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How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs
http://www.aina.org ^ | 1949 | De Lacy O'Leary

Posted on 03/17/2013 3:32:53 AM PDT by ABrit

"...Greek scientific thought had been in the world for a long time before it reached the Arabs, and during that period it had already spread abroad in various directions. So it is not surprising that it reached the Arabs by more than one route. It came first and in the plainest line through Christian Syriac writers, scholars, and scientists. Then the Arabs applied themselves directly to the original Greek sources and learned over again all they had already learned, correcting and verifying their earlier knowledge. Then there came a second channel of transmission indirectly through India, mathematical and astronomical work, all a good deal developed by Indian scholars, but certainly developed from material obtained from Alexandria in the first place. This material had passed to India by the sea route which connected Alexandria with north-west India. Then there was also another line of passage through India which seems to have had its beginning in the Greek kingdom of Bactria, one of the Asiatic states founded by Alexander the Great, and a land route long kept open between the Greek world and Central Asia, especially with the city of Marw, and this perhaps connects with a Buddhist medium which at one time promoted intercourse between east and west. Further, there were some scattered minor sources, unfortunately little known, such as the city of Harran, an obstinately pagan Greek colony planted in the middle of a Christian area, which probably made its contribution, though on a smaller scale.

At first the city of Baghdad was the distributing centre where Greek material was brought together from different parts, Syria, Bactria, India, Persia, and other, and from Baghdad this material spread out in an Arabic form to all those social groups which were held together by the religion of Islam.

(Excerpt) Read more at aina.org ...


TOPICS: History; Islam; Religion & Culture; Religion & Science
KEYWORDS: godsgravesglyphs; greek; history; islam; science
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To: ABrit; Mount Athos; Hardraade; BCW; vladimir998; count-your-change; muawiyah; longtermmemmory; ...

From the Gates of Vienna is a well researched video that makes the points that the downfall of classical civilization didn’t happen because of Goths or the Germans but rather the Moslems circa 640 AD.
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2012/09/why-we-are-afraid-1400-year-secret.html

Dr. Bill Warner is the founder of the Center for the Study of Political Islam (CSPI). The video below records a talk he gave recently about the real history of Islam, and why there is such a powerful tendency towards collective amnesia about it in the West.

His account of the destruction of classical civilization by the Great Jihad is a superb follow-up to Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited by Emmet Scott, which was examined at length here last month.

This is possibly the best concise exposition of the history of Islamic violence that I have ever heard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t_Qpy0mXg8Y


21 posted on 03/17/2013 6:28:50 PM PDT by ckilmer
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To: ckilmer
Actually a climate anomaly of some kind that began in 535AD did in Western Europe BEFORE Mohammad was born. This disaster affected the Northern Hemisphere from Europe to China and killed tens of millions of people. Such luminaries as St. Gildas (one of the few people alive at that time that we know anything about ~ makes him a luminary) saw it, as did King Ad, and others of almost mythical status.

It took the Western Europeans about 900 years to recover. The Iberian and Italian peninsulas recovered faster than the North, but even then conditons deteriorated to such a degree that a bunch of mud islands in a tidal marsh on the Adriatic became an important city ~ for the times ~ we call it Venice.

The Byzantines produced no works of art for 60 years ~ the climate was better there ~ and the folks in Damascus actually didn't have much to say about the weather during most of that period.

Still, by the time the Meccan Arabs were on the move the Byzantines hadn't paid their armies in 100 years!

China shut down for 300 years. Central Asia shut down until 1300 give or take a few years waiting on the Mongol Empire to rise and reopen it.

Much of history after 535 can be dealt with readily with a model that takes a look at which societies recovered first ~ economically ~ and what they did with their advantage over their neighbors. For example, the Bretons and Cornish were moving out smartly by the mid 600s and had begun resettling Northern Spain. The Arabs beat them to the punch ~ but they met in Spain and engaged in a battle that lasted for over 800 years (SEE: Reconquista).

There are other examples, but any analysis that fails to note the destruction of civilization in the West in the 6th century is deficient in ways I find almost imagineable!

22 posted on 03/17/2013 6:45:16 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: ckilmer

I won’t quibble with your reasoning about Islam, and the sources look very good. But I don’t want to conflate “Arabs” with “Muslims.” Arabs are quite capable of amazing cruelty without the excuses for it provided by Islam. It’s a case of the 99% making the 1% look bad (please note the order in which I placed those stats).


23 posted on 03/17/2013 6:58:06 PM PDT by Cyber Liberty (I am a dissident. Will you join me? My name is John....)
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To: ckilmer

Thanks for posting that link to Dr Bill Warner, I have watched it, can’t recommend it highly enough. Want to know what the DARK AGES really were? It’s chilling. And they are still at it.


24 posted on 03/17/2013 7:01:47 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (FAIR DINKUM)
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To: muawiyah

Still, by the time the Meccan Arabs were on the move the Byzantines hadn’t paid their armies in 100 year.
...............
One of the things the video/article mentions is that the reason Mohamed’s relatives were able to defeat Byzantines and Persians in that wild 25 year expansion of the early 600’s is because the Byzantines and Persians had just finished a debilitating war with each other. And then following hard on that was the plague of the Black Death which killed off roughly a third of their populations.

Both civilizations were defenseless and prostrate.


25 posted on 03/17/2013 8:11:20 PM PDT by ckilmer
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To: muawiyah

Actually a climate anomaly of some kind that began in 535AD did in Western Europe BEFORE Mohammad was born.
.........
Yeah I know about that climate anomaly. But the archaeologists studying the ruins of the spanish french Italian and greek towns along the Mediterranean and the nearby seabeds...show that the seaside towns were destroyed in the decades around 640 and replaced by hilltop fortresses. The nearby seabeds show ship wrecks at layers lower than than the 640 line but none higher—suggesting that sea commerce had died.

Libya was a big farming region until 640. That all disappeared after the Arab armies came through.


26 posted on 03/17/2013 8:20:19 PM PDT by ckilmer
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To: ckilmer

Yes. And “Christians”, like the editor of the “Christian” paper “Vårt Land”, have been moaning that the wrong people won at Vienna - shoulda been our friends the muslims.

That particular editor usually hangs out with HAMAS friends in betlehem. They’re good people. They ply him with sweet coffee.

How my screen has escaped projectile vomit over these years, I don’t know.


27 posted on 03/17/2013 8:54:31 PM PDT by Hardraade (http://junipersec.wordpress.com (Vendetta))
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To: Hardraade

Its helpful to remember that Luther put Launched the Reformation in +-1517 and the furthest extant of moslems came to vienna in 1532.

When Europe —especially protestant Europe—jettisoned Christianity she also lost her historical memory.


28 posted on 03/17/2013 9:50:21 PM PDT by ckilmer
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To: ckilmer

excellent find - thanks for sharing - bookmarked and watching now!


29 posted on 03/18/2013 3:08:09 AM PDT by BCW (http://babylonscovertwar.com/index.html)
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To: Mount Athos

Lets not forget, how & when the “Golden Age of Islam” died. Secondly, muslims conquered greater civilizations & non were Islamic or muslim before their mohammad.


30 posted on 03/18/2013 5:10:10 AM PDT by SIRTRIS
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To: count-your-change

The vizier from “1001 Nights” disturbed me from the 3rd grade on, learning of his murderous reign on every woman he married. ‘Scheherazade is the only one who can stop him?’ I recall thinking.

Then to continually realize how real it’s always been.

God help us....


31 posted on 03/18/2013 1:15:50 PM PDT by onedoug
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To: Fred Nerks
>>>...Christian Assyrian community was drained of its population through forced conversion to Islam (by the Jizzya), and once the community had dwindled below a critical threshold, it ceased producing the scholars that were the intellectual driving force of the Islamic civilization, and that is when the so called “Golden Age of Islam” came to an end (about 850 A.D.).Frankly, nothing great has come out of islam since 632AD, mohammad's death.
32 posted on 03/18/2013 2:38:41 PM PDT by SIRTRIS
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To: SIRTRIS
In 2001 Peter Bet Basoo wrote: "here are minorities and nations struggling for survival in the Arab/Muslim ocean of the Middle East and Africa (Assyrians, Armenians, Coptics, Jews, southern Sudanese, Ethiopians, Nigerians...), and we must be very sensitive not to unwittingly and inadvertently support Islamic fascism and Arab Imperialism, with their attempts to wipe out all other cultures, religions and civilizations...

AND THEN CAME THE 'ARAB SPRING' WITH THE OVERTHROW OF THE SECULAR EGYPTIAN GOVERNMENT, THE DESTRUCTION OF LYBIA BY NATO...AND NOW THERE'S TALK OF ARMING THE SALAFISTS TO FINISH OFF WHAT REMAINS OF SYRIA.

33 posted on 03/18/2013 6:48:44 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (FAIR DINKUM)
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34 posted on 08/24/2019 8:30:23 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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