When Did the ME Go Wrong?

[Queequeg]

I hardly think the rule of the Ottomans, who had ruled the area for five hundred years and were recognized as the leaders of the Islamic world, can really be compared to the brutal and dehumanizing rule of the Japanese in Korea.

Where do you get this notion of brutal and dehumanizing Japanese rule in Korea from?  I seem to recall you mentioning it before.

(Pardon the intrusion.)

Korean nationalists tend to play up the brutality (particularly in the godforsaken North), but my impression was that Japanese rule was benign in Korea, particulalrly when compared to their treatment of the mainland Chinese.  Weren't a few of the great Post-War South Korean leaders supposed to have been pro-Japanese at what point?

[Crazy_Ivan80]

The initial Muslim Empire was flawed, certainly, but it managed to produce some of the greatest minds in history, in a few cases as great as any of the Renaissance or the Hellenes (al-Khwarizmi, Persian admittedly, ibn Khaldun, Avicenna, also Persian, al Kindi, Geber, also Persian, etc..). 

It might be interesting to find out how many of these really great thinkers are to be considered really a part of the islamic world as many had themselves and/or their works condemned (often during their lifetime) as unislamic. Iirc,; something that starts happening pretty soon in islamic history.

Of course having a leader (muhammed) who raped, pillaged, murdered, put people into slavery and was generally unsavoury and created a religo-political way of life based on these facts (as well as making it clear that the world must be conquered, muslims are superior and all the rest at best second class), and impressed on his people that this system was basically immutable, doesn't help either. And while for the next few centuries the theologes were able to tinker with and adapt the system to fit their needs something of a rubberband effect set in, making it harder and harder to continue adapting to an ever changing world. The result being that the best their religious thinkers can up with nowadays seems to be no more than a return to the 7th century or declaring mobile-phones haram. Outright stupidiy or irrelevant declarations in other words, reminiscent of the "Angels on a pinhead" debate of yore.

So while saying that they went wrong with the advent of islam sounds like an easy answer, it might probably be the right answer in this case due to the way the particular ideology is set up.

edit:
Alternatively once could say that the mid-east started to go wrong earlier when the roman concept of tolerance for all religions made way for the Christian (and in "lesser" amount Zoroastrian) obsession with getting rid of wrong sects and general intolerance of everything not christian. Something that carried over nicely into islam with its concept of dhimmis. And lets not be mistaken about that: it was not tolerance, it was subjugation and humiliation.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

The early Muslims contributed almost as much to Western Science as the ancient Greeks, a thousand years before them.  Guess again.

Urban legend. They just passed to us classical writtings.
Do you have any idea how much of the classical period was lost?

Do you have any idea how brilliant the Muslim mathematicians were?  Or ibn Khaldun?  The Greeks were fantastic at many things, but our modern math is essentially a result of the Caliphate's work.

Seems that a lot of the credit for modern math goes to the Indians and their solution to the wacked out concept of nothing, i.e. "0"

[Tamas]

I've heard a theory on a podcast by Yale University (which, as you would guess, spends most of its time egowanking about how great Yale is) that tolerance is the greatest requirement to becoming a "hyperpower".  Its an interesting, remarkable theory I think.  She talked about how the greatest Empires are built up by their minorities as much/more so than the dominant populace (the Armenians, Greeks and Balkan Slavs in the Ottoman Empire, Syraics in the Ummayad Caliphate, Persians in the Abbasid, Greeks in the Roman Empire, Scots in the British, everyone in America).  These Empires tend to break apart when the dominant populace becomes anxious, inward looking and seeks to create some kind of mono-ethnic, 'pure' state.  Quite an elegant little theory, would explain quite a bit in the Mid-East I'd think.

Actually that fits 100% for Hungary as well. Sure, not a hyperpower by any means, but it was a multi-ethnic regional power, with minorities regularly reaching the higher echelons of power.
As a matter of fact, during the greatest trial of the country, the centuries long struggle with Ottomans, two foreign generals were the most extraordinary: János Hunyadi's father was by all probability a Romanian. Miklós Zrinyi's family was Croatian, yet not only he was a most excellent general, but also he quickly became the champion of the magyar cause vs. the Habsburgs, after he realized how marginal importance the hungarian frontline was for the emperor. He was assasinated btw.

The whole peaceful co-existence went out of the window in the late 1840s when the magyars managed to get themselves national rights from the Habsburgs (use of language and stuff), but the very same magyar leaders denied these rights from the minorities, in an effort to turn all people within the borders into a "single nation"

[The Brain]

The ME went wrong with the emergence of oil. As long as you could ignore the ME it didn't hurt anyone you knew or cared about.

[CountDeMoney]

The early Muslims contributed almost as much to Western Science as the ancient Greeks, a thousand years before them.  Guess again.

You're asking when the ME went wrong, and the ME went south beginning with Islam and its spread by the sword.

[Viking]

Ijtihad - or the end of it in the 10th century - thats when the ME starts to go wrong... After that the Muslim world is dominated by the nomadic tribes and their fighting ability.

[Faeelin]

It might be interesting to find out how many of these really great thinkers are to be considered really a part of the islamic world as many had themselves and/or their works condemned (often during their lifetime) as unislamic. Iirc,; something that starts happening pretty soon in islamic history.

My knowledge of history is sketchy, so could you remind me what happened to Galileo?

[Sheilbh]

You're asking when the ME went wrong, and the ME went south beginning with Islam and its spread by the sword.

Islam was born between two religions with swords: the Byzantine and the Persian.  It's not like the other religions at that time were peaceable.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

It might be interesting to find out how many of these really great thinkers are to be considered really a part of the islamic world as many had themselves and/or their works condemned (often during their lifetime) as unislamic. Iirc,; something that starts happening pretty soon in islamic history.

My knowledge of history is sketchy, so could you remind me what happened to Galileo?

quite irrelevant since the modern western world doesn't claim that it's advances are christian in nature, nor does it claim that everything it does has to be okayed by whatever church there is.
Unlike what you see in the muslims world: where there's endless energy spent on figuring out if something is haram or halal and where an authority of religiour or state nature saying that something isn't islamic effectively kills off the idea.
In other words: the church coming out against Galileo didn't stop the train of thought Galileo worked on. Various muslims clerics/authority figures coming out against whatever philosopher of the time and denouncing him and his works as unislamic had the effect of closing a lot of doors of human thought.
edit: What has been created in the ME (and further afield in the islamic wqorld I guess) is an atmosphere where it is forbidden to doubt, resulting in a society where there is little doubt when it comes to viewing the world: allah is supreme, the kuran is immutable and islam and the muslims are destined to rule the world regardless of the cost.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

You're asking when the ME went wrong, and the ME went south beginning with Islam and its spread by the sword.

Islam was born between two religions with swords: the Byzantine and the Persian.  It's not like the other religions at that time were peaceable.

the difference is their origins:
Islam was never really a religion of peace, whereas Christianity (and iirc Zoroastianism) were. Especially Christianity didn't have access to statepower for the first few centuries of its existence. It's initial leaders, the examples to be followed basically, are generally not warriors.
Mohammed, who is the example to be followed in Islam, is a warrior. And one of kind that would get him a ticket to The Hague or Nuremburg in todays world.

[Sheilbh]

Well yes, but that's also because early Christianity operated within a comparatively peaceful world in which there was an almost global Empire and a number of common languages from Britain to Egypt.  The initial leaders of Christianity aren't warriors, Paul is God's Leninist.  They build a party.  That makes the peaceful spread of Christianity rather easier than Islam.  Islam is founded in a fractious and warlike part of the world - at that time - and immediately to the North is a devastated region racked with numerous barely understood heresies about the nature of the Trinity and two religious empires with swords in their arms.

Now the Arabs initially come out of the Arabian peninsula and Islam is a faith for Arabs, it's like Judaism.  That changes with the Abbasids and conversion spreads, though isn't forced.  It's as far as we can tell initially very slow and then really gains pace.  Personally I think after inquisitions and wars over Arianism, Monophytism, Monothelitism and so on the central message of Islam is deeply appealing: 'There is one God'.

[Neil]

Mohammed, who is the example to be followed in Islam, is a warrior. And one of kind that would get him a ticket to The Hague or Nuremburg in todays world.

Disagree.  Mohammed tended to win his wars, and winners don't get punished.

[The Nickname Who Was Thursday]

Mohammed, who is the example to be followed in Islam, is a warrior.

I thought he was a merchant.

[I Killed Kenny]

The problem (it does not matter why this happens) was/is that Islam is a religion of peace, they *must* turn everyone Islamic. If you know that someone wants to conquer/convert you, if you low your guard, you can never low your guard...