What went wrong other than Islam?
It clearly started declining before islam showed up.
>>14679
Islam wasn't that bad in it's early stages. The crescent just got massively fucked by the black death, especially Egypt.
>>14679
>What went wrong other than Islam?
Wow, starting off the thread with some heavy loading there guy.
Literally a desert
Nomads and deurbanization after the 12th century. It's weather and climate patterns weren't the greatest either for a stable dynasty that'd last longer than three or four generations. It's why the most long-lived empires there were based outside of it in Anatolia or Iran.
The Abbasids were the last hurrah for the region before it got fucked by demographics, by the aforementoned migrations but also >>14785
middle east has always been like a WWE ring
Even worse, no one was on what we call Saudi Arabia before Abraham came to that place and settle a civilization there.
>>14957
>choosing to live in the desert away from anyone else
What was he fucking thinking.
>>14859
Literally not
>>14679
Turks.
Fucking steppe nomads did for half the world, so its nothing to be too ashamed of.
>>15002
Because he believed god asked him to do that.
Horse
Fucking
Shits
>>14679
The land between the Tigris and the Euphrates, south of Baghdad, can be categorized as "silt desert": It is dry, yet very rich from millions of years of river deposits. When the Sumerian civilization, the first in the region, arose in 3,500 B.C., there was a bit more rainfall but not much. So the Sumerians, like every civilization in the area since, had to rely on extensive irrigation systems. In fact, some scholars think that the ingenuity, hard work, and administrative responsibility required to construct a system of canals helped train the Sumerians in state-building.
Because the land is so fragile, civilizations have periodically lost control of it. The Sumerians (who lived near modern Basra and Nasiriyah) gave way to the Babylonians, who lived farther north. They and their successors—the Hellenistic Seleucid rulers, then Iranian Parthians—continued to build huge canal systems. Early Arab rulers kept them going until the 1200s, when the system, which had seen many partial failures, finally collapsed. From the 15th to the 20th century, the agricultural belt from Baghdad to Basra returned to desert.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2003/04/why_isnt_the_fertile_crescent_more_fertile.html
>>14679
Nothing went wrong.
Africa, the Americas, Australia, Asia, etc. They all got buttfucked by a resurgent Europe. It's more a question of what Western Europe did right.
>>15246
According to that article it was never fertile and it was just lots of irrigation that kept it going?
Is that really it? Why the fuck did civilization start HERE then?
>>15340
I guess is safety, far away from most dangers and once the agriculture was developed, it was really "fertile".
>Is that really it? Why the fuck did civilization start HERE then?
Safety, once te
>>15340
Fertility refers to how suitable the soil itself is for growing crops in, depending on its mineral composition
The rivers are probably what lead to people setting in this area since the earliest hominids came out of Africa; the plant and animal life supported by the rivers and wetlands would lead people to live here even before agriculture developed
>>14859
>fertile crescent
are you retarded ?
>>15513
Back to /pol/ friend, where you can relish all of your spicy memes in like company
>>14679
>other than Islam
>implying
It actually reached its heights during the reign of the Abbasids, who built and ruled from Baghdad, the most impressive and technologically advanced city the Middle East had ever seen.
What went wrong was the successive invasions by the migrating Central Asian peoples (Seljuks, etc), followed by the Mongol Invasion, which essentially set the region back so far it has never really recovered.
>>15757
>What went wrong was the successive invasions by the migrating Central Asian peoples (Seljuks, etc), followed by the Mongol Invasion, which essentially set the region back so far it has never really recovered.
This. Essentially stomped the region back into the stone age.
But thanks for taking one for the team middle east.
Irrigation causes salt to accumulate in soil. All civilizations that use irrigation succumb to a gradual decrease in soil fertility. Exhaustion of timber and other resources contribute to the inevitable collapse. After the collapse, irrigation ceases, soil fertility recovers and a new civilization can reemerge. This cycle has occurred multiple times for each of the great rivers of the world.
First the Mongols. Then a series of somewhat successful campaigns without ever really finishing the goal, that ultimately had to end during colonialism. Meaning, next the British. Then WW1 really cleared the state of affairs with the Ottomans being on the losing side, and with the introduction of Israel after WW2 and the resulting constant tensions (and a few lost wars), it only cemented.
>>15877
The turks before the mongols m8, the centre of islamic power shifted violently from Syria/Mesopotamia and never returned
Hellenization went wrong. Beware Greeks bearing gifts.
Bumping shit-tier flypaper bait thread of a low-frontally lobed mongoloid.
>>15908
I considered that as more of a change in power, not a reason for ruin. The turks at least did something with the land.
>>15957
>Bumping shit-tier flypaper bait thread
>implying I created this thread as bait
I just wanted to see what people think of the crescent
>>16010
If it's not bait then you're an idiot.
>>15870
basically this. when your irrigation networks silt over and your land can't support farming, you're fucked
>>14679
The Middle East has never been very stable.
Mongols literally and intentionally ruined the land to the effect that the fertility levels have not yet recovered.
If I could strike one civilization from History it would be the Mongols. Literally achieved nothing in exchange for millions of lives, only to disperse and be absorbed into the cultures it conquered because its identity and impact was so shallow.
>inb4 Silk Road
>inb4 Religious Freedom
Just a political pragmatism because the Mongols wanted more money they could tax, and didn't want more rebellions.
>>15686
muh /pol/ boogyman
this guy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali
basically turned Islam from a glorious religion of logic and inquiry into the dogmatic mess it is today.
he also destroyed neoplatonic Islam that flourished in Alexandria which cultivated the greek-egyptian syncretic knowledge that aided the Islamic Golden Age.
>>16275
Those were valid points though, they did bring stability to those areas and strengthened the Silk Road, as well as the downfall of some of your favourite civilizations.
I mean on the whole of it I agree with you, the damage was far far far greater than the benefit, but that doesn't mean you should just dismiss the positive things, that is just revisionism.
>>15961
Well it was a movement from the fertile crescent ALWAYS including the capital cities of huge empires, to the crescent being a border area in new states with different centres. Its definitely a major factor.
>>14679
Agrarian societies.
>>16563
The only problem is they didn't strengthen the silk road, they diverted it north and allowed the Italians to negotiate ridiculous trade agreements in their favor.
And it's after the Mongols when their descendants began to convert to Islam that we see the major decline of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Christianity, when before it was actually on the increase under the Caliphate.
>>16451
Al-Ghazali did help create sufism though, and mysticism is cool tho right?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!??!
>>16563
>Stability
Were it long lasting I would totally agree with you.
But the greatest criticism of the Mongols is that it wasn't lasting nor stable, in literally a few generations Genghis children had split the "empire" as much as your average Gavel kind succession would expect.
Also the Mongolian Empire was literally pay us taxes and tribute or we burn your entire civilization so no-one else ever rebelled. The ruling parties made no effort ever to cultivate the land and left all people to their own devices. Great for "sovereignty" but meant a much worse deal than other empires had given in previous ages.
There is a reason the Roman, British, Babylonian and Han Empires lasted for so long. Despite not having the landmass the Mongols acquired.
>>16250
>The Middle East has never been very stable.
Sure it has, how long has Baghdad been a city? It's seen plenty of changes, but the fact that it still exists speaks of some kind of stability, or persistence.
>>16451
The utter destruction that the Mongolians brought upon the heartlands of the Islamic world and Baghdad caused a radical shift in Islamic thought.
Previously Islamic civilization had been much more cosmopolitan, tolerant, and incorporated Hellenistic thought and rationality.
After the Mongols, it became more fundamentalist, conservative, dogmatic, and puritanical. Some Muslims began to see the Mongol Invasion as punishment from God for their tolerance and 'liberal excesses' under the Abbassids and other Islamic rulers.
>>15686
> triggered
>>16799
Ha you have a point, maybe that was an unfortunate choice of a word. Short lasting stability seems a bit of an oxymoron doesn't it?
>>17035
Do you have a better explanation?
>>14679
Islam has nothing to do with it really
more the nature of the global economy changed, Islam's major fault was becoming complacent on the steady wealth provided by the trade routes they controled, once the Europeans found other routes and new sources of trade those old ones became less important, that combined with hard-nosed anti-reformism within the Muslim world set about their downfall in the 18th-19th century.
>>14679
Assyria did not sack Jerusalem, thus allowing for the eventual birth of Islam.
>>17035
Sounds like you disagree, mind stating exactly with what?
>>14859
the Turks made much of the aria far more arid than it was in the past.
>>14679
Persians and Romans fucked it up pretty bad
>>17149
Actually genuinely curious why the fuck you came to think this. You've obviously never read a fucking history book in your life, but I'm interested what passing conversation you misheard or film you half watched that game you this impression?
>>15340
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_empire
Basically, if you can control the irrigation and thus the food, you can control your people. It's like the monopoly on force in more fertile areas, but it's easier to implement because people aren't self-sufficient.
>>17245
Just shitposting
>>17102
What about the Tanzimat? It seems more like because they lacked the modern day tools of the nation-state that reforms were incredibly difficult outside of Anatolia and the Levant. Muhammed Ali possibly could have reformed the Empire if he had taken over like he wanted to.
>>17099
>>17119
It wouldn't fit in a paragraph.
There are so many factors and such an outrageously large area and long period of time we are looking at, why would you seek such a snug explanation that wraps everything up simply for you to understand?
The idea that "islamic thought" was EVER something so monolithic and "changeable" in that way is nonsense anyway.
>>17290
Oh okay. Did you pick those two peoples at random then?
How many of you are refusing to blame islam only because of peer pressure?I think this is the problem with having so many college educated "historians" in this board,you're not allowed to be objective basically.
>>17505
its more the Turks than Islam itself, Islam's current state is a result of the entire region collapsing.
>>17505
Because once you strip away as much personal opinion as you can, you're left with primary sources, archaeology, and modern research, and that's something that trumps opinion.
Objective doesn't mean contrarian.
>>17505
>How many of you are refusing to blame islam only because of peer pressure?
I generally dislike blaming religions. Blame the people using them to their advantage, to keep other people uneducated and submissive.
>>17505
>be objective
Ok, so do you have any objective sources (primary sources, secondary sources, modern scholarship, archaeological findings, etc.) that indicate Islam had a negative impact on the region?
>>17597
Not trying to /pol/, but the added complication that the Quran is seen as the literal, word for word of Allah means that any efforts to reform hit cement.
Islam also hasn't had the hard won fight for a Secularism that other Religions have, meaning that integration into Western communities makes assimilation less likely than other migrants.
>>17505
Because the area's greatest time of prosperity by pretty much every metric came after the muslim conquests.
That and the lack of any evidence that religion was the cause of the downfall of the area, I guess.
As difficult as this is for some americans to understand, there is a history that goes back before 9/11, things did in fact happen before then.
>>17715
more or less, Islam is flawed at its core but that's the price you pay in trying to strive for accuracy and legitimacy.
its not like there were not attempts but as you said denying the absolute divinity of the quran would be devastating so naturally it makes development difficult.
>>17715
Islam was crazy secular for a long time, then transitioned to be somewhat less so, but the modern strain of islamism that you recognise, taking the qu'ran literally like it is, its crazy modern and new.
Imagine a sect of Christians that did the same thing with the Old Testament nowadays, it'd be much the same result.
>>17715
>Not trying to /pol/, but the added complication that the Quran is seen as the literal, word for word of Allah means that any efforts to reform hit cement.
That's not true however. Islam has been reforming itself constantly every few centuries into something completely different from its previous incarnation. Hell the modern chaos we see today ultimately derives from a reformist movement that got flush with oil movement and went batshit crazy in decades of world-wide conflict.
>Islam also hasn't had the hard won fight for a Secularism that other Religions have, meaning that integration into Western communities makes assimilation less likely than other migrants.
This is sort of true, but irrelevant because it's not /his/ at this point. Current attitudes towards secularism doesn't apply to previous Muslim societies and their attitude towards state and religion.
>>17880
>with oil movement
*money
Cousin marriage. Islam does not discourage it like Western Christianity did.
>>17880
Actually, modern Islamist terrorism is older than 25 years old. Sayid Qutb, the ideological founder of the modern Salafist movement, was executed in 1966.
>>15686
This is the truth shitlord.
>>17505
keep taking that red dic--i mean pill, friend.
>>17715
>Secularism
>integration into Western communities
What does this have to do with anything? Have you forgotten you are talking about events that happened 1000 years ago in the middle east?
>>18078
Whahabbiism dates from the 18th century and the ideology behind it goes back to Muhammad and the Hadiths.
>>18109
people have no clue what secular means desu
>>18109
The concept of history is genuinely still pretty new to a lot of people. Like they hadn't really thought of the fact that things might've been different in the past to how they are now.
I think it may be more of a problem in America, due to their lack of connection to the past, but that is just conjecture.
>>17625
So you see Syria being torn apart by religious factions fighting for religious reasons in the name of religion and old hatred originated from religious differences and you say "this dates back to ancient sumerian politics " and feel englightedned?
>>17698
>Ok, so do you have any objective sources (primary sources, secondary sources, modern scholarship, archaeological findings, etc.) that indicate Islam had a negative impact on the region?
Name a Christian or secular terror group in the middle east.
>>18305
>you say "this dates back to ancient sumerian politics "
Why would i say that
>>16991
Didn't Ibn Khaldun say something to this effect? Some aesop about society in which barbarians come storming out of the wilderness accompanied by war-drums to kill the cityfolk who have become complacent and fat in their society and advancement?
>>18305
>mfw daesh bulldozes Assyrian ruins, slaughters everyone in sight, and still can't beat the actual Assyrians' high score
Don't get me wrong, Salafism is a cancer on the Islamic world, as is sectarianism. But people always find reasons to kill each other, and plenty of brutal as fuck civil wars manage to happen just fine without religious differences. (i.e. South Sudan's civil war, while everyone was busy paying attention to Syria)
>>18305
So a 1000+ year old religion gets up into some shit in the past century, and you think everything went wrong in the 7th century?
>>18305
>Name a Christian or secular terror group in the middle east.
Phalangists
PFLP (Secular in nature but its founders George Habash and Wadie Haddad were Christians)
Ba'athists
>>17379
Get over yourself.
For the purposes of a tibetan throat singing gif board, the Mongol invasion is a very good starting point to mark a change in islamic thought.
>>18672
Al-Qaeda, Islamic State. The rest are either too small to matter, rebel movements that get called "terrorist" so the US will pay cash to the government fighting them, or joined up with one or the other.
>>18672
No, they're all terror groups.
Phalangists perpetrated the Sabra and Shatilla massacre.
PFLP carried out several airplane highjackings and civilian attacks against Western and Israeli targets.
I haven't even mentioned the Christian terror groups and militias from the Lebanese Civil War and the atrocities they carried out, like the Hurs-al-Arz or Michel Aoun.
>>17379
Don't worry, you got a few thousand characters. You can even break it up into various posts. The
>it's too much to explain
is a lazy copout at best, and an excuse for ignorance at its worst.
>>14785
>Islam wasn't that bad in it's early stages
That's a myth. There was never a golden age
>>18672
>I'm just trying to understand
Making nonsensical strawmen on the fly doesn't count as an attempt at understanding.
>politically incorrect to speak the truth
Well that's why we have /pol/. I'd much rather have some arguments based on sources that aren't leaping across a thousand years.
>>18805
And the historian who proved this with research?
>>18805
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age
>>18852
>proved this with research
>>/sci/
And stay there.
>>18672
The Middle East is 90%+ Muslim. Of course their terrorists are going to be Muslim.
>>18921
Historians publish research
>>15299
The fertility cult of Christianity advanced into Yurop, wherein it assimilated or subjugated the pagans while simultaneously dying out elsewhere.
The secret Christian rites of psychedelic mushroom consumption and worship spread throughout the populace as the cultist influence consumed Yurop, propelling the various peoples to evolve and innovate thanks to the influence of the psychedelic compound psilocybin found in the mushrooms.
Yurop was able to advance beyond that of the rest of humanity thanks to the mass consumption of psilocybin alongside the evolved survival strategies of the Yuropeans, culminating in the unique innovations that rapidly developed within the sphere of influence.
t. Joe Rogan
>>18805
Got a single fact to back that up with? Go back to /pol/, /his/ is for the discussion of serious historical debate/research chaim
>>18898
>https://en.m.
>m
nope
>>17149
Wat
>>15299
>resurgent
You mean rising, there's only been one period of European domination.
>>18978
Europe is 90% + not muslim and the vast majority of active terror groups are muslim.
Zoroastrians happened. You can only have so many generations of Xwedodah before shit goes south.
>modern terrorism
What does this have to do with the decline of the Fertile Crescent since the 13th century? Or are you guys saying the 20th century the point where things went wrong?
>>15299
>what Western Europe did right
Their unwashed sailors were packed with germs leaving 2 newly discovered continents almost empty.
>>19167
It's /pol/ trying to culturally enrich the board. Just keep calling them out, they usually have little proof on their claims, or are obviously biased if they do.
>>14679
Massive wars with the Byzantines that weakened the Sassanids to the point where they were vulnerable to a strong, commited rebellion.
>>18109
The fight for secularism is extremely important history, something that occurred gradually and painfully. My point being that whilst many other religions have had the awkward equivalent of a adolescence, a lot of shit got heaped at once causing this revolutionary reinterpretation of religious authority to fall flat.
To dismiss it as unimportant and not relevant to history is ignorance of the highest caliber.
>>18982
>The secret Christian rites of psychedelic mushroom consumption and worship spread throughout the populace
Amanita consumption in northern europe and eurasia predates Christianity by a damn sight anon.
>>18305
>the Syrian Civil War is happening because of Islam
bait
>>14679
Climate change. It hits there periodically. That's what ended the Akkadian empire, and it's been ending empires ever since.
>>19265
Well it was common everywhere it was present, really, but Christianity made it's consumption into a weekly ritual, or as often as you can physically be effected by the psychedelic compounds, leading to it's mass consumption by any and all who joined the cult, and as the cult solidified it's grasp on all of Yurop so did the consumption ritual, which sped up the innovation and advancement of the entire continent, while leaving the other peoples of the world lagging behind, as they did not hold the same consumption on the scale the Euros implemented.
>>18111
>ideology of extremist, puritanical Islam goes back to the main Islamic texts
you're quite the fucking detective, anon. did oliver cromwell read the bible?
>>19445
kek
>>19199
>Arab invasion was a rebellion
>>19059
Europe? most terrorist groups operating in Europe aren't muslim..
>>19630
I think it has more to do with geopolitics rather than a fundamental flaw in islam.
>>19630
>its totes not a proxy war
>>14916
You are forgetting that the Middle East has been the basin for every single nomadic group that took control of Central Asia; Hittites, Persians, Mongols and Turks.
The Ottoman Empire was the longest lasting Muslim state primarily because they were the last Central Asian group to move into the region.
>>19213
>To dismiss it as unimportant and not relevant to history
Nobody did that. But that still means you are taking about unrelated things by bringing up modern immigration politics and secularism in a topic about the middle ages.
>any other religions have had the awkward equivalent of a adolescence
Most places on earth are not even remotely secular (religion/culture still decides many laws) and Islam has been through just as many reforms itself. Also 1000 years ago Islam was quite young for a religion so I just don't see your point.
>>19574
I kinda interpret it as one. I'm a bit sketchy as to who claimed sovereignty over that fuck huge desert that the Muslims originated from but if my memory is correct I think the Sassanids held sway, making the Arab Invasion a religious based rebellion until they formed a state
>>19574
In some respects, it kind of was. Between the outright betrayals of vassals to the capitulations to the support or apathy of Mesopotamian citizens, it's not that far off.
>>19428
European superiority only became evident in the 1700's.
>>19742
See the anon I was replying to, asking about Islams current state compared to the Middle Ages.
Not on topic to the OP, but the threads 100 replies in and like everything on 4chan the thread goes where it wills.
>>15574
>the earliest hominids came out of Africa
Debatable.
But that's for another thread.
>>19825
Evolution takes awhile.
>>19749
It doesn't work that way. Both the Byzantine/Eastern Romans and Sassanid/Persians had client states in Arabia. The Sassanids held the coastal and more easternly areas while the Byzantines had the areas more directly connected to the rest of the Levant.
Last time there was an "actual" Arab rebellion, the Arabs were raiding into Persian boarders and townships in the early 4th century before Shapur II started butchering them and building a shit ton of fortresses in their western boarders.
>>19941
>Last time there was an "actual" Arab rebellion, the Arabs were raiding into Persian boarders and townships in the early 4th century
Isn't that exactly what they were doing then in the 7th century? Besides the losing part I mean.
>>20023
Not really. I can't remember who the tribe was that owed the Sassanids loyalty too, but the Islamist were not part of them.
>>17715
Except Islam has a history with secularism. It was the Turks themselves who removed the government and many regimes in the Middle east are or were secular.
In fact it was a Muslim philosopher who pretty much invented the idea of secularism; Averroes.
>>19940
not 1500 years
>>20151
This seems pretty low.
>>20105
Lakhmids.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hira
>>20314
What non religiously motivated terrorist attack can you mention in the last 5 years?
Don't be naive,since the basques and potato niggers dropped violence muslims are the uncontested masters of terror in the EU
>>20314
The source doesn't exist.
>>20326
Fucking perfidious Arabs.
>>20400
Anders Behring Breivik
>>20235
1500 years is enough to build in a slight advantage to the rest of humanity, which is enough to snowball into an enormous advantage when you parlay that into an empire that spans most of the world.
>>20151
>Its like when tumblr blames sistematic racism kek
Ok, so you have zero grasp on history, got it.
>>20438
Alright,so the only non muslim caused terror attack was done to stop muslims,surely islam brings no trouble to europe and let alone the peaceful middle east.
And /pol/ broke another thread
>>20501
> done to stop Muslims
> kills a bunch of kids in a liberal summer camp
Why didn't he just kill Muslims then, or immigrants in general like that Swedish kid?
>>20559
I think that 4chan guy is responsible for this one.
>>20501
The recent school sword attack was also done by someone who hates muslims.
>>20492
You are speaking like you have overwhelming empirical evidence to back your claims.
What went wrong:
a. Turkish invaders
Central Asian steppe nomadic peoples invaded from the steppes, destroying cities and absolutely devastating the Muslim world. This culminated with the Mongol invasion and the conquests of the Ottoman Empire. That leads me to point 2
b. the Ottoman Empire
The modernization of the Ottoman Empire stagnated because of the power of the Janissaries. The Janissaries were generally very conservative in order to protect their traditional rights and privileges, and this prevented significant education and industrialization in ALL of the Middle East because the Ottoman Empire owned it all
c. Other routes to the East
The Ottoman and Muslim empires lost DRASTIC amounts of prosperity because of their losses in the Indian ocean - after the Portuguese secured it, the place of the Muslim merchants as middlemen in the lucrative far Eastern trade diminished severely, and the Ottoman Empire lost a LOT of it's wealth because of this.
d. Nationalism
Its quite apparent through history that areas that had larger empires during the time of Modernization and industrialization are not economically strong. The Balkans were under Turkish and Austrian control and are poor, all of the former USSR areas were Russian and are now poor. The same was true of the middle east. Controlled by the Ottomans - they were unable to industrialize and modernize because their wealth was financing their own oppression - taxes by the Ottoman Empire went to putting down Egyptian and other uprisings across the empire. The aforementioned janissaries focused the empire's resources on military might instead of industrialization and modernization until too late. However, Turkey is the most prosperous of the Muslim states today because of these late reforms.
e. The Eastern problem
European states didn't know what to do with the sick man of Europe - the Ottoman Empire was dying, and in the name of stability in the Middle East, the Great Powers propped up this nation...
>>20600
It can be argued that nationalist movements would have popped up much earlier with possible Russian, Egyptian or Persian support, and this would have led to much higher levels of industrialization in the Middle East.
f. Religion
The nature of Islam is very divisive towards other faiths - this resulted in the Muslims being exceptionally hostile to the Western Christian capitalists who could have helped them modernize, whereas the Japanese and Chinese embraced the Western ideals because of their somewhat more neutral faiths and cultures
>>20600
What about the 1953 coup in Iran?
>>20405
works for me™
>>20651
Lets see a link to that IKEA attack, one that preferably shows his motivation.
>>20662
the middle east was already generally backwards economically, and I was trying to use pre-20th century stuff, but that is a good example as wlel
>>21060
>Just google it,its a mess of a situation,the Swedish police tried to hide
You claimed it, so why the fuck aren't you looking for the link?
>he dindu nuffin
Fuck off with your /pol/ memes and conspiracy theories.
>>20641
But Muhammed Ali started the process of industrialization in Egypt and even tried his hand at an early form of ISI to fund his programs. And you have the various capitulations in the Ottoman Empire to bring in foreign trade, capital and infrastructure as well as the various onerous loans from various Europeans banks.
>What went wrong?
Basically pic related.
>>18982
this nigga right. yurop got more evolved because of mushrooms n shit.
>want to have an interesting thread about the reasons the middle east went downhill over the past millennia, irrespective of the state of Islam
>still manage to have the thread turn into a 'muh evil terrorists muslims have always been bloodthirsty barbarians' by some historically illiterate shitposter despite the fact the opening post explicitly says OTHER THAN ISLAM
If /pol/ kills this board in its infancy I will be so mad.
>>21878
lolno
What happened to Islam was that Europeans figured out how to sail to India and China. Without the need for the Ottomans to act as a middle man over the silk road revenue decreased and Islamic civilization went into decline
>>14679
Salt and water table rising said salt. Thus agriculture got rekt.
>>23114
>muslims have always been bloodthirsty barbarians
Because they have always been bloodthirsty barbarians.
The only reason Turkey is doing better than others is because of contact with Europeans and because of European genes that some of them have. The easiest way to explain Turkey to your self is to take a look at their TV shows and the face and body types of its main actors.
If you took away everyone from Turkey with European ancestry the rest would turn into desert muslim shithole very fast.
>>23587
A mess
>entire region follows a religion based on the ravings of a lunatic pedophile warlord which governs nearly every aspect of their daily lives
gee, i wonder what went wrong
>>14679
>It clearly started declining before islam showed up.
Nope it was islam. Before and in the early years of islam it was still the richest and most highly populated place in the world.
>>16706
Actually Sufism existed long before Al-Ghazali. Most of the Sufi principles have their roots in earlier figureheads.
>>14679
K*rds spilling into and overpopulating other people's land.
>>14679
The death of Enkidu.
>>14679
plague
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)
Never mess with the mongols.
>>25608
All hail Shalmanesar II, the Bane of all Jews
>>25858
Honestly the Mongols ending the Islamic Golden Age was a good thing, but Mobgols also managed to kill many other promising civilisations in that area. Now it's mostly Kurds, baka senpai.
>>25925
The whole middle east went to shit because of them, why would that be a good thing?
>>25976
Arabs in Mesopotomia is yucky, and how comes everytime I write S M H F A M it changes to baka senpai? baka senpai desu senpai
Iranian here.
What really went wrong was power hungry assholes who abused organized religion to their benefit.
If the kings and leaders of the region's nations catered to peoples' interest and science and if they would've decided to have a secular government instead of some weird ass government system (similar to that of Iran) middle east could've been a gem in Asia.
Seriously though , Koreans managed to advance to the status they have right now and they weren't really far ahead of countries like Iran 60 years ago.
TL;DR you shouldn't mix religion with politics.
>>25858
>Mongols siege of Baghdad
>Reason why Islam is bad today
Look, that event overrated, because at 1270's. the Muslim World was a fucking mess. If the Abbasid Caliphate's golden ages was well stopped before the Mongols ever rolled their ponies in front of Baghdad.
Yes, the Abbasids who ruled from Baghdad were great. Golden Age, the Academies of Baghdad, the great Bimaristan hospitals established all over. Persian Scholars. But that was during the 700's and early 800's
In the 1200's, technically all of Middle East from Persia to Egypt is Abbasid Caliphate. But look at their actual holdings: just Iraq? Why? Because during the latter half of the 800's and the 1200's the Abbasids fucking declined. It was too big, and eventually slip ups with administration and the full control of the armies showed until factions led by revolting generals, radical Imams, or the revolutionaries like the Fatimids and the Ayyubids. In fact the word Sultan (initially meaning "Governor of a Province") became equivalent to "Sovereign King" starting during these times.
Compounding this age of chaos was the conversion of the Turks. The Abbasids didn't rely on the fucking Army anymore and started buying whole Turkish tribes and converting them to protect the Abbasids. What did they get instead? Turkics overrunning the Middle East thanks to their cavalry superiority and creating little empires within it. The cream of the crop which nearly killed the abbasids earlier was the conversion of Toghril and the Seljuk Invasion, during the 900's AD in which the Turks drowned the region in warfare.
Lets not even add the Crusades on the Abbasids shitcake. When the Mongol showed up in Baghdad, it was to euthanize a long rotting empire. And the knowledge accumulated in Baghdad was already in Byzantium, Cairo, and all the way to Spain anyway.
>>26090
>>25976
>>25858
Furthermore to claim that Mongols ended all that was nice with Islam is fucking stupid given that the three Gunpowder Empires gave the Islamic world a second Golden Age came almost right after the Mongols left the place.
>>26004
The people in mesopotamia never left, they just converted. Also please take your meme spouting racist ass back to /pol/.
My general view on history is diversity = competition = progress, so i'd say it got fucked up ever since they started the empires trend in Mesopotamia and especially since Babylonia came up.
>>26123
lol converted, there have been Christians in the ME since Christianitt began and surprisingly enough, those who haven't converted to Islam are the only ones who have identify with their ancient race. Learn some modern history please, Arabs ruined everything.
>>18988
>calling everyone who's wrong /pol/
Get fucked, I'm as /pol/ as you can get, and I won't deny that Xth century Baghdad was centuries ahead of the West in some regards.
Whether that has anything to do with Islam is up for debate, but they really were more civilized.
>>26788
>Xth century Baghdad
See >>26090
Can't be ahead when country is drowning at war.
>>26090
I <3 you
Ask the other posts were about how based the caliphate and Arabs were, extremely one sided liberal garbage.
Fucking stop replying to the /pol/ autist he is ruining the whole thread with his "muh islam"
>>17684
Islam was literally created by Mohamed to use as a tool of building up an army and conquest. He basically saw how powerful religion could be when he witnessed Christianity's success and decided to emulate the model.
