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Islamic Rennaissance?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age---
Firstly, the term "Renaissance" etymologically implies revival after a lapse. The appearance of the Jamia (which has yet to occur) could be accurately called an Islamic Renaissance. The study of Greek classics in Islamic countries cannot accurately be termed an Islamic Renaissance.
Secondly, even the term "Islamic Golden Age" is Eurocentric, and this article explains why:
medium.com/the-maple-leaf-ummah/the-islamic-golden-age-the-biggest-hoax-in-history-a2beaa8b10cc
Isn’t it an inspiring story? Once upon a time, the magical world of flying carpets and Bangal tigers and bedouin was experiencing something similar (but inferior) to the acme of all human thought: the Enlightenment.
Hard to imagine now, I know, but a long time ago the Arabs and Persians (and whatever else sort-of exists in those unknowable places) were acting almost civilized, almost European. So nearly European, in fact, that we can just go ahead and say they were fully European, and give them their own age.
As long as they stay there.
Yes, I’m talking about the Islamic Golden Age, that beautiful work of Orientalist fiction that is used to explain away the existence of a brief moment of civilization outside of the European sphere of influence.
Why Do I have such disdain for this epithet, you ask? What is an epithet, you ask? Let me tell you.
The Eye of the Beholder
First off, an epithet is a name that someone gives something to describe it, and that is the key here. The ‘Golden Age’ of Islam was not a name given to this undefined period by Muslims, nor Arabs, nor Persians. It was a name bestowed upon those people by Europeans, and it refers to something painfully obvious and insulting to those people.
The Golden Age of Islam is commonly understood to have started with the establishment of Baghdad, especially with the establishment of the House of Wisdom there, and/or various other universities around the same time. The Golden Age then continues until the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols, or variously until some other event that a historian deems significant enough to condemn two whole continents back to barbarism.
Most tellingly, the Golden Age can most easily be defined as the period of Islamic history that lead most directly to the European Renaissance.
Furthermore, Golden Age Scholars like Avicenna are widely recognized as having contributed to the fields of science, whereas regular old philosophers such as Bukhari, Abu Hanifa or al-Qazwini are largely or completely ignored for no reason other than that their bodies of research were never appropriated by the ‘founders’ of everything good and correct in the world: European thought.
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So to sum things up: So long as the scholars were working toward a future prosperity in Europe, they were in the Golden Age. As soon as they stopped, they needed to be destroyed for their immorality.
I largely agree. Muslims themselves generally consider the best time in Islamic history (excluding when the Jamia will appear) to be the time when Mohammed himself was still alive, known as the Time of the Companions:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companions_of_the_Prophet
If any time deserves to be called an "Islamic Golden Age", it should be that time, not the much later era chosen by Eurocentrists.