The Myth of the West's Intellectual Debt to Islam
Robert Houghton
relevant to Islam. The issue of Medieval Europe's indebtedness to
Islamic civilization and its transmission of Greek science and culture
to the West is a major one and is clearly relevant to Islam and Islamic
history and culture. There was an extensive discussion of this on the
forum some time ago. Please reconsider your decision.
I have shown that the translation under the Arabs of Classical
philosophy and science from Greek into Syriac, and then Syriac into
Arabic, and then the translation of the Arabic into Latin, in Spain
under the Christians at Toledo was done by Christians, and in part at
Toledo by Jews. The Muslims didn't have a hand in it. And in "The Muslim
Discovery of Europe" Bernard Lewis writes:
"We know of no Muslim scholar or man of letters before the eighteenth
century who sought to learn a western language, still less of any
attempt to produce grammars, dictionaries, or other language tools."
When it comes to translation into Arabic almost all of the translators
from Greek into Syriac and Arabic were Christians. (Franz Rosenthal
"The Classical Heritage in Islam.")
Bernard Dod, in his chapter 'Aristoteles latinus' in "The Cambridge
History of Later Medieval Philosophy" gives a complete list medieval
translations of Aristotle from Arabic into Latin - none is by an Islamic
scholar.
Plato's "Republic" was not transmitted via the Arabic; it was translated
directly from the Greek, and the better for it.
Astonishingly, contrary to current preconceptions, MOST of the works of
Aristotle were translated directly from the Greek. Peter Dronke, "A
History of twelfth-Century Western Philosophy":
"Note that Latin versions of a number of learned Greek works (Euclid,
Ptolemy) came through translations of the Arabic; most of the works of
Aristotle, however, were translated directly from the Greek, and only
exceptionally by way of an Arabic intermediary ..."
Dronke lists 21 works which were translated directly from the Greek, and
3 which were translated from the Arabic.
Zuiko Azumazi
news:000001c66e04$f75aded0$4101a8c0@rhdt...
> ... The issue of Medieval Europe's indebtedness to
> Islamic civilization and its transmission of ... science and culture
> to the West is a major one and is clearly relevant to Islam and Islamic
> history and culture. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
If it's such a myth why does everyone in the West use Arabic numerals? Isn't
that due to the transfer of knowledge from the so-called Islamic world in
Spain and elsewhere? Doesn't the West still use "algorithms" and "algebra",
good old Arab-Muslim words invented and developed in the mediaeval Islamic
world? Why did Adelard of Bath disguise himself as a Muslim (about 1120 CE)
to study at the Islamic university in Cordova? Why did Gerard of Cremona
study at about the same time in the Islamic university at Toledo? What
Islamic science and knowledge did they learn and acquire? Was this
accumulated Islamic 'intellectual property' not passed on and permeate the
whole of mediaeval Europe and eventually the rest of the so-called Western
world?
Why did the "Church" try and ban the use of Arabic numerals (infidel
symbols) in its edict of 1259 CE? Why did the ecclesiastical authorities of
the University of Padua in 1348 CE order that Roman numerals (plain letters)
should be used instead of Arabic numerals (ciphers - which in itself is
derived from the Arabic word "sifr")? What did Stifel write about Islamic
"algorithms" in 1525 CE?
But all of this is an Islamic myth and not an intellectual debt in the mind
of "crooked thinkers", right? Now why do "straight thinking" bigots like
myself disagree? Is it just because I'm a "mythical" bigot?
--
Peace
--
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive
themselves. [Eric Hoffer]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
klei...@astound.net
Robert Houghton wrote:
The issue of Medieval Europe's indebtedness to
> Islamic civilization and its transmission of Greek science and culture
> to the West is a major one and is clearly relevant to Islam and Islamic
> history and culture.
This question is a staple on SRI. But maybe I can think of something
new to say.
The last time around I made the challenge: Name one book on scientific
or technical matters which was written in antiquity and is preserved
today only by way of an Arabic translation.
Apparently there are none of these. There are a number of Christian
religious works that have survived only because an Arab translation was
made (some of them only in Geez translations of Arabic translations)
but these do not count.
There are a fairly large number of superior original scientific works
written in Arabaic that have survived but these do not count.Some of
these Arabic works have survived only in Latin translations.
If a person with any sensitivity toward antiquities reads the Fihrist
their heart must be torn by how much of what the Islamic world once had
that is now lost. In the thousand years (which should be called a dark
age) since those days something like nine-tenths of the inheritence
from the Golden Age of Islam has vanished. But that does not count
either.
What do we have from antiquity if we exclude the activities of the
Arabs? The west has lost just as large a part of its inheritence as the
Islamic World has. In the west it seems essentially nothing would have
survived if there had not been a great burst of activity around 800 CE
(what is sometimes called the Carolinginian Renaissance). This is
roughly the same time the Islamic Golden Age was beginning and, thougb
it burned out sooner, was a sort of mini-Golden Age in the west. But by
three hundred years later the Latin west, having lost track of its
inheritence again, started looking for more information.
For political reasons the Latin west found it easier to get learning
from the Muslims in Sicily and Andulusia than from the Greeks directly.
And it is just possible that the Crusaders brought back to the west a
greater admiration for the virile and noble Muslims (like Saladin) than
for the rather sleazy Greeks. Arab works were translated into Latin,
often two or three times, and had a termendous impact on the Latin
culture of the High Middle Ages. Oddly enough, it was the original
works of Arab learning that had the most impact. The Latin west was
still not very keen on Greek learning.
If we track the origins of the Renaissance back far enough we can see
that what put it into motion, beginning around 1250 CE, was the
revalorization of Greek thought. Manuscripts of Homer were discovered
and read and then the less well-known Greeks.
And, just in time, there was an outpouring of Greek literary material
from Constantinople in the last century of so before the city fell
to the Turks and for some years after it fell.
So everything was retranslated, this time directly from the Greek. And,
by an accident of history, everything scientific or technical that
survived in Arab translation also survived in Greek. We know it is an
accident because there were religious works that did not.
As to the fine arts, Greek drama and other poetic arts or even Greek
novels, the less said the better. They held no appeal for the Muslims.
And that is how I view the situation today.There are no winners and no
losers.
Robert
You say that Arab works, translated into Latin, "had a tremendous
impact on the Latin culture of the High Middle Ages." This is often
said. I have a fair knowledge of European history and culture, but I am
not aware of the impact you mention, not in culture. As regards
technical matters, zero, and algebra, and various chemicals which were
known in an alchemical way, I know about them, but they are few and not
a matter of culture. Islamic culture seems to have offered nothing to
the West. Can you expand on your claim?
Robert
You must know that the expression "Arabic numerals" is a misnomer;
they, and the decimal system of notation that goes with them, were
invented by the Hindus, from whom the Arabs learned them. Credit goes
to Khwarizmi for inventing zero.
The Arabs produced a flourishing tradition of mathematics on the basis
of translations from the works of the Greek mathematicians; they are
thus in that tradition as the West always has been. It is often said
that the great achievement of Khwarizmi and Arab mathematics is
algebra, but the first work on algebra was by Diophantus of Alexandria
in the 3rd century CE, and the truth is that algebraic results derive
also from Babylon, Egypt, and India. The Indians claim that their
mathematicians invented algebra and passed it on to the Arabs.
Of course, I do not deny that the West learned from Islam, but I do
produce evidence that the intellectual debt in the humanities is not
what has been claimed. Another instance: it is often said that Ghazali
was a major influence on Aquinas. I have attempted to find the basis of
this claim, but have found only vague speculations: "It is thought that
Ghazali might have influenced Aquinas..." etc. The most positive
evidence I have found is in W.Montgomery Watt's article on al-Ghazali
in the "Encyclopaedia of Islam". He says that Ghazali's account of the
neo-Platonism of Ibn Sina and al-Farabi, "Maqasid al-Falasifa", was
much appreciated in Latin translation in the West. But there was
confusion: because of a defect in the manuscript Western scholars
didn't realize that the work was a neutral expository account, but
believed that Ghazali was advancing his own arguments. To further
complicate matters, it is now thought that the book is a translation of
a work of Ibn Sina's in Persian.
You ask what Islamic science and knowledge did the West acquire. Well,
you tell me.
When you write of Islamic "intellectual property" permeating the West,
you overstate your case.
Zuiko Azumazi
news:1146628252....@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
<snip> ...
> This question is a staple on SRI. But maybe I can think of something
> new to say. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
As an observation, which isn't a particularly novel idea, is the subtle
change in the use of "suggestion" associated with the "us" versus "them"
identification process. Why is it that no one simply calls "Greek" knowledge
"Pagan" or "human" knowledge? Why do we need to make fictive contrasts that
constantly use "partisan" and "patriotic" religious denotations like
"Islamic", "Muslim", "Christian", "Arab", "Indian" , "Chinese", etc., when
naming kinds of human ideas? Are such "thought" and "ideas" not the function
of the human mind? Is the human "mind", in fact, not universal? Isn't there
a well-documented "History of Ideas"? What's more important: the "idea"; the
written "tract" itself (manuscript or book - regardless of language); or the
mode of transmission through centres of higher learning (e.g. universities -
regardless of geographical location)?
Outside of divine revelation, can we altruistically say that all human ideas
are deemed "good" because they were first articulated by a Muslim and "bad"
because the were first articulated by a non-Muslim, or vice versa?
A ripe example of "patriotic" wheel-spinning is the "History of Zero", see
this link (29,200 hits) for further detail:-
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&q=+%22history+of+zero%22&btnG=Search
Is this the epitome of the maxim: "Seek knowledge even though it be in
China"?
As you say: "There are no winners and no losers."
--
Peace
--
We should not be ashamed to acknowledge truth from whatever source it comes
to us, even if it is brought to us by former generations and foreign
peoples. For him who seeks the truth there is nothing of higher value than
truth itself [al-Kindi 801-66]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
Zuiko Azumazi
news:1146823377.7...@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
<snip> ...
> ... I have a fair knowledge of European history and culture, but I am
> not aware of the impact you mention, not in culture. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
In the accumulation of your "fair knowledge of European history and culture"
can you indicate what authoritative history books have you actually studied
covering the "cultural" object?
The reason I ask is this is what you wrote earlier about the definitive
"History of the Crusades" by the eminent European historian Sir Steven
Runciman:
" Stephen Runciman is notorious for having spent his life labouring
under post-colonial liberal guilt; he sees the conflict between Islam
and Christendom anachronistically in 20th century terms."
If this is your rather specious view of European history and its eminent and
well respected historians? Didn't the infamous "Church-Crusades" against
Islam have a "cultural" impact on European history? If not, why did Pope
John-Paul II recently apologise to the Islamic world for them?
<snip> ...
> Can you expand on your claim?
<snip> ..
Comment:-
One might ask the same, but historical facts and truth about Islam, put in
its European context, appear to have a decidedly "mythical" air about them
in the fictive minds of European chauvinists.
--
Peace
--
Facts and truth really don't have much to do with each other. [William
Faulkner]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
klei...@astound.net
The primary piece of evidence is Thomas of Aquino. His lifework was a
synthesis between the Latin theology he inherited from earlier
theologians and the philosophy of Aristotle as interpreted by Avicenna
(Ibn Sina) and other Islamic philosophers. And whatever he got directly
from Aristotle he got by way of Latin translations via Arabic.
Some of this depends on what you mean by culture. I believe theology
counts as culture.
Poetry counts as culture. Exactly how much the troubadors owed to the
Muslim poets of Andalusia is debated. I don't know enough to do more
than observe that influence is possible. The court of Frederick "Stupor
Mundi" was so Muslim in feeling that it repulsed puritanical
Christians. Most of Roger Bacon's peculiar ideas can be traced back to
Islamic writings.
I have been trying to think of a reference to give you. The best I can
come up with is Arnold Toynbee's old "A Study of History" published in
many volumes 1934-1961 (there is a one volume reader's digest version)
and its treatment of what I believe he calls "Islamic Civilization". Of
course, modern results are missing, but Toynbee was a good scholar and
covers all the older sources. He was especially interested in the
"clash of civilizations" and extremely sympathetic to Islamic culture.
Most good libraries should have the multi-volume version which was
quite popular back then.
Ephraim
>philosophy and science from Greek into Syriac, and then Syriac into
>Arabic, and then the translation of the Arabic into Latin, in Spain
>under the Christians at Toledo was done by Christians, and in part at
>Toledo by Jews. The Muslims didn't have a hand in it. And in "The Muslim
>Discovery of Europe" Bernard Lewis writes:
>"We know of no Muslim scholar or man of letters before the eighteenth
>century who sought to learn a western language, still less of any
>attempt to produce grammars, dictionaries, or other language tools."
I want to say that your contribution is the latest strawman argument of
the west in its determinaiton to deny Islamic Civilization is basic
history. This will make it easier to demonize a part of the world in
order to not feel so guilty about using force to save the heathens.
Such a tactic was also employed against Africans and Native Americans.
Your contention is a strawman because the "main" argument about the
contribution of Islamic Civilization to the west is not: "Millions of
Arabs personally translated every important western document, and
millions of Arabs were crazy about western languages, therefore Islam
contributed to the west".
So the question now is: Who has argued that the west is in debt with to
Islamic Civilization because Muslims loved western languages and Arab
Muslims personally translated every important western document? The
next question to your point is: So what and how does this invalidate
any claim that Islamic Civilization contributed to the west?
In other words, if we take the House of Wisdom under the Abassids, and
the work that occured their under Muslim authority, and if 89% of the
translators, or rather "employed workers of the Abassids" were
non-Muslims, the accomplishment is not taken away from Islamic
Civilization, no more than Donald Trump is denied fame for his
accomplishments because it is his employed workers who put plans
together, or passed out the mail, or cleaned the bathrooms. As I said,
this is one of the latest inventions to try and bring down any positive
benefit of Islam to the world, and to once again steal any extra
limelight to make the progress of the world on the shoulders of the
west. This is all resting on the argument: How many of the translators
were Muslim.
By the way, prior to the 18th century, Al-Kindi, a man of letters, knew
Greek.
Zuiko Azumazi
news:1146822753.9...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> I reply to Azumazi May 4
> You must know that the expression "Arabic numerals" is a misnomer;
> they, and the decimal system of notation that goes with them, were
> invented by the Hindus, from whom the Arabs learned them. Credit goes
<snip> ...
Comment:-
And what sources are you using to substantiate your "claim to knowledge"?
Did Professor Lancelot Hogben in his well known history, "Mathematics for
the Million" pp 243-9, get it all wrong? Who amongst his academic peers has
refuted his erudite findings? Or doesn't your often quoted peer review
matter when you are wrong about the facts concerning the historical transfer
of knowledge to the west by Arab-Muslims from the Islamic Universities in
Spain (Iberia)?
Even the easily accessible Wikipedia confirms the Arab-Muslim connection in
Spain:-
Extract
West Arabic numerals
A distinctive "West Arabic" variant of the symbols begins to emerge in ca.
the 10th century in the Maghreb and Al-Andalus, called the ghubar
("sand-table" or "dust-table") numerals. ...
Adoption in Europe
The first mentions of the numerals in the West are found in the Codex
Vigilanus of 976 [2]. From the 980s, Gerbert of Aurillac began to spread
knowledge of the numerals in Europe. Gerbert studied in Barcelona in his
youth, and he is known to have requested mathematical treatises concerning
the astrolabe from Lupitus of Barcelona after he had returned to France. ...
End extract
What about eminent Professor Arnold J. Toynbee in his mammoth "A Study of
History" (22 Volumes) got it all wrong when he stated:-
The Impact of Islam on the Christendoms
To conclude this part of our inquiry let us see whether the impact of Islam
upon Christendom will furnish yet another of those 'comparison in three
terms' with which the reader is by this time familiar. We have already
noticed in another connexion a challenge from Islam which evokes an optimum
response. ... Before it was entirely rooted out and destroyed the Iberian
Muslim culture was exploited for the benefit of its victorious antagonist.
The scholars of Muslim Spain contributed unintentionally to the
philosophical edifice erected by the medieval Western Christian schoolmen,
and some of the works of the Hellenic philosopher Aristotle first reached
the Western Christian World through Arabic translations. It is also true
that many 'Oriental' influences on Western culture which have been
attributed to infiltration through the Crusades' principalities in Syria
REALLY came from Muslim Iberia.
End extract [My emphasis]
But you will explain this all away under some blithe generalisation and
unsubstantiated hyperbole and claims from dubious from unreliable sources
and call the "truth".
Why have you failed to refute the Adelhard of Bath and Gerard of Cremona and
the other factual information provided? Or are just interested in specious
"claims", "legends" and "myths"?
Interesting that you would now start quoting the Right Reverend W.
Montgomery Watt, when you wrote earlier in another SRI post:-
"W. Montgomery Watt, in his standard biography of Muhammad, states
that these ten had been guilty of crimes. But one must be wary of
Watt's accounts, especially where they touch upon points that might be
to the discredit of Muhammad, whom he much admires and whom he wishes
to make acceptable to the West. Watt's explicit aim in writing his
history is to see Muhammad through the eyes of a Muslim - so much for
objectivity and truth! As an Anglican clergyman he has an agenda: to
further good relations between Christians and Muslims. But good
relations must be based on frankness and truth. "
Now, of course what Watt writes is all "frankness and truth" when it suits
you're own argument, isn't this marked by deliberate deceptiveness
especially by pretending one set of feelings and acting under the influence
of another?
--
Peace
--
Add a few drops of malice to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.
Robert
You produce the usual line about Aquinas. My problem is, as I have set
out in postings which you ignore, that I can find very little evidence
for it. It is certainly not true that there was an element of Islamic
synthesis in his work, though I believe he does refer to Ghazali - that
is the most I have been able to find. Elsewhere one finds only
tentative references to possibilities of indebtedness.
Aquinas was well able to interpret Aristotle for himself and did so in
masterly fashion; what is needed there is a profound logical acumen,
not Ibn Sina's efforts filtered through a Semitic language. I have
shown that the great majority of Aristotle's works were translated
directly from the Greek - only three via the Arabic. And even if all of
Aristotle had been translated via Arabic, that would not show any
indebtedness to Islamic thinkers.
Can you actually SHOW that most of Bacon's ideas can be traced back to
Islamic writings? Again, my attempts to pursue this suggestion to its
source and evidence has run into sand. The Muslim claim that Bacon laid
the conceptual foundations of experimental science and was indebted in
doing this to Islamic ideas has proved to be unfounded. This concept of
Bacon is based upon a mistranslation of his Latin. See the
"Encyclopedia of Philosophy".
But nothing you have said shows the degree of influence on intellectual
culture that is claimed. The only affinity we in the West feel with
Islam goes back much further: a God in common, and elements of the
Judeo-Christian tradition.
Robert
Your request that I submit to your interrogation regarding my reading
is absurd. Have you got any relevant observations on the issue of the
West's alleged intellectual indebtedness to Islam?
My criticism of Runciman is a commonplace: even a remarkable historian
may be deeply flawed, and the liberal post-colonial guilt that he
suffers from can be seen on all sides in the sentimental Islamophilia
that afflicts the left.
Robert
I say nothing about the history of Islam, so how can I be accused of
denying Islam its history: the question is one of cultural
transmission, some of which was inevitable. Do you think the Caliph who
established his admirable Palace of Wisdom had any intention of
transmitting Greek culture to the West? But it's a matter of FACT.
Aristotle was NOT transmitted to the West by the Arabs; most of his
work was translated from Latin. Astronomy and mathematics WERE
transmitted to the West, but they didn't affect Western culture, or did
so very slowly over centuries. And most of what was transmitted was not
Islamic culture, but Greek culture, and what Islamic achievement there
was, was IN that culture.
You talk about benefits that the world owes to Islam. What about the
benefits of Islam to Muslims? - after a couple of centuries of
creativity under Greek and Persian influence, 1000 years of stagnation
induced by Ghazali's rejection of 'philosophy' - that is rationality
and science.
klei...@astound.net
Zuiko Azumazi wrote:
> <klei...@astound.net> wrote in message
> Why is it that no one simply calls "Greek" knowledge
> "Pagan" or "human" knowledge?
I mentioned Toynbee's "A Study of History" which was published over
fifty years ago. It seems to me that we all have internalized Toynbee's
theories to the point where we think of them as common sense rather
than as theories that, in fact, have been rejected by professional
historians.
We think of history in terms of civilizations (in Toynbee's sense of
civilization which, upon
examination, turns out to be the "obvious" one") but the civilizations
we visualize have no generally agreed upon names. "Greek" is one of the
names we use for the civilization often called "antiquity" or
"Hellenistic" or .... And to this we contrast another civilization we
call "Islamic" or "Arabic" (meaning essentially the original khalifate
and all its successor states).
The cult of the great man is in eclipse (except among the followers of
Ayn Rand). We think of the innovations and achievements made within a
civilization as the innovations and achievements of the civilization
and not as the innovations and achievements of individuals who, by
chance, happened to live is the civilization.
We talk about Greek mathematics instead of Euclid and Archimedes. We
talk about Islamic philosophy instead of Ibn Farabi, Ibn Sina or Ibn
Rushid.
> Why do we need to make fictive contrasts that
> constantly use "partisan" and "patriotic" religious denotations like
> "Islamic", "Muslim", "Christian", "Arab", "Indian" , "Chinese", etc., when
> naming kinds of human ideas?
I am far from sure that attributing an idea to some civilization should
be understood as partisan or patriotic. One can be a member of a
civilization and simultaneously hostile to the most cherished beliefs
of the civilization. Consider the Christian al-Kindi in Bagdad.
Many Muslims who has migrated into the west (Western Civilization)
appear to find themselves in that position
> Are such "thought" and "ideas" not the function
> of the human mind? Is the human "mind", in fact, not universal?
It would seem to me quite clear that being a human being is more
important than belonging to any particular civilization. That is,
nature is more important than nurture.
But civilization matters. There were not going to be any great Inca
authors until the Incan civilization got around to inventing or
adopting (from the Maya) writing.
> Isn't there a well-documented "History of Ideas"?
Not to my knowledge. Your question implies there is. Could you give me
a reference?
> What's more important: the "idea"; the > written "tract" itself (manuscript or book -
> regardless of language); or the > mode of transmission through centres of higher
> learning (e.g. universities -> regardless of geographical location)?
So far as I am concerned the tracts are more important than the
academies. Other people doubtless disagree with me. It seems to me that
good tracts will survive much longer than any university. Could we
still read the Sumerian saga about Gilgamish if it hadn't been written
down?
> Outside of divine revelation, can we altruistically say that all human ideas
> are deemed "good" because they were first articulated by a Muslim and "bad"
> because the were first articulated by a non-Muslim, or vice versa?
Only, of course, if we are insane.
> Is this the epitome of the maxim: "Seek knowledge even though it be in
> China"?
Even on the Moon (and send your agents to Pluto and beyond)..
Zuiko Azumazi
snip> ...
> Your request that I submit to your interrogation regarding my reading
> is absurd. Have you got any relevant observations on the issue of the
> West's alleged intellectual indebtedness to Islam?
<snip> ...
Comment:-
If you had read what was posted there are plenty of examples of relevant
"intellectual indebtedness" which you have artfully neglected to address,
for convenience go to this SRI link:-
news:445c23ff$0$25128$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
Perhaps, you didn't realise that Gerbert of Aurillac became Pope Silvester
II? Wouldn't you concede that this western scholar had no impact on
European learning at that time and was indebted to his Arab-Muslim teachers
in Spain? Weren't Adelhard of Bath and Gerard of Cremona the most
significant western scholars of their day? Why wouldn't they be indebted to
the Islamic Universities they attended in Spain? Are the well-respected
western academic historians like Hogben and Toynbee all "mythically" flawed
"Islamophiles" and suffering from "liberal post-colonial guilt"?
<snip> ...
> My criticism of Runciman is a commonplace: even a remarkable historian
> may be deeply flawed, and the liberal post-colonial guilt that he
> suffers from can be seen on all sides in the sentimental Islamophilia
> that afflicts the left.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
I think you are confusing Sir Steven Runciman with Professor David Runciman
(another historian): but this "commonplace" search doesn't support any of
your mendacious claims about Sir Steven Runciman's purported "guilt" and
adjudged wholehearted support for Islam. Can you provide any evidence from
his peers supporting your casuistical arguments or is this just another
specious attempt to deceive subscribers from the truth about the Crusades
against Islam?
--
Peace
--
The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively not by the false
appearance of things present and which mislead into error, not directly by
weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by
prejudice. - Schopenhauer
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
Zuiko Azumazi
news:1147234311....@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
<snip> ...
> I mentioned Toynbee's "A Study of History" which was published over
> fifty years ago. It seems to me that we all have internalized Toynbee's
> theories to the point where we think of them as common sense rather
> than as theories that, in fact, have been rejected by professional
> historians.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Well things could be worse and we could have (as some have done)
internalised Oswald Spengler's perverse 'racial' theories in "The Decline of
the West". Now, there's an appalling thought for Islam and the rest of
mankind! But some die-hards, Muslim and non-Muslim, still think of them as
making pragmatic "commonsense" in the real political world of today.
<snip> ...
> > Isn't there a well-documented "History of Ideas"?
> Not to my knowledge. Your question implies there is. Could you give me
> a reference?
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Here are a few general links you and other subscribers might find helpful:-
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&q=encyclopedia+%22history+of+ideas%22&btnG=Search
http://jhi.pennpress.org/strands/jhi/home.htm;jsessionid=1BAFB555C971A77B274AA499E9216BAA
http://jhi.pennpress.org/PennPress/journals/jhi/sampleArt1.pdf
klei...@astound.net
Robert wrote:
> I reply to kleine May 9
>
> You produce the usual line about Aquinas. My problem is, as I have set
> out in postings which you ignore, that I can find very little evidence
> for it. It is certainly not true that there was an element of Islamic
> synthesis in his work, though I believe he does refer to Ghazali - that
> is the most I have been able to find. Elsewhere one finds only
> tentative references to possibilities of indebtedness.
Have you actually read anything by Thomas? His commentaries are filled
with references to Avicenna and Averroes and discussions of the
positions held by these men.
> Can you actually SHOW that most of Bacon's ideas can be traced back to
> Islamic writings?
This is a situation where no proof is possible. The standard procedure
is to adopt the conclusion that fits with the least effort. That
conclusion, in the case of Roger Bacon, is that he was largely inspired
(inspired - he had thoughts of his own) by writings that originated in
Islam. If, for ideological reasons you find that unacceptable, please
feel free to disagree. But ideology is a very poor guide to truth.
> But nothing you have said shows the degree of influence on intellectual
> culture that is claimed. The only affinity we in the West feel with
> Islam goes back much further: a God in common, and elements of the
> Judeo-Christian tradition.
Such a conclusion goes directly against evidence you have yourself
advanced. Did "Arabic" numerical notation jump from India to Europe? If
Islam did nothing else it transmitted knowledge (a thing most
universities are proud to be doing). You could argue that other things
Islam has transmitted, like chess, playing cards, coffee and the notion
of courtly love, are mere toys, but you cannot argue there is anything
mere about zero.
I haven't the resources, time nor energy to write an extended treatment
of this issue, but I feel sure that many other practical things were
either invented within Islam or transmitted via Islam into the west.
Perhaps the west even learned a little about warfare during the
Crusades.
Robert
I missed your posting of May 9.
When I asked whether you had any contributions to the discussion,
rather than absurd requests that I submit to interrogation about my
knowledge of history, I was referring to the posting of your request,
which made no contribution to discussion.
You are quite mistaken about the Arabic numerals and the decimal system
(which I specify) in which they functioned. You consider the mere
signs, which are of no significance, and not a matter of intellectual
indebtedness. The Hindus invented our arithmetical system and the Arabs
derived it from them. I suggest you read Hogben again, this time with
understanding.
Of course, I am aware of the Muslim interaction with Christendom in
Spain, but what I have done is to show that the current account of it
is largely myth: the transmission of Greek science was done by
Christians and Jews and was in no sense a Muslim achievement; only
three of Aristotle's many works were translated from Arabic, the rest
from Greek.
Adelard of Bath merely translated two works from Arabic into Latin. He
is not important in the history of ideas and doesn't get a mention in
the "Encyclopedia of Philosophy". He is significant in having studied
Arabic in the East.
I am not confused about Runciman - how could I be: his history of the
crusades has been current for many decades. It's up to you to show that
my claim about his liberal guilt is false: it's a commonplace that he
saw the crusades on the model of European colonialism rather than a
religious war in response to 400 years of jihad, which is what it was.
Read more recent histories.
As regards Toynbee, you will see that he supports me: the Muslim
contribution (unspecified) to Medieval philosophy was unintentional,
and only SOME (three) of Aristotle's works reached Europe via Arabic.
He is unspecific about the cultural influences, which have been traced
to contact in the Holy Land. Of these I am only aware of influences in
clothing and heraldry. If you take a large view of European culture
what influence do you find apart from those acknowledged? Consider law,
government and administration, education, architecture, engineering,
material culture, music (some in Spain), literature (some in Spain),
history, geography, religion, medicine (some - probably transmitted
from the Greeks) .... There will have been influences, but what has
happened to them? - Islam and Christendom have been mutually exclusive
civilizations. And how much of what was transmitted originated in
Eastern Christendom?
Regarding Montgomery Watt, it is absurd of you to object to my adducing
his testimony on a certain topic while faulting him as an Islamophile,
which he confessedly is. The more modest his account of a Muslim
contribution, the more likely it is to be true coming from an
Islamophile.
Robert
Yes, I have studied Aquinas, though cannot claim to be familiar with
all sixty volumes of his work. It is, of course, well known that he
refers to Arabic philosophers in their discussion of Greek philosophy,
but that is a far cry from claiming an Islamic synthesis, or influence
on his own thinking. As I have said, references to Aquinas and the
Arabs are very tentative about influence. The Arabic commentaries on
Aristotle were a standard resource in Europe until the seventeenth
century; they do not represent a Muslim philosophical influence, but
were the means of an Aristotelian one: it must be that they were
themselves a contribution to to Greek philosophy rather than an
independent tradition.
As regards Bacon I asked for evidence of detailed indebtedness to
Muslim thinkers; you say that this cannot be produced, but evade the
conclusion that I have carried my point. If you cannot show that his
ideas can be traced back to Islamic sources then drop your claim.
Ideology has nothing to do with it. Bacon was regarded as a crank in
his day. The idea that he laid the conceptual foundations of modern
science - keenly embraced by Muslims - is no longer taken seriously.
As you yourself admit, the Indian arithmetical system is something the
Arabs can take no credit for. I have discovered also that Khwarizmi did
not after all invent zero, neither did the Arabs invent even the forms
of the numerals: credit for all this goes to the Hindus. To confirm
this, simply type "Arabic numerals" into your search engine and you
will find sites which give a history of the 'Arabic' numerals.
But even if the Arabs had invented the arithmetical system it would not
have been the dramatic contribution to European culture that you have
been making claims for: the first recorded use of the 'Arabic' numerals
in England is in 1487, and they did not come into common use in Europe
until the sixteenth century.
I have no doubt that you are right that many practical things were
transmitted to the West by Islam, but this debate took off because you
made very LARGE claims for the indebtedness of European civilization to
Islam. But I am sure it was a matter of transmission: the Arabs
hijacked the cultures of Hellenic Christendom and Persia; the only
cultural contributions they made themselves were their religion (under
pressure) and their language; what they passed on to the West was what
they received from Eastern Christendom and, perhaps, Persia - the
peach, for instance?
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip> ...
> When I asked whether you had any contributions to the discussion,
> rather than absurd requests that I submit to interrogation about my
> knowledge of history, ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
How many times in SRI have you demanded that Muslim respondents provide
"evidence" and "sources", satisfactory to yourself, if their replies are to
relied upon? Doesn't this rule equally apply to yourself? Why are you
reluctant to supply the information requested; which I repeat for
convenience: "In the accumulation of your "fair knowledge of European
history and culture", can you indicate what authoritative history books have
you actually studied covering the "cultural" object and refutation of
"knowledge transfer" via Arab-Muslim Universities in Spain?
What does your failure to respond or provide any sensible bibliography
(other than bluster, anecdotal evidence and urban myth/legend) signify?
There is only two answers to this reasonable request, either your "cultural"
knowledge is less that you say it is or you can provide proof of how you
derived your "fair knowledge of European history and culture." Which is it?
What authoritative historical sources are you supposedly relying on? Isn't
this is a fair question to ask any antagonist in any sensible discussion
between reasonable subscribers? Tell us Robert, don't all reasonably
qualified historians divulge their sources?
<snip> ...
> I was referring to the posting of your request,
> which made no contribution to discussion.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
The contribution to the discussion was that you claimed you had "fair
knowledge of European history and culture", all I asked was what
authoritative study you had undertaken and what sources you were citing. I
asked this question, because in the past you have cited many odd-ball,
pseudo-historians with a definite anti-Islamic bent. Here's two examples,
Rev. William St Clair Tisdall and Koenraad Elst to prove my point. My second
point is that you have seriously misquoted others.
<snip> ...
> You are quite mistaken about the Arabic numerals and the decimal system
> (which I specify) in which they functioned. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Wasn't the 'intellectual debt' that caused that so-called Arabic numeral
"misnomer" of European origin? Or is your reply a specious attempt to prove
some Islamic conspiracy in this "misnomer" regard?
Can you provide page references and citations from Hogben's book where I
have misquoted him?
<snip> ...
> .... The Hindus invented our arithmetical system and the Arabs
> derived it from them. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Well let's stick to the facts, considering your depth of 'knowledge' on the
subject, can you inform readers of the first epigraphic instance of
positional numbers and the zero digit appearing in continental India? Have
you bothered to check the date of the Cambodian and Sumatra inscriptions?
Perhaps, you should re-read Hogben and other historians of note?
<snip> ...
> Of course, I am aware of the Muslim interaction with Christendom in
> Spain, but what I have done is to show that the current account of it
> is largely myth: ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
So being "aware" of the Arab-Muslim state, that ruled Spain (Iberia) for
seven hundred years is only a minor 'interactional' blip on your purported
"fair knowledge of European history and culture."? European history and
culture with the academic legacy from Arab-Muslim Spain left out, is that
being "aware" in depth? Although, some Muslims might like the history of
El-Cid (noticed the use of Arabic) to be forgotten.
--
Peace
--
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive
themselves. [Eric Hoffer]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
Robert
You write that Aquinas's Commentaries are filled with references to
Avicenna and Averroes and with discussions of their positions. Of
course, of Aquinas's Commentaries on Aristotle this must be true - but
I don't have access to them. He will have turned to their commentaries
as the only relevant material available. Aquinas's commentaries would
seem now to be only of historical interest - they certainly are not at
the focus of current philosophical interest. As regards Aquinas's
mature philosophical work, the "Summa Theologiae", there seems to be
negligible indebtedness: a computer search turned up one reference in
it to Averroes and three references to Avicenna. No question of an
"Islamic synthesis."
Robert
Perhaps this excerpt from the "Catholic Encyclopedia" will put
Aquinas's indebtednes to Arabic philosophy in perspective:
"The books that exercised the greatest influence on his mind were the
Bible, the Decrees of the councils and of the popes, the works of the
Fathers, Greek and Latin, especially of St. Augustine, the "Sentences"
of Peter Lombard, the writings of the philosophers, especially of
Plato, Aristotle, and Boethius. If from these authors any were to be
selected for special mention, undoubtedly they would be Aristotle, St.
Augustine, and Peter Lombard. In another sense the writings of St.
Thomas were influenced by Averroes, the chief opponent whom he had to
combat in order to defend and make known the true Aristotle."
So much for the claim of an Islamic synthesis in his work. It should be
said that his peculiar scholastic way of developing his arguments was
derived from Averroes.
Zuiko Azumazi
news:000001c66e04$f75aded0$4101a8c0@rhdt...
<snip> ...
> I have shown that the translation under the Arabs of Classical
> philosophy and science from Greek into Syriac, and then Syriac into
> Arabic, and then the translation of the Arabic into Latin, in Spain
> under the Christians at Toledo was done by Christians, and in part at
> Toledo by Jews.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Why do you repeat these inaccuracies when you have been reliably informed,
on many occasions in the past, that they are incorrect? Aren't you confusing
your ontological predicates once more?
Since you consistently say you have read most of Bernard Lewis's works <?>
on the Middle East and cite him as your major source, let's cite some other
examples from his "The Arabs in History" that demolish your spurious
explanations and out of context quotes:-
"In culture, too, the Arab (Muslim) heritage must be regarded as of great
importance to Spain, and indeed to all of western Europe. Christians from
many countries came to Spain to study together with native Spaniards under
Arabic speaking Muslim and Jewish teachers, and translated many books from
Arabic into Latin. ... The first great centre for transmission from Islam to
Christianity in the west was the city of Toledo ... During the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, ... the Toledo schools of translators produced a great
corpus of works including the 'Organon' of Aristotle and many of the
writings of Euclid, Ptolemy, Galen,, and Hippocrates; enriched by their Arab
(Muslim) commentators and successors. The translators usually worked with
bilingual natives, many of them Jewish, and included both Spanish and
foreign scholars. Amongst them Domingo Gundisalvi, ... John of Seville and
Petrus Alphonsi, and from other countries, Gerard of Cremona from Italy,
Herman the Dalmatian from Germany, Adelhard of Bath, Daniel of Morlay and
Michael Scot from Britain. ..." [pp 129-30]
You notice there is no mention of Christian translators that you have
artfully suggest, is there? So if all these works had already been
previously translated by Christians why was there a need for most of these
well-known mediaeval European scholars to study at Arab-Muslim universities
in Spain?
Quoting, Bernard Lewis once more:- "The Arabs (Muslim) left there mark in
Spain ... and in science and philosphy of the mediaeval west which they had
enriched by the transmission of the legacy of antiquity faithfully guarded
and increased." [p 130]
<snip> ...
> The Muslims didn't have a hand in it. And in "The Muslim
> Discovery of Europe" Bernard Lewis writes: ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Isn't your cited quote chronologically out of historical sequence? It
doesn't refer to mediaval Spain which demonstrates the artful deception in
your post?
<snip> ...
> When it comes to translation into Arabic almost all of the translators
> from Greek into Syriac and Arabic were Christians. (Franz Rosenthal
> "The Classical Heritage in Islam.")
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Well one could now cogently argue that the historical experts, that you have
artfully selected for special mentioned; Bernard Lewis, Franz Rosenthal,
Bernard Dod, and Peter Dronke, now all contradict one another. Who is
correct? Do you now understand that even 'experts' disagree.
But I doubt if you have read any of their works directly or studied Islamic
history in any depth at any recognised tertiary institution because you
would have given page references to the citations. Can you provide them?
That's the problem when you ignorantly cut and paste and article, such as
this, from an unreliable Islamophobic blog site like "The American Thinker",
(perhaps, the 'thinker' is an oxymoron in their case - since they have
dropped the adjectival 'crooked') isn't it? Isn't this, as you admit above,
"I have shown" that "The American Thinker" propaganda thoroughly
demonstrates this oft repeated maxim: "Propaganda does not deceive people;
it merely helps them to deceive themselves." [Eric Hoffer]
--
Peace
--
Add a few drops of malice to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.
Zuiko Azumazi
news:1147405153.7...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
<snip> ...
> I haven't the resources, time nor energy to write an extended treatment
> of this issue, but I feel sure that many other practical things were
> either invented within Islam or transmitted via Islam into the west.
> Perhaps the west even learned a little about warfare during the
> Crusades. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
I agree that it's a waste of time trying to sensibly argue with "crooked
thinkers" over any controversial matters. Robert's original thread was
completely plagiarised (so much for intellectual honesty) from a blog
article entitled "Hyping Islam's role in the History of Science" at this
notorious "neocon" link:-
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4685
The subject was in knee-jerk response to an erudite article published in the
prestigious "Science" magazine at this link:-
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/308/5727/1416
Extract:
In medieval Europe, where the Christian dogma that the world unfolded
according to a divinely predetermined plan prevailed, there was little space
for those willing and eager to understand nature in order to use it for
their own benefit. Beginning in the 11th century, the ailing Arab provinces
in Spain (Al-Andalus) were falling to European armies, and with them came
priceless spoils that changed the world: the epic intellectual achievement
of Arab-Islamic scholars since the 8th century. Flourishing libraries in
cities like Toledo and Cordoba contained thousands of books on every field
of knowledge. Unlike the Moguls, who in the 13th century destroyed Baghdad
and its libraries, thereby abruptly ending the golden era of the
Arab-Islamic civilization, the Europeans were quick to realize the value of
these windfalls of knowledge.
End extract.
So who should subscribers believe the prestigious "Science" magazine or some
odd-ball blog site and its mendacious camp-followers?
As an interesting check, why were these Arabic words adopted into all of the
European languages if Arabic numerals were such a misnomer?
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=algebra&searchmode=none
algebra:- 1551, from M.L. from Arabic al jebr "reunion of broken parts" as
in computation, used 9c. by Baghdad mathematician Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn
Musa al-Khwarizmi as the title of his famous treatise on equations ("Kitab
al-Jabr w'al-Muqabala" "Rules of Reintegration and Reduction"), which also
introduced Arabic numerals to the West. The accent shifted 17c. from second
syllable to first. The word was used in Eng. 15c.-16c. to mean
"bone-setting," probably from the Arabs in Spain.
algorithm: 1699, from Fr. algorithme refashioned (under mistaken connection
with Gk. arithmos "number") from O.Fr. algorisme "the Arabic numeral
system," from M.L. algorismus, a mangled transliteration of Arabic
al-Khwarizmi "native of Khwarazm," surname of the mathematician whose works
introduced sophisticated mathematics to the West (see algebra). The earlier
form in M.E. was algorism (c.1230), from O.Fr. Modern use of algorithmic to
describe symbolic rules or language is from 1881.
This of course is confirmed in the "Arabic Numeral" article in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica. As one well-known European author wrote: "The
clumsy Roman numerals were ousted by the Arabic figures we use to this day
and the zero sign was first employed. The very name algebra is Arabic. So is
the word chemistry. The names of such stars as Algol, Aldebaran and Boötes
preserve the traces of Arab conquests in the sky. Their philosophy was
destined to reanimate the medieval philosophy of France and Italy and the
whole Christian world."
Where would Roger Bacon's ideas have led without algebra and algorithms? Not
far I would expect! Check out the Adelhard of Bath arithmetical treatise of
the Arabian mathematician (Cambridge MS) connexion.
But let's not consult or check our facts with any prestigious, unbiased or
reliable sources, let's stick with the prejudicial propaganda of the
pronounced bigots over at "The American Thinker" blog and their "crooked
thinking" fellow travellers.
--
Peace
--
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive
themselves. [Eric Hoffer]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
Robert
Christopher Martin in "The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas: Introductory
Readings" states: "Aquinas's commentaries on Aristotle seem to have had
their origin in a fear that young students would be misled by studying
Aristotle with Averrhoes's commentary, which was then the only one
available." (p17)
Martin gives 176 pages of central Thomistic texts; in them Aquinas
refers to Averrhoes four times, in passing, never engaging him in
argument.
Robert
Excuse me, but my article was not, as you claim "completely
plagiarized." Several points made in the internet article you refer to
have already made by myself, and other points and quotations - Lewis's
for instance - are current as common property. I found a number of
quotations telling, and startling confirmation of the thesis I have
been advancing. What would have been the point of giving the secondary
source of the quotations - I didn't use that as an authority, and as
you demonstrate, it would only have generated prejudice?
Your extract from sciencemag.org is vulgar and ignorant journalism: a
Hollywood version of intellectual history.
The fact that "Arabic numerals" is a misnomer has absolutely nothing to
do with the reason for their being adopted.
Your excursion into etymology has no bearing on the real issue: Arabic
numerals were NOT Arabic, not even in their form, but Hindu inventions,
as was zero. I have discussed this previously, but perhaps you do not
care to consult the internet as I recommended.
Yes "algebra" does derive from the Arabic, but algebra itself does not.
The first treatise, in many volumes; was written by Diophantus of
Alexandria, I think in the third century CE and contributions to the
subject were made by Indians (they claim Arabic work derives from
them), Babylonians, and Egyptians. The Arabs (and Christians and
Persians among them) made some very significant advances - all credit
to them - but let it not be said, as it is and widely, that the Arabs
invented algebra, zero, and the decimal place-value system of
arithmetic. I have yet to see an account of how the Arab discoveries
were taken over in medieval Europe: the arithmetical system didn't take
on until the sixteenth century!
The un-named "well-known European author" (why are you so coy? - name
him) merely produces commonplace observations and blurb: publicity
material to massage the Muslim ego and serve the current Islamophile
political correctness.
You go over the same old ground and ignore my points: Bacon was a crank
and his ideas led nowhere. The theory that he laid the conceptual
foundations of modern science was based on a 19th century misreading of
his Latin - see the "Encyclopedia of Philosophy".
I've checked out Adelard of Bath: his only distinction is to have
translated two works from Arabic, and to have visited the East to learn
the language. You may be interested to know that Khwarizmi's treatise
only survived in Latin translation - so much for the Muslim
intellectual tradition.
There's absolutely no point in attacking "The American Thinker"- I
don't use them, whoever they are. As an Englishman I know nothing of
them, but I do know the academic standing of the authors they quote on
the alleged European intellectual debt to Islam: they are impeccable.
Have you nothing to produce but blurb, etymology, and accusations of
scissors and paste and plagiarism?
Zuiko Azumazi
news:1147615333....@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
<snip> ...
> Perhaps this excerpt from the "Catholic Encyclopedia" will put
> Aquinas's indebtednes to Arabic philosophy in perspective:
<snip> ...
Comment:-
If you look in the Catholic Encyclopaedia under both Averroes and Avicenna
entries you discover:-
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02150c.htm
Extracts.
Averroes:
Many of his works in logic and metaphysics had, however, been consigned to
the flames, so that he left no school, and the end of the dominion of the
Moors in Spain, which occurred shortly afterwards, turned the current of
Averroism completely into Hebrew and Latin channels, through which it
influenced the thought of Christian Europe down to the dawn of the modern
era.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02157a.htm
Avicenna:
... he wrote his famous "Canon" of medical science, which for several
centuries, after his time, remained the principal authority in medical
schools both in Europe and in Asia. He served successively several Persian
potentates as physician and adviser, travelling with them from place to
place, and despite the habits of conviviality for which he was well known,
devoted much time to literary labours, as is testified by the hundred
volumes which he wrote. Our authority for the foregoing facts is the "Life
of Avicenna,", based on his autobiography, written by his disciple Jorjani
(Sorsanus), and published in the early Latin editions of his works.
Besides the medical "Canon," he wrote voluminous commentaries on Aristotle's
works and two great encyclopaedias entitled "Al Schefa", or "Al Chifa" (i.e.
healing) and "Al Nadja" (i.e. deliverance). The "Canon" and portions of the
encyclopaedias were translated into Latin as early as the twelfth century,
by Gerard of Cremona, Dominicus Gundissalinus, and John Avendeath; they were
published at Venice, 1493-95. The complete Arabic texts are said to be are
said to be in the manuscript in the Bodleian Library. An Arabic text of the
"Canon" and the "Nadja" was published in Rome, 1593.
End extracts. ...
<snip>...
> So much for the claim of an Islamic synthesis in his work. It should be
> said that his peculiar scholastic way of developing his arguments was
> derived from Averroes. ...
<snip> ...
Don't these two additional entries completely demolish your "The Myth of the
West's Intellectual Debt to Islam" argument? How are you going to bluster
and bluff your way out of these two additional confirmations that it was the
Arab-Muslims in Spain, as Bernard Lewis said: "The Arabs (Muslim) left
there mark in Spain ... and in science and philosophy of the mediaeval west
which they had enriched by the transmission of the legacy of antiquity
faithfully guarded and increased."
Will you now concede and gracefully withdraw or will you produce another
bombastic retort? Regardless, I expect you will continue to repeat the
"Syriac" fable (now and in the future) in a paltry effort to denigrate
Muslims and Islam's truly rich and fruitful history; including the great
contribution they made to mediaeval European learning, science and culture.
But is the "discovery of truth" important?
Robert
I gave the sources for my assertions about the transmission of the
Greek corpus to western Europe when I first made them: Syrian and
Christian Arab translators at one end and Christian and Jewish
translators in Toledo - the Muslims didn't have a hand in it; why
should they? I have been given no reason to correct what I said. Your
line about Eastern Christians not being Christians is just nonsense,
and demonstrates, again, that you are completely without understanding
of Christianity. Since making the assertions I have had my discovery
confirmed in several places.
What gives you the right to think you are in a position to give
authoritative correction in the matter?
There is nothing in the detail of your quotation from Bernard Lewis
that is at odds with what I have written; indeed he confirms it. I do
not, however, share his view that the "Arab heritage" was of great
importance to Europe. I have given my reasons. Lewis is an Islamophile;
he writes for two readerships: Islamic and Western; and he very much
enjoys the reception he gets in the East. He is very careful not to
offend Muslim sensitivities: whenever he says something adverse about
Islam, he balances it with an observation about the West: he flatters
Islam when he can, as he does here. Sometimes he is shocking in this
tendency: in his standard history of modern Turkey, he barely mentions
the major fact of the massacre of 1,500,000 Christian Armenians in
1915. He has stated that this does not amount to genocide.
In his old age, however, he has come to see the threat that Islam
constitutes to the West.
The fact that Lewis doesn't mention Christian translators does NOT tend
to show that my assertion is false. By the previous translating that
you mention I assume you are referring to the translation done in the
East, Baghdad, I think. Most of the Greek work had been translated into
Syriac, by Christians, under the Christian empire. The Arabs wanted
access to Greek science, and so the Syriac was translated into Arabic,
by Christian Arabs. In Spain these Arabic versions were translated into
Latin by bi-lingual Spaniards, again Christians. But I have explained
all this before.
Lewis makes no mention of Western scholars studying at Arab-Muslim
universities in Spain. I have never come across a reference to such.
The seat of translation was in the Christian city of Toledo.
You ironically quote me: "the Muslims didn't have a hand in it". If you
just check my account, and Lewis's, you will see that that is perfectly
true. Why should the Muslims want to transmit Greek culture to the
infidels?
You do not demonstrate the alleged error in chronology. An empty
accusation - again. Neither do you demonstrate how the experts
contradict one another - an empty charge.
No, I haven't studied Islamic history at university, and I have never
claimed any authority or expertise that that qualification might give
me; but that is an ad hominem irrelevance. Address yourself to my
arguments, not my academic standing.
It's absurd for you to make another ad hominem attack by casting doubt
on what I have read. As I have said before, I have no intention of
providing proof of my academic standing - or lack of it - nor of my
reading. I feel quite free to use a quotation made by another if it
suits my purposes: attack it as it stands instead of fielding a
distraction by implying that I haven't read the book the quotation is
taken from. I make no claims to originality, erudition, or academic
authority. What I write stands or falls quite independently of all
these.
Zuiko Azumazi
news:1147794146.4...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
<snip> ...
> I gave the sources for my assertions ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
This self-incriminating statement says it all and summarises all of your
many diatribes against Muslims and Islam. Yes, we all know that your
prejudicial opinions are based on artful "assertions": that is declarations
that are made emphatically (as if no supporting evidence from reliable and
independent sources were necessary).
One may cogently argue that taking anything blindly from propagandistic
websites is fraught with error, misconceptions and misinformation.
Verification from multiple sources, pro and con, is the preferred method
adopted by sensible commentators to avoid compounding these obvious pitfalls
and dissemination of falsities in newsgroups like SRI.
Do you think that subscribers are so stupid as to consider wild allegations
and accusations superficially obtained from dubious and inaccurate sources
as a rational reflection of the truth? Is this kind of random selection from
stridently anti-Islamic sources your idea of scholarship? Doesn't this oft
repeated maxim by Eric Hoffer: "Propaganda does not deceive people; it
merely helps them to deceive themselves." hold no resonance for yourself?
Testimony is only as good as the reliability and integrity of the witness,
whereas, hearsay is generally rumour, gossip and specious conspiracy
theories used by the artful practitioners of casuistry.
Robert
Nothing in your quotations from the "Catholic Encyclopedia" is at odds
with the statement that I quoted from this work to the effect that
Aquinas's intellectual effort was to correct the false interpretations
of Aristotle that the Latin translations of Averroes' commentaries
were making current. Aquinas's Commentaries on Aristotle were written,
not in the first instance to serve Aristotle, but to save students from
the errors of Averroes. Averroes was not a formative influence on
Aquinas.
Averroism was Aquinas's intellectual enemy, an influence in European
universities which he overcame.
Averroes did have an effect in so far as his commentaries fed the
interest, much of it misguided as Aquinas showed, in Aristotle; but the
real intellectual discovery WAS Aristotle, not Averroes. But remember
that only three of Aristotle's many works were translated from Arabic;
the great majority were translated from Greek.
I give further evidence about Averroes in a posting which has not yet
been published.
I've no doubt that Avicenna's work derived from the Greek physicians.
There are occasional references to his work on Aristotle in Aquinas.
You do nothing to show that the well-known fact I have reported that
Syrians translated the Greek corpus into Syriac before the Arab
invasion is other than a fact. You merely assert and insult. Neither do
you do anything to underpin your extravagant claim about Islam's
contribution to European culture.
asimm...@yahoo.com
> Averroism was Aquinas's intellectual enemy, an influence in European
> universities which he overcame.
>
You mean Aquinas' view was more in line with al-Ghazali, who himself
write a biting criticism of Averroes, because al-Ghazali found these
ideas to be against Islam? But, yeah.... I'm sure Aquinas wasn't
influenced by Muslim thinkers other than the likes of Averroes..
And let's not get into how the Arab world, through the likes of ibn
Taymiyya (R) and ibn Hazm (R), totally REJECTED and SEVERELY criticized
the SPECULATIVE philosophy of the Greeks and it's idealism, as well as
the likes of Averroes.
What is it that distinguishes the modern world and the ancient world
again? Could it be the modern world, as a result of the a new spirit
of empirical verification and induction brought by the Arab world,
moved away from speculative philosophy?
Robert
You have repeatedly attempted to impugn my account of the Greek corpus
of science and philosophy having been translated into Arabic for the
most part via Syriac versions made by Syriac speaking Christians, and
then into Arabic by Christian Arabs. You even assume that you are
qualified, and have the authority, to correct me on this matter. No
doubt you feel you are bolstered in this by your belief that my
postings consist of lies.
Perhaps you will believe Bernard Lewis:
"The translation movement grew in scope under the Abbasid Caliphs who
succeeded the Ummayads in the mid-eighth century. ... Some works
dealing mainly with state-craft and court ceremonial, were translated
from middle Persian into Arabic; others on mathematics from the
languages of India. But the great bulk of the translations were of
Greek origin, translated either directly from the Greek or indirectly
via Syriac versions. The translators were without exception non-Muslims
or new converts. Most were Christians, a few were Jews, and the
remainder were of the Sabian community." "The Muslim Discovery of
Europe" p 74.
I imagine that you refuse to accept my account of the process of
translation and the identity of the translators because you find it a
slur on Arab Muslims that I say they had no hand in the process. The
proverbially proud Arabs, possessing God's language, were not
interested in other languages. Even within the Muslim Empire "In
general, Arabs, even the most educated knew only Arabic."(Lewis, p 72).
And "From the whole eight centuries of the Muslim presence in Spain
only one document has survived that indicates any kind of interest in a
European language. It is a very late fragment, no more than a sheet of
paper, containing a few German words with their Arabic equivalent."
(Lewis, p 73)
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip> ...
> Nothing in your quotations from the "Catholic Encyclopedia" is at odds
> with ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Well that's a matter of opinion since it completely demolishes and refutes
the whole basis of what's predicated in the subject heading "The Myth of the
West's Intellectual Debt to Islam" (a.k.a. "Hyping Islam's role in the
History of Science") Aren't you mixing up your ontological predicates once
more?
The fact is that the dubious "evidence" you posted was solely sourced from a
notoriously ignorant blog site that has unscrupulously misquoted various
(quasi?) historians to intellectually exploit the reader. The point being
you naively took their anti-Islamic propagandistic bait hook, line and
sinker. Do you honestly believe their fictive view of history? Did you check
any of their cited quotations back to the actual books they were supposedly
using (doctoring, sic)? Didn't you note they didn't provide any page numbers
so that anyone interested could verify their accuracy? Did you check any
yourself? The Bernard Lewis quote is a prime example of their devious and
unscrupulous behaviour. And you are defending their "crooked thinking"
method, as if it were your own. The "Golden Age of Islam" in Spain happened,
as the legacy in Europe reflects. because it's the truth based on historical
fact not "blog-mania", get used to that idea.
You have been given a number of other reliable historical sources, by
well-known (non-Muslim) historians of repute: Toynbee, Runciman, Hogben,
Watt, Lapidus, et al, and relevant articles from both the Encyclopaedia
Britannica and the Catholic Encyclopaedia that if you had read them
thoroughly refute the "American Thinker" blog.
Did you ever do a general research into this subject to verify if the
"American Thinker" blog and to protect yourself against their undoubted
"crooked thinking" and their manipulative techniques? Here's a generalised
link (12,100,000 hits) that might help you discover the truth about Islam's
great intellectual legacy given to the mediaeval Europe:-
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&q=islam+%22spain%22&btnG=Search
Recommended:-
http://www.unesco.org/culture/al-andalus/html_eng/article.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/spain/index.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus#Further_reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Islam
Check out the further reading bibliographies as well.
Then after you have done all that then get a copy of Aquinas's "Summa contra
Gentiles" a read it (not some Catholic text-book condensing - according to
the mind of Aquinas) because it completely upsets your odd-ball theory about
him and what he actually wrote?
--
Peace
--
Act only according to that maxim which you can at the same time will that it
should become a universal law. [Kant]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
Robert
I have argued that the West's indebtedness to Islam is surprisingly
small and has been overstated. The reason for this, it seems to me, is
the pervasiveness of religion in Islamic culture and therefore in most
Islamic cultural products. Christians are immunised against this and
reject it. This point is confirmed by the fact that the cultural
imports which arrived through contact with Moorish Spain were Greek
(already part of the European cultural tradition) or Greek in spirit
(the commentaries on Aristotle and the neo-Platonistic works by Ghazali
and the other Arab and Persian philosophers). The possibility of
further intellectual influence ceased with Ghazali's demolition of
philosophy (rationality) as incompatible with Islamic Faith. Of course,
there is no Islamic aspect to mathematics and so no cultural rejection.
I'm sure that the argument works the other way round, and that the
reason why Europe had so little influence on Islamic culture for so
long lies in the Muslim allergic reaction to Christianity. The horrible
parodies of Christianity which appear on this forum show that the
allergy is still active and potent.
Robert
In an earlier thread on the extent of the European intellectual debt to
Islam my denial that significant numbers of European scholars studied
works in Arabic was rejected with incredulity, such was the notion of
indebtedness current among Muslims.
Bernard Lewis has some passing observations that throw light on the
matter in "The Muslim Discovery of Europe" p 80:
"The first Latin-Arabic glossary was prepared in the twelfth century.
By the thirteenth we find a number of European scholars engaged in the
study of Arabic, and there were even attempts to translate parts of the
Qu'ran into Latin. This was followed by the publication of further
glossaries and dictionaries and, in 1538, by the first Latin treatise
on Arabic grammar."
Without the tools of language learning the only way of obtaining Arabic
was to visit an Islamic country: a major undertaking in the middle ages.
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip> ...
> Excuse me, but my article was not, as you claim "completely
> plagiarized." ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Doesn't plagiarise mean take without referencing from someone else's writing
of intellectual property? Wasn't the gist of your article and its
conclusions lifted from the linked article? Didn't you use everyone of
"Hyping Islam's role in the History of Science" citations and quotes? Did
you add any of your own?
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4685
Some examples: (R: = Robert and AT:= American Thinker)
R: The Muslims didn't have a hand in it. And in "The Muslim
Discovery of Europe" Bernard Lewis writes:
AT: Consider the astonishing statement of Bernard Lewis in The Muslim
Discovery of Europe:
R: When it comes to translation into Arabic almost all of the translators
from Greek into Syriac and Arabic were Christians. (Franz Rosenthal "The
Classical Heritage in Islam.")
AT: According to Franz Rosenthal in The Classical Heritage in Islam,
“Almost all of the translators [from Greek into Syriac or Hebrew or from
Greek, Syriac, or Hebrew into Arabic] were Christians.” ...
R: Bernard Dod, in his chapter 'Aristoteles latinus' in "The Cambridge
History of Later Medieval Philosophy" gives a complete list medieval
translations of Aristotle from Arabic into Latin - none is by an Islamic
scholar.
AT: Similarly, “Aristoteles latinus” by Bernard Dod, a chapter of The
Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, provides a comprehensive
list of medieval translations of Aristotle from Arabic into Latin, ...
R: Plato's "Republic" was not transmitted via the Arabic; it was translated
directly from the Greek, and the better for it. ...
AT: Plato did not make the long journey from Greek to Syriac or Hebrew to
Arabic to Latin, and Western Europeans preferred [surprise!] ...
R: Peter Dronke, "A History of twelfth-Century Western Philosophy":
AT: This view is confirmed by Peter Dronke in A History of Twelfth-Century
Western Philosophy: ...
I could go on.
Isn't this sufficient proof of plagiarising? Doesn't the hard evidence
gained from the two transcripts speak for itself? Why do you continue to
deny it? Do you think bluff and bluster makes you innocent of the
intellectual offence? Look at the date of the AT article, 29th July, 2005,
doesn't this mean they were first and you later lifted most of your post
from their article?
Now is my claim true or not? Shouldn't we let discerning subscribers make up
their own minds or we are going to be treated with more huff and puff and
lame excuses?
I could be more blunt but then the moderators would reject my response but I
expect most discerning subscribers feel the same way about your
untrustworthy antics.
--
Peace
--
The most perfidious manner of injuring a cause is to vindicate it
intentionally with fallacious arguments. [Friedrich Nietzsche]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
servant
First, it is wrong to view Islam as a civilization. Islam is simply a
Divine Guidance.
Robert wrote:
> I reply to Ephraim May 9
>
> And most of what was transmitted was not
> Islamic culture, but Greek culture, and what Islamic achievement there
> was, was IN that culture.
>
> You talk about benefits that the world owes to Islam. What about the
> benefits of Islam to Muslims? - after a couple of centuries of
> creativity under Greek and Persian influence,
If it were indeed Greek culture, why do you think that Greek Athens,
Byzantine
Costantinople and Latin Rome were depleted and sank in the dark ages?
Some
blame it on Christianity but It is simply because the X- Greco-Roman
provinces
were taken away from the Greco-Roman world. Not to mention that the
Judeo-Christian heritage played a fundemntal role in the rise of
Europe,
in addition to the Crusades and the contact of Europe with the
Arabo-Islamic
world.
Islamized Baghdad, Cairo and Cordoba flourished intellectually not
because
of some translation of Greek Aristotle to Syriac or Arabic, since
neither Democracy
nor the Olymics for example were adopted into the Muslim world. But
because the
outburst of Greek creativity in science, which was relatively short
lived, had
to do with its contact with Egypt and the near east to begin with,
first around 300
years before Alexander, and then later through Alexandria with its
famous library,
which was the intellectual city of the ancient world. The Greek word
Kemia
(Arabic Alchemy) itself is derived from the native name of Egypt:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=Alchemy
(The freemasons realize that, however.)
But even after the destruction of the library, by fanatic Christians I
might
add, the Fatimid era in Egypt had much of its philosophy driven from
native philosophy not dissimilar to that which Plotinus had taught, as
well as
,unfortunatley, some native Pharoanic protocols. The Fatimid era also
influenced Christianity with the St. Fatima cult, which happens to be
the namesake of Prophet Mohammed's daughter.
> 1000 years of stagnation
> induced by Ghazali's rejection of 'philosophy' - that is rationality
> and science.
Philosophy - Love of Sophy (wisdom) -
[called falsalfa in Arabic] is simply the love of Sufism, which Ghazali
tilted toward. The problem was not much Al-Ghazali's confused
rejection than it was with the destruction of Baghdad and Persia by the
mongols,
the loss of Andalusia to the Spaniards, and Egypt falling under the
non-Arabic
speaking Ottoman empire within a three hundred years period. No doubt
Isatnbul
flourished as the seat of the Khilafa, but the language barier was a
hindrance.
To reduce Islam to a civilization is a sham, since in
the Quran [24.35]: Allaah (or God) is the the Light
of Heavens and Earth......lit from a blessed
Tree, an Olive, Neither Eastern or Western....
Zuiko Azumazi
news:1148050575.3...@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
<snip> ..
> You have repeatedly attempted to impugn my account of the Greek corpus ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
No, I haven't, because you have "no account" based on balanced independent
study conducted on a reasonable scholarly basis. Have you ever conducted a
wide survey of authoritative historical reports from multiple sources? Have
you ever, in any of your presuppositional posts, made a sensible or fair
comparison between authoritative historians? Have you ever based any of your
opinions on presenting opposing historical viewpoints?
All you have done is "cut and paste" a hodgepodge of disconnected facts
artfully lifted from stridently anti-Islamic based websites that's is what
I've easily managed to successfully "impugn" those foolhardy claims. It's
simply a question of your inappropriate method. As any moderately
intelligent subscriber, Muslim or otherwise, is prone to do, with a modicum
of historical knowledge about Islam and its rich intellectual heritage, in
an open forum like SRI.
<snip> ...
>.. You even assume that you are
> qualified, and have the authority, to correct me on this matter.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
I assume nothing other than a search for the truth based on "straight
thinking". If you persist in spreading unscrupulous "crooked thinking"
propaganda; blindly lifted from anti-Islamic websites to mislead and exploit
unsuspecting subscribers, then I will continue to correct those blatant
errors from a balanced perspective. That is what all discerning subscribers.
Muslim and non-Muslim, should do in an interactive forum like SRI, otherwise
why should anyone subscribe? Aren't you here to learn or do you
prejudicially and arrogantly think you know everything?
<snip> ...
> No doubt you feel you are bolstered in this by your belief that my
> postings consist of lies.
<snip> ..
Comment:-
The truth has its own bolstering rewards for those that can distinguish it
and understand the subtle difference between "knowledge", "belief" and
"opinion". But that's another epistemological story.
<snip> ...
> Perhaps you will believe Bernard Lewis:
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Likewise do you believe Bernard Lewis:-
"In culture, too, the Arab (Muslim) heritage must be regarded as of great
importance to Spain, and indeed to all of western Europe. Christians from
many countries came to Spain to study together with native Spaniards under
Arabic speaking Muslim and Jewish teachers, and translated many books from
Arabic into Latin. ... The first great centre for transmission from Islam to
Christianity in the west was the city of Toledo ... During the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, ... the Toledo schools of translators produced a great
corpus of works including the 'Organon' of Aristotle and many of the
writings of Euclid, Ptolemy, Galen,, and Hippocrates; enriched by their Arab
(Muslim) commentators and successors. The translators usually worked with
bilingual natives, many of them Jewish, and included both Spanish and
foreign scholars. Amongst them Domingo Gundisalvi, ... John of Seville and
Petrus Alphonsi, and from other countries, Gerard of Cremona from Italy,
Herman the Dalmatian from Germany, Adelhard of Bath, Daniel of Morlay and
Michael Scot from Britain. ..." ["The Arabs in History: pp 129-30]
Or are you intimating that he's contradicting himself? Why do you naively
believe that everything that Bernard Lewis writes is the infallible
historical truth? Do you realise or are you aware that he has many critics
amongst his academic peers? If so, why don't you mention it?
<snip> ...
> I imagine that you refuse to accept my account of the process of
> translation and the identity of the translators because you find it a
> slur on Arab Muslims that I say they had no hand in the process.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
I'm sure you do have a vivid imagination and no doubt that's an advantage
when making fictive posts of a derogatory nature about the "Golden Age of
Islamic Spain".
<snip> ...
> The proverbially proud Arabs, possessing God's language, were not
> interested in other languages. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
I'm not an Arab, but I can see the similarity with the jingoistic British
attitude towards their own English language and frequent arrogant failure to
learn any other.
<snip>
> Even within the Muslim Empire ...
<snip>
Comment:-
You mean the "mythical" Muslim Empire don't you? Who headed this "mythical"
and hypostatised Muslim Empire? I doubt if this is a Bernard Lewis
fabrication?
<snip> ...
> "In general, Arabs, even the most educated knew only Arabic."(Lewis, p
72).
<snip> ...
Comment:-
There you go again relying on only one source again (Thouless's "crooked
thinking" appeal to prestige). Have you corroborated this with any other
authoritative historical source? If so, why don't you post it?
Notwithstanding, that I'm a "straight thinking" bigot when its comes to
these "mythical" shibboleths, frequently espoused by Islamophobes.
Robert
No, Aquinas wasn't in line with Ghazali: he was an Aristotelian, a
defender of reason (philosophy), and his whole work was motivated by
the belief that reason and Faith are not in conflict, that the truths
obtained by the use of reason do not conflict with those known by
Revelation.His position was the opposite of Ghazali's (if he knew it)
as I understand it.
Aquinas saw that Averroes and his European followers got Aristotle
wrong, which is not surprising: he's tough, terse, and subtle. It took
a great genius like Aquinas to see what Aristotle was about.
Aristotle's philosophy cannot be described as speculative or as
idealism.
Could you develop your claim that empirical verification and induction
derive from the Arabs?This is often claimed by Muslims, but I am
sceptical. It is said that the Koran encourages this, but the
quotations I have seen in support of the claim are feeble.
Robert
Your posting is quite worthless and without substance. You do nothing
to show that your quotation from the Catholic Encyclopedia refutes
anything I said: yes, it is, in a sense, a matter of opinion whether it
refutes my opinion, but the opinion any sensible person will have is
that it doesn't.
You merely assert, and do not show that the website from which I
obtained the quotation have been falsified. It is disgraceful that you
bring such a serious charge without evidence. Prove the charge. The
notion of "doctoring" is absurd: you display the usual Muslim tendency
- retreating into denial in the face of decisive facts.
The quoted authors are not quasi-historians but academics of high
standing.
Again you do nothing to support your inflated claim about Islam's
"great intellectual legacy to the [sic] medieval Europe".
It's not for you to set out a course of reading for me - what gives you
the right? How can you be in a position to do that? - or to correct my
understanding of Aquinas.
klei...@astound.net
Robert wrote:
> "In
> general, Arabs, even the most educated knew only Arabic."(Lewis, p 72).
This statement is interesting and essentially true. But it is the
reverse of the original point of this thread. We were not discussing
what the Islamic world borrowed from the west and how little that once
was because no Muslims knew anything except Arabic.
There are two separate points to examine here:
(1) The educated men of the Islamic Golden Age were singularly
uninterested in languages other than Arabic. So far as I know, unless
they grew up in some non-Arabic region, none of the Arabic scholars of
the first two or three centuries of Islam knew any language except
Arabic. Not even Aramaic or Hebrew. Or even more remarkably - not even
Persian. It is my understanding that the Arabic grammarians made no use
whatsoever of phenomena in other languages. Even Sibawayhi, who of
Persian descent, shows no evidence that he spoke Persian.
Later on the situation changed as the Islamic world became less and
less Arabic and Muslims learned one or another Turkish language and
Persian and Hindi and so on. But by this time educated discourse was
being done exclusively in classical Arabic which was no longer anyone's
native language. Other languages (Chinese, for example) have shown
comparable linguistic chauvinism. But linguistic chauvinism is nothing
but a quaint social eccentricity without many significant consequences.
(2) The Muslims paid no attention to the world outside Islam (apart
from a small number of missionaries). This had practical consequences.
Islam deprived itself of almost all the discoveries in the west until
the nineteenth century.
The case of Ibn Khaldun is worth pointing out. He was an intelligent
man and an independent thinker. He wrote an encyclopedic work including
what he surely thought was a world history. And there is nothing in it
to speak of about Europe. He simply had no interest in Europe, although
his family were refugees from Spain. The tiny kingdom of Tlemcen was
more important to Ibn Khaldun than France or England or anywhere else
in Europe. When, in the course of his work, he is required to describe
Christianity the result is laughable. Of course, he was not interested
in learning anything about Christianity. Islam, in the middle ages, was
proud of its self-sufficiency.
Pride goeth before a fall. The Muslims were, generally, too proud to
learn from the west. The west, of course, has no sense of shame and is
willing to learn from anyone. Once upon a time the Muslims had sought
knowledge, even when they had to go to China for it. Later It was
beneath their dignity. They had a very hard fall.
Today's question is: will Islam ever recover from that fall? China
fell further and harder than Islam and today they are demonstrating
vigorous recovery. Why not Islam?
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip> ...
> In an earlier thread on the extent of the European intellectual debt to
> Islam my denial that significant numbers of European scholars studied
> works in Arabic was rejected with incredulity, such was the notion of
> indebtedness current among Muslims.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Why would all these eminent non-Muslim scholars, authoritative sources, and
historians, acknowledge and confirm the incredible impact of Muslim scholars
in Spain on European learning in mediaeval times? Aren't most of these
academic sources mainly Christian and European? Why would they create such a
false and inaccurate view of history that you are artfully trying to
maliciously posit in your fictive "The Myth of the West's Intellectual Debt
to Islam"? What possible motive could these eminent non-Muslim Europeans
have in creating and expounding on such a so-called "myth"?
I would respectively suggest that, in fact, that this whole deceptive
subject, dogmatically opined by yourself, is an unscrupulous and feeble
exercise in obfuscation and obscuration, to once again "crooked thinkingly"
attack Islam and Muslims in SRI. It's what have I said repeatedly indicated
to you before: "Add a few drops of malice to a half truth and you have an
absolute truth." [Eric Hoffer]
In an earlier thread you were given several citations from the "Catholic
Encyclopaedia", Wikipedia, Lancelot Hogben, Bernard Lewis, Arnold Toynbee,
and others that clearly showed the impact of the superior Islamic learning
on Europe in medieval times from Spain. All at these Catholic scholars all
studied in the great mediaeval Islamic Universities in Spain. See these
official Catholic links under their imprimatur (Some mentioned by Bernard
Lewis in his "The Arabs in History" p 130):-
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/16001c.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06468a.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08478a.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10275a.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14575a.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/16001c.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14371a.htm
Additional conformational references and an extensive bibliography can be
ascertained from this link at the Catholic "University of Notre Dame":-
http://www2.nd.edu/Departments//Maritain/etext/homp226.htm#n11
Extract:-
Arabic-Latin Versions. It was through the Toledo translators, especially
JOHANNES HISPANUS,{13} D. GUNDISSALINUS and GERARD OF CREMONA,{14} that the
Western scholastics, about the end of the twelfth century, came to know the
works of Alkindi, Alfarabi, Gazali, Avicebron, Avicenna and Averroës. The
commentaries of the great Arabian philosophers on the work of Aristotle were
translated simultaneously with the text of Aristotle itself. For instance,
Gundissalinus added the commentaries of Averroës to the translations of the
De Anima, the four books of the Physics and the ten books of the
Metaphysics. Herman the German -- not to be confounded with Herman the
Dalmatian -- "translated, in 1240, the middle commentary of Averroës on the
Nichomachaean Ethics; in 1244, an Alexandrian compendium of the Ethics;
about 1250, a work of Averroës on Rhetoric, after having translated the
opening glosses of Alfarabi on that work, to which translations he
subsequently added an original treatise on Rhetoric; and, finally, in 1256,
the commentary on the Poetics."{15} There is no ground for the supposition
that he lived in Sicily. He spent his life in Spain, probably as Bishop of
Astorga, from 1266 to his death in 1271. Michael Scot translated Averroës'
commentaries on the De Coelo et Mundo and the De Anima:{16} and these
commentaries were known in the West at the commencement of the thirteenth
century.
The court of Sicily, under Frederick II. and his son Manfred, was another
centre of Arabian culture: and of Grecian culture as well, for it produced
some Greek-Latin versions in addition to Arabic-Latin ones. We meet here
Michael Scot and Bartholomew of Messina.{17} Frederick II. set great store
on the commentaries of Averroës and did much to popularize them: by the
middle of the thirteenth century Paris was in possession of all the writings
of Averroës except his commentaries on the Organon and his Destructio
Destructionis.
End extract.
<snip> ...
> Bernard Lewis has some passing observations that throw light on the
> matter in "The Muslim Discovery of Europe" p 80:
<snip> ...
Comment:-
You were given this alternative citation in an earlier thread from Bernard
Lewis's "The Arabs in History: p 129-30:-
"In culture, too, the Arab (Muslim) heritage must be regarded as of great
importance to Spain, and indeed to all of western Europe. Christians from
many countries came to Spain to study together with native Spaniards under
Arabic speaking Muslim and Jewish teachers, and translated many books from
Arabic into Latin. ... The first great centre for transmission from Islam to
Christianity in the west was the city of Toledo ... During the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, ... the Toledo schools of translators produced a great
corpus of works including the 'Organon' of Aristotle and many of the
writings of Euclid, Ptolemy, Galen,, and Hippocrates; enriched by their Arab
(Muslim) commentators and successors. The translators usually worked with
bilingual natives, many of them Jewish, and included both Spanish and
foreign scholars. Amongst them Domingo Gundisalvi, ... John of Seville and
Petrus Alphonsi, and from other countries, Gerard of Cremona from Italy,
Herman the Dalmatian from Germany, Adelhard of Bath, Daniel of Morlay and
Michael Scot from Britain. ..." [pp 129-30]
<snip> ...
> "The first Latin-Arabic glossary was prepared in the twelfth century.
> By the thirteenth we find a number of European scholars engaged in the
> study of Arabic, and there were even attempts to translate parts of the
> Qu'ran into Latin. This was followed by the publication of further
> glossaries and dictionaries and, in 1538, by the first Latin treatise
> on Arabic grammar."
Comment:-
And when were the first Arabic-Latin glossary prepared in the superior
Islamic world of that time, one might ask? Go back and check out the
chronology of the "Catholic Encyclopaedia" articles cited above.
To quote: "The Westerns also became acquainted with the religion of the
Arabians. As early as the twelfth century, Peter the Venerable, Abbot of
Cluny, had the religious books of the Saracens translated into Latin and
opened a polemic against Islamism (V. MANDONNET, Pierre le Vénérable et son
activité littéraire contre L'Islam, R. Thomiste, 1894).
Perhaps this additional citation from the "Catholic Encyclopaedia" further
demolishes this "myth" argument :-
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12025c.htm
Extract:-
This was due, in the first place, to the creation of the University of
Paris; next, to the foundation of the Dominican and Franciscan orders;
lastly, to the introduction of Arabic and Latin translations of Aristotle
and the ancient authors. At the same period the works of Avicenna and
Averroes became known at Paris. A pleiad of brilliant names fills the
thirteenth century -- Alexander of Hales, St. Bonaventure, Bl. Albertus
Magnus, St. Thomas Aquinas, Godfrey of Fontaines, Henry of Ghent, Giles of
Rome, and Duns Scotus -- bring Scholastic synthesis to perfection. They all
wage war on Latin Averroism and anti-Scholasticism, defended in the schools
of Paris by Siger of Brabant. Roger Bacon, Lully, and a group of
neo-Platonists occupy a place apart in this century, which is completely
filled by remarkable figures.
End extract.
<snip> ...
> Without the tools of language learning the only way of obtaining Arabic
> was to visit an Islamic country: a major undertaking in the middle ages.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
This has been chronologically confuted above. But you seem to be ignorant of
other views of those such as Steven Runciman, whose extensive research on
the Crusades culminates in his argument that there was a "long sequence of
interaction and fusion between Orient and Occident out of which our
civilization has grown..." Runciman, "A History of the Crusades", Vol. 3
(Cambridge University Press, 1954), p. 480.
Abu Jamil
Robert entitles this thread "The Myth of the West's Intellectual Debt
to Islam." However, he spends his entire first post, and considerable
argument thereafter, on a different question, namely, "Searching for
Classical Greek Works that Only Exist Today in Arabic." He then goes
some distance arguing that no known Muslim ever translated any Arabic
works into Latin.
Without exploring any further, he has already argued convincingly the
following:
1. It was of great value to Europeans to acquire Islamic knowledge in
the European late Middle Ages. Naturally, the Europeans cared a great
deal about learning Arabic.
2. It was of no value to Muslims to translate their knowledge into
European languages in the European late Middle Ages. Nor was there any
European knowledge by that time worth acquiring. Naturally, the Muslims
did not care to learn any European languages.
Where was all the effort in this mammoth translation project? It was
among Europeans. The Muslims did not need European knowledge, classical
Greek knowledge being quite a different category and something that
they had long before translated into Arabic and elaborated into new
philosophies and sciences. There was even some resistance to permitting
translations into European languages. On this topic, Ibn Abdun wrote in
about 1100 CE: "Books of science ought not to be sold to Jews or
Christians, except those that treat of their own religion. Indeed, they
translate books of science and attribute authorship to their
coreligionists or to their bishops, when they are the work of Muslims."
(Racism against the intellectually inferior European drabble was not at
all uncommon at the time. Ibn Abdun also thought Christians and Jews
should wear something distinctive so Muslims would not inadvertently
give them the Islamic greeting!) The Europeans, by comparison,
desperately needed all the knowledge they could get their hands on. It
was natural that they would learn Arabic and start translating. It is
even more interesting that they had such a drive to acquire this
knowledge that they overcame active resistance on the part of Muslims
to do so! This is why the conquest of Toledo had such an impact.
Beyond the need for the knowledge itself, there was another factor
driving *who* should be doing the translating. Language services tend
to follow supply, not demand. For example, if a million Americans want
to learn Japanese, this demand will result in very few Japanese
programs, as linguistic services are naturally resistant to sheer
demand. However, if there are a lot of Japanese people in a large city,
Japanese programs will be readily available, even under conditions of
relatively mild demand.
The same was true in the European late Middle Ages. Translation work
would be done by the people who could write in a European language, as
long as they could also read Arabic. Who were these people? Clearly,
the European languages were of no value to the Muslims. Indeed, all
great knowledge of the time could be secured through Arabic or Farsi
(the latter due to the fact that the Persian Renaissance of the 10th
century had revived the use of Farsi per se as important unto itself).
European languages were barbaric gibberish, by comparison.
Both the supply of translators and the demand for translation was
therefore European, as a product of circumstance. Indeed, centuries
later we find that the Islamic civilization had grown so accustomed to
depending on its own sources of knowledge that it felt completely
content to ignore European advances that would arise later, thanks to
the knowledge that the Muslims had given them previously. The Islamic
civilization had grown intellectually by drawing on knowledge from
other civilizations, mainly Hellenic, secondarily Indian (farther
away), and tertiarily Chinese (farthest away), and then elaborating
that knowledge into new philosophies and sciences.
The Europeans, at the *dawn* of their civilization (it was only
legitimately a *rebirth* if you pretend that "Europe" consists of
Greece and Rome), naturally did exactly the same thing: They drew on
the knowledge available in other civilizations. In precisely the same
manner as the Islamic civilization that had preceded it, they drew
first on those sources of knowledge that were nearest and hence most
accessible, namely, those held by the Islamic civilization.
Happily for the Europeans, they found ample material from a heritage
that they quickly decided was their own: Greece. To this day European
identity depends mightily on this fictitious connection, without which
Europe would be no more united than southeast Asia. At any rate, the
Europeans naturally came to draw on more and more sources of knowledge
from the southeastern reaches of the European subcontinent as the
centuries progressed. In the process, they acted increasingly to deny
their Arabo-Islamic heritage and to rationalize to the extent of their
ability the fiction that Europe is a product of itself, not of anything
that could possibly have originated among the Muslims.
So, where is the error? Simple. Just as the Muslims eventually forgot
that they had first sought knowledge from other civilizations, upon
which they elaborated through centuries of continued research and
experience, the Europeans eventually fell into precisely the same
error. To this day, there are many who cling to the old textbooks of
20th-century Europe that taught schoolchildren that Europe's
Renaissance came from nothing. One day, they imagine, the Europeans got
tired of being stupid and suddenly started inventing knowledge again.
No other civilization in the world, they further imagine, can say the
same. Yet even the ancient Greeks drew on other civilizations to create
their philosophies and sciences. Only Babylon can claim otherwise.
Abu Jamil
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip> ...
> Your posting is quite worthless and without substance. You do nothing
> to show that your quotation from the Catholic Encyclopaedia refutes
> anything I said: ..
Comment:-
So now you say that the authoritative Catholic Encyclopaedia is "worthless
and without substance". Did you arrive at that rather perverse conclusion
because it refuted your erroneous account of the 'Golden Age of Islam in
Spain' and its historical impact on most well-known Church scholars of that
time? Didn't these mediaeval Church scholars have any lasting intellectual
impact on European thought derived their Muslim teachers at Islamic
Universities in Spain? Don't these facts of history, completely refute your
poorly researched and somewhat anserine approach to all matters Islamic?
<snip> ...
> yes, it is, in a sense, a matter of opinion whether it
> refutes my opinion, but the opinion any sensible person will have is
> that it doesn't.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
What tautological folderol is this "a matter of opinion whether it refutes
my opinion, but the opinion"? Can any sensible subscriber, Muslim or
otherwise make sense of this obdurate statement? What is your slavishly
regurgitated 'opinion' other than a 'cut and paste' reliance, on one biased
author, namely Bernard Lewis?
<snip> ...
> You merely assert, and do not show that the website from which I
> obtained the quotation have been falsified. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
What does this specious allegation of "assertion" (i.e. a declaration that
is made emphatically - as if no supporting evidence were necessary) mean?
Haven't I provided you with all the supporting evidence, citations and
references in previous threads that completely demolish your bald claim
ensconced in the artfully contrived subject heading "The Myth of the West's
Intellectual Debt to Islam"? Do you deny this citation from your doyen of
Arab history (which I repeat)?
"You were given this alternative citation in an earlier thread from Bernard
Lewis's "The Arabs in History: p 129-30:-
"In culture, too, the Arab (Muslim) heritage must be regarded as of great
importance to Spain, and indeed to all of western Europe. Christians from
many countries came to Spain to study together with native Spaniards under
Arabic speaking Muslim and Jewish teachers, and translated many books from
Arabic into Latin. ... The first great centre for transmission from Islam to
Christianity in the west was the city of Toledo ... During the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, ... the Toledo schools of translators produced a great
corpus of works including the 'Organon' of Aristotle and many of the
writings of Euclid, Ptolemy, Galen,, and Hippocrates; enriched by their Arab
(Muslim) commentators and successors. The translators usually worked with
bilingual natives, many of them Jewish, and included both Spanish and
foreign scholars. Amongst them Domingo Gundisalvi, ... John of Seville and
Petrus Alphonsi, and from other countries, Gerard of Cremona from Italy,
Herman the Dalmatian from Germany, Adelhard of Bath, Daniel of Morlay and
Michael Scot from Britain. ..." [pp 129-30]"
Doesn't this corroborate what's written in the Catholic Encyopaedia?
<snip> ..
> It is disgraceful that you
> bring such a serious charge without evidence. Prove the charge. The
> notion of "doctoring" is absurd: you display the usual Muslim tendency
> - retreating into denial in the face of decisive facts.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Are your false opinions facts? Isn't that the real ego-centric issue in
your off the cuff remarks? More bluff and bluster? Aren't you in denial when
you refute the indisputable "facts" in the Catholic Encyclopaedia,
Encyclopaedia
Britannica, Bernard Lewis, Arnold Toynbee, Lancelot Hogben, Steven Runciman,
Montgomery Watt, Ira Lapidus, et al?
<snip> ...
> The quoted authors are not quasi-historians but academics of high
> standing. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
There are plenty of 'academics of high standing' but that doesn't make them
all historians, does it? It's reliance on these "quasi-historians" that's
warping your objective judgement?
Aren't all these eminent historians Bernard Lewis, Arnold Toynbee, Lancelot
Hogben, Steven Runciman, Montgomery Watt, Ira Lapidus, Phillip Hitti, Albert
Hourani, also 'academics of high standing'?
<snip>
> Again you do nothing to support your inflated claim about Islam's
> "great intellectual legacy to the [sic] medieval Europe".
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Well let the facts speak for themselves. If you refuse to investigate any of
the authoritative sources and citations that you have been given then what
does this demonstrate, other than you will remain ignorant of the subject
matter?
<snip>
> It's not for you to set out a course of reading for me - what gives you
> the right? ...
Comment:-
As my frequently quoted maxim states: "You cannot teach a person who is not
anxious to learn and you cannot explain to one who is not trying to make
things clear to themselves."; which pretty summarises the platitudinarian
approach to uneducated argumentation with some raucous commentators in SRI.
<snip> ...
> How can you be in a position to do that? - or to correct my
> understanding of Aquinas. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
By painstaking research from many sources, by study of history, by reading
relevant articles in reference books. The point of SRI is that anyone can
correct your anserine understanding of Aquinas if they believe it's
inaccurate and shallow or unstudious. Isn't this what interactive newsgroups
are all about?
--
Peace
--
It takes a long time to acquire the art, but life is short, the crisis
rapid, experimentation dangerous, the cure uncertain. [Hippocrates: The
first Aphorism]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
Robert
There is no matter of fact in your quotations about the translation of
philosophical texts at Toledo that in any way refutes what I have said
about the Islamic contribution to European culture: it is all taken as
read. All you oppose to my account is the enthusiastic comments of
generalizing historians, who were not specialists in the history of
philosophy or intellectual history. You fail to address my specific
points with specific objections.
Zuiko Azumazi
news:1146895268.9...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
<snip> ...
> I want to say that your contribution is the latest strawman argument of
> the west in its determinaiton to deny Islamic Civilization is basic
> history. This will make it easier to demonize a part of the world in
> order to not feel so guilty about using force to save the heathens.
> Such a tactic was also employed against Africans and Native Americans.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
May I add that the whole premise underlying the original post was the overt
anti-Islamic propaganda being spewed out by the "American Thinker" article:
"Hyping Islam's role in the History of Science" . We think we are rationally
discussing the undoubted contribution that Islamic culture and civilisation
made to mediaeval Europe via Spain, by the likes of Ibn Rushd (Averroes) et
al, when in fact we are responding to the prejudicial and bigoted opinions
of some odd-ball 'neocon' cranks over at the "American Thinker" blog site
and their acolytes in SRI.
How much serious thought has been placed by the originator of this thread in
SRI into the credibility or bona fides of the "crooked thinking" implicit in
the "American Thinker" article? None, that I can ascertain. As if
plagiarised (which has now been conceded by the originator elsewhere
although initially denied) repetition is a substitute for sound scholarship
or serious commentary?
What we have in SRI is just another example of uncritical reiteration of
these highly dubious and speciously derived attacks. Even when this
anti-Islamic propaganda is totally discredited by other noted non-Muslim
historians we get the same old banal mantra "you display the usual Muslim
tendency - retreating into denial in the face of decisive facts." As if, the
"American Thinker" article was founded on any "decisive facts"? Only someone
who is completely ignorant of history, and politically naive in the extreme,
would wittingly admit to such gullible attraction and slavish adulation for
the unadulterated codswallop coming out of the "American Thinker" blog.
But as we all know there are plenty of these perfidious and intellectually
dishonest recidivist trolls, hovering around the newsgroup environment,
offering "fallacious arguments" against the circumspect truth that is Islam.
Zuiko Azumazi
news:1148050575.3...@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
(Resent)
<snip> ...
> Perhaps you will believe Bernard Lewis:
<snip> ...
Comment (afterthought):-
You have to understand that the current generation of Muslims were brought
up under the politically inspired (1970's) intellectual banner of
"Orientalism", and, as a consequence, find anything emanating from this
western source as being suspect, and is immediately discounted as being
theoretically opposed to Islam's revival. It's all part of the post-colonial
legacy that permeates Muslim thinking and the re-awakening of the Islamic
ideal within the Muslim public at large. With good cause, I might add. But
that's another story.
In this context, I must admit I have a number of reservations about some of
what Bernard Lewis has written about Islam and Muslims, but time and
inclination doesn't permit its elaboration. Just read some of Edward Said's
articles at this search link for an overview or gist of the argument from a
Muslim perspective:-
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&q=bernard+lewis+%22edward+said%22&btnG=Search
Notwithstanding, as a parallel, would you as a purported Christian, believe
Bernard Lewis when he denied the genocide of 1.5 million Christian
Armenians?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis
Extract.
In a November 1993 Le Monde interview, Lewis said that the Ottoman Turks’
killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 was not "genocide", but the
"brutal by-product of war".
Lewis meant that it was not part of a plan to exterminate the entire
Armenian race - not that it was justified or that it didn't happen. The
statement hinges on the precise context and legal meaning of genocide.
Some people have taken the statement as constituting a denial that the Turks
killed that many Armenians.
Lewis was fined one franc by a Parisian court after expressing doubt, in a
November 1993 Le Monde interview, whether the 1915 Turkish massacre of
Armenians qualified as an act of genocide
Kevork Oskanian wrote:
A Paris court condemned Bernard Lewis, professor of Middle Eastern History
at Princeton University for having denied the Armenian Genocide in an
interview with "Le Monde". ...
End extract.
But of course you and other non-Muslims can blindly revere whomever you
like, just don't try and pass off this ego-centric obsequiousness as
in-depth scholarship to those discerning subscribers who have a more
balanced view of history and the circumspect truth that is Islam.
--
Peace
--
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive
themselves. [Eric Hoffer]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
Robert
You refer to the intellectual impact on "church scholars" and European
thought derived from Muslim teachers at Islamic universities in Spain.
Please demonstrate the existence of such "universities." The
intellectual influence was in fact the influence of Aristotle, most of
whose philosophical texts had been translated, not from Arabic (only
three from this), but directly from the Greek. The Muslims did NOT have
a hand in this; Aristotle was already known in a number of Latin
translations and interest in Aristotle led to further translation
before the arrival of Averroes' Commentaries. These were valued as the
only commentaries on difficult texts available.
The Commentaries caused a stir in intellectual Europe, just as his work
did in Islam. His conclusions, following Aristotle, were heretical:
there is only one intellect shared by all; happiness is obtainable in
this life; the world has no beginning and end; the doctrine of double
truth - a proposition may be true in reason but false in faith. These
and other theses were condemned by the Church authorities. Ghazali
naturally condemned Averroes likewise.
In the nineteenth century the term "Averroism" was coined to refer to
thinkers allegedly influenced by Averroes between the 13th and 16th
centuries. Until recently this nomenclature was accepted but research
has shown that the issue is infested with myths and ideology, and now
the term "radical Aristotelianism" is used instead of "Averroism". This
indicates what I have argued for: the influence was NOT Islamic and not
from Averroes; it was from Aristotle. Those condemned in the 13th
century were NOT characterized by loyalty to Averroes and the
intellectual positions condemned by the Church were NOT inspired by
him.
I derive this information from an internet article by Sten Ebbesen,
"Averroism".
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip>
> There is no matter of fact in your quotations about the translation of
> philosophical texts at Toledo that in any way refutes what I have said
> about the Islamic contribution to European culture: it is all taken as
> read. All you oppose to my account is the enthusiastic comments of
> generalizing historians, who were not specialists in the history of
> philosophy or intellectual history. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Which just goes to prove that their are some stubborn people who hold onto
false opinions about Islam regardless of the scholarly endeavours of eminent
western historians who eruditely say otherwise.
But aren't all these expert historians: Lewis, Lapidus, Hourani, Hitti,
Runciman, et al, not specialists in the Middle East and Arab-Islamic
affairs? But I doubt if you bothered to check out their credentials? This
BIRKBECK University of London FACULTY OF CONTINUING EDUCATION link provides
an extensive reading list which mentions all of these well respected
Arab-Islamic historians amongst many more:-
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/study/ce/pdfs/rs/RS045UALB/
Since you live in the UK, why don't you enrol in the broad course you might
learn something factual about the circumspect truth which is Islam.
But I doubt if you would spend anytime on investigating websites which
weren't anti-Islamic in nature.
--
Peace
--
In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the
learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no
longer exists. [Eric Hoffer]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip> ...
> I have argued that the West's indebtedness to Islam is surprisingly
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Wrong again. All you have done is express a presupposition, a personal
opinion, characterized by a self-fulfilling assertion of unproved or
un-provable generalisations, and have completely ignored the overwhelming
sound judgement of qualified expert western historians (e,g. Lewis, Watt,
Hitti, Hourani, Lapidus, Hogben, Toynbee, et al) to the contrary. Why are
all these non-Muslim experts wrong in your jaundiced opinion? Have you
studied all of their combined works in-depth? What has your notions and
gratuitous comments about Muslim and Islamic culture got to do with the
excellence of these scholarly works? Isn't their erudite analysis contained
in the apolitical corpus of their historical works? Aren't they all based on
a western mindset, even in some cases Christian?
As you have clearly indicated "the reason for this, it seem to me, is" your
own ego-centric and unregenerate attitude towards Muslims and Islam. Ask
yourself would you accept anyone else's opinion that disagreed with yours?
Can you show some unqualified examples, from the extant SRI transcripts,
where you have actually done this?
--
Peace
--
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive
themselves. [Eric Hoffer]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
Zuiko Azumazi
news:1148313341.5...@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com...
Hi Jamil,
<snip> ...
> The Europeans, by comparison,
> desperately needed all the knowledge they could get their hands on. It
> was natural that they would learn Arabic and start translating. It is
> even more interesting that they had such a drive to acquire this
> knowledge that they overcame active resistance on the part of Muslims
> to do so! This is why the conquest of Toledo had such an impact.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Which is pretty much what W. Montgomery Watt wrote in his erudite work "The
Influence of Islam on Mediaeval Europe":-
"Toledo became a Mecca for Christian scholars, who arrived from all over
Europe, among them the Englishmen Adelhard of Bath and Robert of Chester. So
great did the respect for, and the sense of dependence on, Arab civilisation
become, that by the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries professorships in
Arabic were being provided for in the universities at Salamanca, Bologna,
Oxford, Paris and Rome." [p. 80]
Of course Robert will slough this off under his previous derogatory comments
that Watt is a strident Islamophile and, hence, anything he wrote is
suspect. But then duplicitously doesn't apply the same opprobrious
Islamophobe [sic] criteria when judging other western historians who fit in
with his own prejudicial ideas about Islam and Muslims. It's this
double-standard and cherry-picking that demeans the whole concept of
detached historical analysis as a meaningful science [i.e. branch of
knowledge].
It's like the Roger Bacon furphy that he tried to foist on unsuspecting
readers recently. Doesn't this UNESCO sponsored article completely demolish
the Roger Bacon as 'father of European science' myth:-
http://www.history-science-technology.com/Articles/articles%201.htm
Extract:-
The Arabic Origin of Liber de compositione alchimiae
The Epistle of Maryanus, the Hermit and Philosopher, to Prince Khalid ibn
Yazid.
Liber de compositione alchimiae or the The Book of the Composition of
Alchemy is believed to have been the first book on alchemy that was
translated from Arabic into Latin. The translator was the Englishman Robert
of Chester who was one of the earliest translators to flock to Spain to
learn Arabic and to translate some of the Arabic works. He completed his
translation on 11 February, 1144.
With the translation of this book, Europe was acquainted to alchemy for the
first time. Thus Robert writes in his preface to the translation: “Since
what Alchymia is, and what its composition is, your Latin world does not yet
know, I will explain in the present book”.[1]
Alchemy remained something rather new to Europe until more than a century
later. Thus in 1267 Roger Bacon writes in his Opus tertium (explaining to
the pope the rightful role of the sciences in the university curriculum and
the interdependence of all disciplines): “But there is another science which
is about the generation of things from the elements, and from all inanimate
things, …of which we have nothing in the books of Aristotle; nor do natural
philosophers know of these things, nor the whole Latin crowd of Latin
writers. And since this science is not known to the generality of students,
it necessarily follows that they are ignorant of all natural things that
follow there from. …And this science is called theoretical alchemy, which
theorizes about all inanimate things and about the generation of things from
the elements.”[2]
Liber de compositione alchimiae acquired a prominent place in the Latin
alchemical literature. The names of Morienus (Maryanus) and Khalid became
well known to all alchemists in Europe. Their importance matched that of
al-Razi, Ibn Sina and Jabir.
End extract.
--
Peace
--
In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the
learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no
longer exists. [Eric Hoffer]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
Robert
It seems that to you and other Muslims influenced by Edward Said, any
scholarly work done by a non-Muslim is to be discounted. This position
is irrational and profoundly destructive of intellectual culture -
Muslims cannot afford to embrace it: all arguments must be considered
on their merits. Said only has standing among leftists: he was a
demagogue posing as a cultural and literary critic, in which fields his
'work' was worthless - an intellectual disgrace.
The issue of the Armenian massacres cannot be analysed here: the
crucial consideration was whether it was organized. In my view you
cannot kill 1.5 million people without organization. I think Lewis
quibbles when he says it wasn't genocide but "the brutal by-product of
war": it was both.
Part of my point in referring to Lewis's mention of the massacre in
"The Emergence of Modern Turkey" is that such a major happening was not
even discussed - just mentioned in a sentence. There I see his
Islamophilia and his vested interests in Turkey.
Robert
It is absurd to suggest that my argument about the alleged Western debt
to Islam is a search for Greek works existing only in Arabic.
You refer (1) to the great value to Europe of Islamic knowledge: the
point is that this was NOT Islamic knowledge; it was Greek and the
transmission of much of it was by Christians and Jews. Averroes was
valued because of his commentaries on Aristotle, not for his own
philosophical views. The acquisition of this knowledge did not take
place in the late Middle Ages as you assert but in the 12th and 13th
centuries.
You refer to the "European languages", which were barbaric gibberish,
possessed by the translators, languages which were of no use to
Muslims. You forget that the Greek corpus was translated into Latin,
the language of scholarship. No doubt the Muslims considered that Latin
was of no value to them, because of their arrogance and lack of
interest in infidel culture, but it embodied a classical culture and a
philosophical tradition.
It is absurd - and monstrous Muslim arrogance - to claim that Europe's
tremendous advance (compared to Islam's thousand year stagnation) was
"thanks to the knowledge that the Muslims had given them previously."
As I have said the transmissions of the 12th and 13th centuries were
Greek. And Averroes' contributions were in the Greek intellectual
tradition, a tradition condemned and destroyed by Ghazali. And the
scientific revolution of Europe in the 17th century was founded on a
contemptuous REJECTION of the Aristotelianism that Averroes'
commentaries fed.
Of course, Europe doesn't consist of Greece and Rome, but European
civilization is the heir of Greece and Rome: there is cultural and
religious continuity. Classical civilization was not another
civilization, but one which western Europe repeatedly tried to rebuild
after the collapse of the Roman Empire.
Far from the heritage of Greece being "their own" to the Muslims, it
was at odds - not surprisingly - with Islam. The Muslim tradition of
philosophy in the Greek tradition lasted only a short time before being
attacked by Ghazali, who found philosophy (reason) inconsistent with
religious faith. Muslim philosophy was hamstrung and has never
recovered.
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip> ...
> I derive this information from an internet article by Sten Ebbesen,
> "Averroism".
Comment:-
Yes, I've read the Sten Ebbensen article in full on the Muslim Philosophy
link:-
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/B012.htm
I suggest that you re-read it because it confirms precisely what I have been
saying all along. Here's a clip:-
"Averroes, the twelfth-century Muslim commentator on Aristotle, exercised a
strong influence on Latin scholastics from about 1230 onwards (see Ibn
Rushd). Around 1270, the derogatory term Averroistae ([too ardent] followers
of Averroes) began to be used, principally to characterize adherents of the
view that there is only one shared human intellect. In 1277 the Bishop of
Paris, Etienne Tempier, accused unnamed masters of arts of the University of
Paris of paying more attention to heathen philosophers than to Christian
revelation, and of behaving as if there were two truths, one of philosophy
and another of faith. The theory of one shared intellect was among the 219
theses the bishop condemned. A generation later, Ramon Llull launched a
series of attacks on university philosophers whom he saw as continuators of
the lines of thought condemned in 1277, and used the term Averroistae to
describe these philosophers. [STEN EBBESEN Copyright © 1998, Routledge]
Doesn't the sentence "Averroes, the twelfth-century Muslim commentator on
Aristotle, exercised a strong influence on Latin scholastics from about 1230
onwards (see Ibn Rushd). " confirm what all the eminent western historians
have been saying about the "Golden Age of Islam" in Spain and it's 'strong
influence' on the west?
Now, visit these two additional links to round out your knowledge:-
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H056 by CHARLES BURNETT
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H025 by OLIVER LEAMAN
Wow, now have learnt that a Muslim website provides a balanced overview not
the fictive rubbish spewed out by Islamophobic blogs and others as so-called
"prestigious academic articles"? But I still think your wrong about Aquinas,
read these articles to confirm - but that's another story not for
publication in SRI.
--
Peace
--
You cannot teach a person who is not anxious to learn and you cannot
explain to one who is not trying to make things clear to themselves.
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip> ...
> You refer to the intellectual impact on "church scholars" and European
> thought derived from Muslim teachers at Islamic universities in Spain.
> Please demonstrate the existence of such "universities."
<snip> ...
Comment:-
I already have given this information in previous posts in this thread, you
have neglected to read them that's all. Go back and study them more
carefully.
Notwithstanding, that the evidence is self-apparent. Where did all these
mediaeval scholars go to school in Spain: wasn't is Toledo, Seville,
Granada, et al? Where were the book repositories kept if not in the great
Islamic universities and places of higher learning? Didn't these books
contain most of the ancient world's knowledge at that time and place? If
this knowledge was available in Latin strongholds why did all these
mediaeval Christian scholars have to go to study under Arab-Muslim tutors
in, Spain?
Didn't you understand the two citations, amongst the many, from the
authoritative works Bernard Lewis and W. Montgomery Watt? I repeat them
again for the last time:-
Lewis:-
"In culture, too, the Arab (Muslim) heritage must be regarded as of great
importance to Spain, and indeed to all of western Europe. Christians from
many countries came to Spain to study together with native Spaniards under
Arabic speaking Muslim and Jewish teachers, and translated many books from
Arabic into Latin. ... The first great centre for transmission from Islam to
Christianity in the west was the city of Toledo ... During the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, ... the Toledo schools of translators produced a great
corpus of works including the 'Organon' of Aristotle and many of the
writings of Euclid, Ptolemy, Galen,, and Hippocrates; enriched by their Arab
(Muslim) commentators and successors. The translators usually worked with
bilingual natives, many of them Jewish, and included both Spanish and
foreign scholars. Amongst them Domingo Gundisalvi, ... John of Seville and
Petrus Alphonsi, and from other countries, Gerard of Cremona from Italy,
Herman the Dalmatian from Germany, Adelhard of Bath, Daniel of Morlay and
Michael Scot from Britain. ..." ["The Arabs in History: pp 129-30]"
What does Lewis mean by "enriched", is it not, make better or improve in
quality?
Watt:-
"Toledo became a Mecca for Christian scholars, who arrived from all over
Europe, among them the Englishmen Adelhard of Bath and Robert of Chester. So
great did the respect for, and the sense of dependence on, Arab civilisation
become, that by the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries professorships in
Arabic were being provided for in the universities at Salamanca, Bologna,
Oxford, Paris and Rome." ["The Influence of Islam on Mediaeval Europe":-p.
80]
Additional Philip Hitti at this link:-
http://www.unhas.ac.id/~rhiza/saintis/rushd.html
"Ibn Rushd (Averroes) has been held as one of the greatest thinkers and
scientists of the twelfth century. According to Philip Hitti, Ibn Rushd
influenced Western thought from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. His
commentaries were used as standard texts in preference to the treatises of
Aristotle in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. His books were included
in the syllabi of Paris and other Western universities till the advent of
modern experimental sciences. Ibn Rushd was studied in the University of
Mexico until 1831."
Don't these erudite articles by non-Muslim western scholars and eminent
historians give you any hints? Did you continue to investigate other
recognised historians; experts in this subject area?
<snip> ...
> The intellectual influence was in fact the influence of Aristotle, most of
> whose philosophical texts had been translated, not from Arabic (only
> three from this), but directly from the Greek. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Why do you keep perpetrating this myth emanating from unreliable Church
sources and their propaganda agencies? Didn't the mediaeval Church, in fact,
endeavour to ban Aristotle's and Averroes, etc., teachings and burn most of
the books in the Arab-Muslim libraries once they were in power? See these
links:-
<snip> ...
> The Muslims did NOT have
> a hand in this; Aristotle was already known in a number of Latin
> translations and interest in Aristotle led to further translation
> before the arrival of Averroes' Commentaries. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Well if you want to believe in superstitious fairy-stories about "The Golden
Age of Islam" in Spain then that's alright don't try and foist it off as
credible history. You're beginning to sound like the off-beat rerun of the
"Ad Vinci Code" view of popular religious history? And that's the plausible
historical truth in many "Christian" minds (excluding the Opus Dei
subscribers amongst us, of course <G>), is it not?
Nonetheless, that's why all these Latin scholars went to Arab-Muslim Spain
to study because the so-called mythical Latin translations of ancient
classical works were somewhere else in Christendom. Where was this fictive
knowledge repository in the western world? Robert, where were all these
mythical Latin books and manuscripts actually kept and studied?
Perhaps they were all banned and burnt by the early Church - as was the
normal practice in those uncivilised western times? See this illuminating
synopsis:-
Extract.
Burning books in public may simply draw unwanted attention to them. Books
collected by the authorities and privately disposed of should be counted
among books that have effectively been "burnt." "In AD 367, Athanasius the
zealous bishop of Alexandria,... issued an Easter letter in which he
demanded that Egyptian monks destroy all such [unacceptable] writings,
except for those he specifically listed as 'acceptable' even 'canonical'—
.... Heretical texts do not turn up as palimpsests, washed clean and
overwritten, as pagan ones do; thus, in this manner many early Christian
texts have been as thoroughly "lost" as if they had been publicly burnt.
In 367 Athanasius called in all non-conformist texts from the monasteries of
Egypt.
The library of the Serapeum in Alexandria was trashed, burned and looted,
392, at the decree of Theophilus of Alexandria, who was ordered so by
Theodosius I. Around the same time, Hypatia was murdered. One of the largest
destruction of books occurred at the Library of Alexandria, traditionally
held to be in 640, however the precise years are unknown as are whether the
fires were intentional or accidental.
Etrusca Disciplina, the Etruscan books of cult and divination, collected and
burned in the 5th century.
The books of Nestorius, after an edict of Theodosius II, for heresy (435).
In 1233 Maimonides' "Guide for the Perplexed" was burnt at Montpellier,
Southern France.
In the 1480s Tomas Torquemada promoted the burning of non-Catholic
literature, especially Jewish Talmuds and, after the final defeat of the
Moors at Granada in 1492, Arabic books also.
In 1499 or 1500, in Andalucia, Spain, over a million Arabic and Hebrew books
from one of the richest collections in history were burned on the orders of
Cisneros, Archbishop of Granada (See: Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition,
London: White Lion, 1965, p. 98.)
End extract.
But this anti-intellectual and uncultivated behaviour wasn't Catholic Church
"cultural genocide" against all rival cultures and Arab-Muslim civilisation
and learning in particular? A million burnt books, Robert, all on Aristotle
<G>, written in Arabic and Hebrew, is this the "intellectual debt" to Islam?
And you still want to convince subscribers, Muslims and non-Muslim, that
this is credible view of history?
Robert
Yes, I will say that Montgomery Watt is an Islamophile: he sets out his
uncritical position and his agenda - to further Muslim-European mutual
appreciation - in his preface to "Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman." He
is not a trained historian, but an Arabist, and his 'historical'
procedures are uncritical; he fails in his first duty as a historian -
to criticize his sources. Thus he simply takes over the traditional
Muslim narrative of early Islam: he has been explicit - he will tell
the story of Islam AS MUSLIMS SEE IT! What a programme for a historian!
Also , in his work, anything that is to the discredit of Muhammad is
softened: he is very tender towards Muslim sensitivities and wished to
write books that would be acceptable to Muslims. As a clergyman he
suffered guilt on account of the Christian agendas of earlier writers
on Islam.
We can see Watt uncritically at work in the quotation you give: "So
great did the respect for, and the sense of dependence on, Arab
civilization become ..." This judgment does not follow on from the
statement of the fact that European scholars went to Toledo - he
doesn't say for what: to learn Arabic or to have access to the GREEK
corpus? Watt's claim of DEPENDENCE on Arab civilization is unsupported;
it is just slipped in. This is typical of him: as I have said he has an
agenda, very flattering to Muslims.
You imply that to be even-handed I must judge any scholar who produces
a fact that I use to argue against Islamic influence to be Islamophobe.
What nonsense! Is it Islamophobia to record the fact that the Muslims
didn't have a hand in the process of translation from Greek to Latin?
Is it Islamophobic to point out that only three of twenty-one works by
Aristotle were translated via Arabic?
I don't subscribe to the myth of Roger Bacon the Father of Science, and
have argued against Muslims who claim this, and that he derived his
ideas from Islam, but the UNESCO article you give a link to does
absolutely nothing to debunk that myth. It's difficult see what you are
claiming for the article; it doesn't demonstrate the Islamic origin of
alchemy - the alchemical knowledge is explicitly shown to be of
Christian and Greek origin, coming from one Morienus and one Stephanos
of Alexandria - clearly a Greek. The article you quote makes no case
for the scientific interest of the Liber; and you yourself seem quite
unaware that alchemy was a pseudo-science and ran into the sand. You
don't seem to know that alchemy was dead end of mystification, and that
modern chemistry is not derived from it.
servant
Correction and a follow up to my previous post:
servant wrote:
>the destruction of Baghdad and Persia by the mongols, the
> loss of Andalusia to the Spaniards, and Egypt falling under the
>non-Arabic speaking Ottoman empire within a three hundred years
> period. No doubt Isatnbul flourished as the seat of the Khilafa,
> but the language barier was a
>hindrance.
I forgot to mention that before the Ottoman, era Cairo
was hit by a devastating plague around the fourteenth
century that wiped out two-third of Cairo's population which
included the intellegenstia, the elite and government
officials. It certainly had a devastating impact on Misra and
the whole region, as evidence from with the sudden
abortion of the Sufic 1001 Nights.
>To reduce Islam to a civilization is a sham, since in
>the Quran [24.35]: Allaah (or God) is the the Light
>of Heavens and Earth......lit from a blessed
>Tree, an Olive, Neither Eastern or Western....
And a follow up to that verse:
[2:257] "Allaah (or God) is the guardian of those
who believed. He Takes them out from Darkness
into Light; and those who disbelieve, their
guardians are the Taghout(?) who take them
out from Light into Darkness;..."
(?) Shakir translates "Taghout" as
Shaitan, but I think the word refers to
the evil of our egos (Nafs) since the
word is a derivative of Tyranny.
Zuiko Azumazi
(Resent)
<snip> ...
> It seems that to you and other Muslims influenced by Edward Said, any
> scholarly work done by a non-Muslim is to be discounted. ...
<snip>...
Comment:-
What makes you think Edward Said is a Muslim? You haven't been doing any
diligent and responsible research, have you? Or are artfully trying to
suggest that Edward Said wasn't a non-Muslim scholar?
Edward Said was, in fact, a non-Muslim secularist. In fact, his parents were
both Christian and his father (IIRC) was a devout Palestinian Christian
businessman. Another one of your unfortunate myths. Why don't you check your
facts before going to print?
Have you checked out all of the religious affiliation of the other eminent
western historians and sources you were given (i.e. Catholic Encyclopaedia,
Encyclopaedia, Britannica, Bernard Lewis, Arnold Toynbee, Lancelot Hogben,
Steven Runciman, W. Montgomery Watt, Ira Lapidus, Albert Hourani, Philip
Hitti, et al)? Not one of them was a Muslim. Isn't this correct? You see
Robert, I relied totally on non-Muslim sources to successfully demolish your
defective claims and to precisely avoid the specious accusations that you
are now artfully inferring. But tell us Robert, how many Muslim sources did
you use in your insubstantial argument? Not one! Isn't your reply marked by
deliberate deceptiveness especially by pretending one set of feelings and
acting under the influence of another? Why are you then falsely accusing
Muslims of your own, as you say, "irrational and profoundly destructive"
acts?
Robert
Once again you try to pursue an argument by unanalysed quotation and
link. You are bluffing. There is nothing in the excellent articles you
refer to at all at odds with what I have argued. I suggest you re-read
my postings. You seem to think that any positive reference to a Muslim
philosopher whose work was found useful in Europe establishes that
there was a great European debt to Islam. The only trifling point of
use to you in your quotation from Ebbenson (far too long) is the phrase
"strong influence". Note he doesn't say whether the influence of
Averroes was positive or negative.
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip> ...
> Yes, I will say that Montgomery Watt is an Islamophile: he sets out his
> uncritical position and his agenda - to further Muslim-European mutual
> appreciation ... - in his preface to "Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman." He
> is not a trained historian, but an Arabist, and his 'historical'
> procedures are uncritical; he fails in his first duty as a historian -
> to criticize his sources.
<snip>
Comment:-
Obviously you are entitled to state your opinion about William Montgomery
Watt. But shouldn't that opinion be based on fact rather than specious
assertions that correspond with your own jaundiced view of Muslims and
Islam, and history - as a serious body of knowledge. What's wrong with an
historian writing history "to further Muslim-European mutual appreciation."?
Is there anything to say that this kind of history writing is unusual (even
if your assertion was true). Read E. H. Carr excellent little book "What is
History".
But of course, in your opinion, "good" historians are the ones that promote
an agenda that attempts "to discourage Muslim-European mutual appreciation."
History as you want to see it, forget about the truth.
What makes a historian? Isn't a historian a person who is an authority on
history (Islam in this particular case) and who studies it and writes about
it? Aren't his historical writings on Islam accepted by his academic
historian peers and frequently cited by them?
But Bernard Lewis is an Arabist? So what's your point?
<snip> ...
> Thus he simply takes over the traditional
> Muslim narrative of early Islam: he has been explicit - he will tell
> the story of Islam AS MUSLIMS SEE IT! ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Which of his peers has said this about him? Have you bothered to check?
Here's a examples that refute these wild and exaggerated claims of yours:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_of_first_male_Muslim
Extract:
The identity of the first male Muslim is of little importance to Western
historians of Islam. The one historian who has treated the question is
William Montgomery Watt, the author of one of the more detailed English
biographies of Muhammad. His position:
"It is universally agreed that Khadijah was the first to believe in her
husband and his message, but there was a hot dispute about the first male.
At-Tabari has a large selection of source material, and leaves the reader to
decide for himself between the three candidates, Ali, Abu Bakr, and Zayd b.
Harithah. The claim of Ali may in a sense be true, but for the Western
historian it cannot be significant, since Ali was admittedly only nine or
ten at the time and a member of Muhammad's household. The claim made for Abu
Bakr may also be true in the very different sense that, at least from the
time of the Abyssinian affair, he was the most important Muslim after
Muhammad; but his later primacy has probably been reflected back into the
early records. As a matter of sheer fact Zayd b. Harithah has possibly the
best claim to be regarded as the first male Muslim, since he was a freedman
of Muhammad's and there was a strong mutual attachment; but his humble
status means that his converions has not the same significance as that of
Abu Bakr." (Watt 1953, p. 86)
Since no political or religious faction ever formed behind Zayd, his claims
to priority have been only intermittently advanced.
As the quote from Watt indicates, academic historians are reluctant to speak
with much certainty on the matter. All the texts relating to the first years
of Islam were written down some 150 years after the events in question -- as
well as after the events had become matters of intense dispute. In the eyes
of the academic, there is not enough reliable data to form a firm
conclusion.
End extract.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Watt
"Watt is a critic of many Islamic and Christian beliefs"
Extract:-
William Montgomery Watt gives a Western view of Islam's cultural heritage
I agree with much of what Dr Akbar Ahmed says in his contribution to Cross
Current in the last issue of History Today. Points of disagreement are minor
and need not be discussed here. In today's world it is certainly important
that non-Muslims should be aware of errors and inadequacies in how they
perceive Muslims, and that Muslims should be aware of how they are seen by
non-Muslims.
Dr Ahmed distinguishes two earlier encounters between Islam and Western
civilisation, that from the rise of Islam to the repulse of the Ottomans
from Vienna in the seventeenth century, and that of the period of
colonialism. For most of the centuries of the first encounter it was Islam
that was aggressive and threatening. The immediate ancestor of Western
civilisation was Western Europe rather than the Byzantine empire, and it is
important to realise that Western Europe in the eighth century and for long
afterwards was inferior to its Muslim opponents not only militarily but also
culturally. The Muslims were far ahead of the Westerners in all the arts of
gracious living. This was still the position in the twelfth century when
Western Europe was becoming stronger militarily and its scholars were making
... "
End extract.
Do you ever consult academic journals of this kind?
<snip> ...
> What a programme for a historian!
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Doesn't this demonstrate that you know nothing of history and the work of
historians, Islamic or otherwise?
<snip> ...
> Also , in his work, anything that is to the discredit of Muhammad is
> softened: he is very tender towards Muslim sensitivities and wished to
> write books that would be acceptable to Muslims. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Curiously enough many Muslims consider his works as those of a western
Orientalist and completely the opposite to your rather naive and
presumptuous assertions. But since you are ignorant of Muslims and Islam
that lack of knowledge is to be expected.
<snip> ...
> As a clergyman he suffered guilt on account of the Christian agendas of
earlier > writers on Islam. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
How do you know this? Or is this just another specious allegation dreamed up
to denigrate any erudite work by a recognised historian that doesn't fit in
with your pronounced prejudices concerning Muslims and Islam? But didn't you
say elsewhere that Christians never lie and fabricate untruths <G>? So as a
Christian minister mustn't he be historically correct in writings <G>?
<snip> ...
> We can see Watt uncritically at work in the quotation you give: "So
> great did the respect for, and the sense of dependence on, Arab
> civilization become ..." ..
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Does the truth have to be critical? But what did I say in my previous post-
let's recap:
"Of course Robert will slough this off under his previous derogatory
comments
that Watt is a strident Islamophile and, hence, anything he wrote is
suspect. But then duplicitously doesn't apply the same opprobrious
Islamophobe [sic] criteria when judging other western historians who fit in
with his own prejudicial ideas about Islam and Muslims. It's this
double-standard and cherry-picking that demeans the whole concept of
detached historical analysis as a meaningful science [i.e. branch of
knowledge]."
Haven't you reacted exactly as I predicted?
<snip> ...
> This judgment does not follow on from the
> statement of the fact that European scholars went to Toledo - he
> doesn't say for what: to learn Arabic or to have access to the GREEK
> corpus? Watt's claim of DEPENDENCE on Arab civilization is unsupported;
> it is just slipped in. This is typical of him: as I have said he has an
> agenda, very flattering to Muslims. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
So you think the truth is discovered by this rambling diatribe? What
evidence from his peers is being used here? But you know nothing of Muslims,
Islam or history, since you have studied none of them in-depth so how can
you rationally make any sound judgements? This trite and nonsensical passage
just confirms it, once more. More fluff and bluster.
<snip> ...
> You imply that to be even-handed I must judge any scholar who produces
> a fact that I use to argue against Islamic influence to be Islamophobe.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
You better go back and check this link to discover what is meant by the
characterisation of an Islamophobe:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamophobe
Extract:-
*attacking the entire religion of Islam as a problem for the world;
condemning all of Islam and its history as extremist;
*denying the active existence, in the contemporary world, of a moderate
Muslim majority;
*insisting that Muslims accede to the demands of non-Muslims for theological
changes in their religion;
*treating all conflicts involving Muslims as the fault of Muslims
themselves; and
*inciting war against Islam as a whole.
End extract.
Now wouldn't you say, as a matter of SRI record, most of your posts conform
to this characterisation, even this one itself?
<snip> ...
> What nonsense!
<snip>
Comment:-
I agree your ill-informed post falls into the "What nonsense" category.
<snip> ...
> Is it Islamophobia to record the fact ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
But you aren't recording the "facts" are you? You are only positing
preconceived prejudices against Muslims and Islam that's what makes
Islamophobia is it not? See above: "attacking the entire religion of Islam
as a problem for the world; condemning all of Islam and its history as
extremist".
I suggest you re-read the UNESCO article more thoroughly because you haven't
grasped what it said about Roger Bacon's teacher.
Robert
I can no longer take your condescending dialectical performances
seriously. You produce a smoke screen of rhetoric, and fail to engage
in serious discussion. Your aim is not truth but the appearance (to
naive readers) of coming out on top. You will use any trick to do this.
The effort of countering your devices is out of all proportion to the
benefit.
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip>
> Once again you try to pursue an argument by unanalysed quotation and
> link. You are bluffing.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Wrong again. You said that your previous post had been, as you clearly
stated, " I derive this information from an internet article by Sten
Ebbesen, "Averroism"." Now anyone who analyses (as I did) what you wrote
in:-
news:1148385317.5...@38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
bears little or no resemblance to the gist, in form or content, to the
article written by Sten Ebbeson on "Averroism" does it? See this link for
confirmation:-
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/B012.htm
This is what Sten Ebbesen wrote in full from this excellent website:-
Extract by permission:-
Averroism
'Averroism', 'radical Aristotelianism' and 'heterodox Aristotelianism' are
nineteenth- and twentieth-century labels for a late thirteenth-century
movement among Parisian philosophers whose views were not easily
reconcilable with Christian doctrine. The three most important points of
difference were the individual immortality of human intellectual souls, the
attainability of happiness in this life and the eternity of the world. An
'Averroist' or 'Radical Aristotelian' would hold that philosophy leads to
the conclusions that there is only one intellect shared by all humans, that
happiness is attainable in earthly life and that the world has no temporal
beginning or end. Averroists have generally been credited with a 'theory of
double truth', according to which there is an irreconcilable clash between
truths of faith and truths arrived at by means of reason. Averroism has
often been assigned the role of a dangerous line of thought, against which
Thomas Aquinas opposed his synthesis of faith and reason. The term
'Averroism' is also used more broadly to characterize Western thought from
the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries which was influenced by Averroes,
and/or some philosophers' self-proclaimed allegiance to Averroes.
1. Rise of the terminology
2. 'Averroist' doctrine
1. Rise of the terminology
Averroes, the twelfth-century Muslim commentator on Aristotle, exercised a
strong influence on Latin scholastics from about 1230 onwards (see Ibn
Rushd). Around 1270, the derogatory term Averroistae ([too ardent] followers
of Averroes) began to be used, principally to characterize adherents of the
view that there is only one shared human intellect. In 1277 the Bishop of
Paris, Etienne Tempier, accused unnamed masters of arts of the University of
Paris of paying more attention to heathen philosophers than to Christian
revelation, and of behaving as if there were two truths, one of philosophy
and another of faith. The theory of one shared intellect was among the 219
theses the bishop condemned. A generation later, Ramon Llull launched a
series of attacks on university philosophers whom he saw as continuators of
the lines of thought condemned in 1277, and used the term Averroistae to
describe these philosophers.
Based on this medieval use of Averroistae, the term 'Averroism' was
introduced in nineteenth-century historiography of philosophy. Averroism was
conceived of as a movement of thirteenth-century thinkers faithful to
Averroes, proclaiming that the same proposition could have different truth
values in philosophy and theology, so that there was an unbridgeable
inconsistency between philosophy and faith. Averroism was cast as a sinister
force (a precursor of modern atheism), valiantly combatted by Albert the
Great and Thomas Aquinas, notably in the latter's De unitate intellectus (On
the Unicity of Intellect) and De aeternitate mundi (On the Eternity of the
World). Twentieth-century historiography came to identify three main
currents in late thirteenth century philosophy: first, Augustinianism,
mainly represented by Franciscan thinkers, which combatted the growing
influence of Aristotelian philosophy (see Augustinianism); second,
Averroism, which took a radically Aristotelian approach to philosophical
problems, even though this must lead to conflict with Christian faith; and
third, the current led by Albert the Great and Aquinas, who produced a
synthesis of Aristotle and Christian faith (see Aristotelianism, medieval).
Early in the twentieth century, it was commonly assumed by historians that
almost all the 219 theses condemned in 1277 were of Averroist provenance,
and since there is medieval evidence that the main targets of the
condemnation were Boethius of Dacia and Siger of Brabant, they were thought
to have embraced most of the 'heterodox' opinions. Siger, who is known to
have engaged in university politics, began to be seen as the leader of an
Averroist party at the University of Paris in the 1260s and 1270s.
Subsequent research has undermined the foundations for the historiographical
scheme in which a thirteenth-century 'Averroism' belongs. First, the
majority of the theses condemned in 1277 were not inspired by Averroes.
Moreover, scholars often apply the label 'Averroist' also to later
philosophers who were influenced by Averroes or continued the views of
writers such as Siger of Brabant: examples include the Parisian masters
Ferrandus Hispanus in the late thirteenth century and John of Jandun in the
early fourteenth century, and to a long list of Italian writers from Gentile
da Cingoli in the 1290s and Angelo d'Arrezzo in the early fourteenth century
to Agustino Nifo in the early sixteenth century. Some of these writers did
indeed defend Averroes' views whenever possible, but such loyalty towards
Averroes had not been a characteristic of the men who were condemned in
1277.
When these facts became apparent to historians of philosophy, they began to
replace 'Averroism' with 'radical Aristotelianism' or 'heterodox
Aristotelianism' as the name of this supposed thirteenth-century school of
thought. However, so many historical misunderstandings and ideologically
motivated judgments cling to all these labels that they are, in the 1990s,
being abandoned. Yet, there are some interesting problems that these labels
were meant to help explain, and which still have an important place in
medieval philosophy.
2. 'Averroist' doctrine
In the later half of the thirteenth century, there was a common conviction
that some philosophical tenets were inconsistent with Christian doctrine as
standardly understood. 'Philosophical' in this connection means Aristotelian
on the then standard interpretation of Aristotle, which leaned heavily on
Arabic works including the writings of Avicenna and Averroes, and the Liber
de causis (see Aristotelianism, medieval; Liber de causis).
Three issues stood in the foreground in the conflict between reason and
faith: first, whether all humans share a common intellect (monopsychism);
second, whether happiness is attainable in this life; and third, whether the
world had a temporal beginning.
Monopsychism: It was generally accepted that the intellect (that is, the
intellective soul) has both an active component, 'the agent intellect',
which forms universal concepts on the basis of particular pieces of
information provided by the senses, and a passive component, usually called
the 'possible intellect', which is the initially blank wax tablet on which
the active component leaves its imprints in the form of concepts and
knowledge acquired. The question was, are the agent and possible intellects
genuinely different, and if not, does each human being have its own
intellect, or is there only one for all to share?
There was a tradition of considering only the agent intellect to be an
extra-human separate substance, responsible for humans' shared conceptual
apparatus; in this view, the individuality of each person's possible
intellect explains why we do not share all our thoughts. One version of this
view was held by Roger Bacon. By the 1260s, however, this radical separation
of the agent and possible intellects had become rather old-fashioned. The
main disputants of the time agreed that the two intellects are one
substance, but they disagreed about whether that substance is extra-human.
Averroes, as he was commonly understood after about 1250, taught that the
intellect is a single impersonal substance with which individual souls enter
into contact via their mental representations (phantasms) of extramental
things; the intellect uses the phantasms as a basis for abstraction. Modern
historiography has applied the term 'monopsychism' to this doctrine, which
was attacked by Aquinas in his De unitate intellectus.
Monopsychism allows for the irrational part of a human soul to be destroyed
on death without this affecting the intellect. Like the old assumption of a
separate agent intellect, it also accounts for the ability of human beings
to share knowledge; but it offers no convincing answer to the objection that
if this is the case, then no thought belongs to one individual rather than
another. During at least one phase of his career, Siger of Brabant accepted
monopsychism, but believed that it was possible to save some private thought
for the individual by making the operation of the intellect in a particular
human depend on representations (intentiones imaginatae) with an origin in
sensation unaided by intellect. In his somewhat obscure attempts to explain
how the individual 'plugs into' (continuatur) the supra-individual
intellect, Siger relied heavily on Averroes.
Contemporaries were alert to the Averroistic theory's inability to explain
how all humans can share an intellect without sharing all thoughts. However,
to medieval thinkers the gravest objection against monopsychism was that it
left no individual rational soul to carry responsibility for a deceased
person's acts. Nor was it easy to see how an immaterial intellect could fail
to be eternal, which was contrary to Christian doctrine that God creates new
souls every day and that they are in principle perishable (God could
annihilate a soul if he wished). Nonetheless, for the next couple of
centuries most philosophers seem to have held that monopsychism was one of
the few rationally defensible views about the nature of the intellect, while
standard Church doctrine continued to require the intellect to be both the
form of the body and capable of separate, individual, existence. The issue
was still very much alive in 1513 when the Fifth Lateran Council explicitly
condemned the view that the intellective soul is either mortal or only one
for all people, and explicitly asserted that it is the form of the human
body, immortal, and as many in number as are the bodies into which it is
infused.
Happiness in this life: Around 1260-70, masters from the Faculty of Arts at
the University of Paris often expressed a great optimism about the
attainability of happiness in this life. Their views strongly resemble those
of ancient Neoplatonism, but the strongest impetus came from Arabic
philosophy rather than directly from ancient sources (see Neoplatonism;
Neoplatonism in Islamic philosophy). The way to happiness was thought to
consist in an intellectual ascent to the contemplation of ever higher
beings, culminating in contemplation of the First Cause and the (temporary)
union of one's possible intellect with the source of intellectual
understanding, the agent intellect; In this tradition, the agent intellect
was thought to be a separate substance and not identical with God. Such a
state of intellectual bliss was held to be the fullest actualization of a
person qua human, that is, a rational being.
This line of thought would seem to permit the construction of a naturalistic
ethics with no need for either divine revelation or an individual life after
death in order that human beings may reach their ultimate goal and
happiness. Boethius of Dacia did indeed hold that a natural philosopher must
deny the resurrection of the dead, and this was to be a common view for a
long time. However, there is little evidence that anyone really wanted to
abolish the belief in a second life. The philosophers' point was simply that
while it is known through revelation that supranaturally there will be such
a life, a claim to that effect cannot be incorporated into a consistent
theory of nature (see Natural philosophy, medieval).
Eternity of the world: Before the 1260s there had been some attempts to
interpret Aristotle as if he accepted a temporal beginning of the world.
Perhaps the first such attempt was made by William of Conches in the twelfth
century. However, as Robert Grosseteste noted in the 1230s, such attempts
had failed and the common assumption became that Aristotelian philosophy did
in fact require the world to have existed for an unlimited time, partly
because creation out of nothing could not be subsumed under any of the
Aristotelian modes of change. Change implies the prior existence of
something to be the subject of change, and so creation cannot be a species
of change. By the 1270s, it was commonly recognized that the concept of
creation out of nothing was consistent if not confused with change, but it
also became a common conviction that this would wreak havoc on the natural
sciences if incorporated among their concepts. The supposed Averroists were
thought to have simply denied the temporal beginning of the world (see
Eternity of the world, medieval views of).
Double truth: Averroists have been credited with a theory of double truth,
occasioned by the fact that when medieval thinkers saw a conflict between
philosophy (science) and the teaching of the church, they could not simply
reject Church doctrine. Instead, they could hold that philosophers had
misinterpreted some of the information obtained by natural means (as Aquinas
held, for example), or they could hold that there was no way to detect any
error in the derivation of the philosophical thesis, so that the only way
out of the impasse consisted in rejecting the thesis on the authority of
faith (as did Siger). Alternatively, they could try to explain how the
assumption of a first cause makes it reasonable to expect that there are
truths which no scientific theory can possibly account for; Boethius of
Dacia, who distinguished the conditional truth of a scientific theorem from
absolute truth, took that line. A fourth way, asserting that the same
proposition can be absolutely true philosophically and also absolutely true
theologically, had very few followers, if any at all, but has sometimes been
imputed to the 'Averroists'.
To understand how this misconception should arise, one should remember that
most philosophers of the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries were masters of
arts; it was their job to teach a non-Christian (Aristotelian) philosophy in
a Christian society, and so they were caught in the contradiction between
reason and faith. Guidelines on how to deal with this dilemma were given in
a decision by the Faculty of Arts at Paris in 1272: henceforward, any master
dealing with a problem that touched both philosophy and faith was bound by
oath to solve it a way that was not contrary to faith. The result was a
widespread use of the technique of first providing a philosophical solution
and then adding one 'according to the truth of faith'. For some
twentieth-century scholars use of this technique has sufficed to stamp a
philosopher as an adherent of a theory of double truth. ...
STEN EBBESEN
Copyright © 1998, Routledge.
End extract.
Where did the gist of this, as you say "excellent work" appear in you any of
your prejudicial "analysis" linked to above?
<snip> ...
> There is nothing in the excellent articles you
> refer to at all at odds with what I have argued.
Comment:-
Does Sten Ebbeson confirm your subject header hypothesis "The Myth of the
West's Intellectual Debt to Islam" when he rightly says "The term
'Averroism' is also used more broadly to characterize Western thought from
the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries which was influenced by Averroes,
and/or some philosophers' self-proclaimed allegiance to Averroes." and
"Averroes, the twelfth-century Muslim commentator on Aristotle, exercised a
strong influence on Latin scholastics from about 1230 onwards (see Ibn
Rushd)."? No he doesn't he completely demolishes your argument. Is this fact
not self-evident even to those who demonstrate and profess historical
ignorance? Then how can you say, in all conscience, that you have "analysed"
his article without lying to yourself?
But the devil is always in the analytical detail.
Robert
Your extended rhetorical bluster gets you nowhere: you fail to meet my
challenge again; you do not identify a single Muslim university in
Spain, but mendaciously claim that you have already done so.
You claim that the evidence for them is "self-apparent": nonsense - it
cannot be self-evident that universities exist. You don't produce a
single quotation referring to them, naming them as universities, and
mentioning which European scholars studied in them.
You continue to produce extensive familiar quotations from the books of
generalising historians of the last half of the 20th century: I have
given detail to question their enthusiastic claims for Islamic culture,
but you do not refute this. But most of the detail of what they say in
their brief resumes is taken for read: it does not refute my case.
My facts about the translation of Aristotle - NOT from Arabic, but from
Latin - are taken NOT from a Church source, but a contemporary
authoritative scholar.
The issue of ordering the burning of heretical books is a complete
distraction and irrelevance.
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip>
> No, Aquinas wasn't in line with Ghazali: he was an Aristotelian, a
> defender of reason (philosophy), and his whole work was motivated by
> the belief that reason and Faith are not in conflict, that the truths
> obtained by the use of reason do not conflict with those known by
> Revelation. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Which just goes to prove that Aquinas diligently followed the teachings of
Ibn Rushd (Averroes) passed on by the earlier Latin Christian scholars
educated at Islamic centres of higher learning by Arab-Muslim teachers in
Spain. Didn't you study the excellent Sten Ebbensen article on Averroes that
you cited earlier?
I did include a full copy elsewhere, for convenience, but you said it was
"too long" to read. Which only proves the point that you are only interested
in superficial and doctored overviews rather than in-depth historical
analysis into the truth about "The Golden Age of Islam" in Spain.
Your other comments failed in two important areas the you have artfully
omitted, that every discerning Muslim who has read anything of history knows
about Aquinas's, thoughts on the "trinity" and "incarnation". These two
aren't "revelation" are they Robert. as the filioque episode demonstrates?
But discerning Muslim subscribers also know of the (as you would probably
say "duplicitous") two-fold method used by Aquinas in his militant polemical
writings to attack not only Islam and Muslim but everyone who wasn't a
Catholic. See this search link (59,800 hits):-
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&q=two-fold+method+%22aquinas%22&btnG=Search
And, this modern criticism link reveals:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquinas
Extract:-
Some of Thomas's ethical conclusions are at odds with the majority view in
the contemporary West. For example, he held that heretics "deserve not only
to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed
from the world by death", and thus that heresy should be punished by death
(ST II:II 11:3), He also maintained the woman's subjection to man on account
of her intellectual inferiority (see ST I:92:1), which is one reason why he
opposed the ordination of women (see (ST Supp. 39:1); he did say, however,
that they were fit for the exercise of temporal power. He also held that "a
parent can lawfully strike his child, and a master his slave that
instruction may be enforced by correction". (ST II:II 65:2).
End extract.
Isn't this the excuse used by the self-righteous and sanctimonious Church to
burn all those heretic Syriac (Nestorian) books of knowledge, translated
from the Greek, that you "mythically" keep on ranting about in SRI?
As an aside, how do you explain the "a master may lawfully strike his slave
so that instruction may be enforced by correction", when you argued
elsewhere, in your rant against slavery in Islam, that slavery was forbidden
by the Church? As this SRI group search reveals:-
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.religion.islam/search?q=author%3Arobert+%22slavery%22&start=0&
Doesn't this fresh evidence prove your were wrong again, as I endeavoured to
do earlier?
--
Peace
--
Negative findings are sometimes as important as positive ones, since they
cut down the total universe of ignorance. [F. N. Kerlinger]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
Abu Jamil
On May 24, you wrote: "It is absurd to suggest that my argument about
the alleged Western debt to Islam is a search for Greek works existing
only in Arabic."
In response to this, and in good Muslim fashion being only interested
in the truth (a character trait that is not readily apparent on your
side of this debate), I went back and painstakingly reviewed your May 2
post to verify this. While it is clear that it is entirely about
translation, I see now that you meant, at least at first, to focus on
translation *from* Greek *to* Arabic, not *from* Arabic *to* Latin
later on. Sorry that your meaning was not entirely clear. Of your nine
paragraphs, this difference is only indicated in one of them, and in
fact in most of them (the last five paragraphs) you did indeed only
write about the task of translating *into* Latin.
In your May 24 post addressed to me the sum total of your assertions
amounted only to your insisting that Greek knowledge was transferred
without alteration into Arabic and then into Latin. Supposedly, during
the intervening several centuries, no Muslim touched it.
Therefore, your entire argument, that Europe lacks any debt to the
Islamic civilization, is premised on the notion that no new knowledge
developed from the Islamic civilization at all. The reason? Simply,
Europeans supposedly do not have a problem borrowing knowledge from
other civilizations. Therefore, because no unique Islamic knowledge
came into Europe, it must perforce be because there was no unique
Islamic knowledge in existence in those libraries in Toledo and
elsewhere. Otherwise, European Christians would have translated it
along with everything else, as open-minded as they were.
Now, in order for your argument to hold, we must show that there was no
unique Islamic knowledge to translate. Here is the logic of your
argument, carefully parsed:
1. Christians translated the original Greek into Arabic. Muslims had
nothing to do with it. Christians were open-minded. Muslims were
close-minded.
Logically, therefore: Christians needed Greek knowledge to be in
Arabic. Thus, there must have been great demand for Classical Greek
knowledge among Arabic-speaking Christians, most of whom must not have
been able to read either Greek or Aramaic, as you have been careful to
point out that these translations were first made into Aramaic
(Syriac). Meanwhile, Muslims were not interested in Classical Greek
knowledge at all. Consequently, they ignored those products and went
about their merry way living and loving without the benefit of any
Classical Greek knowledge at all.
2. While Muslims possessed the translated writings of the Classical
Greeks, they did not touch it. They merely left it intact. Were this
not the case, then Christians would indeed have translated any unique
developments from Muslim thinkers and brought them into Europe, as
open-minded as they were.
Logically, therefore: The fact that the Muslims *possessed* these
writings was merely a technical detail. They did not read them because
they were not interested in them in the least. Consequently, they did
not write about them either, let alone develop them into new sciences
and arts. Anything that the Islamic civilization developed in the way
of science and the arts thus must have been due to Islamic
exceptionalism, as the Muslims were too arrogant to draw on any other
civilization for scientific or artistic inspiration. However, if they
did develop any unique sciences or arts, they carefully kept them out
of the libraries that served as the sources of European knowledge
through translation from Arabic. Otherwise, Christians would have
translated these new sciences and arts as well, as open-minded as they
were.
3. Eventually, Christians went back in and starting translating from
Arabic to Latin in order to benefit from Classical Greek knowledge, but
not to benefit from Islamic knowledge. However, there could not have
been any Islamic knowledge, because then the Christians would have
translated that as well, as open-minded as they were.
Logically, therefore: There was great demand among Christians in Europe
for knowledge of the Classical Greeks. This motivated them to go to
Toledo and start translating. In so doing, there was no need to avoid
Muslim products, because there were none, the Muslims having avoided
touching any Arabic translations of the Greek masters during the
several centuries in which they allowed them to lie in their libraries.
Furthermore, any Muslim thinker who did write anything that reflected
any Greek content at all must have been Christian. If not, then he must
simply have copied a pre-existing Arabic translation of a Greek work,
for he could not have added anything to it whatsoever. If he had,
Christians would have translated it, as open-minded as they were.
In summary, your entire argument depends on a demonstration that there
was never any new Islamic knowledge at all. All other civilizations
naturally developed knowledge of their own, but the Muslims did not.
Why might you hold this arrogant, racist view? Could it be that you are
one of the last true believers in the myth of European exceptionalism?
Naturally, this makes it easy to refute your argument. It has already
been done over and over on this thread, of course, and not
surprisingly, you have simply insisted over and over again that any
ostensibly new Islamic knowledge was really old Greek knowledge.
Okay, let's look for it. Please demonstrate the following sciences
among the Classical Greeks, or any other pre-Islamic source that you
can find, and show that they were just as developed when they passed
into the Islamic civilization as when they passed out of it again (I've
only given one name to each, but in some cases many [non-existent]
Muslim thinkers contributed to the science):
-Algebra (al-Khwarizmi)
-Antiseptics (al-Razi)
-Chemistry (Jabir ibn Hayyan)
-Geology (Abu Rayhan al-Biruni)
-Mineralogy (Ahmad ibn Yusuf Tifashi)
-Optics (ibn al-Haytham)
-Pathology (ibn Zuhr)
-Pharmacology (ibn Baytar)
-Physiology (al-Razi)
-Trigonometry, Plane (al-Marwazi)
-Trigonometry, Spherical (Abu al-Wafa)
Alternatively, you might wish to demonstrate that all of these thinkers
were actually Christians, as open-minded as they are, and none of them
Muslims. That might likewise preserve the integrity of your theory.
Most interesting of all is your very desire to foist a revisionist view
of European history on members of this newsgroup (a curious choice in
and of itself), now that the past several decades of correcting the
historical record with real philological work by real researchers (as
opposed to reactionary dreamers in a primordial, glorious European race
that never existed) have finally produced an accurate picture for the
history books. Of course, the effect is the opposite. All you're doing
is getting Muslims to explore their forerunners' historical
contributions to Europe's Renaissance in significantly more detail than
that to which they might previously have been energized. Given that the
vast majority of the actual literature on the subject controverts your
position so thoroughly, your choice to pursue this topic in this forum
will only prove to have strengthened the rhetorical ability of the
members of this newsgroup to engage in persuasive discussion on the
subject with other non-Muslims who might previously have been content
with their own level of limited knowledge. If that was indeed your
subversive purpose, then I must applaud you.
Abu Jamil
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip>
<snip> ...
Comment:-
I'm not sure if your reply has any relevance to Islam (Moderator's take
note).
Well what does this remarkable piece of obfuscation and obscuration
represent other that you lost the "The Myth of the West's Intellectual Debt
to Islam" argument - based on hard facts and evidence of western
historians - and are in now a state of denial and making lame excuses over
an undeniable truth of Islam that you find unpalatable.
But is the discovery of the truth a "device", only to "crooked thinkers" I
would argue!
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip>
> As I have said the transmissions of the 12th and 13th centuries were
> Greek. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Which is untrue. Why do you keep on repeating these absurd half-truths and
innuendo, unthinkingly plagiarised from a single and unreliable source,
namely, "Jonathan David Carson", when on the contrary, you have been
provided with overwhelming evidence, from many eminent western historians,
world authorities in this field, to the contrary. Here's another one, linked
to previously, that you refused to read or acknowledge:-
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H056
Extract:-
Islamic philosophy: transmission into Western Europe
The Arabs took on the mantle of late antique philosophy and passed it on to
both Latin scholars and Jewish scholars in Western Europe in the Middle
Ages. The debates among Islamic scholars between rationalism and fideism
also provided texts and models for Christian and Jewish debates. In this
assimilation of Islamic thought, several stages can be observed. First,
there was an interest in Neoplatonic cosmology and psychology in the latter
half of the twelfth century, which fostered the translation of texts by
al-Kindi, al-Farabi, the Ikhwan al-Safa' and, especially, Avicenna (Ibn
Sina). Second, the desire to understand Aristotle's philosophy resulted in
the translation of the commentaries and epitomes of Averroes (Ibn Rushd) in
the second quarter of the thirteenth century. Jewish scholars participated
in both these movements, and from the second quarter of the thirteenth
century they took the initiative in translating and commenting upon Arabic
texts. Thus when, in the late fifteenth century, a renewed interest in the
ancient texts led scholars to search out the most accurate interpretations
of these texts, it was to Jewish scholars that they turned for new
translations or retranslations of Avicenna and, in particular, Averroes.
>From the early sixteenth century, Arabic philosophical texts were again
translated directly into Latin, Arabic speakers began to collaborate with
Christian scholars and the foundations for the teaching of Arabic were being
laid. With the establishment of Arabic chairs in European universities, the
rich variety of Islamic thought began to be revealed. This process has
lasted until the present day. [CHARLES BURNETT Copyright © 1998, Routledge]
End extract
Now is Charles Burnett some intellectual lightweight using weasel-words or
an international historian of note? Did you attempt to read this article and
any of it's extended bibliography about the transmission of knowledge to
western Europe by Arab-Muslims via Spain? What part of the opening
statement: "The Arabs took on the mantle of late antique philosophy and
passed it on to both Latin scholars and Jewish scholars in Western Europe in
the Middle Ages."; don't you understand?
Here's a link to the corpus of Charles Burnett many erudite works on the
Arab-Muslim transmission:-
http://www2.sas.ac.uk/warburg/institute/cburnett.htm
How many of them have you read?
Are you now going to say he's not an expert historian, if not, the
definitive modern expert, on "Islamic philosophy: transmission into Western
Europe", or will you continue to push your disingenuous, "The Myth of the
West's Intellectual Debt to Islam", in the same bombastic and blustering
manner?
Compare this to your authority "Jonathan David Carson" at this link:-
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&q=+%22Jonathan+David+Carson%22&btnG=Search
Is he an historian? Do you believe that his citations are accurate? Or is he
just a artful and irrelevant Catholic wordsmith (like Spenser, Phillips,
Elst, et al) trying to undermine Muslims and Islam by spreading false and
fallacious reports on dubious blog sites and elsewhere? Do you still believe
the propaganda that's "Hyping Islam's role in the History of Science"
article? Are you at all interested in the truth?
Robert
You are quite wrong in saying that Aquinas "diligently" followed the
teachings of Averroes, as you would know if you had heeded my earlier
quotations and references. Aquinas devoted much of his life to
countering the misapprehensions that Averroes had about Aristotle, and
to do this Aquinas wrote numerous Commentaries on Aristotle to set
beside Averroes's. He also wrote books against Averroes's major
doctrines that are contrary to Christianity (and Islam, I should
think.) It is an abuse of argument on your part that you produce
nothing to support your claim about Aquinas; Ebbenson gives you no
support: you merely bluff in implying that he does.
As before when you have ventured a remark on Christianity, you are all
wrong in your comment on the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the
'filioque' clause; and it is all totally irrelevant.
You contrive to make a slurr concerning the two-fold method in
connection with Aquinas's work designed to convert Muslims, but you
manage in your 'subtle' way to say nothing, but display your knowledge
of a medieval philosophical tag-phrase. To give the impression that you
have something to say you produce a link to 500 internet items and give
no guidance as to which we should consult about what. Again abuse of
'argument'.
Your paragraph on Aquinas is totally irrelevant; but since you attack
the great and good man, I will make a few points. His view that
heretics deserved execution needs to be studied in context; one needs
to know what qualifications were made. In the Middle Ages only the
obdurate leaders of organised heresy were condemned to death; simple
people who had been misled were not, and the courts aimed at
reconciliation rather than the death penalty: a soul saved was a life
saved, and there were few executions. But as a Muslim you are not in a
position to object to Aquinas's view: to this day death is the
punishment for heretics in Islam, and quite recently two men, an
Iranian and an Afghan, have been saved from execution only by
international protests.
Similarly with regard to the position of women: Aquinas was a man of
his time and had an understandable view of female nature, but for all
time the Islamic position is that women are inferior - and that's in
the twentieth century.
As regards striking a child or a slave, again you are not in a position
to object: the Koran teaches men to beat their wives if they are
rebellious.
I have several times given you evidence that the Greek corpus was
translated into Arabic via Syriac. Instead of showing reasons for
rejecting my evidence you simply go on repeating your charge that it's
a myth. There is no arguing with people like you.
I was not wrong when I stated that the Church condemns slavery; that
has been laid down by a modern Council. I have explained the position
in the fifteenth century and later: slavery was vigorously condemned by
several Popes. Again you abuse argument, by ignoring the facts I
produce and by simply reiterating your charge. What you are interested
in is propagandistic effect.
There is no profit in arguing with you: you are not interested in
reason and truth; you are fighting a jihad, and your concern is that
Islam should be 'victorious' by fair means or foul.
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip>
> Your extended rhetorical bluster gets you nowhere: you fail to meet my
> challenge again; you do not identify a single Muslim university in
> Spain, but mendaciously claim that you have already done so. ..
<snip> ...
Comment:-
How can I fail to meet your challenge when you never diligigently read the
intelligent responses you are given? Did you study the quotes from Bernard
Lewis and W. Montgomery Watt, Philip Hitti, et al, and the entries from the
Catholic Encyclopaedia and the Encyclopaedia Britannica? Which of the listed
centres of Arab-Muslim higher learning in Toledo, Granada, Seville, et al,
don't you recognise as Islamic "universities"? Or do I get the impression
that you are artfully trying to mendaciously manipulate the term
"university" (i.e. establishment where a seat of higher learning is housed,
including teaching, administrative and living quarters) weren't in these
Arab-Muslim cities in Spain?
Robert, as I said, these are the places where the Catholic Church burnt all
those "enriched" books [Lewis] of knowledge passed to the Christian scholars
of the day. Why? Simply because all those fictive Latin translations, the
historical lies perpetrated by the ignorant Church, did not exist anywhere
in Latin the world at that time. Read what the eminent western historians
unremittingly declare, rather than wasting your time reading "Melanie
Phillips Diary".
I don't claim anything, all I do is sensibly cite the scholarly consensus
amongst well-known and highly respected western historian with some expert
knowledge in this specialist subject matter. Why don't you want to accept
this western consensus and expert opinion? That's the difference between us,
I rely on this expert knowledge about "The Golden Age of Islam" in Spain;
whilst you keep on making unsubstantiated and specious claims, and
inaccurate assertions that endeavours to deny the unequivocal historical
truth given by these western experts.
Of course, I could point out that the remainder of your "crooked thinking"
post is fraught with, as Professor Thouless's demonstrates: Trick # 29 -
"Illegitimate demand for definition" [university canard above]; Trick # 21 -
"Suggestion by repeated affirmation"; and Trick # 24 - Prestige by false
credentials. Will you accept this challenge and at least study this link:-
Robert, "The Myth of the West's Intellectual Debt to Islam" has been busted.
Why keep denying it?
--
Peace
--
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive
themselves. [Eric Hoffer]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
hajj abujamal
Abd ulRahman Lomax wrote:
> "Robert" <robe...@f2s.com> wrote:
>> I reply to Azumazi May 26
>> Your extended rhetorical bluster gets you nowhere:
>> you fail to meet my challenge again ...
Please note the word "challenge" ~ this is the characteristic of
all Robert's posts, and as I recall he stated early in his visit to
SRI that his intent was to "challenge Islam."
> Did Zuiko Azumazi "identify a single Muslim university
> in Spain or not?" Is this even the real question?
Abu Jamil posted a very good recounting of the intellectial
development that spread from Islamic Spain into (and ending) the
European Dark Ages. He showed that after the initial influx of
knowledge and science preserved and developed in the Arab muslim
empire, Europe fixated on Greece and Rome, geographically part of
Europe, as those cultures had been preserved in Arabic, as their
cultural "roots." Thereafter European scholarship discounted and
dismissed from history the Arabic sources from which they inherited
universal individual private property rights, federalism, pharmacy,
calculus and spherical trigonometry, celestial navigation, ballistics,
and the zero.
Although Abu Jamil's treatise didn't say so, this denigration and
amnesia, concerning the historical advent and dominion of the
Millennial Kingdom foretold in Scripture, was the product of the
Judeo-Masonic influence of Pauline Christianity, the successor faith
to the pagan Greek and Roman man-god mystery religions (albeit in the
theological garb of Nimrod). In order to sustain the myth that
universal salvation comes in Israel, and the "mystery" of how Jesus
'alaihi as-salaam "saved" everybody by a "sacrifice" that never took
place, it was necessary to suppress and misrepresent any knowledge of
what actually happened in the Promised Land in fulfillment of what
Jesus and Scripture clearly and explicitly foretold.
This also is Robert's purpose in visiting SRI.
> I became interested in this because Robert's description of
> Azumazi's claim as "mendacious" was, in my opinion, a violation
> of newsgroup policy, since "mendacious" is quite equivalent to
> "lying." The post should have been rejected.
I have become so accustomed to Robert's persistent characteristic
of replying to every post that disputes his disinformation with some
unresponsive and provocative challenge, usually personally insulting,
completely ignoring or dismissing out-of-hand whatever is presented to
him, that I missed seeing him call Azumazi a liar. Apparently so did
the moderators.
> First of all, Robert's description of
> what Azumazi claimed is not exact.
This is characteristic of Robert's posts.
> Claims like this, coming out of left field, contrary to all accepted
> knowledge, can sometimes be difficult to grasp and refute.
It is quite obvious that they are not relevant to discussion of
Islam, actually. Most of them are boilerplate contentions raised
centuries ago and regularly refuted with a minimum of actual
scholarship and undisputed history. It is well known that they are
not "discussion of Islam" but "false-light depictions of Islam" that
are none of them new or novel. The notion that the development of
Europe after the Dark Ages proceeded from Greek and Roman sources
without the least reference to Toledo or Granada or Arabic
transmission, development, and original science, is centuries too old
to be copyrighted as the fiction that it has always been. It is most
certainly NOT a "discussion of Islam."
Robert, as I mentioned, declared that his visit to SRI was for the
purpose of "challenging" Islam. It has subsequently developed that
among his purposes is also the defense of Paulinanity, and that his
visit is essentially missionary. It is not "to discuss Islam" but
rather to regurgitate stale misrepresentations ostensibly about Islam,
and to argue that "salvation" came with the Messiah of Israel.
I have suggested that his posts merit no reply from any muslim on
the forum. Some, however, think they can dissuade him from his
delusions with a honeyed approach, and others enjoy toying with him.
I suggest that his posts are not relevant to Islam in the slightest,
contain no sincere questions whatever, and are not intended in any way
to promote or engage in "discussion of Islam." Since I started
keeping copies of all "rejection notices" addressed to him (2/7/6), I
have accumulated 51. Meanwhile, over 350 posts ~ including many with
such Subject lines as "Islamic Duplicity: Wholesale Falsification" and
"Rape Under Sharia" and "Lying In the Interest of Islam" and "Female
Circumcision: the Two Faces of Islam" ~ have slipped past the
moderators' "relevant to Islam" filters.
Clearly, a less mechanical understanding of "relevant to Islam"
needs to be developed. Moderators are reasonably expected to use a
bit of judgment, not a formulary "recipe" or merely mechanical
inclusion/exclusion of words (which could be done by procmail word
filters), to determine "relevance." I do not see this expectation
being met. Perhaps the moderation team could be assisted by a
non-charter consultative group of muslims who are better situated to
counsel them on what is "relevant" to Islam.
> I was a bit puzzled, when I started to learn Arabic, that the
> numbers were quite a bit different from what we know as "Arabic
> numerals." I assumed at first that they had simply shifted, as
> letter forms shifted. However, I then became familiar with the
> Maghribi forms: it is these forms, "Western Arabic Numerals,"
> that came to Europe.
Now that's interesting. I've often wondered where the modern
forms of the numerals originated.
was-salaam,
abujamal
--
astaghfirullahal-ladhee laa ilaha illa
howal-hayyul-qayyoom wa 'atoobu 'ilaihi
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.
Abd ulRahman Lomax
On Sun, 28 May 2006 11:42:40 -0500, "Robert" <robe...@f2s.com> wrote:
>I reply to Azumazi May 26
>
>Your extended rhetorical bluster gets you nowhere: you fail to meet my
>challenge again; you do not identify a single Muslim university in
>Spain, but mendaciously claim that you have already done so.
I'm really pretty lazy, I like to enter controversies where the
question is clear. As I write this, I don't know the answer. Did Zuiko
Azumazi "identify a single Muslim university in Spain or not?" Is this
even the real question?
I became interested in this because Robert's description of Azumazi's
claim as "mendacious" was, in my opinion, a violation of newsgroup
policy, since "mendacious" is quite equivalent to "lying." The post
should have been rejected.
First of all, Robert's description of what Azumazi claimed is not
exact. Robert had challenged Azumazi to "demonstrate the existence of
such 'universities,' i.e., universities in Islamic Spain which had an
'intellectual impact' on European thought. Here is the text:
><snip> ...
>> You refer to the intellectual impact on "church scholars" and European
>> thought derived from Muslim teachers at Islamic universities in Spain.
>> Please demonstrate the existence of such "universities."
><snip> ...
>
>Comment:-
>I already have given this information in previous posts in this thread, you
>have neglected to read them that's all. Go back and study them more
>carefully.
Robert's response was this:
> you fail to meet my
>challenge again; you do not identify a single Muslim university in
>Spain, but mendaciously claim that you have already done so.
Note that Robert has not accurately described Azumazi's claim. Azumazi
claimed to have given "information," specifically, since he was
responding to a challenge, the information would be a demonstration of
the existence of universities with an impact on European thought.
While naming the universities might be a part of such information, it
is not necessarily so. Azumazi did not claim to have identified a
'single' university, but only to have given information regarding
their existence. So, on the face of it, Robert is claiming Azumazi is
lying, but has not accurately quoted him. That may not be lying, but
is, on the face of it, a careless disregard for the truth.
I'd say that when one is going to claim that someone has lied, great
caution is called for in examining exactly what was said....
Now, was Azumazi's claim, as he actually made it, not as Robert
incorrectly described it, true?
Looking back over Azumazi's postings up this thread, I find a number
of posts in which he did indeed give "information" on the topic. I did
not see in the information directly quoted any reference to a specific
university, nor to universities at all; rather there was reference to
"schools," as a "school of translators in Toledo," which refers to a
group, connected in some way, often by teacher-student relationships,
but not necessarily in the form that we would now call a "university."
Given the context, however, the matter of "universities" is a red
herring. There can be intellectual development and expression and
influence, without there being universities. (I think there *were*
universities in Spain comparable to al-Qarawayin in Fes,founded in 859
AD, it would be surprising if there were not, but that's not the
point here.)
Azumazi did give quite a few references and citations to show his
point, but I would not call it proven, the information was too diffuse
to justify that. (And I did not track down and read the citations.)
It's a difficult matter, sometimes, to counter charges like that found
in the beginning of this thread. I recall the claims that the Muslims
prayed toward Jerusalem up until long after the passing of the
Prophet, and that the Qur'an was also written later. Claims like this,
coming out of left field, contrary to all accepted knowledge, can
sometimes be difficult to grasp and refute.
(It should be understood that while it is possible that a claim which
is contrary to conventional and long-accepted knowledge may indeed be
true, but it is rare. Much more often it is the result of sloppy
scholarship, on the level of "This or that fact is unexplained,
therefore my hypothesis is true." But lots of facts will never be
explained.)
I'd suggest that it would be appropriate to confine a response, if
someone is so inclined, to the citations of organized institutions of
learning in Andalus, as specific as possible, and, again, if possible,
connecting those institutions to specific influences on European
thought.
What schools, universities, institutions, or individuals were working
in Andalus, with an impact or influence on European thought?. Azumazi
did give, I think, some examples, so his claim was true, but those
examples were not focused on the specific challenge.
Of course, Azumazi has no specific obligation to respond to Robert's
questions; to the extent that such an obligation exists, it is a
collective one.
I have personally taken the influence of Islamic thought on Europe to
be a given; in the sciences, there are many terms taken from the
Arabic. As the most prominent example, while it is true that so-called
Arabic numerals came from India, the Arabs call them "Indian
numerals," they did come to Europe through the Arabs, hence the name.
(Incidentally, I was a bit puzzled, when I started to learn Arabic,
that the numbers were quite a bit different from what we know as
"Arabic numerals." I assumed at first that they had simply shifted, as
letter forms shifted. However, I then became familiar with the
Maghribi forms: it is these forms, "Western Arabic Numerals," that
came to Europe. Not surprising. I assume these were the numbers used
in Spain.)
Zuiko Azumazi
news:00dk721r4gev43hhe...@4ax.com...
Asalamu alaikum
<snip>
> I'm really pretty lazy, I like to enter controversies where the
> question is clear. As I write this, I don't know the answer. Did Zuiko
> Azumazi "identify a single Muslim university in Spain or not?" Is this
> even the real question?
<snip> ...
Comment:-
I certainly did mention several centres of higher learning that were
contained in several citations I gave previously to Robert from "Lewis",
"Watt", et al, about some famous Latin scholars, Gerard of Cremona, Adelhard
of Bath, Daniel of Morley, Domingo Gundisalvi, John of Seville and Petrus
Alphonsi, Herman the Dalmatian, Michael Scot, who all studied in mediaeval
these Islamic universities - see this additional link:-
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/program/neareast/andalusia/pdf/6.pdf
Extract:-
Philosophy and Science in Andalusia By Alfred Ivry Departments of Middle
Eastern Studies and Hebrew and Judaic Studies,New York University
This entire philosophical and scientific corpus was transmitted westward in
the ninth and tenth centuries, mostly by Andalusia scholars travelling East
and returning home with the knowledge, and books, acquired in their travels.
The Andalusian monarch 羨bd al-Rahman II (reigned 821-52) welcomed the new
learning into the court at Cordova, where under later rulers a library was
constructed; a pattern of royal patronage followed a century later in the
various courts of the party states . Cities like Toledo, Seville, Saragossa
and Granada became the centres of incipient universities, where the new
sciences were taught, and from which translations were made into Latin for
interested European scholars and rulers" [Alfred Ivry - Departments of
Middle Eastern Studies and Hebrew and Judaic Studies,New York University]
End extract.
Robert, has tried to on several occasions to obfuscate the facts about these
Latin scholars education in Arab-Muslim Spain etc., in previous posts, hopin
g that the obscurantist tactic will veil the historical truth about the
Islamic transmission that he can't plausibly answer. All that I've done is
to quote the scholarly consensus amongst eminent western historians on this
subject by giving the appropriate direct references. Robert, denies this
consensus, even if the expert sources are all well-respected non-Muslim
historians of note, in this particular area of historical study.
It's just like the Charles Burnett quote: "The Arabs took on the mantle of
late antique philosophy and passed it on to both Latin scholars and Jewish
scholars in Western Europe in the Middle Ages." (and all the other relevant
scholarly citations); that are never challenged by Robert directly. He
simply ignores them and repeats his "claims" even when they have been
refuted and demolished by well-known scholars in the field.
But you are quite right this isn't the real question, it's obscurantism
employed by Robert to win his "The Myth of the West's Intellectual Debt to
Islam" argument. This method of "crooked thinking" is not new to SRI.
--
Peace
--
We should not be ashamed to acknowledge truth from whatever source
it comes to us, even if it is brought to us by former generations and
foreign peoples. For him who seeks the truth there is nothing of higher
value than truth itself [al-Kindi 801-66]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
Robert Houghton
PS to my reply to Abu Jamil June 3
In addition to demonstrating the transmission to the West of the work
of the Muslim scientists you name, you need to show that their work was
specifically Islamic, that is that it was done independently of the
Greek tradition of science. In that case the debt would be to Islam.
Averroes's philosophical work was in the Greek tradition, which is why
he was appreciated in the West, and why he remained unknown for a
thousand years under Islam.
Abu Jamil wrote:
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip> ...
> You are quite wrong in saying that Aquinas "diligently" followed the
> teachings of Averroes, as you would know if you had heeded my earlier
> quotations and references. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
I did heed your previous misconceptions and thoroughly refuted all of them
by referencing citations from all these authoritative western scholars and
well=respected sources: Lewis, Hitti, Hourani, Hogben, Toynbee, Ebbensen,
Burnett, Leaman, Lapidus, Watt, Catholic Encyclopaedia, and Encyclopaedia
Britannica, amongst others. Why do you consistently fail to acknowledge and
artfully deny this indubitable fact? You think that this obfuscation will
hide the truth that clearly evidenced in the SRI transcripts? Don't these
responses exist?
For example, are you saying that Charles Burnett is wrong (see citation
elsewhere) and we are expected to take your word over his expert opinion?
What references have you confirmed from the source document? Can these
artfully selected quotes confound the references and consensus of
those citations mentioned by the above historians?
What you provided is a "claim" is based on a "neocon" blog article written
by Jonathan David Carson? This is the substance of your plagiarised "claim"?
A unsubstantiated "claim" blindly copied from a biased and non-historian
source that you want to stack up as a purported "challenge" to "The Golden
Age of Islam" in Spain? As I said Robert, I rely
on world renowned historians, specialists in the subject matter, not in
odd-ball, if not, suspect, opinions expressed on blog sites and newsgroups.
Why don't you do likewise? As I said earlier, I "claim" nothing other than
accurately quoting the expert historians and provide that information to
readers, so that they can intelligently judge the matter for themselves.
But as you admit, you quote from Lewis and Ebbensen as references in your
argument and then try and distance yourself from what they actually wrote
when disputed by others. When challenged under about the 'impure citations',
that had been posted by yourself, didn't we get a response saying that the
complete "Averroism" article by Ebbensen's is "too long" to read? Does this
mean that you had earlier quoted a referenced article that you hadn't fully
read? Or was it bluff because what you had earlier citation had been
artfully doctored? Did you check any of the citations made by Carson back to
what his cited authorities actually wrote?
Go back and study Sten Ebbensen's article (the unexpurgated version that I
posted in full - and that you said was too long to read) and demonstrate to
us, from this article, how you derive the rash conclusions that you have
confirmed in the remainder of this post that Averroism had no impact on
western thought?
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/B012.htm
How did Aquinas refute certain aspects of Ibn Rushd if he hadn't diligently
studied his works?
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H025
[See also: Fakhry, M. (1958) Islamic Occasionalism and Its Critique by
Averroes and Aquinas, London: Allen & Unwin. (The way in which Ibn Rushd's
approach to the topic of causality became part of wider philosophical
thought in Christian Europe.)]
Or will you consider that there is, as you say, "no value" in discovering
the truth which is Islam if it conflicts with your opinion?
Robert
Lomax asked you if you have identified a single Muslim university in
Spain as I challenged you to do; you shift terminology by referring to
"centres of higher learning" and then mention European scholars who
studied in "these [sic] Islamic universities." You then offer a link
implicitly in support of your identification. Ivry, the link, in a
light- weight paper not based on any first-hand research, only refers
to incipient universities at Toledo, Seville, Saragossa, and Granada.
When did these incipient universities blossom into fully developed
universities? Ever? Can you say? You have NOT identified a single
Muslim university. I will describe a university for you: it offers
courses of study taught by qualified teachers; it prescribes a
syllabus; it awards degrees, and higher degrees involve original
research; it has a library.
Ivry says that translations were made in these incipient universities
for interested European scholars. This was in the ninth century. As I
understand it translation took place later than this and the centre was
Christian Toledo (it had been reconquered) and the translators were
bilingual Spaniards and Jews. This is the account that Bernard Lewis
gives; he also says that the story of the Golden Age of cultured peace
in Muslim Spain ia a myth; a myth invented by 19th century Eurpean Jews
as a reproach to Christians.
You insinuate that I have denied that European scholars learnt Arabic
in order to have access to the Greek corpus. That is a shamelessly
false accusation.
Ivry is very clear about one thing: it was Greek culture that the
Muslims brought to Spain, not Muslim culture, which makes my point:
they did NOT make an Islamic contribution to the West.
You have indeed quoted the consensus of Arabists about this issue; I
challenge it, and I have given my grounds. You have not refuted these.
You seem to think that what settles an argument is the academic
standing of the participants, and that it is enough to prove me wrong
to refer to an academic authority. By your way of arguing the Professor
is always right.
You quote Charles Burnett as if to refute me: "The Arabs took on the
mantle of late antique philosophy and passed it to both Latin scholars
and the Jewish scholars...". Everybody knows this; but Burnett has also
shown that of twenty-one works of Aristotle only three were translated
via Arabic, the rest being translated directly from the Greek, and
Aristotle is by far the greatest figure behind the Greek corpus.
Ivry, whom you cite, is explicit about my assertion as to the nature of
the influence: it was not Islamic. He says "The new sciences [were],
mostly Greek in origin and FOREIGN (i.e. secular) in spirit."
You cannot accuse me of obscurantism: I have made my points very
clearly.
Altway
making ignorance into a virtue when there is sufficient
literature to the contrary which he wishes to ignore.
It is the impact of Islam that brought the West out of the Dark Ages
by bringing the Enlightenment, the Renaissance and the Reformation.
Science was persecuted by the Catholic Church because it was seen as an
alien influence coming from Islam
The destruction of the hold of Catholic Church on the minds and lives of
people
and the arising of Protestanism, Science and Merchantilism, all the result
of Islamic influence,
is responsible for Western civilisation.
The countries still dominated by Catholicism are still backwards.
So why do people continue arguing with him?
It is obviously a futile exercise as he obviously has closed mind.
Hamid S. Aziz
Robert
I reply to Altway June 5
Name one European scientist who was persecuted by the Catholic Church.
Name one European scientist whose work showed Islamic influence.
Robert
I protest; I submitted a correction to my reply to Altway, but this has
been ignored. The word "persecuted" should read "executed."
friend
"Robert" wrote:
> I reply to Altway June 5
>
> Name one European scientist who was persecuted by the Catholic Church.
Galileo
> Name one European scientist whose work showed Islamic influence.
1-William Harvey (the plagiarist)
2-Leo l'Africain (Leo Africanus) even a worse plagiarist than Harvey.
3-Fibonacci
:-)
Cheers!
Robert
CORRECTION to my reply to Altway June 5th
"Persecuted" should read "executed". Galileo was subjected to
imprisonment for heresy; name one more.
asimm...@yahoo.com
Robert wrote:
> I reply to asimmehm May 20
>
> No, Aquinas wasn't in line with Ghazali: he was an Aristotelian, a
> defender of reason (philosophy), and his whole work was motivated by
> the belief that reason and Faith are not in conflict, that the truths
> obtained by the use of reason do not conflict with those known by
> as I understand it.
But that is the same motivation of Imam Ghazali. Muslims were
discussing this issue WELL BEFORE Aquinas.
The well-known argument among the people of kalaam, INCLUDING
AL-GHAZALI, is that reason proves the truth of scripture. If scripture
contradicts 'reason', than this contradiction is resolved through
interpreting scripture metaphorically.
This argument is extended to verses and traditions that seem
'anthromorphic'.
This is just a subtle example of the discussion of reason and
revelation under the people of kalaam. There is a whole range of
literature in Muslim philosophy that discusses these issues.
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip> ...
> Lomax asked you if you have identified a single Muslim university in
> Spain as I challenged you to do; you shift terminology by referring to
> "centres of higher learning" and then mention European scholars who
> studied in "these [sic] Islamic universities." ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Which just proves you don't diligently read what people write. These are my
earlier replies to yourself:
Extract:
news:447514c6$0$7992$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
"I already have given this information in previous posts in this thread, you
have neglected to read them that's all. Go back and study them more
carefully.
Notwithstanding, that the evidence is self-apparent. Where did all these
mediaeval scholars go to school in Spain: wasn't is Toledo, Seville,
Granada, et al? Where were the book repositories kept if not in the great
Islamic universities and places of higher learning? Didn't these books
contain most of the ancient world's knowledge at that time and place? If
this knowledge was available in Latin strongholds why did all these
mediaeval Christian scholars have to go to study under Arab-Muslim tutors
in, Spain?
Didn't you understand the two citations, amongst the many, from the
authoritative works Bernard Lewis and W. Montgomery Watt? I repeat them
again for the last time:-
Lewis:-
"In culture, too, the Arab (Muslim) heritage must be regarded as of great
importance to Spain, and indeed to all of western Europe. Christians from
many countries came to Spain to study together with native Spaniards under
Arabic speaking Muslim and Jewish teachers, and translated many books from
Arabic into Latin. ... The first great centre for transmission from Islam to
Christianity in the west was the city of Toledo ... During the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, ... the Toledo schools of translators produced a great
corpus of works including the 'Organon' of Aristotle and many of the
writings of Euclid, Ptolemy, Galen,, and Hippocrates; enriched by their Arab
(Muslim) commentators and successors. The translators usually worked with
bilingual natives, many of them Jewish, and included both Spanish and
foreign scholars. Amongst them Domingo Gundisalvi, ... John of Seville and
Petrus Alphonsi, and from other countries, Gerard of Cremona from Italy,
Herman the Dalmatian from Germany, Adelhard of Bath, Daniel of Morlay and
Michael Scot from Britain. ..." ["The Arabs in History: pp 129-30]"
What does Lewis mean by "enriched", is it not, make better or improve in
quality?
Watt:-
"Toledo became a Mecca for Christian scholars, who arrived from all over
Europe, among them the Englishmen Adelhard of Bath and Robert of Chester. So
great did the respect for, and the sense of dependence on, Arab civilisation
become, that by the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries professorships in
Arabic were being provided for in the universities at Salamanca, Bologna,
Oxford, Paris and Rome." ["The Influence of Islam on Mediaeval Europe":-p.
80]
Additional Philip Hitti at this link:-
http://www.unhas.ac.id/~rhiza/saintis/rushd.html
"Ibn Rushd (Averroes) has been held as one of the greatest thinkers and
scientists of the twelfth century. According to Philip Hitti, Ibn Rushd
influenced Western thought from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. His
commentaries were used as standard texts in preference to the treatises of
Aristotle in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. His books were included
in the syllabi of Paris and other Western universities till the advent of
modern experimental sciences. Ibn Rushd was studied in the University of
Mexico until 1831."
Don't these erudite articles by non-Muslim western scholars and eminent
historians give you any hints? Did you continue to investigate other
recognised historians; experts in this subject area?
AND:-
news:447a03f0$0$2600$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
How can I fail to meet your challenge when you never diligigently read the
intelligent responses you are given? Did you study the quotes from Bernard
Lewis and W. Montgomery Watt, Philip Hitti, et al, and the entries from the
Catholic Encyclopaedia and the Encyclopaedia Britannica? Which of the listed
centres of Arab-Muslim higher learning in Toledo, Granada, Seville, et al,
don't you recognise as Islamic "universities"? Or do I get the impression
that you are artfully trying to mendaciously manipulate the term
"university" (i.e. establishment where a seat of higher learning is housed,
including teaching, administrative and living quarters) weren't in these
Arab-Muslim cities in Spain?
End extract.
<snip> ...
> ... You then offer a link
> implicitly in support of your identification. Ivry, the link, in a
> light- weight paper not based on any first-hand research, only refers
> to incipient universities at Toledo, Seville, Saragossa, and Granada.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Ivry was an "additional" link if you read what I wrote. Doesn't all the
source material cited from Lewis, Hitti, Hourani, Toynbee, Hogben, Lapidus,
Ebbensen, Leaman, Burnett, et al, the Catholic Encyclopaedia, and
Encyclopaedia Britannica count for anything in your mind? Or are these
authoritative sources all to be sloughed off against the opinion of the
mysterious "Jonathan David Carson", doyen of the "neocon" fraternity and
Islamophobe blogsites?
What does this gratuitous and inaccurate remark mean "not based on any
first-hand research" when Ivry cited these sources at the end of his paper:-
"D. C. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science (Chicago and London,
1992), pp. 161- 82, 261-67.
I. Sabra, The Andalusian revolt against Ptolemaci astronomy: Averroes and
al-Bitruji,
Transformation and Tradition in the Sciences, ed. Everett Mendelsohn
(Cambridge, 1984), pp. 133-53.
Majid Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy (New York, 1970), pp. 287-325.
"
What "first hand research" did you use when you plagiarised the original
article from "Jonathan David Carson"? See this link for the sordid saga and
denial:-
news:446c1a5d$0$4048$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
<snip> ...
> When did these incipient universities blossom into fully developed
> universities? Ever? Can you say? ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
For a self-appointed expert on European culture, as you boasted elsewhere,
wouldn't know all about "
<snip> ...
> You have NOT identified a single
> Muslim university. I will describe a university for you: it offers
> courses of study taught by qualified teachers; it prescribes a
> syllabus; it awards degrees, and higher degrees involve original
> research; it has a library.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Well how dee do dah! Is that what a mediaeval unversity was supposed to be
like in th 13th century? Are you that old? But read on you will find out the
true etymological answer later.
But is your memory slipping, didn't I describe how I was using the term
"university" in my earlier posts requoted above?
<snip> ...
> Ivry says that translations were made in these incipient universities
> for interested European scholars.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
All "universities" prior to the 13th century were incipient (i.e. only
partly in existence; imperfectly formed). See etymological explanation
below.
<snip> ...
> This was in the ninth century. As I
> understand it translation took place later than this and the centre was
> Christian Toledo (it had been reconquered) and the translators were
> bilingual Spaniards and Jews. ... This is the account that Bernard Lewis
> gives ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
No Robert, what actually Lewis wrote [see above] was this: "Christians from
many countries came to Spain to study together with native Spaniards under
Arabic speaking Muslim and Jewish teachers, and translated many books from
Arabic into Latin. ... The first great centre for transmission from Islam to
Christianity in the west was the city of Toledo". Which if you read it
carefully, isn't the same as you are trying to artfully suggest, is it?
But as you gothically say, Lewis's "great centre" isn't a mediaeval
"university".
<snip> ...
> he also says that the story of the Golden Age of cultured peace
> in Muslim Spain ia a myth; a myth invented by 19th century Eurpean Jews
> as a reproach to Christians.
<snip>...
Comment:-
I cited what Lewis actually wrote above, so it's not worth repeating it.
Other than saying everything now appears to be a "myth" in your mind.
<snip>
> You insinuate that I have denied that European scholars learnt Arabic
> in order to have access to the Greek corpus. That is a shamelessly
> false accusation.
Comment:-
Perhaps, then it's just another one of your imaginary "myths"! <G> But I
doubt if you can provide any transcript evidence of it in SRI.
<snip> ...
> Ivry is very clear about one thing: it was Greek culture that the
> Muslims brought to Spain, not Muslim culture, which makes my point: ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Where did he express that "cultural" sentiment? Greeks were pagans were they
not? Didn't he actually say: "Philosophy and science in Andalusia, Muslim
Spain, had its origins in the East, in the cultures of ninth and tenth
centuries Syria, Iraq, and Persia. It was there, beginning in the new
Abbasid capitol of Baghdad, and spreading from there throughout Dar
al-Islam, the Islamic World, that much of the Greek scientific legacy of
late antiquity was translated and then assimilated into Arabic culture. A
new body of knowledge soon arose, alongside the traditional Muslim sciences.
These earlier ulum al-din, the religious sciences of Islam, consisted of Qur
an and hadith, Arabic grammar and linguistics, theology and law. The new
sciences, mostly Greek in origin and foreign (i.e. secular) in spirit,
included mathematics, physics, anatomy, biology, botany, chemistry,
medicine, and astronomy."
Why do you constantly misquote and edit quotes to fit your specious
argument?
<snip. ...
> they did NOT make an Islamic contribution to the West. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Well read above. Were the Arab-Muslim masters and teachers in Spain, who
taught all of the Latin [Christian] scholars, unrelated to Islam or Arabic?
How do arrive at that naive assertion? Is Spain not in the west?
<snip> ..
> You have indeed quoted the consensus of Arabists about this issue; I
> challenge it, and I have given my grounds. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Well you can challenge anything you want on false grounds, that's your
prerogative, just don't expect anyone else to be persuaded. Opinion can be
true or false, Whereas, knowledge can never be false. But under this
scenario weren't all these mediaeval Latin scholars "Arabists", in that they
became scholars who specializes in Arab languages and culture? As Watt
remarked: "So great did the respect for, and the sense of dependence on,
Arab civilisation become, that by the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
professorships in Arabic were being provided for in the universities at
Salamanca, Bologna, Oxford, Paris and Rome.". Isn't that the truth?
<snip> ...
> You have not refuted these. ...
<snip> ...
comment:-
Why should I refute all the undoubted western experts that I've mentioned?
Isn't that being rather perverse?
<snip> ...
> You seem to think that what settles an argument is the academic
> standing of the participants, and that it is enough to prove me wrong
> to refer to an academic authority. By your way of arguing the Professor
> is always right. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
That's not entirely true but you haven't been reading my posts closely
enough. As I said opinion can be either true or false. Your opinions in this
particular case are for others to judge based on the transcripts. I'm not
trying to persuade them of anything other than 'how to think' about the
issues at hand.
<snip> ...
> You quote Charles Burnett as if to refute me: "The Arabs took on the
> mantle of late antique philosophy and passed it to both Latin scholars
> and the Jewish scholars..." ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
No Robert, you refute yourself by being inconsistent. You said elsewhere,
and I quote:
news:000001c60f0a$2596d790$dd6b4ed5@rhdt...
"So we see that the Muslims did not transmit Greek learning to the West: at
every point the process was in the hands of Christians and later Jews. The
Muslims didn't even provide the language; Arab Christians did that."
Now, are you conceding that this whole subject "The Myth of the West's
Intellectual Debt to Islam" is just huff and puff and bluff?
<snip> ...
> Everybody knows this; but Burnett has also
> shown that of twenty-one works of Aristotle only three were translated
> via Arabic, the rest being translated directly from the Greek, and
> Aristotle is by far the greatest figure behind the Greek corpus. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
If everyone knew then why wasn't he cited earlier by yourself? Did "Jonathan
David Carson" know? Did you actually know before I brought it to your
attention?
Whose talking solely about Aristotle? Didn't you say elsewhere you were
referring to the whole corpus of knowledge? What about the works of -
quoting Lewis: "the Toledo schools of translators produced a great corpus of
works including the 'Organon' of Aristotle and many of the writings of
Euclid, Ptolemy, Galen,, and Hippocrates; enriched by their Arab (Muslim)
commentators and successors." Is this enough or do I have to cite others?
<snip> ...
> Ivry, whom you cite, is explicit about my assertion as to the nature of
> the influence: it was not Islamic. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
I thought you said he was a lightweight? But isn't your plagiarised
authority "Jonathan David Carson"? Is he a heavyweight historian or just a
millstone around your neck? Although, a wordsmith might be more appropriate
in a true context amongst those practising histrionics on the internet.
What does this mean "the nature of the influence" and "it was not Islamic"?
Does this mean that the Arab-Muslim masters and teachers had no influence
with or on the Latin scholars studying under their tutelage, or that
Arab-Muslims had not "enriched" [Lewis] the corpus of the world's known
knowledge at that time?
Are you now conceding that the masters were Arab-Muslims, quoting [Ivry]
"where the new sciences were taught, and from which translations were made
into Latin for interested European scholars and rulers"? But didn't you also
say elsewhere, that the "Christian" translations already existed in the
Latin world? If so, why the need to translate them again or visit Spain to
be taught about them by infidel Arab-Muslims?
But shouldn't we add this "heavyweight" Ivry quote about the "two thousand
volumes" from the same article:-
"Acting often as astrologers, the astronomers tried to affect human destiny,
but with little success. Tangible results were to be had rather in the
development of the astrolabe and other instruments for charting the heavens
and mapping the earth. These instruments, and the maps and books of
Andalusian science, can be viewed in the library of the Escurial Palace,
outside Madrid. Built after the Reconquista by Philip II (d. 1598), it
contains something like two thousand volumes of Andalusian science and
philosophy."
Notwithstanding, as you have artfully tried to suggest, these mediaeval
volumes were never housed in any "universitas magistrorum et scholarium" in
Arab-Muslim cities in Spain, (all explained below).
<snip> ...
> He says "The new sciences [were],
> mostly Greek in origin and FOREIGN (i.e. secular) in spirit." ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Why the need for emphasis? Or are you trying to infer that Ivry's "foreign"
didn't mean "secular", as opposed to the sacred spiritual knowledge which is
the truth of Islam?
<snip> ...
> You cannot accuse me of obscurantism: I have made my points very
> clearly. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Well let's look at the obscuration adopted by yourself over the word
"university" and the implicit obfuscation in your phraseology, and I quote:
"you shift terminology by referring to centres of higher learning". Now what
does the etymological dictionary say:-
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=university&searchmode=none
University: c.1300, "institution of higher learning," also "body of persons
constituting a university," from Anglo-Fr. université, O.Fr. universitei
(13c.), from M.L. universitatem (nom. universitas), in L.L. "corporation,
society," from L., "the whole, aggregate," from universus "whole, entire"
(see universe). In the academic sense, a shortening of universitas
magistrorum et scholarium "community of masters and scholars;" superseded
studium as the word for this.
But in your unrelenting mind a mediaeval "university" isn't a "institution
of higher learning" or "community of masters and scholars". As I said
earlier doesn't this usage describe: "Where did all these mediaeval scholars
go to school in Spain: wasn't is Toledo, Seville, Granada, et al? Where were
the book repositories kept if not in the great Islamic universities and
places of higher learning?"?
Didn't I say: "Or do I get the impression that you are artfully trying to
mendaciously manipulate the term "university" (i.e. establishment where a
seat of higher learning is housed, including teaching, administrative and
living quarters) weren't in these Arab-Muslim cities in Spain?"? Isn't this
exactly what you have done? Let the transcript record in SRI speak for
itself?
Isn't your comment above not obscurantism (i.e. a deliberate act intended to
make something obscure)? Is this demonstrable evidence or shall we just
receive more bluster?
Robert
You will by now have seen my protest that my correction to my original
posting that followed it immediately was not published. Galileo's
punishment by the Catholic Church was very mild: confinement to his
villa where he was free to write and publish. His offence was to
advance a doctrine supposed to be contrary to the Bible, namely that
the sun was stable and that the Earth moved around it. In fact, since
motion is relative, you can centre your system of reference on the
Earth or the sun to suit your convenience. For normal purposes the
Earth is motionless, for astronomical purposes the sun is motionless.
Both were right, and Galileo should have seen this. Contrast the
position under Islam: the Koran is full of teachings contrary to modern
science - there are seven heavens, the stars are nearer than the sun,
there is a place where the sun sets, ants can talk to one another...
It is Islamic teaching that anyone who denies one verse of the Koran -
that is any of the points I have mentioned - is guilty of apostasy,
the punishment for which is death. The Church's punishment of Galileo
by confinement to his villa can hardly count as serious evidence that
the Church persecuted scientists.
You cite three scientists influenced by Islam. I note that Fibonacci
was a mathematician, not a scientist, working well before the
scientific revolution, and I acknowledge the outstanding achievement of
Arab mathematicians, but my search of the internet has only turned up
Fibonacci's promoting of the so-called 'Arab' numerical and
arithmetical system, when this system was an Indian invention
transmitted by the Arabs.
My search for information about Leo Africanus has produced nothing
about scientific activities. Perhaps you could explain your claim for
him.
Again an internet search on William Harvey has produced nothing about
Islamic influence; perhaps you can enlighten us. Even if you do this I
conclude that Islamic influence on Western science is non-existent or
negligible.
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip>
> Name one European scientist who was persecuted by the Catholic Church.
> Name one European scientist whose work showed Islamic influence.
<snip>
Comment:-
What can subscribers understand from this specious "challenge"? Would you
accept any reply from another subscriber if it disagreed with these
ambiguous, indeterminate and ill-defined assumptions about Islam or Muslims?
Would you accept the consensus (accepted wisdom) amongst eminent historians
(a.k.a. your "Arabists") in this area as decisive or again "challenge" it?
Haven't you categorically stated elsewhere, in this particular thread, and I
quote:
news:1149438613.6...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com
"You have indeed quoted the consensus of Arabists about this issue; I
challenge it, and I have given my grounds. ..."
"You seem to think that what settles an argument is the academic
standing of the participants, and that it is enough to prove me wrong
to refer to an academic authority. By your way of arguing the Professor
is always right. ..."
What is the worth of taking up any such meaningless "challenge" when you
have refuted the "accepted wisdom" of historians in an arbitrary manner
about all things Islamic?
What is "received/accepted wisdom" in its historical context if you are
always going to "challenge" it? What is "Islamic influence" supposed to
mean? What do you mean by "scientist"? Does this include scientists in the
social sciences area? What do you mean by "Europe", are the Ottomans still
"The Sick Man of Europe"? Doesn't all of your "crooked thinking",
logic-chopping, word-games, lead to an infinite regression, as this thread
already demonstrates?
But if you are really interested in discovering the truth, a good starting
point would be to read "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in
Christendom" by ANDREW DICKSON WHITE.
--
Peace
--
As a practicing scientist, I share the credo of my colleagues: I believe
that a factual reality exists and that science, though often in an obtuse
and erratic manner, can learn about it. Galileo was not shown the
instruments of torture in an abstract debate about lunar motion. He had
threatened the Church's conventional argument for social and doctrinal
stability: the static world order with planets circling about a central
earth, priests subordinate to the Pope and serfs to their lord. But the
Church soon made its peace with Galileo's cosmology. They had no choice; the
earth really does revolve around the sun. [Stephen J. Gould, The Mismeasure
of Man]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
Altway
> I reply to Altway June 5
> Name one European scientist who was persecuted by the Catholic Church.
Name one European scientist whose work showed Islamic influence.
Comment:-
I have already commented on your post on this subject as have others.
The information is readily available for those who wish to know.
Those who do not wish to know will reject it.
You have entitled this thread "The myth..." It is an assertion, not an
enquiry. This assertion is contradicted by the assertion that it is not a
myth.
There is a proof for this, but not for your assertion which would not have
been made if it was not first asserted that the West had an intellectual
debt to Islam. That assertion was obviously based on someones knowledge.
Apart from this I have dealt with this in another thread which you obviously
ignored See "Does Islam make sense-comparing Islam and Science." and other
articles.
Hamid S. Aziz
Robert
I reply to Altway June 5
So you think that Islam takes the credit for European civilization?
It's precisely to cut down to size this Islamic nonsense that I wrote
my articles: if Islam claims the credit for the immense achievements of
the West, how does it explain the thousand years of stagnation that
Islam has suffered - but no, I know the answer: the reason is the
suppression and exploitation that Islam has suffered at the hands of
the West.
Your Islamic supremacist nonsense - comforting to hurt Islamic pride -
is pathetic. Unfortunately you have the Koran and the mullahs to
encourage you in your delusions and to tell you that Muslims are the
best people.
Zuiko Azumazi
news:sJydnVTtL9s...@bt.com...
> "Robert Houghton" thinks it is a myth
> making ignorance into a virtue when there is sufficient
> literature to the contrary which he wishes to ignore.
>
> It is the impact of Islam that brought the West out of the Dark Ages
> by bringing the Enlightenment, the Renaissance and the Reformation.
> Science was persecuted by the Catholic Church because it was seen as an
> alien influence coming from Islam.
> The destruction of the hold of Catholic Church on the minds and lives of
> people
> and the arising of Protestanism, Science and Merchantilism, all the result
> of Islamic influence, is responsible for Western civilisation.
> The countries still dominated by Catholicism are still backwards.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
You are quite correct and historically accurate. Let's look at what T. K.
Derry and Trevor I. Williams wrote in their "A Short History of Technology"
[1960], expert historians in the specific subject matter:-
"But in relation to the west, Islam must be considered mainly as a
constructive influence. Although it wasn't until the ninth and tenth
centuries, when Baghdad and Bokhara rose in the east and Cordova and Seville
in the west, that Islamic civilisation reached its height and made its full
impact on the west, from much earlier days and the huge size of the Muslims
dominated ... (usually Slavs whom it was held no sin for Christians to buy
and kidnap beyond the Elbe), ... West Europeans received in exchange goods
of superior workmanship in familiar, such as glass and leather, and in
completely new materials by a society that was far in advance of their own.
... Islamic civilisation combined three advantages. ... the Islamic religion
, unlike mediaeval Catholicism, did nothing to stifle the spirit of
scientific inquiry: hence came remarkable achievements in chemistry, which
passed on to the west under the Arabic name of alchemy. From Basra to
Cordova great universities arose centuries before the earliest studium
generale in Christendom; by A.D. 1000 Cordova had a catalogued library of
6000,000 books. ... the four main crusades 1097-1204 had upon the material
development of the west European society ... they produced ... new ideas,
the damask, damascening, and muslin recall the industrial pre-eminence of
Damascus and Mosul. ... ["A Short History of Technology" by T. K. Derry and
Trevor I. Williams - Oxford University Press - 1960 pp 28 - 32]
Additional references can be found in this Allen G. Debus article:-
Extract.
Western alchemy developed from Arabic sources. As Islamic scholars had
sought alchemical texts in the eighth century, so their Latin counterparts
sought similar works four centuries later. The earliest dated Latin
translation of this genre is the story of Prince Khalid and Morienos. This
was completed by Robert of Chester on the eleventh of February, 1144, a year
after he had translated the Koran and a year prior to the completion of his
translation of the Algebra of al-Khwarizmi. The De compositione alchemiae of
Morienos proved to be only the first of many such translations made during
the following century.
There are frequent references to alchemy in the work of Thomas Aquinas and
from the commentaries on Aristotle written by Albertus Magnus it is clear
that the subject was of great interest to thirteenth-century scholars.
Albertus knew the work of Avicenna and he commented on the fact that this
Islamic scholar had both accepted and denied the possibility of
transmutation in different works ascribed to him. Although Albertus believed
in the truth of transmutation himself, he remained sceptical of the
“transmuted” metals he had seen, since the artificial product had not been
able to withstand the heat of the fire. With Albertus we also have early
evidence of the application of the sulphur-mercury theory in the West. In
his De mineralibus he referred to the ancient concept of the exhalations,
but he went on to discuss a new theory that attributed the origin of metals
to sulphur and mercury. [ALLEN G. DEBUS]
The latter work should be supplemented with the numerous studies of Julius
Ruska on all aspects of Islamic alchemy and the intensive study of Paul
Kraus, Jabir ibn Hayyan, 2 vols. (Cairo, 1942-43).
End extract.
But, you are correct again, Robert will not consider this additional
evidence or any expert evidence, regardless of the eminence of expert
authority concerned, if it conflicts with his fallacious and idiosyncratic
idea history. All you can expect in response will be puerile huff, puff and
bluster, mark my words.
--
Peace
--
Truth gains more . . . by the errors of one who, with due study and
reparation, thinks for himself than by the true opinions of those who only
hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think." [John Stuart
Mill]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
klei...@astound.net
This is not my favorite thread on SRI but, in the interests of
historical accuracy, I think we should recognize that Leo Africanus was
a Muslim who converted to Christianity. It is self-evident that his
geography would "show Islamic influence".
If one wants an example of a scientist executed by the Christian church
I suggest Michael Servetus. I agree it was not the Catholics that
executed him. But once again I say, the Catholic church does not speak
for Christianity. The execution of Servetus was a Christian crime. If
we must stick to the Catholic church there is always Bruno.
We have mentioned Roger Bacon before as a European scientist whose work
showed Islamic influence. Robert rejected him as an example with no
more than an off-hand ideological sneer, but it still stands.
As to Fibonacci: The Islamic influence on him is acknowledged by all
hands. It does seem like dirty pool to exclude mathematicians from
scientists by ex post facto fiat.
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip> ...
> ... Galileo's
> punishment by the Catholic Church was very mild: confinement to his
> villa where he was free to write and publish. His offence was to
> advance a doctrine supposed to be contrary to the Bible, namely that
> the sun was stable and that the Earth moved around it. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
Let's look at the "mild" premise being posited in this "mythical" argument -
formulated on artful "negationism" technique being by employed by its
author - from an independent non-religious perspective. See this link "The
Persecution of Galileo":-
http://www.freethought.mbdojo.com/galileo.html
Extract:-
This bible verse shackled the minds of men for thousands of years, and held
back the advance of science. It was this verse that was used as evidence
against Galileo, who argued for the theory of Copernicus, that the earth is
not immovable, but rotates around the sun. It was for teaching this that he
was called to Rome in 1633, and tried for the crime of heresy. The aged
Galileo, in his 70's, was taken down into the dungeons of the church and
shown the instruments of torture that were going to be used on him if he did
not recant. Fearing the torture, and fearing that he might share the fate
of Giordano Bruno, whom the church burned at the stake a generation earlier
for the same crime, Galileo recanted the truth. He was confined to his home
under house arrest, neither allowed to leave or to receive visitors, for the
last seven years of his life.
"But to affirm that the Sun is really fixed in the centre of the heavens and
that the Earth revolves very swiftly around the Sun is a dangerous thing,
not only irritating the theologians and philosophers, but injuring our holy
faith and making the sacred scriptures false."
Robert Bellarmine, Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and the foremost
Vatican theologian of the seventieth century.
"Freedom of belief is pernicious. It is nothing but the freedom to be
wrong."
Cardinal Bellarmine, on a separate occasion
"The doctrine that the earth is neither the centre of the universe nor
immovable, but moves even with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both
psychologically and theologically false, and at the least an error of
faith."
Formal Church declaration in its indictment of Galileo
"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to
claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin."
Cardinal Bellarmine, during the trial of Galileo, 1615
"Because I have been enjoined, by this Holy Office, to abandon the false
opinion that the Sun is the centre and immovable, ...I abjure, curse, and
detest the said errors and heresies...contrary to the said Holy Church."
Galileo Galilei, recanting his beliefs under threat of torture and death by
the Holy Church, June 22, 1633
In 1992, Pope John Paul II (reluctantly) formally apologized for the
persecution of Galileo. They finally admitted that they, the Catholic Church
and all the Popes since the beginning of the Church, were wrong, and that
Galileo was right. For fifteen hundred years they had argued that every word
in the bible was true-- that it was the perfect word of God, true in it's
history and in all of its sciences. They were wrong. They threatened,
tortured and killed people who disagreed with this error in the most brutal
ways imaginable.
I for one think that we should not let the church forget their crimes, lest
they be repeated. If the Church still had the power of sword and firebrand,
and the power to cross national borders at will, I believe that they would
even now return to their policy of world conquest through threat, torture
and murder.
End extract.
What has the subsequent specious references to the Quran, Muslims or Islam
got do with the specifics of the known facts surrounding this
well-documented persecution? Isn't this just another example of an "Islamic
critics" trick of obfuscation and obscurantism to make unwarranted attacks o
n Muslims and Islam under a fallacious "myth" scenario? As the linked
article states:-
"Divine revelation is perfect and, therefore, it is not subject to continual
and indefinite progress in order to correspond with the progress of human
reason.... No man is free to embrace and profess that religion which he
believes to be true, guided by the light of reason... The church has the
power to define dogmatically the religion of the Catholic Church to be the
only true religion...It is necessary even in the present day that the
Catholic religion shall be held as the only religion of the state, to the
exclusion of all other forms of worship... The civil liberty of every mode
of worship, and full power given to all of openly and public manifesting
their opinions and their ideas conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and
minds of the people... The Roman Pontiff cannot and ought not to reconcile
himself or agree with progress, liberalism and modern civilization."
Is this the "infallibility" of the Catholic Church (the benefit of
hindsight) that Muslims are supposed to respect and embrace as the truth? Is
this the west's intellectual debt to Islam? But what does the modern
Christian scientist, Stephen J. Gould, say in the signature below?
Robert
I reply to assimehm June 15
Correct me if I am wrong, but from my second-hand reading about Ghazali
I gather that he rejected the Greek tradition of philosophy as
inconsistent with Islam and embraced Sufism; in so doing he terminated
Islamic philosophy. This is worlds away from Aquinas's position.
The question of who was first - Ghazali or Aquinas - to discuss the
claims of faith and reason is a vulgar distraction, but Christianity
has a long tradition of philosophical theology. The First Letter of
Peter in the New Testament ( 1 Peter 3:15) enjoins Christians to give
reasons for the faith and hope that is in them, and Aquinas refers to
Augustine in his discussions of the issue of faith and reason.
Christianity was philosophically sophisticated before Islam existed.
Reason does NOT prove the truth of Scripture. The whole of Islam
depends upon Muhammad's word that the Koran is a revelation from God -
how does he know? Reason cannot prove that Muhammad was telling the
truth and was not deceived.
You say that if scripture contradicts 'reason' this is resolved through
metaphorical interpretation. This is intellectual dishonesty: you must
first establish that the passage is metaphorical, before you have
enquired into its truth or falsity. If it is not, reject your
scripture. Muslims are led into despicable absurdity in their
figurative interpretations of hopelessly archaic passages in the Koran.
Robert
First of all the link you produce as an "independent non-religious
perspective" is not that at all, but one of militant unscrupulous
atheism as its vulgar propagandizing shows. How can the common-sense
view that the Earth is stable have "shackled the minds of men for
thousands of years"? - it's a plain fact and now accepted by science.
The detail of the showing of the instruments of torture to Galileo in
order to force him to recant must be nineteenth-century Protestant
propaganda: this detail does not appear in the "Encyclopedia of
Philosophy", neither does it appear in the Wikipedia article. That it
was not a genuine threat is indicated by the mildness of Galileo's
punishment: confinement to his villa, where he could write and continue
to publish.
Your article quotes Cardinal Bellarmine to the effect that "freedom of
belief is pernicious"; he was a man of his time, but I would remind you
that TO THIS DAY it is Islamic teaching that to deny a SINGLE verse of
the Koran is apostasy and that the punishment of this is death.
I suggest that you read the terms of John Paul the second's apology for
the Church's treatment of Galileo: Galileo was wrong in insisting that
the sun is THE centre of the universe - in modern cosmology every
point is equally the centre, including the Earth.
Has Islam apologized for any of its monstrous, millenial crimes?
Contrary to the assertion of your link - and this should be enough to
deny it a hearing - the Church has never had a policy of world
conquest: that is an Islamic ambition,as we see to this day.
Altway
> I reply to Altway June 5
So you think that Islam takes the credit for European civilization?
It's precisely to cut down to size this Islamic nonsense that I wrote
my articles: if Islam claims the credit for the immense achievements of
the West, how does it explain the thousand years of stagnation that
Islam has suffered - but no, I know the answer: the reason is the
suppression and exploitation that Islam has suffered at the hands of
the West.
Comment:-
I did not say that everything achieved in the West is due to Islam.
If you read my article again you will find that I said that the impact of
Islam on the West brought it out of the Dark Ages into Enlightenment.
It is the spiritual force I am speaking about, the consciousness, the
conscience
and the will. Once an impulse is imparted things tend to roll on by their
own momentum
but gradually this runs out owing to friction and habit.
It is running out and others will no doubt soon
overtake them. Rise and fall, the cyclic nature of phenomena is well known.
When an impulse is transfered from one thing A to another B, it is not
necessary that
A should continue to move.
We know that Muslims have degenerated owing to several historical causes.
They departed from the Islam, the rapid quantitative expansion of Islam was
gained at the expense of depth of quality, Muslim communities were taken
over by self-seeking rulers who also corrupted the religion, sectarianism
arose and led to internal conflicts that sapped attention, energy and
resources,
Muslims were constantly attacked by barbarians such as Chegis Khan and
Western Crusaders, and had to take a defensive position where conformity and
regimentation became more important than creativity, intiative and
responsibility, there was also increasing economic disadvantages and yes,
there was also the domination and exploitation of the West which had gained
superiority owing to technological inventions. This is still the case.
Hamid S. Aziz
Robert
You produce the usual enthusiastic account of the influence of Islam in
the west during the early middle ages; this has been conventional for a
hundred years, one author repeating what an earlier has written. I have
produced specific detailed points in correction of this enthusiasm, but
you do nothing to show me wrong.
You focus on alchemy; I repeat what I said when you produced an
alchemical tract translated from Arabic (in fact it was Greek in
origin): alchemy was a morass of mystification; it did not provide the
basis for modern chemistry.
Robert
Quite so, Leo Africanus was a convert from Islam, but geography is not
natural science, and I haven't found any references to his geography,
just his travels.
Servetus was executed by Calvin, but not for his scientific work, only
for his heretical views concerning the Trinity. Again Giordano Bruno
was not executed for his Copernican opinions but for his outlandish
heresy: he was a magus (magician), beleived Jesus was a magus, and the
religion of the Ancient Egyptians superior to Christianity. He aimed to
establish a new religion based on magic and love.
I didn't sneer at Roger Bacon, I asserted that he was regarded as a
crank by his contemporaries, and that the common belief that he laid
the conceptual foundations of modern science is due to a
nineteenth-century misreading of his Latin. See the Encyclopedia of
Philosophy.
The whole method, mentality, ethos and history of mathematics is
different from that of natural science. But give me a reference where I
can read about the Islamic influence on Fibonacci - excepting the
'Arabic' arithmetical system.
Robert
And after all that bluster you still haven't identified a single Muslim
university in Spain.
Zuiko Azumazi
news:1150426582....@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
<snip> ...
> .... I agree it was not the Catholics that
> executed him. But once again I say, the Catholic church does not speak
> for Christianity. The execution of Servetus was a Christian crime. If
> we must stick to the Catholic church there is always Bruno. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
The major sticking point from a Muslim perspective is that Islam is
frequently being unfavourably compared to the west based on fallacious and
disingenuous arguments that lack credibility. Indicting Islam under the
"negationism" method, as this particular thread demonstrates, purposely
creates a malicious atmosphere, under what is euphemistically called the
"Islamic critics" banner, which in reality, is just an excuse to indulge in
Islamophobic behaviour. See this "negationism" thread:-
news:448b347a$0$27898$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
Notwithstanding, one should not forget the Catholic Church's recent
persecution of Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest and noted
palaeontologist, as this search link reveals:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin
Extract:-
In setting forth this sweeping account of the unfolding of the material
cosmos, he abandoned the literal interpretation of the creation account in
the Book of Genesis in favor of a metaphorical interpretation. In so doing
he displeased certain officials in the Roman Catholic Curia, who considered
that this undermined the doctrine of original sin developed by Saint
Augustine from his understanding of the story of the Fall of Man. It was for
this reason that Teilhard's account became controversial amongst certain
church officials. His work was denied publication while he was living due to
the opposition of the Roman Holy Office.
End extract.
Here's another one:-
http://www2.gol.com/users/coynerhm/teilhard.html
Extract:-
Throughout the '40s and '50s, the Catholic Church was on the verge of
excommunicating Teilhard. But the philosopher was committed to his
perspective, refusing to stop writing or to leave the Church. As his
problems with the Church escalated, Teilhard became something of a cause
celebre within his small circle in Europe. The Church responded by
forbidding him to publish and posting him to China, where he lived in a
state of semi-exile, trekking through the Gobi desert and developing his
philosophy in isolation. (His paleontological studies continued to circulate
and was highly regarded.) The rest of his work was not published until after
his death on Easter Sunday, 1955, when it caused a small stir in the
theological world; it was read widely for only a short time. ... "Teilhard
de Chardin gets too little credit for the quality of his insights," says
Ralph Abraham, ... "He was successfully deprived of his influence by the
popes."
But what were the popes so afraid of? The answer's simple: evolution.
End extract.
--
Peace
--
The most perfidious manner of injuring a cause is to vindicate it
intentionally with fallacious arguments. [Friedrich Nietzsche]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip> ...
> And after all that bluster you still haven't identified a single Muslim
> university in Spain.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
What a puerile response, don't the transcripts speak for themselves? Didn't
you study any of them in any detail? Isn't the considered consensus of
expert historians in the subject matter, 'The Golden Age of Islam", in
European Spain, (e.g. Lewis, Toynbee, Hitti, Hourani, Watt, Lapidus,
Ebbensen, Burnett, Ivry, Terry, Williams, et al) proof of the existence of
places of higher learning (i.e. "universitas magistrorum et scholarium"
shortened to its modern day equivalent "university") in, as Ivry eruditely
summed up: "Cities like Toledo, Seville, Saragossa and Granada became the
centres of incipient universities, where the new sciences were taught, and
from which translations were made into Latin for interested European
scholars and rulers"? But all of this expert academic knowledge from eminent
western historians is all "vain and empty boasting" in your opinion. It's
tantamount to saying, mediaeval Muslim cities, "Mecca's of learning" [Watt],
like "Toledo, Seville, Saragossa and Granada" don't exist in your
cataclysmal mind because you irrationally believe mediaeval "universitas
magistrorum et scholarium" (universities) didn't exist back then and there?
Aren't these "identified" in the transcripts? What more evidence do you
need? Isn't your reply pure "mythology", that is a traditional story
accepted as "history" (i.e. negationist propaganda [sic]), which serves to
explain the world view of irascible Islamophobes in the media and SRI? Study
this relevant link:-
news:448b347a$0$27898$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
But, as you relate, let's deny all of this and stick to the ahistorical
opinion of the relatively unknown "Jonathan David Carson", plagiarised by
"Islamic critics" in SRI, instead! That's the only conclusion that
discerning subscribers can derive from your outrageous contentions. The
fallaciousness of this whole argument, about "The Myth Of the West's
Intellectual Debt to Islam", is all there in the "crooked thinking"
transcripts, for any subscriber to discover for themselves. That's the
evidence.
asimm...@yahoo.com
> The question of who was first - Ghazali or Aquinas - to discuss the
> claims of faith and reason is a vulgar distraction, but Christianity
> has a long tradition of philosophical theology.
How is it a vulgar distraction? It was YOU that argued Aquinas was
synthesizing reason with faith which proves that he was not influenced
by Imam Gahzali, because, according to you, Imam Ghazali rejected
reason. Let me make it clear for you:
It was not my assertion, BUT YORS.
I just BLEW OUT OF THE WATER your argument that Aquinas could not have
been influenced by Imam Ghazali, based upon your assertion. Further,
when I refer to 'metaphorical' verses, I was not arguing that I support
Imam Ghazali's position. In fact, within the Muslim circles he, as
well as the standard Ashaarite position, has been criticized.
So really, who is the one trying to create a distraction with the first
Letter of Peter? Whether Aquinas quoted Augustine is irrelevant.
Learned men are influenced by MULTIPLE channels, and to argue that
Aquinas was simply a transmitter of Augustine is to take away from the
brilliant man that he was.
But then again, isn't that what your trying to do with the Muslims?
Zuiko Azumazi
<snip> ...
> The detail of the showing of the instruments of torture to Galileo in
> order to force him to recant must be nineteenth-century Protestant
> propaganda: this detail does not appear in the "Encyclopaedia of
> Philosophy", ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
If, as you falsely maintain, "The Myth of the West's Intellectual Debt to
Islam", why are there so many Islamic and Muslim related articles contained
in your above cited authority, the "Encyclopaedia of Philosophy" (e.g.
Averroes, Avicenna, al-Faribi, al-Ghazali, al-Kindi, et al), that you have
now nominated in support of your above stated position? Doesn't this factual
detail appear in this authoritative encyclopaedia and, in the process,
demolish your whole argument once more?
Will you now concede the pernicious fallacy or will you offer more bluster
and weasel words to extricate yourself out of a predicament of your own
inconsistency?
Abdalla Alothman
Have you ever heard of Ibn Zaydoon? He studied in a university in
qurTuba, it's called Univeristy of Cordoba.
From:
http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/umayyad_spain.htm
"The University of Cordoba, founded by al-Hakam's father, Abd
al-Rahman III, grew to preeminence throughout the medieval world,
attracting scholars from all over."
There were others in ghurnaTa, buluncia, and so on. The current
university in Grenada (ghurnaTa), University of Grenada, was actually
called University of Yusuf Al-Awwal (Yusuf, I).
From: http://www.ugr.es/university.htm
"As a result, the University of Granada continued the tradition of the
Arab University of Yusuf I (Madraza, 14th century)."
A lot of the knowledge the west received was translated from what was
found in the schools of buluncia (Valencia).
You're ignorant, and your challenge for Azumazi is nothing more than a
request for someone to spoonfeed you what you don't know. You're just
too arrogant to ask or even admit.
Abdalla Alothman