Posted on 09/20/2006 9:57:53 PM PDT by jdm
The recent brouhaha surrounding Pope Benedict XVI comments on Islam delivered in Germany should give Muslims a pause. Not one that would conjure the recalcitrant attacks that we have seen recently but rather one that would question why such a prominent religious leader would utter these words.
What the Pope said allows me, as a Muslim, to ponder self-examination and not rush into a reaction of condemnation.
Islam, throughout its history, delivered its share of great minds to humanity during times of peace and prosperity. Scientists like Mohammad al-Khawarizmi who invented Algebra and Avicenna who contributed greatly to medicine lived in an era of "political prestige, financial power, and intellectual pursuit with Baghdad as the epicenter" as Saadia Iqbal described it in a National Geographic article. We Muslims, in another era, built our own great and peaceful civilization that ushered the prosperity wished upon any people of any race in any religion.
But Islam of today differs from the Islam of yesterday. Instead of a thriving era of the Abbasids, we are experiencing a terrorist era of Wahhabism.
Wahabbism is an obscure strand of Islam with fanatical followers who remained "out of sight and out of mind" until Saudi Arabia struck it rich with oil. Hungry economies saw it fit to submit to the Wahabbis and their protectors, the al-Saud clan, rather than confront their danger. But this came with a price.
It was oil that financed 15 Saudis to attack the United States on September 11 and it is Wahhabism today that is militarizing Islam. Unlike the prosperous Abbasid era, the Wahhabi era is confrontational, fanatic, and universal because of undue influence by Saudi Arabia...
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Wahabbism and Saudi Arabia and oil.
Thanks, I added them as 'keywords'! :O)
See my tag line.
I read the entire column and concluded that this writer is giving thought to the Pope's words, but that not enough. More Muslims like him need to speak up.
Nice historical perspective, perhaps, but it's time to end the blame game, and consider the future. What Muslims need is a plan to rid themselves of these terrorists, or at least participate with us in doing so, or face condemnation right along with their radical islamofascist element.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html#Attacks
A Muslim invented Algebra?
That is the crux of the problem right there. To enter the 21st century they will have to renounce much of what they believe in.
As long as so many muslims live in poverty and ignorance the radicals will continue to grow.
If you and I got all of our news from Arab stations and our local Imam we would likely have a distorted world view.
"A Muslim invented Algebra?"
I knew there was a reason I hated that class 21 years ago!
No, they borrowed it from the Hindi.
The non-fundamentalist muslims are scared to death of the fundamentalists. They don't even know where to start.
Wahhabism, I am pretty sure, is the fastest growing Islamic sect in the USA.
Somehow I'd find this article a bit more believable if the non-Wahabis were to come forth and denounce the Wahabis. However, non-Wahabis appear to be as common as unicorns.
Fact is, they all support the bombings, killings, etc.
If they are the 'man with a tan' doctor in Fort Wayne, Indiana, you can be sure he supports 9/11, tacitly, and, of course, with his contributions.
I know just these guys; they hate the US, they hate us, and they are happy to let their more violent co-religionists do the dirty work while they sit by quietly and smile.
All muslims support the violence, beheadings, screaming mobs, 9/11-type terrorist acts, etc., etc.
All of them.
That op-ed is one that is certainly going to Rock the Casbah, huh...
Islam is dangerous. It's going to blow itself up!
This is quite misleading. The Arabic contribution was principally the promulgation of the decimal number system. In conjunction with this, they categorized various types of calculations, which included the solution of what we recognize as polynomials of certain restricted forms. This constituted ALGEBRA, but they did not have a system of symbology, and wrote out the specifications linguistically, e.g. "Take the square of the value and add to it twice the value" - like that.
So they did not invent anything that would be naively recognized as Algebra, as we learn it in school, and their achievements were very limited from a mathematical point of view. It was left to the renaissance Italians to conquer the cubic, and it was even after that that modern algebraic notation came into use.
Just so you know!
No it has not.
Islam merely adapted the brainpower of the cultures it invaded, and applied their label to it. Subsequently all progress invariably came to a permanent halt.
Review the accomplishments of the last 100 years. No muslim who has ever won any international award or recognition whatsoever, did so while working in a muslim country.
That odd fact speaks for itself.
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