Muslims Once Led The World In Science, But Turned Their Backs To It

The Naples [FL] Daily News ^ | December 5, 2004 | Ben Bova

[quidnunc]

The Islamic nations of the world have a population of nearly 1.5 billion, or about one-quarter of the human population of Earth. Yet the gross national product of these nations totals less than half the GNP of Germany.

Poverty is endemic in the Muslim world, despite the fact that most of the world's petroleum deposits and a quarter of our planet's other natural resources lie within these Muslim lands.

The science minister of Pakistan, Atta-ur-Raman, and science adviser Anwar Nasim point out in a recent issue of the British journal Nature that Muslim nations spend only 0.2 percent of their GNP on scientific research, while spending up to seven percent of GNP on their military. They argue that if the nations of Islam put more funding into science, they could create significant economic growth.

Islam once led the world in science.

While Europe wallowed in the poverty and ignorance of the dark ages after the fall of the Roman Empire, the lands of Islam preserved much of the classic learning that was lost in Europe.

-snip-

[tnlibertarian]

And what sort of numbers do you use for balancing your checkbook?

Negative, usually.

[broadsword]

Islam has nothing redeeming going for itself. And I'll bet that's one of the reasons they're so p!ssed off with the rest of the world. Can you imagine what the world would look like if it were completely Muslim? Desolation!

And that, not our foreign policy or Israel's existence, is why they hate us so and are murdering folks of EVERY other religion everywhere on the planet.

THEY ARE JEALOUS BECAUSE THEY SUCK AND WE DON'T!
'nuff said!

[ariamne]

My thoughts exactly on Muslims--I was watching "independence day" a couple of weeks ago--there is a scene where the President of the US asks a captured alien thingy if there is some way they could exist peacefully and the thing says "peace--no peace". Then the president asks what do you want from us--and the thing says "die". I was struck by the resemblance to islam and its followers. You can't reason with them--they are brainwashed by their sick cult from birth.

[crail]

They *did a lot of work* on diophantine equations. I do work on polymers, but I have no plans to rename them crailymers.

[calenel]

Now describe the algorithm you used to do it!

Algorithm? We don't need no stinkin' algorithms! I used my handy-dandy Roman Calcvlator.

[RightWingAtheist]

Correction. Islamic individuals, from the great Egyptian-American writer Kahil Gibrhan to the great Pakistani-British physicist Abdus Salaam have made enormous contributions-once they were granted the intellectual freedom permitted from living and learning in the West.

[lilylangtree]

Wasn't the islamics who showed the Europeans that bathing once a day does get rid of germs, or something to that effect? Believe me, I hate to give the fanatical islamics credit for anything.

[Publius6961]

... have made enormous contributions-once they were granted the intellectual freedom permitted from living and learning in the West.

That summarizes quite well the essence of this thread, doesn't it?

How does that vital ingredient square with islam?

[JFK_Lib]

>>"While Europe wallowed in the poverty and ignorance of the dark ages after the fall of the Roman Empire,<<

dangus - No knowledgeable Catholic would ever say that!


JFK_Lib - I didnt either, I was quoting someone else.

[dangus]

I understood that. :^)

[sauron]

In their golden age, they did. They invented algebra. They did work in astronomy. Many names of stars have Arabic names (Altair, Aldebaran, etc ..). Also, they were quite advanced in medicine.

Can't speak as to algebra, etc., but astronomy...let's be frank, shall we? They have clear skies, which is merely the luck of nature and a function of their climate/latitude. All they did was name the pretty white dots.

They never did any pioneering work, nor did they trouble themselves to invent OPTICS.

[Fred Nerks]

Immanuel Velikovski in his book, 'Ages in Chaos' identified the arab tribes who 'came from the east' and met the fleeing slaves at the time of the Exodus, who attempted to take the Hebrews captive, as the 'Evil Angels' described in the Old Testament. They were the Hyksos, which word translates to Shepherd Kings. The Hebrews knew them as Amalek. They overran Egypt, destroyed utterly what remained of the Egyptian kingdom, and ruled there with great cruelty for 500 years. Archeologists were puzzled to find, in recent times, severed arms, legs, hands and heads; in a land where it was the custom to embalm and protect the corpse for the after-life.

The Hyksos, known as Amu to the Egyptians, left no mark nor monument, no evidence of their existence in Egypt. They destroyed temples, ancient papyrus. They ruled Egypt from Thebes and made the egyptian people their slaves.
King Saul gathered over a hundred thousand men and ten thousand from Judah and drove the Amu, the Amalek, the Hyksos, The Shepherd Kings (the nomad arabs) out of Egypt. The kingdom was restored, saved by its former slaves.
The Papyrus of Ipuwer describes what happened to the Egyptians. The timeline as written of by Velikovski has been illustrated on this site:

http://www.specialtyinterests.net/ipuwer.html

See: The Hyksos.

The arab annhiliation of cultures is far more ancient than we are prepared to comprehend. It's utterly parasitic.

[y2k_free_radical]

PING SQUARED

[SedVictaCatoni]

You're wasting your time with this lot.

[Stopislamnow]

Incorrect, the Arab World once flourished in science, until they adopted Islam. Arabs were not always Muslim.

Prove it.

[wideawake]

(Hint: They're not called Roman numerals.)

They're called "Arabic numerals" today, but in reality they are a numbering system introduced to the Arabs by the Persian and Indian cultures the Arabs conquered.

"Muslim" science is more properly Persian, Greek and Indian science.

[Fred Nerks]

"Incorrect, the Arab World once flourished in science, until they adopted Islam. Arabs were not always Muslim."

They 'flourished in science' because as they made their way from the Saudi Peninsula, herding their millions of goats and camels, driving them into the crops that every other culture had sown and leaving them to starve, they stole, they overran, they butchered, they took into slavery, beheaded, removed arms, legs, heads and hands, destroyed temples, ancient writings, plagiarized - and convinced themselves that parasites are 'loved by allah' enshrined what was primarily a method of survival at the cost of every nation and city state they annihilated, enshrined their methods as a religious/political system into the koran, the 'verses of which were given to mohammad straight from the mouth of allah' through the infirmary of an Archangel they identified as Michael. (?)
There is no 'arab science' in the book aside from camel's piss being good to drink for your health, that I can find.
You need a major history lesson. A good start might be THE LIFE OF MUHAMMAD. See tagline for link.

[Fred Nerks]

Correction: infirmary? What's with this spell-check?

Intermediary!

[sevry]

While Europe wallowed in the poverty and ignorance of the dark ages

I AM SO SICK OF THIS PC GARBAGE!

All the 'western civ' haters, blame America first mathematicians and scientists, have spent decades extolling the great virtue of ancient Islam. Ancient Islam was nuthin but what it is - TODAY. Anything of intellectual value tended to come from what remained of Christendom in the conquered territories, until they decided to get out the rusty knives in subsequent centuries.

[MegaSilver]

Those "arabic" numerals came from India. The Muslims have given us nothing but slavery, oppression, murder, kidnapping, incinerated churches and bloodthirsty terror.

Well, they DID provide a bridge with which to import Indo-Aryan numerals to Christian Europe during the Reconquista.

But you're right. Islam has wrought immense damage, destruction, and horror on nearly everything it has touched.