Islamic Scientists
maff
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1310285,00.html
Iraq's golden age of science brought us algebra, optics, windmills and
much more, writes Brian Whitaker
Thursday September 23, 2004
The Guardian
For most of the last 5,000 years, Iraq was a key centre of scientific
knowledge. Mathematics, developed initially for keeping accounts,
gradually spread into far more ambitious areas such as predictive
astronomy, making use of data painstakingly collected and recorded at
the temples of Uruk and Babylon over several centuries.
During the first century after the birth of Islam, Muslim armies
defeated the Persians and moved into Iraq. Around 762, the Abbasid
caliphs established their capital in the newly founded city of Baghdad
from where they ruled the vast Muslim empire for the next five
centuries.
Brian Whitaker
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=18510aff.0402170401.745005e2%40posting.google.com
Arabic/Islamic mathematics
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=18510aff.0409081227.19f74466%40posting.google.com
Islamic Scientists
http://news.google.com/news?q=%22Islamic%20scientists%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Islamic+scientists%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&tab=nw&sa=N
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22Islamic%20scientists%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wg
Al Alhazen OR Haitham OR Haytham
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Al+Alhazen+OR+Haitham+OR+Haytham&sa=N&tab=nw
Khwarizmi
http://www.google.com/search?q=Khwarizmi&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&tab=nw&sa=N
http://www.google.com/search?q=Khwarizmi&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&output=search&cat=gwd/Top
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=Khwarizmi&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
http://news.google.com/news?q=Khwarizmi&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=gn
Moose
> Iraq's golden age of science brought us algebra, optics, windmills and
> much more, writes Brian Whitaker
> During the first century after the birth of Islam, Muslim armies
Killed people, just like they do today, and have done ever since.
ted holden
>
> During the first century after the birth of Islam, Muslim armies
> defeated the Persians and moved into Iraq. Around 762, the Abbasid
> caliphs established their capital in the newly founded city of Baghdad
> from where they ruled the vast Muslim empire for the next five
> centuries.
>
> Brian Whitaker
The Islammic world was doing pretty well for itself for a while. And then,
the guy with the most real power in the Muslim world, the Khwarism shah
Mohammed, burned the beards off of four of Chengis Khan's ambassadors and
sent them back like that to show Chengis Khan how bad he was. It sort of
started going downhill from there...
Ted Holden
www.bearfabrique.org
. . , ,
____)/ \(____
_,--''''',-'/( )\`-.`````--._
,-' ,' | \ _ _ / | `-. `-.
,' / | `._ /\\ //\ _,' | \ `.
| | `. `-( ,\\_// )-' .' | |
,' _,----._ |_,----._\ ____`\o'_`o/'____ /_.----._ |_,----._ `.
|/' \' `\( \(_)/ )/' `/ `\|
` ` V V ' '
Splifford the bat says: Always remember
A mind is a terrible thing to waste; especially on an evolutionist.
Just say no to narcotic drugs, alcohol abuse, and corrupt ideological
doctrines.
Matt Silberstein
Sort of like Christians and Jews and Hindus and atheists and
Buddhists, right?
--
Matt Silberstein
Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannonball
Damien Rice
Steve
"ted holden" <uwb...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:CCI4d.9927$2A1.2188@trnddc08...
ted
I took a look at your web page and i am not sure if u are a tongue in cheek
evolutionist or a frothing at the mouth fundy. Can u clarify for me ?
Steve
AC
Lots of people kill people. Christians have frequently killed people,
particularly each other. Muslim scholars also were at the forefront of
mathematics and medicine during this period.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
"My illness is due to my doctor's insistence that I drink milk, a whitish
fluid they force down helpless babies." - WC Fields
Bobby D. Bryant
Is that unusual enough to deserve mention?
--
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
MAB
"Moose" <anony...@nomail.com> wrote in message
news:ToI4d.11317$He1.4356@attbi_s01...
They don't teach history in your schools do they? or is it all made up of
lies like 'how good we are'.
Here are some lessons for you.
In 1490 there were about 75 million Indians in North America.
The then white skinned Christians came from Europe. In 150 years they killed
about 69 million of the native population.
at the beginning of last century only 2 and half millions were left. Can any
nation / race / religion compare with this genocide.
Oh and its not just the past. In the last century millions of people were
killed in World wars. Then the US killed millions more in Indochina, and
central American states. Then millions were killed in Iraq by sanctions
(mostly women and children) and war. Hundreds of thousand Arabs were
expelled through sheer terror and murder from there homes to create a state
for Jews.
They haven't stopped have they? They're still killing in Iraq and plan to
move on to Iran and other countries.
As for Muslims, they ruled over India and Spain for much longer periods (
800 to 1000 years) but still remained in minority and there was no genocide,
mass killing or expulsion. the notable Indian historian MN Roy writes
"Islam has fulfilled a historic mission of equality and abolition of
discrimination in India, and that for this, Islam has been welcomed in India
by the lower castes". "If AT ALL any violence occurred, it was a matter of
justified class struggle by the progressive forces against the reactionary
forces, meaning the feudal Hindu upper classes.."
In Spain, Christians and Jews prospered during the centuries that Muslims
were in control. This was a heaven for Jews particularly when they were
killed by Christians everywhere.
Don't just watch CNN and listen to George Bush.
EjP
I think you need to learn some history. Killing people was
standard opererating procedure in those days. The Byzantines
swept across Northern Africa, murdering, raping, pillaging,
demanding taxes - and trying to convert everyone to Christianity.
The Moslems came in, murdering, raping, pillaging, demanding
taxes - and mostly leaving people alone as far as internal
affairs. Then the Crusaders came in, murdering, raping, murdering,
murdering, murdering, raping some more, pillaging, murdering,
murdering, dismembering, then forcing whoever was left to
worship their "loving" god..
There weren't a lot of good guys in those days.
-E
EjP
> Centuries in the House of Wisdom
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1310285,00.html
>
> Iraq's golden age of science brought us algebra, optics, windmills and
> much more, writes Brian Whitaker
>
> Thursday September 23, 2004
> The Guardian
>
> For most of the last 5,000 years, Iraq was a key centre of scientific
> knowledge. Mathematics, developed initially for keeping accounts,
> gradually spread into far more ambitious areas such as predictive
> astronomy, making use of data painstakingly collected and recorded at
> the temples of Uruk and Babylon over several centuries.
>
> During the first century after the birth of Islam, Muslim armies
> defeated the Persians and moved into Iraq. Around 762, the Abbasid
> caliphs established their capital in the newly founded city of Baghdad
> from where they ruled the vast Muslim empire for the next five
> centuries.
>
They Islamic world was certainly ahead of Europe in those years, but
given the fact that they had almost the *entire knowledge* of the
Greeks at their disposal, they actually didn't do a heck of a lot
with it.
Of course we will be forever in their debt for introducing a
reasonable number system into the West.
-E
Christopher A. Lee
wrote:
[fundy mode]
But the Crusaders weren't real Christians because real christians
don't do that. They were evil people lying about being Christian, and
using that as an excuse.
Christopher A. Lee
wrote:
>maff wrote:
>> Centuries in the House of Wisdom
>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1310285,00.html
>>
>> Iraq's golden age of science brought us algebra, optics, windmills and
>> much more, writes Brian Whitaker
>>
>> Thursday September 23, 2004
>> The Guardian
>>
>> For most of the last 5,000 years, Iraq was a key centre of scientific
>> knowledge. Mathematics, developed initially for keeping accounts,
>> gradually spread into far more ambitious areas such as predictive
>> astronomy, making use of data painstakingly collected and recorded at
>> the temples of Uruk and Babylon over several centuries.
>>
>> During the first century after the birth of Islam, Muslim armies
>> defeated the Persians and moved into Iraq. Around 762, the Abbasid
>> caliphs established their capital in the newly founded city of Baghdad
>> from where they ruled the vast Muslim empire for the next five
>> centuries.
>>
>
>They Islamic world was certainly ahead of Europe in those years, but
>given the fact that they had almost the *entire knowledge* of the
>Greeks at their disposal, they actually didn't do a heck of a lot
>with it.
>
>Of course we will be forever in their debt for introducing a
>reasonable number system into the West.
There was a compratively recent Nobel Prize winner in theoretical
physics (Abdus Salam). While he is the only one, it shows that they
can do leading edge science, when they separate science and religion
as Christians also have to.
EjP
I was talking specifically about the Islamic Empire from Mohammed's
time until the end of the Crusade's, during which the Church in
Europe was actively supressing knowledge.
There are plenty of first-rate Moslem scientists today, just
as there are plenty of first rate Christian, Jewish, Hindu,
and Buddhist scientists - as long as they're not in extreme
fundamentalist camps of these movements.
In spite of all the propaganda, there's nothing inherently
more violent or anti-science in Islam than Christianity.
Both Bible and the Koran can be used to support any sort of
attrocity or fundamentalist nonsense if taken literally.
-E
Lt. Kizhe Catson
"Steve" <kmb...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<2rh431F...@uni-berlin.de>...
Neither. Ted is a fan of the late Emmanuel Velikovsky, and has
pursued this cause (in t.o and elsewhere) with a single-minded
determination for something like 20 years. Gotta admire that kind of
persistence. I don't know his religious beliefs, but have never seen
any sign he is a Christian, in any conventional sense (however, the
"frothing at the mouth" part is pretty accurate). If you can Google
up the net.legends FAQ you'll find some more information on Ted.
It must be said that we t.o regulars are forever in Ted's debt, for
his coinage of the sobriquet we so proudly bear: "Howler Monkeys".
Semper allouatarum!
-- Kizhe
maff
> maff wrote:
> > Centuries in the House of Wisdom
> > http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1310285,00.html
> >
> > Iraq's golden age of science brought us algebra, optics, windmills and
> > much more, writes Brian Whitaker
> >
> > Thursday September 23, 2004
> > The Guardian
> >
> > For most of the last 5,000 years, Iraq was a key centre of scientific
> > knowledge. Mathematics, developed initially for keeping accounts,
> > gradually spread into far more ambitious areas such as predictive
> > astronomy, making use of data painstakingly collected and recorded at
> > the temples of Uruk and Babylon over several centuries.
> >
> > During the first century after the birth of Islam, Muslim armies
> > defeated the Persians and moved into Iraq. Around 762, the Abbasid
> > caliphs established their capital in the newly founded city of Baghdad
> > from where they ruled the vast Muslim empire for the next five
> > centuries.
> >
>
> They Islamic world was certainly ahead of Europe in those years, but
> given the fact that they had almost the *entire knowledge* of the
> Greeks at their disposal, they actually didn't do a heck of a lot
> with it.
>
> Of course we will be forever in their debt for introducing a
> reasonable number system into the West.
"Perhaps one of the most significant advances made by Arabic
mathematics began at this time with the work of al-Khwarizmi, namely
the beginnings of algebra. It is important to understand just how
significant this new idea was. It was a revolutionary move away from
the Greek concept of mathematics which was essentially geometry."
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Arabic_mathematics.html
maff
Death by Government
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1560001453/
by R.J. Rummel
RJ Rummel
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22RJ+Rummel%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&tab=nw&sa=N
http://news.google.com/news?q=%22RJ%20Rummel%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22RJ+Rummel%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&output=search&cat=gwd/Top
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22RJ%20Rummel%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=dg
>
> -E
maff
Abdus Salam
http://news.google.com/news?q=%20%22Abdus%20Salam%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Abdus+Salam%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&tab=nw&sa=N
Ahmed Zewail
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Ahmed+Zewail%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&tab=nw&sa=N
Ferid Mourad
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Ferid+Mourad%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&tab=nw&sa=N
Corey Elias OR James
http://www.google.com/search?q=Corey+Elias+OR+James&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&tab=nw&sa=N
Medawar Peter OR Brian
http://news.google.com/news?q=Medawar%20Peter%20OR%20Brian&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?q=Medawar+Peter+OR+Brian&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&tab=nw&sa=N
maff
So why aren't there that many Chinese or Indian Nobel laureates in
science? You think Colonialism and Imperialism played a part?
Christopher A. Lee
wrote:
>"Christopher A. Lee" <ca...@optonline.net> wrote in message news:<jua8l0h70kpaebsn5...@4ax.com>...
>So why aren't there that many Chinese or Indian Nobel laureates in
>science? You think Colonialism and Imperialism played a part?
Where did I say that?
But FWIW Salam was Pakistani.
wbarwell
Abdul Salam was member of a sect considered unorthodox,
even heretical in today's Pakistan, the Ahmadis. They are often
harrassed by the government. Salam had suggested that
Pakistan institute new government supported science institutes,
but his unpopularity based on his religous heterodoxy meant he
was essentially ignored.
--
Kerry - two medals a silver and bronze star.
Bush? Well they don't give medals
for going AWOL, missing your medical and
getting grounded or falling off of a bar stool.
Kerry - a hero, Bush - a zero
Cheerful Charlie
wbarwell
India has indeed contrbuted many fine scientists of the years,
For example Bose who worked with Einstein.
maff
No. I was saying that some people would say that Arabs or Muslims
haven't contributed much to science in terms of Nobel Prizes. Then you
could say that of Chinese, Indians and many other groups.
>
> But FWIW Salam was Pakistani.
Of course.
wbarwell
In Islam, the early Islamic leaders post Mohammed were fairly
secular and not only tolerated scholars and thinkers and
philosphers, but encouraged and patronized them. The heyday
of Islamic science and philosphy and other intellectual pursuits was made
possible by the manufactor of paper which was invented in China
in 600 CE and taken up by Islamic conquerers. This made Islamic
culture a literate society where many excellent scholars had access to
and added to large libraries, that were established by Islamic leaders
who subsidized thinkers and writers and their organizations and libraries.
And not just Islamic either, but also Greek and Byzantine learning.
Many early thinkers were only nominally Islamic and a wide
range of skeptical views was tolerated.
At first Islamic theologians were still building Islamic theology
and legal theories. Because many philosophers were not particularly
'othodox', there came to be clashes between the two positions.
Early Islamic leaders suppressed the more purist radical sects,
such as the early Kharajites.
However as time went on, the mullahs systematically attacked
non-heterodoxy, skepticism, and anything that contradicted their
theological claims.
As early support for philosphers and such shrank, systematic
attacks on them grew. Al Ghazali wrote his famous attacks on
philosophers in favor of theology and critical or skeptical
thinking was essentially stamped out by the 13th century and with it,
philosophy and science as an organized and supported intellectual
pursuit. In Spain, the last tolerant outpost of Islam, eventually
philosophy was outlawed and owning prescribed books was made
a capitol offense, just as Aristoltle and other Greek and Islamic
works of science and philosophy were making their way to Europe
via Spain and the Byzantines.
Science in Islamic civilization was very moribund by then.
Strangled by the newly successful Islamic theologians who
had achieved their goal of stamping out any anti-Islamic
ideas or claims that denied their basic dogmas.
From the 13th century on, Islamic thinkers produced
little new or influential, science and technology would
take off in Europe especially in the renaissance.
Islam would then import science and technology from
the West, mainly military technology imported by the
Ottoman Turks.
Though it would only be in the early 19th century that
Western medicine would overtake Islamic medicine
which was far ahead of the West from earliest times,
even if not greatly progressively added to since the 1400's.
Islamic theology strangled science and technology.
Even then, sometimes science didn't do much for them,
Islamic thinkers were far ahead of the West in optic
theory, but it was the West that by the 1200's were making
eyeglasses which eventually led to making telescopes and
microscopes.
fencingsax
This sounds oddly familiar.... Oh wait, this sounds extremely similar
with what happened in Christianity. Does the name Galileo ring a bell?
Stop making it seem like intoloerance and fundamentalism happen in
other religions, particularly Islam.
maff
So you don't think Genghis Khan had something to do with it?
Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195067746/
by Janet L. Abu-Lughod
> little new or influential, science and technology would
> take off in Europe especially in the renaissance.
>
> Islam would then import science and technology from
> the West, mainly military technology imported by the
> Ottoman Turks.
> Though it would only be in the early 19th century that
> Western medicine would overtake Islamic medicine
> which was far ahead of the West from earliest times,
> even if not greatly progressively added to since the 1400's.
>
> Islamic theology strangled science and technology.
Muslim Theory of Evolution
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=367D324C.725C%40tc3net.com
>
> Even then, sometimes science didn't do much for them,
> Islamic thinkers were far ahead of the West in optic
> theory, but it was the West that by the 1200's were making
> eyeglasses which eventually led to making telescopes and
> microscopes.
But you don't say anything about the Chinese.
AC
> wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message news:<415521c8$0$171$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>...
>>Science in Islamic civilization was very moribund by then.
>>Strangled by the newly successful Islamic theologians who
>>had achieved their goal of stamping out any anti-Islamic
>>ideas or claims that denied their basic dogmas.
>>
>>From the 13th century on, Islamic thinkers produced
>
>
> So you don't think Genghis Khan had something to do with it?
I had always thought the sacking of Bagdhad was considered the turning
point of Islamic civilization, myself.
Herbert West
"maff" <maf...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:18510aff.0409...@posting.google.com...
> Centuries in the House of Wisdom
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1310285,00.html
>
> Iraq's golden age of science brought us algebra, optics, windmills and
> much more, writes Brian Whitaker
>
Something has certainly gone amiss in the time since. In the past 1,000
years, the entire Arab world has translated fewer books than Spain translates
in year. A report by Arab intellectuals that was commissioned by the UN
shows some recognition of the problems. Here's a link to a story about that
report.
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1213392
Herbert West
Miskatonic U.
wbarwell
> wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
> news:<415521c8$0$171$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>...
>> EjP wrote:
>>
>> > Christopher A. Lee wrote:
>> Strangled by the newly successful Islamic theologians who
>> had achieved their goal of stamping out any anti-Islamic
>> ideas or claims that denied their basic dogmas.
>>
>> From the 13th century on, Islamic thinkers produced
>
> So you don't think Genghis Khan had something to do with it?
>
No. The Mongols most certainly destroyed Baghdad, Iraq,
parts of Iran and Syria and the Asian nations.
But they turned Islamic and went their way and
that was over quickly enough. And the Mongols did not destroy
Egypt, North Africa, Islamic Spain, Arabia and other Islamic
lands.
However, in Europe, we had the Black Plague that killed
1/4 to 1/3 of Europe. We had a century of wars, the 100 years
war between France and England, France invading Belgium,
Switzerland, war in Spain, in Italy. We had two popes busily
excommunicating each other and their followers.
We had Italy dissolved into wars between petty princes.
Germany and Austria battled themselves, and Hungarians.
Europe had just lost the last crusades.
A truely turbulent and deadly century at the same time.
Yet, all this death and destruction in Europe did not
have the effect of stopping progress or or science
or the march to the Renaissance.
Moslems have long used the Mongols to explain
their own failures. Ignoring the fact that Europe
was probably worse off during this time yet civilization
was just getting into high gear in Europe.
So no, it had little to do with the overall problem of
progress grinding to a halt in Islamic nations. The
Mongols most certainly dd not help.
But were far less destructive to Islamic civilization as a whole
than the wars that raged over Europe for a century were to Europe
by comparison with the plague thrown in.
These things caused great change in Europe, and swept
away the old world, started the end of feudelism, the rise
of nationalism mercantilism, ship building and designing,
new ways of agriculture, art, literature and more.
Science and Artistotle were loose in Europe and change started
here too.
Islam by contrast, sank back into the new obscurantism,
which hardened and became more sclerotic and anti-intellectual.
> Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195067746/
> by Janet L. Abu-Lughod
>
>> little new or influential, science and technology would
>> take off in Europe especially in the renaissance.
>>
No. paper making was moving in. Ship design was improving.
Double entry bookkeeping, modern methods of finance, and
credit and insurance were being born. Artistotle was giving
a new view to thinkers ideas about the physical world.
A revolution. Cistercian monasteries brought about new ideas
on progress and work and organization.
New argricultural techniques were creating a new world of
surpluses. Papal bulls against interest were dropped, compound
interest was invented.
The Hindu number system was introduced in Europe along with
higher mathematics. Medical schools were being set up, Universities
were becoming large and important.
Military technology was rapidly changing, as were organization
of armies and firearms were now becoming widespread.
Architecture was changing. Standing armies became common.
Galileo was the high point of the Renaissance, he threw out
physics, he was a physics professor at the University of Pisa
and start it again from scratch. His students would spread
the new way of doing things, science far and wide.
Though science was a word that would only be used in
that sense in the 1800's. Differentiating science
from natural philosphy.
This was a great leap, maybe THE big leap in Europe.
From the start of the Black death to Galileo was an
immense change in everything.
>> Islam would then import science and technology from
>> the West, mainly military technology imported by the
>> Ottoman Turks.
>> Though it would only be in the early 19th century that
>> Western medicine would overtake Islamic medicine
>> which was far ahead of the West from earliest times,
>> even if not greatly progressively added to since the 1400's.
>>
>> Islamic theology strangled science and technology.
>
> Muslim Theory of Evolution
>
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=367D324C.725C%40tc3net.com
>
>>
>> Even then, sometimes science didn't do much for them,
>> Islamic thinkers were far ahead of the West in optic
>> theory, but it was the West that by the 1200's were making
>> eyeglasses which eventually led to making telescopes and
>> microscopes.
>
> But you don't say anything about the Chinese.
The Chinese were far too conservative and far too
arrogant and self centered. There was China and
outside, barbarians of little interest.They might
have been far more of a driving force in world history
except for that.
They had a large and powerful navy and could have
been the great explorers and colonizers and changed
history except their emperor a very superstitous man,
had a bad dream and had their navy and voyages of
discovery ended.
They drifted along squabbling with the Mongols and
each other until the Europens tore them into colonies
a few centuries later.
Their system of bureacracy fossilized them.
A singular lack of imagination.
wbarwell
But it did happen in Islam.
That is why they are in trouble to this day.
Islam strangled critical thinking and intellectual pursuits.
Not the Mongols. Much of Islamic civilizaton was not touched
by the Mongols while Europe dissolved in a centurty of war
and the black plague that killed 1/4 to 1/3rd of Europe.
In Eastern Europe, the Hungarians attacked Europe.
The papacy and theologians were too busy with two popes
excommunicating each other to crack down on philosophers
and others effectively until it was too late.
Despite the occasional Bruno or Galileo, many others
went forward without much trouble. Once Galileo had
thrown all physics out as corrupt and wrongheaded and
started from scratch, and spread by students and colleagues,
there was no stopping science, Galileo's new invention
for rebuilding physics from the ground up.
Science was now based on experiment and observation.
Not what some Greek wrote 1600 years ago.
Science died two centures before Galileo in Islamic nations.
Theology had won out there.
Here Aristotle became dogma, reason and religion had
to work togther, that was Catholic dogma, in Islam, reason was
dogmatically considered inferior to religion, which meant
dogmas based on the Quran.
Al Ghazali's dogmatic claims won out. Faith was supreme
over reason.
That is what killed progress in Islam.
The idea that religion alone, faith alone was adequate,
that reason was not needed for Catholic religion is
fideism, a heresy.
Here is the big difference.
The attitude that explains what happened.
Walter Bushell
wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote:
<snip>
> Despite the occasional Bruno or Galileo, many others
> went forward without much trouble.
And the word was out.
--
Guns don't kill people; automobiles kill people.
AC
> maff wrote:
>
>
>>wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
>>news:<415521c8$0$171$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>...
>>
>>>EjP wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Christopher A. Lee wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>>Strangled by the newly successful Islamic theologians who
>>>had achieved their goal of stamping out any anti-Islamic
>>>ideas or claims that denied their basic dogmas.
>>>
>>>From the 13th century on, Islamic thinkers produced
>>
>>So you don't think Genghis Khan had something to do with it?
>>
>
>
> No. The Mongols most certainly destroyed Baghdad, Iraq,
> parts of Iran and Syria and the Asian nations.
> But they turned Islamic and went their way and
> that was over quickly enough. And the Mongols did not destroy
> Egypt, North Africa, Islamic Spain, Arabia and other Islamic
> lands.
They burned the library at Bagdhad, one of the great libraries of the
Middle Ages, for goodness sake. It certainly was more devestating to
Islamic civilization than the way you portray it.
<snip>
maff
> maff wrote:
>
> > wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
> > news:<415521c8$0$171$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>...
> >> EjP wrote:
> >>
> >> > Christopher A. Lee wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> >> Strangled by the newly successful Islamic theologians who
> >> had achieved their goal of stamping out any anti-Islamic
> >> ideas or claims that denied their basic dogmas.
> >>
> >> From the 13th century on, Islamic thinkers produced
> >
> > So you don't think Genghis Khan had something to do with it?
> >
>
> No. The Mongols most certainly destroyed Baghdad, Iraq,
> parts of Iran and Syria and the Asian nations.
> But they turned Islamic and went their way and
> that was over quickly enough. And the Mongols did not destroy
> Egypt, North Africa, Islamic Spain, Arabia and other Islamic
> lands.
Why don't you do ecomic models of it? Baghdad and Damascus weren't
just any cities or Capitals. They were the political, ecomnomic and
cultural powerhouses of the day. Do you think other countries won't be
affected? Why don't do a modelling of the trade flows after Baghdad
was sacked?
>
> However, in Europe, we had the Black Plague that killed
> 1/4 to 1/3 of Europe. We had a century of wars, the 100 years
> war between France and England, France invading Belgium,
> Switzerland, war in Spain, in Italy. We had two popes busily
> excommunicating each other and their followers.
> We had Italy dissolved into wars between petty princes.
> Germany and Austria battled themselves, and Hungarians.
> Europe had just lost the last crusades.
>
> A truely turbulent and deadly century at the same time.
>
> Yet, all this death and destruction in Europe did not
> have the effect of stopping progress or or science
> or the march to the Renaissance.
>
> Moslems have long used the Mongols to explain
I'm sure Moslems (or Muslims) had their own failures just like anyone
else in the World.
> their own failures. Ignoring the fact that Europe
> was probably worse off during this time yet civilization
> was just getting into high gear in Europe.
Civilization? That's a good one. Why don't you look up "Treaty of
Tordesillas"? Why don't you look up Christian Colonialism, fascism and
Imperialsim?
>
> So no, it had little to do with the overall problem of
> progress grinding to a halt in Islamic nations. The
> Mongols most certainly dd not help.
But What do you mean "Islamic" nations? There was no Islamic Pope. Why
do you think there was a Sunni, Shia divide? It was about separation
of state and Mosque and it happeded long time ago.
>
> But were far less destructive to Islamic civilization as a whole
> than the wars that raged over Europe for a century were to Europe
> by comparison with the plague thrown in.
>
> These things caused great change in Europe, and swept
> away the old world, started the end of feudelism, the rise
> of nationalism mercantilism, ship building and designing,
> new ways of agriculture, art, literature and more.
>
> Science and Artistotle were loose in Europe and change started
> here too.
>
> Islam by contrast, sank back into the new obscurantism,
> which hardened and became more sclerotic and anti-intellectual.
But where is the evidence? There was no Islamic Pope to make them toe
the line one way or another.
>
>
> > Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350
> > http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195067746/
> > by Janet L. Abu-Lughod
> >
> >> little new or influential, science and technology would
> >> take off in Europe especially in the renaissance.
> >>
>
> No. paper making was moving in. Ship design was improving.
Why don't you read the whole book first?
> Double entry bookkeeping, modern methods of finance, and
> credit and insurance were being born. Artistotle was giving
> a new view to thinkers ideas about the physical world.
> A revolution. Cistercian monasteries brought about new ideas
> on progress and work and organization.
> New argricultural techniques were creating a new world of
> surpluses. Papal bulls against interest were dropped, compound
> interest was invented.
>
> The Hindu number system was introduced in Europe along with
> higher mathematics. Medical schools were being set up, Universities
> were becoming large and important.
>
> Military technology was rapidly changing, as were organization
> of armies and firearms were now becoming widespread.
> Architecture was changing. Standing armies became common.
>
> Galileo was the high point of the Renaissance, he threw out
> physics, he was a physics professor at the University of Pisa
> and start it again from scratch. His students would spread
> the new way of doing things, science far and wide.
> Though science was a word that would only be used in
> that sense in the 1800's. Differentiating science
> from natural philosphy.
>
> This was a great leap, maybe THE big leap in Europe.
> From the start of the Black death to Galileo was an
> immense change in everything.
That's the problem. There was no Islamic Bruno or Galileo. If there
had been then the resistance against the equivalent Islamic Vatican
would have been fierce (FYI, there was no Islamic Vatican state).
>
>
>
> >> Islam would then import science and technology from
> >> the West, mainly military technology imported by the
> >> Ottoman Turks.
> >> Though it would only be in the early 19th century that
> >> Western medicine would overtake Islamic medicine
> >> which was far ahead of the West from earliest times,
> >> even if not greatly progressively added to since the 1400's.
> >>
> >> Islamic theology strangled science and technology.
> >
> > Muslim Theory of Evolution
> >
> http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=367D324C.725C%40tc3net.com
Science didn't make any difference one way or another until the mid
19th century.
1999 Millennium (December 25 1999) issue
http://www.economist.com/
"Men and molecules" by John F. Henahan
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005WF9G/
The Second Industrial Revolution: Germany
http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob49.html
Indigo in the Early Modern World
http://www.bell.lib.umn.edu/Products/Indigo.html
Woad and Indigo
http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/botanytextbooks/economicbotany/Isatis/
"The World That Trade Created : Culture, Society and the World
Economy, 1400 to the Present" by Kenneth Pomeranz (Editor), Steven
Topik (Editor) (Paperback - December 2000)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=Pomeranz%2C%20Kenneth/
"The Day the World Took Off: The Roots of the Industrial Revolution"
by Sally Dugan, David Dugan
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0752218700/
> >
> >>
> >> Even then, sometimes science didn't do much for them,
> >> Islamic thinkers were far ahead of the West in optic
> >> theory, but it was the West that by the 1200's were making
> >> eyeglasses which eventually led to making telescopes and
> >> microscopes.
> >
> > But you don't say anything about the Chinese.
>
> The Chinese were far too conservative and far too
> arrogant and self centered. There was China and
> outside, barbarians of little interest.They might
> have been far more of a driving force in world history
> except for that.
>
> They had a large and powerful navy and could have
> been the great explorers and colonizers and changed
> history except their emperor a very superstitous man,
> had a bad dream and had their navy and voyages of
> discovery ended.
> They drifted along squabbling with the Mongols and
> each other until the Europens tore them into colonies
> a few centuries later.
>
> Their system of bureacracy fossilized them.
> A singular lack of imagination.
But why would the Chinese want to rule the World just like Christian
fascists/ Imperialists?
maff
But what has it got to do with Islam per se? It was the failure of
secular regimes in those countries.
>
> Herbert West
> Miskatonic U.
maff
But Al Ghazali wasn't the Pope and he didn't represent any Islamic
Vatican. The was no Ismic Bruno who was burnt and there was no Islamic
Galileo who was imprisoned.
>
> That is what killed progress in Islam.
>
> The idea that religion alone, faith alone was adequate,
> that reason was not needed for Catholic religion is
> fideism, a heresy.
>
> Here is the big difference.
> The attitude that explains what happened.
Nope. It was the fierce resistance to Christianity (in particularly
Catholicism but not only)that ushered in the Age of Enlightenment.
age of Enlightenment
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22age+of+Enlightenment%22&sa=N&tab=gn
Edward Gibbon
http://news.google.com/news?q=%20%22Edward%20Gibbon%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Edward+Gibbon%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&tab=nw&sa=N
wbarwell
> wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
> news:<415684c7$0$170$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>...
>> maff wrote:
>>
>> > wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
>> > news:<415521c8$0$171$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>...
>> >> EjP wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > Christopher A. Lee wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >> Strangled by the newly successful Islamic theologians who
>> >> had achieved their goal of stamping out any anti-Islamic
>> >> ideas or claims that denied their basic dogmas.
>> >>
>> >> From the 13th century on, Islamic thinkers produced
>> >
>> > So you don't think Genghis Khan had something to do with it?
>> >
>>
>> No. The Mongols most certainly destroyed Baghdad, Iraq,
>> parts of Iran and Syria and the Asian nations.
>> But they turned Islamic and went their way and
>> that was over quickly enough. And the Mongols did not destroy
>> Egypt, North Africa, Islamic Spain, Arabia and other Islamic
>> lands.
>
> Why don't you do ecomic models of it? Baghdad and Damascus weren't
> just any cities or Capitals. They were the political, ecomnomic and
> cultural powerhouses of the day. Do you think other countries won't be
> affected? Why don't do a modelling of the trade flows after Baghdad
> was sacked?
>
How long do you give 'em to recover? 10 years, 25, 50, 100?
Europe recovered from the plague that killed 1/4
- 1/3 of Europe. Much of the Islamic world did not
get invaded by the Mongols, and its not a matter of
economics, but why the culture of Islamic nations
lost all progressiveness, why it stultified. A century
of war and Hungarian invasions of Europe did
not stop Europe. Why the difference? Why did
Europe take up Aristotle and change and progress
from a backwards feudal society while Islam slid
into a backwards society? It wasn't the Mongols.
it as something deeper.
It may partially be what helped doom Rome, much
of Islam was a slave owner society and that helped
crush out free men at the bottom of the scale.
Europe did not have that hurdle to overcome.
A robber culture cut off from its source of slaves
and stolen goods by the Mongol invasion may
have been more of a problem than mere destruction
of a few cities. The floundered around until another
robber culture, the Islamic Turks took over and
went back to the business of robbing and slaving
and military conquest.
Which didn't have room for philosophers and scientists
and the like. There wasn't the curiosity nor the
appreciation for inquiry into the nature of the world.
It wasn't a matter of an old miltary setback a century
or even two centuries in the past.
>>
>> However, in Europe, we had the Black Plague that killed
>> 1/4 to 1/3 of Europe. We had a century of wars, the 100 years
>> war between France and England, France invading Belgium,
>> Switzerland, war in Spain, in Italy. We had two popes busily
>> excommunicating each other and their followers.
>> We had Italy dissolved into wars between petty princes.
>> Germany and Austria battled themselves, and Hungarians.
>> Europe had just lost the last crusades.
>>
>> A truely turbulent and deadly century at the same time.
>>
>> Yet, all this death and destruction in Europe did not
>> have the effect of stopping progress or or science
>> or the march to the Renaissance.
>>
>> Moslems have long used the Mongols to explain
>
> I'm sure Moslems (or Muslims) had their own failures just like anyone
> else in the World.
Yes. But more than a few times I have had arguments
with Moslems over this issue and the failure of Islamic
civilization to keep up with Europe is usually blamed
on the Mongols. But it doesn't really work as an argument.
Why would that change culture?
>> their own failures. Ignoring the fact that Europe
>> was probably worse off during this time yet civilization
>> was just getting into high gear in Europe.
>
> Civilization? That's a good one. Why don't you look up "Treaty of
> Tordesillas"? Why don't you look up Christian Colonialism, fascism and
> Imperialsim?
I can match you horror for horror in Islam.
The conquest of India and other Asiatic nations
were particularly brutal. After the Turks took over
Islamic nations, the string of atrocities was never ending.
But this does not answer the question. Why did science,
philosophy and intellectual pursuit of knowledge die
in Islamic civilization in the 13th century?
>>
>> So no, it had little to do with the overall problem of
>> progress grinding to a halt in Islamic nations. The
>> Mongols most certainly dd not help.
>
> But What do you mean "Islamic" nations? There was no Islamic Pope.
We had mullahs that had joined together to stamp
out philosphy and intellectuals who challenged Islamic
dogmas and they won the battle.
All agreed faith trumped reason, and they mistrusted reason
and denigrated it as leading to heresy and blasphemy.
This was the point of al Ghazali's tome "The incoherence
of the Philosphers" and this was the project that the
mullahs and imams supported, ending all challenges directly
or indirectly to Islamic general dogmas.
The mullahs won. Philosophers were rare after that.
Science faded away, and science then was natural philosophy,
hardly seperate from philosophy.
Really, scoence at that time was not that necessary, for example
Islamic philosphers were the world's leading experts on optics, but only
theoritical optics. Europe's opticians were making reading glasses
but their theory was wrong, if they knew any theory at all.
Thus natural philosophy would be seen as nothing of real
worth and expendable. Theologian who hated it because it
spawned blasphemers and heresy would not at all mourn its
passing.
The problem was, when all of this attitude of independent
and critical thinking had passed away, suppressed, it has
proven hard to rekindle. Later when science came ito its own,
Islam would be ill prepared to handle it. Theology was still in
the way and now totally entrenched.
European dogma that faith and reason are complemetary
left room for thus which Islam had closed the door on.
When science left therealm of theoretical, European
thinking was ready to deal with it an exploit it.
Observing that coins slowly rubbed away in handling
provided clues that lead Greek thinkers to propose
the existance of atoms. Which lead to chemistry and
other ideas.
European cannon makers drilling cannon barrels notice
the friction of drilling created heat. This observation
lead to understanding that heat and work are related
in a deep sense.
Islam lost its corps of thinkers prepared to make
observations like these and make something of them.
Theology has never been able to do this, philosophy,
natural philosophy does. It did not seem pertinet, useful
or necessary to theologians of the 13th century.
In retrospect it was a great error.
Islamic civilization lost those with a turn of mind
necessary to create and exploit science, and thus
engineering and technology tied to natural philosophy.
Draining mines lead to steam engines which lead
to theromdynamics to build better engines which lead
to better engines, useful for things other than draining
mines.
There comes a point theory and science and engineering
are not really seperate.
In the end, natural philosphy is a very necessary thing.
The RCC never managed or tried to stamp natural
philosophy out as per Islam.
Why
> do you think there was a Sunni, Shia divide? It was about separation
> of state and Mosque and it happeded long time ago.
>
Politics. Has nothing to do with the problem at hand.
Why did philosphy and science die in Islam?
The mullahs most certainly did have a far different view
of the world post Ghazali's book than ancient Shia islam.
Philsophers spawning irritating heresies and blasphmies
was the problem the mullahs united to end in 13th Century
Islamic nations. There was no "pope" but we had a lot of
cardinals speaking with one voice.
>> But were far less destructive to Islamic civilization as a whole
>> than the wars that raged over Europe for a century were to Europe
>> by comparison with the plague thrown in.
>>
>> These things caused great change in Europe, and swept
>> away the old world, started the end of feudelism, the rise
>> of nationalism mercantilism, ship building and designing,
>> new ways of agriculture, art, literature and more.
>>
>> Science and Artistotle were loose in Europe and change started
>> here too.
>>
>> Islam by contrast, sank back into the new obscurantism,
>> which hardened and became more sclerotic and anti-intellectual.
>
> But where is the evidence? There was no Islamic Pope to make them toe
> the line one way or another.
You are hung up on a pope for Islam.
You don't need one for a large crusade to stamp
out heresy and blasphemies of philosophers
by a united and resolute critical mass of mullahs
and imams.
Which is what happened. These men also enlisted the support of
the masses and undermined support of leaders for these
philsophers on the basis of stamping out religous and unIslmaic
opinions and teachings.
And they won out.
They didn't sit around looking for a 'pope' to arise among
them to deal with a long standing problem they disliked
intensely.
>
>>
>>
>> > Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350
>> > http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195067746/
>> > by Janet L. Abu-Lughod
>> >
>> >> little new or influential, science and technology would
>> >> take off in Europe especially in the renaissance.
>> >>
>>
>> No. paper making was moving in. Ship design was improving.
>
> Why don't you read the whole book first?
>
Why don't I note what was going on? Paper making was very
important, and once it was developed enough that there was
cheap and good quality paper, this would eventually lead to
printing.
Printing was created specifically to exploit the fact that paper
became cheap and plentiful, and it was the copying that was the
bootleneck.
It was not just the fact that paper became known and made, but
that it became over time, made in quantity and good, repeatable
quality that made printing a possiblity.
Why didn't printing ever come about in Islamic nations
that had paper in quantity centuries before Europe?
Printing actually took quite a bit of effort to develop and drew
on many skills and had to develop these. Why did not some
Gutenburg develop in Islamic nations?
It took time for Europe to digest paper making and in
large quantities. But they did something with it beyond that.
Why did paper making stop there in Islamic nations?
Even the Chinese were doing block printing from an early date.
Yes. And the problem is, why? The answer is, what was spotty
in Europe, this sort of attack on thinkers had long been over and
done with in Islamic nations.
We forget Ibn Habib who was executed for owning a book of
Philosophy after all philosophy books were commanded to be burnt.
In 1150, Caliph Mustanjid at Baghdad ordered all Philosophy books.
burnt. In Seville, emir al-Mansur ordered all philosophy books burnt.
Ibn Habib was a Spanish Moslem who hid his rather than burn
them as ordered.
Here are your Brunos and Galileos.
If there
> had been then the resistance against the equivalent Islamic Vatican
> would have been fierce (FYI, there was no Islamic Vatican state).
It was worse. Masses of mullahs with no head, no pope, no one
leader to reason with. Having decided philosphy was destructive to Islam,
they set out to end philosphy.
And did.
The heresy hunts in Europe were sporadic, the Galileos and Brunos
surgically targetted unlike philosophy in Islam in the 13th century.
And ended when the popes realized that they had indeed been wrong.
The world was round, and these things had very obvious uses
when you are making a fortune importing spices from the Orient and gold
from the new world.
Theology quickly lost its penchant for attacking people
like Galileo.
Unlike in the Islamic world where destruction of philosophy as
a whole disciplne was pretty much achieved.
What little remained there was neo-Platonist style theology
consonant with Islamic dogmas. And some medicine done
by skilled physicians which did not immediately die away.
>>
>> >> Islam would then import science and technology from
>> >> the West, mainly military technology imported by the
>> >> Ottoman Turks.
>> >> Though it would only be in the early 19th century that
>> >> Western medicine would overtake Islamic medicine
>> >> which was far ahead of the West from earliest times,
>> >> even if not greatly progressively added to since the 1400's.
>> >>
>> >> Islamic theology strangled science and technology.
>> >
>> > Muslim Theory of Evolution
>> >
>>
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=367D324C.725C%40tc3net.com
>
> Science didn't make any difference one way or another until the mid
> 19th century.
>
Yes, but only because it develped and it developed only because natural
philsophy allowed it too.
As Pasteur said, luck favors the prepared mind.
Europeans were capable of developing science
being primed and ready for it,
Islam could not because that turn of mind that made
a trasnsition from natural philosophy to science
was not there.
Actually science started earlier, Galileo a physics professor
at the University of Pisa, unhappy with the state of physics,
threw it all out and started from scratch to rebuild physics
on a sound experiment basis.
To do so, he essentially invented science as we know it.
And his methodology became very widely influential.
They didn't. That was the point. They saw no need for that.
Why rule barbarians? Its hard enough to keep the real
world working and orderly,a lot of work.
And to them, science never quite happened because they
didn't ever really develop the underpinings, the philosophical
models that lead directly to science.
Not to say they did not have philosophy and natural philosophy.
They did. But they never had a Galileo to throw out the
nonsense and start from scratch on a sound basis.
They never had a Roger Bacon, or numerous thinkers
familiar with Aristotle or a similar figure to simultaeously
energize them and organize them.
Their philosophies were too metaphorical.
wbarwell
> wbarwell wrote:
>> maff wrote:
>>
>>
>>>wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
>>>news:<415521c8$0$171$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>...
>>>
>>>>EjP wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Christopher A. Lee wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>>Strangled by the newly successful Islamic theologians who
>>>>had achieved their goal of stamping out any anti-Islamic
>>>>ideas or claims that denied their basic dogmas.
>>>>
>>>>From the 13th century on, Islamic thinkers produced
>>>
>>>So you don't think Genghis Khan had something to do with it?
>>>
>>
>>
>> No. The Mongols most certainly destroyed Baghdad, Iraq,
>> parts of Iran and Syria and the Asian nations.
>> But they turned Islamic and went their way and
>> that was over quickly enough. And the Mongols did not destroy
>> Egypt, North Africa, Islamic Spain, Arabia and other Islamic
>> lands.
>
> They burned the library at Bagdhad, one of the great libraries of the
> Middle Ages, for goodness sake. It certainly was more devestating to
> Islamic civilization than the way you portray it.
>
> <snip>
>
On the other hand, in 1200, the West had comparatively
paltry libraries. Whereas several Islamic libraries had thousands
of volumes, it was a rare Western library with more than a few hundred.
Yet, the West eventually pulled far away from the Islamic nations.
And other libraries in Islamic nations were not burnt.
The Mongols were in fact defeated before they could invade Egypt
or Syria.
By the 1400's Spanish Moslem libraries were quite large in
comparison to many Western libraries, centuries after the
Mongol sack of Baghdad. Why them despite this head start
did Islamic civilization still fall behind? The fall of Islamic
Spain is no explanation either, at this time, Islam from Morocco
to India was largely peaceful except in Eastern Europe where it
was the Turks who were doing the attacking and destroying.
Remember that in the late 1100's there was a wave of mass burnings
of books on philosophy from Baghdad to Spain.
The reach of the mullahs was far greater than that of the Mongols.
In 1150 Caliph Mustanjid in Baghdad ordered all books on philsophy
burnt. And this was copied elswhere. Such as in Islamic Seville.
The later Spanish Islamic nations were the last sanctuary of philosophy
in Islamic civilization for a brief period before Spain defeated Islam
on the Iberian peninsula.
The Mongols destroyed Baghdad, but somebody else destroyed
philosophy and natural philosphy in Islam.
The Moslems themselves.
wbarwell
> In article <41568948$0$166$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>,
> wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>> Despite the occasional Bruno or Galileo, many others
>> went forward without much trouble.
> <snip>
>
> And the word was out.
>
As Charles Fort was noted, when its steam engine time, its
steam engine time.
That is, when the underling technology and need or wish exists,
if one man did not invent the steam engine, another would.
If Galileo did not look at the moon in a telescope and note
its not perfect, or that Venus showed phases like the moon,
somebody else would have. Eventually. If one astronomer did
not note that the solar system was not orbiting Earth but rather
the sun, somebody else would have.
Inquiry and investigation have their own logic, their
own timetable, witness the controversies over
who discovered oxygen, Lavoisier or Priestly and
and who invented calculus, Leibnez or Newton
and 1001 similar arguments.
Of course it only worls if you have astronomers, chemists,
and people who just discovered a new invention from Holland
called a telescope.
Or people racing to understand physics so they can make
better steam engines and make a large amount of money
and beat out their rivals.
I note that Galileo's last book, on physics, had been lent
to a friend in manuscript form. Ths friend had it published
and the RCC was upset. Galileo was at this time blind and
still under house arrest. Galileo answered he had in all honesty
not lent this manuscript to be printed, and the RCC finally let
it pass. One of those very influential little books that changed
history few people have heard of.
The word was out.
wbarwell
> wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
> news:<41568948$0$166$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>...
>> fencingsax wrote:
>>
>> > wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
>> > news:<415521c8$0$171$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>...
>> >> EjP wrote:
>> >>
**************************
>> Despite the occasional Bruno or Galileo, many others
>> went forward without much trouble. Once Galileo had
>> thrown all physics out as corrupt and wrongheaded and
>> started from scratch, and spread by students and colleagues,
>> there was no stopping science, Galileo's new invention
>> for rebuilding physics from the ground up.
>> Science was now based on experiment and observation.
>> Not what some Greek wrote 1600 years ago.
>>
>> Science died two centures before Galileo in Islamic nations.
>> Theology had won out there.
>>
>> Here Aristotle became dogma, reason and religion had
>> to work togther, that was Catholic dogma, in Islam, reason was
>> dogmatically considered inferior to religion, which meant
>> dogmas based on the Quran.
>> Al Ghazali's dogmatic claims won out. Faith was supreme
>> over reason.
>
> But Al Ghazali wasn't the Pope and he didn't represent any Islamic
> Vatican. The was no Ismic Bruno who was burnt and there was no Islamic
> Galileo who was imprisoned.
Why are you hung on this pope thing? Al Ghazali was no pope,
and his book wasn't even original, others earlier had wriiten books
criticizing philsophers for their heresy and blasphemies.
But al Ghazali's book was very well written as polemic and it
became the organizing principle behind a movement of most
mullahs and imams to finally bring philosophy to heel.
It energize opposition to philsophers and lead to the
banning of any writings that in any way crticized the
basic dogmas of Islam.
It lead to mass burnings of philosophy books.
It lead to philosophers losing patronage.
It choked natural philosophy.
You don't need popes, just a lot of people
who have agreed to act in concert for a given aim.
And they did.
>
>>
>> That is what killed progress in Islam.
>>
>> The idea that religion alone, faith alone was adequate,
>> that reason was not needed for Catholic religion is
>> fideism, a heresy.
>>
>> Here is the big difference.
>> The attitude that explains what happened.
>
> Nope. It was the fierce resistance to Christianity (in particularly
> Catholicism but not only)that ushered in the Age of Enlightenment.
>
The idea that reason and faith are not mutually exclusive
played a great part in all of this, it allowed Europe
to avoid the rank obscurantism of Islam that after al Ghazi,
that explicitly stated that faith is superior to reason
and where reason and Islamic faith clash reason must give way.
This kept a foot in the door for philsophy in
Christianity not available in Islam.
> age of Enlightenment
>
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22age+of+Enlightenment%22&sa=N&tab=gn
>
>
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22age+of+Enlightenment%22&sa=N&tab=nw
>
>
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22age+of+Enlightenment%22&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop
>
>
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=age%20of%20Enlightenment&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
>
>
> Edward Gibbon
>
http://news.google.com/news?q=%20%22Edward%20Gibbon%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=gn
>
>
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Edward+Gibbon%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&tab=nw&sa=N
>
>
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Edward+Gibbon%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&output=search&cat=gwd/Top
>
>
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=Edward%20Gibbon&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
--
maff
But where is the evidence? Averroes was still under the protection of
the King. Religion is not the only fault line in the World.
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military
Conflict from 1500 to 2000
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0006860524/
by Paul Kennedy
Ibn Averroes OR Averroës OR Averroès OR Roschd OR Rushd OR Rušd OR
Rusd OR Roshd
(1126-98)
http://news.google.com/news?q=Ibn%20%20Averroes%20OR%20Averro%C3%ABs%20OR%20Averro%C3%A8s%20OR%20Roschd%20OR%20Rushd%20OR%20Ru%C5%A1d%20OR%20Rusd%20OR%20Roshd&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&scoring=r&tab=gn
> >>
> >> That is what killed progress in Islam.
> >>
> >> The idea that religion alone, faith alone was adequate,
> >> that reason was not needed for Catholic religion is
> >> fideism, a heresy.
> >>
> >> Here is the big difference.
> >> The attitude that explains what happened.
> >
> > Nope. It was the fierce resistance to Christianity (in particularly
> > Catholicism but not only)that ushered in the Age of Enlightenment.
> >
>
> The idea that reason and faith are not mutually exclusive
> played a great part in all of this, it allowed Europe
> to avoid the rank obscurantism of Islam that after al Ghazi,
> that explicitly stated that faith is superior to reason
> and where reason and Islamic faith clash reason must give way.
>
> This kept a foot in the door for philsophy in
> Christianity not available in Islam.
So how come majority of the 'Christian' countries aren't known for
their intellectual prowess?
maff
Theu did. But it was difficult not for Islamic countries but countries
all over the World due to Christian Colnialism, fascism and
Imperialism.
The same apologetics was used when under the yoke of Chiag Kaishek and
his Christian fascist death squads.
China Shakes the World.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0853451591/
by Jack Belden
A book that explains why Mao (at the beginning) was good...., August
29, 2000
Reviewer: J. Michael Showalter (Nashville, TN United States)
This is a really powerful book..... It is an account of China under
the government of the Nationalist Chinese written by an American
journalist who, in the end, fell under the spell of Mao's PLA not for
ideological reasons-- but because of a personal affinity for the
Chinese people.... who were suffering....
I was advised to read this book in college by a professor who claimed
that "if you can read this book and not cry, then you don't have a
heart." Certainly, Belden's account of how through Communism the
Chinese people relieved themselves of some of the subjugation which a
feudalish society compounded by Western imperialism subjected them to,
graphically illustrates suffering.... murder, rape, and many other
human vices.... in ways that few other books do.... and hints at WHY
people (barring events of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural
Revolution) can still respect Mao as a leader and a liberator of a
nation....
You don't still have a clue about the Enlghtenment, do you?
"The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good
is my religion." - Thomas Paine
>
>
>
> >>
> >> However, in Europe, we had the Black Plague that killed
> >> 1/4 to 1/3 of Europe. We had a century of wars, the 100 years
> >> war between France and England, France invading Belgium,
> >> Switzerland, war in Spain, in Italy. We had two popes busily
> >> excommunicating each other and their followers.
> >> We had Italy dissolved into wars between petty princes.
> >> Germany and Austria battled themselves, and Hungarians.
> >> Europe had just lost the last crusades.
> >>
> >> A truely turbulent and deadly century at the same time.
> >>
> >> Yet, all this death and destruction in Europe did not
> >> have the effect of stopping progress or or science
> >> or the march to the Renaissance.
> >>
> >> Moslems have long used the Mongols to explain
> >
> > I'm sure Moslems (or Muslims) had their own failures just like anyone
> > else in the World.
>
>
> Yes. But more than a few times I have had arguments
> with Moslems over this issue and the failure of Islamic
> civilization to keep up with Europe is usually blamed
> on the Mongols. But it doesn't really work as an argument.
> Why would that change culture?
It depends. If we bomb the 'Bible Belt', they might accept the change.
How do you think other countries in the World changed?
> >> their own failures. Ignoring the fact that Europe
> >> was probably worse off during this time yet civilization
> >> was just getting into high gear in Europe.
> >
> > Civilization? That's a good one. Why don't you look up "Treaty of
> > Tordesillas"? Why don't you look up Christian Colonialism, fascism and
> > Imperialsim?
>
> I can match you horror for horror in Islam.
> The conquest of India and other Asiatic nations
> were particularly brutal. After the Turks took over
> Islamic nations, the string of atrocities was never ending.
So why aren't you giving the evidence which can be accepted in courts?
You still have to prove it was for religious reasons. So are you now
saying Christian, Hindu, Buddhist or whoever rulers were making love
all the time? Tell me more.
In terms of Univeral dollars, if you compare all religons combined
excluding Christianity, it's 1:1,000,000,000,000. But then again,
Christians had 2,000 years of practice.
>
> But this does not answer the question. Why did science,
> philosophy and intellectual pursuit of knowledge die
> in Islamic civilization in the 13th century?
Who said it died in the 13th century?
Chronology for 500 to 900
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Chronology/500_900.html
Chronology for 900 to 1100
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Chronology/900_1100.html
Chronology for 1100 to 1300
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Chronology/1100_1300.html
Chronology for 1300 to 1500
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Chronology/1300_1500.html
> >>
> >> So no, it had little to do with the overall problem of
> >> progress grinding to a halt in Islamic nations. The
> >> Mongols most certainly dd not help.
> >
> > But What do you mean "Islamic" nations? There was no Islamic Pope.
>
> We had mullahs that had joined together to stamp
But who are these mullahs? In what countries?
> out philosphy and intellectuals who challenged Islamic
> dogmas and they won the battle.
According to your logic, majority of the 'Christian' countries would
have been intellectual power houses. But the opposite is true.
Are you joking?
A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/White/
> Why
> > do you think there was a Sunni, Shia divide? It was about separation
> > of state and Mosque and it happeded long time ago.
> >
>
> Politics. Has nothing to do with the problem at hand.
Why don't you first learn bit of history?
> Why did philosphy and science die in Islam?
> The mullahs most certainly did have a far different view
> of the world post Ghazali's book than ancient Shia islam.
>
> Philsophers spawning irritating heresies and blasphmies
> was the problem the mullahs united to end in 13th Century
> Islamic nations. There was no "pope" but we had a lot of
> cardinals speaking with one voice.
So how come 'Islamic' countries were teaching about evolution and
abiogenesis even before Darwin?
>
>
> >> But were far less destructive to Islamic civilization as a whole
> >> than the wars that raged over Europe for a century were to Europe
> >> by comparison with the plague thrown in.
> >>
> >> These things caused great change in Europe, and swept
> >> away the old world, started the end of feudelism, the rise
> >> of nationalism mercantilism, ship building and designing,
> >> new ways of agriculture, art, literature and more.
> >>
> >> Science and Artistotle were loose in Europe and change started
> >> here too.
> >>
> >> Islam by contrast, sank back into the new obscurantism,
> >> which hardened and became more sclerotic and anti-intellectual.
> >
> > But where is the evidence? There was no Islamic Pope to make them toe
> > the line one way or another.
>
> You are hung up on a pope for Islam.
> You don't need one for a large crusade to stamp
> out heresy and blasphemies of philosophers
> by a united and resolute critical mass of mullahs
> and imams.
So who are these mullahs and imams? In which countries?
>
> Which is what happened. These men also enlisted the support of
> the masses and undermined support of leaders for these
> philsophers on the basis of stamping out religous and unIslmaic
> opinions and teachings.
>
> And they won out.
>
> They didn't sit around looking for a 'pope' to arise among
> them to deal with a long standing problem they disliked
> intensely.
That's what you say. But Islamic fundamentalists were a tiny minority
for a long time. Since the '50s, US funded them to undermine secular
Arab countries. It's only now they've become a significant player.
It's not that Arabs suddenly found religion just like Bush.
But it wouldn't have progressed any further like the Chinese, without
Christian Colnialsim,fascism and Imperialism. Even Christian
Colnialism, fascism and Imperialism can't make it go any further. So
it's only natural that China and India will grow faster being large
countries. Their growth will lift all other countries as well.
It stll isn't all countries. That's the problem whereas in all
Catholic countries they had to obey the Papal Bull.
You also forget Protestants and Catholics still agreed on much of the
theology even without the Pope.
Miguel Servet
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=18510aff.0408082330.6e3bbb80%40posting.google.com
>
>
> If there
> > had been then the resistance against the equivalent Islamic Vatican
> > would have been fierce (FYI, there was no Islamic Vatican state).
>
> It was worse. Masses of mullahs with no head, no pope, no one
> leader to reason with. Having decided philosphy was destructive to Islam,
> they set out to end philosphy.
> And did.
It would have been local not global.
>
> The heresy hunts in Europe were sporadic, the Galileos and Brunos
> surgically targetted unlike philosophy in Islam in the 13th century.
> And ended when the popes realized that they had indeed been wrong.
> The world was round, and these things had very obvious uses
> when you are making a fortune importing spices from the Orient and gold
> from the new world.
>
> Theology quickly lost its penchant for attacking people
> like Galileo.
So how come it was only in the 19th century that Vatican allowed
Galileo to be published?
>
> Unlike in the Islamic world where destruction of philosophy as
> a whole disciplne was pretty much achieved.
> What little remained there was neo-Platonist style theology
> consonant with Islamic dogmas. And some medicine done
> by skilled physicians which did not immediately die away.
But it was only in the mid 19th century that Britain overtook Islamic
medicine. It seems intellectual prowess correlates with wealth rather
than anything else.
If it was only religion, how come majority of 'Christian' countries
aren't intellectual powerhouses?
But majority of the 'Christian' European countries aren't intellectual
power houses. Where is the glory of Greek science?
I wouldn't be too sure.
38
High Virtue is non-virtuous;
Therefore it has Virtue.
Low Virtue never frees itself from virtuousness;
Therefore it has no Virtue.
High Virtue makes no fuss and has no private ends to serve:
Low Virtue not only fusses but has private ends to serve.
High humanity fusses but has no private ends to serve:
High morality not only fusses but has private ends to serve.
High ceremony fusses but finds no response;
Then it tries to enforce itself with rolled-up sleeves.
Failing Tao, man resorts to Virtue.
Failing Virtue, man resorts to humanity.
Failing humanity, man resorts to morality.
Failing morality, man resorts to ceremony.
Now, ceremony is the merest husk of faith and loyalty;
It is the beginning of all confusion and disorder.
As to foreknowledge, it is only the flower of Tao,
And the beginning of folly.
Therefore, the full-grown man sets his heart upon the substance rather
than the husk;
Upon the fruit rather than the flower.
Truly, he prefers what is within to what is without.
"The wicked leader is he who the people
despise. The good leader is he who the people
revere. The great leader is he who the people
say, 'we did it ourselves'."
"If you want to be a great leader,
you must learn to follow the Tao.
Stop trying to control.
Let go of fixed plans and concepts,
and the world will govern itself.
"The more prohibitions you have,
the less virtuous people will be.
The more weapons you have,
the less secure people will be.
The more subsidies you have,
the less self-reliant people will be.
"Therefore the Master says:
I let go of the law,
and people become honest.
I let go of economics,
and people become prosperous.
I let go of religion,
and people become serene.
I let go of all desire for the common good,
and the good becomes common as grass."
maff
Indian science Nobel laureates
Prof. C. V. Raman 1930 Physics - Raman Effect
Dr. Hargobind Khurana 1968 Medicine - Genetic Code
Prof. S. Chandrasekhar 1983 Physics - Chandrasekhar's Limit
Prof. Amartya Sen 1998 Economics - Welfare Economics
Chinese science Nobel laureates
Steven Chu 1997 Physics
Tsung-dao Lee 1957 Physics
Samuel C. C. Ting - 1976 Physics
Chen Ning Yang - 1957 Physics
wbarwell
One of the last philosphers who had such protection,
though he was indeed several times in hs life without
such protection and forced to move.
Protection for such as Averroes became the exception, not the rule
as in the earlier reign of men like al-Mamun.
The last refuges were in Islamic Spain before the Spanish took
over.
We had earlier episodes where Philosophy was banned, books burnt,
and people executed for studing philsophy.
When you have a situation where you have no idea
what the morrow brings its surely has a dampening
effect on ths study of such subjects.
Evidence? Right in front of you! You don't need one man, a pope,
to make things happen. You simply need the collective
action of the mullahs.
You have their crusades, you see the results.
Where are the great scientists, critical thinkers, philsophers
of Islam post 13th century.
It all fades away. What explains that? Mongols?
As I have pointed out Europe itself suffered major
setbacks just as bad, and started with far, far less
to begin with. And yet forged ahead. So it wasn't things
like mass destruction, war and black death that
were holding things back. Or Mongols.
Europe saw specific heresies and specific heretics harassed
over specific claims.
We did not see mass burnings of books of philosophy as we saw
for example in Baghdad under Mustanjid in 1150, or Seville
under al-Mansur in 1194. Philosophy was banned and
the penalty was death and al Habib's executions under
this ban is as serious a sign of decline as anything you can find.
It would be a brave man studying and writing philosophy
after such things knowing death of a patron may see a
new anti-philosophy crusade to power.
After al Ghazali, mullahs were invited into the library
of Baghdad to remove and burn philosophy books they
disapproved of. Even before the Mongols the rot had set in.
The mullahs had won and philosophy was wounded and dying.
>> This kept a foot in the door for philsophy in
>> Christianity not available in Islam.
>
> So how come majority of the 'Christian' countries aren't known for
> their intellectual prowess?
You ever hear of the Scholastics?
Come on! By 1400's when Islam was
intellectually dead, and the last stronghold
of Islamic excellence about to go under in Spain,
Europe was very much demonstarting a good deal
of intellectual prowess. And it was picking up steam
and it never stopped. meanwhile in Islamic lands,
it was winding down, creaking, halting, ending.
By the 1500's when we had people like Galileo and
Copernicus and such people, who can you name
from Islamic civilization that changed the world
with their intellectual ideas?
Why did all that change? Mongols in the 1200's?
No.
Mullahs.
In Islam, faith trumps reason.
In the West, reason and faith must agree,
and that was a dogma. It kept inquiry and
critical thinking alive. That was dangerous in
Islamic nations.
Much of what you can find in Islamic philosopher's
books to this day could get you in great danger
of execution for blasphemy in Pakistan if taught
in a class room there.
The West never burnt all philosphy books and
banned philosophy with the death penalty.
That did happen in Islamic civilzation.
This is a clue as to what went wrong.
Anti-intellectualism and religous obscurantism
finally won out.
wbarwell
> wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
> news:<41584aff$0$170$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>...
>> maff wrote:
>>
>> >> lands.
>> >
>> > Why don't you do ecomic models of it? Baghdad and Damascus weren't
>> > just any cities or Capitals. They were the political, ecomnomic and
>> > cultural powerhouses of the day. Do you think other countries won't be
>> > affected? Why don't do a modelling of the trade flows after Baghdad
>> > was sacked?
>> >
>>
>> How long do you give 'em to recover? 10 years, 25, 50, 100?
>
> They did. But it was difficult not for Islamic countries but countries
> all over the World due to Christian Colnialism, fascism and
> Imperialism.
>
Europe kept progressing despite the fall of much of Eastern Europe
to the Hungarians and later the Turks and wars among theirselves.
So its still not an explanation.
We had the religous wars of the 1500's that resulted in deaths of
1/4 of Europe, and yet, Europe still progressed.
Science was invented as we know it by Galileo,
as he reformed physics. He was born in 1564 as the religous wars
between French factions reached their heights and the Turks had
besieged Vienna itself and had taken Poland and Hungary.
When then did Galileo happen in Europe and not in Constantinople
or Baghdad?
The crusade were long over, Europe lost, and the Mongols
were a distant event.
Yet Islam produced little except destruction.
Where were the intellectuals in Islam?
Gallileo in a turbulent Europe changed the world,
in Islam, we have nothing. Why?
It wasn't imperialism, the Moslems were doing
the imperializing.
>> Yes. But more than a few times I have had arguments
>> with Moslems over this issue and the failure of Islamic
>> civilization to keep up with Europe is usually blamed
>> on the Mongols. But it doesn't really work as an argument.
>> Why would that change culture?
>
> It depends. If we bomb the 'Bible Belt', they might accept the change.
> How do you think other countries in the World changed?
Non sequitur. By the 1500's Eurpoe was by far the
intellectual master compared to Islam. Islam had
long been the aggressor here under the Turks.
By the 1500's they had taken most of Eastern Europe
up to Poland, and were planning to take Germany.
But can you name a major Islamic thinker that changed
anything?
The Mongols were no longer an issue here.
>
>> >> their own failures. Ignoring the fact that Europe
>> >> was probably worse off during this time yet civilization
>> >> was just getting into high gear in Europe.
>> >
>> > Civilization? That's a good one. Why don't you look up "Treaty of
>> > Tordesillas"? Why don't you look up Christian Colonialism, fascism and
>> > Imperialsim?
>>
>> I can match you horror for horror in Islam.
>> The conquest of India and other Asiatic nations
>> were particularly brutal. After the Turks took over
>> Islamic nations, the string of atrocities was never ending.
>
> So why aren't you giving the evidence which can be accepted in courts?
Shit! get real! History books filled with evidence exists.
You love to spray websites around like conffetti.
Go google for the history of Islam's centures long conquest
of the East from Afghanisan to India.
It was cruel and savage beyond belief.
These were not "people of the book" but idolaters,
the Quran had specified idolaters were to be killed.
> You still have to prove it was for religious reasons. So are you now
> saying Christian, Hindu, Buddhist or whoever rulers were making love
> all the time? Tell me more.
Dumbass! Don't throw out strawmen like that.
I never said it was all for religous reasons.
People often do cruel things for other reason and use
religon only to rationalize it.
If the Quran allows one to get rich making raids
on other nations and taking slaves, it wil lbe done,
for greed, and rationalized by religion, not necessarily
done in teh name of religion.
Don't bullshit.
You are getting desperate now and are throwing out crap
that has nothing to do with what started this discussion.
Its slipping into false claims, strawmen, special pleading and
bullshitting.
End of discussion.
You lose.
To quote Johnson " I have given you the facts Sir, I am
not required to give you an understanding".
The Mongols were not the reason Islam ceased
to be an intellectual factor in science or technology.
The reason is, they valued religion more than
reason.
>> >
>> > But What do you mean "Islamic" nations? There was no Islamic Pope.
>>
>> We had mullahs that had joined together to stamp
>
> But who are these mullahs? In what countries?
You are either the most ignorant bastard on the net, or
you are playing games with me.
Rather than spewing URL's like vomit around, why don't you sit down and
read a few on how Islam works?
If you are playing games here, its a waste of time to deal with you.
If you are really so ignorant that you haven't the slightest clue
that the mullahs, like a minister of a xian church, went to seminaries,
were trained, and if theypassed muster, became a mullah capable of
leading a mosque, leading prayers and preaching sermons.
Collectively, like churches, they were organized, and generally
there was a collective understanding as set by the heads of the collective
seminaries as to what was Islamic or not.
Every Islamic nation had is mosques and each mosque had its mullah,
and we had Islamic judges and schools of jurisprudence where basic
dogmas were enforced as part of Islamic law, which the seminaries taught
to prospective mullahs, alomg with memorizing the Quran and studying the
hadiths which defined Islamic doctrine.
Google; Islamic law, four schools.
If you really have no idea how that all worked, you might as well stop
spouting off about this arguing without knowing basic facts.
Its a waste of your time and mine.
And I am not going to take the time to educate an angry man
spraying URL's around rather than sitting down and reading the
ones you need to be reading.
If you are jacking me around playing games, inviting me to waste time with
your games, screw you.
Cheerful Charlie
Cheerful Charlie
Walter Bushell
wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote:
<snip>
> The West never burnt all philosphy books and
> banned philosophy with the death penalty.
> That did happen in Islamic civilzation.
That happened in Roman times with the rise of Christianity.
John McKendry
> In article <415980e5$0$167$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>,
> wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>> The West never burnt all philosphy books and banned philosophy with the
>> death penalty. That did happen in Islamic civilzation.
> <snip>
>
> That happened in Roman times with the rise of Christianity.
I thought I had a pretty good grasp of Christian history, and
I don't know of any such incidents. Have a cite?
John
maff
> In article <415980e5$0$167$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>,
> wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote:
> <snip>
> > The West never burnt all philosphy books and
> > banned philosophy with the death penalty.
> > That did happen in Islamic civilzation.
> <snip>
>
> That happened in Roman times with the rise of Christianity.
Library of Alexandria
http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/l/li/library_of_alexandria.html
Great Library Alexandria
http://www.google.com/search?q=Great+Library+Alexandria&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&tab=nw&sa=N
http://news.google.com/news?q=Great%20Library%20Alexandria&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=gn
wbarwell
> In article <415980e5$0$167$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>,
> wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>> The West never burnt all philosphy books and
>> banned philosophy with the death penalty.
>> That did happen in Islamic civilzation.
> <snip>
>
> That happened in Roman times with the rise of Christianity.
>
I don't recall any time that was so, cites?
When Islam conquered the East, the Moslems
had plenty of books of Greek philosophy to inspire
them to take up philosophy.
I do know that the xians shut down the last Greek
academies in Athens in the 5th century.
And we had sporadic outrages such as the murder of Hypatia,
who taught math and philosophy. But that was not mandated
policy to do that.
We did not see the outright banning of philosophy
and mass book burnings of all philsophy texts
as we saw in 12th century Islamic nations.
maff
What do you mean by 'Spanish took over'? Muslims and Jews were
Spanish. According to your logic, the only Americans were Native
Americans. Why are you playing down Jews were also expelled? They were
given refuge in North Africa and Turkey.
>
> We had earlier episodes where Philosophy was banned, books burnt,
> and people executed for studing philsophy.
So why aren't you citing those incidents?
>
> When you have a situation where you have no idea
> what the morrow brings its surely has a dampening
> effect on ths study of such subjects.
>
>
> Evidence? Right in front of you! You don't need one man, a pope,
> to make things happen. You simply need the collective
> action of the mullahs.
>
> You have their crusades, you see the results.
> Where are the great scientists, critical thinkers, philsophers
> of Islam post 13th century.
Chronology for 1100 to 1300
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Chronology/1100_1300.html
Chronology for 1300 to 1500
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Chronology/1300_1500.html
>
> It all fades away. What explains that? Mongols?
> As I have pointed out Europe itself suffered major
> setbacks just as bad, and started with far, far less
> to begin with. And yet forged ahead. So it wasn't things
> like mass destruction, war and black death that
> were holding things back. Or Mongols.
It was not just Mongols. On the flip side, Colonial and Imperial
powers were preying on the whole World.
So you haven't heard of "Treaty of Tordesillas"?
http://www.google.com/search?q=%20%22Treaty%20of%20Tordesillas%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=gw
Colonialism
http://www.google.com/search?q=Colonialism&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=gw
Imperialism
http://www.google.com/search?q=Imperialism&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=gw
>
> Europe saw specific heresies and specific heretics harassed
> over specific claims.
> We did not see mass burnings of books of philosophy as we saw
> for example in Baghdad under Mustanjid in 1150, or Seville
> under al-Mansur in 1194. Philosophy was banned and
> the penalty was death and al Habib's executions under
> this ban is as serious a sign of decline as anything you can find.
So you burnt Bruno, Servet, et al?
>
> It would be a brave man studying and writing philosophy
> after such things knowing death of a patron may see a
> new anti-philosophy crusade to power.
>
> After al Ghazali, mullahs were invited into the library
> of Baghdad to remove and burn philosophy books they
> disapproved of. Even before the Mongols the rot had set in.
>
> The mullahs had won and philosophy was wounded and dying.
Aquinas learnt from Al Ghazali. Even Al Ghazali wouldn't have burnt or
killed philosophers.
>
> >> This kept a foot in the door for philsophy in
> >> Christianity not available in Islam.
> >
> > So how come majority of the 'Christian' countries aren't known for
> > their intellectual prowess?
>
>
> You ever hear of the Scholastics?
> Come on! By 1400's when Islam was
> intellectually dead, and the last stronghold
> of Islamic excellence about to go under in Spain,
> Europe was very much demonstarting a good deal
> of intellectual prowess. And it was picking up steam
> and it never stopped. meanwhile in Islamic lands,
> it was winding down, creaking, halting, ending.
> By the 1500's when we had people like Galileo and
> Copernicus and such people, who can you name
> from Islamic civilization that changed the world
> with their intellectual ideas?
But it still doesn't explain why majority of the 'Christian' countries
aren't intellectual power houses?
>
> Why did all that change? Mongols in the 1200's?
> No.
>
> Mullahs.
>
> In Islam, faith trumps reason.
> In the West, reason and faith must agree,
> and that was a dogma. It kept inquiry and
> critical thinking alive. That was dangerous in
> Islamic nations.
>
> Much of what you can find in Islamic philosopher's
> books to this day could get you in great danger
> of execution for blasphemy in Pakistan if taught
> in a class room there.
>
> The West never burnt all philosphy books and
Christians instead burnt philosophers. Bible says you can't shed
blood. So they burnt Bruno, Servet, et al.
> banned philosophy with the death penalty.
> That did happen in Islamic civilzation.
>
> This is a clue as to what went wrong.
> Anti-intellectualism and religous obscurantism
> finally won out.
So why aren't you publishing it in peer reviewed history journals?
wbarwell
>
> What do you mean by 'Spanish took over'? Muslims and Jews were
> Spanish. According to your logic, the only Americans were Native
> Americans. Why are you playing down Jews were also expelled? They were
> given refuge in North Africa and Turkey.
>
I mean just that. When the last Islamic nations of Iberia were
defeated and overrun by the Spanish, and the nation became a
united Spanish, Catholic nation under Ferdinand and Isabella.
What did you think I meant?
What else COULD I have meant.
Maybe you should read a bit more rather than
just spraying URLs all over the place?
Do I have to make a long post each time with you explaining
basic history at length so you don't get confused when I
mention something almost everybody else knows?
Why don't you bother thinking rather than just
making knee jerk objections to everything anybody says?
Or would that take too much effort on your part?
--
maff
> maff wrote:
> >
> > What do you mean by 'Spanish took over'? Muslims and Jews were
> > Spanish. According to your logic, the only Americans were Native
> > Americans. Why are you playing down Jews were also expelled? They were
> > given refuge in North Africa and Turkey.
> >
>
>
> I mean just that. When the last Islamic nations of Iberia were
> defeated and overrun by the Spanish, and the nation became a
> united Spanish, Catholic nation under Ferdinand and Isabella.
>
> What did you think I meant?
> What else COULD I have meant.
> Maybe you should read a bit more rather than
> just spraying URLs all over the place?
>
> Do I have to make a long post each time with you explaining
> basic history at length so you don't get confused when I
> mention something almost everybody else knows?
>
> Why don't you bother thinking rather than just
> making knee jerk objections to everything anybody says?
>
> Or would that take too much effort on your part?
So you agree that you're an illegal occupier on Native American land?
Walter Bushell
maf...@yahoo.com (maff) wrote:
<snip>
> So you agree that you're an illegal occupier on Native American land?
<snip>
All land titles are rooted to adverse possession.
wbarwell
> wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
> news:<415adb61$0$172$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>...
>> maff wrote:
>> >
>> > What do you mean by 'Spanish took over'? Muslims and Jews were
>> > Spanish. According to your logic, the only Americans were Native
>> > Americans. Why are you playing down Jews were also expelled? They were
>> > given refuge in North Africa and Turkey.
>> >
>>
>>
>> I mean just that. When the last Islamic nations of Iberia were
>> defeated and overrun by the Spanish, and the nation became a
>> united Spanish, Catholic nation under Ferdinand and Isabella.
>>
>> What did you think I meant?
>> What else COULD I have meant.
>> Maybe you should read a bit more rather than
>> just spraying URLs all over the place?
>>
>> Do I have to make a long post each time with you explaining
>> basic history at length so you don't get confused when I
>> mention something almost everybody else knows?
>>
>> Why don't you bother thinking rather than just
>> making knee jerk objections to everything anybody says?
>>
>> Or would that take too much effort on your part?
>
> So you agree that you're an illegal occupier on Native American land?
Dumb sunuvabitch! So losing an argument you don't even understand,
you adopt the troll's usenet habit of changing the subject.
Plonk!
--
maff
> maff wrote:
>
> > wbarwell <wbar...@munnnged.mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
> > news:<415adb61$0$172$811e...@news.mylinuxisp.com>...
> >> maff wrote:
> >> >
> >> > What do you mean by 'Spanish took over'? Muslims and Jews were
> >> > Spanish. According to your logic, the only Americans were Native
> >> > Americans. Why are you playing down Jews were also expelled? They were
> >> > given refuge in North Africa and Turkey.
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >> I mean just that. When the last Islamic nations of Iberia were
> >> defeated and overrun by the Spanish, and the nation became a
> >> united Spanish, Catholic nation under Ferdinand and Isabella.
> >>
> >> What did you think I meant?
> >> What else COULD I have meant.
> >> Maybe you should read a bit more rather than
> >> just spraying URLs all over the place?
> >>
> >> Do I have to make a long post each time with you explaining
> >> basic history at length so you don't get confused when I
> >> mention something almost everybody else knows?
> >>
> >> Why don't you bother thinking rather than just
> >> making knee jerk objections to everything anybody says?
> >>
> >> Or would that take too much effort on your part?
> >
> > So you agree that you're an illegal occupier on Native American land?
>
>
> Dumb sunuvabitch! So losing an argument you don't even understand,
> you adopt the troll's usenet habit of changing the subject.
That's what all fascists say. That's why they're going to be losers.
Walter Bushell
maf...@yahoo.com (maff) wrote:
<snip>
> But it still doesn't explain why majority of the 'Christian' countries
> aren't intellectual power houses?
Compared to the rest of humanity, normalized for population? It does
seem that intellect is greater the more post Christian the country is.
maff
> In article <18510aff.04092...@posting.google.com>,
> maf...@yahoo.com (maff) wrote:
> <snip>
> > But it still doesn't explain why majority of the 'Christian' countries
> > aren't intellectual power houses?
> <snip>
>
> Compared to the rest of humanity, normalized for population? It does
> seem that intellect is greater the more post Christian the country is.
But which counties? It correlates more to GNP than to religion or lack of religion.