Dross in Yet Another Islamic 'Golden Age'

American Thinker ^ | September 5, 2010 | Andrew G. Bostom

[Omikronos2100]

The myth of a golden age of rational Islam plays a critical role in maintaining the somnolence of America's establishment in grasping the implacability of political jihad. Currently (see here, reviewed 9/2/10 at The National Review Online), the Mutazilites, typified by the Abbasid Muslim rulers al-Mamun (r. 813-833) and al-Mutasim (r. 833-842) are being lionized as avatars of the kind of "rationalist freethinking" which might have spared both Muslims and non-Muslims from the consequences of traditionalist Islamic irredentism. These views are a contemporary re-packaging of idealized portrayals initially put forth by Heinrich Steiner in 1865, and reiterated afterward by late 19th and early 20th writers. All such romantic and apologetic portrayals -- past and present -- maintain the Mutazilites were "liberal" rationalists and freethinkers.

[Omikronos2100]

Andrew Bostom is an expert on Islam. This is a very educational article on the history of the myth of the Golden Age where us Christians, Jews, and Muslims got along just fine. It's a great historical piece, but it is relevant in today's war against the Islamists as people continue to talk about "moderates" and fail to understand what Jihad is

[kalee]

for later reading

[Happy Rain]

“Did you know Damascus had public lighting when London was but a village?”

King Faisal (Alec Guinness) to T.E.Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) in “Lawrence of Arabia.”

Both Islamist AND Socialist lies depend on movie studios.

[livius]

Very interesting article. Reading about the 8th century Muslim assault on the Byzantine Christian village, reminds me of how much I love the Islamic howling about the expulsion of the moriscos from Spain after the fall of Granada. First of all, the Muslims were not slaughtered and the civilian population was not interfered with; in fact, most of them were not expelled, but only the rulers and military who refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Spanish crown. One important ruler was actually allowed to stay and maintain his kingdom, until it emerged that he was rearming and planning to try to take over again.

The vast majority of the other Muslims were peasants who made their living from farming, and they were allowed to stay - until the 16th century, when they were also able to rearm, with the help of foreign Muslims, and carried out savage attacks on Christian villages on the Mediterranean coast. Many of these attacks featured locking the village priest and important Christians into the parish church and setting it on fire, as well as the usual hacking up of women and children.

At that point, the Spanish king decided that all Muslims had to leave. But he simply expelled them and did not sweep down and do to them what they had been doing to their Christian neighbors.

There is no non-violent form of Islam. Violence is at its root and core.

[Maine Mariner]

Well that could mean some type of oil burning lamps on poles along the streets. Very possible.

Electric lighting-not very possible and no evidence of any kind to support that idea.

[Maine Mariner]

Well that could mean some type of oil burning lamps on poles along the streets. Very possible.

Electric lighting-not very possible and no evidence of any kind to support that idea.

[Mrs. Don-o]

And yes, this is something I hadn't read before: that the Mutalizites, who were reputedly the most "rationalist" of the Islamic schools of thought, were actually among the most brutal, both toward their own co-religionists who were more "fundamentalist," and toward non-Muslims.

This ties in to what Pope Benedict was asking at Regensburg: is Islamic theology in any way amenable to reason, or are its authoritative teachers utterly opposed to reason as a component of theological inquiry?

The answer seemingly came quickly in the form of a couple weeks of denunciation, rioting and killing in the Muslim world. But the whole answer? I do not know.

[livius]

In my opinion, Islam is unreformatble because it is a false religion. Its idea of God is almost exactly the opposite of what God is: “Allah” is distant, vengeful, unknowable, capricious, abritrary, hostile and did not make man in His image and likeness. That served Mohammed’s purposes, all directed toward Arab domination and supremacy, but had nothing to do with God.

There is no way to “reform” Islam because it is fundamentally flawed...and fundamentally wrong.

[jmacusa]

Islam is the antithesis of any academic or scientific inquiry, discovery or debate. These subjects involve the freedom of thought and the freedom to challenge accepted and orthodoxy. Islam allows none of this. Islam means ‘’submission’’.