SeeMaa, I am a little irritated by the attitude you seem to take here, viz. you presenting yourself as a teacher and requesting us to take the role of students. I am, of course, delighted at the opportunity to learn from anyone who posts here, but I also expect them to enter into dialogue with me.
What I know of the historical religious development of Islam suggests that a major change took place in thinking from around the 11th. Century C.E. onwards. In the first period of what is known as the Islamic Golden Age (7th - 13th Century C.E.) there was a great openness towards speculative, rational thinking, which led to great advances in areas such as science, mathematics and philosophy, exemplified by such thinkers as Avicenna (Ibn Sina, d. 1037), Averroes (Ibn Rushd, d. 1198) or Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham, d. 1039). Historically, the influence of this way of thinking (generally described by historians as the Mutazilite tendency of thought) had less and less influence on Islam as time progressed, losing ground steadily to the Asharite view of knowledge, particularly following the critique of the influence of Hellenistic philosophy on Islamic thinkers by Al-Ghazali (d. 1111) in his work, "The Incoherence of the Philosophers." (It is perhaps significant that Averroes, who wrote "The Incoherence of the Incoherence" as an attempted rebuttal of Al- Ghazali, went on to become a major influence on Christian scholastic thinkers, such as Albertus Magnus and Aquinas, while being largely ignored in Islam.) This forms the background to the prevailing view in Islam that the "gates of ijtihad (اجتهاد)" ([simplified] independent interpretation of sources) were "closed" by the 10th. Century C.E with a consequent increasing emphasis on "taqlid (تَقْليد)" ([simpified] imitation - unquestioning acceptance of religious authority). In my view, the predominance of this way of thinking caused Islam to fatally close itself off to certain avenues of development regarding independent rational thinking - a way generally not taken by its relgious competitor, Christianity. Generalising massively (!), an end result was, on one side, the emergence of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution out of the Christian tradition, on the other side, within Islam, the madrasahs of the Taliban. (I must stress here that I am not equating the views of the Taliban with Islam, any more than I would equate the views of Karl Marx with Christianity; I am simply pointing out that they are extreme developments of different general vectors followed by the two religious traditions.) Francis On 21 Jul., 22:14, "\"SeeMaa\"" <[email protected]> wrote: > On 21 يوليو, 22:27, frantheman <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Kim Stanley Robinson's "Years of Rice and Salt", which Molly referred > > to here recently, posits an alternate history in which Islam rather > > than Christianity becomes the context within which the scientific > > revolution takes place. An interesting "what if ...", in which other > > possibilities for a development of Islamic self-understanding are put > > forward. > > > Francis > > > > > - Show quoted text - > > Hey Mr. .. Francis .. > If you have a question or inquiry .. Preferred --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
