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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A History of Muslim Philosophy Volume 2, Book 7 Chapter 70: Decline In The Muslim World The second decline of the Muslim world, its Dark Age, dates roughly from the beginning of the twelfth/eighteenth century to the middle of the thirteenth/ nineteenth century.

With the exception of Indonesia where decadence started earlier, all the Muslim countries witnessed a terrible decline not only in their political status but also in their intellectual and cultural life soon after the awakening of Europe from a long slumber, an awakening which was the result of her intellectual, scientific, and philosophical movements.

While the Otto­mans lost their glory after Sulaiman the Magnificent, the Safawids after Shah `Abbas the Great, and the Mughuls in India after Aurangzib, the European nations went from strength to strength, acquiring more and more territories and trade centers from the Muslim rulers, defeating them on land and sea, and finally pronouncing the Muslim empires to be suffering from incurable diseases.

Several reasons have been assigned to this catastrophe, some of which will be discussed in the course of this chapter. Broadly speaking, the reasons are either political or non-political; hence our discussion of them has been divided into two parts-the first dealing with political causes, and the second with the non-political ones. Since the political causes were a little different in each case, the great Muslim empires of this period have been treated separately.

Non-political causes, however, have been discussed together. A. Political Causes of the Catastrophic Decline 1. Turkey Sulaiman the Magnificent was the last and the greatest of the first ten Ottoman Sultans who together in a period of three centuries raised Turkey from nothing to one of the most dreaded and powerful empires of the world. But climax is generally followed by decline, so we find signs of decadence appearing in the later part of Sulaiman's reign.

According to Kotchi Bey, a Turkish historian, the decline or at least the signs of decline are visible towards the end of Sulaiman's reign can be attributed to the following causes. Sulaiman did not participate regularly in the deliberations of the Council of State but listened to the discussions only from behind a veil. His successors dispensed even with this formality.