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What, Exactly, are the Great Achievements of the Islamic World?
moi

Posted on 01/11/2002 8:52:14 AM PST by ml/nj

Today in the WSJ, Karen Elliot House reviews a new book from Bernard Lewis entitled What Went Wrong. She begins this way:

How has it come to pass that a civilization that for centuries led the world in science, medicine, and the arts ...
Does anyone know what contribution the Islamic world made to science besides giving us our number system (admittedly a biggie) and naming a bunch of stars (less big)? Algebra may have Arabic roots linguistically, but I cannot think of a single concept or theorem that we credit to the Arabs. The Greeks are all over geometry. The Arabs supposedly preserved this and passed it along, but did they contribute? I don't know. I'm asking.

Ditto for medicine. What did they do? (Stop the bleeding when they chopped off someones hand?)

And if House just said "Art," maybe, but Arts? The Islamic architecture should certainly be considered "leading," but is there any philosophy or literature that anyone pays attention to along the lines of Maimonades or Aquinas?

ML/NJ


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: clashofcivilizatio; muslimworld; religionofpeace; religionofpieces; suicidebombers
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To: ml/nj
What the heck do we care what Moslems did 1000 years ago. It's irrelevant to the present Moslems- as ancient Greeks to the present Greeks. What have they contributed in the last 150 years?
61 posted on 01/11/2002 12:36:00 PM PST by imperator2
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To: imperator2
What the heck do we care what Moslems did 1000 years ago.

Is that the Royal "We"?

If you don't know or care why people care, then it's a mystery to me why you bother to read and comment on this thread.

The short answer is that it's a clue as to what they might be doing tomorrow.

ML/NJ

62 posted on 01/11/2002 1:41:48 PM PST by ml/nj
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To: Lent
I have nothing to say, do you?
63 posted on 01/11/2002 1:47:30 PM PST by onyx
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To: ml/nj
Islam has been brain dead for 150 years or more. The Islam of the Middle Ages is far different that it is now.
64 posted on 01/11/2002 1:49:44 PM PST by imperator2
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To: kezekiel
PBS produced a film about this called "The Empire of Islam." Here's a link to the section of the website that recaps their contributions in Algebra and Trigonometry, Engineering, Astronomy, Medicine, and Paper & Publishing. No comment on the content from me, because I took the time to look it up but now I have to get back to work, so I don't have time to read it.

Thanks for the link.

I know you said you didn't have time to look, but I just did. There is some stuff to follow up on there but most of the "innovations" seem to be translating information from the original into Arabic, rather than destroying it. For example:

At the House of Knowledge founded in Baghdad by the Abbasid caliph Mamun, scientists translated many texts from Sanskrit, Pahlavi or Old Persian, Greek and Syriac into Arabic, notably the great Sanskrit astronomical tables and Ptolemy's astronomical treatise, the Almagest. Muslim astronomers accepted the geometrical structure of the universe expounded by Ptolemy, in which the earth rests motionless near the center of a series of eight spheres, which encompass it, but then faced the problem of reconciling the theoretical model with Aristotelian physics and physical realities derived from observation.
The bad news is that I surfed around a bit and found this from the description of the life of Muhammad:
Muhammad, surrounded by his followers, lived in Medina for ten years, slowly winning over converts. Muhammad made repeated attempts to attract the Jews to his cause, for example, he directed that believers worship like the Jews in the direction of Jerusalem. Ultimately these attempts failed, and henceforth Muslims prayed in the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca. Muhammad's native town, which had long been a center of paganism, thereby became the center of the true religion, the focal point of the believers' daily prayer, and eventually the object of their annual pilgrimage.

Raiding and warfare were the primary economic activities of the new community in Medina, and the rich caravans organized by the Quraysh of Mecca were particularly attractive targets. In 628, Muhammad finally negotiated a truce with the Meccans and in the following year returned as a pilgrim to the city's holy sites. The murder of one of his followers provoked him to attack the city, which soon surrendered. Muhammad acted generously to the Meccans, demanding only that the pagan idols around the Kaaba be destroyed. Muhammad's prestige grew after the surrender of the Meccans. Embassies from all over Arabia came to Medina to submit to him. Muhammad's extraordinary life and career were cut short by his sudden death on June 8, 632, aged about sixty, less than a decade since he had set off from Mecca with his small band of followers.

This is so cleansed that it doesn't even agree with the Islamic sources: Nothing about slaughtering the Jews who didn't want to be converted; He needed to be "provoked" to attack. To my mind this balderdash renders the enitre site as unreliable.

ML/NJ

65 posted on 01/11/2002 2:00:11 PM PST by ml/nj
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To: GEC
Does anyone know what contribution the Islamic world made to science besides giving us our number system (admittedly a biggie

Adapted from the Hindus by the way!

66 posted on 01/11/2002 2:09:26 PM PST by Lent
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To: Non-Sequitur
Thanks for an informative reply.

ML/NJ

67 posted on 01/11/2002 2:16:14 PM PST by ml/nj
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Comment #68 Removed by Moderator

To: denydenydeny
The achievements of Islamic civilization are all on the far corners of the Islamic world, products either of non-Arab peoples long ago(the mosques of Sinan in Turkey; the poetry and painting of Persia; the Taj Mahal in India) or in synthesis with other peoples (as with the Muslim/Christian/Jewish culture of Moorish Spain).

"Arabic numbers" are of Hindu origin.

Exactly right. Any "accomplishments" are largely the result of exploiting the existing dhimmi Christians, Jews, Zorastrians, etc. These were the foundation. Particularly in the Ottoman Empire, the backbone of the empire were the Greek and Armenian Christians.

69 posted on 01/11/2002 2:22:17 PM PST by Lent
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To: ml/nj
My pleasure.
70 posted on 01/11/2002 3:49:24 PM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: ml/nj
Can't think of a darn thing.
71 posted on 01/11/2002 3:53:55 PM PST by Great Dane
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To: ml/nj
Ditto for medicine. What did they do?

I'm not sure Islam has anything to do with it, but some of the world's preeminent neurosurgeons were born, reared, and educated (at least in part) in Muslim countries, e.g., M. Gazi Yasargil, who is from Turkey.

Yasargil pioneered most of the advanced microsurgical techniques in use to today for resecting brain tumors and treating aneurysms.

72 posted on 01/11/2002 3:58:15 PM PST by Kevin Curry
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To: Polybius
Thanks for your post. I appreciate the insight you have provided.
73 posted on 01/11/2002 4:42:58 PM PST by JeepInMazar
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To: Non-Sequitur
That's a rather amazing list. Why did it stop? What happened to the Islamic world that put the brakes on it like that?
74 posted on 01/11/2002 4:53:59 PM PST by McGavin999
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To: Restorer
"There was a great cultural exchange between Byzantine and Italian Renaissance scholars during this period that did more to diffuse Classical learning in the West than Arabs ever did."

Perhaps, but this did not occur to any significant amount till after 1400. By that time, a lot of Greek learning had made its way into Western Europe thru Spain and other Moslem conduits. I contend that this earlier Greek learning was far more influential in the history (even the formation) of Western civilization than some humanistic polishing acquired during the Renaissance.

Without the Greek modes of thought transmitted by the Moslems, it is unlikely there would have been a High Middle Ages or a Renaissance.

Again, I believe that Moslems are being given far too much credit for the transmission of Greek thought.

To say that cultural exchange between Constantinople and the West "did not occur to any significant amount till after 1400" erases the Fourth Crusade and the Latin Empire of Constantinople from the pages of history.

In 1203-1204, the Doge of Venice persuaded the Fourth Crusaders to attack Venice's maritime rival, Constantinople, as payment for Venetian sea transport of the Crusaders. Constantinople was conquered by the Fourth Crusaders in 1204.

From 1204 to 1261, the Catholic West ruled Constantinople as the Latin Empire of Constantinople.

The greatest conduit of Greek thought and Greek treasures into the Europe of the Middle Ages was the Most Serene Republic of Venice and not the Arab world. The Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204 wasn't nice and it wasn't pretty but it did give the West, principally Venice, a 57 year long rule over the direct descendant of the Eastern Roman Empire.

The Fourth Crusade - Sack of Constantinople

THE FOURTH CRUSADE AND THE AFTERMATH

75 posted on 01/12/2002 3:08:03 AM PST by Polybius
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To: McGavin999
Most of the men listed did their work in the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th centuries although some were later. In his book "The Discoverers" Daniel Boorstin suggests that the conflicts with the Christian west ended the translation of the work of Arab scholars into Latin and since the Arab world was late in adopting the printing press most discoveries made after then would have been poorly documented and could have been lost. Add to that the insularity of the Arab world and oppressive governments, and the environment necessary to foster science and discovery eventually died away.
76 posted on 01/12/2002 3:27:46 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: ml/nj
"In Egypt, on a fresh water canal, I saw a man defecating in the water, while below him at a distance of not more than ten yards, women were washing clothes, and a short distance further downstream a village populace was drawing drinking water. "
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"All of the animals are head shy and many are blind as a result of the 'cheerful' Arab custom of beating them on the head with a stick."
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"It seems to me a certainty that the fatalistic teachings of Mohammed and the utter degradation of the Arab women are the outstanding causes for the arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly as he was around the year 700, while we have been developing."
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"It took me a long time to realize just how much a student of medieval history could gain from observing the Arab."

- Gen. George S. Patton -
77 posted on 01/12/2002 3:50:16 AM PST by Spruce
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To: ml/nj
Islam is 230 years away from a 'reformation' which will usher in their own age of reason, enlightenment and achievement.


BUMP

78 posted on 01/12/2002 3:58:13 AM PST by tm22721
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Comment #79 Removed by Moderator

To: ml/nj
Don't hold me to this, but I believe they invented the concept of dessert. Along with dessert pastries.
80 posted on 01/12/2002 4:21:21 AM PST by uglybiker
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