Posted on 08/14/2002 5:36:26 AM PDT by Valin
That's such bullsh*t. The 'tolerant' Islam invaded, slaughtered, and conquered half of Christendom and then and only then discovered the intellectual life and this was FROM the Christians they conquered.
Actually it was more the reverse. If memory serves in the 12th century the university of Paris had something like 15 books, one library in Granada had 25,000.
Unfortunately, the only thing that keeps popping into my head is that this guy must be smoking crack.
This, of course, is BS. Read "Why I Am Not A Muslim" by Ibn Warriq for a chapter blowing up this assertion. Here's one review at Amazon.com.
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: Why I Am Not a Muslim.
Comment: Outraged by Ayatollah Khomeini's assault on Salman Rushdie, 'Ibn Warraq' (identified only as someone having grown up in a country now called an Islamic republic, who is now living and teaching in Ohio) was galvanized to write an attack on Islam. The result is a unique book; in contrast to Rushdie's airy magical realism, 'Ibn Warraq' brings a scholarly sledge-hammer to the task of discrediting Islam.
With few exceptions, he relies almost entirely on the Western tradition of Islamic studies for insights on such varied subjects as the person and career of Muhammad, the treatment of women, and Muslim emigration to the West. His conclusion is severe: 'on balance, the effects of the teachings of the Koran have been a disaster for human reason and social, intellectual, and moral progress.' From the beginning, Islam has been a fraud. Muhammad probably never existed, or if he did, had nothing to do with the Qur'an. Likewise, 'The whole of Islamic law is but a fantastic creation founded on forgeries and pious fictions.' Islam succeeded through aggression and intimidation. The early Islamic conquests, for example, were extremely aggressive: 'Bowing toward Arabia five times a day must surely be the ultimate symbol of this cultural imperialism' Despite his anger, 'Ibn Warraq' has written a serious and thought-provoking book that calls not for a wall of silence, much less a Rushdie-like fatwa on the author's life, but an equally compelling response from a believing Muslim.
Middle East Quarterly, March 1996
True, but many of his followers later did a pretty fair job of using the sword against anyone who believed differently, be they other christian, Muslims, pagans, Jews.
The difference between Isalm and Christanity is we have moved on and now fight our battles in the realm of ideas. And for the most part have taken a live and let live attitude, unlike Islam (especially radical Islam) who still believe that unless you believe exactly what I do I'm going to chop your head off.
But the view that something called "the West" is under attack from an alien enemy is as mistaken now as it was in the Cold War.
Well, Duh.
Islam appropriated the works of the Greeks, preserved those works through Europe's Dark Ages, which then again formed the foundation for science and knowledge in Europe and European Christendom.
I believe your figures are a bit off, but the essential point is correct: there were a lot more books in Moslem lands than in Europe in the Middle Ages. This was because the Arabs knew how to make paper (probably learned from the Chinese when the Moslems captured Samarkand). The Europeans didn't know how to make paper until much later; consequently, their output of books was lower. However, book production in Europe positively exploded after Guttenberg and the printing press (a lot of pent-up demand showing a literate population with a desire for knowledge). The Ottoman Turks, not wanting an infidel invention, didn't use the printing press until perhaps the mid-1700s and printed far fewer works (unwillingness to change and belief in their own superiority made them fall ever further behind the Europeans).
In the the early, "fervent" years of Islamic expansion (the 7th century), I've read of some book-burning episodes from North Africa to the Indus (the usual religious reasons in the rejection of anything non-Koranic). However, as Arab civilization settled down, the Arabs began to appreciate knowledge: they incorporated the learning of peoples in those recently-conquered lands, added some developments of their own, and from Baghad could make fun of the Franks and their Carolingian Renaissance. But then they reached a plateau (in the 13th century, I think) and hardly went any further (at least the Europeans had an excuse for the Dark Ages, with everything from barbarian invasions to the Black Death! Probably they stopped learning because they were not as free as those in the West, and there were stronger cultural and religious reasons that prevented them from advancing).
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