From the Battle of Talas to the Internet.

The Battle of Talas & its significance (how technology shaped world history or how historical journey of paper & the printing press parallel the rise & decline of the Islamic empires).

In a previous post, I talked about Ibnu Khaldun's cycle of history and the rise & fall of civilisations.
History of the rise & fall of any civilisation are, of course, almost always, a complex story, but if we were to oversimplify the story of the rise & fall of the Islamic empires, it would parallel the history of the technology of paper making and the printing press.

Paper is invented by the Chinese but they kept it a secret. Other people had to use leather, papyrus and other less advanced writing instrument. Leather, papyrus and other materials are bulky, expensive, difficult to manufacture and do not last long. Paper is opposite to all of these.

It all changed with the Battle of Talas in 751 AD. The battle took place near Taraz and Talas on the border of present-day Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan on the banks of the River Talas which runs near the border of both countries.

The battle was between the forces of the Abbasid Caliphate and the Chinese Tang Dynasty and it was the first and last battle between the Islamic empires and the Chinese imperial dynasty.
Even though some estimate numbered the forces on both sides around 100,000, it was just considered a "skirmish", in the larger scheme of world history.

In the short term, the battle itself was considered not significance. It barely made it into the textbook of world history. In fact, even today, if you buy any books on world history, this battle do not get any mention.

But in medium and long term, the Battle of Talas, was very significant, in terms of ideology and geo-politic of the region, and technological. (I am not going to write about the ideological and geo-political impact. You can read it in detail here, including what led to the fighting. It is a long read, for those who are interested.)

Technological wise, the Battle of Talas transferred the knowledge of paper making into the Islamic empires. How exactly is up for debate. One popular account was that the knowledge was gained from the prisoners of war who knew the secret while another account was that the conquered area had paper mills that the caliphate took advantage of. However it was, paper making made it into the empire and soon paper mills proliferated throughout the empire from Baghdad to Cairo and even to Spanish Andalusia. Paper making was no longer a secret.

Why is this important?
It denotes an open-mindedness and willingness to adopt new technology and new way of doing things that can feed into and enhance the growth of civilisation. This open-mindedness and adaptability permeated throughout the empire at this point in time for all things that can improve life and society and not just paper making technology. In short, the Islamic empire at this point in time was a vibrant centre for scientific discovery, technological innovation & philosophical discourse. The adoption of paper making technology is the testament of this.

As I mentioned before, paper is light, cheaper, easier to manufacture and last longer. This enabled the proliferation of knowledge faster and in more abundance compared to leather and papyrus. This fuelled further innovation, scientific discovery, technological breakthroughs and increased the literacy rates, which in turn feeds into the cycle of new knowledge creation.

The question is, which comes first; the open-mindedness which readily accept a world changing technology from your enemies; or the technology that fuels proliferation of knowledge which leads to the open-mindedness. In the end, it does not matter as one feeds of the other in a continuous cycle. The more knowledge you have, the more innovative you become which leads to new knowledge and the cycle continues.

Hence, the so called Islamic Golden Age emerged, a vibrant society that generated scientific, mathematics, history, philosophy and scholarly knowledge. Books were wide spread and literacy rate increased.

The Islamic civilisation prospered and progressed as predicted by Ibnu Khaldun, and in this case the progress was fuelled by paper.
But as predicted by Ibnu Khaldun, the seed of a civilizational decline is also planted within the civilisation itself. What this is exactly is up for debate.

For the case of the Islamic empire in general, and for the Abbasid Caliphate in specific, the decline culminated in the fall of Baghdad in 1258 by the Mongols.
Later, Andalusia and Sicily were also reconquered by the West but the greater tragedy was the stagnation of civilizational mindset. A stagnation that led to the death of civilisation.

The fall of Baghdad itself did not end the Islamic empire (it was alive in one form of caliphate or another) but it was the beginning of the end, albeit "the end" was stretched from 1258 to 1924 AD. It was a very slow death (as all death of giant does, I suppose).

This slow death manifested itself physically when the printing press came on the scene.

With the decline of the Islamic empire, Andalusia and Sicily fell to the West. With the fall, the West gained the paper making technology via paper mills that existed in Andalusia and Sicily.

As was the case with the Islamic empire, paper fuelled the advancement of the West. It fuelled the Renaissance and later the Reformation and the scientific discovery and technological innovation and knowledge of all kinds. All of this was made faster than ever before with the invention of the printing press in 1439 by Johannes Gutenberg.

But, 250 years after the invention of the printing press, it was still banned across the Ottoman empire, even under the penalty of death. It was considered blasphemous, even sacrilegious, to own and to print books using the printing press. This is the level of civilizational mindset decline that affected the Muslim society at that time; that an invention that can spread knowledge far & wide quickly and more efficiently, was rejected. Hence, literacy rate, knowledge acquisition and innovation were stifled across almost half of Asia from Baghdad to Istanbul to Cairo for more than 250 years. The West moved forward at the speed of printing while Muslims lagged behind at the snail speed of handwritten books.

Contrast this with the West willingness to acquire knowledge. To illustrate this point, the first printed Quran was printed in the West in Venice and not by the caliphate. The West thirst for knowledge knows no bound that they even printed non-Christian books.

Printing press only came to the Islamic world in the 19th century, and even then, it was brought by Napoleon Bonaparte. When he conquered Alexandria, Egypt in 1798 he brought with him a printing press. To cut the story short, the Egyptian rebelled and pushed him out and when he retreated back to France in 1801, he left the press behind. It was used by the new Egyptian government who also declared themselves free not just from Napoleon but also from the Ottoman.

But by then, it was too late. A 300 years lag in terms of civilisation building. You would need a miracle to catch up.
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And incredibly, a "miracle" did come, about 200 years later.
It is called the Internet.

Even then, in the early years, many Islamic countries while reluctantly did adopt the technology, busied themselves with discussions on how to censor rather than how to harness its power.

And it is powerful. Its power is a hundred fold if not a thousand fold the power of paper and the printing press. The emergence of the Internet will do to the world what paper and the printing press did to the world before, but at greater speed with greater impact.

The question is, how do we react? How do we adapt?
Will we repeat the same mistake of the past?

Or rather, seeing as the Internet has been around for more than 25 years;

How did we react?
How did we adapt?
Did we repeat the same mistakes?

In order not to repeat the mistakes of the past, we have to learn from history.
In a previous post, I recommended  a book to read, titled "Destiny Disrupted". This is a good book to start if you want to understand the rise and fall of the Islamic Empires.
Hopefully, we as a civilisation, as a people, will learn our lessons.

Ibnu Khaldun's Pattern of History (Cycle of Civilisations).

Ibnu Khaldun, in his famous book, Muqaddimah, posits a theory on the cycles of empires and civilisations. (Download pdf version here.)
Empires and civilisations go through a cycle of "Conquest, Consolidation, Expansion, Stagnation, Degeneration & Conquest" (or rather, being conquered or overtaken by newer and stronger empire or civilisation).

This cycle has been proven, more or less, by ancient history.
From smaller unknown empires to bigger empires like Mesopotamia, Babylon, Sumeria, Greeks, Roman and others.

When the Western Roman Empire degenerated and collapsed, their areas were conquered by the Arabs who eventually formed, consolidated and expanded their empire known in history as the Islamic Empire.
The Islamic empires itself consisted of several kingdoms, (Abbasid, Umayyad, Fatimid, Ottoman, etc) but ideologically, they were similar.
(Within Islamic history, there were sub-cycles of this happening with the Abbasid, Umayyad, Fatimid, Ottoman and other smaller Islamic empires.)
But the peak of the Islamic empire was around the 11th Century.

The beginning of the end was when the Mongols conquered and destroyed Baghdad in 1258 (Siege of Baghdad).
It was not the actual end of the Islamic Empire itself, because the Mongols interaction with the Islamic civilisation resulted in the conversion of the Mongols to Islam, whereby they ruled the empire for some time.
From that moment, the Islamic empire persevered, in one form or another, but seeds of degeneration were planted.

Some historians would argue that Baghdad was conquered because the Islamic empire was already on the decline, and some others would disagree, and say that the Mongol conquest of Baghdad was the reason of the decline.
Whatever it was, the 1258 Siege of Baghdad was the turning point.
History is, like always, are more complicated of course, and reasons of decline are many and more multifaceted.
(If you want to know what were those, you have to study history in details.)

History wise, the end of the Islamic empire itself was "officially" marked by the end of the Turkish Ottoman Empire in 1924.

But between 1492 (Columbus discovered America) to 1924, the Western World were on the cycle of consolidation and expansion, which included the expansion into the Islamic empires, which coincided with the stagnation and the degeneration cycle of the Islamic empires.
(If you want to know more about the history during this time period, read the book "Destiny Disrupted", which I reviewed here.)

Arguably, from the mid of the 20th Century to the presence, the Western World are at their peak.
The question is, are they still at their peak, or are they showing signs of stagnation and/or degeneration?
To know this, you have to study history in details.
Reasons of stagnation and degeneration may not be the same, but the symptoms manifest will be similar.

The curious case is China.
China was consolidated into an empire about 2000 years ago.
All the tribes of China were unified under the first Imperial Dynasty, the Qin Dynasty. But, then, it stopped consolidating and expanding and focused inward for two thousand years (from 221 BC to a few decades ago.)
Sure, there were some skirmishes and battles with neighbouring states but more or less, China did not expand its territory further.
For two thousand years, the cycle was static and they never really finished the expansion cycle.

But, modern China is no more inward looking. They have embraced capitalism and are looking outward now. They are not expanding their land (yet), but they are most assuredly expanding their influence.

So, looking back at Ibnu Khaldun's cycle, we have the West which are arguably at, or past, their peak (and arguably experiencing the beginning of the stagnation and/or degeneration cycle) and China who is at the beginning of their expansion cycle (in influence if not in land area).

Nowadays, the modern sensibility does not favour war and land conquest. The modern conquest is about influence, trade and commerce. However, I may be wrong, and human nature is still the same no matter how modern we have become. In which case, World War III may be coming, if not sooner, than later (hopefully not in my lifetime. Thankfully, civilizational cycle can span many generations).

So be ready and stock up on your canned food and/or buy agricultural land far away from potential nuclear missiles targets.



Disclaimer: I am just an armchair historian and reading history is just a hobby. If you disagree with any of my analysis, you are welcome to comment below.