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Source: http://www.forewordmagazine.net/reviews/printreviews.aspx?reviewID=4560
Book Review - Lost in the Sacred: Why the Muslim World Stood Still
[Foreword Magazine] Deirdre Sinnott - Dan Diner, a professor of modern history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and director of the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture at Leipzig University in Germany, analyzes how the Middle East, which led in cultural, mathematical, and scientific innovation during Europe's Dark Ages, lost momentum. Diner believes that the preference for oral transmission of the Koran and the difficulty in learning high Arabic (as opposed to spoken Arabic) meant that the Arab world was slow to embrace the printing press. According to Diner, "Islamic purists saw these modern machines as the work of the devil challenging God's control over time....[They believed] such speeding up of the world's pace could only end badly."