"The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of martyrs"

There is a lot of interesting things in what might be termed Islamic history but probably more accurately Middle Eastern history. Especially of interest is the period that is now called the Islamic Golden Age. In this time, long before the European Enlightenment, even before the Renaissance the middle east was playing host to a civilisation that was by far the epicentre of progress.

Interestingly, like the European Renaissance the impact of foreign thinking was a significant part of what stimulated this revolution in thought. The House of Wisdom was a library that also undertook the process of translating texts from Persian, and subsequently other languages, into Arabic. Irionically this process would preserve many European classical writings, lost in Europe itself, that when translated into latin would help start the European Renaissance in much the same way.

The Middle Eastern Enlightenment also had an encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity, very much like the Encyclopedie of the European Enlightenment. Apparently this work was similarly compiled by a team of intellectuals, covered the whole gamut of human knowledge of the time, and as much as possible given the cultural context indulged in freethinking beyond the strictures of the dominant faith.

The thinkers of this enlightenment, to a large degree free from the constraints of the local religion, made incredible strides forward in many facets of technology, mathematics, and the development of science, as well as in many of the sciences individually. These advances were later imported into Europe and might otherwise have been lost.

What went wrong? It seems likely that many of the smartest people in this culture were trying to break free of Islam, at least to a degree. They managed for awhile, but ultimately failed and the conservative backlash destroyed the enlightened subculture that they had developed.

It seems likely the christian invasion of the Middle East during the Crusades most likely contributed to the end of the Middle Eastern Enlightenment, though the Mongol hordes probably didn't help. Whatever happened it meant that Europe, comparatively a backwater at the time managed to race ahead when it experienced its own Enlightenment.

Of course our religious types too try to lay claim to anything good in western culture despite their representatives having often actively opposed the progress at the time. Of course the worst among them are also simultaneously doing their utmost to return us to a time before the Enlightenment, and of course they may yet succeed, as this certainly seems to have happened previously in the Middle East.

Will history find balance by the Islamic attacks on the West contribute to the end of the Western Enlightenment?