History is really not that simple and you should always be wary of anyone trying to ascribe blame to a single person or event.
There were many events that led to the “end of the Islamic Golden Age,” but a closer analysis reveals that nothing really ended, but simply was moved around.
Consider that the Ottomans were technologically superior to Europeans until about the 17th century, or that Al-Andalus was around until the 15th century.
But, overall, the single biggest event to impact the era was probably the Mongol sacking of Baghdad. That ended a lot of intellectual culture in rather violent fashion.
I never learned that my country used forced labour in its colonies until the 60s, or that we dropped napalm on civilian villages as a reprisal. I'm very skeptical about the quality of history lessons in school, no matter the country.
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History is really not that simple and you should always be wary of anyone trying to ascribe blame to a single person or event.
There were many events that led to the “end of the Islamic Golden Age,” but a closer analysis reveals that nothing really ended, but simply was moved around.
Consider that the Ottomans were technologically superior to Europeans until about the 17th century, or that Al-Andalus was around until the 15th century.
But, overall, the single biggest event to impact the era was probably the Mongol sacking of Baghdad. That ended a lot of intellectual culture in rather violent fashion.
Just goes to show how Eurocentric my history education was; I never heard about this. Fascinating.
I never learned that my country used forced labour in its colonies until the 60s, or that we dropped napalm on civilian villages as a reprisal. I'm very skeptical about the quality of history lessons in school, no matter the country.