* ‘Islamic Science’- as long as it is the Koranic version, is worthless. To put it mildly: it sux. Fjordman injects some sense into the madness:
A new piece from the ever-insightful European essayist Fjordman:
According to University of Columbia’s Arabic and Islamic Studies Professor George Saliba, “Islamic science” virtually created the modern world. This is a bit odd, since Saliba has reviewed the work done by scholar Toby E. Huff, which concludes that Islamic countries largely failed in developing modern science. I have made a series of posts about this issue myself at Jihad Watch. These posts have also been translated to German, and I made a slightly longer essay about this available at the Gates of Vienna blog. I have also had the pleasure of reading Huff’s book The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West, second edition. If anything, I believe he is sometimes too kind with the Islamic world.
He writes: “Our concern is with the fact that from the eighth century to the end of the fourteenth, Arabic science was probably the most advanced science in the world, greatly surpassing the West and China. In virtually every field of endeavor – in astronomy, alchemy, mathematics, medicine, optics, and so forth – Arab scientists (that is, Middle Eastern individuals primarily using the Arabic language but including Arabs, Iranians, Christians, Jews, and others) were in the forefront of scientific advance. The facts, theories, and scientific speculations contained in their treatises were the most advanced to be had anywhere in the world, including China.”
I’m glad he specifies that by the term “Arab science” he actually means anybody who happened to live under Arab-Islamic rule, not necessarily Arab Muslims. Nevertheless, I don’t approve of the term. Whatever was achieved in science during this time period was rarely done by Arab Muslims. “Islamic science” was almost totally dependent upon translations, frequently made by non-Muslims, of the achievements of pre-Islamic cultures, Greeks, Egyptians, Indians, etc. Moreover, a striking number of Muslim thinkers were Persians, who owed more to their pre-Islamic heritage than they did to Islam. Still, I consider Huff’s work to be one of the best books I have read on the subject of early modern science.
“Pure Islam” and Michael van der Galiën
From the ‘clueless in the Netherlands’ department…
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MOSQUE BUILDING: SAVAGES VS CIVILIZED
Vlaams Belang demonstration (last week) against the building of a new mosque in the Antwerp neighborhood.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb3dedSIIUQ&eurl=http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2007/11/mosque-building.html[/youtube]
The video shows a counterdemonstration of local Muslims. The latter, raising their fists, shout: “Fascists! Fascists!” followed by “Allah Akhbar.”
The VB people across the street, behind a banner “Stop Islamisering”, shout: Geen moskee in onze buurt (No mosque in our neighborhood). The only Nazis I see are the Muslims channeling the Brown Shirts.
Hat tip Paul Belien via Atlas
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Just in case you missed it: Muslim Demo In Londonistan
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29HU3j7r9Ys&mode=related&search=[/youtube]
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In a nutshell, Islamaniac science is like the Mahdi-a figment of the imagination. Anybody can make a scientific claim but that doesn’t make it the truth. This bunch has gotten so used to make ridiculous claims in other areas of life that they figure this one will squeak by.