In 2001 appeared the book of British historian, Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East, speculating why a greater empire than Rome -- and achiever of a longer scientific history than any other in ancient or modern times -- should end up in the embittered misery of most Islamics today.In comparison with Christendom, its millenial rival, the Islamic world grew poor, weak, ignorant.
Using reform and revolution, Muslim leaders reshuffled military, economic, and political sectors, with disappointing results and humiliating defeats. Attempts at economic development merely impoverished some countries and corrupted others, especially by dependence on resources in oil. The quest for freedom reslted in shabby tyrannies, from traditional autocracies to dictatorships. that are modern only in their Weapons, factories, schools, parliaments -- nothing seemed to work.
Lewis single explanation for the failure was "lack of freedom". Ihave the book and have read and reread it. Lewis shows no awareness of past Islamic achievements noted at this Website.
Dissatisfied with Lewis' explanations and those of others, I offer one of my own. Dig or redig! Reporters distinguish between "primary sources" and "secondary sourcess" for their news stories.I'm creating a comparable distinction in History because the general public is so ignorant of history, and our historians are so ignorant or ignore so much important history. Elsewhere, I have implicitly noted this in mathematical and scientific history. With my present jargon, I'll make it explicit.
Example: history texts and physics books and articles and textbooks attributed "the law of falling bodies" to Galileo (1564-1642). In my language, that is "Secondary History" because the "Primary History" is that this was developed by "The Merton Scholars" of Cambridge University in the 1240's, which is obviously prior to Galileo's time. I learned of this via Essays in the History of Mechanics, by the eminent American physicist, Clifford Truesdell, late of Johns Hopkins U. (I have photocopies of this citation and other parts of this book. But the book is out-of-print, and I'm unable to track down a copy -- a comment on the sad state of education in this country!)
Another is the attribution of differential equations for rotational mechanics to Isaac Newton (1643-1727) (who only did this for nonrotatinal mechanics), when these equations actually appeared FIRST in the papers of the great Swiss mathematician, Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), circi 1730-40, more than 100 years after Newton's death. (And who asked you, Shirley MacLaine?) In this case, the "Primary History" is is Euler's work; the "Secondary History" is the FIRST attribution this by Newton worshippers in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Given this, I note that various files at this Website cite original achievement by Babylonian and Islamic scholars of achievements attributed in our literature to ancient Greeks or Europeans after the Renaissance began. Yuou should be able to make the "Primary" and "Scondary" distinctions thereby.At this Website and at others, I've noted the profound ignorance of history by the general public and the partical but critical ignorance of our own historians. I suggest that the same problem exists in the "Islamic world". But I note one difference in the "non-Islamic world", which has motivated us to advances which notably lift some of us from the misery of today's Islamics.
Although our literature lacks much of the Primary History, it has ample Secondary History to motivate those who care. We have been sustained by our "Hebraic-Greek-Roman" heritage of Primary