the Enlightenment: Who What When Where?

[Kyriakos]

Opium had a better effect. At some point, you could get it in England without much hustle, leading to a nice book (Confessions of an English Opium-Eater).

 

[Narz]

Coffee originated in Ethiopia or Yemen and was brought to Europe by the Ottomans. Coffee came from the Americas the same way sugar did.

Nice thanks. I always thought it was from the Americas like chocolate.

 

[Narz]

Opium had a better effect. At some point, you could get it in England without much hustle, leading to a nice book (Confessions of an English Opium-Eater).

Was opium use as widespread as coffee use?

I was under the assumption than opium use is pretty maladaptive generally (didn't the English encourage it's use so they could dominate China?)

 

[AmazonQueen]

Was opium use as widespread as coffee use?

I was under the assumption than opium use is pretty maladaptive generally (didn't the English encourage it's use so they could dominate China?)

More so they could make money, like the Americans (also highly active in the opium trade until 1844).

 

[Angst]

I wonder what happened. How do you go from thought leader, inspiring backwards Europeans to progress to becoming practical medieval yourself (non-secular societies, seen globally as the face as terrorism, etc)?

Note : not saying all Muslim majority countries are like this, Islam is not a race, etc.

summary, imo:
the muslim world was doing ok until 1800? ish
a lot of the things you infer here, the sheer ultraconservatism of extreme religious society, is actually a relatively recent thing. plenty of the central muslim world was carved up africa style during imperial colonialism as the ottomans faltered. stuff like wahhabism only got footing in relatively recent history as a response to what was being done to the area (notwithstanding the intentional promotion of fundamentalists by western powers during the cold war because fundamentalists were seen as useful if unsympathetic allies against communism); and most of the extreme movements are quite young (wahhabism is from the 1700s and only got footing later), a far cry from the islamic golden age which was much earlier. a lot of popular critique of the muslim world claims the arab world never moved on from the medieval age, but they actually did; it's just an example of history not being a linear thing and ways of thinking evolving in complicated ways. but yea. the arabian peninsula and mesopotamian borders are unnatural, fundamentalism was a response to imperialism or outright promoted for the sake of fighting communism. ottomans were part of the story too, of course, but there's a reason they participated in ww1 like they did; turkey is as european as russia is, for shorthand explanation of their particular position, and their mishandling can be seen as an outside exerted force, even if we don't like to think of muslims as part of european history.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I wonder what happened. How do you go from thought leader, inspiring backwards Europeans to progress to becoming practical medieval yourself (non-secular societies, seen globally as the face as terrorism, etc)?

Note : not saying all Muslim majority countries are like this, Islam is not a race, etc.

See Angst's post above. And for the record Sufism was at it's height during the golden Age of Islam: Hafiz, Rumi, Omar Khayyam, Whirling Dervishes. All are pretty far from conservative Islam today. Change happens; compare the US in the 1970s to what we have today.