Let’s kick off our next discussion with the impact of the Arab World on the European Renaissance and Scientific Revolution. What role did the Arab conquests and scientific breakthroughs play in European intellectual and cultural development? Many of the innovations that we think of as cornerstones of Western science had their roots in the Arab world of the early middle ages, a period when much of Western world lay in intellectual obscurity. So how did Arabic Enlightenment transform the Western World and world in general? Who were the people that made the most significant impact? Why and how did Europeans (predominantly from Western Europe) surpassed their Arab, Persian and Turkic counterparts in science, art and architecture in the following centuries after the middle ages. Were there cultural, religious and economic reasons for this transformation? What were the world events that made the Arabic Enlightenment stagnate, disintegrate and decay.

The two books I want to focus on are:

The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance by Jim Al-Khalili

The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization by Jonathan Lyons

PS
Participants can use other books on the subject in our discussion.