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Take Muhammad's life as I described it yesterday, a life. You know, he was a brutal guy but he was a military leader, a successful military leader, a successful political leader. He led what seems to be according to legend and stories a happy life. He had many wives, that could leave to happiness. He had sex. Compare that to Jesus. Who had no wives, no sex, no life. Was in general a miserable guy and who gets crucified in the end and that is the height of his, you know, that is the pinnacle of his career as a prophet. The symbol of suffering, the symbol of self sacrifice. That is the image provided by Christianity to its followers. So just in terms of that, Islam at least early on was very much motivated and driven by this image of success, of the ability to achieve in one's own life. There was far less emphasis in Islam than in Christianity on this afterlife. There's a lot later on in Islam that builds up on this, you know, going to heaven and stuff. But in the original stories, the emphasis on success in this life, in that sense it's much more similar to Judaism than it is to Christianity. Muhammad conquers his promised land. Jesus doesn't have a promised land and Moses from Jewish tradition sees the promised land. God lets him go up on a hill, see the promised land and then he dies. He never makes it. Muhammad gets everything that he sets out to achieve. And this is very much a characteristic of early Islam. Success and I think it's very important to follow our understanding of the psychology of modern Islam. Because they are conditioned, they, they, given their collectivistic nature and given the importance they place on their history, they are conditioned to success. One of the authors I read writes that Muslim achievement has been intrinsic to their faith. So I think that is a key characteristic. Another characteristic in which it is I think better, if you will, than Christianity, is its attitude towards business, particularly trade. Islam had a very favorable view of trade. Making money was not viewed as sinful. Again, Muhammad comes from a trader background. He was a commercial agent. His followers and the people in Mecca who followed him were all traders, they were all merchants. And there's a strong emphasis on trying to be successful at trade, on making, you know, making the best of it. Now, once you made a lot of money, you should give some of it away as arms to the poor and share your wealth. But there's none of this, you know, it's harder for a rich man to get into heaven than a camel to go through the eye of a needle, which is, which is Christianity's attitude towards, towards that. Yeah, Evan. What's the prohibition on interest? Yes, it was. And I, and I, as I said, I think in my talk last year, I think there's, there's some, you can understand that for a primitive society where they don't understand what interest really means. I think, I think the prohibition in usury is, is somewhat understandable. Now, when it comes to, when it comes to law, again, there's, there's a difference between Islam and Christianity. Again, Islam is much more like Judaism. Religious law is the most important law, the only law. It encompasses all aspects of life that relate, life as it relates to religion, to one's experience with God, but also life as it relates to every single activity in day to day. The Quran tells you, you know, gets into very specific details on how you should live and how you should relate to other people. The writings later on specify, you know, your day to day activities. Again, you know, there are sections within the Islamic holy law that relate to sexual positions, which again is very similar to Judaism, because the same thing you'll find in the Jewish books, the Talmud and the Mishnah and so on talk a lot about every little detail in day to day activity and how you should be, how they should be regulated. Both in Islam and in Judaism there's no church, there's no pope, there's no orthodoxy, there's no dogma. They are these, they are in Judaism, they are rabbis, but there's no hierarchy of the church and it's the same as true of Islam, with one exception and there's Shiism, which at some point developed kind of institutional clergy, and you can see that in Iran with a very hierarchical basis. As a consequence, there was no such thing as excommunication in Islam. You're either a Muslim or you weren't. Now Islam, as I said last time, encourages the spreading of Islam. It believes that it is the final word of God. Muhammad was a final prophet and therefore it holds the truth and that the only salvation to humanity comes from spreading that truth to everybody by whatever means. There are passages in the Quran that explicitly encourage killing non-believers unless they repent. If I quote, when the sacred months are drawn away, slay the polytheists wherever you find them and take them and confine them and lie and wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent and perform the prayer, that is if they become Muslim and pay their arms and let go their way, God is all forgiving, all compassionate. But then there are other verses in the Quran that completely contradict that. For example, there's a Quran that says, quote, no compulsion is there in religion. Rectitude has become clear from error. So like the Old Testament and like the New Testament, you can find almost whatever you want in the Quran. But there is a clear explicit commandment that relate to spreading the faith, even if they are contradicted elsewhere. Jihad, as I said last time, from moderate has become this struggle within between good and evil. But for the fundamentalists, it means taking over the world and nothing less will do. And the jihad incorporates a permanent state of hostility. According to Islam, there is the house of peace, which are the Muslim states, and there is the house of war, which are the countries of the infidel. And there is a constant state of war between those two houses. Okay, so that's a little bit of flavor of Islam and a little bit of the contrast between it and Christianity and Judaism. I think the difference, the fundamental difference between modern Islam, modern Christianity and modern Judaism is the fact that Judaism and Christianity grew up. They took seriously in a sense the enlightenment and they relegated religion to a minor part in the human life. And that most of life is basically determined by secular values, by rational, by reason. Versus Islam never had the enlightenment and never grew up. And it still dominates the entire life of Muslims. So let's get back to our history. As I said when Muhammad dies, he leaves no ears. And a rivalry starts between the tribes, the various tribes in Medina, and those in Mecca, the merchants of Mecca who originally rejected Muhammad and then accepted him back. The Meccans are more powerful and they choose one of their own to be the first caliph, the first leader of the Muslims. Abu Bakr, Muhammad's father-in-law, is the first caliph. He rules from 632 to 634. You'll notice a lot of these rule for very short periods of time. Some of them die of natural causes but many, many, many of them die from assassinations, from violent acts, from rebellions and so on. Immediately the first caliphs, starting with Abu Bakr, they start going on a mission to expand Islam. And here's a map with some of the conquests of the Muslims over the next hundred years. Abu Bakr is followed by three other caliphs. Now these four first caliphs are called the rightly guided caliphs. They continue the expansion of Islam up to Syria and Egypt, which they wrestle from the Byzantine Empire, and across to Iraq and Persia. They defeat the Persian Empire and take over Persia. They continue the expansion through North Africa. This expansion starts slowing around 650 and Uthman, who is the third rightly guided caliph, dies in 656. He is followed by Ali. Now Ali plays a pivotal role here. Ali is a cousin and a son-in-law of Muhammad. He is directly related to the prophet and he was the caliph. He was the one that the followers of Medina wanted to be the first caliph. He was the one that rallied the Medina segment of Islam behind him. As soon as he becomes caliph, he is challenged by the governor of Damascus, who is from one of the old Meccan families. There is a struggle between them and Ali is finally killed. He is murdered and the caliphate moves to this Meccan tribe out of Damascus and at least the center of Islam moves as a consequence to Damascus. Now the reason Ali is important is because Ali represents the split between the Shiites and the Sunnis. This is why they are Shiites. Because the Shiites believe that Ali and his children and his line should have been the caliphs. And that the caliphate was stolen from him. They believe the caliph should always be directly related to Muhammad. They also had a very strong, they viewed the leader as all-knowing. They viewed him very much as the fascist viewer leader. Whereas the Sunnis tend to be more egalitarian, tend to say, well, you know, some of our leaders are good and some of them are bad and some of them know something and some of them don't. The Shiites believe in an all-knowing leader. And again, if you think about Ayatollah Khomeini and his success in Iran, which is a Shiite state, you can see that kind of adoration for a leader. And they viewed Ali in this way. And as soon as he was murdered, they rejected the caliphate and they separated themselves from the body of Islam and became an opponent minority within Islam. Now, there was a second group that also rejected the new caliphate, but it also rejected Ali. They believed Ali wasn't virtuous enough. They also believed that the caliph had to be the most virtuous person in Muslim society. And that he was not, he was completely justified to kill him, to assassinate him. For them, it was the duty of the Muslim to kill a corrupt and unjust leader. Now, this group was called, and I'm sure I'm pronouncing this, the Karjits. In other words, the rebels. The Karjits means the rebels. The Karjits believed that those committing a grave sin, as soon as you committed a grave sin, you were excluded from Islam. You were no longer a Muslim. Their emphasis was on community, not on a leader. And in many ways, they are the forefathers of today's modern Sunni fundamentalist Islamists. For 300 years following the death of Ali, they periodically rebel. They are responsible for many of the political assassinations within Islam. They're responsible for many of the rebellions within Islam. They believe that if you have a corrupt leader, if the leader of the community of the Muslims is corrupt, it jeopardizes the entire community in God's eyes. So if the leader is corrupt and nothing is done about it, all the Muslims living in that community will not make it into heaven. I'm in Glendale and found love in the South Bay. Yes, I find myself in an L.A. long distance thing. Guess who helped make it work? AT&T. I bought one phone, got another one on them, and romance is alive on the 101. Come into an AT&T store, buy a smartphone, and get one on us. More for your thing, that's our thing. 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He was more modern, and therefore he no longer was a Muslim, and therefore they attributed, you know, Pharaoh's status, pagan status, infidel status to him, and that's why it was okay to kill him. You're not allowed to kill a Muslim, but you can kill an apostate, somebody who was a Muslim and is rejected Islam. Now after Muhammad's death, during these four caliphs, the Sharia Islamic law is starting to be synthesized. Legal scholars start getting together, and starting to establish a legal framework. Now this period, as I said, is the most admired by the Islamists, and the Islamists is just shorthand for fundamentalist Islamic crazies. The Islamists are the ideologues of this fundamentalist Islam. Not only did this period produced a powerful Islamic empire, they were successful militarily. They produced supposedly this virtuous state, a very autocratic virtuous state, and this is in spite of the historical facts that most of these caliphs were corrupt, they slaughtered each, you know, they had rebellions, they were assassinated. This is the period of time where the Islamists, this is what they want to return the Muslim world to. This is the vision of utopia on earth, is this four caliphs right at this first hundred years after the death of Muhammad. And one of the reasons is, again, the success, look at what they did. Within a hundred years they built one of the largest empires in the history of man. They expanded into Spain and across into India. And it is this military power it is this control over vast lands and vast numbers of people that the Islamists really treasure. We're seeing in a little while that Islam has a golden age. That golden age is not what they strive for. They are striving for this, this pre, if you will, golden age, this era of real military success. So after Ali's killed, the center of gravity for Islam moves to Damascus and you get a chain of what are called Umayyad, that is the family, caliphs. And even though according to Islam the caliph is supposed to be chosen based on who is the wisest, most virtuous man of the time. There's a committee that gets together when the caliph dies to choose the next caliph. What you see here is a dynasty. The caliphs are chosen. It's always the son of the caliph that died previously. The Umayyads establish a dynasty, a dynasty that lasts from 661 to 750. The capital is in Damascus, which at the time is a thriving Byzantine city. So this is a Byzantine city which has a lot of the Byzantine culture, a lot of Christians, a lot of Greek libraries, a lot of Greek writings, a lot of the Christian translators who are translating Greece, the Greek writings are in Damascus. Now Muslim expansion continues into Eastern Central Asia. Ultimately they reach Northwest India. In the West they reach Morocco in 711 and then cross into Europe taking over Spain. By 716 Spain was under Muslim control. In 736 the Muslims are stopped for the first time. They are stopped in Turres, France. This is the first time the Muslim armies meet a real challenge and indeed their expansion in Southwest Europe is stopped forever. We'll see that they continue expanding from the other side into Europe much later on. The date is 736. The vastness of the territory becomes quite a challenge. They are local revolts, local leaders want to you know kind of spin off their little dynasties for their own purposes. So this becomes a real challenge and more and more the Caliphs rely for administration on the Byzantines who were there before, on the bureaucracy set up by the Roman Empire, by the Eastern Roman Empire. Indeed Greek was the language of government in Damascus and Persian was the language of government in the East until pretty much into the middle of the 8th century. For the most part as the Muslims expanded they left the societies that they conquered alone. They figured out that this notion that there was a better way rather than taking every tribe and saying either you convert Islam or we'll kill you there's a third very profitable option and that is listen you don't have to convert Islam as long as you pay us a higher tax. And from the 7th century on from very early on as they start expanding there is a tax that those who are non-Muslim have to pay and indeed many of the conversions to Islam from this date on occur in order to reduce taxes and in order to be able to succeed within the hierarchy being established by the Muslims. So in order to reach positions in government within the bureaucracy to achieve positions within the military you have to be a Muslim. So many of the people around them convert in order to be able to attain these types of positions. It's interesting that as they take over the Byzantine the Byzantines the Christians they have some way to go they escape into the remnants of Byzantine you know what you see there is the the western part of Turkey is still part of the Byzantine Empire. On the other hand the Persians have no way to go and the Persians convert en masse and as we'll see will become a very powerful force in the history of Islam. Now the Omayyads were not very religious they tended to be skeptics they were fairly uninterested in religion and religious questions. They were relatively secular leaders they will they try to accumulate as much wealth as they could off of their military ventures they had a very high degree of tolerance towards the Greek culture in their domain in Syria in particular which allowed this culture to survive. Indeed under the Omayyads we see the beginnings of the translation of the Greek writings into Arabic. They lived like kings they built enormous castles surrounding themselves with wealth and ceremony and they were viewed by fundamentalists and are viewed to this day by fundamentalists as a perversion as the beginning of a decline in Islam. They built these beautiful palaces in the middle of the desert with waterfalls and the descriptions are just magnificent of the kind of places they would they would enclose these massive hunting grounds where they would entertain their guests out hunting. They built great mosques in 691 the Aksa mosque is built that is the mosque on the dome of the rock that is in Jerusalem on the place where it is believed Solomon's temple was the mosque that is in the news almost daily and they chose Jerusalem for a purpose it was a political statement they built it on Solomon's temple as a political statement it was a statement that they were the inheritors of the Jewish and Christian tradition. Judaism and Christianity with Pase this was the new religion and they built it in the Christian and Jewish holy land for the holy city for that purpose. The site supposedly the rock on which this this mosque is built is supposedly the rock on which Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son you all know that story but this is a new temple a magnificent mosque replacing the old the new religion replacing the old religions. In 694 they print the first gold coins outside of the Byzantine Empire they have arrived economically. Now the Omayyads distinguish sharply between Arab and non-Arab Muslims to belong to government to belong to the military you had to be an Arab and this created quite a bit of resentment from all these non-Arabs particularly the Persians who were now converting to Islam. Arab Muslims held the highest posts in a very hierarchical social structure under them the next rung in the hierarchy were the non-Arabs who converted to Islam and under them were what were called protected persons these were Christians and Jews who had a who were protected they were not harmed unto Islam until you know probably the 18th and 19th century they were they were protected because they were just mistaken they were still monotheists but they just didn't get it yet but since they shared this heritage with the Islam they were not treated poorly and indeed Jews and Christians Jews were treated far better on the Islam until the 19th century than they were in the same period under in Europe and we'll talk about why that all changed in the 19th century. The lowest rung was that for the was held for the Pagans. Pagans could be killed if they didn't convert to Islam although most of the caliphs preferred that they just pay higher taxes. Reminds me of the tobacco industry Oh so much here for a newborn we need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit and oh his birthday party sure but um how long are you planning to stay if you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn nephew and stays until his first birthday party switch to cricket wireless use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost smile you're on cricket requires eligible plan minimum $55 per month data speed usage and other restriction supply coverage not available everywhere see store for details. Hi I'm the helpful Southern California Honda person and recently we've been doing random acts of helpfulness like surprising a deserving dad with a brand new grill and helping give back to our veterans and during the Honda summer spectacular event we can help you to with a great deal on a reliable award-winning Honda like the Accord the 2018 North American car of the year click the dealer locator link to find a dealer near you and go to so Cal Honda dealers calm to suggest a random act of helpfulness for someone you know. Now the number of convertors obviously rise sharply over time and then more and more and more of these non Arab Muslims many of them become soldiers but they cannot advance but they gain the skills of a soldier. Now this creates a lot of resentment as I said particularly in the East particularly among the the the Persians and as a consequence we see civil wars erupting from that area periodically. The most significant of these again because it is significant from the way from the perspective of Shiites today was a civil war led by the Shiites at about 680-685 they were led by the son of Ali Hussein and in a famous battle the battle of Karbala which Khomeini used to talk about endlessly in his sermons. Hussein is killed together with all his followers now the Shiites believe that Hussein had a son although there's no evidence to suggest that he really did and that this son went into hiding but we'll talk about metaphysical hiding and that he will return one day and the Shiites in their history up until Khomeini became very passive they are waiting for the son of Hussein to return in a sense they are waiting for this Messiah to return to lead them and the battle of Karbala is the central event in the history of the Shiites. This is the last descendant supposedly direct descendant Fama Ali and whatever son just disappeared now you know most scholars don't believe Hussein even had a son that this is some you know this is a way for them to continue to have hope is that they created this. In 750 the Umayyads are defeated by the armies of an Eastern movement while not led by the Persians definitely financed and helped along by the Persians and that is the Abbasids and the Abbasids established a new dynasty and they moved the capital of the Islamic world from Damascus to Baghdad and Baghdad becomes the capital of the Muslim world indeed this dynasty rules for 500 years from 750 to 1258 while the Caliph is not always while the Abbasid Caliph is not always the real power holder very early on while the Abbasids are all Arabs very early on the Persians basically take over the control of the Muslim state he is the figurehead of the Muslim state for 500 years these Abbasid Caliphs now they come to power supposedly in order to restore the Orthodox Islamic ways they appeal to a wide variety of groups including the Shiites and the non-Arab Muslims you know there's a mixture here about genuine religious feelings and political calculation and the religious feelings usually get pushed aside quite early with the Abbasids you know in the tradition of those days when they take over they go out and they kill every single last one of the Umayyads family I mean they invite them all to this big feast and they just slaughter them all in the room there's only one Umayyad who survives and actually flees and he moves to Spain it actually establishes an Umayyad dynasty in Spain that is very very successful and we'll come back to what happens in Spain later on at this point they're strong Persian influences on Islam dynasty continues to expand the territories under its rule particularly to the east and they are for many years largely free from external attack they are the dominant power in the world there is no power out there military power that can challenge the Islamic Empire at this point in time nobody on the east until the 13th century and nobody in Europe they have a common religion they standardize on Arabic across the entire region more and more of the of the non Arabs are converting to Islam they control the trading routes throughout the Middle Ages from Asia to Europe to Africa everything has to flow through them they live in great luxury they accumulate enormous amounts of wealth by the mid 18th century they import Chinese paper-making technology and it arrives on the eastern border of their empire there begins mass production of paper large personal libraries are created indeed this is a period in which they take seriously what Muhammad is said to have said quote the ink of scholars is more precious than the blood of martyrs one of those other contradictions within within the Quran Arab numerals are imported from India replacing Roman numerals and if you've ever tried to do arithmetic with Roman numerals you know what a huge advantage this is now this didn't arrive in Europe until the 13th century these these Arab or Indian really numerals they introduced the concept of the number zero which of course in Roman numerals does not exist public education spreads rapidly there is learning all across the empire from Bucharest which is in Uzbekistan on the eastern border all the way to Spain and through North Africa now where does all this come from and this is truly the Islamic Golden Age it comes from those scholars who are translating the Greeks translating them in Damascus they start with practical Greek texts that have been preserved by the Byzantine Empire and by the Christians of the east and Alexandria and Egypt and in Damascus they also translate when the earliest texts they translate are Aristotle's logic writings and in general they are trans they start translating Greek philosophy Plato Aristotle the Neoplatonists most of the translators are psoriatic speaking Christians psoriatic was a Syrian based language now some of these some of these Christians made some contributions to philosophy and science primarily medicine but but not nobody nobody of great significance in 16 in 641 Alexandria foster the Muslims and the great libraries there are open to them Greek culture has flourished in cities in Egypt Syria and Iraq to some extent since the days of Alexander so a whole world opens up to these Muslims when they take over these centers Greek has been cultivated as a means for Christian scholars to gain access to theological texts coming primarily out of Alexandria in addition as I said the theological works works and logic are translated now the Arab conquest did not interfere with this continued academic pursuit in Syria and these Christians enjoyed significant amounts of freedom under the Umayyads to continue to have theological debates and to translate and to write the Umayyads were too busy conquering other lands too busy accumulating wealth to care about this group of academics even in Persia there was centers of learning composed of Greek scholars who had escaped Byzantine persecution these scholars in the Persian and the Persians they influenced had a significant impact on the openness of the Abbasids starting in the early eighth century Arabic as I said starts to replace Persian and Greece as official language and all these texts start being translated into Arabic by the mid eighth century they start translating all of Aristotle's works that they have all in translations of scientific and other philosophical works pick up dramatically under the Abbasids indeed Al-Mansur the Abbasid Caliph who rules from 754 to 775 took a keen interest in scientific and philosophical works and lent his support and patronage to the activities of the translators the process really picks up with Al-Mansur's great great grandson Al-Mamun who made a systematic and determined effort to acquire and translate the chief monuments of Greek science and philosophy he established and presided over an assembly of scholars at which theological and philosophical disputations would occur he composed theological treaties himself he was a greatest patron of philosophy and science in the history of Islam it is said that he was so liberal-minded that he entertained the most adverse commentaries on his reign with the great the greatest with great openness he sought to apply the categories of Greek thought to Muslim dogmas and indeed a whole theological school a rat a rationalist school they are called the Mutas Mutzilates theological school was established around this premise of bringing logic and Greek ideas into the study of Islam he used this power and often violently to establish this school as the theological school in Islam he enforced their theology which is far more rational than anything else that was available at the time in Christianity or in Islam they recognized for example free will they said the Quran was written by Muhammad it wasn't it wasn't divine in a sense that God had written it that it was eternal as as many within Islam you know things like that so they took Islam towards a more rational just like Aquinas and the others started using reason within Christianity later on they were starting to do this within Islam they use Greek philosophy to justify theology they were great admirers of Aristotle Alma Munn set up the House of Wisdom that's what it was called an official institution with a library for translation of Greek writings and research into those writings he stacked it with purchases that he made that he made in Byzantine he would send his emissaries to Byzantine with the with the instructions by anything you can in Greek indeed the aristocracy within the Abbasid Caliphate that the wealthy competed with one another and who would have the largest library and who could get the most translations done of Greek writings so much here for a newborn we need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit and his birthday party sure but how long are you planning to stay if you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn nephew and stays until his first birthday party switch to cricket wireless use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost smile you're on cricket requires eligible plan minimum $55 per month data speed usage and other restriction supply coverage not available everywhere see store for details so much here for a newborn we need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit and his birthday party sure but how long are you planning to stay if you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn nephew and stays until his first birthday party switch to cricket wireless use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost smile you're on cricket requires eligible plan minimum $55 per month data speed usage and other restriction supply coverage not available everywhere see store for details in the middle of the 9th century the Arabs were in possessions of 12 of Aristotle's 14 books of the metaphysics as well as a number of Greek commentaries on it they were in possession of the books on logic and part of the ethics the beginning of the 9th century witnessed the general scramble for philosophic and scientific material now the key here was that the that the rulers endorsed this and supported it financially which made the translations of all these works possible now unfortunately as we will see they were also translating not just Greek philosophy but they were also importing and translating Indian and Persian mysticism which has an impact on them later on now the scholastics as I said this was a light school was the first to bring in Greek ideas into the theology of Islam they went set about in a systematic study of theology using these Greek ideas they came out for free will and they advocated for logic they rationalized the idea of the unity of God influenced by Aristotle but also influenced by Plato and you see a very strong Platonistic influence and they're trying here they're struggling to merge Aristotle with Plato with Islam it's a mess but but you can see their struggles you can see that they are generally trying here you know to reason and to figure things out this school thrives until it encounters opposition from one even Hanbal in 855 a very influential theologian of the fundamentalist and in lead he is considered the father of fundamentalist Islam in the sense that he is the first guy the first Muslim to try to counter this rational influence on Muslim culture he rallies the conservators to his side to the anti-greek side and he starts rallying he starts creating a anti-greek coalition although he is not successful and the success only comes quite a bit later and indeed the political wins at some point start changing in the middle of the 9th century but in many regards it's too late a real tradition is established here tradition of philosophy and what you get starting in the middle of the 9th century in spite of the change in the political tide of the new caliphs being a little bit more reserved with regard to the support of the Greeks and indeed supporting Hanbal and supporting the more conservative elements something has been put in motion that is going to be difficult to suppress politically it's going to have a philosophy it's going to take a philosopher to destroy this no politician is going to be able to do it what you see starting in the middle of the 9th century is a string of philosophers of Islamic philosophers who are predominantly Aristotelian the first of these is al-Qaeda around it was who died in 866 and we know most of these people when they died birth dates are unknown he was the first he went back and he retranslated much of what had been already translated from Greek he thought the original translations were not accurate enough and he retranslated them and increased the accuracy he pushed for the use of reason an advocated reason he wrote 242 works covering such topics as logic metaphysics arithmetic music astrology geometry medicine theology psychology politics topology alchemy you see the kind of scope that these guys said now science developed during this period you know the Arabs during this period were inventing algebra they made significant advances in optics the circulatory system was discovered by actually by Arabs before I can't read the guy in England before even Harvey discovers it there's this significant evidence suggests that they knew about it starting about the 11th century so there's this this advocacy from the part of the philosophies for reason has real impact he seeks to bridge the gap between Greek philosophy and Islamic dogma by applying rational processes to quote him whoever repudiates the quest for truth as blasphemous must himself blaspheme for the knowledge of truth involves the knowledge of the divine so that they're seeking knowledge they're seeking truth even if it isn't the name of God again very influenced by Aristotle and he himself translates Aristotle and writes books on logic and reason ultimately of course he is conflicted it's the same problem Christianity later encounters you can't unite reason and faith and he ultimately has to leave he leaves room and a big room for faith and from mystical revelation he ultimately views revelation as ultimately supreme he is followed by another philosophy even El-Rawadi who is an interesting character in the history of Muslim philosophers he is actually an atheist he rejects religion completely he says reason is completely supreme he wrote a hundred and fourteen books most of them criticizing Islam and indeed the stories were that the Christians hired him to write these books criticizing Islam of course his books were banned and burnt so we have very very little left from him you know they're just fragments and particularly people writing about him but none of his books survived because by the third century he was completely banned and all his books were burnt and lost but he was an advocate of reason at an attack the very idea of a prophet and the very idea of the uniqueness of the Quran he actually said the Quran's just this mixture of Judaism and Christianity and and some tribal you know tribal law and it's nothing very special now he was also and I think it's understand somewhat understandably so he was also pretty gloomy guy he had a very malevolent sense of life and he writes for example the calamities of life on numerous and continuous it's joy on the other hand comes to you as do holidays and quotes it's it's sad because I mean he was a he was a brave guy to be able to stand up in that kind of environment and and write you know attacking Islam and being atheists but it also the fact that they didn't kill him is an enormous indication about the relative freedom within the Abbasid Empire at this time at this moment if you will in history he's followed by Al-Razi died in 925 who was considered the unsurpassed physician of Islam he ran the bag that hospital he composed 200 works on a whole range of physical and philosophical issues and some significant medical works he for example rejects the need for prophecy he said it was superfluous since the God-given light of reason was sufficient for the knowledge of truth unfortunately his thought is primarily platonic the great again is followed by Al-Farabi who is thought to be the father of Islamic Neoplatonism he's from 870 to 950 heavily influenced by both Aristotle and Plato he came from Central Asia from the Uzbekistan area and lived and wrote in Baghdad and many commentaries on Aristotle's logic he wrote books with titles these are the titles of the books the philosophy of Plato the philosophy of Aristotle the rise of philosophy this guy wrote these major works on the history of philosophy he surveyed in his writing the whole range of the sciences known in his days it was the advocate of reason and logic reason he believed was the ultimate pathway to happiness but again his reason was ultimately detached from reality as to some extent was reason for the Greeks he was also undecided he wrote about the role of revelations now the greatest of the Islamic philosophers of this period was Ibn Sina Avicenna as known in the Christian world as Avicenna he was among the first commentators on Aristotle who was later translated into Latin and whom Thomas Aquinas actually read by many's considered the greatest of all Muslim philosophers and he's definitely the greatest of this this period this era reason leads to knowledge and understanding of God but the ultimate object of knowledge is good is God and God is pure intellect he read Aristotle's metaphysics so he said to have read Aristotle's metaphysics 40 times before he got it at age 10 he had completed the study of the Quran by 18 he had mastered logic physics and mathematics now we know all this from his autobiography which he wrote right autobiography I guess it's obvious he wrote it he was the most prolific of all Islamic philosophers and unfortunately unfortunately all of these philosophers leave room for mysticism they don't reject mysticism except for the one atheist among them all of them have this platonic influence and one thing that's really interesting is that they translated I mean somebody could do a there's a great dissertation here somewhere but somebody could do there's a real interesting parallel between the translation of Aristotle in Islam and the translation of Aristotle in the West and why the one failed and the one succeeded and what was going on it I think and this is just pure hypothesis that the fact that they were translating and so heavily influenced by Plato at the same time as they were doing Aristotle I think might have doomed the Muslims kind of from the start they were very neoplatonist at the same time I think that undercut the their respect for logic and reason as I said science advanced during this period they also became very refined map makers it became very important for them given they they they wide the huge empire they do things like in medicine they they introduced the first antiseptic to clean wounds which is which is a major they make the connection at least on a superficial level between bacteria and infection they discover and refine algebra they make advantage advances in optics and astronomy and according to some writers they discover the rudiments of what will be ultimately called and discovered the scientific method they are big into experimentation Arab scientists do a lot of experiments and in that sense you know there's reason to believe that it is Christian scholars who came to study in Spain later on who learned the method of experimentation then taking it back to the West in around the 13th and 14th centuries of course at the same time the Abbasids have immense military and political success they rule over one of the largest empires in the history of man now this all comes to a tragic end in the 11th century and as we know the only thing that can kill good philosophy is really really bad philosophy particularly when the good philosophy is mixed particularly when the good philosophy has elements of mysticism in it and the murderer of Islamic philosophy of the golden age of Islam is one El Ghazali is born in 1058 dies 1111 you like to be El Ghazali was the teacher of his age he was considered the smartest philosopher of his time the smartest thinker and he started out teaching Greek philosophy at the university trying to unite reason and faith just like the previous philosophy is the philosophers had tried at some point he disappeared he leaves the university and disappears into the desert and returns a few years later and announces that it is impossible to unite reason and faith and therefore we must abandon reason and that the only path to truth is mystical revelation only intuition only God can lead us to the truth he writes a book called the destruction of philosophy and he declares that reason and Greek philosophy is completely corrupt and that the truth can only be found in the Quran he denies free will he denies all that history of theology which had a respect for the human mind of respect for reason and by the time of his death and it's the kind of influence he had and of course and by this point he had a political backing the the Hannibal School of theology had grown over time the the caliphs were now supporting a more Islam and Islamic lines so they were they were enforcing his philosophical doctrine so this all came together in the same point in time and by the time of his death in 1111 free scientific investigation and philosophical and religious toleration were phenomena of the past in the hearts of Islam in Baghdad the schools were either closed or limited to the study of theology conservative theology Islamic theology with no hint of reason scientific progress science in general came to a screeching halt and disappears from this part of the world forever with almost no exceptions I mean there are few but they're always on the borders either on the eastern border or as we'll see on the western border but they are never in this you know what's called the fertile crescent which starts here in Basra through the Euphrates up through you know southern turkey and down into what today is Israel that is that is the only cultivatable land in the region it's called the fertile crescent science disappears from that region from Islam indeed mysticism rains Islam develops new breeds of mysticism Sufism which is a very passive mystical esoteric belief system very influenced no surprise by Persian and Indian Buddhist mystic mystic writings illuminationists which start again in the 12th century Persia with an explicit critique of Aristotelianism with of logic and of reason and complete complete reliance on mystical revelation and intuition on Paul and the political side the empire starting to crumble there is internal strife religious wars and there is the first migration into the area of Central Asian tribes the first 10 Central Asia tribe to migrate into the area of the Turks the Sejuk tribe who established their own empire in 1057 they keep the Abbasids as figureheads but from 1057 onwards Central Asia P the peoples of Central Asia play the central role in Islam the Turks of Turkey today are not from Turkey that's where they settled in the Middle East they came from to come any stone which is in central you should all know now because we have American troops stationed there today but that's Central Asia they migrated into this area what is interesting is they converted from their own free will to Islam because they were the more powerful militarily they could had it go the other way they will Persia is split into several central several kingdoms the West splits itself up North Africa and Spain become their own empire religious differences are suppressed in each one of these kingdoms there are wars between these kingdoms but in general philosophy is rejected it is suppressed many of these philosophers writings are burnt in Baghdad the reason we have them is some of the remnants makes many of the writings make it to Spain where they are preserved and any last remnant of a restatillian or Greek philosophy in the Islamic world is eliminated now there is one place in which this is not truthful and there is one place in which he's the philosophy philosophy within the Islamic world tries to make a heroic comeback and we will talk about that next time this course continues with lecture three I'm in Glendale and found love in the South Bay yes I find myself in an LA long-distance thing guess who helped make it work AT&T I bought one phone got another one on them and romance is alive on the 101 come into an AT&T store buy a smartphone and get one on us more for your thing that's our thing limited time in areas select devices each requires up to $900 on installment agreement requires one new line of minimum $75 per month service three after credits over 30 months starting within three bills of cancel service device balances do 30 dollar activation additional fees taxes and restrictions apply SIAH local at&t stored The details the local AT&t stored to the Ratez de local AT&T stored to details your local AT&t stored the details local AT&T stored to the types deal local AT&T stored to details your local AT&T stored to the cabbage