The sudden "thing" that happened was Mongol Invasion[0].
Imagine Germany in 1945 losing the war, only having one major library, and the allies burn it down, decimate the population to 10% of the prior count[1], and throw the books down to Rhine River "...in such quantities that the river ran black with the ink from the books"[2].
The Mongols just invaded, pillaged and killed in a mind-less fashion. Middle-east was unlucky cause it was just geographically near them. They also wreaked havoc on China, Korea and Russia. Japan was lucky that storm sank their ships (which were forcibly built by conquered Chinese)
I have not studied al-Ghazali but I think the good'ol war had the major role in this decline and the current state of the middle east.
Comments
The sudden "thing" that happened was Mongol Invasion[0].
Imagine Germany in 1945 losing the war, only having one major library, and the allies burn it down, decimate the population to 10% of the prior count[1], and throw the books down to Rhine River "...in such quantities that the river ran black with the ink from the books"[2].
The Mongols just invaded, pillaged and killed in a mind-less fashion. Middle-east was unlucky cause it was just geographically near them. They also wreaked havoc on China, Korea and Russia. Japan was lucky that storm sank their ships (which were forcibly built by conquered Chinese)
I have not studied al-Ghazali but I think the good'ol war had the major role in this decline and the current state of the middle east.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_E...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom#Destruction_by...