Inhitat - The Decline Paradigm: Its Influence and Persistence in the Writing of Arab Cultural History

As numerous studies have shown, the European colonial paradigm of writing Arab history, according to which a golden age of greatness was followed by an epoch of stagnation or even decline in the post-Abbasid era, was internalized by the emerging intelligentsia of the nahda to become an integral part of Arab historiography, public discourse, and historical imagination more largely. Although the motives, subjects and specific arguments may vary, a general thematic of decline continues to pervade the relevant literature to this very day.