S. Frederick Starr. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane.

Abstract

“Enlightenment” is probably not the first word to come to mind for most people when describing Central Asia during the early Islamic period (roughly 750–1150 c.e.), or any other era for that matter. In terms of popular opinion, this might be attributed simply to misleading perceptions of the region as isolated and desolated in recent times. There are numerous obstacles hindering more informed judgments, ranging from the formidable linguistic skills required for such studies to the paucity and obscurity of the source materials. Since the area has also served so often as the meeting ground for the Eurasian powers on its periphery, it might also be assumed that its culture had little originality of its own, and, at best, merely imported aspects of Chinese, South Asian, and Middle Eastern civilizations. S. Frederick Starr, however, enthusiastically makes the case for rethinking the accomplishments of what might well be the most underappreciated and academically neglected of all the major world civilizations.