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’1001 Muslim Inventions’ Fantasy Comes to DC: The Presentation of Legend as History
vinienco.com ^ | 8/26/2012 | J. Christian Adams

Posted on 08/26/2012 4:59:28 PM PDT by YankeeReb

National Geographic Explorer’s Hall in Washington D.C. has hosted some of the most prestigious exhibits in America. Previous exhibits have included the Chinese terracotta warriors, as well as the James Caird, the lifeboat Sir Ernest Shackleton miraculously sailed from Antarctica to South Georgia Island in 1916. Currently it is hosting a curious exhibit through February 2013 entitled “1001 Inventions: Discover the Golden Age of Muslim Civilization.” This high tech, slickly produced exhibit explicitly seeks to debunk the “myth” that the dark ages were dark.

The exhibit purports to provide examples of innovations from Muslim civilization, and some of the claims may come as a surprise to those familiar with the Wright Brothers or Yuri Gagarin.

I recently visited “1001 Inventions” which was housed on the same floor as a fantastic Titanic exhibit. I purchased entry to the museum at a ticket booth staffed by Rebecca Head, a National Geographic employee. Perhaps assuming I was heading to see the Titanic exhibit, Head pushed attendance at 1001 Inventions – “There is a really great exhibit on Muslim inventions you should see.”

The exhibit begins with star power – a short movie starring Academy Award-winner Ben Kingsley. Kingsley plays a librarian who faces a trio of young uniformed (presumably British) students seeking information about “the dark ages.”

Kingsley’s character bristles at the children’s characterization, critical of those “filling your head with such nonsense and ripping down the good of former civilizations.”

But “everyone knows the Greeks and Romans invented everything!” one child replies.

Kingsley’s librarian doesn’t equivocate – “some of the most important discoveries” were made by “Muslim civilizations.”

(Excerpt) Read more at vinienco.com ...


TOPICS: Arts/Photography; Education; History
KEYWORDS: discovery; godsgravesglyphs; jihad; longerperspectives; muslim; religionofpieces; science
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To: spokeshave

...I give them Damascus steel as a consolation prize.


21 posted on 08/26/2012 5:27:23 PM PDT by spokeshave (The only people better off today than 4 years ago are the Prisoners at Guantanamo.)
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To: YankeeReb

“...consider the argument I had with my 8-year-old after leaving the exhibit.  She was convinced that the Wright Brothers were not the first to fly, and instead it was Firnas...”

To which he should have said, “Honey, throughout your life you’ll meet people called ‘Muslims’. Trust none of them because most of them are liars.”


22 posted on 08/26/2012 5:27:36 PM PDT by Psycho_Bunny (OWS = The Great American Snivel War)
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To: svcw
"no advancements"

Exactly right. The last 500 years saw the age inventions and progress in science. We know about the European and American contributions. Where are the contributions in these areas from the non-European and American areas of the world. Few and far between. It's an interesting question. If Islamic countries supposedly invented and came up with so many inventions and scientific contributions, why have they contributed next to nothing for the last 500-800 years? And why don't these non-Muslim defenders of Islam ask themselves that question?

23 posted on 08/26/2012 5:29:07 PM PDT by driftless2
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To: svcw
“Let’s say this is all true...”

It's not. Virtually ALL of the so-called contributions to civilization by muslims, were in fact invented by others.

Even the most ballyhooed “contribution”, algebra, was actually created by the Nestorian Christians whom the muslims conquered. The muslims exploited the inventions they acquired through conquest, but like any culture that fails to develop its own brainpower, eventually those “contributions” fell into disuse because they couldn't be understood/maintained/replicated by later generations.

24 posted on 08/26/2012 5:32:47 PM PDT by ROLF of the HILL COUNTRY
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To: YankeeReb

Why didn’t they explain how this vast Muslim empire that “stretched from Spain to China” got there? Hmmm?


25 posted on 08/26/2012 5:35:31 PM PDT by jdsteel (Give me freedom, not more government.)
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To: xp38; verum ago

Thanks for the info, not that I was going to buy a subscription anyway, It’s too expensive.


26 posted on 08/26/2012 5:36:18 PM PDT by Venturer
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To: Venturer
Thanks for the info, not that I was going to buy a subscription anyway, It’s too expensive.

I just flip through other people's copies. I'm not gonna pay for it lol...
27 posted on 08/26/2012 5:37:41 PM PDT by verum ago (A good physical therapist is half friend, half sadist.)
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To: ROLF of the HILL COUNTRY

Nestorian Christians, would you expand?
We have a family friend who refers to himself as Aserian Christian, and he really gets up set about these claims.
He says they developed the concept of zero, which without there would be no math and all that followed.
So I am unclear as to whether he is correct or not.
But either because I just had a gin and tonic, I don’t remember or went swimming that day so I just do not recall Nestorian Christians.


28 posted on 08/26/2012 5:37:48 PM PDT by svcw (If one living cell on another planet is life, why isn't it life in the womb?)
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To: dead
I not even sure there was style involved, falling yes but style not so sure.
29 posted on 08/26/2012 5:38:19 PM PDT by SledgeCS (I will vote for Obama when he admits that his idea of a transparency means "You cannot see it")
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To: combat_boots
.... Firnas launched from the mosque at Cordoba a millennium ago

Muslims are good at taking off, not so good at surviving the landing.

30 posted on 08/26/2012 5:40:32 PM PDT by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Implementing class warfare by having no class!)
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To: smoothsailing

Goats have laps?


31 posted on 08/26/2012 5:42:48 PM PDT by wtc911 (Amigo - you've been had.)
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To: spokeshave

But still not as good as the steel used in the Japanese katana.


32 posted on 08/26/2012 5:48:47 PM PDT by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Implementing class warfare by having no class!)
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To: Doctor 2Brains

There truly is nothing more evil on this planet than islam.

And all you politically correct folks will find this out, sooner or later.


33 posted on 08/26/2012 5:53:03 PM PDT by 353FMG (The US Constitution is only as good as those who enforce it.)
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To: SERKIT

You forgot Mohammed Einstein and Abdullah Newton.


34 posted on 08/26/2012 5:56:02 PM PDT by 353FMG (The US Constitution is only as good as those who enforce it.)
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To: 353FMG

ping for tomorrow.


35 posted on 08/26/2012 5:58:22 PM PDT by NewHampshireDuo
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To: svcw; ROLF of the HILL COUNTRY
I did not know about this group under Muslim control. Interesting...thanks Rolf. Nestoria Christians

.............."Christians especially Nestorian contributed hugely to the Arab Islamic Civilization during the Ummayads and the Abbasids by translating works of Greek philosophers to Syriac and afterwards to Arabic.[20] They also excelled in philosophy, science ( such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Qusta ibn Luqa, Masawaiyh, Patriarch Eutychius, Jabril ibn Bukhtishu etc) and theology ( such as Tatian, Bar Daisan, Babai the Great, Nestorius, Toma bar Yacoub etc.) and the personal physicians of the Abbasid Caliphs were often Assyrian Christians such as the long serving Bukhtishu dynasty "..................
36 posted on 08/26/2012 6:01:44 PM PDT by Girlene
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To: smoothsailing

They invented eating right and wiping left. I think that’s the end of the list.


37 posted on 08/26/2012 6:03:49 PM PDT by steve8714
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To: spokeshave
1. Afghanistan....tradition of graduating police/guards slaughtering their teachers.

You forgot throwing acid on the faces of the girls showing up to school for an education.
38 posted on 08/26/2012 6:05:08 PM PDT by Renderofveils (My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. - Nabokov)
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To: Girlene

Thanks.


39 posted on 08/26/2012 6:05:25 PM PDT by svcw (If one living cell on another planet is life, why isn't it life in the womb?)
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To: dead; YankeeReb
His first attempt which has passed into legend took place when he leapt from the minaret of the Great Mosque in Cordoba. Equipped with a glider with wooden struts, he managed to fly and landed more or less unharmed.

"That's not flying! That's falling with style!"

- Woody

"The trick to flying is throwing yourself at the ground and missing."

Douglas Adams

Mark

40 posted on 08/26/2012 6:08:17 PM PDT by MarkL (Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
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