ISLAMIC GOLDEN AGE (Jiang Lecture)
2 billion muslims
1 billion christians
Indonesia most populated muslim country
Shia - believe only direct descendants of Ali can be caliph
Mohammed (pbuh) final prophet, Jesus penultimate prophet
Mohammed’s vision (from angel gabriel who revealed quran)
To reveal monotheism to pagan society
Met with resistance in mecca
Forced out of Mecca and goes to Medina
Mohammed (pbuh) becomes leader against jewish tribes
Constitution of Medina: let other faiths practice
Open and tolerant to other religions
Islam spread beyond middle east, conquers byzantine and persian empire
Takes jerusalem and builds al-aqsa mosque
It’s Mohammed ascended to heaven from al-aqsa (Al-Isra wal-Mi'raj)
Al-aqsa built on top of temple mount (jewish temple)
Why did Islam build on top of jewish temple mount?
Conquered Sassassanid (persian) empire, half of Byzantine (roman) empire
Byzantine impenetrable, greek fire and walls prevents conquering
Islam spread from arabia to most of middle east
Takes less than 100 years
Omayyad caliphate was the largest empire in the world
Wealthiest empire too
5 pillars of Islam
1 Shahada 2 Salah 3 Zakat 4 Sawm (ramadan, fast) 5 Hajj
Jiang couldn’t go to Mecca because not muslim
Jews apart of early islam and were literate
No early records of first 100 years of islam
Why did muslims war with two empires? Roman, Persian
Why didn’t Mohammed PBUH not name a successor?
Why did muslims build on jewish temple?
Jiang claims no one knows these three questions
Bukhara, Uzbekistan - example of beautiful islamic architecture
Main cultural center of islamic golden age is baghdad
Abbasid caliphate was the height of islamic civilisation
Created the world that we have today
Connects the entire world, globalization
Abbasids used global networks made them richer (trade routes)
Traded heavily with Chinese empire
Created maritime silk road
Main center of production called House of Wisdom model called library of alexandria
First university to systemize hellenist (greek culture) mass dissemination
Def: the action or fact of spreading something, especially information, widely.
Took works from aristotle and plato and disseminated
Systemized and built on math
Greeks jews persians, all trading information in the house of wisdom
The Arabian Nights, main book of Islamic information
Poetry was considered high art, this book was low art
Europeans eventually adopted it, basis of disney
Rumi 1207-1273 Major thinkers of Islamic golden age
Perisan poet, mystic philosopher
Ibn Sina (Avicenna) 980-1037 most famous intellectual
Books were admired in europe
Inspired Leonardo Fibonacci
He went to Baghdad and imported ideas to Europe
Ibn Rushd (Averroes) 1126-1198
Influenced Dante’s divine comedy
He named socrates and plato, also Avicenna (latin for Ibn Sina)
Islamic influence on Europe has been whitewashed
Without Islam Europe would not have modernized
Musa Al-Khwarizmi 780-850 (Algorithmi) The Father of Algebra
Algebra and algorithm were arabic words
Math we study in school developed in islamic golden age
Ibn al-Haytham invented physics, becomes basis for renaissance
First 24 hour hospital in Baghdad
Poor people could receive free medical treatment
Al-Qarawiyyin, University 859 in Fez Morocco
First degree granting university
Founded by a woman
1258 Islamic Golden age comes to an end
Mongols sack Baghdad and burns all the books
Baghdad had thriving bookstore culture
Learned how to make paper/books from china
Quran standardizes arabic becomes language of muslim world
Ibn Khaldun - father of social science ie: economics, politics
Founded “Asabiyyah” social cohesion
Why empires rise and fall
Empires lose to more free and open societies
1300-1700 dominated by 3 empires, Mughal, Ottoman, Safavid
In this time islam dominated the world
622 Mohammed pbuh goes from mecca to medina
Jews align with persians in the war against byzantines (Romans)
70AD romans destroyed jewish temple
135AD romans expel jews
Jews want to return to Jerusalem and rebuild temple
Persians take Jerusalem and push out romans
Emperor Heracles of Romans return to Jerusalem: 1st crusade
They expel and unalive the jews
Jews have nowhere to go after Jerusalem expulsion
Mohammed PBUH in Medina promises religious tolerance
Islam is now a distinct religion
Muslims were called “believers”
All Abrahamic faiths were then considered one religion
Constitution of Medina (religious tolerance) in the quran
Zoroastrianism: monotheistic religion of (Persians)
Apocalyptic age: all (many) believed this was the end of the world
Jews believed persians and roman war was gog and magog
Gog and magog: final battle, end of days
Jewish messiah was to come and unite jews
Jews believed it could be mohammed PBUH
The final battle between messiah and anti-christ
Official religion of Romans was holy trinity
Most christians didn’t believe in holy trinity
Persecuted for refusal to believe in trinity
Zoroastrians believe in the final between good and evil
Mohammed PBUH believes were are all one to fight for God
Quran is the best evidence for Mohammed’s PBUH life
Abraham is our forefather, why are abrahamic faiths arguing? - Quran
O people of the book
Christianity arrived from the debate about Jesus
Mohammed PBUH argued that Jesus was a prophet, not God
Do not worship messengers (shirk)
The trinity is nonsense
God is one, not three
622 Christians were being persecuted for refusing trinity
Some were killed
Mohammed confirms these Christian’s belief of monotheism
Islam is first monotheistic religion in the modern sense
Power from Islam comes from uniting paganism
Paganism helped us feel and understand the world
Simplicity, clarity, and absoluteness of monotheism
Islam is a major intellectual revolution (fitrah)
Islam as Proto-Modernity
Built the baseness of modernity
(Jiang believes God is within, “we can touch God” bc eastern bias)
Islam becomes the social order
Mohammed PBUH represented a revolution against the social order
Islam is a revolutionary religion
Early Muslim caliphs died in military conflict
We don’t have information from early military records between empires
In early days of Islam, Jews Christians were part of a hierarchy
Civil wars amongst muslims to determine caliph
Bloody early history which is why history first 100 years hidden
(this is Jiang’s explanation)
Idea of history comes from greeks and romans who wrote it down
Maybe because they believed it was end of days no point in writing
(this is Jiang’s explanation)
Al Aqsa explanation: jews can return to jerusalem
Condition they can rebuild temple
Cyrus the Great called messiah in bible because he allowed this
Process of Al-Aqsa mosque took 200 years
Jiang (it was supposed to be third temple)
Jiang explanation: Deal from the muslims to jews
(I don’t believe his theory)
Jews were first to have a complete history
Adam and Eve, moses, patriarchs
Literary culture
Jews were expected to be people of the book
Learning and literacy, why they are dominant in academia
Jiang: Bible is contradictory and schizophrenic
Hard to pick up a definitive message
Torah is much more important
Rabbis have to explain the bible to people in synagogue
Yahweh is problematic
Yahweh is violent and doesn’t know what he’s doing
How are chosen people persecuted all the time? (crisis of faith)
Christianity came to explain problems in jewish faith
Jesus sacrifice helps us understand ultimate good
Suffering will end under the return of Jesus
Jesus being God is a confusing story
Why would God come down and sacrifice himself?
Trinity is strange and counterintuitive “separate but equal?”
Islam rectifies failure of Christianity
Takes jewish and christianity and unites it as a continuation
Absoluteness of God
Jiang believes God is within in Islam (not true)
5 pillars gives you strength and purpose (deen)
Islam propels beyond all
Jiang believes the weakness in Islam is simplicity and too clear
Jiang believes Islam weakness is allowing for other faiths
Faith tolerance allows for innovation
(Jiang believes innovation is a blessing and a curse)
Islam gives way for creativity which also prevents its empire
Christianity VS Islam
Christianity was developed by roman empire to co-opt jews
Christianity is a religion of empire and power
How to control people
Islam is a revolutionary religion of openness and inclusivity
Convert as many as possible
Christianity method of control is “orthodoxy”
Heresy is against God in Christianity “heretical”
Heresy philosophy is from Plato
Islam activates the energy of its followers
Religion based on intuition
Intuition allows for science
You can discover truth through observation
Aristotle argues for intuition, this allows for science
Christianity represented by Plato, Islam represented by Aristotle
Plato: we live in shadow world, an imitation of heaven
Go to heaven by not sinning
Aristotle: good comes from the prime mover, God
We seek truth and purpose
This gave birth to the idea of science
Europeans learned and copied from muslims
Renaissance brought back Aristotle
Renaissance, protestants, scientific revolution = modernity
All this came from muslims
Islamic golden age inspired Europeans to create the modern world
Proto-modernity of human history
💬 178🔁 227
♥ 2,942👁 244K