[bitdizzy]

Anyone who tells you history is shaped by the opinions of scholars is ill informed on the mechanisms of the world. What is true is that political forces will rationalize the actions they take for their material interests by finding a convenient fig leaf.

The people who spread this theory about the decline of the Islamic golden age likely also believe that the Iconoclasm was really about graven images or that the ascendancy of the West was due to the people with all the power accepting the arguments of bookish nerds during the enlightenment.

There were emperors of China who used Laozi to justify the burning of books. Do you think they were just being principled in their hyperliteralist reading?

[selimthegrim]

If you believe Joseph Needham (who according to George Steiner was not above telling a white lie or two) one would think they were getting rid of rival Mohist siege engineers