In Arabic the period before Islam is called Jahiliyyah, ‘Age of Ignorance’, and Muslim writers naturally played up how backwards and violent this culture was before their ancestors adopted the new religion. Likewise, Christians in Europe emphasised the negative aspects of the polytheistic societies preceding, focusing especially on ‘pagan’ treatment of the faithful, even though Roman oppression of Christians was nothing like as bad as Christian persecution of other Christians. And so, in a similar way, since the cultural revolution of the 1960s is viewed as the start of a new way of thinking,
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