Comments by "Omer عمر" (@Omer1996E.C) on "Joseph Henrich — Humans Defeated Smarter Species With Cultural Evolution" video.

  1. I was baffled when he said that if the middle east had universities first, industrial revolution would've happened there... Bro, the first university in history is the Guinness World Record holder University Of Qarawiyyin in Morocco, by Fatima Al-Fihri, in 857. Then, universities spread to the muslim ruled Andalusia, Sicily and Palestine, among others, then the reconquesta of andalusia and Sicily, as well as the crusades in Palestine, spread those institutions to europe. The reason industrial revolution didn't happen in the middle east has more to do with the ottoman military decline, geography,the socio-cultural-political system that didn't allow for European style colonialism, and that the middle east is naturally less advantaged than europe as it is deserts and the only advantage they had was trade. Now trade also got dominated by the new sea routes, so the middle east basically became an impossible place for any industrial revolution. It's also considered the main reason for the decline of the ottoman empire. The middle east was nothing without trade, now the middle east is nothing without oil. Europe is blessed with its natural advantages
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  2. @edwardadams9358  ok. If egypt is middle east for you, then the first university in Cairo was opened in 970, still operational today, as the Al-Azhar University. The first university in europe came 118 years later in Bologna, Italy. Baghdad's universities were completely finished by the Mongols, so the oldest still operational one was established in 1237, as it had very strong foundations to be used by the Mongols themselves, and thus be preserved at least physically, although not intellectually. Even many of the universities of andalusia were closed or changed by Castille, Aragon and Portugal.
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  3.  @Johnny_Savage  you left the whole point and went to that. The central concept is the same, especially since morrocco's culture is middle eastern no matter what. And idk why my replies are not being shown here. The thing is that Cairo, Baghdad, Tunis and many other middle eastern, or ME cultural cities had universities or special educational/intellectual institutions even before the very first university in all of Europe, except in Andalusia, which was also culturally part of the middle east.
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