You are told a myth about the rise of the west, that the scientific revolution, industrial revolution, the discovery of civil rights, liberty and freedom happened because Europeans started doing "science" out of nowhere.
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This is a myth. The actual reasons for the rise of the west were endless wars and conflicts which led to advances in military technologies, strategies, which led to more bloody wars, which led to more advancement in weaponry which helped Europeans in global domination. 2/
The ship building projects carried out by England, Portugal and The Netherlands are cases in point.
(This is called fluyts, a cargo ship by the Dutch)
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In Europe, where wars would extend to decades and centuries, like the Hundred Years War, Eighty Years War, Thirty Years War, and later on WW1 and WW2 are the latest examples of the long running history of war and violence which is ingrained into the consciousness of Europe. 4/
The unparalleled aggression and violence in Europe was unmatched by any region of the world.
In fact, wars became the staple feature and defining characteristic of Europe.
Only a European would have said that the nature of Man is to be in constant state of violence -Leviathan 4/
This is why at the time when millions of paintings and great architectural designs were being built, guns were also manufactured in exponential numbers.
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In the same vein some of the most important works of Newton and Galileo was the study of trajectory of projectiles and the causes of deviation in artillery.
Scientific advancements went hand in hand with military technological advancement
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It was for this reason that guns had become so refined and accurate that a handful of Portuguese conquistadors wiped out the native Americans who were numerically superior to them.
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The wealth stolen from the natives was showered on the Northern European countries, which led to patronage for science and arts, and more instability because now there was more to fight for, which led to more bloody wars and decades long conflicts.
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It was not that the native Americans were primitives and uncivilised. In fact they were more Civilized than their European counterparts.
The inca empire had a sophisticated system of law and order, tax, and a high culture. The only reason they were dominated is because... 9/
...they were inferior in weapon technology.
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Map of all the recorded battles in history of the past 2,000 years. 11/
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Aligarh was not pro-British except for Sir Syed. It produced some of the most vocal anti-colonial figures. The Muslim League leadership were grads of Aligarh.
The Deoband became politically active in the 1920s during the Khilafat movement, which was led mostly by modernists.
Kalam and Iqbal are also modernists in their theological and political orientations.
Figures like Mahmud Hasan & Ahmed Madani of Deoband were active in the Khilafat movement & had good relationships with modernists like Azad, Shaukat Ali Muhammad Ali and even Hindu figures.
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But even then, major figures of the Deoband movement like Ashraf Ali Thanawi were politically quietest.
For instance, he discouraged Muslims from participating in the Kashmir uprising in 1931. But figures like Ahmed Madani were politically active.
I always respond to counter-arguments when they are backed up by academic references. That's why I have decided to respond to this brother because he made a strong case. Let's begin. Bismillah.
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Usually, people ask for the best doctor when they have health problems. But when it comes to knowledge the same people rely on a bunch of YouTubers with little to no expertise.
The truth is these people don't care about knowledge just as much as they care about their health.
As Pakistanis, we should think about this carefully. Why do we have a track record of turning any molehill - literally any random person- into a mountain.
This is frankly embarrassing.
A journalist abusing history & philosophy, a physicist butchering every single topic under the sun, random podcasters inviting non-experts to talk about sophisticated topics (bulldozing them as they go), a public speaker who wants an overhaul of entire Sunni legal tradition.
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Enlightenment wasn't about some individuals who just woke and thought of democracy and constitutional govt out of nowhere. This book argues that it was part of centuries of psychological/cultural evolution that led to this.
But there's a huge bindsopt here.
@TheghostofMT
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Enlightenment was the time when NW Europe started studying & adopting foreign models of government, sciences & economics.
Chinese forms of govt (Leibnitz)
Islamic Sci. were translated and studied in the universities of Europe.
Indigenous American inspiration: freedom and equality
About a month ago, I was reading these two books together and found that on the topic of hunter-gatherers and the evolution of human societies, these books were arguing for two different points of view about human history.
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Point of contention:
Henrich argues that modern states emerged from chiefdoms, and chiefdoms are based on kinship ties, and that human societies evolved from hunter-gatherers to agriculture societies and later on to empires. This is commonly accepted in anthropology.
Graeber & Wengrow intervene:
Based on their research on hunter-gatherers of the past 25,000 - 15,000 years (before and during Ice Age), hunter gatherers did not transition from hunters to agriculture or farming societies.