Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science.

[Moonglow]

What I don't get is years ago they had belly dancers in most ME nations now it's a sin..

I know. That sucks. They musty have learned a thing or two after the inquisition.

Manscaping?

When the pillars of society become flaccid, society falls.

Are you saying we should zenith our acme?

Who can say? Sometimes the fate of the world relies on the virility of one man.

Yeah well don't believe her when she tells you she can't have children because of an accident in sixth grade..

 

[BlackFlag]

The destruction of the first caliphate by the Mongol Khans was the reason for the end of Islamic/Arabic/ME sciences.. ..

The Ebb And Flow Of Islamic Orthodoxy

And they are constantly fighting over who should be the leader.Overly zealous leadership and lack of social mobility stagnates nations...

It seems that certain bad elements eventually usurp positions of authority and call themselves holy men and then start calling holy men low lifes.

The people go duh. Whats going on? Who gives a shit, I need to feed my children.

The next thing you know its a roman circus.

What I don't get is years ago they had belly dancers in most ME nations now it's a sin..

Good fuckin point my man

 

[Likkmee]

On the lost Golden Age and the rejection of reason

Contemporary Islam is not known for its engagement in the modern scientific project. But it is heir to a legendary “Golden Age” of Arabic science frequently invoked by commentators hoping to make Muslims and Westerners more respectful and understanding of each other. President Obama, for instance, in his June 4, 2009 speech in Cairo, praised Muslims for their historical scientific and intellectual contributions to civilization:

It was Islam that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed.

Such tributes to the Arab world’s era of scientific achievement are generally made in service of a broader political point, as they usually precede discussion of the region’s contemporary problems. They serve as an implicit exhortation: the great age of Arab science demonstrates that there is no categorical or congenital barrier to tolerance, cosmopolitanism, and advancement in the Islamic Middle East.

To anyone familiar with this Golden Age, roughly spanning the eighth through the thirteenth centuries a.d., the disparity between the intellectual achievements of the Middle East then and now — particularly relative to the rest of the world — is staggering indeed. In his 2002 book What Went Wrong?, historian Bernard Lewis notes that “for many centuries the world of Islam was in the forefront of human civilization and achievement.” “Nothing in Europe,” notes Jamil Ragep, a professor of the history of science at the University of Oklahoma, “could hold a candle to what was going on in the Islamic world until about 1600.” Algebra, algorithm, alchemy, alcohol, alkali, nadir, zenith, coffee, and lemon: these words all derive from Arabic, reflecting Islam’s contribution

Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science

What went wrong? You might as well ask what went wrong with Catholicism.

Was it ever right?

Catholicism is a form of pagan idolatry that tossed in Jesus to keep the dumb ***** from being slaughtered back in the day....as they should have been. If the witches would have worn crosses they may have not been burned either

 

[Mindful]

In the meantime, what happened to this:

• Astronomy :

Muslims have always had a special interest in astronomy. The moon and the sun are of vital importance in the daily life of every Muslim. By the moon, Muslims determine the beginning and the end of the months in their lunar calendar. By the sun the Muslims calculate the times for prayer and fasting. It is also by means of astronomy that Muslims can determine the precise direction of the Qiblah, to face the Ka'bah in Makkah, during prayer. The most precise solar calendar, superior to the Julian, is the Jilali, devised under the supervision of Umar Khayyam. The Qur'an contains many references to astronomy.

"The heavens and the earth were ordered rightly, and were made subservient to man, including the sun, the moon, the stars, and day and night. Every heavenly body moves in an orbit assigned to it by God and never digresses, making the universe an orderly cosmos whose life and existence, diminution and expansion, are totally determined by the Creator." [Qur'an 30:22]

 

[Mindful]

On the lost Golden Age and the rejection of reason

Contemporary Islam is not known for its engagement in the modern scientific project. But it is heir to a legendary “Golden Age” of Arabic science frequently invoked by commentators hoping to make Muslims and Westerners more respectful and understanding of each other. President Obama, for instance, in his June 4, 2009 speech in Cairo, praised Muslims for their historical scientific and intellectual contributions to civilization:

It was Islam that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed.

Such tributes to the Arab world’s era of scientific achievement are generally made in service of a broader political point, as they usually precede discussion of the region’s contemporary problems. They serve as an implicit exhortation: the great age of Arab science demonstrates that there is no categorical or congenital barrier to tolerance, cosmopolitanism, and advancement in the Islamic Middle East.

To anyone familiar with this Golden Age, roughly spanning the eighth through the thirteenth centuries a.d., the disparity between the intellectual achievements of the Middle East then and now — particularly relative to the rest of the world — is staggering indeed. In his 2002 book What Went Wrong?, historian Bernard Lewis notes that “for many centuries the world of Islam was in the forefront of human civilization and achievement.” “Nothing in Europe,” notes Jamil Ragep, a professor of the history of science at the University of Oklahoma, “could hold a candle to what was going on in the Islamic world until about 1600.” Algebra, algorithm, alchemy, alcohol, alkali, nadir, zenith, coffee, and lemon: these words all derive from Arabic, reflecting Islam’s contribution

Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science

What went wrong? You might as well ask what went wrong with Catholicism.

Was it ever right?

Catholicism is a form of pagan idolatry that tossed in Jesus to keep the dumb ***** from being slaughtered back in the day....as they should have been. If the witches would have worn crosses they may have not been burned either

So Christianity contradicts science?

 

[Penelope]

“Though there are talented scientists of Muslim origin working productively in the West,” Nobel laureate physicist Steven Weinberg has observed, “for forty years I have not seen a single paper by a physicist or astronomer working in a Muslim country that was worth reading.”

(Weinberg has grown up in the USA and went to schools in the USA) pot calling kettle black.

Snip

Such differences between the two faiths can be traced to the differences between their prophets. While Christ was an outsider of the state who ruled no one, and while Christianity did not become a state religion until centuries after Christ’s birth, Mohammed was not only a prophet but also a chief magistrate, a political leader who conquered and governed a religious community he founded. Because Islam was born outside of the Roman Empire, it was never subordinate to politics. As Bernard Lewis puts it, Mohammed was his own Constantine. This means that, for Islam, religion and politics were interdependent from the beginning; Islam needs a state to enforce its laws, and the state needs a basis in Islam to be legitimate. To what extent, then, do Islam’s political proclivities make free inquiry — which is inherently subversive to established rules and customs — possible at a deep and enduring institutional level?

(one could say the same with Moses and the Hasidic of today. Still doing the sucking circumcision)

Snip

A Gold Standard?

In trying to explain the Islamic world’s intellectual laggardness, it is tempting to point to the obvious factors: authoritarianism, bad education, and underfunding (Muslim states spend significantly less than developed states on research and development as a percentage of GDP). But these reasons are all broad and somewhat crude, and raise more questions than answers. At a deeper level, Islam lags because it failed to offer a way to institutionalize free inquiry. That, in turn, is attributable to its failure to reconcile faith and reason. In this respect, Islamic societies have fared worse not just than the West but also than many societies of Asia. With a couple of exceptions, every country in the Middle Eastern parts of the Muslim world has been ruled by an autocrat, a radical Islamic sect, or a tribal chieftain. Islam has no tradition of separating politics and religion.

(true, theocracies do not make smart people, and the GOP want to push Christianity on the citizens to make us dumb)’’

(Snip)

There is a final reason why it makes little sense to exhort Muslims to their own past: while there are many things that the Islamic world lacks, pride in heritage is not one of them. What is needed in Islam is less self-pride and more self-criticism. Today, self-criticism in Islam is valued only insofar as it is made as an appeal to be more pious and less spiritually corrupt. And yet most criticism in the Muslim world is directed outward, at the West. This prejudice — what Fouad Ajami (non arab-persian went to higher ed in the US- pushed for war in Iraq) has called (referring to the Arab world) “a political tradition of belligerent self-pity” — is undoubtedly one of Islam’s biggest obstacles. It makes information that contradicts orthodox belief irrelevant, and it closes off debate about the nature and history of Islam.

(Snip)
Why is this written by all jews?

Hillel Ofek

Hillel Ofek is Research Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously, he was an Assistant Instructor at the University of Texas as Austin's Department of Government, where he taught American politics, constitutional theory, international relations, and European comparative politics.

Hillel completed his Ph.D. at University of Texas as Austin's Department of Government. His dissertation examined American's strategic shift in the late-19th-century through the prism of the day's profound contest about international justice, as represented by the contrasting moral visions of presidents Grover Cleveland and William McKinley. His M.A. thesis (also at UT) was on the role of honor in international relations. He received his B.A. from Kenyon College, where he studied political science and wrote a thesis, on Edmund Burke's foreign policy, for which he received Highest Honors.

Prior to his academic career, Hillel worked in public relations and journalism, including as Charles Krauthammer's researcher and Assistant Editor of National Affairs. Hillel continues to write and edit on a freelance basis, and serves as Executive Director of Pro Musica Hebraica, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing neglected Jewish music to the concert hall.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

(of course all jewish people learned in the school and universities of Babylon, Vienna and the UK and then the US.


Hasidic Judaism, how many scientific papers come from them?) , they only learn from the Talmud.

By the way where was Netanyahu educated?

 

[Moonglow]

In the meantime, what happened to this:

• Astronomy :

Muslims have always had a special interest in astronomy. The moon and the sun are of vital importance in the daily life of every Muslim. By the moon, Muslims determine the beginning and the end of the months in their lunar calendar. By the sun the Muslims calculate the times for prayer and fasting. It is also by means of astronomy that Muslims can determine the precise direction of the Qiblah, to face the Ka'bah in Makkah, during prayer. The most precise solar calendar, superior to the Julian, is the Jilali, devised under the supervision of Umar Khayyam. The Qur'an contains many references to astronomy.

"The heavens and the earth were ordered rightly, and were made subservient to man, including the sun, the moon, the stars, and day and night. Every heavenly body moves in an orbit assigned to it by God and never digresses, making the universe an orderly cosmos whose life and existence, diminution and expansion, are totally determined by the Creator." [Qur'an 30:22]

It became a sin in Christian lands..

 

[Moonglow]

On the lost Golden Age and the rejection of reason

Contemporary Islam is not known for its engagement in the modern scientific project. But it is heir to a legendary “Golden Age” of Arabic science frequently invoked by commentators hoping to make Muslims and Westerners more respectful and understanding of each other. President Obama, for instance, in his June 4, 2009 speech in Cairo, praised Muslims for their historical scientific and intellectual contributions to civilization:

It was Islam that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed.

Such tributes to the Arab world’s era of scientific achievement are generally made in service of a broader political point, as they usually precede discussion of the region’s contemporary problems. They serve as an implicit exhortation: the great age of Arab science demonstrates that there is no categorical or congenital barrier to tolerance, cosmopolitanism, and advancement in the Islamic Middle East.

To anyone familiar with this Golden Age, roughly spanning the eighth through the thirteenth centuries a.d., the disparity between the intellectual achievements of the Middle East then and now — particularly relative to the rest of the world — is staggering indeed. In his 2002 book What Went Wrong?, historian Bernard Lewis notes that “for many centuries the world of Islam was in the forefront of human civilization and achievement.” “Nothing in Europe,” notes Jamil Ragep, a professor of the history of science at the University of Oklahoma, “could hold a candle to what was going on in the Islamic world until about 1600.” Algebra, algorithm, alchemy, alcohol, alkali, nadir, zenith, coffee, and lemon: these words all derive from Arabic, reflecting Islam’s contribution

Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science

What went wrong? You might as well ask what went wrong with Catholicism.

Was it ever right?

Catholicism is a form of pagan idolatry that tossed in Jesus to keep the dumb ***** from being slaughtered back in the day....as they should have been. If the witches would have worn crosses they may have not been burned either

So Christianity contradicts science?

Depends which chapter in which book you are reading.

 

[Mindful]

“Though there are talented scientists of Muslim origin working productively in the West,” Nobel laureate physicist Steven Weinberg has observed, “for forty years I have not seen a single paper by a physicist or astronomer working in a Muslim country that was worth reading.”

(Weinberg has grown up in the USA and went to schools in the USA) pot calling kettle black.

Snip

Such differences between the two faiths can be traced to the differences between their prophets. While Christ was an outsider of the state who ruled no one, and while Christianity did not become a state religion until centuries after Christ’s birth, Mohammed was not only a prophet but also a chief magistrate, a political leader who conquered and governed a religious community he founded. Because Islam was born outside of the Roman Empire, it was never subordinate to politics. As Bernard Lewis puts it, Mohammed was his own Constantine. This means that, for Islam, religion and politics were interdependent from the beginning; Islam needs a state to enforce its laws, and the state needs a basis in Islam to be legitimate. To what extent, then, do Islam’s political proclivities make free inquiry — which is inherently subversive to established rules and customs — possible at a deep and enduring institutional level?

(one could say the same with Moses and the Hasidic of today. Still doing the sucking circumcision)

Snip

A Gold Standard?

In trying to explain the Islamic world’s intellectual laggardness, it is tempting to point to the obvious factors: authoritarianism, bad education, and underfunding (Muslim states spend significantly less than developed states on research and development as a percentage of GDP). But these reasons are all broad and somewhat crude, and raise more questions than answers. At a deeper level, Islam lags because it failed to offer a way to institutionalize free inquiry. That, in turn, is attributable to its failure to reconcile faith and reason. In this respect, Islamic societies have fared worse not just than the West but also than many societies of Asia. With a couple of exceptions, every country in the Middle Eastern parts of the Muslim world has been ruled by an autocrat, a radical Islamic sect, or a tribal chieftain. Islam has no tradition of separating politics and religion.

(true, theocracies do not make smart people, and the GOP want to push Christianity on the citizens to make us dumb)’’

(Snip)

There is a final reason why it makes little sense to exhort Muslims to their own past: while there are many things that the Islamic world lacks, pride in heritage is not one of them. What is needed in Islam is less self-pride and more self-criticism. Today, self-criticism in Islam is valued only insofar as it is made as an appeal to be more pious and less spiritually corrupt. And yet most criticism in the Muslim world is directed outward, at the West. This prejudice — what Fouad Ajami (non arab-persian went to higher ed in the US- pushed for war in Iraq) has called (referring to the Arab world) “a political tradition of belligerent self-pity” — is undoubtedly one of Islam’s biggest obstacles. It makes information that contradicts orthodox belief irrelevant, and it closes off debate about the nature and history of Islam.

(Snip)
Why is this written by all jews?

Hillel Ofek

Hillel Ofek is Research Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously, he was an Assistant Instructor at the University of Texas as Austin's Department of Government, where he taught American politics, constitutional theory, international relations, and European comparative politics.

Hillel completed his Ph.D. at University of Texas as Austin's Department of Government. His dissertation examined American's strategic shift in the late-19th-century through the prism of the day's profound contest about international justice, as represented by the contrasting moral visions of presidents Grover Cleveland and William McKinley. His M.A. thesis (also at UT) was on the role of honor in international relations. He received his B.A. from Kenyon College, where he studied political science and wrote a thesis, on Edmund Burke's foreign policy, for which he received Highest Honors.

Prior to his academic career, Hillel worked in public relations and journalism, including as Charles Krauthammer's researcher and Assistant Editor of National Affairs. Hillel continues to write and edit on a freelance basis, and serves as Executive Director of Pro Musica Hebraica, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing neglected Jewish music to the concert hall.

(of course all jewish people learned in the school and universities of Babylon, Vienna and the UK and then the US.
---------------------------------------------

Hasidic Judaism, how many scientific papers come from them?) , they only learn from the Talmud.

By the way where was Netanyahu educated?

Can you not keep your Jew hatred even away from here?

 

[rightwinger]

Why have Republicans turned away from science?

Denying evolution, vaccines and global warming

 

[Penelope]

Lewis stated that he believed "to make [the Armenian Genocide] a parallel with the Holocaust in Germany" was "rather absurd".[45] In an interview with Ha'aretz, he stated:

The deniers of Holocaust have a purpose: to prolong Nazism and to return to Nazi legislation. Nobody wants the 'Young Turks' back, and nobody wants to have back the Ottoman Law. What do the Armenians want? The Armenians want to benefit from both worlds. On the one hand, they speak with pride of their struggle against the Ottoman despotism, while on the other hand, they compare their tragedy to the Jewish Holocaust. I do not accept this. I do not say that the Armenians did not suffer terribly. But I find enough cause for me to contain their attempts to use the Armenian massacres to diminish the worth of the Jewish Holocaust and to relate to it instead as an ethnic dispute.[46]

(and you can't keep your hatred of Islam at bay either and you know the west loves Israel but destroys the muslim countries but Israel wanted us to fight Iraq, Syria, and now Iran.)

 

[Mindful]

Lewis stated that he believed "to make [the Armenian Genocide] a parallel with the Holocaust in Germany" was "rather absurd".[45] In an interview with Ha'aretz, he stated:

The deniers of Holocaust have a purpose: to prolong Nazism and to return to Nazi legislation. Nobody wants the 'Young Turks' back, and nobody wants to have back the Ottoman Law. What do the Armenians want? The Armenians want to benefit from both worlds. On the one hand, they speak with pride of their struggle against the Ottoman despotism, while on the other hand, they compare their tragedy to the Jewish Holocaust. I do not accept this. I do not say that the Armenians did not suffer terribly. But I find enough cause for me to contain their attempts to use the Armenian massacres to diminish the worth of the Jewish Holocaust and to relate to it instead as an ethnic dispute.[46]

(and you can't keep your hatred of Islam at bay either and you know the west loves Israel but destroys the muslim countries but Israel wanted us to fight Iraq, Syria, and now Iran.)

USMB has created enough threads downstairs for you to indulge your hatreds and obsessions,

I'm not talking about tragedies and genocides. I'm interested in the whole golden age of Islam, the science, art, philosophies, medicine, which influenced the western world at that time. And what caused the decline. I saw some evidence of it in the Alhambra, Spain.

Please don't project your delusions and distortions on me.

 

[Mindful]

• Geography:

Muslim scholars paid great attention to geography. In fact, the Muslims' great concern for geography originated with their religion. The Qur'an encourages people to travel throughout the earth to see God's signs and patterns everywhere. Islam also requires each Muslim to have at least enough knowledge of geography to know the direction of the Qiblah (the position of the Ka'bah in Makkah) in order to pray five times a day. Muslims were also used to taking long journeys to conduct trade as well as to make the Hajj and spread their religion. The far-flung Islamic empire enabled scholar-explorers to compile large amounts of geographical and climatic information from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Among the most famous names in the field of geography, even in the West, are Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Batuta, renowned for their written accounts of their extensive explorations. In 1166, Al-Idrisi, the well-known Muslim scholar who served the Sicilian court, produced very accurate maps, including a world map with all the continents and their mountains, rivers and famous cities. Al-Muqdishi was the first geographer to produce accurate maps in color. It was, moreover, with the help of Muslim navigators and their inventions that Magellan was able to traverse the Cape of Good Hope, and Da Gama and Columbus had Muslim navigators on board their ships.

 

[ding]

Muslim bashing. Check.

Catholic bashing. Check.

Christian bashing. Check.

Republican bashing. Check.

Looks like you guys have covered all of the bases.

 

[Taz]

Muslims abandoned science when they couldn’t figure out how to make bumwad and soap.

 

[Mindful]

Muslim bashing. Check.

Catholic bashing. Check.

Christian bashing. Check.

Republican bashing. Check.

Looks like you guys have covered all of the bases.

No bashing on this thread. You nonce.

 

[ding]

Muslim bashing. Check.

Catholic bashing. Check.

Christian bashing. Check.

Republican bashing. Check.

Looks like you guys have covered all of the bases.

No bashing on this thread. You nonce.

Uh huh.

 

[Mindful]

Muslim bashing. Check.

Catholic bashing. Check.

Christian bashing. Check.

Republican bashing. Check.

Looks like you guys have covered all of the bases.

No bashing on this thread. You nonce.

Uh huh.

I'll bash you if you like.

 

[GreenAndBlue]

When books were made and religions compared

The bible took the wise away from all other religions and those then died

 

[ding]

Muslim bashing. Check.

Catholic bashing. Check.

Christian bashing. Check.

Republican bashing. Check.

Looks like you guys have covered all of the bases.

No bashing on this thread. You nonce.

Uh huh.

I'll bash you if you like.

Have at it. It’s never stopped you before. I want you to be happy.