Author |
Share Topic Topic Search Topic Options
|
Plutarch
Knight
Joined: 19-Sep-2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 80
|
Quote Reply
Topic: Hyping Islam s role in the History of Science Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 15:20 |
I face of a lot of debate that has taking place here at these forums, I think this article is due to clear up a few misconceptions:
http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4685
|
There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people. --Thomas Jefferson
|
|
Zagros
Emperor
Suspended
Joined: 11-Aug-2004
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 8792
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 15:56 |
no... what is this nonsense? Islam was in no shape or form proponent of science, it was the atmosphere within society created during the golden age of the Caliphate in which science prospered, many advancements were made and much was rediscovered from the ancients, much that may have otherwise been lost to the world at that time.
The Caliphate was a mould for the knowledge that existed at that time within Byzantium, Iran and India. Many of the said translations were simply continuations of works that were ongoing at the Sassanian academy of Gondashapur which during the Islamic age came into its own as a truly international centre for learning. Already, there were Christian as well as many other scholars there researching. They migrated from their native society because of the taboo against scientific research.
|
|
ok ge
Arch Duke
Retired AE Moderator
Joined: 29-Aug-2005
Location: Saudi Arabia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1775
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 15:57 |
Now, the myth that Muslims only translated the previous work of Greeks and Indians and just passed it to Europe is not far from arrogance. Of course every civilization will depend on anotehr civilization to start and then it will take off, but to completely ommit the role of a whole civilization in discoveries is very disturping.
After all, the Emperor Charlemagne was sent a brass clock by the Abbasid caliph, Harun al-Rashid in Baghdad. His advisors explained its mechanism as "housing devils" who move the clock
Anyhow, he was little smarter. According to the Emperor's biographer, it was:
... a marvellous mechanical contraption, in which the course of the twelve hours moved according to a water clock, with as many brazen little balls, which fell down on the hour and through their fall made a cymbal ring underneath. On this clock there were also twelve horsemen who at the end of each hour stepped out of twelve windows, closing the previously open windows by their movements
Tell me the also stole the mechanism from a previous ancient clock? Just an example. Meanwhile, you can scan or read:
University of Missouri < easier to read
http://web.umr.edu/~msaumr/reference/articles/science/contri bution.html
and the following:
Irving, T.B. The Tide of Islam. Cedar Rapids: Igrams Press, 1982.
Edited by ok ge
|
D.J. Kaufman
Wisdom is the reward for a lifetime of listening ... when youd have preferred to talk.
|
|
Seko
Emperor
Spammer
Joined: 01-Sep-2004
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 8595
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 16:04 |
I am by no means an expert in Islamic sciences but I am interested in why the author of this article made this statement:
The caption of a picture of Avicenna in the article in Science says that he helped bring about the Renaissance by
advocating the use of reason and logic as the way to gain knowledge.
If this means that Avicenna believed that reason and logic were the way to gain knowledge, he was not a Muslim. If he believed that they were a way to knowledge, with whom was he arguing?
I could quote many references from the Koran that advocates reason and logic. Avicenna would, therefore, be following the dictates of his religion. I fail to see the problem that the author of the article sees. Unless the author(s) had another agenda in his mind. Or maybe he feels that muslim history does not hold a wealth of important scientific discoveries.
|
|
Zagros
Emperor
Suspended
Joined: 11-Aug-2004
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 8792
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 16:05 |
The original article works off no historical misconception. It instead works off a perceived misconception within certain channels of mainstream media that try to promote an affinity with Muslims.
The Islamic empire in the early 6th. centuries were the inheritors of the scientific tradition of late antiquity. They preserved it, elaborated it, and finally, passed it to Europe (Science p3). At this early date, the Islamic dynasty of the Umayyads envinced an interest in science. It was the century that were, for Europeans, the Dark Ages, were, for Muslim scholars, centuries of philosophical and scientific discovery and development. The Arabs at the time not only assimilated the ancient wisdom of Persia, and the classical heritage of Greece, but adapted their own distinctive needs and ways of thinking (Hitti 363). |
what I was saying, more eloquently put.
|
|
Zagros
Emperor
Suspended
Joined: 11-Aug-2004
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 8792
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 16:06 |
Originally posted by Seko
Or maybe he feels that muslim history does not hold a wealth of important scientific discoveries. |
pretty much it I think; a historically worthless article.
|
|
Mila
Tsar
Retired AE Moderator
Joined: 17-Sep-2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 4030
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 16:55 |
A lot of this article is factually incorrect.
The most clear example to me is when the author claims: "We know of no
Muslim scholar or man of letters before the eighteenth century who
sought to learn a western language, still less of any attempt to
produce grammars, dictionaries, or other language tools."
There were several Bosnian dictionaries, in both Arabica and Begovica
scripts, compiled well before the 18th century. Vizier's in Bosnia and
Herzegovina spoke Bosnian, and by the size of their vakufs - including
centers of education and intellectual development - many could be
considered scholars.
I assume it was the same throughout much of the Ottoman Empire. Bosnia
was no means an influential part of the empire - just a restless and
beautiful border region. In more established areas, for example
Anatolia, these practices must've been much more common.
|
[IMG]http://img272.imageshack.us/img272/9259/1xw2.jpg">
|
|
Plutarch
Knight
Joined: 19-Sep-2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 80
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 20:11 |
Wow, it is a women who has been the only one to attempt a refutation of the article! I'm impressed.
The irony of Bosnian language is that its speakers, Bosnian Muslims or Bosniaks, are, on the level of colloquial idiom, more linguistically homogenous than either Serbs or Croats, but have failed, due to historical reasons, to standardize their language in the crucial 19th century. The first Bosnian dictionary, rhymed Bosnian-Turkish glossary authored by Muhamed Hevaji Uskufi , was composed in 1631. But, unlike Croatian dictionaries, which were written and published regularly (in the formative period 1600. to 1850s more than 20 Croatian dictionaries had appeared), Uskufis work remained an isolated foray. At least two factors were decisive: -Bosnian Muslim elite wrote almost exclusively in Oriental (Arabic, Turkish, Persian) languages. Vernacular literature, written in modified Arabic script, was thin and sparse. |
Bosnians knowing their own language seems rational enough, those dictionaries were the works of Bosnians, not Turks. And I don't think a Turkish Vizier of Bosnia knowing how to speak Bosnian qualifies as a "Muslim scholar or man of letters before the eighteenth century who sought to learn a western language."
Edited by Plutarch
|
There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people. --Thomas Jefferson
|
|
Mila
Tsar
Retired AE Moderator
Joined: 17-Sep-2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 4030
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 20:26 |
^ Well they weren't just Viziers, Plutarch. Bosnia was built by the
Ottomans from the ground up. There is very, very little in this country
that predates the Ottoman occupation. Even Catholic, Orthodox, and
Jewish places of worship and historical treasures - almost all of them
were built during the Ottoman Empire. So building a country is
different than ruling it. These men brought much more than leadership.
Gazi Husref-Bey, for example. The rhyme goes something like:
And the people will remember, in the years ahead
I built a mosque, a bridge, a han, and a school
History will remember, then:
That Gazi Husref-Bey turned Sarajevo village
Into Sarajevo town
Even such ordinary men blessed the country with so much.
|
[IMG]http://img272.imageshack.us/img272/9259/1xw2.jpg">
|
|
azimuth
Caliph
SlaYer'S SlaYer
Joined: 12-Dec-2004
Location: Neutral Zone
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2979
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 20:28 |
it didnt clear up any misconceptions, its nothing but pure "stormfront" type of debate which is based on whities and christianity being the superior race and religion.
whatever that means
|
|
|
Mila
Tsar
Retired AE Moderator
Joined: 17-Sep-2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 4030
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 20:29 |
As for science, for me, the Koran is science. The more I learn, the
more I'm amazed, speechless, at how compatible science is with the
Koran.
For example - the Koran says that God made the universe, and it is
expanding. The fact that the universe is still expanding we, as humans,
have only figured out recently.
The Koran says God made man from water, in stages. That's practically the definition of evolution, which I firmly believe in.
|
[IMG]http://img272.imageshack.us/img272/9259/1xw2.jpg">
|
|
Zagros
Emperor
Suspended
Joined: 11-Aug-2004
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 8792
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 20:34 |
Medieval Islamic opinions on uncivilised Europeans who allegedly became more intelligent than the rest of humanity due to the alleged harshness of their climate:
Geographer and philologist al-Bakri (d 1094 CE) says of the Galatians:
"They are treacherous, dirty, and bathe once or twice a year, then with cold water. They never wash their clothes until they are worn out because they claim the dirt accumulated as the result of the sweat softens their body."
Usamah Ibn Munqidh on Crusaders:
"I saw Franks as like animals possessing courage and fighting prowess though their character is rude. Their medical knowledge is in a crude state for I saw a Frankish physician cut off a leg on which an abscess has grown, causing the man's death. A woman afflicted with imbecility was diagnosed as possessed by the devil, the physician recommended for her the shaving of her head, and as her case worsened, he made a deep cruciform incision on her head, to chase the devil away, but the woman died in the process."
Sa'id Al-Andalusi's opinion on non-classical Europeans:
"Their temperaments are frigid, their humors raw. They lack keenness of understanding and clarity of intelligence, and are overcome by ignorance and dullness, lack of discernment and stupidity." |
Edited by Zagros
|
|
Plutarch
Knight
Joined: 19-Sep-2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 80
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 20:48 |
No doubt the Byzantines held similar opinions of there distant north-westerly neighbors, before, and even more after they were sacked. Although your last quote is more in reference to the Slavs and Bulgars than to the Franks.
|
There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people. --Thomas Jefferson
|
|
azimuth
Caliph
SlaYer'S SlaYer
Joined: 12-Dec-2004
Location: Neutral Zone
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2979
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 20:51 |
i found more posts from the same author,
Your query searching for Jonathan David Carson returned the following result(s):
The Established Religion of the United States October 7th, 2005
Liberals and Islamofascists September 29th, 2005
Original American Sin September 12th, 2005
We could lose everything August 30th, 2005
The not-so-golden age of Islamic philosophy August 19th, 2005
Hyping Islam 's role in the History of Science July 29th, 2005
i think this guy's phD is in misleading and misinterpretation of others work and articls.
|
|
|
Zagros
Emperor
Suspended
Joined: 11-Aug-2004
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 8792
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 20:55 |
The point being that Islamic scholars had no interest in learning the dynamics of NW Europe because it held little value for them because of the backwardness of the culture and society. There has been a polar shift in that respect over the last 500 years in which the Islamic areas are largely blighted by ignorance and poverty and Western Europe and its derivatives now have intellectual and scientific sway. Thus peple like you think that there is some inherant and genetically defined intellectual gulf between what you see as your people and the others.
|
|
Maju
King
Joined: 14-Jul-2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 6565
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 21:30 |
I'm sorry that Plutarch, after trying to stabilish the superiority of
Christianity over Illustration and trying to promote the ridiculous
racist idea that Blacks are intelectually inferior, now has taken
against Islam and women. It's obvious that this little guy is full of
prejudices and tries to reinforce them by rather fallacious
argumentations. Soon you will notice how he doesn't reply to your
well-intentionate answers but instead follows with his discourse in a
monologue. Another ITAPEVI...
|
NO GOD, NO MASTER!
|
|
Plutarch
Knight
Joined: 19-Sep-2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 80
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 21:49 |
The fact remains that it is only Europeans(due to their genetic inheritance) who have done anything worthy with civilization. Islam has never really contributed anything original to the world, exept perhaps outstanding wars of religious conquest. It took centuries for what was left of Hellenistic civilization(also lasting Indo-Persian achievements) under the Arabs to amount to anything. What were supposedly the glories of Islam, were in fact the dying embers of a great civilization that Islam had conquered and was in the process of destroying. The particular medieval nature of Islam could not sustain these embers adequately witch led to its downfall. That is downfall you speak of, that is the downfall that allowed for an unchecked European dominated world. A renaissance cannot take place, no less an ancient Greek miracle, unless a population is capable as an anthropologic group.
|
There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people. --Thomas Jefferson
|
|
azimuth
Caliph
SlaYer'S SlaYer
Joined: 12-Dec-2004
Location: Neutral Zone
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2979
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 07-Oct-2005 at 22:00 |
Originally posted by Plutarch
The fact remains that it is only Europeans(due to their genetic inheritance) who have done anything worthy with civilization.
|
oh really?
how come the first civilizations in the world aren't european?
where were the europeans 1000s of years BC? what civilization did they do?
about Islamic Civilization i would say you need to read more and see what did Islamic civilization add or did.
and as Maju and other said you better replay to the people who replayed to your post, then start stating what you call "Facts" which is obviously without any sources nor proofs.
|
|
|
Constantine XI
Suspended
Suspended
Joined: 01-May-2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 5711
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 08-Oct-2005 at 04:52 |
Europeans did, infact, build on the accomplisments of older non-European civilizations. Even the Greek alphabet, an instrument by which great technological and social change occured, was considered to have been derived from Phoenicians. Europeans did not first domesticate the horse, build cities, invent money, invent shipping, establish written laws or a range of other very basic achievements. They built on previous achievements and we can look forward to non-Europeans building on European achievements in turn. It is all one big world of interaction and exchange, not create and copy as you suggest.
|
|
Zagros
Emperor
Suspended
Joined: 11-Aug-2004
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 8792
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 08-Oct-2005 at 09:54 |
Like Azimuth said, surely if Western Europeans were so superior then howcome they do not have any significant civilization to speak of past 1200 years? They too, like every civilised people before them accomplished off the back of others' achievements.
|
|