Last Saturday at the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America, presidential candidate Julián Castro said: “Muslim Americans for generations have been part of the fabric of our American family. They have helped make America the great nation it is.”
Every other day, it seems, someone takes it upon himself to instruct the West about what it “owes to Islam.” This is offered in a tone of intellectual reproach: how ignorant and ungrateful of the West not to appreciate Islamic civilization for all the things it has brought us.
Here is one recent example of such articles, by Constant Mews, who is head of the Centre for Religious Studies at Monash University.
Algebra, alchemy, artichoke, alcohol, and apricot all derive from Arabic words which came to the West during the age of Crusades.
What do these five English words, that came from the Arabic, prove? They do not prove any significant Islamic intellectual influence on the West. Algebra originated with Sanskrit mathematicians; Arab mathematicians became interested, and further developed the field; the celebrated mathematician Al-Khwarizmi gave that field its name, al-jabr (“the reunion of broken parts”), which when englished became “algebra.” But use of that word should not mislead us into thinking algebra was a product of Muslim Arabs; Arabs have convinced the world to overlook the Sanskrit mathematicians who preceded them in this area of mathematics.
“Alchemy” (“the transmutation of metals”), and the foods (“artichoke” and “apricot”) and drink (“alcohol”) are all taken from the Arabic, but what does this signify? That our Western civilization was affected because of this handful of words taken from the Arabic? We now have the words “apricot” and “artichoke,” but so what? Far more significant, it seems to me, are the Arabic words which in the last few decades have entered not just English, but all the languages of Europe: Jihad, Jizyah, dhimmi are words that tellingly encapsulate the relationship of Muslim Believer to Unbeliever. The Believer wages constant Jihad against the Unbeliever, as commanded in 109 Qur’anic verses. The Unbeliever in a Muslim land is supposed to pay, as a dhimmi, the Jizyah, a capitation tax, to the Muslim state, in order to be “protected” by the Muslims themselves from their attack; it’s a form of extortion. These three words tell us a good deal about Islam. It’s too bad Mews left them out of his little lexicon, but we know why.
Even more fundamental are the Indo-Arabic numerals (0-9), which replaced Roman numerals during the same period and revolutionised our capacity to engage in science and trade. This came about through Latin discovery of the ninth-century Persian scholar, Al-Khwarizmi (whose name gives us the word algorithm).
Note that Mr. Mews doesn’t dare to call these “Arabic numerals,” but instead calls them “Indo-Arabic numerals.” In fact, these numerals were invented by Hindu mathematicians in the 6th or 7th centuries, and the Arabs only appropriated them, a fact unclear in his telling. He does say they were introduced to the West through the writings of Al-Khwarizmi, but doesn’t explain that this celebrated Persian mathematician was merely the transmitter of the numerals, not their inventor.
This debt to Islamic civilisation contradicts the claim put forward by political scientist Samuel Huntington in his book The Clash of Civilizations some 25 years ago, that Islam and the West have always been diametrically opposed. In 2004, historian Richard Bulliet proposed an alternative perspective. He argued civilisation is a continuing conversation and exchange, rather than a uniquely Western phenomenon.
The “debt to Islamic civilization” is simply assumed by Mews to have been proven by his pitiful handful of unimpressive examples. What have we been offered as examples of that “debt”? Five words from the Arabic, numerals that turn out to have been invented by Hindu mathematicians, a link claimed between Dante’s Divine Comedy and an Arabic work about Muhammad’s Night Journey that Dante scholars have rejected, and another most unlikely link made between Robinson Crusoe and a 12th-century Arabic novel, when Defoe had before him the real-life example of a castaway in the tale of Alexander Selkirk. Some debt.
Mews misstates Huntington, whose thesis was that the “borders of Islam” were “bloody” everywhere, not just with the West. Islam, according to Huntington, had always been at war with all non-Muslims. The best example of this outside the West is the Muslim conquest of India, which ultimately lead to the deaths of 70-80 million Hindus.
Even so, Australia and the West still struggle to acknowledge the contributions of Islamic cultures (whether Arabic speaking, Persian, Ottoman or others) to civilization.
Australia is mentioned because Constant Mews teaches at an Australian university. When he writes that “Australia and the West still struggle to acknowledge the contributions of Islamic cultures,” he is assuming there is some kind of willful refusal to recognize those “contributions.” But it is much more likely that Western scholars are not going to be railroaded into finding “contributions of Islamic cultures” to the West where there have been none, or what there has been is trivial (like the words “artichoke,” “apricot,” and “alcohol”). They are not refusing to acknowledge what is truly there and significant, but struggling to uphold scholarly standards that are under such constant assault from those who insist, like Constant Mews, that the West owes a “great debt” to Islamic cultures.
In an initial curriculum proposed by the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilization, only one Islamic text was listed, a collection of often-humorous stories about the Crusades from a 12th-century Syrian aristocrat. But Islamic majority cultures have produced many other texts with a greater claim to shaping civilisation.
Mr. Mews should have listed a few of those “many other texts” here, just to remind us of how Islam has helped to “shape civilization.” It’s unclear if he means “Western civilization” or some “world civilization” that he now assumes exists. I can think of only one such influential text by Muslims that has helped to shape that “world civilization”: the Qur’an itself. Does Mr. Mews not agree that the Qur’an, which set Muslims on the path of jihad 1,400 years ago, a path from which devout Muslims have not wavered, even though in the West they now use different instruments, ought to be read by Western students? Hasn’t the fear of Islam that Unbelievers acquire from reading the Qur’an, and from the observable behavior of many Muslims, helped — in a negative way — to shape our civiization? Hasn’t the Qur’an caused Muslims to conquer many lands and many peoples? Hasn’t Islamic terrrorism in a few decades managed in a most fearful way to affect our Western civilization? Would Mr. Mews prefer that the Qur’an not be mentioned, for fear that reading the Quran might give non-Muslims the wrong idea about Islam, might mislead non-Muslims into thinking there is something inherently violent about Islam? That would never do.
mortimer says
Arabs were chiefly concerned with burning books, rather than writing them. Islam is the greatest extinguisher of learning and advancement in history.
The Islamic Golden Age was shut down by Al-Ghazzali.
Idania says
The only thing they have given to theWest, is HATE. Their only concern thru out the centuries has been to impose Islam by the sword, and in that quest their major contribution has been killing, killing , millions of human being they call “infidels”. Look at the Otoman Empire, Armenian only they killed ONE MILLION. Muslims are mindless fanatics.
Ren says
Is there an islamic golden age at all? Or is it just a hoax?
gravenimage says
The “Islamic Golden Age”–to the extent that it existed at all–was the last gasp of the cultures conquered by Muslim invaders.
Al-Ghazzali was an ugly figure, but there was no “Golden Age’ for the victims of Islam long before his influence.
mortimer says
Well phrased, GI. ‘…the last gasp …’ (of those vanquished cultures).
gravenimage says
Yes, Mortimer–if we wanted another “Islamic Golden Age”, all we need to do is let Muslims conquer the West…
Columbus Effa says
This is foolish talk
gravenimage says
What is foolish talk? That we owe anything to that savagery of Islam, or that we do not?
mortimer says
C.E.,
Islam is like an anaconda that strangles and crushes all kafir cultures and learning itself and then digests the victims turning every culture into ruins and barren desert.
Islam is a culturally barren desert and a retrogressive return to the ignorance of the 7th century.
No Muslim created a symphony or a paintings like those of Michelangelo or Rembrandt and few are on the Nobel Prize list. Coincidence? Or is it Islam’s hatred against ‘innovation’ (bida).
Innovation is another way of saying ‘progress’.
FYI says
Al kaseltzer …did the Arab muslims invent that too?
Or was that Al Capone:do you see how many Arabic words influence our everyday life?
Al Jarreau,Al Bert,Al Uminium,Al Pine,Al Buquerque,Al an,Al Imony..
Yes,We owe such a debt to islam for all these Arabic sounding words.
FYI says
And you notice that other cultures are ignored…
Bungalow,Shampoo,Pyjamas,Avatar,thug,Moghul,Gym,Yoga,Loot,karma[Hindu-Hindustani words}
what about the Hindu contribution eh?
Let’s not ignore the Hindus.
Hey, Hindus!Thanks for Zero:It really,really helps with calculations..
Watto35 says
At least two of those words – thug and bungalow are Chinese.
FYI says
see wikipedia
List of English words of Hindi origin
Thugee
bungalow: bangla
thug: Thagi thief or con -man
{The word thug comes from the Thugees who were assassins;the word is definitely Hindi,It couldn’t possibly be of chinese derivation as the Thugees were Indian}
gravenimage says
True, FYI.
TruthWFree says
Love your sarcasm, FYI!
jarmanray says
When I was young, the only Arabic word that I knew was assassin from cult Hashishin.
Michael Copeland says
FYI says “Hey, Hindus!Thanks for Zero:It really,really helps with calculations.”
It sure does.
The compiler of the Manual of Islamic Law, “Reliance of the Traveller”, however, did not know how to use zero. Each alphabet-letter-identified chapter is subdivided into sections which are given numerals. The numbers, though, BEGIN with zero and proceed to 1,2,3, and so on. This means that, for instance, item 9 is in fact the tenth item, and so on.
Real mastery.
SAFI says
Don’t forget Alabama
Keys says
Ha, ha ha, FYI !
Don’t forget Mo-bile and Mo-zuri and Mo-ped.
GreekEmpress says
And Mo-ronic?
(sorry, I had to try and get in on the fun—)
gravenimage says
And Alcatraz…
Columbus Effa says
Yes rather than writing books, they destroyed libraries in cities and left those cities with only the Koran which is not a history book
Watto35 says
They also burnt the libraries in Alexandria, the largest libraries in the ancient world.
SAFI says
Hey Columbus you think you’re the one who discovered America? WRONG!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbtB7hqDNPw
gravenimage says
For those who don’t speak Turkish, here is more on this insanity:
“Turkey’s top dog Erdogan: Muslims found Americas before Columbus”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/11/turkeys-top-dog-erdogan-muslims-found-americas-before-columbus
Paul says
They didn’t invent buggery/sodomy but they did perfect it.
For proof please travel around muslim lands. “Oooooh the sound of Nivea, its so arousing”. Iran.
Paul
Angemon says
That muslims have no qualms pilfering other people’s achievements and renaming them as their own?
Lilith Wept says
Go to the website “ forgotten Islamic history “ ( http://www.ForgottenIslamicHistory.com) for a truly sickening example of his moslems are re writing history, appropriating other cultures discoveries, achievements and triumphs for Islam and moslems.
There is a text book of this same name, Forgotten Islamic History available as well.
Just one example of the Lies on this site is….Islam was not spread by the sword, the moslems came to the Indian subcontinent and were welcomes as liberators, they were not invaders. The massacre of hundreds of thousands of Hindu were at the hands of fellow countrymen.
We can see this tendency continuing in the Defination of Islamophobia that was produced in the UK…
to claim that Islam promotes terrorism …islamophobia….
to claim that Islam is/was spread by the sword …..islamophobia
To claim that Islam is not a religion but a political,ideology….islamophobia
Apparently Moslem and Islam were responsible for everything !
IMO, this shows how when Islam subjugates a country and its people, that Islam obliterates that country’s history, and the achievements of its people.
Do we want that to happen in our country? Do we want someday to have our children taught that the first man on the moon was a Moslem, that all the great doctors who discovered breakthroughs and cures and all the inventors of wonderful things were moslems, and that all these discoveries were only possible because of Islam?
gravenimage says
Yes–a long history of Taqiyya.
Paul J says
If Islam is responsible for all these wonders we have in the West, why do they want to destroy it all and return the world back to the 7th century? The fact is they have contributed SFA to the advancement of humanity but have appropriated or destroyed an incalculable amount of what humans have achieved and produced. Which is why they want what is left destroyed; because it is NOT islamic. The military have a term for this sort of thing I believe; STOLEN VALOR. Pretending to be something you never were.
gravenimage says
So true, Paul.
SAFI says
Alcohol? What an awesome contribution to our civilization indeed! Please tell me that the Muslims are also the ones who invented bacon.
TruthWFree says
When your culture is based on the Quran and the Quran is supposedly your allah god’s un witnessed word to your false prophet, and it calls for fighting, killing and subjugating those who do not believe in your false prophet or his Satanic Islamic god, then you have little motivation to produce anything that benefits all of mankind who are mostly unbelievers (7 billion less 1 billion Muslims equals 6 billion unbelievers). Maybe that is why the tiny Jewish community of 15 million Jews in the world contribute more scientific and medical innovations than all of the over 1 billion Muslims in the world. YA THINK?
jewdog says
Columbus, and other intrepid explorers, wouldn’t have discovered America if the Muslim pirates hadn’t made trade in the eastern Mediterranean so dangerous. Also, we have made many great high-tech advances in airport security thanks to Muslim hijackers. Then there are all of the claims by Muslims of innovations and inventions that they never really made, but that gullible people credit them with. This demonstrates a useful technique for people who want to advance in their company by taking credit for their co-workers’ achievements. Dale Carnegie, step aside.
Wellington says
And the Nazis built the Volkswagen and Autobahn, Mussolini made the trains run on time and the Soviets constructed impressive dams. But none of this made Nazism, Italian fascism or Communism major contributors to the true advancement of mankind.
Pathetic what Muslims and non-Muslim apologists for Islam have to stretch for to validate a belief system whose achievements are far, far, far outweighed by it faults. Rather like Nazism, Italian fascism and Communism.
I rest my case.
gravenimage says
Not just that, Wellington, but a lot of inventions that Muslims are now claiming they had nothing to do with. Unsurprising given they are a creed that hates “Bi’da” (innovation) and despises productive labor.
Billy Chickens says
I don’t owe Islam one damn thing.
gravenimage says
Spot in, Billy.
gravenimage says
Spot on
Mr. Cohen says
“Most widespread among modern Semitic tongues is Arabic;
most influential upon the history of civilization is Hebrew.“
SOURCE:
The Story of Language (chapter 3, page 36) by Mario Pei,
published in 1949, 1965, by The New American Library Inc, NYC
BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Pei
Mr. Cohen says
ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ
by Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez
(published in a Spanish newspaper 2008 January 15)
https://jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/all-european-life-died-in-auschwitz/
===================================
I walked down the street in Barcelona,
and suddenly discovered a terrible truth:
Europe died in Auschwitz.
We killed six million Jews and
replaced them with 20 million Muslims.
In Auschwitz we burned a culture of thought, creativity and talent.
We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they
produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.
The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life:
science, art, international trade,
and above all, as the conscience of the world.
These are the people we burned.
And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted
to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism,
we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity
and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and
poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.
They have turned our beautiful Spanish cities into
the Third World, drowning in filth and crime.
Shut up in the apartments they receive free goods and services from
the government. They plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.
And thus, in our misery, we exchanged culture for fanatical hatred,
creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition.
We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe
and their talent for hoping for a better future for their children,
their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those
who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for
death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs.
What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe.
***** END OF ARTICLE *****
gravenimage says
What the West Owes to Islam (Part 1),
………………..
What do we “owe” to a creed that vows to conquer, enslave, and murder us? Stiff resistance, I’d say.
simpleton1 says
A great refutation against islamic claims showing up just how much of a looting ideology it is.
Islam just continues looting.
Tony Naim says
Lebanon is one country on this planet where multiple civilizations have crossed. The historical record is clear and obvious to any visitor. The most notable and prominent architectural remnants are Phoenician and European in origin. The Arabs have left nothing: no schools, no hospitals, no roads, no bridges. In particular, the last 400 yrs of Lebanon’s history were doomed by the Muslim Turks, who brought more calamities than anyone else. It was European missionaries, Catholic and Protestant , who rebuilt the educational system in Lebanon over the past 3 centuries. The American University of Beirut is a world renowned college, currently supported by the US government and consequently, by American taxpayers. the French Jesuits have their own college that educates Christians and Muslims alike.
The first printing press that was ever brought to the Middle East from the United Kingdom in 1604 AD was bought by Maronite monks in the convent of Kozhaya in Mount Lebanon. That press was instrumental in preserving the Arabic script.
If Muslims still read the Koran today in Arabic, it is thanks to the Christians. Yet, more than 150,000 Lebanese Christians were killed over the past 40 yrs at the hands of Arab Muslims, Mostly, by Syria’s Assad and by The Palestinian Yasser Arafat.
Keys says
Excellent post, Tony Naim.
gravenimage says
Lebanon was known as the Paris of the Levant before hordes of Muslims invaded in the early 1970s and essentially took over. Now they are run by Hezb’allah and used as a launching pad for Jihad against Israel.
Aussie Infidel says
Hugh mentions, “One recent example of such articles, by Constant Mews, who is head of the Centre for Religious Studies at Monash University.”
These useless dhimmis now infest our universities in Australia, and most of them have been indoctrinated in the ‘Schools of Excellence in Middle Eastern Studies’ which have been established up at these universities, with barrels of Saudi and Qatari oil money. They would make General Monash (after whom the university was named), thoroughly ashamed. Monash was arguably Australia’s greatest military leader of WW I.
Some time ago, I spoke with an academic from another Australian university, who also teaches religious studies. She also assured me that there was no violence in the Quran. She didn’t believe me when I told her that there were over 100 verses in the Quran alone that mentioned jihad against non-Muslims. I told her to check out verses 2:190-193, 2:216, 4:74, 4:89, 8:39, 8:60, 9:5, 9:14-15, 9:29 and 9:123, and gave her the urls to Bill Warner’s Political Islam: https://www.politicalislam.com/shop/, and
The Religion of Peace:
https://thereligionofpeace.com
But the next time I spoke with her, she said that “Those verses didn’t represent the ‘True Islam’!” How the hell did a person like this ever get a PhD? Where is her capacity for critical thinking and independent analysis? But what would I know? I only have a degree from the University of Hard Knocks – and over 70 years of experience with Muslims and their ‘religion of peace’.
James says
I recall that Obama supposedly told the head of NASA that one of his tasks was to spread the word about Islamic contributions to space exploration. But what were they? I cannot imagine what they were, probably none at all. In fact there do not seem to be any great contributions. Some people from these countries come to the West and do great things, but because they were in the West, not because of their origins. So, I would say we do not owe them much at all. Perhaps there are some things, but I never read of any in general. If anything they have destroyed more in the West than they have created that was positive.
Rob Roy says
0-9 have zero to do with arabic intellectual. a greek living under arabic occupation went through scripts from india! yeah!! in one year, more books in Spain get translated into spanish, than books got translated in any arabic language in 1400 years!!
Denny Penticoff says
The alleged Islamic Golden Age was, if it has any basis in reality, the greatest historical example of cultural appropriation driven by a supremacist ideology.
old Sweden says
Dr. Bill Warner talk about the history of Islam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wugWj42pLI
Frederick S. Gordon says
This is a must watch video!
tp says
Nothing.
IanB says
The West owes Islam sweet F A.
Islam is a calamitous burden on the West.
OLD GUY says
Yes and the moon is made of green cheese. Yet another nut case.
Reziac says
Contrary to popular perception, the Romans also had those 0-9 numbers, used in normal calculations, and IIRC borrowed from the ancient Greeks. The famous “Roman numerals” were mainly for historical inscriptions.
As to what else the West ‘owes’ to Islam… a reckoning, with interest.
Kerry Wade says
Some nut job told me that Muslims invented the combustion engine! Has anybody heard of this tripe? Be good to refute such nonsense
gravenimage says
Yeah–funny they never invented the motor car…
AP says
I would like Julian Castro, to write down the things that Muslims have contributed to the west. A total Zero, who probably heard some leftist spew this out. You said it, now prove it.
jca reid. says
Muslims & Islam have contributed the cube root of ZERO to the advancement of Mankind. They detest progress. As Islam & its adherents advanced across the Arabian Peninsula it overran places of serious learning e.g. Persia, University of Bagdad. In 1299 Muslims advancing in India totally destroyed the University of Nalanda. Probably at the time the world’s #1 place of study. Burned out a 7 storey Library & murdered 1000’s. The destruction, of the Library at Alexandria, Egypt, was probably not an accident, but arson. They could not even build their Mosques! They kept falling down! They then realised they had better stop killing the builders in the conquered lands of Arabia, India, China & North Africa! The style of present day Mosques are Byzantine & have been for centuries. In modern times they have produced only 3 Nobel Laureates in the sciences. [out of a 1.6BILLIONpopulation]. Helping them out here I am including Economics. Of the other 2, it is a half share of a Physics Nobel awarded to a Pakistani, (Muslim yes, Arab, NO). His partner, (supervisor), was actually a Jew! They actually at American Universities. Jews [out of a population of 15MILLION tops], have produced around 150 scientific Nobel Laureates, Even Scotland whose population has just recently broken the 5MILLION mark has produced more & contributed more to the advancement of Mankind in Engineering, Sciences, Medicine & Technology! What good is Islamism anyway?? The Islamic World depends on Western Foreign Aid. Even their Agriculture is so backward it is unbelievable! It is only the naïve Western Apologists & Libtards who give it any credence, which it does not deserve. Anybody else with a couple of working brain cells can see the entire dogma is complete Bullsh*t!!!
gravenimage says
And that Pakistani Muslim was actually an Ahmadi–not considered Muslim by all orthodox Muslims. Pakistan removed the word “Muslim” from his headstone. Classy…
Yaffle says
The word “apricot” is originally Late Latin (persica praecocia, or “early-ripening peach”), which was only later borrowed into Arabic via Byzantine Greek. So they owe it to us!