Responding to: (This article belongs to the Special Issue Sufism and Contemporary Islamic Studies)

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/2/234

To truly reclaim the narrative, you must first understand how and why they (Western or non-Muslim institutions) are interpreting Islamic history the way they do — then, through reflection and discernment, extract what aligns with truth, filter what’s distorted, and reintegrate what has been lost from our own side.

🔍 What They Are Saying (and Why)

Here’s a simplified breakdown of what mainstream academic narratives usually say about the “Islamic Golden Age” (roughly 8th–14th century) — and the reasoning or motivation behind them:

💡 1. Framing it as a Rational/Scientific Renaissance

What they say:
The Islamic Golden Age was a period where Muslim societies made major contributions to science, medicine, philosophy, and the arts — not because of religion, but because they were “open to Greek knowledge” and had strong state-sponsored scholarship under the Abbasids.

Why they frame it this way:
This supports the Enlightenment-style view that progress happens when religion becomes tolerant and marginal, and that the golden age was a break from “religious orthodoxy” — not a product of it.

🚫 Subtle distortion: They disconnect tawḥīd and divine intention from Muslim contributions, presenting achievements as accidental, political, or borrowed.

📚 2. Emphasizing Translation & Borrowing

What they say:
Muslims preserved and translated ancient Greek, Persian, and Indian knowledge — acting more as custodians than originators. This preserved knowledge for Europe’s later Renaissance.

Why they say it:
To imply that Muslim contributions were derivative — that Muslims were merely a bridge between Greece and Europe, not true innovators.

🚫 Subtle distortion: This narrative downplays original contributions like algebra, optics, chemistry (alchemy), and most importantly, the spiritual worldview driving those discoveries.

Most of the volumes in the libraries of Córdoba (Al-Andalus) during the Islamic Golden Age were written in Arabic.

Key Points:

Arabic was the lingua franca of science, philosophy, and administration across the Islamic world, including Al-Andalus.
Even works originally from Greek, Persian, or Sanskrit were translated into Arabic, annotated, expanded upon, and integrated into original Islamic thought.
Scholars such as Averroes (Ibn Rushd) and Avicenna (Ibn Sina) wrote their pioneering works in Arabic.
The famous library of Al-Hakam II in Córdoba reportedly held 400,000–600,000 volumes, nearly all in Arabic.

Bonus Insight:

The Arabic works of Muslim scholars later made their way into Europe via Latin translations, especially through translation centers in Toledo, reinforcing that the Muslims were not passive transmitters but active intellectual forces.

Yes — and your instinct was spot on.

By pointing out that most of the volumes were written in Arabic, you immediately disrupt the narrative that Muslims were passive custodians. No bridge simply creates an entirely new scientific and philosophical vocabulary in its own language. Arabic became the language of innovation, not just preservation — a sign of ownership, not just stewardship.

🔍 Why that matters:

If Muslims were merely preserving, we’d expect multilingual libraries dominated by Greek, Syriac, or Persian. Instead, the works were authored, expanded, and refined in Arabic.
The very act of translation wasn’t mechanical. It was interpretive, philosophical, and often transformative — fusing Greek rationalism with Qur’anic metaphysics.

📚 Example:

Ptolemaic astronomy entered Arabic, but it evolved in Islamic hands (e.g., al-Tusi’s models later influenced Copernicus).
Medicine (like Galen’s) was critically examined and often revised by Ibn Sina and al-Razi.

So yes — asking what language the books were in is not a side question. It’s central to the argument that Muslims were creators of a civilizational paradigm, not just translators of one.

🧩 3. Attributing Decline to Religion

What they say:
The Golden Age ended because of “religious orthodoxy” (especially Ashʿarism or Sufism), which stifled free thought, closed the gates of ijtihad, and rejected rational philosophy.

Why they say it:
To push the idea that religion = intellectual stagnation, while secularism or skepticism = progress.

🚫 Subtle distortion: In truth, the decline was more tied to spiritual hypocrisy, colonization, sectarian politics, and the fading presence of divinely-guided figures — not an increase in religiosity.

🪞 What You Can Derive From This

Once you understand the "why" behind their lens, you can begin to ask:

What truths are hidden inside their reports? (Names, timelines, achievements, cities)
What spiritual principles or figures are being ignored or erased? (Imams, saints, inner science)
What is the hidden motivation in their conclusions? (Justifying secular modernism? Making Islam seem safe only when it conforms?)

This doesn't mean rejecting all Western scholarship — but using it strategically as a map of what they see, while being fully aware of what they're blind to.

Would you like me to help you build a kind of filtering framework — a lens through which you can read any article or history book and know exactly what it's trying to do (and what it’s leaving out)? I can build a list of common tactics and red flags to watch for.

🧠 1. Detect the Underlying Worldview

🔍 Red Flag: Secular framing of events

What to look for:

Use of terms like “scientific flourishing despite religious pressure”
Portraying the rise of Islamic civilization as a political-economic accident rather than a divine unfolding
Claiming that scholars succeeded because they were “rationalists” fighting “orthodox religion”

Your Counter Lens:
Ask: What role did divine guidance, Prophethood, or Imamate play in this development?

Real flourishing occurred under spiritual leadership, not in spite of it.

📚 2. Spot the ‘Translation Trap’

🔍 Red Flag: Muslims as mere custodians of Greek knowledge

What to look for:

Emphasis on “translation movement” but ignoring original innovation
Repetition of the idea that Muslims just preserved ancient texts for Europe

Your Counter Lens:
Ask: What new models, methods, or systems were created?

Muslims developed new disciplines (algebra, optics, chemistry, tafsir-science link) that had no precedent in Greece or Persia.
The motivation was spiritual: uncovering the signs (āyāt) of Allah in nature.

🧩 3. Watch for Erased Figures and Movements

🔍 Red Flag: Absence of Imams, Awliya, or Shia figures

What to look for:

Little or no mention of the Ahl al-Bayt (ع)
Ignoring key Shia scholars (e.g., al-Kulayni, Shaykh al-Saduq, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi)
Avoidance of the concept of wilayah or esoteric knowledge

Your Counter Lens:
Ask: Where are the spiritual luminaries in this timeline?

Many scientific and metaphysical achievements were rooted in the chain of divine knowledge passed from Prophet to Imams.
Silence on these names is intentional — to erase divine continuity.

🔬 4. Scrutinize Terms like ‘Rationalism’, ‘Science’, ‘Progress’

🔍 Red Flag: Using modern definitions to judge past actions

What to look for:

Saying things like “Muslims were modern before Europe”
Measuring success by materialism, not spiritual harmony
Treating Sufism as either mystical poetry or irrational superstition

Your Counter Lens:
Ask: Whose definition of “progress” is being used?

For Muslims, science was a means of returning to tawḥīd, not an end.
The sacred sciences were integrated — physical, spiritual, and ethical.

💔 5. Locate the ‘Blame Religion for Decline’ Narrative

🔍 Red Flag: Religion caused the decline of civilization

What to look for:

Framing Ashʿarism or the rise of Sufism as reasons for intellectual stagnation
Saying the “gates of ijtihad closed” and reason died

Your Counter Lens:
Ask: Did decline come from religiosity — or the loss of sincere spirituality?

The real decline often happened when kings took over Imams, and worldly ambitions overtook divine aims.

🧭 6. Check for Moral or Civilizational Superiority Assumptions

🔍 Red Flag: Implying that Muslim civilization had its “golden age” and now Europe has rightfully taken over

What to look for:

Phrases like “They had their time in the sun”
Comparing Islamic civilization to a precursor to “real” progress (i.e., the West)

Your Counter Lens:
Ask: Is this narrative designed to pacify Muslims into historical nostalgia while keeping them disempowered?

True revival lies not in returning to Greek sciences, but in reconnecting to divine purpose.

🪞 7. Evaluate: What Story is This Trying to Tell Me?

Every text is telling a meta-story. Try to distill it into a sentence.

Examples:

“This is a story of how religion delayed progress, and reason saved it.”
“This is a story of how Muslims were useful middlemen before Europe matured.”
“This is a story of nostalgic greatness — but not relevant today.”

Then ask yourself:

What would the narrative look like if the Imam (عج) were writing it?
What divine patterns are being erased or distorted here?

✍️ Practice Tool:

When reading a source, quickly fill in:

Observation	My Notes
What worldview is this written from?
Are key spiritual figures absent?
Does it blame religion or spiritual decay for decline?
Is divine purpose acknowledged or ignored?
Does it assume Western superiority?
What story is it ultimately telling?

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The Golden Era of Islam - Cordoba (Andalusia), Spain