Islam As Proto-Modernity

The first move is to refuse a flat civilizational comparison. Source trail 0:001:24 Okay, good morning. So today we do Islam. Some quick facts, some questions that we will look at today about the Islamic Golden Age. The first major question is, while Europe was in its dark ages, Islam was embarked on i...And as you can see, Islam extends all across Africa. Islam extends all across Africa. Islam extends all across Africa. Islam extends all across Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, and into India. The most populou... Islam is the world's second largest religion, divided between Sunni and Shia, but the lecture is interested less in taxonomy than in divergence. Europe is in its dark age while Islam enters a golden age. Later, Europe overtakes the Muslim world. The episode is an explanation of both movements.

Muhammad's movement begins, in this reading, as submission to one God and as an open coalition. Source trail 1:243:284:465:50 And as you can see, Islam extends all across Africa. Islam extends all across Africa. Islam extends all across Africa. Islam extends all across Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, and into India. The most populou...So he's based in Mecca. And when he tries to reveal the truth, he is met with a lot of resistance. And eventually he's forced out of Mecca and he goes to Medina. This is called the Hijra in the Muslim tradition, the pil... The Constitution of Medina matters because it promises religious freedom among pagans, Muslim tribes, Jews, and other monotheists. That makes the Temple Mount problem sharp. If Islam begins as open and inclusive toward Jews, why does Al-Aqsa end up on the Jewish holy site?

The early expansion is the other pressure point. Source trail 7:0410:30 the Al -Aqsaq Mosque is very interesting. The era of Islam was lightning fast. In less than 100 years, they spread from the desert of Arabia, really the poorest place in this entire region, throughout most of the Middle...Another strange thing is, why would the Muslims go to war against two major empires, the Romans and the Persians? That's kind of suicidal. They didn't know they were going to win. So why did they go to war? That's the f... Jiang calls it lightning fast. From the poorest place in the region, Islam spreads through most of the Middle East in less than a century, creating a caliphate that rivals or exceeds the great empires of the age. Something more than ordinary conquest has to be explained.

The three mysteries are blunt. Source trail 9:2310:3011:37 This is the Hajj in Mecca. And I was actually in Saudi Arabia, and I tried to go there, and then I was told, only Muslims can go. And so as a train station, I was trying to buy a ticket to Mecca. And they said, what's y...Another strange thing is, why would the Muslims go to war against two major empires, the Romans and the Persians? That's kind of suicidal. They didn't know they were going to win. So why did they go to war? That's the f... Why do we have no early records when Jews and Christians in the movement could read and write? Why does Muhammad not name a successor if succession will tear the community apart? Why is Al-Aqsa built on the Temple Mount? Jiang warns that the record is lost and his answers are interpretive, but the mysteries are the route into the world model.

The Golden Age is not just a list of beautiful cities. Source trail 11:3712:3913:50 So this is a very important question that is still relevant to us. Thank you. So we will also look at these three mysteries. And again, no one knows the answers to any of these three questions, and no one will ever know...It is an incredible site. I say that, not actually having visited it, but I've heard terrific things from Doug. And you can go online as well and look at videos. But it is an incredible city, and it shows you the immens... Bukhara shows artistic creativity, but Baghdad is the center of gravity. Jiang treats Abbasid Baghdad as a world-making device. It inherits older trade routes and makes them richer, denser, and faster. Modern people think globalization is recent. The Abbasids show an older version: a connected world moving through Muslim power.

The Maritime Silk Road is one part of that machine. Source trail 13:5015:1016:23 And this is what Muslims consider the height of their civilization. The thing that's really important for us to understand about the Abbasid Empire is that not only were they influential in the Muslim world, but they ev...The overland of the Maritime Silk Road is known as the Maritime Silk Road. The overland Silk Road has existed for a long time, but it is the Abbasids who will eventually create the Maritime Silk Road, and it will bring... The House of Wisdom is the other. Its model is the Library of Alexandria: gather knowledge, systemize it, and disseminate it. Hindu numerals, Greek and Persian mathematics, Aristotle, Plato, Indian and Chinese ideas all pass through this system. Baghdad is not merely brilliant. It is organized brilliance.

The intellectual roll call is meant to embarrass European self-sufficiency. Source trail 18:4220:0521:3722:56 mathematicians okay all intellectuals engage in all these different fields okay so the one most famous is rumi who is persian a poet a mystic a philosopher um ibn sina is probably the most famous intellectual of the isl...let's look at dante's divine comedy so dante is in uh hell and there in limbo he's meeting the most influential the greatest philosophers in human history who have influenced european civilization obviously he's going t... Dante puts Averroes and Avicenna in Limbo with the greatest philosophers, but modern schooling forgets the debt. Fibonacci studies in Baghdad. Algebra and algorithm come through Arabic. Optics, surgery, hospitals, free treatment for the poor, and the first degree-granting university all become evidence that Europe inherits a Muslim infrastructure of knowledge.

The Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258 is the conventional endpoint, but the lecture does not let Islamic power end there. Source trail 22:5624:1225:39 It's still there guys Okay, this is the oldest university in the world. What's also amazing is it was founded by a woman who inherited a Fortune from her father and she spent all her money on Building this university. A...among the elite As well because of the Koran it was necessary for the elite to be literate It was the manner of you to be literate and the Koran will also standardize Arabic and make it the official language of the enti... Ibn Khaldun's asabiyah explains why cohesive borderlands defeat exhausted empires. The Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals dominate from roughly 1300 to 1700. Islam's world-historical arc is longer than the library-burning legend.

To answer the mysteries, Jiang returns to 622 and moves the camera from Medina to Jerusalem. Source trail 26:5628:0329:23 That's the first question. Second question is, why did Muhammad name his successor? The third question is, why was the Al -Qasa Mosque built on top of the Temple Mount, okay? So, this is a paradox because Jews were an e...Okay? So this is from Wikipedia, alright? Now, guys, um, never trust Wikipedia as a historical source, but it's useful for us to understand what contemporary historians think. Okay? So this is from Wikipedia. The Jews h... Jews support the Persians against Byzantium because Rome destroyed the Temple and expelled them from Jerusalem. When the Byzantines return under Heraclius, Jews are again expelled and killed. Medina's promise of religious tolerance becomes politically attractive.

At this stage, Islam is not yet a sealed-off religion. Source trail 29:2330:32 Okay? This is the beginning of the idea of crusade. And they retake the city, and then what they do is, they expel the Jews from Jerusalem, obviously, but then, they start to kill a lot of Jews. Okay? And they force the...Abraham was the first, then you have Moses, then you have Jesus, and now, Muhammad is the very last. So, all these three different traditions, the Christian tradition, the Jewish tradition, and the Islam tradition, in t... Jiang says these people are believers. Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad are part of one monotheistic sequence. Jews, Christians, Muslims, and even Zoroastrians can be gathered into one tradition fighting for God. The movement's power comes from coalition before boundary.

The age is apocalyptic. Jews can read Rome and Persia as Gog and Magog. Source trail 31:4632:50 us to understand is, not only is there all this persecution going on against Jews and against Christians and against Zoroastrians, okay? But also, this is a apocalyptic stage, age, where all three traditions believe thi...Okay? So, for the Jews, this is the end of days. But for Christians, okay, they also believe this is the end of days because there were a final battle between the Antichrist and the Messiah. The Antichrist who is the em... Christians can see the emperor as Antichrist. Zoroastrians have their final battle between good and evil. Into that pressure, Muhammad says: we are one people united by God. The appeal is not abstract doctrine. It is a way to make a terrifying historical moment legible.

The Quran becomes Jiang's evidence. Source trail 34:0435:0936:1037:1238:16 Okay? So, again, we don't have any written records of Muhammad. But what we do believe is, the Quran, it is a collection of many of Muhammad's original sayings that have been redacted over time. Okay? So, let's look at...Allah knows and you do not know. Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but he was a monotheist, a Muslim. Okay? So, this is what Muhammad is saying. A Muslim is someone who believes in God as the only true God. And... Muhammad addresses the people of the book by pushing behind Jewish and Christian division to Abraham. He rejects the Trinity with the force of common sense: God cannot be a fraction of three. For Christians persecuted for doubting the Trinity, that is not just theology. It is relief. The sky was blue all along.

That is why the missing records matter. Source trail 44:1045:2846:35 Okay? It is overturning the social order. The problem though is that eventually Islam will become the social order. So you obviously don't want to paint Muhammad as a revolutionary. Okay? That's the first problem. Muham...It's a revolution where ordinary people were so disgusted with the current leadership that they opted for a new belief system. Okay? The problem though is that once you amass power and it's a coalition, the question the... Jiang's answer is that early Islam was a revolution that later became the social order. Revolutions hide their revolutionary beginnings once they become official. Companions are purged. Christians and Jews inside the hierarchy become dangerous to later legitimacy. Civil wars need to be disguised. History is not merely missing; it has reasons to disappear.

The succession answer follows the same logic. Source trail 48:1049:0650:1551:27 That is a great point. Thank you, Doug. So Doug's point is that the idea of history comes to us from the Greeks and the Romans who wrote everything down. Okay? But as Doug says there are many cultures who do not believe...Right? What's the point? In fact if you name your successor then you are admitting defeat. Right? What Mohammed is saying to everyone is that every of your traditions Jewish Christian Zoroastrian are right. There will b... If it is the end of days, naming a successor admits defeat. The Temple Mount answer is the most speculative. Jiang says openly that it is controversial: perhaps Al-Aqsa was originally meant as a promised third temple for Jewish support, then Arab rulers turned it into a mosque as they consolidated authority. The point for the read is not to launder speculation into fact. The point is to preserve why the speculation belongs to his model of coalition, purge, and political memory.

Islam's beauty is that God is God and only God, but also everywhere. Source trail 39:2540:22 Okay. So, Muhammad's final message to the people is God is God and only God and He is everywhere. And you can see Him. You can touch Him because He's everywhere. And as such, you can feel Him and He can be inside of you...And so, in other words, what's happening is that Islam is really the first monotheistic religion in the modern sense. Okay? When we think of monotheism we actually think of the Islam in the Islamic version of monotheism... You can see Him, touch Him, and feel Him because He is in everything. Jiang calls this the first modern monotheism. When modern people imagine monotheism, they are often imagining Islam's version: absolute, simple, concrete, and intimate.

The deeper synthesis is paganism plus monotheism. Source trail 40:2241:35 And so, in other words, what's happening is that Islam is really the first monotheistic religion in the modern sense. Okay? When we think of monotheism we actually think of the Islam in the Islamic version of monotheism...Okay? Monotheism is nice because with monotheism everything becomes clear to you. Right? Okay, there's one God. Therefore I just have to follow him. I just have to believe in him. There's like a million gods in paganism... Paganism gives intimacy, ritual, stories, and a world where humans feel connected to powers around them. Monotheism gives clarity: one God, one relationship, one path. Islam makes God concrete without multiplying gods. That is why Jiang calls it an intellectual revolution.

This is also the seed of modernity. Source trail 41:3542:5258:22 Okay? Monotheism is nice because with monotheism everything becomes clear to you. Right? Okay, there's one God. Therefore I just have to follow him. I just have to believe in him. There's like a million gods in paganism...It's completing the story in the Bible. It's bringing God to the people. You can now touch God. You can now know God. That's the beginning of the idea of Protestantism. Okay? And create heaven on earth. And this is the... God can be in us. God expects us to make the world better. That is the beginning of Protestantism and science inside Jiang's sequence. Islam propels the Golden Age because devotion to the one true God becomes an engine for action, improvement, and knowledge.

The weakness is inside the strength. Source trail 53:3958:2259:331:00:51 Okay? That said there are certain problems with the tradition. The first is it's contradictory. When you read the Bible it's always contradicting itself. Okay? It's almost schizophrenic you could say. It's very hard to...Alright? And so what this means is you now know how to behave in the world. There's a clarity of purpose and action. You know that as long as you do those five things those five pillars of Islam your life will be good.... Judaism has contradiction, and contradiction permits argument. Christianity has enough contradiction to be reinterpreted into Protestantism. Islam's clarity gives strength and purpose, but its eternal Quranic truth can stand outside history. Once innovations become dogma, the same clarity that created the Golden Age blocks future growth.

Jiang then reframes the whole comparison. Source trail 1:01:311:02:58 But are there any questions before I continue? Is this clear to you guys? So I apologize I'm making a lot of generalizations but again this is a macro view of of history. Alright. So let's look at Christianity and compa...agree that the sky is red because I say the sky is red then you are orthodox. But if you insist the sky is blue then it is herethical. Okay? And that constrains or limits the imagination. Alright? And the philosopher th... Christianity is a religion of empire and control, organized around orthodoxy. Orthodoxy creates heresy. If power says the sky is red, saying the sky is blue becomes a crime. Islam, by contrast, is revolutionary and has to activate the energy of followers. It needs them to believe, fight, observe, and trust intuition.

Books and wealth are not enough. Source trail 1:04:111:05:361:06:54 Okay? And the person who argues this is of course Aristotle. So this is the argument I'm making to you. Okay? A lot of scholars believe um the Islamic Golden Age happened because the Islamic the Islams had books. They h...The form of the good this god he thinks and he emanates new concepts called ideals like justice uh reason beauty power. Okay? And these ideals will manifest themselves into perfect forms. Okay? Like a horse like a perfe... Byzantium had books. A civilization needs an orientation. In Jiang's simplified model, Byzantium and Europe choose Plato while the Muslim world chooses Aristotle. Plato's true world is immutable, perfect, and eternal. This world is a shadow. Augustine turns that into a Christian posture: do not sin, do not move wrongly, wait for heaven.

Aristotle moves. God is the prime mover. Motion creates purpose. Telos means each thing has a nature to fulfill. If truth is fulfilling purpose, then humans must act, observe, and understand motion. That is why the Aristotelian world gives rise to science. The Muslim world has the attitude that lets observation become sacred work. Lens point atlas-relation Religion becomes proto-modern when it makes God, purpose, observation, and knowledge concrete enough to energize action; it becomes dogma when that clarity freezes, so modern institutions must preserve argument, debate, and analysis as dogma-breaking powers. Source trail 1:08:02 Telos means purpose. So each of us by our nature has a purpose. If you're a soldier your purpose is to be the best warrior. If you're a mathematician your purpose is to be the best mathematician. Okay? And that is the i...

Europe modernizes by taking the Muslim inheritance back. Source trail 1:08:021:09:28 Telos means purpose. So each of us by our nature has a purpose. If you're a soldier your purpose is to be the best warrior. If you're a mathematician your purpose is to be the best mathematician. Okay? And that is the i...And they will do so through three major events. The first is the Renaissance where they bring back Aristotle. The second is the Protestant Reformation where they will bring back God. Remember the Catholic religion God i... The Renaissance brings back Aristotle. The Protestant Reformation brings back God inside the person. The Scientific Revolution brings back observation and analysis. These are not isolated European miracles in Jiang's story. They are Europe learning from Islam, then altering the inheritance.

The final answer to Europe's overtaking is not that Europe is original and Islam is stagnant. Europe emulates the Muslims. Then it improves on them. Discovery produces dogma unless a society builds institutions that can destroy dogma through discussion, debate, and analysis. Lens point atlas-relation Religion becomes proto-modern when it makes God, purpose, observation, and knowledge concrete enough to energize action; it becomes dogma when that clarity freezes, so modern institutions must preserve argument, debate, and analysis as dogma-breaking powers. Source trail 1:10:16 But guess what? The Europeans are just emulating the Muslims. But and this is really important they will improve on the Muslims. Okay? So the problem with science is yes in the beginning you will have all this tremendou... That institutional capacity becomes the basis of the modern world.

This is why the line matters: the Islamic Golden Age is proto-modernity. Source trail 1:10:161:11:39 But guess what? The Europeans are just emulating the Muslims. But and this is really important they will improve on the Muslims. Okay? So the problem with science is yes in the beginning you will have all this tremendou...All right. That is my argument to you. Any questions? Anything you are unclear about? Was this clear? Okay. Sure. It inspires the Renaissance, Reformation, and Scientific Revolution, which in turn create the world we live in. Europe is not outside the Islamic story. Europe is downstream from it.

A student pushes the point from another direction: Baghdad's creativity is not religion alone, but the move away from an Arab homeland into cultural openness, contact with India, Central Asia, China, and the work of bridging traditions. Source trail 1:12:241:13:541:14:04 Right. Very quick. But it was also very. It was done by. What's really interesting is that if you look at the talisman that comes afterwards as Professor said it moves through Baghdad. And right now we think of Baghdad...and bridge traditions in a way that isn't or in western Europe you know Jiang accepts the point and answers with a literary pattern. Great literature appears when a coherent people becomes an empire and is forced to have a vista.

Athens, David's Israel, Shakespeare's England, and Abbasid Baghdad all become examples of the same transition: a people with cohesion becomes imperial and must look outward. Source trail 1:14:041:15:161:16:261:17:55 Right. Yeah. That's a great point. So let me elaborate on this point. So there's a literary critic Norfolk Fry. Right? Yep. Canadian. Right? So Norfolk Fry is Canadian literary critic. Okay? And one thing that he's obse...Athens is the civilization par excellence. Right? And so when did Athens produce all its great like literature? Well it was basically the age of Pericles which lasted from like you know 500 to about 400. Okay? Maybe 350... Baghdad becomes a multicultural universal empire, absorbing different traditions and turning them into a larger imaginative order. The lecture ends by pointing the course toward China, the Mongols, the Crusades, Renaissance, Reformation, and the Sino-Semitic Revolution.