Sunset over Istanbul\u2019s Golden Horn, in Turkey
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I have, once or twice, used Daniel W. Brown, A New Introduction to Islam<\/em>, 2d. ed. (Malden MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) as the principal text for my introductory course on the religion of Islam. \u00a0Along the way, I\u2019ve marked a few passages that reminded me of points that I myself wanted to make in a revised third edition of my book on Islam for Latter-day Saints, which will actually represent such substantial revision that I intend to give it a new title. \u00a0Among other things, it will expand from its focus on the Arabs to cover Turkey, Iran, and, to some extent, the Islamic world as a whole. \u00a0Here is one of the passages that I marked:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The almost simultaneous rise of three great empires in the Islamic world is a striking enough convergence of events to mark the first three decades of the sixteenth century as an important historical watershed. \u00a0The convergence becomes even more startling when we include European developments. \u00a0In 1497 Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, reaching India in 1498. \u00a0During the following four decades Portuguese ships ruled the long-range sea routes to the Indian Ocean, paving the way for a European monopoly on long-range trade. \u00a0Ferdinand Magellan\u2019s circumnavigation of the world between 1519 and 1522 showed that there would soon be no navigable port on earth out of range of European navies and merchant ships. \u00a0In hindsight it is clear that the world economic and political context was on the verge of a major transformation.<\/span><\/p>\nThe seeds of European expansion sown during these few decades at the beginning of the sixteenth century, although barely noticeable at the time, grew during the following centuries into full-blown imperialism. \u00a0India felt the impact earliest: the Portuguese dominated the Indian Ocean and established coastal colonies in the sixteenth century, and the British took their place in the seventeenth century with the establishment of the British East India Company \u201cpresidencies\u201d at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. \u00a0In 1757 the company stumbled into the business of colonial rule when Robert Clive replaced the ruler of Bengal with a British puppet. \u00a0By 1803 the British controlled Delhi, and the Mughal emperor became a marionette. \u00a0Half a century later, in 1857, the British dispensed with the fiction of indirect rule, and India became the Jewel of the Empire.<\/span><\/p>\nFor the Ottoman empire the first hint that something had changed in the world was a series of military and diplomatic reversals. \u00a0The Ottoman army was driven back from Vienna in 1683 in a decisive enough way to show that it was falling behind European armies in technology and tactics. \u00a0The peace of Karlowitz that followed in 1699 led to the loss of Hungary and the inescapable inference that the Ottomans were no longer invincible. \u00a0Seventy-five years later the loss of invincibility had turned into a total rout. \u00a0In 1774 at the treaty of K\u00fc\u00e7\u00fck Kaynarca Russia forced the Ottomans to their knees. \u00a0The Russians gained not just Ottoman territory, but a naval presence in the Black Sea, trading rights, consulates wherever they liked, and the right to interfere in the empire at will as the protectors of Orthodox Christians. \u00a0By the nineteenth century the Ottoman empire had been transformed from the terror of Christendom to the \u201cSick Man of Europe.\u201d \u00a0(238-239)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 I have, once or twice, used Daniel W. Brown, A New Introduction to Islam, 2d. ed. (Malden MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) as the principal text for my introductory course on the religion of Islam. \u00a0Along the way, I\u2019ve marked a few passages that reminded me of points that I myself wanted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7497,12493,5427,12505,12464,12496,861,66,12476,12499,12502,996,855,852,999,4123,798,795,5289,12490,4315,858,11054,12470,3580],"class_list":["post-85828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anatolia","tag-britain","tag-british","tag-east-india-company","tag-empire","tag-hungary","tag-india","tag-islam","tag-ismail","tag-karlowitz","tag-kucuk-kaynarca","tag-middle-east","tag-mogul","tag-mughal","tag-near-east","tag-ottoman","tag-ottoman-empire","tag-ottomans","tag-portugal","tag-portuguese","tag-russia","tag-safavid","tag-shii","tag-sulayman","tag-turkey"],"yoast_head":"\n
The Decline of the East<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\" I have, once or twice, used Daniel W. Brown, A New Introduction to Islam, 2d. ed. (Malden MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) as the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/the-decline-of-the-east.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Decline of the East\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\" I have, once or twice, used Daniel W. Brown, A New Introduction to Islam, 2d. ed. 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<\/a>