Think only of the two most important components of economic success: hard work, and innovation. As to hard work, in Islam there is what can be called inshallah-fatalism. Everything is decided by, everything comes from, Allah. You may work and work, and in a minute, Allah take it all away, on a whim. You may not work at all, but Allah may reward you.
With that kind of inshallah-fatalism, constantly reinforced by every aspect of Islam, why work hard? If it will all be determined by Allah, what's the point? And then, as to innovation, Islam is dead set against it, has a prohibition on bid'a, or innovation. "Innovation" was, rightly, held to be worrisome, for it implied a willingness to keep one's mind and heart open to new things, to perhaps come to believe that not everything necessary was contained in the Qur'an.
That is why Muslim societies bear a resemblance to the Cargo Cultists of the South Seas. They want, as V. S. Naipaul pointed out in Among the Believers, all the technological gadgets and goods and services that the advanced West has created and readily provides, but what they do not want, and in fact are incapable of doing, is to create societies where they themselves might be able to create such things. They are happy as long as they have the vast sums that come pouring in, to buy such things, or to have the ability to inveigle Westerners to supply them for free, as aid -- aid that is received without any gratitude, and as their due, as a kind of Jizyah, by Muslims. They show no interest in how the West did it, in what developments in Western schooling, Western openness, might explain all the things that they simply want, without understanding what went into their creation.
There is, however, one exception to this, one area where Muslims are deeply interested in exactly how things are done: that is in the area of advanced weaponry. It was Mahathir Mohamed, as the retiring head of the O.I.C., who gave a speech worth remembering, about half-a-dozen years ago. In it he singled out the need for the world's Muslims to learn modern ways, not in order to investigate the structure of DNA, or how the brain works, or how the universe might have begun, but only, his speech shows, in order to be able to produce their own weapons to rival the arsenals of the Infidels.
Imagine if, day after day after day, all over the world, programs were beamed, on satellite television, on YouTube, on radio stations, in which the texts and tenets and attitudes and atmospherics of Islam were directly connected to and offered convincingly as explanations for the political despotism, the economic backwardness, the social injustice, the intellectual paralysis, the moral collapse, of Islamic societies. That moral collapse is demonstrated most vividly in the widespread Muslim support for terrorism, by hundreds of millions who may not participate directly, and who are offended by Muslim terrorism against Muslims, but not at all by Muslim terrorism against Infidels.
This is what the American government, directly or through others, ought to be doing. It ought to be acting, in concert with its allies in the advanced West - the members of NATO (without Turkey), Israel, Australia, and possibly India and several countries in East Asia (they, too, though far more sturdily impervious to Islam, have a stake in the rest of the world not becoming dominated by Islam).
Imagine if, all over the world, in three dozen of the major languages, very cheap or free editions of such books as Wafa Sultan's A God that Hates and Ibn Warraq's Why I Am Not A Muslim and Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel and Anwar Sheikh's Islam: The Arab National Religiion and many others were made available, in good translations , with the translations and the publication and the disseminating of such material all paid for, if not directly by the American government, then by others who would be doing the work, with a nudge and a wink, that the government still felt constrained about doing itself. This is what happened during the Cold War, when the C.I.A. very intelligently published all kinds of things, including works of fiction by Russian émigrés, which works were made available to Soviet tourists, or otherwise smuggled into Russia. What worked then could work now.
Hundreds of millions of Muslims are hermetically sealed, for now, behind a Muslim Iron Curtain. They cannot get, cannot listen to, cannot watch, programs that might begin to make them reconsider many aspects of Islam, make them wonder about their own lives, the political and economic and social and intellectual and moral failures of their own societies and how so much of those failures are explained by Islam. If nothing is done, then we will have the same wasteful mixture as before - the mixture, of which Barack Obama, who is apparently stuck with his Cairo speech and, at this point, is intellectually helpless, handed us out another large and expensive dollop recently. He could have avoided it, he did it to himself. Now, at this grim point, so early on in his administration, he finds that he can do no other.
Even good weapon's research requires a certain degree of technical creativity since it cannot be accomplished in an intellectual vacuum. But the broad-mindedness necessary to bring together the various elements necessary for effective research would also undermine Islamic societies, thereby rendering the dream of killing and conquering infidels superfluous.
"lled inshallah-fatalism. Everything is decided by, everything comes from, Allah. You may work and work, and in a minute, Allah take it all away, on a whim. You may not work at all, but Allah may reward you."
---
Well, that's just an observation of life in general. Many individuals try hard, but get knocked back two steps for every step they take with difficulty, and then, eventually and not surprisingly, give up, and often get bitter and cranky.
Others seem to cruise through life with little effort and few problems.
But for a whole society to be this way, for no real apparent reason at all, is distinctly unhealthy.
What's the biggest difference? The society in question gets away with it, no questions asked or criticism allowed .. while the individual (unless he's a Muslim, of course) is chided, disliked, and given an even harder time for being a "quitter".
As I've mentioned before, it still boggles my mind where some of the same people who will complain about supporting welfare, or look down on beggars in their own communities ... without stopping to talk to them and see what happened .... will give money to aid organizations that prop up entire indigent societies, or will send their kids out on Halloween with those unicef boxes, because it makes them look good and charitable, helping all those poor third-world societies who have not, and never have had, any interest at all in bettering themselves in any which way shape or form, and never tried once to.
We have enough of our own poor to take care of; we don't need to bring more in or support those of other countries.
This excellent essay by Hugh presupposes an important element a priori, that there are Muslims within their indigenous population at large, both in the home country and the diaspora, that are inclined towards hard work and education for their own sakes, not to further push their world domination of Sharia and jihad. Have there been any social studies of this phenomena, the ever illusive 'moderate' Muslims? Or have such statistics if found been kept under lock and key? How many of the world's 1.2 billion would actually become normal human citizens of progressive, educated modern society capable of productive work? We in the West are forever optimistic that such a campaign to educate and democratize the 7th century primitive mind with modern ideals and knowhow would improve their lot. But then you look at Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Kashmir, Algeria, Saharan Africa; or the banlieux of Paris, or other 'no go' areas of Europe, and you begin to wonder if education is enough. Perhaps the tenets of Mohammed's legacy are too entrenched in their insh'allah fatalism to make a difference, and except for a precious few who escaped of their own free will into the West, and away from the bonds of their enslaving Islamic ideology, the future behind the Muslim iron Curtain remains grim and pathetic, or simply cruel and violent.
Hugh,
"Villagers forced to watch stoning in Somalia" Is that you pictured?
You posted an actual article!!!!
It seems you are crawling up from the lowly environs of the comments section...to which your writings had been banished...ah, struck down in his prime, poor Hugh, felled and cast down to be along side the likes of protagonist pugilists with hardly the talent to turn a coin with a pen.
Seriously, it is funny how an arrogant yet simultaneously ignorant western novelist, such as yourself, would ignore the fact that if it weren't for the Muslim algorithm he'd have zero computer technology, right, Hugh?
Or will you once again bite the hand that fed your ancestors and bray like an ass in denial?
Al-Khwarizmi (Algorizm): Mathematics, Astronomy, Geography. (Algorithm, Algebra, calculus) 770 ce - 840 ce
Without his work on algorithms the modern computer age would be hundreds of years in the future, instead of right now.
And here we have Hugh pointing his dirty pen at modern “Muslim” states for their being behind the current technology of the “West” (we’ll ignore the fact that Japan, Korea, and China and Much of Europe are all Asian Countries) and, as he so arrogantly put it quoting Naipaul, “all the technological gadgets...created and readily provides, but what they [Muslim states] do not want, and in fact are incapable of doing,”...
Incapable of doing? That's a laugh...
Hugh, plainly put, when the Muslims followed more closely the Quran and the Sunnah we advanced at such a pace we left the world in stupor dazed at the advancements in science and technology…knowledge and the pursuit of truth are integral commands in the religion and when we more closely followed we lead the world and lifted the “West” out of darkness and into their renaissance.
Then, unfortunately, as with most empires, came the fall starting around 1600, for various compound reasons, and the nails in the proverbial coffin were Colonialism, and now we have the mess we have today…which allows a cheap crestfallen author like you, Hugh, to quote off hand comments deriding modern “Muslim” states.
If it weren’t for Muslim forbears, you’d be pressing print instead of typing on a computer.
Peace
Abdullah Mikail
With that kind of inshallah-fatalism, constantly reinforced by every aspect of Islam, why work hard?
..................
Even worse—if possible—than inshallah-fatalism, is the view of the hard worker in Islam. He is basically equated with *a slave*. The "Prophet" Muhammed himself sneered at hard-working farmers and craftsmen. In a Hadith, Muhammed was riding past a house with his companions, and exclaimed that a house with farming implements in its yard would "never know the blessings of Allah".
He looked down on all productive members of society, and saw them as nothing but a source of booty and slaves. His own ideal was the razzia—the raid by Muslims on productive non-Muslims.
This is the "economic" model of Islam to this day—they live off the productive labor of others. This is found as the basis of everything from the shockingly high rates of welfare dependence of Muslims in Europe, to the reliance on Infidel workers in Saudi Arabia and Dubai—in everything from the most menial jobs to the most high-tech, in the reliance on the productivity of non-Muslims in places like Indonesia and Malaysia, to the loud calls for "foreign aid" (Jizya) by Muslim countries, to the kidnapping and ransoming of Infidels—often aid workers—throughout the Muslim world, to the hijacking of ships by Somali pirates.
It is a parasitic creed, and is proud to be so.
Why create weapons technology when you can just steal it or buy it from others?
The 9/11 terrorists didn't build thier own 757's and I've got a feeling the Iranians aren't wasting thier time building uranium mines.
The shoe bomber was a result of eastern technology.
JLP
JLP,
"The shoe bomber was a result of eastern technology."
No actually the 757 was... but you have to have the intelligence and the humility to actually trace the technology back to the source and give credit where credit is due.
Peace
Abdullah
Abdullah,
Attacking Hugh personally rather than refuting what he says with facts is just your style, isn't it?
Do you see this as a problem in your reasoning?
Whether Hugh is a good writer or not, whether he was banished or not, all this has nothing to do with what he has written here.
You sound very pathetic and forlorn when you make personal attacks on the author instead of commenting about his article.
And please give facts and references when you want someone to believe all that you quote.
What is the measure of a man?
In the brief history of human beings, there has never been an institution, government, or association that has endured by standing still. Islam would seem to be the exception, however, as Hugh points out in his fine essay, Islam is ever fascinated by new weapons. This has been it's course down the corridors of history, inventions and discoveries were passed back and forth from east and west, but nothing has stuck in Islam, save the arts of war.
In fact, the forces of enlightenment in both our familiar west and the exotic east have already "defeated" the jihad of Islam. The science and art of the modern world passed Islam and had rendered the Muslim world increasingly irrelevant.
Enter the oil jizya. If not for the discovery of oil in the Middle East, Islam would have died the natural death that all stagnant cultures fall victim to. In fact, the victory "über alles in der Welt" would lead to the dead hand of Islam crushing the world's progress and humanity - leading to world where the "living might envy the dead".
What is the fatal flaw of the Muslim world? Entropy. Everything changes, all the time. The success of our species has been a human ability to adapt to new things. To make use of whatever fortune brings, to "roll with the punches", and to "go with the flow". In muslim society, the teachings of Islam prohibit the freedom of thought and the adaptability necessary of the continued evolution of humanity. It is a false path which only leads to a dead end.
I, for one, refuse to submit to it's concrete thought pattern, fascist governance and stagnant culture. There is no future in this import from the past. It deserves to lie, forgotten and unmourned, on the ash heap of history.
Khushi you wrote, “ Do you see this as a problem in your reasoning?”
No.
Khushi you wrote, “ Whether Hugh is a good writer or not, whether he was banished or not, all this has nothing to do with what he has written here.”
Well, Huhg, brays about conditions that exist right now, without giving credit to those who lifted his “glorious Western Civ” from the dumps of the dark ages. I am just playing the advocate of truth…give credit where it is due…Newton did it when he spoke of the giants whose shoulders he stood upon…why does lowly author like Hugh not give credit where it is due? Simple, he has no class and it is ill befitting of his smear campaign.
Khushi you wrote, “ You sound very pathetic and forlorn when you make personal attacks on the author instead of commenting about his article.”
Not really…I believe the signal comment went over your head…ignore the editorial spice and re-read it and see if you get it this time.
Khushi you wrote, “ “And please give facts and references when you want someone to believe all that you quote.”
Ahem, okay, here:
Stanford Department of Computer Science, Reprto no. STAN-CS-80-786Algortithms in Modern Mathematics and Computer Science, Research Sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Office of Naval Research
ftp://db.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/80/786/CS-TR-80-786.pdf
And for the laymen among us (Readers Digest Version):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_M%C5%ABs%C4%81_al-Khw%C4%81rizm%C4%AB+
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm
Peace
Abdullah Mikail
Tanstaafl,
“The science and art of the modern world passed Islam and had rendered the Muslim world increasingly irrelevant.”
Well, then stop using the algorithm…woops! If you did that then the whole Western world would collapse…every computer program is written based upon advances in Islamic Sciences, algorithm. Period.
It fascinates me how “Western” people think…parenthetical because I think there is a difference between enlightened people and the “GW Bush Westerner”…the one that is blind to everything except the last sixty years believing they innovated everything and owe nothing to anyone…and then there are those who understand the human condition.
You can deny all you want that Islam and Muslims gave humanity the greatest surge in scientific discovery ever experienced, but that would just make you a liar. History proves as much.
Even the current wave of discovery is done on the back of a “camel” as it were in things as powerful as the algorithm, basically the entire modern computer age.
So, we can both point fingers at the failings of modern culture in lands predominantly Muslim, but neither of us can say it is because of the faith…it is a failing of culture, and culture is separate from Islam. Purely applied it revolutionized the science of the world, period.
People in the West laud Leonardo Davinci as one of the greatest thinkers and inventors a supre-polymath...well, there are easily 25 fordears in the Muslim world equally if not more brilliant and accomplished yet they were hundreds of years before him.
And what did Leonardo excel in? Ahhh, weapons technology…and other things.
So, war is a human condition brought about by the failties of leadership and those lead…and the greatest technological advancements often come from that sad state of affairs.
It is all human accomplishment, yet the Islamic contributions to the sciences and arts all derive from the order in the religion...it is based upon faith that these men discovered what they did. Islam is the source, the discovery and the science and the innovation is the fruit of their labors and faith...Insha Allah, "If God Wills it." and then the work is done...the result is up to God.
Peace
Abdullah Mikail
From Abdullah's comment:
'when the Muslims followed more closely the Quran and the Sunnah we advanced at such a pace we left the world in stupor'
So, if the muslims were still following the koran closely in 1600, why did islam fall into a morass?
How did the western colonialists succeed if the muslims were as brilliant as you say they were?
Your thinking is as coagulated as your knowledge.
Only coagulated, not totally absent, because you do acknowledge the fact that islamic societies are a mess today.
And, by the way, western civilisation IS bright and shining and a beacon for all free thinkers.
You can write all this and not fear being lynched or stoned by western people thanks to western freedoms.
From Khushi above,
Khushi you wrote “Your thinking is as coagulated as your knowledge.”
And I suspect that you lack a knowledge of history that would enable you to understand anything beyond the last few weeks headlines…but hey, that’s par for the “Westerners” course, isn’t it?
How did the Roman empire fall?
Now, I know the boots of Mehmet II trod upon Byzantine and crushed the last vestiges of the Roman Empire…but was that the grand sum of how it all happened? No, it was a slow gradual decline, right?
But, let's be serious, shall we? This is, on a certain level, a childish game of one upsmanship, only it occurs with Hugh at a more sophisticated, albeit sinister, level.
And I paid for my own freedom and yours, too.
You can live freely and write freely as you do because of people like me who sacrificed in order to preserve the right to freedom that people like you take for granted.
That is unless you are a Vet.
Peace
Abdullah Mikail
Abdullah knows as well as the rest of us that the Indians, not the Arabs, invented the concept of Zero. But of course Abdullah is not writing for our benefit. He is writing for the benefit of any muslims who might happen this way.
Not at all. As I said before I appreciate the innovatoins and discoveries of the human condition and I give credit where it is due. Al-Khwarizmi gave credit to the Indians for his re-discovering the original work wherin the zero concept was fostered. He adapted the Indian numeral system as at the time he worked with every numerical system known and found the Indian numerals the most efficient.
Al-Khwarizmi discoverd the used the properties of negative numbers, this was the first time in history by the way, and it opened up a whole new world of higher math. He did incredible things in numerous scientific fields...and most "Westerners" have no idea who he is.
Discovery is not made in a bubble, as what some would have you believe a bubble in the "Western" world (pun intended).
I revel in the scientific discoveries of Humanity, be they Muslims, Jews, Christians, Agnostics, Athiests...it is the purest form of pursuit, scientific discovery, as it is the pursuit of truth, and God is the absolute truth, and in our faith, Islam, pursuit of truth is equivalent to prayer.
That is how important the seeking of knowledge is...it has been equated to the value of prayer, and in Islam the first thing one is asked of by God is about the prayer.
So tell that to anyone who says Islam does not command the pursuit of knowledge for women and men...it is an integral facet of the religion.
Peace
Abdullah Mikail
Lord Elpus,
By the way, my favorite Indian of all time, Srinivasa Rajmanunan, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan,
Srinivasa did far more for humanity than Ghandi did in his wildest dreams.
This yougn Indian derived exotic calculus formulas so advaced the Professors at Cambridge University thought his first letter of inquiry sent in 1912 was a joke...then they crunched the numbers and were blown away by the results.
Human accomplishment...human being, this is God's creation and the discovery of knowledge is one of the highest pursuits.
Peace
Abdullah Mikail
I thought the plug had been pulled on this one. Apparently I was wrong.
"Rajmanunan"
He means Ramanujan, discovered and promoted by the mathematician G. H. Hardy.
Leave it up to Hugh to assign credit to a middle man.
How's it feel now to be back in your old suit down here in the comments section?
Peace
Abdullah Mikail
Hindus invented "algebra", Muslims were merely the transportation.
You are often wrong, Hugh...I am amazed you have the tact to admit it for once.
I chose to ignore this place for a while.
Upon my return I was actually suprised to see Robert let you post an article for once.
Does he have you sweep up at night when you are not commenting down here in the degs with us regular Joes, or "Moes" I mean?
Peace
Abdullah
Hooray! You actually said something truthful without reservation, qualificatoins, ifs ands or buts.
Algorithm...say it with me slowly, it rolls off the tongue.
This is the bedrock of computer age and it comes from Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, the same one who relayed ancient knowledge from and gave credit to the Indians for their original work on Algebra.
Algorithm, it isn't eveyrthing, but it ranks up there with oxygen.
Peace
Abdullah Mikail
Couldn't resist plugging one of my favorite Bluegrass bands of all time singing Iron Curtain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfisk_MNQTQ
Abdullah Mikail,
I'd be curious as to what your opinion on this article might be. If you have a moment, do tell.
Thanks.
http://www.ninevehsoft.com/fiorina.htm
Fabulous article! This might just work and start to chip away at Islamic stranglehold which these governments have on the people.
Abdullah, islam invented NOTHING but it expropriated everything muslims take credit for. Muslim armies invaded, conquered, and usurped but could not even sustain what they arrogated so they moved on to the next superior, advanced civilization and began another seige of destruction, death, and misery. Where did you learn your version of history, at the University of Mecca? Islamic "universities" teach nothing but islam and revisionist history, or at least that's all muslims seem to study. Might that explain the desolation of every islamic nation on earth?
If you believe all the crap you spew you really are a deranged individual. And just think, you were once a normal human being. What happened?
A confused poster above seems to think that because, long after Al-Khwarizmi died, in a Latin version of one of his works his name became corrupted as an early form of "algorithm" that this means one can contribute the very notion of "algorithm" to Al-Khwarizmi. This is a bizarre understanding, and a moment's trip even to Wikipedia would clear things up.
As for Al-Khwarizmi himself, who is invoked by Muslims, or apologists for Islam, to explain away the last thousand years of Western advances in science and Islamic intellectual stasis, along with another dozen names (always the same), two observations.
One, whatever flourishing may be attributed to the first few centuries of High Islamic civilization, many of the most important figures were Christians, Jews, or Zoroastrians or people who, while they had converted to Islam (no doubt to be on the winning side), were only a generation or two removed from their Christian, Jewish, or Zoroastrian parents or grandparents, and had grown up in, been affected by, the non-Islamic milieu that continued to exist. The relatively small number of Arab Muslim conquerors who ruled over a relatively large number of Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians in the first few centuries of Islam, did not extinguish overnight the non-Muslim milieu of the majority.
Al-Khwarizmi himself was a Persian, not an Arab, and some, including Al-Tabari, referred to him as Al-Majusi (from a word related to the English "magi," meaning one who is a magician, a word given by early Muslims to Zoroastrians. Such an epithet indicates that Al-Khwarizmi (who may have been from Uzbekistan, in Central Asia, but apparently a Persian who then moved to Baghdad) was considered to be either the son of a Zoroastrian, or himself a Zoroastrian.
Another intriguing aspect is Al-Khwarizmi's work on the Jewish calendar. Such an unusual interest might, to some, suggest that if he were not raised in a Zoroastrian milieu, perhaps it was a Jewish one.
In any case, the whole business of bringing up a single name, or the same dozen names, of "Great Figures In Islam" is tiresome and misses the point. After just a few centuries, that is after most of the peoples conquered had converted to Islam, and the non-Muslim lights had gone out, or been sufficiently dimmed, all that activity that is said by some to characterize High Islamic Civilization disappeared, never to return. One explanation is that it depended on the survival of a large and influential non-Muslim population, that is a population of those who were not encouraged never to question, never to be skeptical, but to always and everywhere note, as an all-purpose answer, that Allah Knows Best.
It's silly to keep dredging up the same dozen names, especially since quite a few of those names -- Al-Razi (Rhazes), for example -- belong to people who were freethinkers, and in danger of being persecuted, or like Averroes, made more of in the non-Muslim West than within the world of Islam.
'If you believe all the crap you spew you really are a deranged individual. And just think, you were once a normal human being. What happened?'
You were asking abdullah: what happened?'
Answer: islam happened to him which turned him from a normal human being to a deranged individual.......;)
My point, and I have one, is that Islam has been located between the superior cultures of both east and west and has never benefited from this location. Paper, the printing press and gunpowder came to the West from the busy minds of the Chinese.
Which of these three made a lasting impression on Islam? Gunpowder, of course.
Islam had the printing press and paper before the West did. And so, the MiddleEast must be the hotbed of the publishing industry. Of course, it is not.
Dead, stagnant, frozen in time. The future of mankind lies not in Mohammed and Allah, but in the decadent, secular cultures that surround and surpass it.
If Muslims are offended by Muslim terrorism against Muslims,
they don't show it.They don't utter one word in protest.
The only outwardly angry reaction is maybe to blame others
and not Muslims.
Aiken Bryce,
(And HUGH the list is for you, read Muslim as "Muslim", Hugh, not "Arab")
You have underlined a subtlety that most people miss…even Peter Betbsoo with his “web resources”
Many here in this blogosphere have a hard wired bigotry to equate anything Islamic with “Arab” … that just shows their own ignorance.
There were many different ethnicities involved in human accomplishment, but Islam was the thread that tied them together. Yes Assyrians, Indians, Babalonians, Greeks, many different people from the days of city states had scientific advancements and discoveries…we gather today in universities and study all of it.
The advancements by Muslims in the golden age is undeniable…nay sayers try to divide up the credit by attempting to discredit the original discoveries by pointing out that their knowledge base was supported by other scientists and mathmeticians discoveries…wow, shock me.
What an ignorant ass a person is to suggest that all scientists must start at zero and originate everything. The person who suggested this is an idiot.
As I said, Newton gave credit where credit was due, just as Al Khwaizmi did. He was unabashed at giving credit to the Indians for the numerical system and discovery of Algebraic principles…why should be be? He was a Muslim scientist, and in the pursuit of science we appreciate the giants that came before.
Hugh is one of the Islamophobes that wants to nay say, well, let’s see him tackle this list:
(Al'Khwarizmi is #12...)
25 Muslim Polymaths and the Islamic Contributions to the Arts, Sciences, Philosophies, Medecine, Engineering:
1) al-Biruni
Born: 15 Sept 973 in Kath, Khwarazm (now Kara-Kalpakskaya, Uzbekistan) Died: 13 Dec 1048 in Ghazna (now Ghazni, Afganistan)
At the age of seventeen al-Biruni in 990 computed the latitude of Kath by observing the maximum altitude of the sun.
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Al-Biruni.html
http://www.albalagh.net/kids/history/biruni.shtml
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9015394/al-Biruni
2) al-Jahiz,
He was born at Basra about 776, and he was the first human being in recorded history to originate the concept of biological evolution.
http://www.salaam.co.uk/knowledge/al-jahiz.php ,
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9043249/al-Jahiz,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Jahiz
3)al-Kindi,
Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq Al-Kindi (ca. 800–870 CE)
He wrote numerous works on philosophical topics, especially
psychology (including the well-known On the Intellect) and cosmology.
Al-Kindi's work in mathematics and the sciences was also extensive, and he was known in both the later Arabic and the Latin traditions for his writings on astrology.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/al-kindi/ ,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arabic-islamic-judaic/ http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/kindi/index.html,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Kindi
4) Abu Bakr Muhammad al-Razi,
Born 841 died 926 he was a Physician, philosopher, alchemist,musician, and mathematician, born in Rayy, Persia; Over 1,000 of his case histories are also preserved today, and they provide an important insight into the working life of the greatest medieval clinician. Kitab
al-Mansuri, which was translated into Latin in the 15th century C.E., comprised ten volumes and dealt exhaustively with Greco-Arab medicine.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Razi.html,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Razi
5) Ibn Sina,
Abu Ali al-Husayn Ibn Abdullah Ibn Sina was born in Bukhara in 980.
His most famous book, Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb ("The Canon of Medicine") is still one of the most important medical books ever written, and served as the medical authority throughout Europe for 600 years.
ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/islam/learning/ibnsina.html
6) al-Idrisi,
Abu Abdallah Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Abdallah Ibn Idris
al-Qurtubi al-Hasani, was bom in Ceuta, Spain, in 1099 C.E. His major contribution lies in medicinal plants as presented in his several books, specially Kitab al-Jami-li-Sifat Ashtat al-Nabatat. Apart from botany and geography, Idrisi also wrote on fauna, zoology and therapeutical aspects. His work was soon translated into Latin and,
especially, his books on geography remained popular both in the East and the West for several centuries.
http://www.ummah.net/history/scholars/IDRISI.html
http://www.unhas.ac.id/~rhiza/saintis/idrisi.html
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9042038/ash-Sharif-al-Idrisi
7) Ibn Bajja,
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn as-Say'igh, known as Ibn Bajja (or Avempace in the West), was born in Saragossa, Spain, at an unknown date and died in Fez in North Africa in ah 537/ad 1138 He was the teacher of Ibn al-Imam and Ibn Rushd (Averroes). His prominence was the result of his being the first in the West to show deep understanding of the views of some of his predecessors, such as Plato, Aristotle, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina (though Ibn Bajja never directly mentions him) and al-Ghazali. Thus he served as a link between the East and the West.
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H023.htm
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ibn-bajja/
http://www.bookrags.com/Ibn_Bajjah
8) Omar Khayyam,
Omar Khayyam ( 1048 – 1122) was an Islamic scholar who was a poet as well as a mathematician. He compiled astronomical tables and contributed to calendar reform and discovered a geometrical method of solving cubic equations by intersecting a parabola with a circle.
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Khayyam.html
http://www.okonlife.com/
www.britannica.com/eb/article-9057079/Omar-Khayyam
9) Ibn Zuhr,
Spanish-Arab physician and writer whose Practical Manual of
Treatments and Diet showed an advanced understanding of the human body based on science rather than speculation.
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Avenzoar
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1072751504008154
http://www.britannica.com/eb/question-280879
10 ) Ibn Tufayl,
Ibn Tufayl's thought can be captured in his only extant work, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan (The Living Son of the Vigilant), a philosophical treatise in a charming literary form. Died 564 ah/ 1169 CE
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H030.htm
http://i-cias.com/e.o/i_tufayl.htm
http://www.erbzine.com/mag18/yaqzan.htm
11) Ibn Rushd,
Abu'l-Walid Ibn Rushd, better known as Averroes (1126-1198), stands out as a towering figure in the history of Arab-Islamic thought, as well as that of West-European philosophy and theology. In the Islamic world, he played a decisive role in the defense of Greek philosophy
against the onslaughts of the Ash'arite theologians (Mutakallimun), led by al-Ghazali (d. 1111), and the rehabilitation of Aristotle.
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ir/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/i/ibnrushd.htm
http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/muslim/rushd.html
12) al-Khwarizmi,
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Al-Khwarizmi.html
Al'Khwarizmi was an Islamic mathematician who wrote on Hindu-Arabic numerals and was among the first to use zero as a place holder in positional base notation. The word algorithm derives from his name. His algebra treatise Hisab al-jabr w'al-muqabala gives us the word algebra and can be considered as the first book to be written on algebra.
http://www.mathsisgoodforyou.com/people/alkhwarizmi.htm
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9045366/al-Khwarizmi
13) Banu Musa,
Died 873, Al-Hasan Banu Musa was one of the three Bana Musa brothers. He wrote about the ellipse.
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Banu_Musa_al-Hasan.html
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Banu_Musa.html
14) Abbas Ibn Firnas,
“It was quite interesting, but my eye caught the name of 'Abbas Ibn Firnas who was credited with the first scientific attempt at flight inrecorded history”
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1910.htm
http://maysaloon.blogspot.com/2007/05/salute-to-abbas-ibn-firnas.html
15) al-Farabi,
Majid Fakhry (1983) has described al-Farabi as 'the founder of Arab Neo-Platonism and the first major figure in the history of that philosophical movement since Proclus'.
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H021.htm
http://i-cias.com/e.o/farabi.htm
http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/muslim/farabi.html
16) al-Masudi,
888 – 957, Al-Masudi was born in Baghdad and is known as the 'Herodotus of the Arabs' because he was the first Arab to combine history and scientific geography in a large-scale work.
http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/people_n2/persons4_n2/almasudi.html
http://www.cambridgemuslims.info/DidYouKnow/AlMasudi/Default.htm
17 )al-Muqaddasi,
Al-Muqaddasi was born in the year 945 of the Common Era (CE), which corresponds to the year 334 of the Islamic calendar (AH), and he died towards the close of the millennium. Defining the area of his study as that where the presence of the religious and political institutions of
Islam dominated, he traveled throughout the regions bserving, encoring, researching, corroborating, weighing and sifting evidence, taking notes and writing drafts. Ahsan al-Taqasim fi Ma'rifat al-Aqalim, The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions, was eventually published in 985CE/375AH, and a revised edition was produced
three years later.
http://www.islamicbookstore.com/b4140.html
http://www.bysiness.co.uk/Classical_Other/almuqaddasi.htm
18) Alhacen,
An Egyptian polymath (born in Iraq) whose research in geometry and optics was influential into the 17th century; established experiments as the norm of proof in physics (died in 1040)
http://www.wordwebonline.com/en/ALHACEN
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/summary/117349347/SUMMARY?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1600-0498.2003.450110.x?cookieSet=1&journalCode=cnt
19) al-Ghazali,
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (450-505 AH/1058-1111 AD) [aka: al-Ghazzali , Algazel ] is one of the great jurists, theologians and mystics of the 12th Century. He wrote on a wide range of topics including jurisprudence, theology, mysticism and philosophy.
http://www.ghazali.org/
http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/muslim/ghazali.html
http://www.cis-ca.org/voices/g/ghaz-mn.htm
20) al-Khazini,
Kitab Muzan al-hikma, written in 515, was a basic work on the hydrostatic balance, classifying according to the number of scales or pans. Al-Khazini’s hydrostatic balance was superior in its accuracy to all those constructed by his predecessors. Weight, according to his definition, is the force inherent in solid bodies which causes them to
move, of their own accord, in a straight line towards the center of the earth and towards this centre alone; this force, in turn, depends upon the density of the body. His tables of specific weight are fairly accurate and he understood something of the influence of temperature on
density.
http://www.cis-ca.org/voices/k/al_khazini.htm
http://www.geocities.com/pieterderideaux/khazini.html
21) al-Jazari,
The Most outstanding mechanical engineer of his time, described 50 machines 12th century CE, water clocks included.
http://www.muslimheritage.com/day_life/default.cfm?ArticleID=188&Oldpage=1
http://www.bookrags.com/Al-Jazari
http://www.history-science-technology.com/Articles/articles%206.htm
22) Ibn al-Nafis,
Died 1213 AD, Discovered pulmonary circulation and his book on ophthalmology is largely an original contribution and is also extant.
http://www.famousmuslims.com/IBN%20AL-NAFIS.htm
http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/nafis.html
http://www.medhunters.com/articles/timelineIbnAlNafis.html
23) Nasir al-Din al-Tusi,
Nasir al-Din was one of the greatest scientists, philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers, theologians and physicians of the time and was a prolific writer. He made significant contributions to a large number of subjects, and it is indeed difficult to present his work in a
few words. He wrote one or several treatises on different sciences and subjects including those on geometry, algebra, arithmetic, trigonometry, medicine, metaphysics, logic, ethics and theology. In addition he wrote poetry in Persian.
In mathematics, his major contribution would seem to be in
trigonometry, which was compiled by him as a new subject in its own right for the first time.
http://www.famousmuslims.com/NASIR%20AL-DIN%20AL-TUSI.htm
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Al-Tusi_Nasir.html
http://www.ummah.net/history/scholars/TUSI.html
24) Ibn al-Shatir,
Prolific author about made astrolabes and significant contributions in planetary theory.
http://www.muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=501
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1976QB36.I24L54....
http://www.angelfire.com/il/Fernini/ifscience.html
25) Taqi al-Din
Taqi al-Din had described in his book Al-Turuq al-saniyya fi al-alat al-ruhaniyya (The Sublime Methods of Spiritual Machines) which he completed in 959/1551, a steam turbine as a prime mover for rotating
a spit.
http://www.history-science-technology.com/Notes/Notes%201.htm
http://www.muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=466
This is not to say that people of other cultures and religious backgrounds did not make similar contributions to the Arts, Sciences, and Philosophies should be any way belittled...this is just to educate you of something you didn't realize, the vast contributions from Muslims.
Peace,
Abdullah Mikail
Message to Muslims such as the one above,so tediously wallowing in putative glories that are:
1) often exaggerated
2) often mis-attributed, with the non-Islamic source overlooked or denied (concept of zero, algebra, gunpowder, paper, printing press)
3) in any case, that date back, even if one were to accept them, in almost all cases, more than a millennium
But what have you done for us lately?
But what have you done for us lately? Hugh asks Abdullah
Abdullah with the Arab name is busy compiling a long list of recent muslim accomplishments, which would be much longer if not for the setbacks caused by colonialism, the creation of Israel and the subsequent wars provoked by peace-loving muslims; the hideous persecution of the poor, pitiful Palestinians; and the European and American invasions and occupations of muslim territories. Muslims have just been so busy engaged in perpetual warfare since the collapse of the ephemeral islamic golden age, they haven't had time for much else.
But now they are in revival mode and to further enrich the West with their superior culture and advanced philosophies, they have blessed us with an invasion of their best and brightest. With their help, we might someday reach their advanced stage of evolution.
To Hugh,
Ah, I was hoping you’d take the bait…now, let’s set the hook, shall we?
These are human accomplishments, since we are no longer existing in the microcosms of city states and neither are we stuck in the regional isolation due to the limitations of travel and information exchange…today individuals are the ones who lead accomplishments that are often done by teams.
Knowledge is the key and where the centers of learning are is where you will find the brightest people heading to. Only one faith I know of has an integral order to behave as such, Islam.
Heres a list of things Muslims "have done lately."
20th century
1931 - 1942 [chemistry] Salimuzzaman Siddiqui was a leading Pakistani scientist in natural products chemistry. He is the pioneer in extracting chemical compunds from the Neem and Rauwolfia, and is also known for isolating novel chemical compunds from various other flora in the Indian subcontinent. As the director of H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry, he carried out extensive research with a team of scientists on pharmacology of various plants to extract a number of chemical substances of medicinal importance.
1944 - 2000 [medicine, engineering] Iranian physician and engineer Toffy Musivand invents artificial cardiac pump as treatment for heart failure, and develops "remote power transfer for implantable medical devices, remote patient monitoring (telemedicine), biofluid dynamics to reduce/eliminate thrombosis in blood conducting devices, patient care simulation centre, detection devices and methods for detection, in situ sterilization, medical devices (failure analysis and regulatory process), and medical sensors."
1953 [economics] Pakistani developmental activist Akhtar Hameed Khan pioneers the concept of microcredit
1960 [physics] Iranian physicist Ali Javan invents the gas laser
1961 [astronautics, space exploration] Azerbaijani rocket scientist Kerim Kerimov becomes one of the founders of the Soviet space program and one of the lead architects responsible for the launch of the Vostok 1, the first human spaceflight.
1965 [mathematics; formal logic] Iranian mathematician Lotfi Asker Zadeh founded fuzzy set theory as an extension of the classical notion of set and he founded the field of Fuzzy Mathematics
1966 [astronautics, space exploration] Kerim Kerimov becomes the lead scientist of the Soviet space program.
1967 [astronautics, space exploration] Kerim Kerimov launches the Cosmos 186 and Cosmos 188 (the precursors of space stations), during which mutual search, approach, mooring and docking were automatically performed for the first time in the history of space exploration.
1967 - 1972 [astronautics, space exploration] Farouk El-Baz from Egypt worked for NASA and was involved in the first Moon landings with the Apollo program, where he was secretary of the Landing Site Selection Committee, Principal Investigator of Visual Observations and Photography, chairman of the Astronaut Training Group, and assisted in the planning of scientific explorations of the Moon, including the selection of landing sites for the Apollo missions and the training of astronauts in lunar observations and photography.
1969 [engineering] Bangladeshi engineer Fazlur Khan, regarded as the "Einstein of structural engineering" and "the greatest architectural engineer of the second half of the 20th century" for his designs of structural systems that remain fundamental to all high-rise skyscrapers, designs and constructs the John Hancock Center.
1969 [chemistry, medicine] Iranian scientist Samuel Rahbar discovered glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1C), a form of hemoglobin used primarily to identify plasma glucose concentration over time. He was also the first to describe its increase in diabetes.
1971 [economics] Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, successfully applies the concept of microcredit to the first microfinance banking system.
1971 [astronautics, space exploration] Kerim Kerimov launches the first space station, the Salyut 1.[147]
1972 - 1982 [astronautics, space exploration] Kerim Kerimov launches more space stations as part of the Salyut series.
1973 [engineering] Fazlur Khan designs and constructs the Sears Tower. Standing at 527.3 metres tall, it remains the world's tallest building up until the construction of the Burj Dubai in 2007.
1973 [mathematics, formal logic] Lotfi Zadeh founded the field of fuzzy logic.
1979 [physics] A Pakistani theoretical physicist, Abdus Salam, received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his pioneering work on the electroweak interaction theory which is the mathematical and conceptual synthesis of the electromagnetic and weak interactions
1980s [engineering, nuclear physics] Pakistan was the first Islamic country which successfully developed nuclear technology, under the leadership of Abdul Qadeer Khan
1985 [astronautics, space exploration] Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud becomes the first Muslim astronaut in space, as a Payload Specialist aboard the STS-51-G Space Shuttle Discovery, completed on June 24
1985 [astronautics, space exploration] Muhammed Faris is selected to participate in the Intercosmos spaceflight program on September 30 as the first Syrian in space
1986 [astronautics, space exploration] Kerim Kerimov launches the Mir, the first consistently inhabited long-term research space station and which holds the record for the longest continuous human presence in space.
1987 [astronautics, space exploration] Muhammed Faris becomes the first Syrian in space aboard the Soyuz TM-2 and Soyuz TM-3 expeditions to Mir space station. He is awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union and Order of Lenin titles later that year.
1988 [astronautics, space exploration] Abdul Ahad Mohmand becomes the first Afghan astronaut in space, aboard the Soyuz TM-5 expedition to Mir space station
1990 [economics] Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq co-develops the Human Development Index
1994 - 1998 [astronautics, space exploration] Talgat Musabayev becomes the first Kazakh astronaut in space, as a flight engineer aboard the Soyuz TM-19 (for over 125 days) and commander aboard the Soyuz TM-27 (for over 207 days) expeditions to Mir space station
1995 [computer science] Iranian American computer scientist Pierre Omidyar becomes the founder of eBay
1997 [physics, string theory] Iranian physicist Cumrun Vafa, one of the leading string theorists of modern times, develops the F-theory and proposes the Vafa-Witten theorem
1998 [architecture, engineering] The world's tallest twin towers, the Petronas Twin Towers, is built in Malaysia
1999 [chemistry] Egyptian chemist Ahmed Zewail is awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his advances in femtochemistry
21st century
2000 [computer science] Many of the core components of PayPal, including its real-time anti-fraud systems, is designed and implemented by Bangladeshi American software engineer Jawed Karim
2000 - 2007 [chemistry, geometry, literature] In electrochemistry, Iranian scientist Ali Eftekhari is regarded as a founder of electrochemical nanotechnology, particularly for his development of carbon nanotubes. He also carries out scientific research on the field of fractal geometry and applies it to different aspects of science, thus pioneering the concepts of fractal electrochemistry, electrochemical reactions, and fractal geometry of literature.
2001 [astronautics, space exploration] Talgat Musabayev travels to the International Space Station as a commander aboard the Soyuz TM-31 and Soyuz TM-32 for over seven days. In total, he has spent over 339 days in space, making him one of the top 25 astronauts by time in space.
2001 [physics] Iranian physicist Mehran Kardar is awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship prize for his development of the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation
2004 [astronautics, space exploration] Anouseh and Amir Ansari set up the Ansari X Prize to encourage private spaceflight research.
2005 [computer science] PayPal is re-designed and upscaled to 63 million users by Jawed Karim.
2005 [computer science] Jawed Karim pioneered the idea of a video hosting service with a web browser-embedded video player and co-founded YouTube as a result.
2006 [economics] Bangladeshi banker and economist Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank receive the Nobel Peace Prize for their pioneering work on microcredit and microfinance banking.
2006 [nuclear physics] The United Nations Security Council demands that the nuclear program of Iran be suspended but Iran, the second Muslim nation with a nuclear program (after Pakistan), has rejected the demand
2006 [astronautics, space exploration] Anousheh Ansari becomes the first woman to travel to the International Space Station, the first Muslim woman in space, and the fourth space tourist
2006 [technology] Prodea Systems is founded by Hamid, Anouseh and Amir Ansari.
2007 [engineering] The Burj Dubai, currently under construction in Dubai, reaches 585.7 metres in height, surpassing the Sears Tower (previously constructed by Fazlur Khan) as the world's tallest building.
2007 [astronautics, space exploration] On October 10, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor travels to the International Space Station (ISS) with his Expedition 16 crew aboard the Soyuz TMA-11 as part of the Angkasawan program, and becomes the first Malaysian astronaut in space and the first Muslim astronaut in space during Ramadan. The National Fatwa Council writes the Guidelines for Performing Islamic Rites (Ibadah) at the International Space Station, giving him advice on issues such as how to pray in a low-gravity environment, how to locate Mecca from the ISS, how to determine prayer times, and issues surrounding fasting. On October 17, he celebrated Eid ul-Fitr aboard the station.
2007 [astronautics, biology, medicine, industry, orthopedic surgery, space exploration, technology] Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, who is both an astronaut and an orthopedic surgeon, becomes the first to perform biomedical research in space. His medical experiments aboard the ISS were mainly related to the characteristics and growth of liver cancer and leukemia cells, and the crystallisation of various proteins and microbes in space. The experiments relating to liver cancer, leukemia cells and microbes will benefit general science and medical research, while the experiments relating to the crystallisation of proteins, lipases in this case, will directly benefit local industries in Malaysia . Lipase are a type of protein enzymes used in the manufacturing of diverse range of products from textiles to cosmetics, and the opportunity to grow these in space will allow Malaysian scientists to producing these locally rather than importing them.
There you have it...I did us a favor and did not post the 18th and 19th century accomplishments by Muslims...face it, nothing that is posted will get through that skull of yours...and that's okay.
Yours is yours and ours is ours...you can weasel out subterfuge all you want and play slight of hand with data, but the fact remains, it is all human accomplishment, we all accomplished it together, and here is a slice of the pie that Muslims contributed.
Peace
Abdullah Mikail
There are two logical fallacies that jump out from Abu Mikail's above:
1) Poisoning the well, a combo of personal attack with false claims, and
2) Confusing cause and effect, that because some Moslem discoveries were during the mythical 'golden age' of Islam, they must have been by them.
What this writer ignored conveniently is that the milieu of such discoveries and inventions was within that established in pre-Islamic Classical times for the first list, not to be repeated again for many centuries as Islam goes into a self-imposed decline due to dogma forbidding free inquiry and exploration. The second list stems from European and American scientific and academic accomplishments which stooped to educate Moslems in their sciences and arts, and eventually rewarded them for their diligence and studies, and accomplishments. What is glaringly obvious is the desire, nigh the dire need, to prove Islam is somehow productive when in fact all the Islamic worlds are economically and socially so deficient that they fail to produce anything of real worth, except as imported from the West or economically advanced Asia. So the writer strikes back with a long inclusive list of ancient and modern Moslem scientific accomplishments to obfuscate the truth, that Islamic society is poor at many levels of economic and academic accomplishments, almost entirely due to their primitively regressive socio-political ideology, Islamic Sharia. To give out an exhaustive list of alleged Islamic accomplishments does not erase the fact of Islamic lack of accomplishments, unless one is to include tribal warfare, at which they had excelled for over a millennia. Too bad Nobel didn't offer prizes for IED and Scud missile technology, or suicide bomb vest advancements (like using a cell phone to detonate), or the Moslem world would have been high on the list of recipients. Life can be so unfair, apologies to the victims of such bombings. So sad, Abu...
BT,
Poisoning the well…” a combo of personal attack with false claims, and” this is a gut buster!
That you on this web page, the principal poisoner of every well, would make this false claim…that is freaking hilarious! Hugh is a master poisoner…how is it that I am granted this title by you when I am producing proof of claims, making no allegations about Hugh, basically giving him the information he demanded?
I’d say you just earned the moniker you tried to throw at me.
Your following response, however, is right out of the Islamophobe play book, and wholly expected…only, I am surprised you beat Hugh to the punch…he’s usually not this slow on the programmed responses.
Islam has in the core of its doctrine the seeking of knowledge as an order on both women and men…thus, as I commented before, in its golden age when Muslims applied themselves more fully to the devotion of Islam and the resultant pursuit of knowledge they led the world…a fact even a person as brash as you can not deny. This was a result of faith, yes, many of the polymaths I listed were also theologians, doctors of Islamic law, and scientists extraordinaire…polymaths of the caliber of Leonardo Davinci only centuries ahead of him.
This is funny coming from Wikipedia: (about Leonardo Da Vinci) “the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent” I just posted twenty five people above who were as much if not more accomplished than Leonardo, oh, and centuries ahead of his time…this is just an example of the Western arrogance at work.
Conflict and economy have a lot to do with production in any society.
At one time India held 20% of the worlds wealth…then, suddenly, India was on its knees and Great Britain held 20% of the Worlds wealth. Wow, now that was a neat coincidence, wasn’t it?
We have landed on the moon not because of American scientific prowess…but because of Nazi Germany and their scientific accomplishments. No matter how nefarious they were, we accepted their rocket scientists and then took it from there.
But you don’t see us giving them credit for their advancements in rocket science, do you?
No, it was an American flag we planted on the moon. So, now are you going to start throwing mud at America and decrying us for not sharing the credit with Nazi Germany?
Your turn.
Peace
Abdullah Mikail
Congratulations Abdul, your lengthy diatribes above have established some things we can be sure of.
Firstly that people anywhere are not incapable of innovation, given encouraging conditions. As long as Islam is held in check. In other words, it's nothing to do with race.
Islamic societies enjoyed a golden era as long as there were sufficient non-Muslims or impious Muslims in society who could think outside Islamic bounds.
Islamic lands became scientifically advanced only to the extent that Islam stayed inside the mosques and out of practical affairs. The more that Islam permeated the whole of society, the more retarded that society became.
Look at the success of non-Muslim nations as well and all the evidence goes to prove that Islam directly harms and obstructs the scientific progress that would otherwise be perfectly natural in a human society.
How could it be otherwise when you waste so much time on pointless prayer and ritual, building huge elaborate mosques and minarets, waging religious wars and going on hajj? Not much time left for unislamic activities, even if they aren't haram.
What did Omar Khayyam, whom you mentioned above as one of the great Muslims, really think of the Koran?
'The Koran! well, come put me to the test -
Lovely old book in hideous error drest -
Believe me, I can quote the Koran too,
The unbeliever knows his Koran best.
And do you think that unto such as you,
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew,
God gave the secret and denied it me?-
Well, well, what matters it! believe that too.
Old Khayyam, say you, is a debauchee;
If only you were half so good as he!
He sins no sins but gentle drunkenness
Great hearted mirth, and kind adultery.
But yours the cold heart, and the murderous tongue,
The wintry soul that hates to hear a song,
The close-shut fist, the mean and measuring eye,
And all the little poisoned ways of wrong.'
It sounds like a fair description; to me he could be describing any one of a hundred or more of the Imams recorded by memri. Still today spouting the same age-old hatreds out of the same book of 'hideous error'
An excellent suggestion that illuminates, again, the folly of the Obama administration's refusal to consider the ideological roots of the jihadist threat.