VANITY; Islam gave us "Zero".

2/10/11 | Self

[jd777]

May I begin, by saying, I love this country, the United States of America, It is the greatest hope in the history of our planet, save the works of the prophets of God. I add that I have never voted for a Democrat - and I probably never will - although JFK did cut taxes and I wish he had lived longer. Also: I believe that we were endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, foremost being the freedom of speech. Jim Robinson, Thank you.

So: If I be banned for what I am about to write, then I be damned.

I ask that the admin's allow me this Post.

Now:

Our tremendous pride and the influence of Holy Mother the Church notwithstanding - 1000 years after the birth of Christ - Europe was lost in the midst of a DARK AGE. When Charlemagne was brought to Rome and became the first Holy Roman Emperor- He was unable to read or write- in any language. He was illiterate and so we're all of his kings. Do not ask me to footnote this fact, for I presume the church in ad 800 was not anxious to publicize that their first Holy Roman Emperor could not read.

But how could this be? Well, There was no education. Cast your minds back dear freepers to AD 1000. Before the university in Paris, or Oxford and Cambridge. The only education was offered by the Catholic church and you had to take holy orders to recieve it. The only subjects taught were (1) a tiny bit of Philosophy - all classical philosophy was lost - and (2) Theology. The study of the nature of God. They had conferences where Bishops would literrally discuss how many angels could fit on the head of a pin.

When French scholars in the early 11th centrury went down to Moorish Spain -Al andalus - They were amazed to find the 2nd largest library in the world. The largest library in the world at that time was in Baghdad. The largest library in Christain Europe was in Avignon where they had 2000 volumes. The great Library in Cordoba had 400,000 volumes.There - europeans recived their own heritage back. Jewish scholars in al andalus translated the great works of Socrates, Plato, Aristole, Pythagoras etc FROM ARABIC into European language and gave them to their awestruck visitors.

Forget the books. The hundreds of thousands of Books. For one moment. The building. Of the Library, itself. And the Great Mosque nearby were 1000 times greater than anything ever built to that time in all of Christendom.

Now I'm sure some of you are indignant at reading this, but that can not compare to the vehemence the Pope and his bishops felt at hearing this news. How could this be? 1000 years after Christ's birth? It must have been like the Jews in captivity in Babylon who said to their leaders: "I thought we were the chosen people - what happened? "

What does one do when presented with facts such as this - well, you think fast, in Babylon they wrote the TALMUD - In Rome they cried: "CRUSADE"

The history of the Crusades is beyond the scope of this post- but what did occur is evidenced by what happened in Europe after 1099. Europeans received "zero" from Islam - So the haters cry - and how true - We did not have a "ZERO" in our number system. Arabs gave us "0" - along with all our other arabic numerals. But it didn't stop there. Al-JABR aka Algerbra was received. Basic Calculus and Trignometry. And with that came Engineering - Lost since Ancient Rome. The Templars set about building - and within 150 years they built all the great cathedrals of France - The pointed arches. That they first saw in the great mosque of Cordoba - recapitulated in Chartres. The only buildings in europe after the fall of rome were like stone huts with thick walls. The arabs showed them how to build thin walls that reached up into spires.

But the gifts went on - the Code of Chivalry - a gift of SALADIN. who sent a horse to Richard the lionheart after his own horse died in battle. Courtly Love - sung by the troubadors - really the Taribs of North Africa. Medicine - My god, Medicine. If you were injured during the crusades pray you had an arab doctor - because there was no medicine in Europe. The arabs gave us "the Canon of Medicine" - It was taught for 500 years in European Universities - after it was given to us. But you tell me - who wrote the Canon of Medicine? Please, look it up

So, if parts of the Islamic world have now experienced their own dark age. May we not return the favor? Was not the legacy of the Knights Templar the two riders on the same horse? That we fought together, but we were brothers all along and knew it not? Are not we all the Children of Abraham?

Therefore, I plead for peace,

In closing I wish to say. God Bless the United States of America. The Constitution of our great nation. and the memory of our first true conservative Thomas Jefferson.

and oh yeah, go TEA PARTY!

[353FMG]

>Time to get over what was, and focus on what is..<

.
Dear H.D.

No way. Why move to the 21st century when the Koran was written in the 7th? Convert or die!

Sincerely,

Islam

[Flag_This]

"In Rome they cried: "CRUSADE"

Actually, "crusade" was the reply to "jihad."

In your rush to credit all things good to islam you completely omitted Constantinople and the eastern Roman empire. That city retained much of Rome (art, science, medicine , architecture, etc.) that was lost in the west and it served as a jumping-off point for many of the Crusades. It must have been a major eye-opener for the Franks.

My contention is that islam picked the bones of the civilizations it overran and didn't originate much.

[majormaturity]

Correct. They stole books and texts from the libraries of the time and branded them as their own. The only difference between Muslims today and then is that back then, they had the smarts to steal the material and then claim it as their own; today they simply destroy it because the “We invented it” BS doesn't fly anymore.

[pgobrien]

ping for later comments,

[fanfan]

The great Library in Cordoba had 400,000 volumes.There - europeans recived their own heritage back.

There were probably many "civilizations" that were lost along with the knowledge they had amassed. Either the evidence is under ground, or, more likely, under water.

Regardless, from what I can tell, this vanity doesn't really touch on the harm caused by the spread of Islam. Will that be a subject for a future post?

[SunkenCiv]

They sure did — Zero’s in the White House.

But seriously, zero was “invented” in India, and borrowed from there by the Muzzies.

The Maya also had zero.

Many finer homes have the Subzero.

[BuffaloJack]

Islam gave us nothing but misery.
Greek scholars kept as muslim slaves gave us the the mathematics and science that the muslims claim as theirs.

[jd777]

nothing Jack? not even the Canon of medicine?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canon_of_Medicine

[jd777]

Great point - And thank you. What about Algebra? Where did it come from?

[jd777]

I want to revise my question, and yes, this cracks me up to ask, and I wrote this GD post, but....

who was Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī?

LOL!

[jd777]

Why don't you write about the harm? That's your job, My job is to love thy neighbor as I love thyself.

Maybe you heard different?

[jd777]

Nobody else will reply - and you are perhaps the brightest poster I saw on this thread _and I respect you - so I’ll ask you a question. Who were the Cathars and why were they killed?

[rmlew]

What the Muslims did not destroy in the initial conquests, or destroy for being sacrilegious, they eventually learned to compile. Those complilations that were not then destroyed by other fanatical Muslims were sometime captured by Christians. Hence Indian concepts like Zero and Algebra came to Latin Christendom.

PS. People forget that the Eastern Roman Empire survive until 1453. It just didn't share with the descendants of those who sacked Rome.

[Biggirl]

“And the Great Mosque nearby were 1000 times greater than anything ever built to that time in all of Christendom.”

An update to that, would it surprise you that there was a massive Christian church at the time, have you ever heard of “Hagia Sophia?” or the Church of the Holy Wisdom or Holy Spirit of God? That was the BIG church at the time during the dark ages.

[Madame Dufarge]

"You state, 'its mathematicians created the algebra and algorithms that would enable the building of computers, and the creation of encryption.' The fundamental basis of modern mathematics had been laid down not hundreds but thousands of years before by Assyrians and Babylonians, who already knew of the concept of zero, of the Pythagorean Theorem, and of many, many other developments expropriated by Arabs/Muslims (see History of Babylonian Mathematics, Neugebauer)."

What Arab Civilization?

[all the best]

Hope this helps. Best regards. While the word algebra comes from the Arabic language (al-jabr, الجبر literally, restoration) and much of its methods from Arabic mathematics, its roots can be traced to earlier traditions, most notably ancient Indian mathematics, which had a direct influence on Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī (c. 780–850). He learned Indian mathematics and introduced it to the Muslim world through his famous arithmetic text, Book on Addition and Subtraction after the Method of the Indians.[3][4] He later wrote The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing, which established algebra as a mathematical discipline that is independent of geometry and arithmetic.[5] The roots of algebra can be traced to the ancient Babylonians,[6] who developed an advanced arithmetical system with which they were able to do calculations in an algorithmic fashion. The Babylonians developed formulas to calculate solutions for problems typically solved today by using linear equations, quadratic equations, and indeterminate linear equations. By contrast, most Egyptians of this era, as well as Greek and Chinese mathematicians in the 1st millennium BC, usually solved such equations by geometric methods, such as those described in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, Euclid's Elements, and The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art. The geometric work of the Greeks, typified in the Elements, provided the framework for generalizing formulae beyond the solution of particular problems into more general systems of stating and solving equations, though this would not be realized until the medieval Muslim mathematicians. The Hellenistic mathematicians Hero of Alexandria and Diophantus [7] as well as Indian mathematicians such as Brahmagupta continued the traditions of Egypt and Babylon, though Diophantus' Arithmetica and Brahmagupta's Brahmasphutasiddhanta are on a higher level.[8] For example, the first complete arithmetic solution (including zero and negative solutions) to quadratic equations was described by Brahmagupta in his book Brahmasphutasiddhanta. Later, Arabic and Muslim mathematicians developed algebraic methods to a much higher degree of sophistication. Although Diophantus and the Babylonians used mostly special ad hoc methods to solve equations, Al-Khwarizmi was the first to solve equations using general methods. He solved the linear indeterminate equations, quadratic equations, second order indeterminate equations and equations with multiple variables.

[aruanan]

VANITY; Islam gave us "Zero".

No, it didn't. A type of notation indicating zero was used by the Sumerians about 3000 BC. It was carried to India by the Greeks and was brought by Arab merchants back from India. It was independently invented by the Mayans around 4 AD. There is very little of anything of worth created by Islamic culture but a huge deal expropriated from the cultures it conquered. Algebra is an example. It began in ancient Egypt and Babylon. Just because it later had an Arabic name applied to it doesn't mean it was of Islamic origin.

Back to the books for you.

[Biggirl]

Plus now, we have the internet to back-up as a way to fight against such “bs”.

[Biggirl]

Also in Alexandra Egypt, there is a new Great Library and as a matter of fact, there are young people who are guarding it against any possible trouble.

[IronJack]

The Cathars (not the name they chose for themselves, by the way) were a dualistic pseudo-Christian sect that flourished in medieval France. They were heavily persecuted by the Catholic Church, resulting in their virtual eradication during the Albigensian Crusade.

They were exterminated because their theology was inconsistent to the point of heresy with the ruling religious authority of the time.

That was in the Thirteenth Century.

On Sept. 11, 2001, a band of muslime madmen hijacked four jet aircraft and crashed them into a variety of fixed objects, resulting in the deaths of at least 3,000 innocent Americans. Then there were the London subway bombings, the assaults in Mumbai, the Bali bombings, the Madrid bombings, and a host of other murders.

Those were yesterday.

Equivalency denied. Again.