Causes of Decline in Scientific advancements in the Islamic civilisation:

Causes of Decline in Scientific advancements in the Islamic civilisation:

Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal

[Currently, Dr. Iqbal is the President of Center for Islamic Sciences, Canada. He has worked as Director (Scientific Information) COMSTECH, the Ministerial Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation of the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) and has written many books on the topic of Islam and science].

For understanding the reasons for decline, we must make an attempt to look at the state of the Muslim world in minute details at the dawn of the fifteenth century—a time when Ibn al-Shatir was actively employed in the Jami' Mosque of Damascus and Ulugh Beg was conducting the most advanced astronomical observations and theoretical research. The following section is a small beginning toward this important task. Thus, delimiting the question allows us to focus on the period of three hundred years, between the fifteenth and the seventeenth century. This is the most crucial period for understanding the causes of decline of the Islamic scientific tradition. 


To begin with, let us note that, unlike the popular perception that constructs a tale based on supposed lack of material resources, geopolitical developments related to internal conflicts, and political instability, the actual historical data of this period does not support any of these “causes”.

On the contrary, this data shows that this period was actually a time of great prosperity and of three stable and internally cohesive empires: the Ottoman (689-1343/1290-1924), the Indian Timuri Empire (933- 1274/1526-1857),“ and the Safavi (907-1135/1501-1722). 


By the dawn of the fifteenth century, the Ottoman, the Indian Timuri (Mughal), and the Safavi empires had emerged through a historical realignment of the Muslim world following the sacking of Baghdad. 


General Features of the New Empires

Built on the ruins of the ‘Abbasid Empire, through a century and a half of conflicts, confrontations, and realignments, these three empires inherited the Islamic scientific tradition in a broken form in the sense that major centers of learning, libraries, and patrons had been uprooted. The large- scale devastation that accompanied the Mongol invasion and the subsequent strife had a deep impact on the social fabric of the society. It created new ruling elites, new centers of power, and new interests. Baghdad was no longer the social, intellectual and economic capital of the Muslim world; instead, there arose other cities to claim the honor: Tabriz, Delhi, Isfahan (after 1599), and Istanbul (after 1453).



For the purpose of our study, the following new factors are important.

1. After the Mongol invasion, when the dust finally settled and the new empires emerged as stable entities, the Islamic scientific tradition did not find a new home (or homes) where it could re-establish itself in a manner that would not create a break with what had gone before. This is because most of the old centers of scientific research had been destroyed, patterns of social life were disrupted and numerous libraries had been plundered.



2. A new political situation arose: For the first time in Islamic history, there appeared three powerful empires with adjacent borders, two of which fought one another for supremacy and control of the areas that were previously held under one empire. This was not the same as the small-scale disputes at the borders of the ‘Abbasid Empire or even claims to authority within the empire. The Ottomans, often together with Ozbegs, opposed the Safavids on religious, economic, political and territorial grounds, and though the Indian Timuris remained out of this long-term conflict, they were often courted by the other two for help. 


3. The Safavids not only chose the Shi‘i interpretation of Islam as their official creed, they also established their institutions, legal system, and social organization on this basis. This created parallel, and often conflicting, claims to loyalty and patronage. This division had a deep impact on the pace of scientific research.



4. In all three empires, there arose ‘model emperors’, who ruled for long periods, greatly expanded their empires, laid the foundation of stable bureaucracies and administrative structures and vastly increased the revenues of the state through efficient use of resources, but placed little priority in science.



5. Out of the three empires, the Indian Timuri empire had a uniquely new historical situation: a large non-Muslim population, which outnumbered the Muslims. This gave birth to a tension in the social fabric of the society and often rulers were pre-occupied with wars, rebellions and conflicts.

6. When new centers of intellectual activity emerged in any stable form, the interest of rulers and patrons had changed from patronizing science to building impressive monuments of architectural splendor and to supporting other forms of artistic expression; all civilizations take this route when large amounts of wealth are accumulated in the hands of few institutions or individuals. Thus in all three empires, the greatest amount of energy and resources were devoted to architectural and artistic expressions, rather than natural sciences. Hence we see the emergence of monumental buildings, great poetry and paintings in all three empires. 


7. In the Safavi Empire, the Islamic philosophical tradition re­ established itself through a new synthesis that combined elements of falsafa and Ishraqi mysticism that recast the vision of Philosophia in Sufi terms. But this renewed interest in philosophy was not accompanied by an interest in natural sciences to any significant degree. 


8. Although both the Indian Timuri and the Ottoman empires were Sunni, none could claim the universalistic nature of the caliphal authority that was held by the ‘Abbasids. 


9. Because there existed, more or less, permanent borders between the three empires, the free flow of people, goods and ideas was not like it used to be. Of the three empires, the Safavi held the greatest share of the traditional centers of Islamic scholarship, followed by the Ottomans in their Arab domains. But these old centers of intellectual scholarship were not revitalized in the new empires, which had their own intellectual centers.



10. The position of Arabic, as the universal language of discourse, did not remain the same in the new realignment. Although it was still accepted as the language of scholarship in large areas, Persian emerged as an important second language; Turkish and various Indo-Muslim languages also drew attention. This produced a restrictive impact of its own. Great scholars came to India from the other empires but the Indian scholars rarely left India, except when they went to settle in Hijaz, which became the conduit for the spread of their works and ideas. Consequently, books written in India reached the Ottomans via Hijaz but the books written by the Ottomans were practically unknown in India. 


What does all of this suggest? Certainly not a case of a civilization having come to its lowest ebb. The least one can gather from this data is that there existed, during these three centuries, a set of unique circumstances common to all three empires. The most striking facets of this set is neither the paucity of wealth, nor weakening of intellectual vigor, but an unusual interest in artistic expression: great mosques decorated with wonderful calligraphic designs and artwork, lavish palaces, vast public squares suitable for polo and troop movement, miniature paintings which show rich details and poetry.

All of these features are common in all three empires and many great architectural works still stand to testify to an age rich in expression of beauty, splendor and wealth. 


Writing toward the end of the fourteenth century, Ibn Khaldun (733- 809/1332-1406) was conscious that a new level of civilization might be on the horizon in the Muslim world—a level of civilization which only comes when sedentary culture has reached a certain degree of stability and prosperity. The new political and social circumstances of the three empires show exactly that kind of flowering.


“It is true,” wrote Ibn Khaldun, “that the old cities, such as Baghdad, al-Basrah, and al-Kufah, which were the [original] centers of scholarship, are in ruin. However, Allah has replaced them with even greater cities. Science has been transplanted in the non­ Arab ‘Iraq of Khurasan, to Transoxania in the East, in Cairo and the adjacent regions in the West . [Ibn Khaldun, Muqadamah, tr. by Rosenthal, Franz (1967), Princeton University Press, Princeton, p. 341. ]



Compared to the austerity of the Prophetic times, these empires seem to be driven by an internal desire to express and display the accumulated cultural riches of a civilization that had turned its focus and attention to a this worldliness with a concentration never before seen in the Islamic civilization, not even in the fabulous times of Harun al-Rashid.

The high culture of the Ottomans, Safavids, and the Timuri Indians displays such a florescence of arts that no other time in the Muslim history is comparable to it. The cultivation of Turkish language by the Ottomans, that of Persian by the Safavids and the Timuri Indians produced rich poetry and imaginative prose works which speak of this worldly splendor in an exalting language that is almost alien to the Islamic emphasis on moderation. And though individuals like Katib Qelebi (called HajjI Khallfah, 1015- 1068/1606-57), an encyclopaedist who was at home with a broad range of Arabic, Farsi and Ottoman texts as well as aware of new developments in geography and astronomy in the West, did make their appearance, they were rare in a culture of pleasure, almost bordering on decadence.

It is in this pleasure-seeking high culture of this age, that the real causes of decline are to be found.

The courts at Delhi, Istanbul and Isfahan, now captive of their extravagant routines and almost alienated from the realities of the vast empires they controlled, the courtiers and the elite families who contributed so much to the decadence and absolutism of the courts and the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands are the indicators of a civilization at the brink of disastrous ruin. 



The Islamic scientific tradition became a caricature of its past glory in these three centuries and those who had cultivated it, were replaced by those who preferred to seek pleasure in the finite realm of the senses, rather than the splendors of the spirit.



When this interlude of three centuries came to its close, and the high culture and the decadent practices felt threatened by the approach of foreign armies at their doorsteps, it was already too late. The West had achieved a decisive edge over the Muslim world through remarkable advancements in science which were quickly translated into technologies which produced superior weapons, enhanced industrial production and, most of all, a vast reservoir of energy which sought to expand their frontiers, both physically as well as intellectually.



The future historians of Islam must divert their attention to these three centuries in order to understand the causes of decline and the withering of the Islamic scientific tradition. Those who have sought “internal causes” in the very foundations of Islam have misled these efforts for too long and with disastrous results. It is time for a total new orientation and a new search. 


One should also not forget the impact of the timing of certain inventions in Europe. One of the most important and fateful aspects of the new developments was a rapid shrinking of the globe. Science produced skills, tools and techniques. Technology produced weapons and means of transportation; all synchronized with a time when wars could still be fought in distant lands and victories could still be held for long time without endangering global repercussions. It was a time when victories and defeats were still isolated and localized affairs. It was also a time when the Muslim world was so divided that one part of it could not come to rescue the other part. This global dimension of the impact of modern science, this rapid shrinking of the planet, passed through that phase and then came to a new phase in the post World War II era. The timing of events was a major factor in deciding the fate of the Islamic scientific tradition and thus of the relationship between Islam and science. 


It is also important to mention that before it faded from the Muslim lands, a large part of the Islamic scientific tradition had been transmitted to Europe.

-Adapted from his book 'Islam and science' page 166 to 170.