“As an anthropologist, I approached the subject very scientifically,” American University Professor Akbar Ahmed said concerning his documentary Journey into Europe during a February 4, 2016, Georgetown University preview screening. Yet scrutinizing this film on Islam in Europe, subsequently released in full online and now the basis for a recent book published by the Qatari-funded Brookings Institution, reveals a Pollyannaish multicultural dream masking actual sharia threats.
The film begins by presenting the oft-vaunted, yet often unsubstantiated, convivencia myth of a glorious diverse civilization of Jews and Christians in Spain living under Muslim rule beginning in the eighth century. Ahmed’s thesis, as described in a February 1, 2016, Institute of Global Engagement (IGE) conference call, is that “one of Europe’s most glorious chapters in its history is the Andalusian period.” “It is this idea of la convivencia that is so desperately needed in the 21st century,” he narrates in the film while making minimal reference to the oppression of Iberian non-Muslims who endured centuries of ravaging jihadist conquest. By diametrical contrast, Indian diplomat Shashi Tharoor condemns ideas of imperialists ultimately benefitting subjugated natives in his 2016 book An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India, concerning the Pakistani Ahmed’s native Indian subcontinent.
No such skepticism appears in the film, where Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks reiterates longstanding “Golden Age of Islam” tropes of “Islam leading Europe out of the Dark Ages.” “Europe learned everything from Muslims. It was Muslims who brought civilization to Europe,” declares Pakistani-Scottish politician Bashir Mann while ignoring the damage Islamic conquests inflicted upon European civilization, such as slavery. While refugees from Muslim conquests historically benefitted Europe, English Muslim convert Sheikh Abdul-Hakim Murad Winter states the Europe has been “one of the world’s least tolerant continents.” Here the “points of light in the Dark Continent historically have tended to be Muslim.”
Better evidence exists for Ahmed’s film focus on the lasting cultural legacy of “conviviencia in reverse” in Sicily. Here a mixed population including Arabs lived under Christian rulers following Norman conquest in the 11th century of the island from Islamic rule after Sicily had functioned as a staging area for the 846 Islamic sack of Rome. Ahmed’s former student, Rice University sociologist Craig Considine, has extensively examined on his website (while plagiarizing this article) this “other al-Andalus.”
According to British historian John Julius Norwich, Norman Sicily, not Muslim Spain, appears as the truly tolerant society. Norman “Sicily became a cultural clearinghouse where, for the first time, Western and Oriental scholars could meet on an equal footing.” The Normans “created, in a Europe rent by schism and exhausted by the Crusades, not just a kingdom but a political and religious climate in which all races, creeds, and cultures were equally encouraged and equally favored.”
Ahmed’s film moves from Sicily to the Balkans, where his examination of “centuries of clash and conflict” between Christians and Muslims always seems to favor the latter. His film team highlights a visit to Bosnia’s Fojnica monastery and its display of the Ahdnama decree made by Ottoman sultan Mehmet II (the Conqueror) following his 1463 conquest of Bosnia. He praises this document for guaranteeing religious freedom to Bosnian Catholics, without any mention of just how brutal Muslim subjugation of non-Muslim dhimmis often was.
Ahmed’s film therefore presents yet another common myth, described by Islam historian Andrew Bostom, that “Ottoman Turkey was a tolerant multi-cultural civilization….Nothing could be further from the truth.” Mehmet II’s Bosnian conquest was part of an Ottoman expansion through southeastern Europe that included his 1453 brutal conquest of Constantinople and overthrow of the Byzantine Empire. Contrary to Ahmed, Balkan lands have few fond memories of their centuries under the Ottoman Muslim yoke, including its enslavement of non-Muslims, examined by no less than Bosnia’s literary legend, Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andric.
Ahmed on screen appears more concerned with Balkan Muslim suffering as he appears at the memorial for Bosnian Muslims massacred around Srebrenica by Bosnian Serbs in 1995 during Bosnia’s civil war. The film characterizes the killings as “genocide,” but extensive analysis suggests that Serbs sought to kill Muslim military-aged males while letting women and children flee. Canadian general Lewis Mackenzie, the former commander of United Nations peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, offered this explanation himself before the Canadian parliament while noting atrocities on all sides of Bosnia’s civil war.
Ahmed’s analysis of the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent at his March 26 Journey into Europe book presentation at Georgetown’s Berkley Center seems more appropriate for Bosnia than his biased film treatment. He described a “mad frenzy of Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs in 1947, an orgy of mad killing when almost two million people died. And whom do you blame then? Who is right, who is wrong, it is complete madness.” As other analysts have noted, Serbs were in many ways the biggest losers in the various 1990s Balkans bloodbaths, while Muslim communities in Bosnia and Kosovo have sometimes brought forth jihadist threats.
The film, meanwhile, shows Bosnian Jewish leader Jacob Finci reiterating his view that Bosnia is “almost free of antisemitism,” but this contention leaves much unsaid respecting Bosnia’s Jewish-Muslim relations. Bosnian Jews survived Ottoman rule as second-class dhimmis and even once faced massacre in 1833. More recently, a 2017 Bosnian naming of a school for a Muslim thinker who collaborated with Nazis elicited protests from Israel. The incident recalled those Bosnian Muslims in the German Waffen SS who helped exterminate 10,000 of Bosnia’s 14,000 Jews in World War II; some of these veterans later fought against Israel’s establishment in 1948. Recent years have also seen the formation of a Bosnian Muslim neo-Nazi group and Bosnian Muslim soccer fans chanting anti-Semitic slogans in a Vienna protest against Israel.
Thus Ahmed’s Journey into Europe is far more superficial than scientific in its treatment of Europe’s Islamic history. Even more disturbing, he continues this pattern when his film moves to cover Western Europe’s modern Muslims, as a forthcoming article will document.
RichardL says
Don Quixote is a great book if one wants to get some idea what Spain was like immediately after the reconquista. Even the Muslims who converted to Christianity were thrown out of Spain because Spain understood the evil bug that is islam. The Spaniards left just a few buildings and converted them into churches. Andalusia has the richest Catholic culture in Spain, maybe in the world. It is a wall against islam, I believe.
Savvy Kafir says
I’m not a Catholic (or Christian of any sort), but I love the fact that those mosques were converted to churches after the Muslims were driven out of Spain. That was certainly poetic justice, after centuries of Muslim invaders turning churches into mosques.
I dream of the day when the last Muslim is deported from Europe (and from the U.S., Canada, & Australia) — when all of those Saudi-funded mosques can be put to some proper use, as public libraries, or schools that promote the scientific method, or secular meeting-halls or theaters — or museums dedicated to teaching the evils of Islam, so that (hopefully) Muslims will NEVER be allowed into the West again.
…………………………………………………
Help defund Islamists everywhere.
* Support green energy & energy independence! *
Niemoller says
This Akbar Ahmed is terrible at covering up his takiyya lies. I recall seeing a program several years ago with him, a Christian pastor and a Jewish rabbi. He was terrible at pretending to be ecumenical and multicultural. He just couldn’t do it. He reeked of arrogant Islamic supremacism. He kept making passive aggressive comments about the primacy of Islam, but they were worded just vague enough to fool his pliable audience and even the other two on stage, or so he must have thought. It became obvious that the other two sensed it but they were too polite or confused to call him out. He is a vicious, evil person.
Lebel says
““Europe learned everything from Muslims. It was Muslims who brought civilization to Europe,” declares Pakistani-Scottish politician Bashir Mann”
Irrespective of where you stand on Islam, that’s blatantly false.
Of course that does not mean that Islam contributed nothing (the Jihadwatch position).
RichardL says
can you give us some examples of something that comes out of islamic culture and has contributed to European culture? I am always stuck with buildings in southern Spain.
Muslims are massively underrepresented in the sciences and have gotten only one real Nobel Prize, I believe. The Egyptian who got it was a Muslim in name only and lived almost all his live in the US. I know Egyptian universities from years of teaching there and what they teach and produce in terms of scientific output is grotesque.
Terry Gain says
RichardL
Thank you for giving us the benefit of your experience.
Lebel says
I think Al-Battani was quite important (he is cited by Copernicus who reproduced and improved upon some of his ideas).
Al haitham was crucial in optics and in conceptualizing the scientific method
Ibn zaqqaria – experimentation; Bayruni measuring the size of the earth
Ibn Khaldun in sociology – Al-Zahrawi in surgery etc. there are others of course, you can do some research yourself and find out.
I think this is fairly well established, also many of these discoveries were built on previous knowledge which is very good in itself.
maghan says
But whatever they wrote had zero to do with Islam. They were Muslims but their modes of thinking on scientific matters derive ultimately from the systematic thinking and writings of those Greek scholars –later embellished by the Romans. It was Christian Arabs–meaning people who spoke and wrote in the conquest language of Arabic–who translated the writings of Greek scholarship into Arabic for consumption further West.
But due to the spread of Christianity in Europe and beyond, Greek and Latin scholarship were dominant all the way up to the time of scholars such as Newton, Liebniz, Hobbes, etc.
Ibn Khaldun wrote Al Muqaddhima but nothing in that text is inspired by the Qur’an–which according to Muslims contains knowledge of all things. Of course, this is absurd.
Richard says
Abdus Salam, an Ahmadi, won the prize in 1979 – and most people regard him as a Muslim – except of course his own country of Pakistan – which has declared the Ahmadiya to be non-Muslim
Seems that they don’t actually WANT a Nobel prize.
CogitoErgoSum says
Muslims did make some scientific contributions especially in the fields of astronomy and mathematics in the years between 800 -1100 after which a scholar named Hamid al-Ghazali backed the idea that math and science are the work of the devil. Al-Ghazali’s ideas took hold throughout the Islamic world and continue to have a firm hold to the present day. The video below with clips from talks by Steven Weinberg and Neil DeGrasse Tyson pertains to this (btw, note the brief correction to Neil at the very end):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn8EzB7L-ow
Lebel says
I have been reading the same thing about Ghazali. The only evidence I could find was his “incoherence of the philosophers” which is a powerful critique of philosophy.
I would seriously doubt that he would science and math the work of the devil but I could be wrong.
gravenimage says
A “powerful critique of philosophy”? Al Ghazali is known as the “destroyer of philosophy”, and has much to answer for in Muslims’ widespread rejection of reason. Of course Lebel would be impressed with such an “achievement”.
Niemoller says
Islam was anti-science out the gate, but people in general are not. Where Islam overran civilization some people were able to keep science alive for a time because Islamically non-pious rulers saw the benefit, but then Islam finally won in those areas, and science died.
Most of those scientists were Islamic apostates, heretics, or Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews. Muslims like to hide and obscure those facts under the vague rubric of “Islamic civilization.”
CogitoErgoSum says
Here is another interesting video I found concerning science and Islam. The rise of scientific discovery in the Islamic world grew as the Quran came to be interpreted in a less literal manner. For a brief period reason began to triumph over revelation. However, al-Ghazali was successful in convincing the people that revelation was more important than reason and he came to be seen as second only to Muhammad in importance to Islamic thought. His idea that science was to be granted importance only if its discoveries reaffirmed the words of Allah in the Quran found fertile ground on which to grow. Here is another video from YouTube that does a pretty good job discussing this and other reasons for the brief rise and long decline of scientific thought in Islam: (Note: when I viewed this video it would hang at a few points but clicking on a few seconds past the hanging point started it playing again with the loss of only a few words.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60JboffOhaw
maghan says
Yes, but the science and philosophy that was expressed did not derive from Islam, but from the scientific and secular writings of the Greeks and the Romans. There was no such thing as “The Golden Age of Islam”. It was all a continuation of Graeco-Roman thought.
Hop David says
Ghazali never wrote that math is the work of the devil not did Islamic innovation end in the 12th century with Ghazali.
The self proclaimed skeptics listening to Tyson and Weinberg do not bother to question false assumptions if they seem to support their personal prejudices.
gravenimage says
Lebel wrote:
““Europe learned everything from Muslims. It was Muslims who brought civilization to Europe,” declares Pakistani-Scottish politician Bashir Mann”
Irrespective of where you stand on Islam, that’s blatantly false.
Of course that does not mean that Islam contributed nothing (the Jihadwatch position).
……………………….
*Of course* Islam contributed a great deal to European civilization.
The final destruction of the Roman world and piracy on the Mediterranean sea forced Europeans to turn northward and inland. Millions of Europeans were enslaved, murdered, or lived in oppressed dhimmitude under Muslim conquest. The terrible conquest of Constantinople sent refugees fleeing to the West–including scholars who brought texts unknown in the West. This happened during the Renaissance, and the contributions of Greek-speaking scholars to the classical revival was significant (of course, Greek scholarship in the Greek-speaking world suffered terribly).
Europeans fought back against Muslim depredations–at Poitiers, during the Crusades, at Lepanto, and at the gates of Vienna. Europeans eventually discovered the new world in their attempts to find trade routes around the Muslim world. Europe was enentually able to take back much of the territory conquered by the Muslim hordes–in Spain, in southern France and Italy, in Sicily, in Greece, and in the Balkans.
All this affected Europe a great deal.
Granddaddy says
If you listen to Muslims long enough, you will soon realize that Muslims invented everything and discovered everything everywhere, living in peace and harmony with all non-Muslim nations everywhere, while at the same time every Muslim nation in the world somehow managing to remain “developing countries” (as the UN puts it) otherwise known as Third World. Their bad luck is astonishing.
mummymovie says
+1
FYI says
As an Anthropologist ,perhaps he should devote more time to the study of the primitive,backwardly savage hominid creature that came from the middle east but has now migrated to the west.
islamophrenicus demonicus.
gravenimage says
He’s not an anthropologist–he’s a professional Muslim apologist.
gravenimage says
My apologies, FYI–Ahmed *does* describe himself as an anthopologist here.
He has a lengthy Wikipedia page, but nowhere does it sya he is an anthropologist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar_Ahmed
Terry Gain says
If Islam was so advanced a thousand years ago why is it so backward now? By recollection, Israel has produced 212 Nobel Laureates and Islam has produced a handful.
I will give Muslims credit for this. They are world champion propagandists, somehow managing to portray as benign an ideology which is objectively evil.
Norger says
Islam primary “contribution” to “science” in the last 50 years has been the development of the suicide vest.
mummymovie says
Don’t forget the multitudes of crude female genital mutilation devices.
gravenimage says
Every Muslim “Golden Age” has come when they conquered an advanced people, and before they completely ground them down with oppression and murder.
Want another Islamic Golden Age? Just let them conquer the free West. They should be able to live off such a rich corpse for at least a couple of hundred years.
mummymovie says
This shameless islamo-propaganda makes me want vomit in so many different ways. Since ” film is the media of our time”, Sax you so often hear them say, I guess it’s time for a Counter-Jihad production company; one that can produce smooth, high-quality films to counter and answer this kind of bullpucky, as well as the moslem sitcoms and crap like that we know is coming down the pipe any day, now.
It will likely have to be a heavily fortified office with guards though, as we all recall the tragic fate of Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam, and his stabbing death at the hands of moslem scumbag Mohammed Bouiyeri in retribution for his film Submission.
Excellently put together article, Andrew- lots of information.
Thank you.
.
FYI says
let us remember all those famous islamic inventions made by muslims..
The Flying saucer
the steam-powered magic carpet
the islamic hoover(won” work outside mecca)
the complete works of William Shakespeare
the planet Jupiter
science
Tensor Calculus
4D Relativistic mechanics
Albert Einstein
Any scientific discovery ever made by a Jew
gravenimage says
Here’s some excellent stuff from WikiIslam about those spurious “Muslim inventions”:
https://wikiislam.net/wiki/How_Islamic_Inventors_Did_Not_Change_The_World
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Mr Spencer, no one can deny the fact that Islamic civilisation is the basis of modern civilisation except ignorant fools. Muslims are now awakening to surpass in sciences and technology to relink with the past glory, despite all odds imposed by mithraist Christian West to weaken muslims to maintain monopoly.
D J says
Sadly Ibrahim there is not a Nobel prize for comedy.
You would be a winner.
Wellington says
“Mr. Spencer, no one can deny the fact that Islamic civilization is the basis of modern civilization except ignorant fools.”
Examples please. You know, Ibrahim, you really do need to cease with providing generalizations with no examples. It’s a nasty habit you have and I think it is due primarily to the fact that for Muslims facts are optional. I think not drinking good beer and not eating fine North Carolina BBQ ribs could be two other contributing factors.
Anyway, here’s how it’s done: Western Civilization, which pioneered freedom more than any civilization in history, invented philosophy (ancient Greeks), democracy (ancient Greeks), the scientific method (early modern Europe), and developed the greatest technological advancements of any civilization ever, including the steam engine, trains, the telegraph, refrigeration, electric lighting, cars, radio, planes, air conditioning, TVs, computers and satellites (oh yeah, and also figured out how to extract oil from the earth otherwise a place like Saudi Arabia would still be poor as dirt).
The Islamic world comes up way short by comparison when looking at its contributions to civilization as a whole, respecting which you named none. Gotta’ improve, Ibrahim, because right now you are woeful in argument. And it shows. Man, does it show.
gravenimage says
+1
Tjhawk says
The Judeo/Christian basis of western civilization is the host that islam has been parasitizing since the inception of islam.
A tick is to a horse as islam is to western civilization.
maghan says
Stupidly brainwashed fool, the cretinous Arabs would still be stuck in the Stone Age were it not for their plagiarism of Judaic and Christian doctrine–then later their crude mimicry of the scholarship of the Greeks and the Romans–by just a very few speakers and writers of Arabic.
Before that, all the intellectual efforts of the Ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Persians, etc. fell on the deaf ears of savage sand trekkers with their flimsy tents and their females stashed away as merchandise. Their only profession was desert brigandage, rape and murder. Their totemic animals were just camels, goats and sheep. Their vaunted weapons were curved knives and daggers.
It was a sad day when Standard Oil decided to drill for oil below the burning sands of Arabia.
gravenimage says
Ibrahim itace muhammed wrote:
Mr Spencer, no one can deny the fact that Islamic civilisation is the basis of modern civilisation except ignorant fools. Muslims are now awakening to surpass in sciences and technology to relink with the past glory, despite all odds imposed by mithraist Christian West to weaken muslims to maintain monopoly.
………………………..
Well, let’s see–Ibrahim itace muhammed has contributed to economics by telling us that economies should be based on enslaving Infidels; to science by telling us that FGM does not effect a woman’s sexual sensations, that male Muslim apostates instantly regrow their foreskins on leaving Islam, that said foreskins are “large” and “hard”, and that no matter how good their hygiene that non-Muslims are “bad smells”; to scholarship by informing us that the Bible instructs Christian churchmen to crucify and rape women and that Christian parents are taught to dip their hands in their daughter’s vaginas to see if they taste like wine before letting the girls’ brothers have incestuous sex with them.
I think we get a good sense of the glories of Islamic civilization just from this.
Also, the West does not have a monopoly on advances in science and technology. In fact, some nations like Israel, Japan, and Korea have also been very impressive.
But the Islamic world is pretty much a backward, stagnant crap hole. That doesn’t have anything to do with the West–but it does have everything to do with Islam.
Guy Jones says
The odious Ben Rhodes’ speech delivered by Obama at Al-Azhar University in 2009, made similar claims as the documentary film described in the article — that the west allegedly owes all of its innovations and inventions to Islam.
So, sure — I’ll concede that Islamic culture produced a few beneficial inventions, during the Middle Ages. But, two points:
1) What, exactly, have Muslims contributed to civilization, since the Middle Ages, intellectually and technologically-speaking? Nada, nothing, zippo, bupkis.
2) Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that Islamic contributions to the west were substantial, does that fact somehow atone for the innumerable genocides, atrocities and barbarism that Muslims have carried out against non-Muslim peoples and lands, for over 1,400 years, continuing into the present time? Obviously not.
Islam is not a benevolent or beneficial force in the world — it is a cancer, a plague, an ideology of evil, and, anyone attempting to state otherwise is either an outright fool, or, a deceptive dhimmi collaborator.
maghan says
Correct. Whatever people like Ibn Khaldun, Avicenna and others contributed to the “life of the mind” was IN SPITE of the barbaric nonsense that one finds in the crudely plagiarized Qur’an.
No sensible person would ever call Newtonian mechanics as evidence of “Christian Science” or Einstein’s theories of Relativity as evidence of Jewish Science–inspired by the Torah.
In fact, Einstein’s thinking was influenced by secular philosopher David Hume who was attacked in his day for anti-Christian blasphemy.
gravenimage says
Good analysis, Guy and Maghan.
Guy Jones says
For a taste of the historical revisionism that has now permeated academia, regarding a halycon view of the Cordoba caliphate, and, Islam at-large, of course (thanks to Leftist Islam-sympathizers and whitewashers), consider this marvelous piece of propaganda, created by some non-profit teachers’ organization:
http://www.c3teachers.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/NewYork_6_Islamic_Spain.pdf
JM says
To: RichardL
Yes, the Islamic world performs very poorly indeed in innovative scientific research. Only 3 Muslims have won a Nobel Prize in science or medicine:
Abdus Salam (Pakistani)
Nobel Prize in physics, 1979
BA, Ph.D, Univ. Cambridge
Institutions:
Imperial College
Univ. of Cambridge
Princeton Univ.
Ahmed Zewail (Egyptian-American)
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1999
Ph.D, Univ. of Pennsylvania
Postdoc, U. California at Berkeley
Institution:
Professor, Caltech
Aziz Sancar (Turkish-American)
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2015
Ph.D, Univ. of Texas at Dallas
Institutions:
Johns Hopkins U., Yale U.,
Professor, U. North Carolina
Note that all 3 earned their doctorates at top UK or US universities. 2 of them spent their careers in the US and became US citizens.
And even after winning his Nobel Prize, Abdus Salam was despised in his native Pakistan for being an Ahmadi, and therefore not a true Muslim. He even added the first name Mohammad, to no avail.
Bottom line:
1 of the 3 was not even considered a Muslim in his own country;
the other 2 earned their Ph.Ds in America, became Americans, and spent their careers in America.
Would this be the same America that Islam considers The Great Satan?
gravenimage says
And of those, one was an Ahmadi, considered a heretic by orthodox Muslims, and the of ther two were essentially apostates.
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Wellington, you don’t know Algebra introduced into mathematics by a muslim called Abubakar Razi ? In fact muslims modified crude Greek philosophy, Egyptian mathematics and medicine, persian Astronomy and architectural designs, and married them which gave rise to systematic scientific inquiries like chemistry, physics and scientific mathematics and medicine passed to the West through Andalusia and developed them that gave rise to modern sciences and technology. modern scientists have acknowledged these contributions by Muslims except you myopic bigot islam haters.
Wellington says
Now, that’s better, Ibrahim. Yes, always remember that generalizations must come with at least one example.
Sadly, however, your extolling of Islamic achievements is pretty much off the mark. Respecting algebra, its roots (excuse the pun) can be traced to the ancient Babylonians and ancient Greeks, though indeed one or more Muslims in the early Middle Ages separated algebra from geometry. And if you want to think of ancient Greek philosophy as “crude,” well that says a lot about you. As Alfred North Whitehead, one of the great mathematicians and philosophers of the twentieth century, opined, all philosophy since Plato is but a footnote to him. Moreover, Bertrand Russell, another great mathematician and first-rate writer on the history of philosophy, observed in his work, The History of Western Philosophy, on page 427 that “Arabic philosophy is not important as original thought. Men like Avicenna and Averroes are essentially commentators.” Besides, Avicenna and Averroes, second-rate though they be (though good second-rate) were each in trouble with Islamic authorities for what they wrote and so again we can see that any achievement or good in the Islamic world is so often done in spite of, not because of, Islam.
There is also the matter of many medieval Islamic achievements not actually being done by Muslims but by Byzantine Christians and Persian Zoroastrians, et al., though the Islamic world has taken the credit here (no surprise). Hugh Fitzgerald, among others, has written about this “appropriation” by Muslims of the achievement of non-Muslims under Muslim rule. And yes, some transmission of ancient thought went by way of Muslim Spain into Western Europe but, frankly, this was a mere conduit process and not indicative of anything sterling. I will also not that some medieval Muslims did good work in a field like optics but not to any great extent.
Finally, there is the matter of what the hell has happened to the Islamic world since the late Middle Ages? The dearth of achievement by the Islamic world for some 500-700 years now is embarrassing I should think to any honest Muslim (assuming there are such people). I mean the Islamic world over the last half millennia or more has been pathetic. No, I take that back. It’s been beyond pathetic. A dismal world of non-excellence and where the collective Islamic mind has been stultified by the tedious, draconian dictates of the Islamic faith.
But, I’ll close here on a positive note. You did well to try and cite examples but now you must work on accuracy when proffering examples. Give it a shot, Ibrahim.
Lebel says
“There is also the matter of many medieval Islamic achievements not actually being done by Muslims but by Byzantine Christians and Persian Zoroastrians, et al., though the Islamic world has taken the credit here (no surprise).”
Were these people living in Islamic States? if so, it makes sense for the Islamic world to take some credit. It’s not like these people were forced into hiding to work on their science. Some were paid handsomely and many were encouraged.
By the same token, it makes sense for the West to get some of the credit for the few Muslims who have won Nobel prizes as someone here remarked.
gravenimage says
In other words, were these people conquered by Islam? Then it only makes sense that Islam would claim the achievements of its victims…
Wellington says
Why, Lebel, would it make sense for the Islamic world to take some credit for these achievements, which the Islamic world surely does, ordinarily to the point of declaring such achievements “Muslim achievements” and with no asterisk that the achiever was not a Muslim? Can’t you even see that, virtually without exception, such achievements were done regardless of Islam and not because of it?
Besides, after the imams and their ilk really got control of the Islamic world by around 1200 A.D., any further advances by the Muslim world were few and far between. Thus, the ultimate and most important question to be asked is why has the Islamic sphere of mankind done so little since the late Middle Ages onwards? Even you can’t argue that the Islamic world from 1500 A.D. onwards has accomplished many wonderful inventions, developments, etc.
Gee, why is that? I submit (not meant in a Muslim way) that it is because for many centuries the Muslim world parasitically fed off of others, but when finally it was on its own the intellectual deadness that surrounds the Islamic faith, starting with the character of Mohammed (a psychopathic, albeit clever, character if ever there were one and who couldn’t even appreciate something as great as music) and that imbecilic work which is the Koran, insured that Islam could no longer prosper when left to its own devices.
Indeed, and how fitting, that the Muslim monsters that perpetrated 9/11 used technology that the Islamic world never on its own could have, or would have, invented. Ditto for much other Western technology, from cell phones to sophisticated military weaponry, which, no way, the Islamic world, purely and entirely and only on its own, would have come up with. This is why I say were I a Muslim and truly honest, I would be embarrassed by the dearth of achievements Muslims have made over more than 500 years now.
maghan says
Yes, but the bulk of the populations of those states were mostly illiterate and had no idea of what those apostates were doing or writing. For 99.99% of their populations, the only thing that mattered was that plagiarized text they called the Qur’an.
Eminent philosopher, David Hume(1711-1776) had it right when he described the Qur’an as a “wild and absurd performance”. Yet, people who call themselves Muslims are still bedazzled and mesmerized today by this “wild and absurd[intellectual] performance”.
maghan says
Arabs are consummate copiers and basically quite stupid. Despite living in a sea of Egyptian, Greek, Sumerian, and Persian civilizations, the Arabs are still weighed down by their primitive beliefs and their adulation of a plagiarized nonsense text they call the Qur’an.
The Ancient Egyptians invented geometry and algebra as is evidence in their papyri–especially the Rhind Papyrus and the Moscow papyri. First order ALGEBRAIC equations were solved in the Rhind papyrus.
https://www.google.com/search?q=rhind+papyrus+images&client=firefox-b-1&dcr=0&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjpuJ6qybLaAhXCbRQKHcyoD2YQ7AkIQA&biw=1067&bih=489#imgrc=Dzx3og6ZNwZAAM:
gravenimage says
Ibrahim itace muhammed wrote:
Wellington, you don’t know Algebra introduced into mathematics by a muslim called Abubakar Razi ?
………………………….
Abubakar Razi–Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Rāzī–did a lot of things, but he had nothing whatsoever to do with Algebra:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Zakariya_al-Razi
In fact, a later Muslim scholar, Abu Rayhan Biruni, criticized him for his active opposition to mathematics.
Moreover–interestingly–Al Razi has often been accused of having rejected Islam, so he is an odd choice for Ibrahim itace muhammed to use as an example. But, actually, this should not surprise–many Muslims who have actually achieved anything of note were often condemed as apostates.
And note that Ibrahim itace muhammed calls Greek philosophy “crude”, while lauding the subtleties of pedophilia and geocide.
Sam says
I can’t read the whole article. Sorry. i am sick of people whitewashing this evil cult Islam. All the historical, modern recordings, events, ISIS, Taliban. Bokoharam, 9/11, Boston marathon and thousands of terror attacks do not seem enough to indicate ISLAM IS THE PROBLEM. What will it take for people to wake up to this cult?
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Wellington has too shallow understanding. we are saying muslims improved human knowledge by systematising thém that gave rise to subject areas like chemistry, physics,scientific mathematics and medicine, which the West further improved that gave rise to modern sciences and technology. was this improvement made by Muslims not important contribution ?
Wellington says
Oh yes, Ibrahim, who could doubt my shallowness? I know you don’t, buddy, and I thank you for that. But next time don’t be so diplomatic. Tell me what you really think about me. I believe I can take it.
But, to digress a moment, what about all those SPECIFIC accomplishments by Western Civilization I mentioned in my 11:00 A.M. post today? You know, things like exploring freedom as no other civilization ever has (including women’s rights), the invention of philosophy (really, do you still think ancient Greek philosophy was “crude” in comparison to what medieval Muslim thinkers developed?; if so, gotta’ provide some examples, Ibrahim, as I already pointed out to you before), democracy, planes, trains and automobiles, television, computers, etc.
Yes, what EXACTLY has the Islamic world contributed in these areas, including, I might add, the capacity to apologize for past wrongdoings, Western Civilization being number one in this “category” here while the Islamic world has apologized for nothing, even though it has so much to apologize for, like engaging in black African slavery long before and still after the Western world realized what an enormous wrong it was and which civilization (the West) took many steps to end it. Or do you think slavery is still fine? Perhaps you think the rape of non-Muslim women who don’t “cover themselves” is OK too.
BTW, just generically mentioning achievements in chemistry, physics, etc., doesn’t cut it, Ibrahim. You know this or should know it. I’m thinking you don’t.
Your turn. As ever I remain
Shallowly yours,
Wellington
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Wellington,show me from your mithraist Bible where principles of democracy and basic human right originate. If you study the Quran ànd Hadith as interpreted by learned muslim scholars such values are enshrined. See Aljaza’iri :Fiqh Ala madhabil Ar’baa (Fiqh according to 4 sunni schools) vol. 3 and 4
Wellington says
“Wellington, show me from your mithraist Bible where principles of democracy and basic human right {sic} originate.”
First of all, Ibrahim, I don’t even know why you at all equate Christianity with Mithraism, which you have done frequently here at JW. I know of no connection between the two. What’s that all about? Please explain.
Second, I am not a Christian, I am not religious at all, and so calling it my Bible is a non-starter, but might I make the suggestion that you read one or more of the Gospels. I would start with Mark since it is the earliest (and shortest) of the four and Matthew and Luke are both beholden to Mark while John is easily the most philosophically oriented Gospel, which is to say it is the most difficult, and I think should be read last.
I mean why not read other religious texts? I have read the entire Koran (which I found to be dull, highly repetitive, desultory, hate-filled, menacing and stupid) and have also read all four Gospels and I must tell you that the Gospels for sheer interest, lucidity, overall enlightenment, an overarching narrative and other positives blow the Koran away, as does the character of Jesus stand infinitely taller than that of Mohammed as he comes across in the Islamic texts (Koran, hadiths and sira). I mean what are you afraid of? I detest Marxism but this didn’t stop me from reading the Communist Manifesto and some of Das Kapital (deadly dull like the Koran). Look at it this way, know thy enemy as best you can and all that. Besides, there’s always the chance you might convert to Christianity which I think would improve your life immensely.
Finally, respecting principles of democracy and basic human rights, the entire Judeo-Christian ethic as found in one book of the Bible after another, whether the Old Testament or New Testament, oozes the importance of the individual, contra the Koran which is all about submission, despising and conquest, and thus said ethic works wonderfully well with the democratic tenets first established by the ancient Greeks.
I see no true democratic tenets in the Islamic corpus, nor do I detect basic human rights unless submission comes first. You know or should know that in Islam there is only a Golden Rule for fellow Muslims while in other religions, certainly Christianity, there is a Golden Rule for all and democracy without a Golden Rule for all can only lead to sham democracy and nothing more. Huge difference indeed between Islam and other religions and one of the many reasons why I do not have a high opinion of Islam. Also, the Judeo-Christian ethic, contra the Islamic ethic, lends itself to liberty of mind and in society at large. Actually, no contest here.
Give a Gospel or two a shot, Ibrahim. Try it.
gravenimage says
Ibrahim itace muhammed wrote:
Wellington,show me from your mithraist Bible where principles of democracy and basic human right originate. If you study the Quran ànd Hadith as interpreted by learned muslim scholars such values are enshrined.
……………………..
Is that so? I have read the Qur’an several times, and a great many of the Sahih Hadith, and democracy and human rights are roundly rejected in these texts.
Moreover, Ibrahim itace muhammed *himself* has said that girls can be subjected to FGM, that no criticism or even questioning of Islam can be allowed, that female children can be “married” off no matter how young if their fathers decide to sell them, that homosexuals and apostates can be murdered, that infidels can be used as slaves and sex slaves, and that any Infidel who does not submit to Islam can be slaughtered.
Let’s just say that his ideas of democracy and human rights and those of civilized people are rather different…
Tjhawk says
You are right. All over the world, islam is a big problem. China/Uighers ; Russia/Chechens;
Myanmar(Burma)/Rakhine Province(Rohingyas) ;
Thailand/southern provinces ; Philippines/ muslim insurgents ; Belgium / Molenbeek ; etc etc etc etc. Everywhere they show up, problems ensue. Muslims have almost no capacity for the kind of self reflection that would be necessary for them to figure out why the free world finds islam to be a BIG PROBLEM.
JM says
The European Dark Ages were largely caused by Mediterranean routes being blocked by Muslim pirates. So Islam can at least take credit for that, if it thinks it will help its case.
What Islam cannot take credit for is reviving classical Western learning, which they claim. Moreover, the Muslims destroyed countless priceless non-Muslim masterpieces over the centuries. So they can take credit for that destruction as well.
Also, the best Muslim scholars were generally Persians, not Arabs. And one wonders how many of them were forced to convert to from Zoroastrianism to Islam in the first place. Most of the other excellent scholars were Europeans, usually working as de facto slaves for the Muslims.
As for Islam inventing “Arabic numbers”, that is a sham. These numbers had already been invented in India. The same goes for the number zero. The credit for all of this goes to Hindu mathematicians, a few hundred years before the beginning of Islam.
As for the thousands of brilliant Muslim inventions, these claims are the laughingstock of the serious academic world. Paul Joseph Watson and David Wood have some very funny videos about this farce.
The score for Islam so far in our comparative study of the wonders of Islam’s Golden Age:
You do the math (using “Arabic numbers”, please).
Hint: the “Arabic number” zero may be useful here.
maghan says
And Geometry and Algebra were long before invented in Ancient Egypt.
The Rhind Papyrus along with other such, offers evidence.
https://www.google.com/search?q=rhind+papyrus+images&client=firefox-b-1&dcr=0&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjpuJ6qybLaAhXCbRQKHcyoD2YQ7AkIQA&biw=1067&bih=489#imgrc=Dzx3og6ZNwZAAM:
gravenimage says
+1
Zenobia van Dongen says
Convivencia Debunked
Eduardo Manzano Moreno, a prominent Spanish mediaevalist, wrote:
1. The concept of convivencia has no support in the historical record.
2. Almost no information exists on Jewish and Christian communities during the Caliphate of Cordova.
http://islamophiliawatch.blogspot.com/2014/01/caliphate-of-cordova-and-convivencia.html
gravenimage says
+1
gravenimage says
Akbar Ahmed’s Islamic Mirage
………………………..
More disgusting Taqiyya and rewriting of history.
This creep took advantage of Daniel Pearl’s bereaved father in a series of fake “interfaith dialogs”–as though it was not Muslims beheading a Jewish man, but instead just a need for Muslims and Jews to talk.
He has also claimed that the War on Terror is a war on “Tribal Islam”. He also wrote a book titled “Islam Under Siege”.
He’s a nasty piece of work.