okay good morning so today we do Islam um some quick facts some questions that we will look at today about uh theic golden age uh the first major question is while Europe was in its Dark Ages uh Islam was embarked on its golden age so the first question is how did this happen why was there where why was there there this Divergence second question we're going to look at is um 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 um 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 uh Christianity has two billion people Islam has 1 billion people uh they are divided into two major sects the Shia which is based primarily in Iran and the Sunni uh which is uh everywhere else uh the light green are the Sunni people and the dark green are the Shia people and as you can see uh Islam extends all across Africa the Middle East and Central Asia and into India the most populous uh Muslim country in the world is actually Indonesia um the Shia and the Sunni the only 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 um this is a religion of 1 billion people so there are many different belief system many different sects within this uh cosmology but um this is really the major difference okay between the Shia and the Sunni um so Muslim means to submit yourself to God to believe in God and to commit yourself wholeheartedly to him and um Islam was founded by a man named Muhammad who um the Muslims consider the prophet of of God the final prophet and Jesus was the penultimate prophet and um The Legend is that at AG 40 uh Muhammad who 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 um tradition called the Quran and he and um 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 basically Mecca um and when he tries to reveal a truth he is met with a lot of resistance and eventually he's forced out of Mecca and he goes to uh Medina uh this is called the Hijra in the Muslim tradition the pilgrimage and when he goes to Medina um he becomes the leader of the Waring factions within uh Medina primarily between the pagans the Muslim tribes and the Jewish tribe so there are three major factions and um at this point Muhammad Chris 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 um eventually Islam will spread from the araban desert to all across the Middle East they will conquer the Persian Empire and they will take at least half of the bantin Empire including the richest parts of the bis Empire which are Syria and uh Egypt they will also take Jerusalem where they will build something called the AL aak Mount mosque and Legend has it that Muhammad um ascended to Heaven from this place now what's really important for us to remember about this place is the all accept M 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 holiest site in the Jewish faith and now and then the Muslims came and built the axac mosque on top of the Temple Mount now this is a very strange thing to do if Muslim if the Muslim tradition is open inclusive and tolerant and Jews are welcome into the into into the tradition why would you build a musk on top of of the Jewish holy sight 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 the great mysteries in the Islam tradition why was the aat mosque built on top of the Jewish Temple Mount okay um as I mentioned the Arabs will expand from the desert of Arabia and they will conquer the sassanian Persian Empire and they will take at least half of the byzantines okay they will try to lay Siege on constantinopole but remember that when we discuss the Byzantine Empire Copo is designed as an impenetrable Fortress so there there'll be two major sieges and because of the walls and because of Greek Fire um they will be unable to take the city um the spread of Islam was lightning fast in L 100 years they spread from the desert of Arabia really the poorest place in this entire region throughout most of um the Middle East okay so the dark green is where they started and the light green is where they eventually um expanded to and remember this process takes less than 100 years which is remarkable um the the OM calipat was about 700 okay so let's just compare the omaya calipat with other Empires including the tongue okay the tongue really is the height of chin chinaese civilization but as you can see the omantic calat um really is the largest Empire in the world at this time and eventually they will also become the wealthiest Empire um at this time um there are five pillars of Islam it is an extremely simple and clear religion when compared with Christianity and Judaism okay there are five pillars to the religion um first of all you have to believe that alab God is the only God okay and this mirrors the Christian and the Jewish faith um you are required to pray at least five times a day facing the direction of uh Mecca you must give uh money to the poor um you must fast during the holy days the last thing is you must make something called the Haj which is a pilgrimage to the holy site in Mecca and perform rituals in Mecca this is something that um all Muslims must do and you will have the poorest Muslims they will save uh their entire lives just so that they could make this harsh okay the Muslim people are probably the most devout uh the most religious people you will meet they take their religion very very seriously this is the in Mecca and um I was actually in Saudi Arabia and I tried to go there and then I was told only Muslims can go and and and so I was as as a train station I I was trying to buy a um ticket to Mecca and they said what's your Muslim name like well I'm not Muslim like well you can't go then so I was disappointed uh but it is a beautiful um absolutely one of the most beautiful rituals in the world today okay um so to summarize the introduction there are three major Mysteries to the history of Islam that we still haven't really solved today okay the first mystery is um we know that they have something called the con constitution of Medina we also know that Jews who are literate were part of the early movement of Islam so why do we have we have no early records for the first 100 years what the first 100 Years of the movement that's very very strange okay um another strange question another strange um 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 okay that's the first mystery we'll solve today second mystery is remember I said that the Shia and the Sunni um have a major searan divide the Shia believe that only the descendants of of Muhammad's grandson Ali can be the cff the leader of the Muslim people the sunis don't so why didn't Muhammad just name a successor and avoid the Civil Wars that were erupt after his death the third question uh is why was Al aat built on the site of the Temple Mount and this is still a problem today because a lot of the conflict uh in the Middle East is driven by this problem where the Jews want to rebuild the temp po uh but to do so they would have to destroy the AL AAC 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 the historical record has been lost to us but I will try to provide you with an explanation okay given uh my understanding of the Islamic World which by the way is extremely limited okay so uh please ask questions please challenge me uh 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 um at the height of uh Islamic influence there were a few centers of incredible cultural um creativity uh one such site is bakara yakistan 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 without actually having visited it but I I've heard ter 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 golden age but the main cultural center of the Islamic goldan age is Baghdad okay it's not so beautiful now but back then it was really the center of the world um it's a round City and it's a new city um this is a um top topographical map of the city as you can see it's surrounded by the Tigers and Euphrates and it is a round City okay one of the few round cities of that time um Baghdad was the capital of the abased calat which started the Islamic golden age uh the abasa calipat is the successor to the umad um Empire okay and this is where the abasa calat was and this is uh what what Muslims consider the height of their civilization um the thing that's really important for us to understand about the Abbasid uh Empire is that not only were they influential in the Muslim world but they event 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 ambass calipat would create over its 3 to 400 year history it connects the ENT entire world okay um as I mentioned last semester Global globalization has always existed to a certain extent in world history but the abases the Muslim religion would would take these existing networks and make them Rich a lot richer a lot more dense and a lot faster okay so um you may not know this but the aasad trated heavily with the tong and the S dynasties in fact it is the abases who would initiate something called The Maritime Silk Road the Overland Silk Road has existed for a long time but it is the abases who will eventually create the maritime Silk Road and will bring China into the world to a greater extent than ever before okay so uh this is a trade um the main Center for cultural production uh in the Muslim world is something called the house of wisdom and it's modeled um its model is the Library of Alexandria okay remember last semester we discussed the library of of Alexandria in Egypt and its mission was to be the first University to take all istic knowledge and culture and systemize it for um uh dissemination okay and the House of Wisdom uh 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 C cized for Mass dissemination okay so um the things that they were doing were they were they were taking Hindu numerals okay 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 um the the main contribution of the Islamic golden age to World culture is in actually mathematics okay so they took all the math um in the Greek world and in the Persian world and in the Hindu world and then they would systemize it and then build on top of it okay um this is a rendition of the House of Wisdom this is where the three 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 the Chinese tradition as well um the major literature or literary work that we still have today from the Islamic golden age is the Arabian Knights okay um Scholars have looked at this very closely and most scholars believe that these stories is actually from India also what's important for us to understand is that at 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 uh why we have it today is that the Europeans would discover this centuries after the Islamic golden age and they fell in love with these stories and that's why we still have them today um and Disney movies are based on on this as well okay so so let's look at the some of the major thinkers uh and philosophers of this is Golden Age so at this time in one history we don't differentiate between philosophers poets uh scientists mathematicians okay all intellectuals engage in all these different fields okay so one most famous is roomi who is Persian a poet a Mystic a philosopher um um inin sinina is probably the most famous intellectual of the ISL Golden Age um his books his Works were admired in Europe okay so the Islamic the Islamic philosophy um was being exported to Europe where where it 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 heard of him in math class well 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 um importing them all back to Europe okay so this is iin s uh and the Latin name is a China um even rousa AOS is also um 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 uh hell and there in limbo he's meeting the most influential the greatest philosophers in human history who have influence European civilization obviously he's he's going to name Socrates and Plato okay but guess what but he also names AOS and aanti okay so Dante is acknowledging the debt Europeans have to Islam this is important for us because um the Muslim intellectual influence on Europe has been whitewashed from history this is something you do not learn in 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 um Omak Kayan is also another famous um intellectual poet philosopher um this is this man Musa Al haami is considered the father of modern day algebra his Latin name is algorithme 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 um this name is alhazan and he invented physics basically Optics um again extremely influential and again these ideas will be um import it back to Europe and they will become the basis of the Renaissance okay um Al zahari is the father of surgery at this time in world history uh the very best hospitals are in the Islamic World by far um this is the first um 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 receive medical treatment for free that was just part of the faith all poor were treated with great charity and kindness um during the Islamic golden age uh this is Al Kawa will again guys I don't speak Arabic I I'm probably butchering the the name but it was found in 859 in Fest Morocco this is important because this this is actually the first degree granting University in the whole world and it's still there guys okay this is the oldest university in the world what's also amazing is it was founded by a woman who inherited a uh Fortune from her father and she spent all her money on building this University all right Interruption if you ever get a chance to go to most am absolutely Morocco is an amazing country as well okay so um 58 the Islamic Golden Age officially came to an end or 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 or that's what the legend tells us Baghdad had an thriving bookstore culture and this was this was unique in the world um intellectuals or the elite um they spent a lot of their resources on buying books and they um imported paper from China they learned how to make paper from China so books were extremely popular within the uh within Baghdad okay especially among the elite um as well because of the Quran it was necessary for the elite to be litered it was the man and of you to be U literate and the Quran will also standardize Arabic uh and make it the official language of the entire uh Muslim World okay but just because the Islamic Golden Age ended does not mean that creativ stopped in the Muslim world this is iben Cen and he is considered the father of social science okay e economics um quantive history politics this man um invented a lot of these disciplines he is most famous for his idea of asaba which is means social cohesion so he was actually the first um to systematically think about Grand history why do civilizations why do civilizations rise and why do they Decline and his conclusion is that the Borderlands are able to conquer Empires because uh the Borderlands the people there have asaba 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 okay um and again uh even Coden is a major inspiration for the history that I try as well from 1300 to 1700 the world be dominated by three major Empires the Ottomans the saats in Iran and the Mongols in uh India they are collectively known as the uh gunpow Empires so what's amazing is since um its Inception about 622 up until the year 1700 the Islamic religion dominated the world and so the question for us is why was that the case how did Islam overtake Europe and overtake Christianity okay that is a mystery in question for us today that we will look at okay so let's go back to the three mysteries that I introduced um 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 okay that's the first question second question is is why did Muhammad name a successor the third question is why was the alasa MOs built on top of the Temple Mount okay so um this this is a paradox because Jews were an extremely important part of that early movement right so why why why would you offend the Jews like this right okay to understand what happened okay let's go back in time and we know that in 622 Muhammad goes to Medina and that's what starts the um 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 6 622 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 okay so this is from w wikipedia all right now guys um never trust Wikipedia as a historical Source but it's useful for us to understand what contemporary historians think okay so this 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 to their holy city and rebuild the um Temple and with the Persians they saw this as an opportunity because historically the Persian and the Jews have gone along very well okay so the Jews helped the Persians take Jerusalem and and push out the byzantines but when that happens the Christians in Jerusalem they revolt and they force out the Jews and then the byzantines under their Emperor herac leus they return to Jerusalem in the First Crusade okay this is the beginning of the idea of crusade and they retake the city and then what they do is they expel the Jews from judism obviously but then they start to kill a lot of Jews okay and they force these Jews outside of Jerusalem so now these Jews have nowhere to go but there's something called con constitution 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 a lot of them to join this early movement what's important for us to understand is that at this point M Islam Muslim is not a distinct religion okay all these people are called Believers because Muhammad himself as the final messenger of God okay Abraham was the first then you had 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 the Islam tradition in the beginning were 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 monism on Earth that's the origin of this new religion of Islam okay and this is the constition Medina which is in the Quran and which we know to be historically true maybe not not the wording okay but we know that this existed and these people were called Believers and also this would also include uh people who believe in Zoroastrianism okay because zor aism was also um a monotheistic religion so it was so the C Medina was an attempt to unite all monistic religions into one single tradition that fought for God okay also what's really important for us to understand is um not only is there all this persecution going on against Jews and against Christians and against zor aans okay but also this is a apocalyptic St age where all three Traditions believed this was literally the end of the world if you were Jewish you believe in a final battle called aramon between the Messiah who would lead you and against two enemies called go and Magog okay guess what the Persians and the Romans were funny each other so you could easily interpret this to mean the Persians and the Romans were the gaw and magok enemy in your tradition this will 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 the Jewish tradition this is the end of days this is the final battle and and the Messiah would emerg to lead you to final victory that person a lot of Jews could interpret to be Muhammad okay for the Jews this is the end of days but for Christians okay they also believe believe this is the end of days because um there a final battle between the Antichrist and the Messiah okay the Antichrist is obviously Heracles who is the Emperor of the bises who've been persecuting uh Ro Christians for a long time remember uh 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 uh the refusal to believe in in the Holy Trinity okay so for Christians this is also the final battle zor Asians believe in the final battle between good and evil okay 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 Quran okay so again we don't have any written records of Muhammad but what we do believe is the Quran um it is a collection of many of Muhammad's original sayings that have been redacted over time okay so let's look some passages from the Quran to better understand how Muhammad was thinking and what he was preaching to the Christians the Jews and the zans all right oh 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 okay so he's saying why are we arguing about scripture why are we arguing about belief we all acknowledge that Abraham is our forefather okay 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 why do you argue about things you do not know Allah knows and you do not know Abraham was neither a Jew nor nor a Christian but he was a monist a 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 of the polytheist okay let's also look at Muhammad responding to the Christian tradition okay remember in the Christian tradition a lot of conflict arises from a debate over the nature of Jesus and his relationship with God okay 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 Meer of God just like me and the idea that Jesus is is God makes no sense Jesus was a human just like me God is God he would he would not represent himself through a human okay and this and so let's let's look at what he says they disbelieve those who say Allah is the Messiah the Son of Mary but the Messiah himself said Messiah is Jesus right oh 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 with Allah Allah has forbidden him paradise and his dwelling is the fire the wrongdoers have no saviors all right if you believe that Jesus is God you are committing heresy against the true God there can only be one God there can't be two Gods together they disbelieve those who say all is a third of three but there is no diety 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 this is very important is that Muhammad is saying the Holy Trinity the idea is just nonsense they disbelief those who say Allah is a third of three Allah cannot be a third 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 and now Muhammad saying you guys were right all along you should believed in yourself all along you were right all along okay so let's use analogy let's just 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 uh 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 okay 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 okay 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 okay and so this idea walk occupy most of the Quran okay and this is what he says with him are the keys of the Unseen none knows them 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 a 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 monistic religion in the modern sense okay when we think of monism we're actually think of the Islamic version of monism All right so what is the power of Islam and I want you guys to 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 okay 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 okay 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 monotheism okay monotheism is nice because with monism everything becomes clear to you right okay there's one God therefore I just have to follow him I just have to believe in him there's 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 monism the relationship between God and you it's very very clear okay 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 modity itself okay does that make sense all right so um what I will show you the over the course of the semester is that Islam really is the plal modernity when we say that mity began in Europe uh we forget that Islam really built the basis for modernity okay all right so fulfillment of the law and prophit it's completing the story in the Bible it's bringing God to 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 expect expects us to make the world better it's already there in the beginnings of Islam and that's why we will have the Islamic golden age because they are propelled by their devot to the one true God is this clear to you guys any questions so far any questions so far all right so let me very really quick answer the three mysteries okay the first the first problem is why were there no written records um 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 um 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 were 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 byzantines we don't there's maybe one city Cera where there was a there was a Siege but a but we think that a lot of the conquest happened um organically or maybe um their enemy surrendered to them rather than fight them okay and that that's why that's why I would say it's a revolution it's not a a it's not a con it's not a conquest it's a revolution where Ordinary People um were so disgusted with the current leadership that they opted for um a new 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 1500 years there'll be a series of Civil War to to to deter to determine who will be in charge okay those early companion were probably purged 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 um there's a man named St John of Damascus who who was very famous and he was a uh lead official in the omad Cali of it okay we we know that as a fact but eventually they were purged from the system and if they're purged what happens is they also Purge 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 purge that history okay but knowing that and the third thing is that there will be a series of continuous Civil Wars uh but uh among the Arabs in order to to determine who will the cff 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 but it was also very tumultuous and bloody and that's why they had to disguise the first 100 Years of um Islamic history right does that make sense to you guys and again this is my explanation I could be wrong all right there there could be other explanations yeah just throw in another idea I think what you said doesn't either one thing that's hard for us to to imagine is that that our culture would actually record its history histography it seems to us as a given know Chinese culture official historians going back for 2200 years and so on right um the Greeks had their ancient histori the Romans had their ancient hisor but not every culture has historians the Persians didn't write history right the Indians didn't write history guessing the um the Arabs didn't have a tradition of writing down their History either right so that this would actually be recorded in sense that be familiar with right probably was the case that is a great point Thank you duck so so the so Duck's point is that um the of History comes to us from the Greeks and the Romans who wrote everything down okay but as duck says there are many cultures who not believe or do not they do not have institutions to write down history we sort have 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 be and the good a good reason why is that if you write down the history you're also constrained by the history right and and and that's why a lot of Empires chose not write down their history okay so so so thank you okay all right second question is why didn't Muhammad name a successor again this is just 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 AIT defeat right what Muhammad is saying to everyone is that every of your Traditions Jewish Christian zoram 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 that's why I think I that's why I think he didn't name a successor but there could be other explanations okay do do you do you have another explanation okay now third is why did they build the out a mosque on the second temp on on the temple mouth and this explanation is going to uh be very controversial okay so the Jew 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 the condition that that the Jews would be allowed to rebuild their Temple which is exactly what s the great did right s the great is it's called the Messiah in the Bible he 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 aat MOS was originally the Third Temple it it is what the Arabs promised the Jews for the support but over time as these pures happen as civil conflicts happen then the Arabs needed to S consolidate their Authority so they turn the third Tempo into the AL AA mosque okay 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 aset mass was built but it was a process that took about 200 years it's very possible dur during these 20 years intentions changed okay so again I I know this is 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 um the Jews into very powerful political entity within the Muslim World okay does that make sense to you guys right okay again like these are my explanations uh it's my interpretation this is not historical fact okay all right now now that we've done the three 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 golden age and third question is how did Christian Europe overtake the Muslim World okay to answer these three questions all we have to do is compare contrast these three major religions together Judaism Christianity and Islam right there are both strengths and weaknesses to all religions so it's very quickly compare contrast these three major religions to see why they thrive in a certain historical context so Judaism the Bible uh it's a wonderful piece of literature it has a very rich history going back 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 Inspire 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 um the Jews were expected to be people of the book they were expected to be literate in order to practice their religion okay and this help helps helps us understand uh why Jews are sort dominant in uh 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 um it's contradictory when you read the Bible it's always contradicting itself okay um it's almost schizophrenic you you could say it's very hard to pick out a a definite message from the Bible and that's why the old tradition uh called a Torah is actually much more important okay and so Jews have to go um to the synagogue uh 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 Yahweh is's he's very problematic he's extremely problematic as we know from last semester when when we looked at the Bible he doesn't seem to know what he's doing and he's very very um violent okay he 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 um Faith ver versus history if you believe that you are the chosen people if you believe that Yahweh is only true God then why are you being persecuted all the time okay why why were the Romans able to kick you out of Jerusalem and burn on your temple which is the house of God why are you homeless why do you lack a Homeland okay and this has been going on for Thousand Years and there are no easy explanation to any of these problems okay 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 p plication 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 the 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 Advantage is the idea of progress of history eing is leading to the return of Jesus the second coming okay so you may suffer now but don't worry because Jesus is 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 to earth manifest 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 disent 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 AB 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 okay 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 continuation 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 through 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 God is in you and that gives you strength and purpose and power okay and this is these these ideas is what will start the Islamic 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 conflict with each other and with this contradiction and conflict it allows for Innovation that's why C capitalism will eventually will eventually give way to process SYM okay which is a reinterpretation of the Bible but it's because the Bible is so contradictory that this Innovation is about to happen the Bible was extremely clear the Quran is extremely clear but if that's the case then you cannot allow for radical rejection of the past and embrace of the Future Okay second problem then is it it's inflexible it can't be as Innovative as Christianity and Judaism the third problem is it Islam purports to stand outside of History okay Judaism is to be inside of History Christianity is inside of history as well but Islam is eternal when you read the Quran 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 of Islam will give rise to a tremendous period of creativity but over time um you will have um the these Innovations will become dogma and they will aify and they will prevent further growth in Society all right so does that make sense to you guys all right so let me reframe what I said in a different way all right so let's just compare sorry um let's sorry so I'm going to compare and contrast Christianity with um Islam so so and and and then and then this will be a bit more clear to you right okay 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 of History all right so let's look at let's look at Christianity and compare it with Islam all right so as I have said um in previous classes Christianity was developed by the Roman Empire in order to co-op first the Jews and eventually um these Barbarian Invaders and therefore the religion is one of Empire and power okay 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 uh for an Empire is the idea of Orthodoxy Orthodoxy just means the correct thinking okay but if you're Orthodoxy then you have the idea of heresy Orthodoxy is 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 her heretical okay and that constrains or limits the imagination right and the philosopher 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 uh 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 through 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 um the Islamic age happened because the Islamic going the Islams had books they had wealth but the byzantines also had access to all these uh major thinkers Plato and Aristotle they all bis had a lot of wealth okay what I'm arguing is that a culture needs to have 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 um let's summarize Plato and Aristotle how the philosophies different okay for Plato the true God is called the form of the good the formula good is the beginning of everything it is what is is immutable that cannot be changed it is uh perfect and is eternal Eternal means it's always it was always there and it will always be there the form of the good this God he thinks and he emanates new Concepts called ideals like justice uh reason Beauty power okay and these ideals will manifest themselves into perfect forms okay like a horse like a perfect horse the perfect woman okay this we can say is just heaven we live in something called a shadow World which is just an imitation of heaven but it's a bad imitation so everything sucks okay so for example uh if you fall down and you break your leg it hurts because we live in the shadow world so in this conception of the universe what we're trying to do is return to uh 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 it is immutable perfect and eternal so by studying mathematics and geometry you are able to ascend back into the uh 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 we all we have to do is not make a mistake so do nothing okay do nothing and you'll be good Aristotle has a different conception of the universe he believes the formula of good is called a prime mover all right God is a prime mover so God is the first thing that acts and moves things okay and when he does that when he creates motion other things start to happen as well okay okay so we're constantly moving about where we're going is we are seeking truth and it's called TS TS means purpose so each of us by our Nature has a purpose if you're if you're a soldier your purpose is to be the best warrior if you're a mathematician 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 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 rice the idea of science okay right so the Muslim world had a decidedly arist Ian 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 right they'll bring back Aristotle they'll bring back science uh and they'll bring back intuition all right and they will do so through three major events the first is the Renaissance where they bring back Aristotle the second is a proess Reformation where they will bring back God remember the Catholic religion God is aof 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 um 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 okay so the problem with science is yes in the beginning you will have this all this trist Discovery but this in 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 will become a basis of the S Revolution which will create the modern world that we live in today okay so we will go through all of these three major uh movements in future classes but please remember that it's the Islamic Golden Age which will inspire the Europeans to 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 Islamic golden age is really the IDE is really the Proto modernity of human history all right that is my argument to you any questions anything you are unclear about was this clear okay may I don't know if it's a question or just just an observation sure the U are you able to go back a couple slides to the uh sure to the uh Empire empire and power versus religion okay sure right here yeah yeah yeah so this is like one thing that you got me thinking about the the years of Islam and so there's kind of two movements like the first one is like with the umad calip which lasts about 100 years right and it was really kind of that Revolution that that you're talking about like very expensive growth very very quick um but it was also very eror right it was done by the ER okay and what what's really interesting is like if we look at the ab comes afterwards um as Mr Jen said like it moves to B and right now that and Iraq as an Arab place but at that time it was persan okay and um by moving there it it represents partly a a change in culture and moving away from uh from an Arab uh Homeland basically and there's a whole bunch of there's an amazing cultural openness um by moving there there's contacts like you said with um India um Central Asia um sorry moves into Central Asia there's more contacts with with China and so on and there's a real cultural dynamicism going on there and and Islam has to be very open to those cultures and be inspired by those cultures U um and engage with them in in a pretty deep way right so in some ways it's not just the the religion that's the deciding factor for what makes it a golden age but but just being able to draw on so many different an and Rich traditions in a way that say theane or in Western Europe um you know caths right yeah that's a great point so um let me elaborate on on this point um so there's a litter critic uh norford fry right y Canadian right so so so so norford fry is Canadian liter critic okay and one thing that that he's obssessed about is how literature is developed okay when what he's observed is there's certain moment in history when great literature comes about and that the moment is when a nation okay or a people or culture becomes an Empire okay and the idea here is okay with a nation you have tradition you have cohesion okay you have a certain um uh literary basis right and then when it becomes an Empire it's forced to have a Vista it's it's forced to have like a Global Perspective and this change from a nation a co coherent people into a conon Empire at this stage in history um you can 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 um civilization part exelant right and so when did Athens produce all its great like literature well it was basically the the Age of Pericles which lasted from like you know 500 to about 400 okay uh 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 uh King David and the the Israelites and again um after Bron collabs U David was able to like create um an Israelite nation and then conquer a l of this territory okay so this these people now were a small Empire they weren a great Empire they were a small Empire okay and the last example that we we have is England right think of Shakespeare when was Shakespeare ready around the 1600 okay and that was when England which for the longest time was this poor um island island was now becoming emerging as a global Empire and with it a CM poan perspective right so this is the pattern in history which picks up on on Doug's point where um the new um um Islamic empire when they shifted their Capital to Baghdad they and they now became a global Empire and as such that to absorb all these different traditions and cultures and become u a multicultural Universal Empire okay all right so nor fry has made this obser observation um it sounds convincing I I haven't I haven't done enough research to fully buy into this Theory okay but but he has made this argument and uh he has made these observations with these examples all right so thanks for that okay any more questions okay so um next class what what we'll do is the Middle Kingdom China Okay the reason why is um at this stage in history China is being brought into world world history and the reason why is the rise of the Mongols okay so so 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 uh the Crusades then we'll do the Renaissance the pro Reformation theim Revolution okay