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by laputan_machine 1028 days ago
Historically, Islamic philosophers (as they were then called) took works from the greek philosophers before them and expanded upon it. Then a few other philosphers who did not like people learning from non-muslims leaned hard into fundamentalism and you now have the kind of Islam (Salafist/Wahhabism) that exists today, e.g. Saudi Arabia

The Mongols opened the door to fundamentalism, but it didn't have to go that way. The sack of Baghdad is a simplification

Read up on Al Ghazali, it is eye-opening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali

1 comments

Yes. But we stopped studying the Greeks for a long time and had no paper. So we could not distribute copies of Greek works until paper was introduced here, and until we had those copies.

That trend, that lasted a long time, ended with the help of the Islamic civilization influence, with the arrival of paper and translated copies of the works you are talking about.

They were studying them. We were not. Our copies come from them, and the technology to distribute those copies also comes from them.

Our scientific tradition is a direct continuation of theirs, as they are the first advisors to the first doctors in the West.

https://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/

Our scientific tradition is a direct continuation of theirs

A big influence for sure, but that claim is a stretch.

Look at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boethius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_books#Middle_Ages

Not a stretch. Follow the chain of doctoral advisors.