So in the middle of the last millenium, Islam had, in some ways, reached its height. The Ottoman Empire at the height of its power, there was a true caliphate in place. Muslims were governing. Describe for our students what Muslim culture and achievements really were considered in that part of our history? >> Just to qualify what I just said that Islam never by the sword, I don't mean Muslim military victories, Muslim military superiority. Muslim military conquest were not part of the spread of Islam, that's not what I'm saying. But that wasn't like a barbaric primitive spread of religion. It was through wars between different countries, but it was the superiority of the Muslim knowledge and intellectual and civilizational superiority that enabled Islam to spread far more. And in many places, Islam became a popular religion before even Muslim armies even came in Asia Minor, in Eastern Europe, etc. Yes, Islam, this new religion would consider itself as, again, the youngest sibling of Abrahamic faith. Theologically, this is really important for the Western audience to hear that. Today, they look at Islam as so foreign that they don't recognize its Judaic and Christian roots in this religion. But if you look anything Islamic, from the way we worship, the way we understand God, the way we form our spirituality, they will see in its root, it come from early Judaism and early Christianity of the 7th, 8th century. So Muslims had no problem in basically embracing and acknowledging what's been built before them. And even not having the science-religion debate, not having Institution of religion who are against scientific advancement. On the contrary, basically studying Greek philosophy as an act of worship. Studying Plato, Aristotle, translating these into Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, it gave rise to a very rich civilization in the 9th, 10th, and 11th century that Muslim scientists invented most of what we have today, the scientific invention. It has it roots in the Middle East. And not many people know, through Crusaders. It was one of the unexpected, inevitable impacts of Crusaders is basically come to Middle East. Taking these scientific and technological advanced innovations of Islam and Muslim civilizations and taking them back to Europe, which has become one of the main sources of European enlightenment in several centuries later. >> So we're whipping through history. But as the Ottoman Empire fell apart, declined, and then was toppled, that really began almost a new chapter in the history of Islam, and one that was witnessed by colonialism, a decline in power. Explain that and how that has affected in some ways the Muslim psychology, to the extent we can say that there is one such psychology for all, a billion people. >> [LAUGH] 1.7 billion people. >> Of course, right. >> Your question also implies that this happened, as if for the first time, to Muslims. That's absolutely not true, like the Muslim history, like any histories, it wasn't just- >> Not linear, it's not just up and down. >> It wasn't just, exactly. There were many civilization ups and downs. For example, immediately after Mohammed died, there was internal conflict. Even though Islam spread, there were ups and downs as well. The Mongol invasion, it completely knocked down the Muslim civilization for about 100 years. Muslim institutions were destroyed, Muslim libraries were destroyed. It took about a century or so for Muslim civilizations to recover in the Middle East and Central Asia, for example. Spanish inquisition, the Crusaders, it was again the time when Muslim civilizations were weak, and some external forces came and knocked them down. So this is another episode of Muslim civilizations internally weakening and if not decaying. Internal not catching up with the winds of change in the world in the global sense. Not catching up with the European enlightenment and scientific technological advancement, and pulling itself down internally, and then complete knocked down by external European colonial powers. By 1918, when the first World War ended, pretty much the entire Muslim world, entire Muslim majority where it were, in one way or another, colonized. So what we are seeing here is another episode of Muslim civilizations as a whole collectively, it collapsing and losing its social dynamism, social institutions. And as we gradually gain our independence from our colonial powers, try to rebuild those institutions, but it's going to take some time. It's not going to be overnight. What we are seeing in the Muslim world, very unimpressive picture, very much contradicting its past, its glorious past, is the recovery from the social, economic, political, as well as theological deterioration and destruction. >> Let's dig a little bit deeper into that, and that's where we'll close. I mean, again, it's impossible to characterize who we don't want to entirety at the Muslim world, but in many countries where you have predominant Muslim majorities were witnessed by bad governance. Poverty, unfortunately, the lack of scientific achievements. And you're saying we're in a period of recovery, but sometimes people look in the UN development report for the part of the Arab world from a number of years ago, which we'll post on our website. It was really scathing in its review, also diminution of resources. A whole variety of problems besetting many, many of those countries, and you compare that to the glory days of the caliphate and the achievements in science. How do we account for that, and what is it's significance today? >> Just to support your point, the books being translated into Spanish in one year is bigger than the books translated into Arabic in the last 100 years. I mean, that shows. Forget about economy, infrastructure. >> The number of patents. >> Yeah. >> For example, coming out of. >> Or books produced, or the paper consumption, which is one of the major indicator of the development. It's very, very poor, you're right. I will never forget. If you haven't been, New York Metropolitan Museum has an unbelievable, beautiful, Muslim civilizational section. It took seven years for them to develop. I highly encourage your students also to visit New York Metropolitan Museum has with some civilization sections. For the last 1,400 years, what were the highlights of the Muslim civilizations? So they invited me, as a scholar, a couple of months before the official opening, to see with a lot of other scholars. I will never forget two American scholars who knew a lot about art but knew nothing about Islam. All they knew were some post 9/11 barbaric, scary, monstrous image of Islam. I will never forget, like they would go from one piece after another, they will see a pillar, they will see a carpet. They can appreciate. They know that no weak, barbaric, primitive civilization can produce these state of art stuff. I will never forget, they keep looking one thing after another and asking each other, what went wrong? [LAUGH] What went wrong? From civilizational climax, how did the Muslim civilization? But I think this is the pattern of God's creation. Like human beings, every state, every civilization also gets their childhood and adulthood. And after awhile, it's their time to go, it's their time to die so that they can come back renewed. I can see millions of reasons why Muslim civilizations went basically neglecting science, separating scientific learning from religious learning, focusing more on religious tone. And also, some of it was inevitable. Muslims were comfortable, I think that's one of the main reason, underlying reason. Muslims were comfortably occupying the trade routes. And the blood was flowing. The ideas, the trade, the goods were flowing automatically. But once the new world was invented in the early 14th century, or late 14th,15th century, when the new trade routes were invented, which was completely out of the Muslim control. Muslims didn't really understand what would be the implications and consequences of not catching up with the world. The changing trade routes only when they realized it was too late. It was too late, and sometimes the power blinds people. I think I see this partially here in the United States that once they're so powerful, once they're so rich, once they're so confident in themselves, once they feel that superiority complex, they don't feel to follow the world and catch, get on board as quick as you could ever imagine. >> Well, it's impossible to do 1,400 years of history in 15 minutes, but you did a very good job, thank you. >> Thank you, thank you very much.
