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To: FairOpinion

Sad.
Especially in that it was Persian and Arab Muslims that made the greatest strides in science and medicine in the early Middle Ages (on the other hand, they had plenty to build on from Greek, Syrian, and Coptic Christians, and Hindus from India) but at least they were willing to take knowledge from other cultures and improve on it.

Probably some of the Muslims in Mali and Songhai in West Africa during the later Middle Ages were aware of the discoveries of scientists like al-Razi and al-Hayyan.
Just more evidence that a lot of what is so scr*wed up about Islam today is a result of a decayed and degenerated culture.

Medieval Islam , at least among the educated classes in the great cities like Baghdad, Bukhara, Cordoba, and Palermo, was a cosmopolitan and relatively secular society, at least for its time,if not necessarily as innovative as it is given credit for (but at least willing to take advantage of and improve on innovations and discoveries from other cultures.)

So much of today's Islam has become insular and pathologically hostile to progress, particularly innovations and values from other cultures.

A young Muslim lady from Canada (I believe her name is Irshad Manji) wrote a good book about this called The Trouble with Islam. Hope to get around to reading it sometime soon.


3 posted on 07/03/2004 2:12:50 PM PDT by monkeyman81
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To: monkeyman81
So much of today's Islam has become insular and pathologically hostile to
progress, particularly innovations and values from other cultures.


I heard some commentator on radio musing that Islam's troubles date from
the invention/introduction of clocks.
He said that the Islamics rejected the clocks/timepieces brought from
Europe because they judged them too inaccurate to keep time for daily prayers.
And this rejection of Western inventions (for good or ill) carried on for centuries.

I guess until they realized they needed satellite phones, laptops, AK-47s,
Stingers, RPGs and the ability to ride jets and to fly them into buildings.
6 posted on 07/03/2004 2:18:41 PM PDT by VOA
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