The claim of Islamic scientific decline is a Eurocentric projection, not history

Evidence

Recent research, Saliba shows, demonstrates this to be a fabrication. He further asserts that it is only if one uses a Eurocentric model where science and religion must battle one another leading to the ultimate triumph of the former to measure other societies that one comes to the conclusion that Islam stifled science and remained intellectually stagnant. If “progress,” Saliba argues, is narrowly defined as the “victory of science over the church” as “European progress was defined,” only then can one say that there was a lack of progress in Muslim societies. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 352

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader library on Orientalist frames in ch8-10 about how Islam’s alleged anti-modernity justifies empire. Saliba’s argument parallels the de-racializing move of showing the category’s constructedness. — connects to: The decline-of-Islamic-science narrative is a Eurocentric fabrication.; The claim that Islamic law stagnated is an orientalist projection, not history. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 1059; Ottoman decline stemmed from institutional resistance to Western science, not internal decay — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1741

Broader Connections

• The decline-of-Islamic-science narrative is a Eurocentric fabrication. #contradicts (1.00)
• The claim that Islamic law stagnated is an orientalist projection, not history. #exemplifies (0.85) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1059
• Ottoman decline stemmed from institutional resistance to Western science, not internal decay #complicates (0.75) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1741