The collective Muslim psyche has yet to properly come to terms with the trauma of the destruction of Baghdad in 1258, the loss of Al-Andalus in 1492, or the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924. Part of our inability to engage in a healthy critical self-reflection to understand how and why we are in […]
Tag Archives: Golden Age
13
Apr
Apr
For a book carrying the subtitle “Science and Religion in Islam,” one would reasonably expect the author to be well-versed in three subjects: science, religion, and Islam. However, Taner Edis readily admits from the very beginning of An Illusion of Harmony that he is no expert in Islam. He cites having grown in a Muslim land, […]
23
Apr
Apr
The Muslim nostalgia for the past and feelings of inferiority in the presence can sometimes lead one to project modern understandings and presuppositions about what is considered rational and intellectually respectable onto past scholars living during what is known as the Golden Age of Islam. However, a reading of works by those scholars, such as […]
28
Oct
Oct
The ability to explain current events requires an essential ability to properly reference history if one is to offer a rational analysis for how we got here. One of the most frustrating things about this, however, is the far too prevalent tendency to oversimplify the factors contributing to the state of the present, and the comic book level […]