Factors behind the Rise of the West
Keywords:
Greek thought, Christianity, Western civilization, Islamic worldview, translation, universities.Abstract
The rise of Western civilization is rarely depicted from the formation of its
worldview. The West is composite of various elements such as Greek, Roman Empire,
Germany, France, Celtic, English, Christianity, Judaism, and other European cultures,
but the factor that brought about the rise of the West was not simply of those
elements. This paper examines three factors that contribute mostly to the rise of the
West, namely Greek, Christianity and Islamic worldview. The salient result is the
Islamic worldview on the ground that the Muslims had creatively translated, modified,
selected, and made commentary of different foreign works and came up with new
knowledge in diversified fields but accord with Islamic worldview. The new
knowledge that had been tinted with Islamic worldview penetrated the Western minds
through various channels, the most important of which was translation. As a result, the
Western scholars were able to develop various scientific concepts that subsequently
able to establish different schools and universities, pivotal agents for the rise of
Western civilization.
