in my family there has been a simple question being raised for as many years i can remember but there has never been a satisfactory answer yet.
"if early muslims had all the science, mathematics, geography, philosophy and all fields of science including hundreds of scientists who laid down the foundations of modern science with their works, what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?"<p>Then years ago i read "origin" by "Dan brown" where an interesting line caught my attention<p>“By the end of the eleventh century,” Edmond said, “the greatest intellectual exploration and discovery on earth was taking place in and around Baghdad. Then, almost overnight, that changed. A brilliant scholar named Hamid al-Ghazali—now considered one of the most influential Muslims in history—wrote a series of persuasive texts questioning the logic of Plato and Aristotle and declaring mathematics to be ‘the philosophy of the devil.’ This began a confluence of events that undermined scientific thinking. The study of theology was made compulsory, and eventually the entire Islamic scientific movement collapsed.”<p>Since reading this, i've been trying to understand 2 things. 1, is this just fiction on the part of author and in that case, isnt it slander, spreading false information about a scholar who many hold to high regards and 2, if this is true, then this fucking asshole is responsible for causing immeasurable harm to "science" as a human idea on the whole.<p>While i think just one person "might not" be responsible for single-handedly causing such a travesty on his own, there is no doubt "something" happened that caused this change. This author says it was this ghazali guy, maybe there were others also. I don't know but i surely would want to know