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Comment by falaki | Hacker News Reader

That "Islamic Golden Age" is a complete misnomer. It hides the religious diversity of the geography. Many don't know that it took many centuries for the majority of the population of the Iranian plateau to convert to Islam. For a good part of what is referred to as "Islamic Golden Age" Islam was not the dominant religion.

Similar story applies to India. Up until 17th century, India was ruled by "muslim" rulers. Should all the cultural and scientific achievements of that period be attributed to "Islam?"

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Islamic Golden Age I find is less about attributing results to Islam, and more just a shorthand to referring to certain parts of the world currently known as "the Islamic World". And yeah the idea is that they were Islamic at that time, and maybe that's not entirely accurate, but it's not as much "this happened specifically because of Islam".

So a useless word that could be replaced by stating the geographic name of the 'certain parts of the world' referred to. Seems like an artificial name the muddies/pollutes the topic rather than enlightens. The Spanish inquisition started in 1478, Spain threw off the muslim invaders in 1492. Should we call it the Islamic Spanish Inquisition, since Islamic is such an interchangeable term?

Sorry to be pedantic, but not up until, but from the 15th century or so (Babur) until some time in the 18th century (Battle of Plassey). And not all of India but a northern region. Indian history and geography are just too vast to be contained in simple phrases (including what I said above)

You're off by a few centuries. Even if you use the boundaries of present day India as the threshold, Muslim led empires have controlled a majority of the land and the people since at least two centuries before Babur. Nor was it restricted to just North India - the Khilji controlled almost all of South India, even beyond Madurai, as early as 1320. As the power of the Delhi Sultanate waned, its territory was snapped up by other Sultanates, with even more territory held by vassal states. By 1300 the Sultanates would hold more of modern day India than not, and would continue to do so till their consolidation by the Mughals.

Right, i had argued the same exact point here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35353914 and here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35050854 but for some reason even "educated" Muslims are not willing to think on these lines. It is time we got rid of the "Islamic Golden Age" moniker once and for all. In a way, it is what is actually holding back current day Islamic World from development since they are happy to wallow in useless self-adulation imagining their "Islamic Golden Age" which was not really theirs to begin with; thus hampering their own growth in the "Modern World".

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