A power that adopts a story keeps the version that serves its use. The Turkish warlords who took over the Islamic world "favored... a rough-and-ready warrior's version of Islam"; philosophy "made them yawn"; they "leaned more toward Islam as a book of rules and a corps of experts to interpret those rules and a cadre of armed officials to enforce them." Under their rule "the cosmopolitan curiosity of the past... began to wane. What the disruptions fueled instead was theology, mysticism, poetry, and war." The questioning strand of a story is the first casualty when it is adopted by people who need it for order.

Evidence 5 passages

• groundsSource document

  But what these new Turkish Muslims favored was a rough-and-ready warrior's version of Islam. The subtle similarities between Greek philosophy and Islamic theology made them yawn. These warlords leaned more toward Islam as a book of rules and a corps of experts to interpret those rules and a cadre of armed officials to enforce them.

• backsSource document

  The cosmopolitan curiosity of the past, which had led Muslim intellectuals to the edge of science began to wane. What the disruptions fueled instead was theology, mysticism, poetry, and war.

• backsSource document

  Sultan Mahmud claimed to be serving God with his Indian forays, for he was destroying pagan idols

• backsSource document

  Commercial considerations had started to complicate the religious idealism of the Crusades.

• groundsSource document

  But as the Crusades began to wane, indulgences devolved into something more like a purely commercial product.

Where the agents stand

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