I'm currently working on a manuscript, "How the Papuans Saved Civilization."

.....and ate them.

Carrhae was also the site of a major battle demarking Persia and Rome.

I think that microcultures are extremely important, especially because they're often mediating cultures acceptable on both side of the line.

The Middle East is studded with weird religions. The Mandaeans (also called Sabaeans) in the Persian Gulf delta are sometimes thought to be heirs of the Gnostics, though some say Babylonian pagans, and I'd be interested in knowing if they're connected in any way to the Yezedi or Alawi. (There's so much tendentious stuff up that Google isn't too helpful, I'd have to go to a library to be sure about more than what I just said. As you said in a different context, new religions can arise without external contact just by tweaking the existing religion.)

The Muslim transmission of Greek and the Byzantine were two different bodies of work during two different periods. Aristotle and a few other things were transmitted from Islam about 900 AD on, and then a flood of stuff came from Byzantium after 1400 or so. This new stuff helped shake Aristotelian orthodoxy.

It's true that the first generation of translators were Christians and other non-Muslims, but later Muslim thinkers made their own original contributions and they weren't just mediators. Furthermore, it is to the credit of Islam that the encouragement of scholarship, even by non-Muslims, was essentially an article of faith. ("Seek wisdom, even in China.... the ink of scholars is more precious than the blood of martyrs.)

Between about 550 AD and about 900 AD Western Europe was intellectually completely sterile, with a very few authors producing chronicles and encyclopedias of only historical interest. There was nothing worth reading after Boethius. (Charlemagne's great thinkers were Alcuin, Dicieul (sp.), and Hrabanus Maurus. Who?) So I'd say your skepticism / revisionism is excessive.

At my link I've put something somewhat relevant.

It's peculiar that the article on Harran says that the "beehive hut" is characteristic of this area and goes back 3,000 years, when in Ireland the first monks - which I've always though must have been influenced by Anchorites from Egypt - lived in beehive huts too. The coastal areas of Kerry - the extreme South West of the country - are strewn with them. Interestingly, legend states that St Patrick - although he spend 40 years preaching in Ireland - never ventured into Kerry. Why? I suspect because they were already Christian, by way of the Eastern Med area.

I'd be interested in knowing the connection between the Sabians Gnostics/Sufis. I believe the word Sufi is derived from the Aribic root Suf which means wool - a reference to the long white woolen robes worn by early Sufis. Interestingly, the Irish diaspora monks - the Peregrini - also wore exactly the same garb.

So I'd say your skepticism / revisionism is excessive.

i would hold that the islamic world was sufficient, but not necessary, for the eventual revitalization of the west, assuming that byzantium's progress is as we know it (i believe that many greek works were preserved because of one particular encyclopediast in the 10th century, so the redundancy was good in hindsight).

the question to answer is this: were there any works found in the arabic corpus from the ancient times not found in the byzantine, and vice versa?

In regards to Emerson's comment regarding the sterility of Western Christendom during the period 550 to 900, one should make due allowances for the low level of economic/political devlopment at the time. Also, you seem to be rather overvaluing Boethius (A rather derivitive thinker) and completly overlooking Johannes Scotus Erigena (Circa 815-877), a thinker who adumbrates the great thinkers of the high middle ages.

Devaluing Boethius just lengthens the period of sterility. As for Erigina, I guessed wrong about his dates. As far as I know, except for Beowulf from a quit different traditions, Erigina was the first author of any real interest in W. Europe after Boethius.

Razib, I still disagree. The Byzantine tradition was heavily infested with neo-Platonism and tended toward religious obscurantism. (Look at Russia, which developed in a Byzantine framework). The Muslims not only passed on texts, they developed an intellectual culture which did original work. Averroes is the most pertinent name; his work was contributory to the most progressive Western work (Abelard, Ockham, etc.) and was by no means just derivative from the classical tradition. I do not hear of any Byzantine thinkers with the importance of Avicenna, Averroes, Al-Farabi, and a number of other lesser thinkers.

The Byzantine tradition was heavily infested with neo-Platonism and tended toward religious obscurantism

religious obscurantism only won a final victory in the 13th-14th centuries from what i know.

I do not hear of any Byzantine thinkers with the importance of Avicenna, Averroes, Al-Farabi, and a number of other lesser thinkers.

bessarion and plethon. but yes, i won't deny that it wasn't a particularly original culture overall, but, part of its dimness set against islam can be normalized due to small size and long periods of duress (only in the decades around 1000 did th byzantines have a real advantage over the muslims).

Let me go at it again: after about 900 AD the philosophy of the (enemy) Muslim world was much more influential in Europe than the philosophy of the (nominally friendly) Byzantine world. It seems to me that if Byzantium had much to offer they would have been the dominant influence (in fact, before about 900 AD they probably were, but this was a relativel unfruitful age).

In other words, it wasn't the case that W. Europe happened for some contingent reason to be more influenced by Islam than by Byzantium. What happened was that, given simultaneous access to both, W. Europe found the Muslim body of work (produced under Muslim auspices, not always by Muslims) to be more valuable -- for good reason, I think.

I would date the Muslim decadence from the death of Ibn Khaldun (1406). I don't think that you should try to push it back any earler. Many think that the Turco-Mongol influence was decisive, but even some of the Turco-Persian Timurids (Ulugh Beg, d. 1449, an astronomer-king who updated Ptolemy and was honored by Tycho and others).

W. Europe happened for some contingent reason to be more influenced by Islam than by Byzantium. What happened was that, given simultaneous access to both, W. Europe found the Muslim body of work (produced under Muslim auspices, not always by Muslims) to be more valuable -- for good reason, I think.


i think you need to decompose "western europe." italy was far more directly influenced by byzantine scholars than france, where a group of neo-aristotelians came to the fore in the 13th century, and so were directly indebted to averroes. as for why the french were so influenced by averrores, well, one reason might have been that there was a bilingual mozarab population fluent in both latinate and arabic (the mozarab elite would probably have known some latin for religious reasons). obviously translations from arabic to latin made works particular accessible. in contrast, my understanding is that the simultaneous period was one where the greeks turned away from the west (in part because of the sack of constantinople). i think the 'andalusian' focus is in part geographically biased, we, as anglophones are part of the anglo-french cultural heritage which arose under the norman dominion. if we were italian speakers i suspect we would be more cognizant of the influence of men like bessarion in the reclamation of greek learning in the original. also, here is an important point: i am to understand that muslim preservation of greek learning tended to focus on scientific and philosophical texts. would we have the ancient greek plays & histories were it not for the byzantines? i think perhaps not.