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Ismail al-Jazari – the medieval 'Father of Robotics'

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Ismail al-Jazari – the medieval 'Father of Robotics'

#41

Post by rramadass »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #2

in my family there has been a simple question being raised for as many years i can remember but there has never been a satisfactory answer yet. "if early muslims had all the science, mathematics, geography, philosophy and all fields of science including hundreds of scientists who laid down the foundations of modern science with their works, what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?" Then years…

First off, don't rely on History lessons from "Dan Brown" :-) The topic of decline of "Scientific Temper" in the Islamic World is a complex and nuanced subject with contributing various factors. Here are some major points;

* Much of the "Golden Age of Islam" is actually attributable to cultures which were originally not Islamic at all eg: Persia, The Levant, Mediterranean, Central Asia, Indian subcontinent. The decline started with the "Islamization" of these cultures by the Arabs who were far more "primitive". This is the worst of brawn over brain.

* The rise of "fundamental" Islam; most notably the Ash'ari within Sunni sect (al-Ghazali was just one of the most well known of this group) to the detriment of all the other "forward looking" sects in Islam.

* The Mongol invasion which wiped out a unified Islamic empire leading to more internecine strife within Islam.

* The Christian Crusades.

* The general ossification and fossilization of beliefs in Islamic cultures causing them to turn away from the "Modern Scientific Enlightenment" movement which started in Europe.

Note that similar decline of cultures have happened before due to similar (but not same) reasons; most notably with Ancient China and India though not to the same degree.

Re: Ismail al-Jazari – the medieval 'Father of Robotics'

#42

Post by yumraj »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #2

in my family there has been a simple question being raised for as many years i can remember but there has never been a satisfactory answer yet. "if early muslims had all the science, mathematics, geography, philosophy and all fields of science including hundreds of scientists who laid down the foundations of modern science with their works, what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?" Then years…

> what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?"

To me it has always seemed like this was simply a side effect of Islam taking deep root.

Before this the older, pre-Islamic culture was still there, but as time passed Islam, as evidenced by the conservative Islam we see today, took hold leading the Islamic territories away from math and science.

Re: Ismail al-Jazari – the medieval 'Father of Robotics'

#43

Post by andrepd »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #2

in my family there has been a simple question being raised for as many years i can remember but there has never been a satisfactory answer yet. "if early muslims had all the science, mathematics, geography, philosophy and all fields of science including hundreds of scientists who laid down the foundations of modern science with their works, what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?" Then years…

I really feel like I shouldn't have to say this, but perhaps it is not a good idea to take history lessons from a DAN BROWN NOVEL!

Funnily enough: searching for 30secs on AskHistorians leads to an answer debunking the precise theory that you expound on your post! [0] TL;DR: The major cause of the end of the Islamic Golden Age was the catastrophic destruction of Bagdhad in 1258, and of surrounding Mesopotamia.

It's a bit irresponsible to propagate misconceptions like this, especially when the source is Dan f*cking Brown. :)

[0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/97rd7e/

Re: Ismail al-Jazari – the medieval 'Father of Robotics'

#44

Post by andrepd »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #15
noufalibrahim wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an oft repeated piece of idle scholarship that atheists and orientalists use to "explain" the decline of the so called "Islamic Golden Age". I've seen Steven Weinberg mention this as well as Neil Tyson. The factors were complex. There were economic and socio-political events that affected the stability and life in these societies. Several other reasons contributed to this downfall and it finally happened. To…

no. You are not answering my question. you are simply saying dont blame ghazali. My question is, what caused the death of "desire for scientific temper" and economic conditions do not change someones quest for knowledge or for that matter, influence an entire population away from science who took to avoid it like the plague. I had this talk with a guy last week and when i mentioned ghazali, he said something on the l…

> economic conditions do not change someones quest for knowledge

Come on... are you for real? You're telling me that subsistence farmers should have the same "thirst for knowledge" as scholars in a rich economic and cultural centre of an empire? Of course economic conditions matter! Some people are even of the opinion that they're the only things that matter.

Re: Ismail al-Jazari – the medieval 'Father of Robotics'

#45

Post by andrepd »

jbay808 wrote: post #26
keiferski wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History is really not that simple and you should always be wary of anyone trying to ascribe blame to a single person or event. There were many events that led to the “end of the Islamic Golden Age,” but a closer analysis reveals that nothing really ended, but simply was moved around. Consider that the Ottomans were technologically superior to Europeans until about the 17th century, or that Al-Andalus was around until…

> But, overall, the single biggest event to impact the era was probably the Mongol sacking of Baghdad. Just goes to show how Eurocentric my history education was; I never heard about this. Fascinating.

I never learned that my country used forced labour in its colonies until the 60s, or that we dropped napalm on civilian villages as a reprisal. I'm very skeptical about the quality of history lessons in school, no matter the country.

Re: Ismail al-Jazari – the medieval 'Father of Robotics'

#46

Post by andrepd »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #11
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished? A big part of the answer is the Sack of Baghdad in 1258 by the Mongol armies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)#Destru... >Contemporary accounts state Mongol soldiers looted and then destroyed mosques, palaces, libraries, and hospitals. Priceless books from Baghdad's thirty-six public libraries were torn apart, the looters using th…

yes. I had read this one some time ago. My question still stands, what made muslims go from inquisitive science seekers like the one in the article, father of robotics, to "science=bad". This sentiment is continuing to this day with almost all the religious preachers who find it "incomprehensible" that science can exist in the same plane as religion. To explain my point, the "talk of the town" is usually whenever the…

Why did Germans go from having a functioning liberal democratic society, to becoming some of the most cruel barbarians in human history, to becoming a peace-loving nation, all over the course of a few decades?

Things are complicated and the forces of history move in unpredictable and difficult to explain ways. We can identify broad trends which change cultures and societies: catastrophic events, economic changes, political changes, etc. But there's often no single explanation.

Re: Ismail al-Jazari – the medieval 'Father of Robotics'

#47

Post by N1H1L »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #2

in my family there has been a simple question being raised for as many years i can remember but there has never been a satisfactory answer yet. "if early muslims had all the science, mathematics, geography, philosophy and all fields of science including hundreds of scientists who laid down the foundations of modern science with their works, what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?" Then years…

You are forgetting the Mongols. They said the Euphrates ran black for a month due to the books dumped into the river. The Siege of Baghdad killed all of what you described

Re: Ismail al-Jazari – the medieval 'Father of Robotics'

#48

Post by redis_mlc »

qersist3nce wrote: post #31
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #2

in my family there has been a simple question being raised for as many years i can remember but there has never been a satisfactory answer yet. "if early muslims had all the science, mathematics, geography, philosophy and all fields of science including hundreds of scientists who laid down the foundations of modern science with their works, what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?" Then years…

The sudden "thing" that happened was Mongol Invasion[0]. Imagine Germany in 1945 losing the war, only having one major library, and the allies burn it down, decimate the population to 10% of the prior count[1], and throw the books down to Rhine River "...in such quantities that the river ran black with the ink from the books"[2]. The Mongols just invaded, pillaged and killed in a mind-less fashion. Middle-east was un…

[dead]

Re: Ismail al-Jazari – the medieval 'Father of Robotics'

#49

Post by O_H_E »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #2

in my family there has been a simple question being raised for as many years i can remember but there has never been a satisfactory answer yet. "if early muslims had all the science, mathematics, geography, philosophy and all fields of science including hundreds of scientists who laid down the foundations of modern science with their works, what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?" Then years…

I agree with many of the sibling replies but I would like to address different point.

> "including hundreds of scientists who laid down the foundations of modern science with their works, what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?"

That science didn't "just vanish". If it did, how would it have "laid down the foundations of modern science"? Yes, definitely the "Siege of Baghdad" [1] had a major impact but lot (no claims about how much) of knowledge later influenced the western "awakening". [2]

The awesome thing is: non of this is new. Humanity always worked that way. For example wikipedia also have articles on the Greek and Indian influences to that "enlightenment" era in the islamic world. [3][4]

DISCLAIMER: I don't actually know much about the history in detail, I am sure there is much more that can be said, due to some past cursory knowledge I was just able to look things up.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258) 2.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_world_contributions_... 3. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_contributions_to_the_I... 4. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_influence_on_Islamic_...

Re: Ismail al-Jazari – the medieval 'Father of Robotics'

#50

Post by christkv »

keiferski wrote: post #17
christkv wrote: post #7

I’ve always wondered if the Ottoman Empire in many ways was the root of the problem as it traded stability of empire over anything else.

Al-Jazari lived centuries before the Ottomans existed. Otherwise, having studied the Ottomans extensively, I wouldn’t say they chose stability over anything else. Their slow downfall was due more to a gradual fossilization of their institutions. For example, the Janissaries went from a highly-trained elite force to essentially a social club that everyone wanted to join. The sultans themselves also gradually became le…

Exactly the fossilization of the institutions more interested in maintaining the status quo. You saw the same in the Roman Empire which stagnated.

The chaos of the mess of Europe forced innovation and exploration of ideas at the cost of immense amounts of wars instability.

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