Decay of Arab Culture and Science:
The association of science with kings, wealthy merchants and nobles which was initially very fruitful, ultimately proved to be the weakness of Arab culture and science. The patronage provided opportunities to translate, observe, experiment and reflect upon various aspects of science. It also resulted in Arab science getting cut off from the people, who began to suspcct that the learned advison of the elite were upto no good. This made the wmmon people an easy prey to religious fanaticism. The link also tied up the fortunes of science with the strength of the kingdoms. After the eleventh century A.D., both the Byrantine and Islamic empires started breaking up internally and grew more dependent for military and economic purposes on local kings. By the time of the Crusades (between eleventh to thirteenth century), the empires broke up into local feudal estates where peasants and craftsmen were subjugated with renewed brutality. This destroyed the market for industry and the need for innovative sclence. In this situation of decay and stagnation came new barbarians from the steppe lands. They over-ran the Arab lands aid effectively st~fled their culture. The genius of Arab science lay in the fact that it provided a crucial link between the rise of modern science, and developments in Greece, in India and, to a lesser extent, in China in the classical period. Modem science, &we know it, arose in the sixteenth century after the Renaissance in Europe. The Renaissancetook up the clasical science as it was transmitted by the Arabs and developed it in a revolutionary sense. Thus started a new age in which science and technology could play pre-eminent roles, roles they had never been called upon to play before.