Rob,
     Of course Ibn Khaldun was an enormously innovative and original thinker on a grand scale in the social sciences and other fields as well.  There are exceptions in many cultures and periods, and the Muslim world was and is a highly diverse area.  Another less well-known figure of somewhat earlier who first laid out the hierarchical model of economic geogaphy was al-Muqqadisi.  However, in terms of broader views and attitudes, there was a big change around the year 1000.  It was not that all Greek philosophy was banned or burned.  But it was put back into a generally inferior position that could not influence in any serious way the now rigidified schools of jurisprudence after the Closing of the Gate of Ijtihad.

________________________________________
From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Rob Tye [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, October 21, 2012 5:09 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] risk and Far East philosophy/economics

I fear I do not recognise the intellectual landscape of this thread.  The
secondary texts I read when young (Russell, Popper, Koestler) made such as
Democritus the champions of Greek science.  Plato and Aristotle being
responsible for derailing the enterprise, and setting back Western advances
in science for two thousand years.  Primary text I have read since all seem
to corroborate that view.

Claims of a decline in intellectual standards in Islam after 1000 have to
contend with the achievements and contemporary recognition of such as Ibn
Khaldun (1332-1406), surely one of the world’s greatest writers on the
fundamentals of political economy?  Khaldun had of course read Aristotle,
but seems to scoff at him, preferring the clearer defence of economic
justice found in Ancient Persian texts.

Plato wanted the books of Democritus burned (and it seems the early Church
fathers did in fact burn them all).  The great 10th century Moslem
scientist, from central Asia, al-Biruni, was held in internal exile by the
bigoted Mahmud of Ghazni, in much the way that Brezhnev held Sakharov in
internal exile, or McCathyites targeted Russell and Einstein.

The only general pattern I would defend is one of political authorities
everywhere defending political ideologies by persecuting the scientifically
minded.

Rob Tye, York UK