Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media

by Jacob Mchangama

The ʿAbbāsids’ contribution to science and philosophy extended beyond translating the words of others. A long list of truly gifted polymaths made great progress in disciplines such as medicine, astronomy, geography, and philosophy during this period. Many of these Muslim thinkers were ethnically Persian or Central Asian writing in Arabic. When the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate began to disintegrate in the early tenth century, the centers of learning spread east beyond Baghdad, to vassal states and territories where ʿAbbāsid authority waned to the point where they only ruled in name, if at all. Rather than being the result of positive recognition of freedoms of conscience and expression—notions alien to the absolutist caliphs—it was this lack of centralized religious authority that proved conducive to the emergence of a number of radical freethinkers.