14 centuries ago god sent down the quran as a guide to all humanity. at the time the arab community was in a state of complete degeneration and chaos. but the light brought by the quran changed it miraculously.

that is how a video i recently viewed began. my question is this,at that time was the arab community "in a state of complete degeneration and chaos"?
and did the quran change it?(it seemed to have after a unified them,bringing and end to the chaos?)
much of muslim knowledge was based on greek learning if im not mistaken,and those who excelled in it seemed to be outcast of traditional muslim society of the time.
and if the quran did all that, why did the advanced muslim states seemingly stagnate in science as the west opened to it?
also credit is given to muslim scientists for the western renaissance.is that true,even if an overstatment?
(if any statement i put forward in asking this question offends anyone i apologize;this is not meant to attack the quran or muslims. that is not my intention,merely have a question to ask.i dont know how to ask it in any other way.)
video is here
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...5&q=the+greeks

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Interesting find, i'll keep the answer short and digestable, in the later periods, especially after the mongols conquered baghdad, alot of science was lost, the later islamic leaders also didn't bother with funding scientific projects or maintaining Dar al Ilm (science institute).

There was a lack of interest apparently for reasons i do not know.

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Not sure about science, but I've been reading a book called 'History of Medicine' and it explains that the Qu'ran/Koran helped the Greek and Roman medical advances (Galen's work, as well as others, being studied, admired and copied). While the European world at the time, slowly being converted to Christianity, deemed medicine as heretical as God made you sick and you were in no position to change that, in the Middle East, Islamic communities did not believe that disease was caused by sin, and therefore it was not against Allah's will to heal a sick person. I understand that apart from translating and maybe interpreting the writings of Galen, they also translated mathematical, scientific and philosophical writings from Greece and Rome.

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I understand the Qu'ran espouses scholarship and learning. That, combined with the comparative peace of the Caliphate (compared to the endemic wars between Byzantium and Persia, anyway), ought to alone have been a bit of a boost to learning.

The Islamic world used to be really big on science and philosophy and so on; they not only absorbed the discoveries of those who came before and transmitted them onwards (Europe has Arabic translations of many Classical works to thank the Muslims for), but made quite a few of their own too. Scholars still debate what exactly caused the slow slide into ossification to begin sometime around the 13th-14th centuries; damage from nomadic incursions and conquests (the sons of the steppe generally not being great fans of scholarly pursuits), hardening of attitudes in response to them and the Crusades...? I understand there's a whole lot of ink spilled over the question.

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As for the "degeneration and chaos" of the Arab society in the 7th century, I'm writing that soundly under Ex post facto embellishements to make the Prophet's de facto conquest of the peninsula look better; such PR pieces always tend to get written about the exploits of great leaders, at least in societies that do not for example consider the act of succesful conquest itself to be all the justification and glorification it ever needs (as amongst many "barbarians" and steppe peoples). AFAIK the Arabs were simply carrying on like they had for a very long time, in a somewhat uneasy symbiosis between the desert nomads and the more settled dwellers of the mercantile urban centers and the petty squabbles between rival tribes and clans over old feuds and conflicts of interests.

Business as usual really for such ecologies. The introduction of Zoroastrianism and Christianity to the side of the older-established "pagan" religions and Judaism hadn't changed much, by what I know of it.

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The Muslims helped the renaissance by destroying the Byzantine empire. As the empire looked increasingly doomed, the Byzantine intellectuals fled to Italy and kickstarted the renaissance.

Edit: so Muslim soldiers more than Muslim scientists.

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I've always thought that the birthplace of civilization didn't need a particular religion to prosper, only stability. The science was already there, it was the resulting unity and relative 'peace' that let it flourish. Much is made about how the Quran is virtually unchanged since its creation. This conservatism has discouraged scientific development. It also helped sober the people up.

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