Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane

by S. Frederick Starr

Overview

The forgotten story of Central Asia's enlightenment—its rise, fall, and enduring legacy

In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds—remarkable figures who built a bridge to the modern world. Because nearly all of these figures wrote in Arabic, they were long assumed to have been Arabs. In fact, they were from Central Asia—drawn from the Persianate and Turkic peoples of a region that today extends from Kazakhstan southward through Afghanistan, and from the easternmost province of Iran through Xinjiang, China.

Lost Enlightenment recounts how, between the years 800 and 1200, Central Asia led the world in trade and economic development, the size and sophistication of its cities, the refinement of its arts, and, above all, in the advancement of knowledge in many fields. Central Asians achieved signal breakthroughs in astronomy, mathematics, geology, medicine, chemistry, music, social science, philosophy, and theology, among other subjects. They gave algebra its name, calculated the earth's diameter with unprecedented precision, wrote the books that later defined European medicine, and penned some of the world's greatest poetry. One scholar, working in Afghanistan, even predicted the existence of North and South America—five centuries before Columbus. Rarely in history has a more impressive group of polymaths appeared at one place and time. No wonder that their writings influenced European culture from the time of St. Thomas Aquinas down to the scientific revolution, and had a similarly deep impact in India and much of Asia.

Lost Enlightenment chronicles this forgotten age of achievement, seeks to explain its rise, and explores the competing theories about the cause of its eventual demise. Informed by the latest scholarship yet written in a lively and accessible style, this is a book that will surprise general readers and specialists alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691165851
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	06/02/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	680
Sales rank:	653,548
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

S. Frederick Starr is founding chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a research and policy center affiliated with the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm. A past president of Oberlin College and the Aspen Institute, he began his career in classical archaeology, excavating at Gordium in modern Turkey and mapping the Persian Royal Road.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Preface xiii

Dramatis Personae xxi

Chronology xxxi

Chapter 1 The Center of the World 1

Chapter 2 Worldly Urbanists, Ancient Land 28

Chapter 3 A Cauldron of Skills, Ideas, and Faiths 62

Chapter 4 How Arabs Conquered Central Asia and Central Asia Then Set the Stage to Conquer Baghdad 101

Chapter 5 East Wind over Baghdad 126

Chapter 6 Wandering Scholars 156

Chapter 7 Khurasan: Central Asia's Rising Star 194

Chapter 8 A Flowering of Central Asia: The Samanid Dynasty 225

Chapter 9 A Moment in the Desert: Gurganj under the Mamuns 267

Chapter 10 Turks Take the Stage: Mahmud of Kashgar and Yusuf of Balasagun 303

Chapter 11 Culture under a Turkic Marauder: Mahmud's Ghazni 332

Chapter 12 Tremors under the Dome of Seljuk Rule 381

Chapter 13 The Mongol Century 436

Chapter 14 Tamerlane and His Successors 478

Chapter 15 Retrospective: The Sand and the Oyster 515

Notes 541

Index 611

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A fantastic book."—President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan

"Lost Enlightenment brilliantly re-creates for us the world of Central Asia, which for centuries was not a backwater but a center of world civilization. With a sure mastery of the large historical sweep as well as an eye for detail, Fred Starr has written an important book that will be a resource for years to come."—Francis Fukuyama, author of The Origins of Political Order

"For more than three hundred years the Islamic world exercised the scientific and philosophical mastery of Europe. With compelling urgency and lucidity, Lost Enlightenment tells the story of the rise and tragic demise of this golden age of Islamic learning in Central Asia. It is a story whose lesson we should never be allowed to forget."—Anthony Pagden, author of The Enlightenment: And Why It Still Matters

"From 800 to 1200, Central Asia was the world's most advanced civilization in the sciences, mathematics, medicine, law, and art. Starr's Lost Enlightenment thoughtfully explains this astonishing evolution and its end."—Henry A. Kissinger

"Fred Starr makes the most persuasive case yet that medieval Central Asia was a major center of civilization and high culture—and what a picture emerges."—Richard W. Bulliet, Columbia University

"Drawing on his vast knowledge and experience of Central Asia, Fred Starr provides a brilliant account of the history and culture of the land that produced some of the greatest Islamic scholars, scientists, saints, artists, and architects. Thanks to this book, the Central Asian enlightenment is no longer as lost as some might think."—Seyyed Hossein Nasr, George Washington University

"A delight to read, this is a fine survey of the intellectual and cultural history of Central Asia by a distinguished historian. By showing the remarkable discoveries in astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and other fields made by Central Asians from the earliest times, Lost Enlightenment is certain to surprise many readers by challenging traditional misconceptions of the region. The book's biographical approach makes for lively reading. Anyone interested in the Silk Roads will find it enthralling."—Morris Rossabi, author of The Mongols: A Very Short Introduction

"This ambitious and much-needed book will be an eye-opener for many readers. S. Frederick Starr shows that Central Asia, often viewed today as a backwater, produced some of the most outstanding minds of the Middle Ages."—Peter B. Golden, author of Central Asia in World History

Editorial Reviews

"Starr argues rightly that the region's brilliant culture rested on a highly cosmopolitan mix of ethnic groups, languages and religions; a long, rich pre-Islamic intellectual tradition (mainly Buddhist); and prosperity. . . . Starr shines in his core chapters, where he presents the great achievements of the Central Asian philosopher-scientists at a time when their homeland was the creative intellectual capital of the world."

Nature

"Honorable Mention for the 2013 PROSE Award in European and World History, Association of American Publishers"

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2014

From the Publisher

"Starr undertakes a daunting task—the intellectual history of Central Asia through the medieval period. Happily, he succeeds. . . . Starr's book is thorough and well researched, and includes ample supplemental material and sources, so that even novice students will find it instructive and useful without being overwhelming."

Choice

"Starr argues rightly that the region's brilliant culture rested on a highly cosmopolitan mix of ethnic groups, languages and religions; a long, rich pre-Islamic intellectual tradition (mainly Buddhist); and prosperity. . . . Starr shines in his core chapters, where he presents the great achievements of the Central Asian philosopher-scientists at a time when their homeland was the creative intellectual capital of the world."

Nature Lib

In this graceful, luxuriant history, Starr recovers the stunning contributions of Central Asia scientists, architects, artists, engineers, and historians during the four centuries that began just before the Arab onslaught of the eight century and lasted until the Mongol siege in the thirteenth century. . . . The book offers a lucid exploration of the era's intricate philosophical and theological debates and a succinct depiction of its poetry and art, enhanced by many illustrations.

Foreign Affairs

★ 01/01/2014
Starr (Central Asia-Caucasus Inst., Johns Hopkins Univ.) is that rare scholar with the horsepower to write about the medieval culture of this vast region that is bounded by Persia to the west, China to the east, and India to the southeast. He argues that much of what we subsume as "Arabic" contributions to the intellectual life of medieval Islam, because they were expressed in the Arabic language, should be termed Central Asian instead because the region was not simply Islamic. It was rich in polymath scholars who used geometry, mathematics, and formal logic to explore a variety of subjects with astonishing results. Starr is convincing that Central Asia was for centuries "the center of the intellectual world." By the late 11th century, when the Persian divine Al-Ghazali attacked reason and intellectual disagreement in defense of faith, the atmosphere of intellectual openness that made this rich ferment of ideas possible had dissipated. Central Asia's intellectual dominance of the Islamic world soon ended. Starr's spacious book enables him, for example, to discourse at length on such subjects as Al-Biruni's remarkable 11th-century history of India, an early monument of cultural anthropology. VERDICT An indispensable title for scholars, this lively study should prove equally compelling to serious lay readers with an interest in Arabic and medieval thought.—David Keymer, Modesto, CA

Library Journal