What they failed to say was their societal development and progress stopped right there.....
Yep. The birth of Mohamhead signaled the long slow death of arab civilization.
GGG ping
The southwestern Asian (Middle Eastern) part of the world did contribute a lot to global society. Just because some people can do bad things (be they Muslims, Nazis, Communists, etc.), they still can make contributions to science and society.
Sadly, modern Muslims would blow up these buildings and behead the artists and architects who created them.
Oh, it's true. Islamic culture was the pinnacle of advancement circa 1400s. The problem is that it remained mired in the 15th century due to it's 7th century outlook on the world. And it is what grinds them so much now as they see how far they've fallen behind the infidels. The fundamentalists belive that is Allah's punishment for them straying away from the 'true' faith, hence their ebrace of radical theology. Our prosperity, culture and civilization is an affront to their view of themselves.
I remember Crazy Crystals from the nineteen thirties and forties. I thought they were just another scam.
Once they started focusing on converting the world to Islam, at pain of death, they began their own destruction. If it wasn't for the infidel they wouldn't have the technology and knowledge to drill for oil.
So, civilization took their Numeric system and math, and left the rest. I am sure there were a few other things that we adopted but math seems to be their biggest contribution to civilization.
ping. Another freeper already put ggg in the keyword place, so if you already saw this article.....sorry.
It's known that Islamic society did have an enlightened period many centuries ago. Based on what we see now, it's unlikely that they ever will have one again.
Well, it's clear they didn't. Anyone who says differently better be able to come up with the arabic manuscripts that show otherwise. They got lucky. They had craftsmen and tradesmen doing tilings for centuries. They were interested in it -- as a trade. Not as mathematics. Most likely they copied something they saw in nature, or something they saw in nature gave them the idea. They might have even stolen it from India, as they did many other things. Islamo-arabic culture invents nothing, contributes nothing, discovers nothing. It's a primitive, backward, stagnant, as dead culture.
"Darb-i Imam shrine in Isfahan, Iran, built in 1453."
The Blue Mosque? Look to mosques in Syria and Aya Sofia, aka Hagia Sophia, in Istanbul first.
I have no doubt that at one point Neanderthals were better at something--hunting, fire-building--than my remote ancestors. It doesn't mean that we should try to emulate Neanderthals.
This is stupid. Let me explain this: what they "discovered" was tiling a floor. The fact is that Penrose's stuff was only remarkable in its mathematical rigor. It's nothing innovative. The Greeks did similar stuff.
These are just crystallographers who, like many other practical scientists, think that when they run across some mathematics, that they were the first to invent it.
Most likely they didn't. I often produce similar designs while doodling, and I apply Penrose discoveries when I do so.
If they did have such knowledge, and didn't acquire it before Mo's time, they probably stole it from the Hindus in India, just as they stole much of their other so called "achievements" in math. (The pre Mo Arabs were good mathmeticians and astronomers too, which is why many star names are Arabic, such as Alderaan (no longer commonly used, except in Star Wars), Aldebaran and Betelgeuse.)
This isn't surprising at all.
Were the moors more liberal in their interpretation of Islam than their cousins in Baghdad or Saudi? Seems to me the influence of Christian culture from the north may have had an impact where the Spanish moors were not as strict in their faith as other parts of the empire.
