Barack, is that you?
That “intellectual flowering” was the conquest of areas which and Greek and Roman libraries, which they translated and claimed as their own discoveries.
Nobody in the west knew better at that time because of the Catholic Church hoarding and hiding old manuscripts, so everybody just thought the Arabs were brilliant.
http://www.aina.org/books/hgsptta.htm
Nonsense.
Inbreeding doesn’t help, either.
This is very much disputed by historians. Islam appropriated existing knowledge gained from the classical world, particularly Greece, and used it in certain spots for the good of the Empire. Totalitarian regimes can do that - gather known science in one place for a specific purpose - a grand building, a particular military technology. Just look at the Soviet Union. Yes - they created huge bombs and missiles (at great expense and with ideas stolen elsewhere) but society was a wreck.
In his very helpful book, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born, D. James Kennedy gives a list of some of the outstanding Bible-believing scientists who gave the lead in founding the following branches of science. This list is worth repeating:
Antiseptic Surgery Joseph Lister
Bacteriology Louis Pasteur
Calculus Isaac Newton
Celestial Mechanics Johannes Kepler
Chemistry Robert Boyle
Comparative Anatomy Georges Cuvier
Dimensional Analysis Lord Rayleigh
Dynamics Isaac Newton
Electronics John Ambrose Fleming
Electrodynamics James Clerk Maxwell
Electromagnetics Michael Faraday
Energetics Lord Kelvin
Entomology of Living Insects Henri Fabre
Field Theory James Clerk Maxwell
Fluid Mechanics George Stokes
Galactic Astronomy Sir William Hershel
Gas Dynamics Robert Boyle
Genetics Gregor Mendel
Glacial Geology Louis Agassiz
Gynaecology James Simpson
Hydrography Matthew Maury
Hydrostatics Blaise Pascal
Ichthyology Louis Agassiz
Isotopic Chemistry William Ramsey
Model Analysis Lord Rayleigh
Natural History John Ray
Non-Euclidean Geometry Bernard Riemann
Oceanography Matthew Maury
Optical Mineralogy David Brewster
Where did it all go wrong? My bet is on centuries of first-cousin marriages.
When you invade a country that is making tech progress, can you call that progress your own?
"The period between the 9th and 11th centuries AD, when Islam took hold of a band of territory strategy from Spain in the West through to what is now Pakistan, saw an extraordinary intellectual flowering.
Any extraordinary intellectual flowering that took place within any territory taken hold by Islam within the first two centuries was from pre-existing science and/or any lingering scholarship surviving the ritual elimination of jahiliyya (material destroyed because it did not conform to Islamic precedent) or from the dhimmi or recently reverted populations who maintained remnants of traditional scientific study.
There is little to no existence of proof of such 'scholarship' where none existed before, just as the decimation of the millions of castrated black slaves have no visible legacy remaining in modern day Arabia.
Well, no.
You see at that time all schools were and always had been religious.
There was no such thing as a secular school.
But the authors, apparently true to their publication's name, have no interest in logic or morals but are going on a purely emotional appeal.
If they were following logos and ethos they would have written "How religious mohammedan schools led to the decline of Arabic science"
This story is presented as about Muslims, but really it”S an attack on Christians. But many conservatives will jump on it and not sees it”S true purpose, because it’s “attacking Muslims.’
The Romans, Greeks, Persians, and Hindus were polytheists. To them the universe was the playground of many gods, all of whom had their own interests. Experimental science was impossible in such cultures. "Don't bother studying some phenomenon. It's merely the whim of some god."
Christianity insisted that there was a rational God who had created a rational universe. Yes, God was the fundamental cause of the universe, but He filled it with secondary causes. Studying the universe made sense because it meant studying the handiwork of God.
Islam denies the existence of secondary causes. Everything happens (or doesn't) at the will of Allah. As one Muslim philosopher wrote, bringing a flame to a piece of paper doesn't cause the paper to burn; Allah wills the paper to burn.
To a Muslim, the idea of "secondary causes" puts a limit on Allah's power. Therefore everything happens as the direct will of Allah. The universe is therefore unpredictable, and even irrational.
It's no wonder science never developed in Muslim countries. When I was teaching in Turkey, I often wondered how my Muslim students could, at the same time, believe that everything happened at the will of Allah, and that rational engineering design made sense. I still don't understand it.
And in the 11th Century, out of the Sudan came Yusef Ben Texum who proceeded to preach Jihad against the moorish kings, overthrew their kingdoms and threatened Moorish Spain.
From EL CID
“The Prophet has commanded us
to rule the world.
Where in all your land of Spain
is the glory of Allah?
When men speak of you,
they speak of poets...
music makers, doctors, scientists.
Where are your warriors?
You dare call yourselves
sons of the Prophet?
You have become women!
Burn your books.
Make warriors of your poets.
Let your doctors invent
new poisons for our arrows.
Let your scientists
invent new war machines.
And then, kill!
Burn.
Infidels live on your frontiers.
Encourage them to kill each other.
And when they are weak and torn...
I will sweep up from Africa...
and thus the empire of the one God,
the true God Allah...
- Allah is the one God.
- will spread.
First, across Spain.
Then, across Europe.
Then, the whole world!”
Every time this subject comes up in here, I remember one exchange that still makes me laugh:
First poster: The Arabs only real contribution of their own was the invention of condoms from goat guts.
Second poster: But the Chinese saw that and made them better - they take them out of the goats first!!
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Many of their great scientists were not Arabs either. They were Assyrians.
http://www.ninevehsoft.com/fiorina.htm
http://www.christiansofiraq.com/assyriancontributionstotheislamiccivilization.htm
http://www.aina.org/news/20150906033156.htm
http://www.aina.org/books/hgsptta.htm
Many of the stories coming from the 19th century about the importance of “Arab” science are myths:
http://www.aina.org/articles/greek2.htm
What and when was the last Arab technological breakthrough in science or other tech area? Where is the Arab equivalent to Boeing, Airbus, Intel, Apple, Microsoft? They can use these products, but they cannot invent them or develop them or bring them to a developing market. The veneer of 21st century civilization is very thin in the Muslim dominated areas of the world. Beneath it lies the same old 7th century Islamic death cult that's been destroying lives and civilizations for 1,400 years. Islam offers nothing but backwardness and stagnation for the countries that embrace it.
How Islamic Inventors Did Not Change The World
https://wikiislam.net/wiki/How_Islamic_Inventors_Did_Not_Change_The_World
Most of arabic science/math is actually indian science/math coming via translation/ knowledge transfer after arab conquest of Sindh in 9th century.
The title, “Religious Schools...” is such a loose descriptive, employed when the writer is either concerned with political correctness or else is lazy. It is akin to the phrase, “those people” and requires the same amount of thought and intellectual capacity as does the use of the “F-bomb” by 13 year olds and Hollywood writers.
A more enlightening title might have said, “Educational institutions which prohibit open inquiry, vigorous discussion and sound logic led to the decline of **** science. Often, “religious schools” are in this category, but that religion may be Islam or it may be Secularism or it may be the religion of “Settled Science”.
George Washington Carver once asked God to “show me the secrets of the Universe”. He said that God replied, “No, but I will show you the secret of the peanut.”
Isaac Newton said these things:
“We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatever.”
“No sciences are better attested than the religion of the Bible.”
“To me there has never been a higher source of earthly honor or distinction than that connected with advances in science.”