[RightWhale]

Arab mathematicians and scientists led the world 1000 years ago. Many sciientific advances in Europe of the past 300 years were essentially rediscoveries of work that had been done long before. Even something so basic as Snell's sine law of refraction was rediscovered through Alhazen's work centuries earlier.

But then something happened to the great Islamic civilization, and make no mistake, it was the most advanced on earth at the time. A lot of the destruction took place in present day Iran and Iraq and was done by the Mongol Hordes. They burned it to the ground. It's been hard to recover from that, and it will be impossible to recover with quasi-religious bandits destroying everything they touch.

[AppyPappy]

Arab mathematicians and scientists led the world 1000 years ago

Proof please

[ecomcon]

quasi-religious bandits destroying everything they touch.

That's what Islam is, was, and ever shall be.

[medved]

But then something happened to the great Islamic civilization, and make no mistake, it was the most advanced on earth at the time. A lot of the destruction took place in present day Iran and Iraq and was done by the Mongol Hordes.

Burning the beards off four of Chengis Khan's ambassadors and sending them back to Chengis Khan like that to show Chengis Khan what bad people they were is not what I would call a sign of superior intelligence or anything like that; I mean, if you had to pick the last, and I mean the very last guy who ever lived that you'd ever want to #&$@ with.....

[Doctor Stochastic]

The Mongol destruction caused the Clerics to claim that "It happened because the people turned away from God." The Mongols destroyed irrigation systems, bridges, etc. They never built much until later. The Clerics continually gained influence which meant that rebuilding wasn't happening in general. It's what the South would have been after Reconstruction without capitalism.

[flyingkrnk]

I am afraid most discoveries and inventions attributed to Arab and Muslims were mainly from whatever Arab conquered. The zero for instance was not born in the Arab mind, but in India, the medical discoveries mainly were the result of Greek readings, architecture were the result of Muslim conquests

Arabs were great in warfare, most of their great figures are convert from conquered places.

Arabs and Muslim, no more now than before every valued education, they always thought that it should be only handled by a few.