Militant Islamists

[Pinkpapercut]

Originally Posted by martynz

As soon as I read the misquote "Rather than focusing on combatting terror, Khan has used his forum to tell Londoners as well as citizens in other parts of Europe and the United States that the West must learn to live with terrorism as a part of daily life." I guessed what the rest of the article would be like.
The Mayor actually said "learn to live with the threat of terrorism"

In the end there isn't much difference. Khan was telling us we must accept the deformation of our society caused by the presence of his aggressive fellow Muslims in our country.

No surprise from the man much of whose previous career was spent defending the likes of the loathsome US Black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan in court and who shared platforms with known Muslim extremists while already a Labour Councillor.

[luca3434]

In response to Pinkpapercut, his quote below is sadly at times hard to argue against...




"Why can't Muslims be afforded the same treatment?" Because by their own Sacred laws and by historical evidence they don't afford that consideration to others except in very limited circumstances.

[Brecht]

There was a period in the history of the Islamic world when Muslim philosophers were translating and studying the great Greek philosophers. Baghdad was the intellectual center of the world and philosophy, science and art flourished. Many writers openly questioned Islamic beliefs. That period lasted from the 8th century to the 13th century, ending with the Mongol invasion and the fall of Baghdad. In 9th century the House of Wisdom was founded by the Caliph Harun al-Rashid. Its purpose was to create a world encyclopedia of knowledge. Muslim, Christian and Jewish scholars worked and studied together and old Greek, Syriac, Persian, Indian and Chinese writings were translated into Arabic. The literate Muslims of that period were fervent students and admirers of "infidel" philosophy and science. The Golden Age of Islam didn't happen because of Islam but in spite of Islam and most among those who questioned the Quran were not beheaded like it is the case today. When radical Muslims claim that they want to return to "the Golden Age of Islam", they seem oblivious of the fact that in those times many Muslim thinkers had more respect for Aristotle than Mohammad and that a number of Muslim poets wrote love poems to other men without being prosecuted. But we shouldn't paint an idealistic picture of the past and things sure weren't that simple back then but the "golden age" looked different than imagined by the jihadi cutthroats and their followers today.

Here's an article about that period, written by Kenan Malik, an Indian ex-Muslim and overall smart fella who lives in the UK.

[vannax]

LOL.
Almost all of the "great Islamic thinkers" were dhimmis, ie conquered "protected" people.
Look at the Zanj revolt of 9th century Iraq. At the time, Islam was the biggest slaver outfit of all, and, in fact, remains so to this day, with a brief period between the 17th and 19th century where Europe overtook them for a bit, then the British outlawed slavery across the Empire, and America very soon after that, but Islam still practices slavery with slave markets where people are bought and sold like cattle in Africa and the ME to this day.

[vannax]

It is also my belief that the British Empire made a huge mistake in abdicating its Empire under queen Victoria. The British were the only people capable of effectively managing a global civilization, and now look at what's become of them!
How the mighty have fallen, and they did it all by themselves, to themselves, on purpose.

[gordian_knot]

Originally Posted by vannax

It is also my belief that the British Empire made a huge mistake in abdicating its Empire under queen Victoria. The British were the only people capable of effectively managing a global civilization, and now look at what's become of them!
How the mighty have fallen, and they did it all by themselves, to themselves, on purpose.

Actually we lost most of our empire after WW2. The two world wars virtually bankrupted us. We were so poor (we only paid off our US and Canadian war debts in 2006) we had no option but to give up what we had left but that was in any case the right thing to do. After many countries fought for us it would have quite wrong to try and maintain control over them by force.

It should be noted that as well as the actual money we've paid to the US over the years, the US also demanded and received many of our overseas bases, so by the end of the war we didn't have much of an empire anyway.

[Pinkpapercut]

Originally Posted by Brecht

There was a period in the history of the Islamic world when Muslim philosophers were translating and studying the great Greek philosophers. Baghdad was the intellectual center of the world and philosophy, science and art flourished. Many writers openly questioned Islamic beliefs. That period lasted from the 8th century to the 13th century, ending with the Mongol invasion and the fall of Baghdad. In 9th century the House of Wisdom was founded by the Caliph Harun al-Rashid. Its purpose was to create a world encyclopedia of knowledge. Muslim, Christian and Jewish scholars worked and studied together and old Greek, Syriac, Persian, Indian and Chinese writings were translated into Arabic. The literate Muslims of that period were fervent students and admirers of "infidel" philosophy and science. The Golden Age of Islam didn't happen because of Islam but in spite of Islam and most among those who questioned the Quran were not beheaded like it is the case today. When radical Muslims claim that they want to return to "the Golden Age of Islam", they seem oblivious of the fact that in those times many Muslim thinkers had more respect for Aristotle than Mohammad and that a number of Muslim poets wrote love poems to other men without being prosecuted. But we shouldn't paint an idealistic picture of the past and things sure weren't that simple back then but the "golden age" looked different than imagined by the jihadi cutthroats and their followers today.

Here's an article about that period, written by Kenan Malik, an Indian ex-Muslim and overall smart fella who lives in the UK.

Just to put a slightly different spin on your post...

Most of those 'Muslim' thinkers weren't Muslim as you note but were Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Zoroastrian or atheist preserving and extending their own pre-islamic cultures. It makes no more sense to give Islam or Muslims credit for any preserved learning than it would to give the Spanish Conquistadors credit for the achievements of Inca, Maya and Aztec civilisation.

The translation project was started by Syrian Christians and Jews who knew that their learning would be lost under Muslim occupation and oppression. Christian families like those of Hunayn bin Ishaq (John Isaacson) were the motors of the translation project.

The Muslims and Caliph Haroun al-Rashid were uninterested in the learning of the Greeks, the Syrians and the various Mesopotamians and were only convinced to back the project by persuasion that they could use the practical parts of Hellenic learning in Jihad and trade. Nothing more generally cultural was translated into Arabic, not the plays of Sophocles for instance, nothing that couldn't be exploited for the spread of Islam and the profit of Muslims.

The intellectual powerhouse of the World at the time wasn't Baghdad, it was China, just as it has been for much of history.

It takes only a little thought to understand why the Muslim 'Golden Age' didn't save the science and philosophy of the classical hellenic civilisation, which included christian societies as far as Persia.

The conquering Muslim arabs were near-barbarians who had only recently been taught writing by the Christian Syrians. Previously Arabic was without an alphabet. The conquering Muslims did not have the learning of the Greeks. The Christian and Jewish Syrians did have that learning both in Syriac and in Greek. Those Syrians began the translation project into Arabic to save the learning from the Muslims not for them. Classical learning in the near East was threatened by the Muslim Arabs and saved by the non-Muslim Syrians etc by translating it into Arabic.

There's a whole tangle of confusion around this topic caused by Muslim propaganda.

In a nutshell, the bulk of Classical Hellenic philosophy came to us from the source, Greece, or Byzantium as we call it in its Christian phase, where it had always been preserved. It came to Western Europe with the Byzantine Scholars and monks fleeing the repeated Turkish Muslim Jihads against Byzantium.

The Muslims have nearly nothing from Latin, almost all of that came back into Euroean culture from the manuscript libraries of Catholic monastic orders, particularly the Cluniacs, and again some via the Byzantines.

What appears to us to be an intellectual input from Islam and Muslims during the non-existent "Golden Age of Islam" is an illusion caused by the conviction of European scholars in the late middle ages that because Arab Muslims had invaded and conquered the territory of Ancient Egypt, Khemet as it was called by the Egyptians, and because the Muslims referred to ancient Eygptian learning as the learning of al-Khemi, Muslim culture was taken by Europeans to be the place to look for the knowledge of the Ancients.

Except most of that knowledge turned out not to exist.

But the search did give us a new word for a bogus science based on Muslim pseudo-knowledge: 'alchemy'.

There will be imprecisions and mistakes in what I've written here as I'm writing on the fly without time to access my sources.

For those of you who want to research this topic of the non-existent 'Golden Age of Islam' here's a short podcast that should set the scene on the topic of Mathematics and the Muslim 'invention' of algebra, with discursions on related topics concerning the 'Golden Age of Islam'.

http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediasele...d/p04t2qfj.mp3

I recommend the writings and research of Sonja Brentjes as another good starting place. She's a professional academic with a love of the history of early Islamic culture but the picture she paints of the so-called "Golden Age of Islam" is very different and her critique of current Muslim claims of their past inventiveness devastating. Sadly for this English-speaking forum, most of her publications are in German.

The Golden Age of Islam was actually an age of extreme and vicious Muslim Imperialism that destroyed, not saved, what remained of most of Late Classical Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilisation and learning in most of Spain, all of Christian North Africa, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia and so on and by occupying the transcontinental trade routes cut Europe off from the rest of the old World ie India, China etc and from Europe's sister judeo-christian cultures in the Middle East.

I see Islam as a curse on the human race; from the moment I first read it I've loved the Jewish philosopher Maimonides' name for Muhammad: 'ha-Meshugga' - 'the Madman'.

We need to stop giving credit to Islam and Muslims for what was essentially a period of extreme Imperialism, destruction and oppression and a spreading of misery on a scale rarely seen in recorded history.

[SanteeFats]

Originally Posted by vannax

LOL.
Look at the Zanj revolt of 9th century Iraq. At the time, Islam was the biggest slaver outfit of all, and, in fact, remains so to this day, with a brief period between the 17th and 19th century where Europe overtook them for a bit, then the British outlawed slavery across the Empire, and America very soon after that, but Islam still practices slavery with slave markets where people are bought and sold like cattle in Africa and the ME to this day.

Not true vannax India is first in the world followed by China then an Islamic state shows up in Pakistan. And for Palo Russia is fifth.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...aves/70033422/

[Wendigo]

Originally Posted by SanteeFats

Not true vannax India is first in the world followed by China then an Islamic state shows up in Pakistan. And for Palo Russia is fifth.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...aves/70033422/

Some meat on them bones here with stats
http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/me...-across-world/
http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/

[Brecht]

Pinkpapercut,

I'm not crediting Islam with anything and think you may have misunderstood certain passages of my previous post. All I'm saying is that the Muslim conquerors of that period showed some appreciation for the accomplishments of the pre-Islamic civilizations. They were reasonable enough to recognize their value and superiority in terms of civilization. Instead of destroying everything they regarded un-Islamic, those Muslims were hiring Christian and Jewish scholars to help establish their civilization by absorbing knowledge from various sources like Greek, Persian, Indian, Egyptian, Chinese, Syrian etc.

It's true that the early translations of classical Hellenic writings were supposed to serve the practical needs of Islamic rulers but this changed in the subsequent centuries. Those early Christian and Jewish translators and arbiters of classical philosophy, mathematics etc. were joined by Muslims who were greaty influenced by Aristotle, Plato, Hippocrates, Galen and other giants of the antiquity. Arab and Persian Muslim thinkers were influenced by those classical thinkers and went on to advance their teachings. You can't deny the contributions of ibn-Sina (Avicenna), ibn-Rush (Averroes), al-Khwarizmi or al-Razi (Rhazes). Those guys were neither Christian or Jewish. Unlike today's Muslims, the Muslims of that period were not entirely hostile towards the achievements of "infidel" civilizations. Unfortunately those who were became the dominant force in the Islamic world and the rest is history.

You can't picture the world as a sum of hermetically sealed cultures. Everybody was influencing everybody. Transfer of knowledge exists since the dawn of man and it goes beyond cultural and political borders. But some cultures have been more dynamic and successful in history than others and the West owes its ascension to a scientific approach to the world and the primacy of reason, even when doing unreasonable things. Our culture, arts and science were able to flourish because we pushed religion out of those matters. Our progress is not the result of Christianity just like the achievements in the Islamic world during the early Middle Ages were not initiated by Islam. But the Islamic world resorted to traditionalism and thus vanished as a civilization.