Quote Originally Posted by xerx View Post
Friendly correction: the Muslim Caliphates didn't "fall" to fundamentalism:

The Ummayids (EDIT: or rather, its decedents) were conquered by Spain.

The Abbasid caliphate was defeated and ravaged by Mongols.

The Fatimids, who drove out the Mongols following the destruction of Baghdad, were conquered by the rival Ottoman caliphate.

The Ottoman empire, in turn, was dismantled by the Allies after WW1, well after the Ottoman state had initiated modernizing reforms in the 19th century based on the French and German models.

External forces had a bigger hand to play in creating Islam's modern conditions, not least of which was Europe's monopolization of Indian ocean trade, which no longer had to pass through the Mediterranean to reach the West. The Italian city states faced a similar period of stagnation following the decline of Mediterranean trade.

An internal culprit was the dominance of a single, large, reactionary state over most of the region capable of stamping out threatening innovations; the Ottoman cast-like social contract was too rigid to easily change in the face of entrenched corruption and new political systems, whereas Europe's split into many competing statelets made control by a single entity impossible -- the most powerful and likeliest such entity being the house of Hapsburg in alliance with the Catholic church. China under the Ming, and most of the Qing, dynasty suffered the exact same fate for similar reasons.

If anything, religious fundamentalism helped guide Europe on its modern path towards pluralism by kicking off the reformation.


... but yeah, I agree that civilizations (though the term "civilization" is itself ambiguous; I'll assume you mean major states) can suffer decisive blows.
When I said "medieval Muslim caliphates", I was thinking of the Abbasids, I think. That's why I specified medieval to distinguish them from the Ottomans. If I recall correctly, there was a fundamentalist backlash after a period of scientific achievement and relative political/religious tolerance. It may not have been the end of the Abbasids, but it was the end of tolerance and rationalism, the end of its contributions to human freedom and liberty, which effectively signaled the beginning of decline. But my memory may be failing me, it's not my area of expertise, for certain.

When I say "civilization", I mean something along the lines of, "Larger than a nation-state, with tendencies towards hegemony/hyperpower". Once again, perhaps not true of the Abbasids, but, it's social science, not chemistry, there's bound to be some ambiguity.