To: markomalley
Muslim civilisation was, in every instance but one, parasitic. It was the result of Muslims (who were originally semi-barbarous warriors from the Arabian Desert) conquering established civilisations through Jihad and then falling under the civilising influence of those they'd conquered. But, as the historical record shows, as the conquered - under the pressure of discriminatory dhimmi practices and the crippling poll tax imposed on them - increasingly abandoned their historic religion AND civilisation for the social and financial relief of conversion to Islam, civilisation declined, fizzled out and finally disappeared.
For at least 500 years the greater part of the Islamic world has been a cultural desert. And the reason has been the prevalence of Islam and Islamic ways of thinking and acting. And when Islam did have a civilisation it was little more than the appropriation and development of the cultural heritage of those they'd conquered.
The exception I mentioned is Persia. Without Persia a large part of the cultural achievement of Islam wouldn't have existed. But the Persians were heirs to an ancient civilisation before they were conquered by Arab Jihad. And in time they made a point of repudiating Arab Sunni Islam (recognising that traditional 'Islam' is the creed of the Arab) and created their own, national version of Islam, Shi'ism. The Arabs have always hated the Persians, who have always combined pride in their Persian national identity with contempt for the camel-herding desert savages (Persian poets are full of such insulting, race-conscious, remarks about Arabs).
Any country today that is overwhelmingly Muslim and lacks any kind of attachment to an earlier, non-Muslim heritage of high culture is an orphan of civilisation. No Muslim civilisation ever arose in the past except on the foundation of older non-Muslim cultural achievements. That's why, for instance, the moors could achieve impressive things in those parts of Christian Spain conquered by Jihad, but nothing comparable in their own native North Africa. That's why Muslims could make advances in mathematics when they were exposed to Greek, Babylonian and Indian influences; but as soon as an all-pervasive Islam came to regard these influences as an infidel taint, Islam's contribution to mathematics began to diminish until it could be summed up in one number: 0.
That is beautifully summed up !!
26 posted on
06/18/2010 9:14:32 AM PDT by
Cronos
(Origen(200AD)"The Church received from theApostles the tradition of giving Baptism even to infants")
To: Cronos; markomalley
I think the aliens in independence day were modeled after muslims. They were basically locust who took over civilizations and consumed the technologies without contributing newly to civilization.
28 posted on
06/18/2010 9:36:40 AM PDT by
FreeAtlanta
(Hey, Barack "Hubris" Obama, $10 is all it would take, why spend millions to cover it up?)
To: Cronos
Just to add to what you said, Persian art reached its zenith in the early 8th century a.d. They were turning out cultural works greater than the ancient Greeks and Romans at a time when most of European art was on the level of children's crayon drawings by comparison.
Then, guess what happened?
Even to this day, Arabs still resent the Persians because they know this is true.
33 posted on
06/18/2010 10:07:25 AM PDT by
Vigilanteman
(Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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