Scientific persecution was more systemic under Christianity than Islam

Evidence

Significantly, while scientific thought existed within Muslim empires and thrived, the same was not true of Christian Europe. For instance, in the thirteenth century, the Syrian scholar and physician Ibn al-Nafis was the first to advance the notion of the pulmonary circulation of blood. Al-Nafis lived to the age of eighty and died in his bed. In contrast, the second scholar who put forward this argument was put to death by the Inquisition. The Spanish Michael Servetus was arrested in 1553 on charges of blasphemy and burned at the stake for refusing to recant. This is not to say that Muslim scholars did not face punishment when they strayed too far from accepted truths. Rather, the kind of systemic and prolonged persecution that scientists faced under Christianity does not have an exact parallel in Islam, even if there were periods when scientists and dissidents were persecuted. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 327

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

Related

• Christian Europe persecuted scientific dissenters far more systemically than Islamic empires did (similarity 0.94)
• The Church actively persecuted science while the Pope denounced Islam as reasonless. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Christianity suppressed scientific inquiry more violently than Islam did #corroborates (0.95)
• Christian Europe persecuted scientific dissenters far more systemically than Islamic empires did #corroborates (0.95)