Peter O’Brien’s “Islamic Civilization and (Western) Modernity” in v65 is the single most substantial CCR article on Islamic-Western civilizational relations. It argues that revisionist accounts of the rise of Western modernity have not probed searchingly enough the inter-civilizational encounter with Islam. The argument: Latin Christians developed grave diffidence through their medieval rivalry with Muslims, and this “civilizational solicitude” motivated the urge to reform that became Western modernity. Without the daunting challenge posed by Islamic civilization, modernity would not have originated in Europe.

The article works through the failed Crusades (Urban II in 1095, the fall of Acre in 1291, the fall of Constantinople in 1453); reports from Crusaders of Islamic superiority in military, commercial, literary and philosophical dimensions; the Toledo translations (1085 onward) that brought Greek, Arabic and Hebrew learning into Latin; the philosophical work of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd (Averroës), al-Khwarizmi, al-Farabi, al-Ghazzali, Abu Ma’shar, Ibn al-Haytham and Maimonides; the adoption of Arabic numerals (which took Europeans over a quarter of a millennium to master), Arabic astrolabes, abaci, lateen sails and conical valves; the conversion of Christians to Islam in conquered territories; the cultural apostasy of Christian courtiers (Alvarus of Córdoba on his son composing Arabic poems); and the influence of Dante’s Commedia on Arabic miraj literature.

In v76, Toby Huff’s “Civilizational Analysis and Paths Not Taken, Part II” further examines Islamic civilization’s encounter with Greek and Hellenic culture, and includes figures on Mansurian muscle structure and Vesalius’s venous man (1543). Toby Huff’s earlier Rise of Early Modern Science (1993) has been widely engaged across CCR for arguing that Islamic science created the conditions for the European Scientific Revolution.

Source summaries:

  • v65 (Fall 2011) — Peter O’Brien, “Islamic Civilization and (Western) Modernity,” is the headline article of the volume. (v65)
  • v67 (Fall 2012) — Mark Graham’s How Islam Created the Modern World is reviewed by Norman C. Rothman; Toby Huff’s comparative analysis includes Islamic “traces and parallels.” (v67)
  • v68 (Spring 2013) — Barbara Onnis, “Some Overlooked Realities of Jewish Life under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain.” (v68)
  • v74 (Spring 2016) — Dario Fernandez-Morera’s The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain is reviewed by Laina Farhat-Holzman. (v74)
  • v76 (Spring 2017) — Huff’s “Civilizational Analysis and Paths Not Taken, Part II: The Great Divergence” includes an extended analysis of Islamic civilization’s encounter with Greek and Hellenic culture. (v76)