Islam’s intellectual peak came within four centuries, far faster than the medieval West’s

Evidence

Islam achieved power, wealth, and maturity almost at a bound, and never again equaled the fecundity of its earliest achievements. It continued its tradition of military success when it had lost every other symptom of its early vitality; and this early vitality, while it lasted, had no equal in the medieval West. Within four hundred years of its foundation, Islam had run through phases of intellectual growth which the West achieved only in the course of a much longer development. — R. W. Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle…, 33

Categorization

• QUESTION: Southern hedges that ‘so much has been lost’—worth chasing what survived of 9th-11th century Islamic scientific production and why so much was lost.
• XREF: Contrasts with the ‘slow growth’ model of European development; ties to decline-thesis debates about why Islamic science stagnated while Europe accelerated.

Related

• Mid-fifteenth-century European thought on Islam surpassed all earlier and later centuries (similarity 0.87)
• Islam menaced Europe more in 1600 yet mattered less intellectually than in 1000 (similarity 0.82)
• Initial intellectual breakthroughs come easily but sustained inquiry meets resistance (similarity 0.82)
• Christian thought on Islam stagnated for four centuries after 1300 (similarity 0.81)
• The Western canon of Islam was fixed by 1350 and endured for centuries. (similarity 0.81)
• Islam’s worldly success made it uniquely impervious to church refutation (similarity 0.81)
• The mediaeval canon of Islam persisted into the present day (similarity 0.81)
• The Western canon of Islam was fixed by the mid-fourteenth century (similarity 0.80)
• European scholarship on Islam turned disinterested only once Islam ceased threatening Europe. (similarity 0.80)
• All enduring European portrayals of Islam were set by 1200 (similarity 0.80)
• Islamic civilization preserved ancient learning and stimulated Western scholasticism (similarity 0.80)
• Twelfth-century Western images of Islam were born amidst triumphal storytelling (similarity 0.80)
• Failed medieval scholarship still developed transferable habits of mind. (similarity 0.79)
• Renaissance scholarship long coexisted with unrevised medieval views of Islam. (similarity 0.79)
• Medieval Christian knowledge systems failed to explain or influence Islam (similarity 0.79)