Plenty of other empires rose from the ashes to build on what came previously. The Caliphate was the final pestilence to strike the west. It built an empire by locking the society into post-apocalyptic living standards. It has repeated this trick many times over, for example in Afghanistan. There is absolutely no reason (other than Islam) why the society, culture, economy, population etc should not have recovered rapidly to previous levels and then higher under a large, stable empire.

freediver wrote on Feb 3^rd, 2015 at 1:13pm:


I can tell I *REALLY* have to dumb it down for you:

there are 2 good reasons: 1. the unprecedented catastrophic economic crash that occurred just before and 2. the data you refer to for these "previous levels" were not even from the same area - but economic centres that were *OUTSIDE* the Islamic Empire. They crashed before Islam existed, and they were never part of the Islamic Empire.

And here's how stupid your argument is FD: "there is absolutely no reason (other than Islam) why the society, culture, economy, population etc should not have recovered rapidly to previous levels and then higher under a large, stable empire."

- which "recovery" are we talking about FD? Rome? Constantinople? Breaking News FD - neither of these places were controlled by Islam - so why are you attributing Rome's  non-recovery to Islam? And yes, before you deny it, thats what you are doing. Think about it. Which centres under Islam stagnated or declined? Tell me, please - preferably by not comparing Rome with Baghdad. What did Islam take over? Damascus, Cordoba, Jerusalem etc - did *THESE* centres experience the type of rapid recovery you demand of a large stable empire? Why don't you look at the economic data for *THOSE* cities FD - you know, comparing like for like - instead of trying to compare apples and oranges.

freediver wrote on Feb 3^rd, 2015 at 7:56pm:


And yet you don't even know the previous living standards of the areas Islam took over. Again, the "previous levels" you whine about were for the core region "Southern Mediterranean (Southern Europe)"  - which was basically the Italian Peninsula. It was here for a 500 year period from 250BCE to 250CE. The Islamic Empire 'cores' were  "Egypt (NE Africa), Syria-Iraq (SW Asia)" - between 700-1000CE. Two completely different geographical zones. Its there in Table 1 on page 14-15 of the PDF I linked to earlier.

The point being your logic that living standards barely increased under Islam assumes a like for like comparison between the standards of the Southern Mediterranean zone and the Egyptian/Syria-Iraq zone as if they were the same area - and is therefore flawed. The only way you can draw the conclusion you are making is if you knew the living standards in Egypt and Iraq-Syria both immediately pre and post circa 700CE - which you don't, because Morris doesn't provide them. He concentrates only on data within the identified 'core' of the day - he does not collect all data from all western regions and average it all out - he states this in the already mentioned PDF.

What we *DO* know though is that the economic and cultural centres of the Islamic Empire became, in a remarkably short time, the economic centres of the entire Western World, and lifted the 'social development' of the entire Western World.

freediver wrote on Feb 3^rd, 2015 at 7:56pm:


Rome was born and developed on the shoulders of centuries of continual growth and development. Islam was born on the ashes of an unprecedented catastrophic crash in social development. Please look at your graph. Are you still going to peddle out the absurd lie that the decline that preceded the rise of Islam was not unique?

Also, I hope you understand that you are shifting your argument that the Islamic Empire "did not even register" and "achieved almost nothing" - to an argument that appears to be dependent on Islam achieving the same level of prosperity as Rome did. Nice attempt at deflection, but thats not my concern here - and I'll happily admit that the Islamic Caliphate didn't achieve as high a level of Morris's 'social development' as Rome did. My only interest here is exposing your stupid claim that the Islamic Empire "did not even register" (presumably on social development) and "achieved almost nothing" - for the stupidity that it is. The excruciating fumbling of your argument is on display when you conclude that the social development under the Islamic Empire "stagnated" or at best "barely saw an increase" - based on nothing else but a flawed comparison of data from two completely different regions - one under Islamic control, the other not. Of course it never dawned on you that for places like Baghdad and Cairo to go from nothing to the economic centres of the western world, it required something a little more than stagnant economic growth.

right so if I understand correctly FD, your argument is that because there was considerable overlap between Rome and the Caliphate, the Caliphate should have achieved at least the same level of social development as Rome - and because it didn't it therefore "does not even register" and "achieved almost nothing" - right?

The most obvious flaw with this is that it was not the Caliphate that was the "successor" to Rome as you imply, it was the Eastern Roman Empire - or the Byzantine Empire. They recaptured much of the previous empire in the west - including Rome. Yet funnily enough they didn't succeed in raising social development much either. In fact it continued to fall - even at their greatest height. Moreover they couldn't even compete with the crappy Caliphate in owning the western economic 'core'. Why was that FD?

freediver wrote on Feb 4^th, 2015 at 7:45pm:


Clearly the words "unprecedented collapse" are having no effect on you. Its there in the graph FD, nothing, repeat nothing like what happened in the west circa 400-700 happened before in the history of western civilization. You simply pretend that "plenty of past empires" went through the same thing and came through with flying colours - but they didn't. Nothing like this ever happened before. So there's absolutely no point invoking past history as a relevant template for what you can reasonably expect to happen. The fact is, the Byzantine Empire took over more of the old Roman Empire than the Caliphate did (and certainly more prosperous areas), and their social development figures really didn't register, and unlike the Caliphate, was never the economic centre of the western world.

freediver wrote on Feb 4^th, 2015 at 7:45pm:


No, you don't understand the point. You said that the Caliphate created stagnated economic/social development where it ruled. While yes social development in the west had a stagnating trend during the centuries after the fall of Rome, this is not the same thing. Its a very important point FD, so try and understand it. Morris's social development scale is not a good measure of how well islamic rule improved social development in the areas in which it controlled - because as already explained, we see no comparison of the before and after picture of the Islamic cores. It is a linear scale of the entire west - seamlessly switching from one core to another and plots it as a single continuum. Thats fine for his purposes, but it is wholly inadequate for measuring the success or otherwise of the Caliphate in improving the social development in the areas they controlled. In fact we can prove that your argument is complete bunkum - we know for a fact that Islam *DID* raise the social development of the areas they controlled, because the islamic cores of Egypt/Iraq-Syria went from not being the western core - to being the western core in a matter of mere decades.

freediver wrote on Feb 4^th, 2015 at 7:45pm:


You heard it here folks - the decline of the Italian peninsula after the fall of Rome comes down entirely to muslim pirates.

freediver wrote on Feb 5^th, 2015 at 12:58pm:


True - your argument in fact hinges on an incredibly sophisticated formula for an empire to achieve the same, or better social development levels, than the previous: 1. simply emerge after the previous empire 2. not be islamic.

In view of this, you have some explaining to do for why the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire "failed" even more than the Islamic Empire.

freediver wrote on Feb 5^th, 2015 at 12:58pm:


That doesn't refute my point. Looking at a linear scale of overall western development that jumps from core to core - is *NOT* an indication that islam "does not even register" and "achieved almost nothing" in terms of social development. Again you have to compare the Egypt/Iraq-Syria core before and after Islam took over - which Morris doesn't do, though he does confirm that there was economic decline immediately before Islam arrived, and economic revival after Islam arrived. But to what extent we don't know. Nevertheless we do know that the western core went quite suddenly from the area around SE Europe (Byzantine Empire) to the Islamic Empire, and stayed that way for at least 3 centuries - this despite the Byzantine Empire remaining relatively prosperous and even experiencing some growth during the same time.

freediver wrote on Feb 5^th, 2015 at 12:58pm:


Nonsense - firstly, not even the Byzantine Empire could compete with Islam for the economic core of the western world. Secondly, there were no "shackles of the Caliphate" in the areas in the west that eventually became the western core (western Europe). Moreover, for about 500 years the western core was a combined effort of Islamic North Africa and Christian Southern Europe. Morris himself provides evidence that the foundations for the rise of Western Europe were firmly laid during the height of the caliphate - from around circa 900-1000. Which really just reaffirms the orthodox historical view that the transfer of knowledge that came from the Islamic world helped stimulate European growth.

as always your trolling is irrelevant.

You are not forgiven for being king troll here

and so it is

namaste

freediver wrote on Feb 5^th, 2015 at 9:44pm:


Says Morris:

Quote:


Quote:


http://ianmorris.org/docs/social-development.pdf pp53-54


freediver wrote on Feb 5^th, 2015 at 9:44pm:


Both. The Islamic Empire transferred and preserved knowledge  - eg Ancient Greek philosophy and knowledge from the far east - as well as made huge scientific and philosophical contributions of their own - which undoubtedly fueled the European revival.