LAUNCHING PAD / RAMPE DE LANCEMENT FOR RESEARCH BEGINNERS

– CHAPTER ONE –
The Roman Transformation: From Empire to Concept
Md. Merajul Islam, Master’s in Social Work, Rajshahi College, Bangladesh

You want to join the club?

The rules are simple:
1- Everything in your articles must be original, both in terms of the data, which must be contradictory, and in terms of the sources, which must be multiple.
2- It is important to cite these sources so that readers can verify the material.
3- Artificial Intelligence must be a tool, knowing that this tool is biased by the simple fact that it should normally only work within the LLM on which it is working.
4- The researcher's commitment is total, and they must be solely responsible for and have overall responsibility for what they write.
5- If the AI tools they use (translation, editing, spelling, and syntax correction) make a mistake, it is the researcher who is responsible for this error and its consequences.

All guidance, All questions, All propositions
One address
[email protected]

1. FIRST / PREMIER
(É)EPISODE

La recherche dans le monde est confrontée à des enjeux sans précédents et en même temps – et de façon
contradictoire – des freins et blocages qui résistent à la masse des jeunes qui voudraient en faire, et à
l’inverse la technologie de l’Intelligence Artificielle qui donne des moyens démesurés à la recherche mais
sans garantir que la pensée originale des jeunes chercheurs puissent trouver chaussure à leur pied, langue
à leur discours.

Chaque chercheur qui se respecte devrait avoir un lieu comme celui que j’ouvre aujourd’hui, sous ma seule
autorité et mon seul contrôle. Ce Blog, puisqu’il va devenir un blog sur divers sites de recherche ou
d’écriture, sera un lieu ou des articles courts (plus ou moins) seront publiés après avoir été lus, discutés et
corrigés ou amplifiés, venant de jeunes chercheurs en herbe, et vous le public devrez vous repaître de cette
herbe naissance et fraiche pour produire le lait de la pensée de demain.

Les règles sont simples :
1- tout dans ces articles doit être original tant dans les données qui se doivent d’être contradictoires que
dans les sources qui doivent être multiples.
2- il est important de signaler lesdites sources pour que les lecteurs puissent aller vérifier la matière.
3- l’Intelligence Artificielle doit être un outil en sachant que cet outil est biaisé par le seul fait qu’il ne doit
normalement que travailler à l’intérieur de la LLM sur laquelle il travaille.
4- L’engagement du chercheur est total et il doit être responsable, et seul responsable à bord, de ce qu’il
écrit.
5- Si les outils d’IA qu’il utilise éventuellement (traduction, rédaction , correction orthographique et
syntaxique) font une erreur, c’est le chercheur qui est responsable de cette erreur et de ses conséquences.

Nous fonctionnons sur des sites internationaux non-européens pour la plupart, en fait plutôt américains, et
nous n’avons pas le choix – VRAIMENT. Cela implique que nous travaillons avec le copyright américain en
arrière plan qui a l’avantage du « fair use » mais ce « fair use » est limité par quatre exigences édictées en
son temps par la Cour Suprême des États-Unis. Renseignez-vous et vérifier le Titre 17 du Code des États-
Unis qui est en accès libre. Cela s’applique à toutes les citations, à toutes les illustrations, à toutes les
références. Un des principes est de respecter, de façon absolue, le droit moral de celui qui a produit le texte,
l’image ou le document que vous citez ou utilisez.

Aujourd’hui nous allons découvrir le premier chapitre qui nous vient du Bangladesh.

2. English version

Research worldwide is facing unprecedented stakes that are, at the same time, challenging obstacles that
restrict the great number of young people who would like to pursue a research career. Conversely, the
technology of Artificial Intelligence provides disproportionate resources for research, but without
guaranteeing that the original thinking of young researchers can find a platform to fit their needs or a
language to express their ideas.

Every self-respecting researcher should have a space like the one I am opening today, under my sole
authority and control. This Blog, since it will become a blog on various research or writing sites, will be a
place where (more or less) short articles from budding young researchers will be published after being read,
discussed, and corrected or amplified. You, the public, will have to feed on this fresh, germinating seed to
produce the mental daily bread of tomorrow's thought.

The rules are simple:
1- Everything in these articles must be original, both in terms of the data, which must be contradictory, and in
terms of the sources, which must be multiple.
2- It is important to cite these sources so that readers can verify the material.
3- Artificial Intelligence must be a tool, knowing that this tool is biased by the simple fact that it should
normally only work within the LLM on which it is working.
4- The researcher's commitment is total, and they must be solely responsible for and have overall
responsibility for what they write.
5- If the AI tools they use (translation, editing, spelling, and syntax correction) make a mistake, it is the
researcher who is responsible for this error and its consequences.

We operate on international sites that are mostly non-European, in fact mostly American, and we have no
choice—REALLY. This implies that we work with American copyright law in the background, which has the
advantage of "fair use." But this "fair use" is limited by four requirements enacted some time ago by the
United States Supreme Court. Find out more, and check Title 17 of the United States Code, which is freely
available. This applies to all quotations, all illustrations, and all references. One of the principles is to respect,
in absolute terms, the moral rights of the person who produced the text, image, or document you are quoting
or using.

START YOUR VOYAGE
STOWAWAY PASSENGERS ARE
WELCOME

Today, we will discover the first chapter, which comes from Bangladesh.
The author is Md. Merajul Islam, born on 17 August 1998 in Rajshahi, Bangladesh.
Master’s student in Social Work (M.S.S) at Rajshahi College ( National
University); completed B.S.S. in Social Work in 2022.
Published researcher on Zenodo and Academia.edu, author of Collapse: The
Universal Laws of Civilizational Suicide, The Idris Enigma, Invisible Vibrations, and
Cognitive Artifacts of Antiquity.
Currently conducting cross-civilizational research under the mentorship of Dr.
Jacques Coulardeau, Université Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne, on “Civilization
Transformation.”
[email protected]
[phone]
Rajshahi, Bangladesh
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/md-merajul-islam-878872249/

First, his article on the Roman Empire, and at the end of it, his full resume.

ALL ABOARD! IN FIVE MINUTES,
RIEN NE VA PLUS !

3. The Roman Transformation: From Empire to Concept
Md. Merajul Islam, Master’s in Social Work, Rajshahi College,
Bangladesh
(Guided by Prof-PhD. Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris 1, Panthéon Sorbonne)

History often narrates the fall of Rome as a tragedy—the dramatic end of a glorious empire
crushed beneath its own excesses. Yet such language conceals a deeper truth. Civilizations, like
living beings, seldom perish; they transform. The Roman experience is not a story of death, but of
metamorphosis. When the Western Empire crumbled in 476 CE, the flame of Rome did not
extinguish—it changed its vessel. Its institutions, laws, faith, and language quietly migrated into new
bodies and minds, continuing the work of civilization under new names.

Political Metamorphosis: The Empire’s Shadow Lives On

The disintegration of imperial authority did not erase the Roman art of governance. The
bureaucracy of empire—its census, taxation systems, record-keeping, and judicial codes—survived
within the very kingdoms that replaced it. Justinian’s “Corpus Juris Civilis” became the backbone of
continental jurisprudence, inspiring later legal frameworks from the Napoleonic Code to modern civil
law. Even concepts like “civitas” (citizenship) and “res publica” (public good) were reinterpreted by
medieval rulers seeking legitimacy. Thus, the Roman Empire vanished as a political entity but
endured as a grammar of power. Its methods of organizing life persisted in monasteries, city
councils, and royal courts. The empire had dissolved, but its mind remained.

4. The Spiritual Transfiguration: Empire Becomes Church

Perhaps the most profound shift occurred in the realm of faith. The once-persecuted Christian
Church inherited Rome’s universal ambition. Where emperors ruled with armies, popes ruled with
symbols. The Church absorbed the empire’s administrative logic—dioceses replaced provinces,
bishops replaced governors, and Latin remained the sacred medium of order. “Rome” ceased to
mean geography; it became an eternal idea, “Urbs Aeterna”—the eternal city of the spirit. The
transformation from empire to Christendom was not merely religious; it was civilizational. Through
monasteries and scriptoria, the Church preserved law, literacy, and moral discourse, ensuring
continuity amid political fragmentation. The empire’s sword had rusted, but its pen continued to write
history.



Language: The Voice That Would Not Die

When empires fall, their languages usually fade. Yet Latin refused to disappear. Instead, it
blossomed into a family of tongues—Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian—each a living
echo of the imperial past, even if we could and should connect these Romance languages to the
migration of some Hommo Sdapioens out of Black Africa ca. 45,000 BCE, then from the Iranian
Middle East, ca. 12,000 BCE to Europe via Anatolia, Greece, and Italy. This linguistic evolution is
the purest form of transformation. Through the ordinary speech of peasants and poets, Rome’s voice
endured. Every Romance word is a fossil of empire, a whisper of the ancient world carried into
modern conversation. The shift from Latin to its descendants demonstrates civilization’s resilience:
fragmentation can generate diversity, and diversity can ensure survival. The Roman world, far from
falling silent, began to sing in many dialects.

6. The Outsiders Who Continued Rome’s Dream

Traditional history brands the Goths, Vandals, and Franks as “barbarians.” Yet this label,
inherited from Roman prejudice, obscures the reality of cultural exchange. These so-called outsiders
did not destroy Rome—they absorbed it. They adopted its law, its architecture, and its religion. In
the ruins of imperial cities, they built new polities guided by Roman ideals of order and faith. The

7. Carolingian Renaissance under Charlemagne, often described as the dawn of medieval Europe, was
in truth the second flowering of Rome—Latin revived, law restored, and learning reborn. What
historians once called “collapse” was, in essence, a demographic and ideological recombination: a
great civilizational recycling through which Roman substance took on new forms.



The Jewish outsiders from Palestine will bring a new development with the emergence of the
second Abrahamic religion, Christianity, whose faithful followers were persecuted and executed,
purged maybe, in big festivities and shows in circuses and the Coliseum in Rome for several hundred
years, till Emperor Constantine the Great (306–337 AD) put an end to it. “He not only initiated the
evolution of the empire into a Christian state but also provided the impulse for a distinctively Christian
culture that prepared the way for the growth of Byzantine and Western medieval culture.”
(Encyclopedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/biography/Constantine-I-Roman-emperor,

8. accessed October 22, 2025). Emperor Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to
Christianity. He also convened the Council of Nicaea in 325, which started setting some rules for
Christianity and sorted out what would become the Bible. However, the later split between Rome
and Byzantium, the Western and Eastern Empires, went along with the split of Christianity between
Roman Catholicism and Byzantine Orthodoxy. We have to keep in mind that the Christians did not
approve of slavery and various human sacrifices, without or with previous public torture. The
Germanic tribes brought a different social organization that led to feudalism based on the Carolingian
religious reform at the end of the 8
th
century, and the vast transformation of feudalism. Charlemagne
was the starting point of this transformation.



Material and Ecological Continuities

9. Even in decay, the material body of Rome refused to vanish. Its roads and aqueducts endured
for centuries, carrying life across fragmented lands. Bridges like the Pont du Gard or aqueducts in
Spain and Gaul stood as silent arteries of a living memory. Farmers repurposed imperial estates;
towns grew around fallen fortresses; trade routes were reoriented but did not disappear. The
economy contracted, yes, but its infrastructure—physical and intellectual—remained the skeleton of
Europe’s rebirth. In this sense, the empire did not fall into ruin; it composted into a fertile ground for
what would become medieval civilization.

10. Philosophical Reframing: From Collapse to Continuity

To understand Rome’s afterlife, we must abandon the vocabulary of decay. “Collapse” implies
a definitive end; history offers no such finality. What occurred was a phase-shift—a reorganization
of energy, values, and institutions. Rome’s transformation exemplifies the metabolism of civilization:
power may fade, but meaning persists. The empire’s political shell dissolved, yet its cultural
essence—its sense of universal order—continued to animate Europe, Byzantium, and even
Islamicate scholarship that translated Roman law and philosophy through Arabic intermediaries.
Rome became a template rather than a territory, an architecture of thought shaping civilizations far
beyond its original borders.



The Human Lesson: Transformation as the Afterlife of Power

The Roman case reveals a timeless principle: no civilization truly dies if its core symbols,
languages, and values can find new hosts. Transformation is not the ghost of decline; it is the afterlife
of power. The empire’s real victory lay not in conquest but in endurance—the ability to reinvent its
identity while retaining its essence. From Justinian’s laws to the Vatican’s rituals, from the grammar
of Latin to the very idea of “Europe,” Rome survives not as ruins but as rhythm, embedded in the
pulse of human continuity.

11. Contemporary Reflection

In a world anxious about the decline of cultures, democracies, or global systems, the Roman
example offers hope. Civilizations perish only when imagination ceases. If law, art, and language
can adapt, survival is assured. The challenge of our age is not to preserve the forms of power but to
reinterpret their meaning, just as Rome once did. The empire that became an idea teaches us that
endurance is not resistance to change—it is mastery of transformation, even if this sounds optimistic
in our modern technological world. Can we, will we be able to remain human with Artificial Intelligence
that would like to become more intelligent, flexibler, and creative than man in the minds of some
technological thinkers?

12. MD. MERAJUL ISLAM
Master’s Student, Department of Social Work | Social
Development Researcher
[phone] | [email protected] |
Rajshahi, Bangladesh
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/md-merajul-islam-
878872249/
https://rubd.academia.edu/MdMerajulIslamIslam
https://www.facebook.com/share/184xTkwnLh/

?????? Professional Summary
A dedicated and insightful Master’s student in Social Work with a deep commitment to research,
innovation, and sustainable social development. As a published researcher on Zenodo and
Academia.edu, I specialize in micro-analysis of social issues and the design of practical, evidence-
based solution models.
My work focuses on women’s rights, children’s rights, poverty alleviation, and other foundational
social challenges. I strongly believe that lasting social transformation requires not just awareness
but proper planning, structural reform, and effective implementation. True progress comes from
permanent solutions — not temporary fixes — and I am devoted to building frameworks that create
real, measurable, and enduring impact in society.
Currently, under the mentorship of Dr. Jacques Coulardeau, Université Paris 1 – Panthéon-
Sorbonne, I am conducting cross-civilizational research on “Civilization Transformation.” This study
challenges the conventional belief that civilizations collapse; instead, it explores how they transform,
evolve, and reconfigure into new forms of cultural, intellectual, and technological expression. My aim
is to demonstrate that what is often perceived as the end of a civilization is, in reality, its
reorganization — a creative rebirth through adaptation and continuity.

Education
Master of Social Work (M.S.S.) — Rajshahi College, Bangladesh (2025, Present)
Bachelor of Social Work (B.S.S.) — Talanda Lalit Mohon College, Bangladesh (2022)

Research & Publications
• Published Researcher – Zenodo & Academia.edu
• https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15872950, Collapse: The Universal Laws of Civilizational
Suicide – How Psychology, Ecology, and Archaeology Predict the Fate of Nations.
• https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17072301, nvisible Vibrations: The Hidden Technology of
Reality Reprogramming Through Sound.
• https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16744095, The Idris Enigma: How a Forgotten Prophet
Shaped Science, Symbols, and Lost Civilizations.
• https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15799895, "Encoded Play: The Evolution of Ancient Toys,
Tokens, and Seals as Instruments of Learning and Identity"

13. • https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15770888, Beyond Play: A Neuroarchaeological and
Cryptographic Study of Ancient Symbolic Artifacts as Tools of Cognition and
Communication
• https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15515449, Ancient Toys as Tools of Cognitive, Cultural, and
Professional Development: A Cross-Civilizational Study
• Conducted research on women’s rights, child welfare, unemployment, education reform,
and ancient civilization studies.
• Developed field-based social development frameworks blending empirical data with ethical
philosophy.
• Collaborated with international scholars including Dr. Jacques Coulardeau (University of
Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne).
• Research vision: To merge scientific reasoning with spiritual responsibility to achieve
holistic human progress.
Field Experience
• Field Researcher — Family Planning & Cooperative Department, Bangladesh
• Designed and implemented rural social surveys and awareness programs.
• Promoted health education, family welfare, and cooperative social initiatives.
• Experienced in policy communication and data-driven intervention design.

Faith, Culture & Academic Motivation
As a Muslim, I see Islam not as dogma but as a complete science of life — uniting faith with
reason, ethics with evidence, and compassion with social responsibility.

Islam commands reflection (tafakkur), understanding (‘ilm), and service (khidmah). The Quran
repeatedly urges humanity to “observe,” “think,” and “act with justice.”

My religion fuels both my imagination and my rational thinking. It teaches me that knowledge
without morality is incomplete, and faith without knowledge is blind.

I strive to represent the Islam of tomorrow — an Islam that speaks of knowledge, love, and
coexistence; that welcomes scientific discovery as part of divine exploration; that sees every human
being as a trustee (khalifah) of truth and compassion.

What a Muslim Brings to Science and the World
A Muslim brings ethical purpose, unity of knowledge, and love for creation.

In a world divided by prejudice, Islam contributes a balance between reason and spirituality —
teaching us that true science must serve humanity, not dominate it.

To me, the Quran is not only a book of divine revelation but also a book of love — love of God,
of knowledge, and of all living beings.

14. Vision & Cultural Reflection
I aspire to reinterpret the Arabian Nights through the lens of love, imagination, and moral wisdom
— to show that Islamic culture is not puritanical, but poetic and profoundly humane.

My generation bears the responsibility to revive the humanistic essence of Islam — where art,
faith, and intellect illuminate the path toward a just and compassionate world.

Skills
• Research Design & Field Analysis
• Report Writing & Academic Publishing
• Community Development Strategy
• Data Interpretation (Qualitative & Quantitative)
• Leadership, Team Coordination, and Cross-Cultural Communication
• Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• Bilingual: Fluent in Bengali & English

Personal Attributes
• Deeply ethical and purpose-driven
• Analytical thinker with creative problem-solving ability
• Committed to evidence-based social reform
• Respectful of diversity and interfaith dialogue

Declaration
I, Md. Merajul Islam, declare that the information provided is true and accurate to the best of my
knowledge. My work is guided by the conviction that faith and knowledge together can heal the world.