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Turkish Minister: Muslims Discovered the Earth is Round
Arutz Sheva ^ | 30/11/14 | Tova Dvorin

Posted on 11/30/2014 3:19:26 PM PST by Eleutheria5

The Turkish Science Minister has become the latest public figure to make outrageous claims over Islam's hand in science and technology, the Hurriyet Daily News reported Friday - this time, claiming that Muslims discovered that the world is round.

"Some 700-800 years before Galileo, 71 Muslim scientists led by al-Khwarizmi convened by the order of the Caliph Al-Ma'mun and revealed that the Earth is a sphere," Minister Fikri stated on Thursday.

Fikri further claimed that a copy of the original document proving Islam's role in astronomy is currently in the Museum of Islamic Science and Technology in Istanbul.

The Earth was widely regarded as flat until the 3rd century BCE, when the Hellenists proposed that the Earth was a sphere based on astronomical calculations. Plato was among the early supporters of the concept of a spherical Earth, writing in Phaedo that "my conviction is that the earth is a round body in the centre of the heavens, and therefore has no need of air or of any similar force to be a support."

Fikri's statement does have a kernel of merit to it: indeed, around 830 AD, Caliph Al-Ma'mun did commission a group of Muslim scientists to calculate the Earth's circumference, using measurements of the distance from Tadmur (Palmyra) to Raqqah, the current capital of ISIS in Syria. The commission did, in fact, reach measurements close to modern values.

Fikri's fundamental error, however, is in who Galileo Galilei was; instead of pioneering Western acceptance of the Earth as a sphere, he supported heliocentrism, the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun. He was subsequently persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church in the seventeenth century for holding these views.

.....

(Excerpt) Read more at israelnationalnews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Political Humor/Cartoons; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 1178; 1492; astronomy; earthround; fethullahgulen; galileo; galileogalilei; godsgravesglyphs; greeklearning; greeks; islam; istanbul; magellan; navigation; phaedo; plato; popefrancis; receptayyiperdogan; romancatholicism; rop; roundearth; science; turkey
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To: Eleutheria5

Moslems are acting like Russians did in the Soviet era. There is nothing that was ever discovered, no great thoughts thought that some Russian Communist had not discovered or thought before.


41 posted on 11/30/2014 5:17:33 PM PST by arthurus
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To: Brother Cracker

And this was only after the patient showed up for an ingrown toenail.....


42 posted on 11/30/2014 5:22:21 PM PST by Thank You Rush
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To: Eleutheria5

“That is a simple rule, and easy to remember. When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane...”

— Mark Twain


43 posted on 11/30/2014 5:22:53 PM PST by EternalVigilance (Polling: The art of finding out if the public was suckered sufficiently by your last poll.)
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To: Eleutheria5

Lets put that in a drawer titled achievements...let’s look in a second drawer entitled “NOBEL PRIZES”.....since the year 700 A.D. there aren’t a whole lot of entries in that second drawer....


44 posted on 11/30/2014 5:24:15 PM PST by terycarl
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To: Alberta's Child

Not to mention that centuries in advance of the Poophet, his contemporary Eumenides was a pioneer in garment-making and tailoring, courtesy of primary client & noted author of the day, Euripides .....


45 posted on 11/30/2014 5:24:57 PM PST by mikrofon (Weekend BUMP)
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To: Eleutheria5

Finally!


46 posted on 11/30/2014 5:25:38 PM PST by uncitizen (I weep for my country)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...

Idiots. Liars.

Thanks Eleutheria5.


47 posted on 11/30/2014 5:40:26 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______________________Celebrate the Polls, Ignore the Trolls)
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Comment #48 Removed by Moderator

To: Eleutheria5

“Let Ye understand, my brothers, the Holy One Blessed HE through the trap created by our iniquities cast us amongst this nation, the people of Ishmael [Muslim Arabs] whose oppressiveness is firmly upon us and they connive to do us wrong and despicably downgrade us as the Almighty decreed against us (Deuteronomy 32:31, “Your enemies shall judge you”). There never came against Israel a more antagonistic nation. They oppress us with the most oppressive measures to lessen our number, reduce us, and make us as despicable as they themselves are. King David, may he rest in peace, saw through Divine Inspiration all the calamities that were destined to come upon Israel. Nevertheless [even though he saw all the other troubles], he still began to shout out and lament in the name of the whole nation against the oppression that would be occasioned by the Ishmaelites. David said, “Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!” [Psalms 120:5].
Notice how David emphasizes “Kedar” out of all the other Children of Ishmael. This is because that Mad Man [Muhammad] came from Kedar according to what has been published concerning his genealogy.”

— Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides, medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages (1135 – 1204)


49 posted on 11/30/2014 5:51:14 PM PST by EternalVigilance (Polling: The art of finding out if the public was suckered sufficiently by your last poll.)
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To: Eleutheria5

“Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

— Manuel II Palaiologos or Palaeologus (1350 – 1425) Byzantine emperor from 1391 to 1425.


50 posted on 11/30/2014 5:52:57 PM PST by EternalVigilance (Polling: The art of finding out if the public was suckered sufficiently by your last poll.)
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To: Eleutheria5

“Arabs have never invented anything except Islam... they have made absolutely no addition to the ancient heritage of Greco-Latin civilization. It is only a superficial knowledge that has been able to accept without critical examination the belief current among Christians during the Middle Ages, which attributed to Islam the Greek science and philosophy of which Christianity had no longer any knowledge. In the centuries that have followed, the Sectarian spirit has found it to be to its interest to confirm and propagate this error. In its hatred of Christianity it has had to give Islam the honour of what was the invention, and, if we may so express it, the personal property of our intellectual ancestors.”

— Louis Bertrand (1866 – 1941) French novelist, historian and essayist


51 posted on 11/30/2014 5:58:52 PM PST by EternalVigilance (Polling: The art of finding out if the public was suckered sufficiently by your last poll.)
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To: Eleutheria5

“Let us now calmly and impartially consider what manner of men the Mahometans in general are...

An ingenious writer, who a few years ago published a pompous translation of the Koran, takes great pains to give us a very favourable opinion both of Mahomet and his followers. But he cannot wash the Ethiop white. After all, men who have but a moderate share of reason, cannot but observe in his Koran, even as polished by Mr. Sale, the most gross and impious absurdities. To cite particulars is not now my business. It may suffice to observe in general, that human understanding must be debased to an inconceivable degree, in those who can swallow such absurdities as divinely revealed. And yet we know the Mahometans not only condemn all who cannot swallow them to everlasting fire; not only appropriate to themselves the title of Mussulman or True Believers: but even anathematise with the utmost bitterness, and adjudge to eternal destruction, all their brethren of the sect of Mi, all who contend for a figurative interpretation of them.

That these men then have no knowledge or love of God is undeniably manifest, not only from their gross, horrible notions of him, but from their not loving their brethren. But they have not always so weighty a cause to hate and murder one another, as difference of opinion. Mahometans will butcher each other by thousands, without so plausible a plea as this. Why is it that such numbers of Turks and Persians have stabbed one another in cool blood ? Truly, because they differ in the manner of dressing their head. The Ottoman vehemently maintains, (for he has unquestionable tradition on his side) that a Mussulman should wear a round turban. Whereas the Persian insists upon his liberty of conscience, and will wear it picked before. So, for this wonderful reason, when a more plausible one is wanting, they beat out each other’s brains from generation to generation.
It is not therefore strange, that ever since the religion of Mahomet appeared in the world, the espousers of it, particularly those under the Turkish emperor, have been as wolves and tigers to all other nations ; rending and tearing all that fell into their merciless paws, and grinding them with their iron teeth: that numberless cities are rased from the foundation, and only their name remaining : that many countries which were once as the garden of God, are. now a desolate wilderness; and that so many once numerous and powerful nations are vanished away from the earth! Such was, and is at this day, the rage, the fury, the revenge, of these destroyers of humankind!”

— John Wesley


52 posted on 11/30/2014 6:04:44 PM PST by EternalVigilance
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To: ForYourChildren
So, if he was the first person to calculate the circumference, for how long earlier was it commonly accepted that the earth is round.

It was probably very early in human history. Up until about a century ago, street lights were unknown and the celestial bodies were bright and very visible to most people every night of the year.

Anyone with just a little bit of scientific thinking will immediately deduce the shape of the earth by looking at its shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse. Plus, looking at the moon every night for many years will tell a good observer its shape. The similarities must have been obvious, even in the stone age.

53 posted on 11/30/2014 6:08:11 PM PST by CurlyDave
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To: ExCTCitizen
The only thing I'll give Islam is the Arabic numbers.

I don't think they get that either....the Arabs maybe.

54 posted on 11/30/2014 6:17:13 PM PST by ROCKLOBSTER (Celebrate "Republicans Freed the Slaves Month")
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To: Eleutheria5

300 BC, Euclid calculated the circumference of the earth. 1000 years before the pedophile was whelped.


55 posted on 11/30/2014 6:28:30 PM PST by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office.)
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To: PIF
like the Europeans of the Dark Ages, willfully ignorant . . . that the Earth is a sphere.
You subscribe to the myth that the Europeans thought the earth was flat.

It is not necessary to assume that in order to reject the idea of sailing West to reach the Orient. It is only necessary to have a good estimate of the radius of the earth, and to not assume that there is land West of Spain until you reach the Orient. Try looking at a globe, assume away the Americas, and see if you would sail West to reach the Orient. You wouldn’t; the Great Circle path between Spain and, say, Japan goes pretty much North from Spain.

That’s for starters. If you did sail straight West from Spain, assuming you didn’t find previously undiscovered land in between, what would your chances be of sailing a boat across, not just the Atlantic, but the entire Pacific Ocean without provisioning???


56 posted on 11/30/2014 6:41:21 PM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion ("Liberalism” is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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To: Eleutheria5

Well, now we know what NASA has been doing under Obama . . .


57 posted on 11/30/2014 6:48:05 PM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion ("Liberalism” is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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To: Brother Cracker

Damn!
That’s how you shear steel bolt heads off.


58 posted on 11/30/2014 6:51:22 PM PST by right way right (America has embraced the suck of Freedumb.)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

I have no idea what you are attempting to say with the citation you used.

The premise of your “argument” seems to be that one must first know that the Earth is round, else how do you compute a radius? The rest of your “argument” is specious at best, and not based on history.

Historically, Europeans did not attempt any open ocean voyages because they would surely fall off the edge; further, their entire astronomical system was predicated on an Earth Centric model which precludes distance navigation - if they had an accurate navigational system which they did not.

The only maps which could have indicated otherwise were heavily guarded, tightly-held state secrets kept in the library in Lisbon, Portugal. They were all destroyed in the 1755 earthquake.

That the European peoples of the Middle Ages thought the Earth was flat is not a myth, but history.

It was not until another century had past that Europe even began to approach the level of civilization existing prior to the fall of Rome in A.D. 476. Many of those “discoveries” made were but a rediscovery of what was known thousands of years prior - the 1608 “invention” of the telescope by Lippershey is one example.


59 posted on 12/01/2014 4:13:30 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: PIF
You seem to indicate that the Romans knew the earth was round, and knew its radius. But they didn’t try to explore further west than Spain and England. It wouldn’t have made any sense to try, because - for practical purposes, a 4000 mile radius was infinity to them. They lacked the technology to sail that far.

Well, Columbus didn’t have the technology to have done it, either - he had to underestimate the radius dramatically in order to think, as certainly he indicated he did think when he called the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere “Indians,” that he had sailed all the way from Spain to Asia. Or even to contemplate the attempt.

That the European peoples of the Middle Ages thought the Earth was flat is not a myth, but history.

You are bluffing. You can’t back that up with history, only with the arrogant babbling of Darwinists who wanted to sell the idea that everything that came before them was ignorant superstition.

60 posted on 12/01/2014 4:36:08 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion ("Liberalism” is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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