And a Bonus Re-Run at the foot of this post!
Eric, an email contributor to Cahos Manor Mail, in a discussion about “I.Q. and evolution” noted, in passing,
“While Islamic culture has not, I believe, kept up with the West in terms of their contribution to the species, their early contributions in terms of mathematics, philosophy, law and art were flowering when the inhabitants of Paris and London were picking at fleas.”
Perhaps not the best example. Indeed, I’m tempted to throw the bullshit flag on this comment. Islamic culture has contributed little that it did not acquire (steal) from other, conquered, peoples. Algebra, trigonometry and so-called “Arabic numerals”? Hindu contributions (although algebraic principles were known and used as early as Babylon and a Western treatise, written by Diophantus of Alexandria in the 3rd century AD predates the rise of Islam by a couple of centuries), swept up by Muslim kleptocrats and falsely claimed as Islamic accomplishments. Similarly, most of the scientific “contributions” of Islamic culture were acquired (stolen) through conquest of the folks who really developed them, and when Islamic culture did acquire (steal) some neat new toy, it was likely, as the case with algebra’s use in astrology, to be more likely put to use serving Islamic superstitions than anything useful. (Granted: some of the medical and engineering discoveries Islam acquired in conquest were put to some practical uses. In fact, I’ll admit Averroes as a nearly unique outlier in the otherwise bleak landscape of Islamic “scholars”. Nearly unique. There were a very few others over the centuries. Very, very few.)
Oh, and BTW, algebra has been independently discovered/developed–genuinely discovered/developed, not simply picked up from a conqured people–many times throughout history. Islamic scholars simply played around with mathematical concepts stolen from somewhere else and have been falsely credited with creating algebra. Heck, even “Arabic” numerals were in use by Western mathematicians before they “escaped into the wild” from Islamic astrologers and merchants who had stolen acquired them from their Hindu inventors.
Indeed,
In the Arab World—until modern times—the Hindu-Arabic numeral system was used only by mathematicians. Muslim scientists used the Babylonian numeral system, and merchants used the Abjad numerals, a system similar to the Greek numeral system and the Hebrew numeral system. Therefore, it was not until Fibonacci that the Hindu-Arabic numeral system was used by a large population.ref
The Western world, however, while still using such things to serve superstitious ends (such as today’s Anthropogenic Global Warming superstitions), has mostly used such discoveries to advance knowledge as a whole. Hanging onto relatively advanced concepts gleaned from Islamic conquest for centuries without making any significant use of them doesn’t really qualify as making “contributions to the species”.
[Note: Fibonacci, of course, was not Islamic. *heh* Typical. Magpie Muslims hoard and only accidentally “drop” an occasional jewel of knowledge stolen acquired elsewhere. Western scholars, like Fibonacci typically spread their knowledge much more widely and used it to much greater effect.]
Islamic culture today is esentially the same as it has always been: its only “advances” are what it can steal or buy (theft from the unbeliever always being preferred to purchase). I suspect much of the blowhard puffery about the superiority of Islamic culture spouted by imams and the common Muslim stems from the fact that Muslims are simply lying to themselves to cover their culture’s inherent inferiority to the West.
Note this list of Nobel Prizes and note the number awarded to putative Muslims (and the exceptions noted in the text below the list) for “creative” Nobels–3–as opposed to Nobels awarded in creative endeavors to Jews–131. As the author notes in the post,
No wonder Muslims hate Jews: It’s so embarrassing to see what Jews have accomplished compared to a population 100 times larger.
And that’s just Islam vs. Jews in terms of creativity, “contributions to the species”. A culture, such as Islamic culture, that enstupiates its people, that can only–or at least by a huge majority– “advance” by stealing acquiring new things from others, is hardly a culture worth celebrating, now is it? Of course *sigh* that’s the kind of autocratic, thought-stifling culture leftists, multiculturalists, educrats, Mass Media Podpeople and their ilk are all attempting to create here in the U.S…. *profound sigh*
BTW, “…their early contributions in terms of mathematics, philosophy, law and art were flowering when the inhabitants of Paris and London were picking at fleas,” deserves a further response:
“[P]icking at fleas”? During the 8th-15th Centuries, the supposed “flower” of Islamic culture (where “flowering” means “greatest period of magpie aquisition from conquered cultures”), Europeans in Paris and London–supposedly spending their time “picking at fleas”–included such “flea pickers” as Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, William of Ockham and Duns Scotus. Gee, how in the world did they ever stop “flea-picking” long enough to give us the scientific method (now completely ignored by such as The Church of Anthropocentric Global Warmists–*heh*), among other inconsequential “flea-pickings”? Sure, many of these were inspired by Islamic works describing the many advances Muslims had acquired from other cultures (do note the exception above concerning Averroes and a very few other Muslim scholars, and do note also that Averroes’ most inspiring–to Western scholars such as Bacon–works were his commentaries on… Aristotle *heh*).
“[P]icking at fleas” indeed. *pfui*
Overall actual “contributions to the species” of Islamic culture: slim to none. On balance, that The Religion of Hate is a negative contributor to world culture there can be no doubt, as the following attempts to demonstrate, with slightly dark humor, comparing THE unique “contribution” of Islamic culture to Redneck Culture in these [dys]United States demonstrates.
And now for a repost (3rd re-run!) of a fav of mine from several years ago, a multi-cultural post for you, a blast from the past rerun of a long-ago Precision Guided Humor Assignment, celebrating the one true, genuine, authentic “contribution” to Western Culture made by Islam, the splodydope:
See a suspect? Maneuver to get the wind ’em. (Scent The stench of rotting camel–or other–dung may be your first clue apart from the fact that the guy looks like an Ay-rab.)
Step 1.) Does the goober smell worse than–well, Goober? If so, he’s either a Loony Left Moonbat or a Islamofascist murdering savage SOB. Bag ‘im either way.
Step 2.) When you perform a “cranial echo test” (whack ‘im on the head with an axe handle) does a “thunk” or no sound at all procede from his pie hole? If a “thunk” then it’s a Loony Left Moonbat and good for catfish feed or for bait for wild boar. If no sound at all issues, then there’s nothing inside (sound doesn’t travel in a vaccuum, you know) and you have a splodydope. Remove any useful explosives and see uses for Loony Left Moonbat, above. If the critter attempts to bite the axe handle, it’s an osama and should be doused with gasoline and burned (after removing any useful explosives for later use fishing or blowing stumps).
Do bury any remains of an osama in pig manure and turn the compost frequently. Use this compost to kill kudzu.
There. Wasn’t that all warm and fuzzy, multi-culti?
(Oh, and before someone charges me with dehumanizing or demonizing Loony Left Moonbats or terrorists, please note that Loony Left Moonbats and terrorists have beat me to the punch and either dehumanized or demonized themselves before I could get in on the act. I’m just calling the cards that are already dealt.)
Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Conservative Cat, Kodera’s Korner, The Yankee Sailor, and DragonLady’s World, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.