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Honestly it was not just conquest (though that certainly spurred a lot); there was some organic internal growth as well (the most well known of course being alg

Honestly it was not just conquest (though that certainly spurred a lot); there was some organic internal growth as well (the most well known of course being algebra). But, yes, I do think there are some things that can be learned, of course: A) Sharing knowledge is by and large a good thing (some of the "Golden Age" is probably a result of having a large stable empire with not as much internal faction fighting, a common language (Arabic), and all those influences, from the Greeks to the Egyptians to the Chinese). B) A society that turns away from rationality, and turns towards anti-rationalist fundamentalist religious dogma, is a society that's in trouble.

acqq 10y ago
> there was some organic internal growth as well (the most well known of course being algebra) The "Arabic numerals" were actually taken from India, and in that areas the astronomy, using complex calculations was practiced many centuries before, also using better numerals (positional, using letters, just like programmers use A-F in hex today) than the Roman ones which weren't practical. But yes, once that huge knowledge was taken over, there was some period of some improvements. But it ended more than 750 years ago, never to return, as the core of the religion itself actually never supported it. The developments during the following 750 years and the state of human rights in countries that claim to be based on the Islamic law are certainly illustrative and shouldn't be ignored. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests_on_the_Indian_subcontinent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests_on_the_Indian... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_India "An estimate of the number of people killed, based on the Muslim chronicles and demographic calculations, was done by K.S. Lal in his book Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, who claimed that between 1000 CE and 1500 CE, the population of Hindus decreased by 80 million." To compare, the total population of the world was at that time less than 550 million. http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/worldpop/table_history.php http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/worldpop...
- soundwave106 10y ago
  The "core of the religion" obviously supported greater knowledge for roughly 500 years. That's a fairly long time. And yes, they were conquerors. But historically who wasn't in 800-1200 AD? Remember, one of the reasons the Islamic Golden Age ended was that Baghdad was conquered by the Mongols. (We've had a relatively stable world map since World War II... that's historically pretty rare.) I do think that the last 750 years of the Arab world have been dominated by more stronger church-oriented viewpoints, which is unfortunate for the advance of ideas. But that does not imply extreme intolerance per se or radical violence. To be honest, I don't know anything historically as radical as Saudi Wahhabism or its terrorist spin-offs (well, nothing so "mainstream" at least). The Ottoman Empire and Mughal Empire, as far as I know, displayed some tolerance towards different religious sects (although they were never equals and tolerance varied wildly on the ruler), and the justice / law system in place seems roughly close to what the Christian world had before the Renaissance / Enlightenment days. The forced conversion stats you are quoting are, as the Wikipedia article says, controversial... and the times were different anyways. Today, although the human rights of many Islamic countries are wretched, I certainly can think of several of non-Islamic countries with worse human rights problems, compared to Islamic countries such as Jordan, India, post-revolution Tunisia, or heck even a middle-of-the-road semi-violator like Indonesia. (See: Congo, North Korea, pre-reform Mynamar) That's not to excuse the fact that a large portion of Islam nations suffer from wretched human rights. But, again I will ask you: if you really believe that Islam is fundamentally violent and this fact can't be changed, what's your solution to this? Personally, I believe that thought pattern is rather dangerous. This is what 1.6 billion people believe. Are you condemning all of them? If the focus was more narrow, like Wahhabism, that's a different story: Wahhabism has touched a lot of radical Islamic terrorist groups, and Wahhabism is clearly a religious tool of the Saudi state. Now, many Western countries like the United States are allies with Saudi Arabia. If we were really concerned about Islamic terrorism, you'd think we'd be rather concerned about this relationship. (There's political reasons behind this relationship, of course...)
  - acqq 10y ago
    > The "core of the religion" obviously supported greater knowledge for roughly 500 years. No, what was before 750 years 1) was not what today's religious authorities recognize as the core and 2) was what doesn't exist in that form in the holy texts. In order to claim what you claim you'd have to demonstrate at least either 1 or 2. Because in fact the period existed is spite of the content of the texts and not because of them. The official religious core has the specific names: Sharia ("a body of moral and religious law derived from religious prophecy, as opposed to human legislation.") and Jihad ("the overwhelming majority of classical theologians, jurists, and specialists in the hadith understood the obligation of jihad in a military sense.") Fantastically, the confusion in the Western world about the "core" doesn't come from any rationally obtainable and provable fact about that religion, but only because of bad analogies. We all "know" the myth about Jesus, and the apparent "distortion" of the core faith by later church practices. The lazy mind concludes, using also completely false "common knowledge" like "every religion is the same" that ergo those born as members of that specific religion and the world would benefit from the return to the core. Which is unbelievably stupid. The same "sola scriptura" idea, that gave the Western world after enough wars and enough suffering enough deaths for religious beliefs, at least some hook to get free from some negative teachings and practices of the religion, if applied to the texts of this another religion (about which we worry now) uncovers immense hate, intolerance and the war until only one religion remains (everything written in the core)! That's the plainly visible truth for anybody who actually reads "the book." > This is what 1.6 billion people believe. Are you condemning all of them? What it "this" in that sentence of yours? Actually just the Western thought projects and supports both the "return to the core" (e.g. through being allies as you note) and the belief in "peacefulness" of "every religion" if the core is applied (which can't be farther from the truth). I claim that among these 1.6 billions you mention most of the people can understand that exactly these ideas ("return to the core good") can lead to more torture and suffering, and that they wouldn't want to be a part of it. It's we, the Western world, that should understand that simple truth. And stop using false analogies. > If we were really concerned about Islamic terrorism, you'd think we'd be rather concerned about this relationship. This argument is just "our leaders always know what they're doing, we don't have to worry or check if they lie and don't have to attempt to influence them democratically, and we can even blindly repeat their claims in our arguments without appearing uninformed." And it's completely false (war because of "Irag and WMD" and "to bring democracy for Iraq" is just one of the recent examples). Please read just the whole 5:32 and 5:33 and compare that with that part of 5:32 that the US president officially presented as the image of the religion and then tell me that you stay behind that. It's an insulting attempt of deception to anybody who knows even just these two verses (not to mention the book) in full (which includes enough believers). Then read and think about the reforms of Ataturk, that's the only long-term direction for these parts of the world and these believers that we should support. He knew that the "return to the core" or even increasing that kind of religiosity there was plainly bad. It's surely bad for the whole humanity.

acqq 10y ago

> there was some organic internal growth as well (the most well known of course being algebra) The "Arabic numerals" were actually taken from India, and in that areas the astronomy, using complex calculations was practiced many centuries before, also using better numerals (positional, using letters, just like programmers use A-F in hex today) than the Roman ones which weren't practical. But yes, once that huge knowledge was taken over, there was some period of some improvements. But it ended more than 750 years ago, never to return, as the core of the religion itself actually never supported it. The developments during the following 750 years and the state of human rights in countries that claim to be based on the Islamic law are certainly illustrative and shouldn't be ignored. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests_on_the_Indian_subcontinent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests_on_the_Indian... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_India "An estimate of the number of people killed, based on the Muslim chronicles and demographic calculations, was done by K.S. Lal in his book Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, who claimed that between 1000 CE and 1500 CE, the population of Hindus decreased by 80 million." To compare, the total population of the world was at that time less than 550 million. http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/worldpop/table_history.php http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/worldpop...

soundwave106 10y ago
The "core of the religion" obviously supported greater knowledge for roughly 500 years. That's a fairly long time. And yes, they were conquerors. But historically who wasn't in 800-1200 AD? Remember, one of the reasons the Islamic Golden Age ended was that Baghdad was conquered by the Mongols. (We've had a relatively stable world map since World War II... that's historically pretty rare.) I do think that the last 750 years of the Arab world have been dominated by more stronger church-oriented viewpoints, which is unfortunate for the advance of ideas. But that does not imply extreme intolerance per se or radical violence. To be honest, I don't know anything historically as radical as Saudi Wahhabism or its terrorist spin-offs (well, nothing so "mainstream" at least). The Ottoman Empire and Mughal Empire, as far as I know, displayed some tolerance towards different religious sects (although they were never equals and tolerance varied wildly on the ruler), and the justice / law system in place seems roughly close to what the Christian world had before the Renaissance / Enlightenment days. The forced conversion stats you are quoting are, as the Wikipedia article says, controversial... and the times were different anyways. Today, although the human rights of many Islamic countries are wretched, I certainly can think of several of non-Islamic countries with worse human rights problems, compared to Islamic countries such as Jordan, India, post-revolution Tunisia, or heck even a middle-of-the-road semi-violator like Indonesia. (See: Congo, North Korea, pre-reform Mynamar) That's not to excuse the fact that a large portion of Islam nations suffer from wretched human rights. But, again I will ask you: if you really believe that Islam is fundamentally violent and this fact can't be changed, what's your solution to this? Personally, I believe that thought pattern is rather dangerous. This is what 1.6 billion people believe. Are you condemning all of them? If the focus was more narrow, like Wahhabism, that's a different story: Wahhabism has touched a lot of radical Islamic terrorist groups, and Wahhabism is clearly a religious tool of the Saudi state. Now, many Western countries like the United States are allies with Saudi Arabia. If we were really concerned about Islamic terrorism, you'd think we'd be rather concerned about this relationship. (There's political reasons behind this relationship, of course...)
- acqq 10y ago
  > The "core of the religion" obviously supported greater knowledge for roughly 500 years. No, what was before 750 years 1) was not what today's religious authorities recognize as the core and 2) was what doesn't exist in that form in the holy texts. In order to claim what you claim you'd have to demonstrate at least either 1 or 2. Because in fact the period existed is spite of the content of the texts and not because of them. The official religious core has the specific names: Sharia ("a body of moral and religious law derived from religious prophecy, as opposed to human legislation.") and Jihad ("the overwhelming majority of classical theologians, jurists, and specialists in the hadith understood the obligation of jihad in a military sense.") Fantastically, the confusion in the Western world about the "core" doesn't come from any rationally obtainable and provable fact about that religion, but only because of bad analogies. We all "know" the myth about Jesus, and the apparent "distortion" of the core faith by later church practices. The lazy mind concludes, using also completely false "common knowledge" like "every religion is the same" that ergo those born as members of that specific religion and the world would benefit from the return to the core. Which is unbelievably stupid. The same "sola scriptura" idea, that gave the Western world after enough wars and enough suffering enough deaths for religious beliefs, at least some hook to get free from some negative teachings and practices of the religion, if applied to the texts of this another religion (about which we worry now) uncovers immense hate, intolerance and the war until only one religion remains (everything written in the core)! That's the plainly visible truth for anybody who actually reads "the book." > This is what 1.6 billion people believe. Are you condemning all of them? What it "this" in that sentence of yours? Actually just the Western thought projects and supports both the "return to the core" (e.g. through being allies as you note) and the belief in "peacefulness" of "every religion" if the core is applied (which can't be farther from the truth). I claim that among these 1.6 billions you mention most of the people can understand that exactly these ideas ("return to the core good") can lead to more torture and suffering, and that they wouldn't want to be a part of it. It's we, the Western world, that should understand that simple truth. And stop using false analogies. > If we were really concerned about Islamic terrorism, you'd think we'd be rather concerned about this relationship. This argument is just "our leaders always know what they're doing, we don't have to worry or check if they lie and don't have to attempt to influence them democratically, and we can even blindly repeat their claims in our arguments without appearing uninformed." And it's completely false (war because of "Irag and WMD" and "to bring democracy for Iraq" is just one of the recent examples). Please read just the whole 5:32 and 5:33 and compare that with that part of 5:32 that the US president officially presented as the image of the religion and then tell me that you stay behind that. It's an insulting attempt of deception to anybody who knows even just these two verses (not to mention the book) in full (which includes enough believers). Then read and think about the reforms of Ataturk, that's the only long-term direction for these parts of the world and these believers that we should support. He knew that the "return to the core" or even increasing that kind of religiosity there was plainly bad. It's surely bad for the whole humanity.