prophet, and Jesus was the penultimate prophet. And the legend is that at age 40, Muhammad, who is a merchant or a trader, he has a vision. He goes into a cave to meditate. and the archangel Gabriel visits him and reveals to him certain visions that he has memorized.

And these visions become the basis for the holy book of the Muslim tradition called the Korat. And Muhammad understands that his mission is to be a messenger of God and to reveal the truth of God to the pagan society in the Arabian world. So he's based in Mecca. And when he tries to reveal a truth, he has met with a lot of resistance. And eventually he's forced out of Mecca, and he goes to Medina. This is called the Hidra in the Muslim tradition, the pilgrimage. And when he goes to Medina, he becomes the leader of the warring factions within Medina, primarily between the pagans, the Muslim tribes, and the Jewish tribes.

tribe so there are three major factions and at this point Mohammed Christendan call the Constitution of Medina which promises religious freedom to everyone within the Muslim tradition okay so ever since the beginning and this is very important the religion of Islam was a open tolerant and inclusive religion and they have they have basically maintained this tradition for the next thousand years. Okay? Eventually, Islam will spread from the Arabian desert to all across the Middle East.

They will conquer the Persian Empire, and they will take at least half of the Byzantine Empire, including the richest parts of the Byzantine Empire, which are Syria and Egypt. They will also take Jerusalem, where they will take Jerusalem, where they will, will build something called the Al-Axak Mount Mosque. And legend has it that Mohammed ascended to heaven from this place. Now what's really important for us to remember about this place is the Al-Axat Mosque, it's still there in Jerusalem, and it is built on top of something called the Temple Mount. Remember in the year 70, the Romans burned down the second temple of the Jews, the Holy

site in the Jewish faith. And then the Muslims came and built the Aksak Mosque on top of the Temple Mount. Now, this is a very strange thing to do. If the Muslim tradition is open, inclusive, and tolerant, and Jews are welcome into the tradition, why would you build a mosque on top of the Jewish holy site? That doesn't really make any sense.

And quite honestly, this has been a mystery to everyone. No one has been able to figure this out, okay? So we will today attempt to solve one of the great mysteries in the Islam tradition. Why was the Al-Aqqqad mosque built on top of the Jewish Temple Mount? Okay? As I mentioned, the Arabs will expand from the desert of Arabia, and they will will conquer the Sassanian Persian Empire and they will take at least half of the Byzantines. They will try to lay siege on Constantopol, but remember that when we discuss the Byzantine Empire,

Constantinople is designed as an impenetable fortress. So there will be two major sieges and because of the walls and because of Greek fire, they will be unable to take the city. Islam was lightning fast. In less than 100 years, they spread from the desert of Arabia, really the poorest place in this entire region, throughout most of the Middle East. So the dark green is where they started, and the light green is where they eventually expanded to.

And remember, this process takes less than 100 years, which is remarkable. The Omadiq Caliphate was about 700. So let's just compare the Omadiq Caliphate with other empires, including the tongue. The tongue really is the height of Chinese civilization. But as you can see, the Omadiq Caliphate really is the largest empire in the world at this time. And eventually, they will also become the wealthiest empire at this time. There are five pillars of Islam.

It is an extremely simple and clear religion when compared with Christianity and Judaism. There are five pillars to the religion. First of all, you have to believe that Allah, God, is the only God. And this mirrors the Christian and a Jewish faith. You are required to pray at least five times a day facing the direction of Mecca. You must give money to the poor. You must fast during the holy days. And last thing is you must make something called the Hajj,

which is a pilgrimage to the holy site in Mecca and perform rituals in Mecca. This is something that all Muslims must do. must do and you will have the poorest Muslims they will save their entire lives just so that they could make this hash okay the Muslim people are probably the most devout the most religious people you will meet they take their religion very very seriously this is the haj and mecca and um I was actually in Saudi Arabia and I tried to go there now I was told only Muslims can go and and and so I was As a train station, I was trying to buy a ticket to Mecca. And they said, what's your Muslim name?

Well, I'm not Muslim. Like, well, you can't go then. So I was disappointed. But it is a beautiful, absolutely one of the most beautiful rituals in the world today. Okay, so to summarize the introduction, there are three major mysteries to the history of Islam that we still haven't really solved today.

The first mystery is, we know that they have something called the Constitution of Medina. We also know that Jews, who are literate, were part of the early movement of Islam. So why do we have no early records for the first 100 years? What, for the first 100 years of the movement? That's very, very strange. Okay?

Another strange thing is, why would the Muslims go to war against two major empires, the Romans and the Persians? That's kind of suicidal. They didn't know they were going to win, so why did they go to war? That's the first mystery we'll solve today. Second mystery is, remember I said that the Shia and the Sunni have a major sectarian divide. The Shia believed that only the descendants of Mohammed's grandson Ali can be the caliph, the leader of the Muslim people, the Sunni stone. So why didn't Muhammad just

name a successor and avoid the civil wars that were erupt after his death? The third question is why was Al-Aqqad built on the site of the temple mount? And this is still a problem today, because a lot of conflict in the Middle East is driven by this problem, where the Jews want to rebuild the temple but to do so they would have to destroy the Al-Axact mosque which is the third holiest site in the Islam world so this is a very important question that is still relevant to us today so we will also look at these three mysteries and again no one knows the answers to any of these three questions and no one will ever know because so much of historical record has been lost to us

but I will try to provide you with an explanation okay given my understanding of the Islamic world, which by the way is extremely limited, okay? So please ask questions, please challenge me. I'm looking at you, Doug, okay? All right. All right. Okay, so today's topic is Islamic Golden Age. So let's just have a quick look at the Golden Age.

At the height of Islamic influence, there were a few centers of of incredible cultural creativity. One such site is Bokhara, Uzbekistan. It's still there, guys. You can get on a plane like Doug did and visit it. It is an incredible city. I say that, not actually having visited it, but I've heard terrific things from Doug.

And you can go online as well and look at videos, but it is an incredible city. And it shows you the immense creativity, the artistic creativity of this I'm in golden age. But the main cultural center of the Islamic Golden Age is Baghdad. It's not so beautiful now, but back then it was really the center of the world. It's a round city, and it's a new city. This is a topographical map of the city.

As you can see, it's surrounded by the Tigris and Euphrates, and it is a round city. One of a few round cities of that time. Baghdad was a capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, which started the Islamic Golden Age. The Abbasid Caliphate is the successor to the Omayyad Empire. And this is where the Abbasid Caliphate was. And this is what Muslims consider the height of their civilization. The thing that's really important for us to understand about the Abbasid Empire is that not only were they influential in the Muslim world, but they eventually would come to create the world that we live in today.

Okay? So when we think of globalization, we think of this as a recent phenomenon. But look at the trade route that the Abbasid Caliphate would create over its three to foreign year history. It connects the entire world. Okay? As I mentioned last semester, globalization has always existed to a certain extent in world history. But the Abbasis, the Muslim religion, would take these existing networks and make them a lot richer, a lot more dense, and a lot faster. Okay. So you may not know this, but but the Abbasid traded heavily with the Tang and the Song dynasties.

In fact, it is the Abbasid who would initiate something called the Maritime Silk Road. The Overland Silk Road has existed for a long time, but it is the Abbasids who will eventually create the Maritime Silk Road. And it will bring China into the world to a greater extent than ever before. Okay? So this is a trade. The main center for cultural production in the Muslim world is something called the House of Wisdom. And its model is the Library of Exandria.

Remember last semester we discussed the Library of Alexandria in Egypt? And its mission was to be the first university to take all Hellenistic knowledge and culture and systemize it for dissemination. And the House of Wisdom was doing the same thing, where it would take all knowledge and culture within the Islamic world and outside the Islamic world and systemized and centers it for mass dissemination. So the things that they were doing were they were taking Hindu numerals. So 0, 1, 2, 3. We still use them today. They took them from India, and again, they standardized it and disseminated this knowledge. They took works from Aristotle and Plato, translated into Arabic and Persian, and then disseminated it.

The main contribution of the Southern Golden Age to world culture is in actually mathematics. Okay, so they took all the math in the Greek world and in the Persian world and in the Hindu world, and then they would systemize it and then built on top of it. Okay? This is a rendition of the House of Wisdom. This is where the three major... major creative civilizations would meet and exchange ideas right the Greeks the Jews and the Persians they would also take ideas from the Indian tradition and a Chinese

tradition as well the major literature or literary work that we still have today from the Islamic Golden Age is the Arabian Nights okay scholars have looked at this very closely and most scholars believe that the story actually from India. Also, what's important for us to understand is that at the time, this was translated, it was actually not that popular within the Muslim world. Poetry, philosophy, mathematics, science were considered the high arts. This was considered low arts.

What we have today is that the Europeans would discover this centuries after this time of golden age, and they fell in love with these stories, and that's why we still have them today. And Disney movies are based on this as well. Okay, so let's look at some of the major thinkers and philosophers of this at my golden age. So at this time in one history, we don't differentiate between philosophers, poets, scientists, mathematicians. All intellectuals engage in all these different different, and scientists, mathematicians, okay? all these different fields.

So one most famous is Rumi, who is Persian, a poet, a mystic, a philosopher. Ibn Sina is probably the most famous intellectual of the Islamic Golden Age. His books, his works were admired in Europe. So the Islamic philosophy was being exported to Europe, where they would have a major influence on many of Europe's major thinkers.

You may have heard a man named Leonardo Fibonacci. You should have heard of him in math class. Well, at this particular time in history, he was going to Baghdad, to study from the leading mathematicians of this time and taking their ideas and importing them all back to Europe. So this is Ibn Sena. And the Latin name is Avicina.

Even Rusa, Avaros, is also a major intellectual at this time. Just to show you how influential these two were in Europe, let's look at Dante's Divine Comedy. So Dante is in hell, and there in Limbo, he's meeting the most influential, the greatest philosopher, in human history who have influenced European civilization. Obviously, he's going to name Socrates and Plato, okay? But guess what?

He also names Avarose and Abacanti. Okay? So Dante is acknowledging the debt Europeans have to Islam. This is important for us because the Muslim intellectual influence on Europe has been whitewashed from history. This is something you do not learn in school usually. But without Islam, you can make the argument

that Europe could not have modernized, okay? And later on, I'll explain why that's the case. Oma Kahan is also another famous intellectual poet philosopher. This man, Musa al-Hazami, is considered the father of modern day algebra. His Latin name is algorithmy, okay? And if this sounds familiar, it's because his name will give us the modern English word algorithm.

Both algebra and algorithm were originally Arabic words. All right, so most of the math you're studying in school actually originated during the Islamic Golden Age. This name is Al-Hazan, and he invented physics, basically, optics. Again, extremely influential. And again, these ideas will be imported back to Europe, and they will become the basis of the Renaissance. Al-Zarhari is the father of surgery. At this time in world history, the very best hospitals

are in the Islamic world, by far. This is the first 24-hour hospital in Baghdad. What's also amazing about these hospitals is that if you were poor and could not pay, you could receive medical treatment for free. That was just part of the faith. All poor were treated with great charity and kindness during the Islamic golden age. This is Al-Qa-William. Again, guys, I don't speak Arabic.

I'm probably butchering the name. But it was founded in 859 in Fess Morocco. This is important because this is actually the first degree granting university in the whole world. It's still there, guys. This is the oldest university in the world. What's also amazing is it was founded by a woman who inherited a fortune from her father, and she spent all her money on building this university. Morocco is an amazing country as well.

Okay, so 1258, the Islamic golden age officially came in an end. Or that's what scholars believe. And the reason why is, on 1258, the Mongols will sack Baghdad and they will burn all the books. Okay? Or that's what the legend tells us. Baghdad had a thriving bookstore culture. And this was unique in the world. intellectuals or the elite they spent a lot of their resources on buying books and

they imported paper from China they learned how to make paper from China so books were extremely popular within the within Baghdad okay especially among the elite as well because of the Koran it was necessary for the elite to be literate it was the manate of you to be literate and the Quran will also standardize Arabic and make it the official language of the entire Muslim world okay but just because the Islamic one age ended does not mean that creative is stopped in the Muslim world this is ibn colden and he is considered the father of social science okay economics

quantitative history, politics, this man invented a lot of these disciplines. He is most famous for his idea of Asabaya, which means social cohesion. So he was actually the first to systematically think about grand history. Why do civilizations rise and why do they decline? And his conclusion is that the borderlands are able to conquer empires because the borderlands, the people there, have Asabaya, which just means that they are more egalitarian, more free, more cohesive as a culture. Whereas the empire, because it's so big, it loses a lot of cohesion.

And again, Ibn Kodan is a major inspiration for the history that I try as well. From 1,700 to 1700, the world will be dominated by three major empires. The Ottomans, the Sathayat's in Iran, and the Mughals in India. They are collectively known as the gun power empires. So what's amazing is since its inception about six, 22, up until the year 1700, the Islamic religion dominate the world. And so the question for us is, why was that the case? How did Islam overtake Europe and overtake Christianity?

That is a mystery and question for us today that we will look at. Okay, so let's go back to the three mysteries that I introduced earlier. Why do we have no written records, even though we know that the people within the movement, Jews and Christians, knew how to read and write? That's the first question. Second question is, why didn't Mohammed name a successor? The third question is, why was the Al-Qaasat mosque built on top of the Temple Mount? So this is a paradox because Jews were an extremely important part of that early movement.

So why would you offend the Jews like this? Okay, to understand what happened, okay, let's go back in time. And we know that in 622, Mohammed goes to Medina and that's what starts the Islamic movement. But let's just go over to Jerusalem and figure out what's happening there. And once we do that, then we're able to figure out what's going on in that world. It turns out that in 622 there's a major war going on between the two major powers at this time, the Persians and the Byzantines. And it is a deadly war that is engulfing the entire Middle East.

So this is from Wikipedia. Now guys, never trust Wikipedia as a historical source, but it's useful for us to understand what contemporary historians think. So this is from Wikipedia. The Jews have aligned themselves with the Persians. Why? Because, first of all, the Romans control Jerusalem. And in the year 70, the Romans burned down their temple. And in the year 135, the Romans expelled the Jews from Jerusalem, their holy city.

So ever since then, the Jews, obviously they want revenge, but they also want to return. return to the Holy City and rebuild the temple. And with the Persians, they saw this as an opportunity because historically, the Persian and the Jews have gone along very well. So the Jews help the Persians take Jerusalem and push out the Byzantines. When that happens, the Christians in Jerusalem, they revolt and they force out the Jews,

and then the Byzantines, under the Emperor Heracles, they returned Jerusalem in the first crusade. This is the beginning of the idea of crusade. And they retake the city, and then what they do is they expel the Jews in Jerusalem, obviously, but then they start to kill a lot of Jews. Okay? And they force these Jews outside of Jerusalem.

So now these Jews, these Jews, Jews have nowhere to go. But the Southern California Cardiffichardian of Medina in Arabia, right? There is a prophet, Muhammad, who is promising religious tolerance for all. All can practice their faith in peace, right? So it makes sense for a lot of these Jews, not all of them,

but allow them to join this early movement. What's important for us to understand is that at this point, Islam, Muslim, is not a distinct religion. All these people are called believers, because Muhammad sees himself as the final messenger of God. Abraham was the first, then you have Moses, then you have Jesus, and now Muhammad is the very last. So all these three different traditions,

the Christian tradition, the Jewish tradition, and Islam tradition, in the beginning, we're all just one religion, one idea, which is to bring God to earth and make everyone understand that God is the true God, okay, to create monifism on earth. That's the origin of this new religion of Islam. Okay? And this is the Constitution of Medina, which is in the Koran and which we know to be historically true. Maybe not the wording, okay, but we know that this existed. And these people were called believers. And also, this would also include

people who believe in Zoroastrianism. Because Zoroastrianism was also a monotheistic religion. So the Kastrianian Omedina was an attempt to unite all monotheistic religions into one single tradition that fought for God.

Also, what's really important for us to understand is, not only is there all this persecution going on against Jews and against Christians and against Zoroastrians, okay? But also, this is an apocalyptic stage, where all three traditions believe this was literally the end of the world. If you were Jewish, you believe in a final battle called Argumenton between the Messiah, who would lead you, and against two enemies called Gog and Magog. Guess what? the Persians and the Romans were fighting each other. So you could easily interpret this to mean

the Persians and the Romans were the Gog and Magog enemy. In your tradition, this would be the final battle. This is when Jerusalem is most threatened. Well, the Romans, the Byzantines, just took your city and mastered your people. So in a Jewish tradition, this is the end of days. This is the final battle. And the Messiah would emerge and lead you to final victory.

That person, a lot of Jews could interpret to be Muhammad. So for the Jews, this is the end of days. But for Christians, they also believe this is the end of days because there were a final battle between the Antichrist and the Messiah. The end of Christ is obviously Heracles, who is the emperor of the Biosians, who've been persecuting Christians for a long time. Remember, the official religion of the Byzantines is the Holy Trinity. But most Christians didn't believe in the Holy Trinity,

and they were persecuted for the refusal to believe in the Holy Trinity. So for Christians, this is also the final battle. Zoroastrians believe in a final battle between good and evil. So this is an apocalyptic age, where everyone believes this is it, the final battle. Muhammad is saying to everyone, guys we're all one people, united by God, and we are here to fight for him. Okay? And this is very appealing for people. So the best evidence for my argument is actually the Koran. Okay? So again, we don't have any written records of Muhammad, but

what we do believe is the Koran. It is a collection of many of Mohammed's original sayings that have been redacted over time okay so let's look at some passages from the Quran to better understand how Muhammad was thinking and when he was preaching to the Christians the Jews and the Zoroastians all right all people of the book by this he means both the Christians and the Jews okay why do you argue about Abraham when the Torah and the gospel were not revealed until after him. Will you not reason? So he's saying, why are we arguing about Scripture? Why are we arguing about belief? We all acknowledge that Abraham is our

forefather. And Abraham came before the Bible, it came before the Old Testament, and the New Testament. So what's the argument? Here you are, you argue about things you know, but what do you argue about things you do not know? Alan knows and you do not know. Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but he was a monotheist. I Muslim okay so this is what Muhammad is saying a Muslim is someone who believes in God as the only true God and that includes Jews and Christians and he was not other polytheists okay let's also look at Muhammad responding to the Christian tradition okay when the Christian tradition a lot of conflict arises from a

debate over the nature of Jesus in his relationship with God And what Muhammad is saying is, guys, the idea of Jesus makes no sense. Jesus cannot be God. Jesus at best can only be a messenger of God, just like me. And the idea that Jesus is God makes no sense. Jesus is a human, just like me. God is God. He would not represent himself through a human.

And so let's look at what he says. They just believe those who say Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary. But the Messiah himself said, Messiah is Jesus, right? O children of Israel, worship Allah, my lord and your Lord. He's making a clear distinction. God is my God. I'm not God. I'm not his son. He is God. Whoever associates others of Allah, Allah has forbidden Him paradise, and his dwelling is the fire.

The wrongdoers have no saviors. If you believe that Jesus is God, you are committing heresy again. the true God. They can only be one God. There can't be two gods together. They disbelieve those who say Allah is the third of three, but there is no that idea except the one God. If they do not refrain from what they say, a painful torment will befall those among them who disbelieve. So what he's saying, and this is very important, is that Muhammad is saying the Holy Trinity, the idea is just nonsense. They disbelieve those who say Allah is the third or three. Allah

not be a fraction of anything he is the one and only okay now in our time and we hear this we don't really have emotional reaction but place yourself back in their time the year 622 most Christians are being persecuted for refusing to accept the holy trinity as scripture because it makes no sense we discussed this in class okay and now but if you say it makes no sense you could be killed okay you'll be persecuted for sure and no more and now Mohammed is saying you guys were right all along you should believe in yourself all along you were right all along okay so let's use an analogy let's say for example like the world government okay we have a world government and

for whatever reason the world government tells us the sky is red and you're like wait a minute i know blue and i know red and the sky is blue but if you say the sky is blue you will be put in jail you are not allowed to say the sky is blue and then you have people teachers like me telling you the reason why you believe the sky is blue and not red is your eyes lie to you you cannot trust yourself You your eyes are defective. That's a problem with human beings. We can't trust what we see And you have to go through life believing the sky is red even though you know in your heart it's blue But then one day someone like a teacher says to you in class actually guys we've been lying to you all along the sky is blue

Imagine your sense of relief and Empowerment and liberation when someone of authority actually tells you what you've always believed. That's what Muhammad is doing. Muhammad is confirming to everyone that what they believed, what they knew about God was right all along. Okay.

So, Muhammad's final message to the people is God is God and only God, and he is everywhere. And you can see him, you can touch him because he's everywhere. And as such, you can feel him, and he can be inside of you. And so this idea will actually occupy most of the Quran.

And this is what he says. With him are the keys of the unseen. None knows him except he. And he knows everything on land and in the sea. Not a leaf falls, but he knows it. And there is not a single grain in the darkness of earth, nor is there anything wet or dry, but is in the clear record.

All right? God is everywhere. You can see and touch him. in everything okay and so in other words what's happening is that Islam is really the first monolithic religion in the modern sense okay when you think of monotheism we actually think of the Islamic version of monotheism all right so what's the power of Islam and I want you guys remember this Islam is the power and beauty comes from how Islam is able to unite two major intellectual traditions in the world.

The first is paganism, right? Remember the Vikings? The Vikings told stories. They acted out rituals. And therefore, there was an intimacy, concreteness, and interconnectedness to paganism that made us feel happy and good. It made us understand the world. It made us feel as though we could influence the world.

That's the power of paganism. But Islam is doing the same thing by making God concrete. You can feel God. God is everywhere. He knows everything. But what Islam is also doing is he's seeing the simplicity, clarity, and absoluteness of Manefism. Monifism is nice because with Maldivism, everything becomes clear to you.

Right? Okay, there's one God, therefore I'd have to follow him. I just have to believe in him. like a million gods in paganism. So it's unclear what you should do or how you should relate to this million gods. But here in modernism, the relationship between God and you, it's very, very clear. So in other words, Islam is a major intellectual revolution in human history. And we have forgotten this because Islam, the idea, has embedded itself into modernity.

itself okay does that make sense all right so what I will show you then that over the course of the semester is that Islam really is the plural modernity when we say that modernity began in Europe we forget that Islam really built the basis for modernity okay all right so fulfillment of the law and prophets. It's completing the story in the Bible. It's bringing God to the people. You can now touch God. You can now know God. That's the beginning of the idea of Protestantism, okay? And create heaven on earth. And this is the idea of science. Why do we use science to make the world better? Because God wants us to make the world better. All right? So a lot of the

ideas that will underpin modernity. that God can be in us and that God expects us to make the world better it's already there in the beginnings of Islam and that's why we will have this I'm a golden age because they are propelled by their devoteness to the one true God is this clearly guys any questions so far any questions so far all right so let me very really quickly answer the three mysteries okay the first the first problem is Why would they know written records? The answer is, first of all, Islam marks a revolution.

Okay? It is overturning the social order. The problem though is that eventually Islam will become the social order. So you obviously don't want to paint Muhammad as a revolutionary. Okay? That's the first problem. Muhammad represented a revolution against a social order. All right, that's the first thing. Second thing is that we know that his early followers, the companions, were all wiped out.

They're all dead. They all died. The official history says that they died in military conflicts. But here's the amazing thing about early Islam history. We don't have that much evidence of military conflict between the Arabs and the Persians and the Byzans' We don't. There's maybe one city, Cicera, where there was a siege. But we think that a lot of the conquest happened organically,

or maybe their enemies surrendered to them rather than fight them. And that's why I would say it's a revolution. It's not a conflict, it's not a conquest, it's a revolution, where ordinary people were so disgusted, were so disgusted with the current leadership that they opted for a new belief system. Okay? The problem though is that once you amass power

and it's a coalition, the question then is, who's now in charge? So for the next 50, 100 years, there'll be a series of civil war to determine who will be in charge, okay? Those early companions were probably The word we use is purge. They're wiped out, including the Jews and the Christians.

We know for a fact that in the early days of Islam, Jews and Christians were part of the hierarchy. There's a man named St. John of Damascus, who was very famous, and he was a leader official in the Omaniat caliphate. We know that as a fact, but eventually they were purged from the system. And if they're purged, what happens is they were also purged in history. Okay? Because if these are the companions of Muhammad, Christians and Jews, then they're legitimate.

They're more legitimate than you are. So therefore they have to approach that history. But knowing that, and the third thing is that there will be a series of continued civil wars among the Arabs in order to determine who will be the Caliph. And obviously they want to disguise this history. They want to disguise this history of civil conflict, okay? So the first 100 years, it was revolutionary. those also very tumultuous and bloody.

And that's why they had to disguise the first 100 years of Islamic history. Does that make sense? Get to you guys. And again, this is my explanation. I could be wrong. All right? There could be other explanations. Yeah?

Yeah. I think what you said is about it. Right. Yep. That is a great point. Thank you, Doug. So, so Doug's point is that The idea of history comes to us from the Greeks and the Romans who wrote everything down, okay?

But as Doug says, there are many cultures who do not believe, or they don't have institutions to write down history. We sort of take it for granted today, but back then, it was actually a pretty rare thing to actually want to write down your history. Okay? So a good reason why is that if you write down the history, you're also constrained by the history. and that's why a lot of empires chose not right down their history okay so so so thank you yeah all right second question is why didn't mohammed name a successor again this is my theory but if it's the end of days

if it's the end of the world you don't need to name a successor because god's coming right what's the point in fact if you name a successor then you are a meaning defeat right what mohammed is saying to everyone is that every of your traditions Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrum are right. It's the end of days. God is coming. There'll be peace on the world. Therefore, we will no longer need leaders. You won't need Muhammad. I'm the last prophet, man. Okay? So that's why I think he didn't need a successor.

But there could be other explanations. Do you have another explanation? Now, third is, why did they build the out? Aksaq Mosque on the temple on the temple mouth and this explanation is going to be very controversial okay so the Jews support the Persians in the war against the Byzantines on the condition that the Persians would allow them to return to Jerusalem but also on a condition that that the Jews would be allowed to rebuild their temple which is exactly what Cyrus the Great did right

Such the Great is called the Messiah in the Bible. He's the only foreign leader called the Messiah in the Bible because such the Great allowed them to rebuild the temple. Okay? So what I'm saying is this. Our Axat Mos was originally the third temple. It is what the Arabs promised the Jews for the support. over time as these purgers happened as civil conflicts happen then the Arabs needed to solid consolidate their authority so they turn the third temple into the

out-axact mosque that's what I think happened if you go into the I don't have time to go into the very detailed history of how the all-assad mass was built but it was a process that took about 200 years it's very possible during these 200 years, intentions changed. Okay? So again, I know this is an extremely controversial statement, but I think that's what happened. Originally, it was meant to be the third temple. But then, over time, the Arab leaders changed their minds and thought to themselves that if we do this, then we make the Jews into a very powerful political entity within the Muslim world.

Okay? Does that make sense to you guys? All right? Okay, again, like, these are my explanations. It's my interpretation. This is not historical fact, okay? All right, now that we've done a few mysteries, let's go back to the three original questions.

First question is, why did Islam enter its golden age and Christian Europe enter its dark age? Second question is, why did the Islamic go in age? And third question is, how did Christian Europe overtake the moment? Muslim world. Okay, to answer these three questions, all we have to do is compare and contrast these three major religions together. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. There are both strengths and weaknesses to all religions. So it's very quickly compare and contrast these three major

religions to see why they thrive in a certain historical context. So Judaism, the Bible, It's a wonderful piece of literature. It has a very rich history going back a thousand years, right? So the Jews were the first to have a complete history of themselves. There are beautiful stories in the Bible that still inspired today. The stories of Adam and Eve, the stories of the patriarchs, the story of Moses. They still inspire us today, and they inspire us to create great literature. And then you have a literary culture.

So the Jews were expected. to be people of the book. They were expected to be literate in order to practice their religion. And this helps us understand why Jews are so dominant in academia, universities, in the media and in culture,

and in the legal profession, okay? Because these are people of the book. They have a tremendous respect for learning and for literacy, okay? That said, there are certain problems with the tradition. The first is it's contradictory.

When you read the Bible, it's always contradicting itself. It's almost schizophrenic, you could say. It's very hard to pick out a definite message from the Bible, and that's why the old tradition, called a Torah, is actually much more important.

And so Jews have to go to the synagogue all the time, where the rabbi will explain to them the meaning of the Bible because if you read it by yourself it's almost impossible to understand okay second problem is their god yahoo he's very problematic he's extremely problematic as we know from last semester when we looked at the Bible he doesn't seem to know what he's doing and he's very very violent okay he often commands the Israelites to go kill all their enemies okay so he's a very

problematic God. The third major problem in the tradition is faith versus history. If you believe that you're the chosen people, if you believe that Yahweh is only true God, then why are you being persecuted all the time? Okay? Why were the Romans able to kick you out of the reluclement and burn on your temple, which is the house of God? Why are you homeless? Why do you lack of homeland, okay? And this has been going on for thousands of years. And there are no easy explanation to any of these problems. So within the Jewish faith, there's a lot of conflict and debate and doubt. So the Christian faith was created in many ways to try to resolve a lot of the issues within the Jewish tradition. The first major advantage of the Christian faith is it's the

precipitation and perfection of divinity right remember how we said that Yahweh is problematic well now we have Jesus who we can understand and Jesus made ultimate sacrifice therefore we know him to be the ultimate good okay second advantage is okay now that there's a person we can for him deliver a consistent message of being kind being merciful being loving okay the third of advantage is the idea of progress of history everything is leading to the return of Jesus the second coming okay so you may suffer now but don't worry because Jesus is returning and that will end history for us all right so these are the advantages of Christianity

but when you do that when you have Jesus personified God you create a lot of issues okay the first issue is it's a really confusing story why would God come down earth manifests himself as a human and then sacrifice himself that's really really confusing like I know there's a lot of really good explanations as to why this is the case still if you're just a normal person you can't understand the story it makes no sense to you okay second is that it's counterintuitive a lot of the ideas in Christianity it's just counterintuitive the Holy Trinity must be the strangest idea in religion where God the Holy

Spirit and Jesus are separate but equal it makes no intuitive sense to anyone the third is distant divinity okay God is out there somewhere you don't know where you can't talk to him you can't see him you have no idea where he is okay it's a very distant divinity and so these are the disadvantages of Christianity and so Islam now makes sense because it's trying to remedy and rectify these failings of Christianity. The first is that it takes the Jewish tradition and the Christian tradition and makes it part of itself. Okay, so it is really the intuition and the perfection of the Jewish Christian tradition. Second is the absoluteness of God, okay?

This is now true monotheism. where God is everywhere. And you can see him. But if God is everywhere, then what's amazing is that you can now, that God can come inside you through your faith, for your devotion, and for your practice.

All right? And so what this means is you now know how to behave in the world. There's a clarity of purpose and action. You know that as long as you do those five things, those five pillars of Islam, your life will be good. is in you and that gives you strength and purpose and power okay and this is these

these ideas is what will start is on a golden age and allow Islam to propel itself past everyone okay the problem though is it's too simple and clear the advantage of being contradictory is you allow for different belief systems which come in a conflict with each other. And with this contradiction and conflict, it allows for innovation. That's why Catholicism will eventually give way to Protestantism, okay? Which is a reinterpretation of the Bible. But it's because the Bible is so contradictory that this innovation is allowed to happen.

The Bible was extremely clear. The Quran is extremely clear. But if that's the case, then you cannot allow for a radical rejection of the past and embrace of the future. Second problem then is it's inflexible. It can't be as innovative as Christianity and Judaism. The third problem is Islam purports to stand outside of history. Judaism is to be inside of history. Christianity is inside of history as well.

But Islam is eternal. When you read the Koran, it's meant to be the eternal words. These words are always true. But then the problem then is how do you go about and interpret your actions through the lens of history? And how do you improve your society based on this interpretation? All right? So in the beginning, the very aspects, the very strengths of Christians, Islam will give rise to a tremendous period of creativity but over time you will have

these innovations will become dogma and they will ossify and they will prevent further growth in society all right so does that make sense you guys all right so let me reframe what is said in a different way all right so let's just compare sorry Let's, sorry. So I'm going to compare and contrast Christianity with Islam. So, and then this will be a bit more clear to you. All right.

But are any questions before I continue? Is this clear to you guys? So I apologize. I'm making a lot of generalizations, but again, this is a macro view of history. All right, so let's look at Christianity and compare it with Islam. So as I have said in previous classes, Christianity was developed by the Roman Empire in order to co-op, first, the Jews, and eventually these barbarian invaders. And therefore, the religion is one of empire and power. It's really about how to control people.

But Islam, as I just mentioned, it is a revolutionary religion that must be open and inclusive and tolerant in order to attract as many followers as possible. All right? Now, the main mechanism of control for an empire is the idea of orthodoxy. Orthodoxy. Orphrodoxy just means the correct thinking. Okay? But if you're orthodoxy, then you have the idea of heresy. Orthodoxy is with God.

Heresy is against God. If you agree that the sky is red, because I say the sky is red, then you are orthodox. But if you insist the sky is blue, then it is herrithical, okay? And that constrains or limits the imagination. Right? And the philosopher that you're not. that you base your society on is Plato so the idea of the bishop the idea of the Pope it's really the idea of Plato's philosopher king all right so I'll

explain Plato's philosophy in a bit in a second okay but but let's look at Islam so it's a revolutionary religion and therefore you must activate the energy of all your followers you must get them to believe and you must get them to fight therefore it's a religion based on intuition God is with you you know God God is inside you okay and the idea of intuition is what allows for science you can discover the truth by just observing through empirical observation for your own analysis through your own belief okay and the person who argues this is of course Aristotle so this is

the argument I'm making you to you okay a lot of scholars believe the Islamic golden age happened because the Islamic going this the Islam's had books they had wealth but the Byzantines also had access to all these major thinkers Plato and Aristotle they all prices had a lot of wealth what I'm arguing is that a culture needs to have a attitude, a perspective, a worldview, an orientation. For the Byzantines and the Europeans, they chose Plato, but the Muslims chose Aristotle. And that is the major difference. Okay?

So let's go over, let's summarize Plato and Aristotle. How would the philosophy is different? Okay. For Plato, the true God is called the form of the good. The form of the good is the beginning of everything. It is what is immutable. That cannot be changed. It is perfect and is eternal.

Eternal means it was always there and it will always be there. The form of the good, this God, he thinks and emanates new concepts called ideals. like justice, reason, beauty, power, okay? And these ideals will manifest themselves into perfect forms, like a horse, like a perfect horse, the perfect woman, okay? This we can say it's just heaven. We live in something called a shadow world, which is just an imitation of heaven.

It's a bad imitation, so everything sucks, okay? So for example, if you fall down and you break your leg, it hurts because we live in a shadow world. So in this conception of the universe, what we're trying to do is return to the form of the good. And for Plato, he argues that you can do this through mathematics and geometry. Because mathematics is what is most like the form of the good. It is immutable, perfect, and eternal. So by studying mathematics and geometry, you are able to ascend back into the form of the good. But guess what?

Augustine will take Plato and he will adapt it to the Christian faith, right? Because how do you leave this world? By not sinning, by having faith. If you do that, then you are allowed to go to heaven. Okay? So in the platonic Augustine understanding, we in this world, just, all it to do is not make a mistake. So do nothing. Do nothing and you'll be good.

Aristotle has a different conception of the universe. He believes the formula good is called a prime mover. God is the prime mover. So God is the first thing that acts. moves things okay and when he does that when he creates motion other things start to happen as well okay so we're constantly moving about where we're going is we are seeking truth and it's called callos tellos means purpose so each of us our nature has a purpose if you're if your soldier your purpose is to be

the best warrior if you're mathematicians your purpose is to be the best mathematician okay and that is the idea of truth to fulfill your purpose and therefore you must be constantly acting okay now the beauty of this idea of motion is you can now study it through empirical observation you can observe things and then start to understand their nature and this gives rise the idea of science okay right So the Muslim world had a decidedly Aristotelian perspective, whereas the European world had a platonic perspective. Now, the great thing about history, the great thing about civilization is that what will happen is the Europeans will learn from the Muslims. They'll copy the Muslims. They'll bring back Aristotle, they'll bring back science, and they'll bring back intuition. And they will do so through three major events. The first is the Renaissance, where they bring back Aristotle.

The second is the Protestant Reformation, where they will bring back God. Remember, the Catholic religion, God is aloof. God can only be understood through the Pope or the priest. okay but the Protestant religion is no God is with us God is in us for your actions you can you can win God's favor okay the last is science right the scientific revolution and these are the three major events that will give us modernity okay but guess what the Europeans are just emulating the Muslims. But, and this is really important, they will improve on the Muslims.

So the problem with science is, yes, in the beginning you will have all the extremist discovery, but this innovation will eventually lead to something called dogma. All right? And so what you need to do is create institutions to destroy dogma. And that's what the Europeans will do which will and this idea that Dharma can be destroyed through discussion and debate and analysis is what we will become the basis of the Southern Revolution which will create the modern world that we live in today okay so we will go through all of these three major movements in future classes but please remember that it's the Islamic golden age which will

inspire the Europeans to do all three of these things which in turn will create the modern world that we live in today And that's why I believe that the Islamic golden age is really the idea is really the portal to modernity of human history All right that is my argument to you any questions Anything you aren't clear about? Okay, sure sure okay, okay Sure, right here. Right. Right. It was really kind of, it was also very, but a change in culture and moving away from

from an Arab homeland. And there's a whole bunch of, there's an amazing cultural openness, by and there's contacts like you said with India, Central Asia, of Islam moves into Central Asia, there's more contact with China and so on, and there's a real cultural analysis going on there. And Islam has to be very open to those cultures and inspired by those cultures and engaged with them in a pretty deep way. Right.

So in some ways it's not just the religion that's the deciding factor, but I think that's a goal to be being able to draw on so many different nations and rich positions in a way that, say, the business is in question Europe from, you know, the past set-type. Right. Yeah, that's great point. So let me elaborate on this point. So there's a liter critic, Norfolk Fry. Right?

Yeah, Canadian, right? So, so Norfolk Fry is Canadian literate critic, okay? And one thing that he's obsessed about is how literature is developed, okay? What he's observed is there's a certain moment in history when great literature comes about. And the moment is when a nation, or a people, or culture, becomes an empire. And the idea here is, okay, with a nation, you have tradition, you have cohesion. You have a certain literary basis, right? And then when it becomes an empire, it's forced to have a vista.

It's forced to have, like, a global perspective. And this change from a nation or coherent people into a cosmopolitan empire, at this stage in history, it's possible for them to produce great literature, okay? And there are many examples of this. So the first example, of course, is Athens. Athens is the civilization par excellence. And so when did Athens produce all its great literature? Well, it was basically the age of Pericles, which lasted from, like, you know, 500 to about 400, okay?

Maybe 350, okay? But it was not that long. And this is important because this period is also when Athens, which was a, you know, a very small Polish, suddenly became an empire. And it was this transition that forced it to look outwards, okay? So Athens is one example. But then of course you have King David and the Israelites. And again, after a branchage collapse, David was able to create an Israelite nation and then conquer a lot of this territory.

So these people now were a small empire. They weren't a great empire. They were a small empire. And the last example that we have is England. Right? Think of Shakespeare. When was Shakespeare writing? Around the 1600, okay? And that was when England, which for the longest time, was this poor island, was now becoming emerging as a global empire, and with it, a cosmopolitan perspective. So this is a pattern in history, which picks up on Doug's point where the new Islamic Empire when they shifted their capital to Baghdad they now became a global empire and as such that they absorb all these different traditions and cultures and become a multicultural universal empire okay

all right so Norfolk Fry has made this observation it sounds convincing I I haven't done enough research to fully buy into this theory, okay? But he has made this argument and he has made these observations with these examples. All right, so thanks for that. Okay, any more questions? Okay, so

next class, what we'll do is the Middle Kingdom, China. The reason why is at this stage in history, China is being brought into world history. And the reason why is the rise of the Mongols, okay? So the next class will be on the Middle Kingdom, China,

and after that we will do the Mongols. And then after that, we will return to Europe and do the Crusades. Then we'll do the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Islamic Revolution, okay?