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I am an Arab and I am pretty sure the article is full of misinformation before even reading it, but will read it anyway. Take the first paragraph > Contempora

I am an Arab and I am pretty sure the article is full of misinformation before even reading it, but will read it anyway. Take the first paragraph > Contemporary Islam is not known for its engagement in the modern scientific project. But it is heir to a legendary “Golden Age” of Arabic science frequently invoked by commentators hoping to make Muslims and Westerners more respectful and understanding of each other. President Obama, for instance, in his June 4, 2009 speech in Cairo, praised Muslims for their historical scientific and intellectual contributions to civilization. So first it says Contemporary "Islam" is not known for its engagement in the modern scientific project. Then it says Golden Age of "Arabic" science. Funny distinction. If you gonna use 'Arabic', use it everywhere. Also another funny thing that the "Idealistic" president, Obama, who they say praised muslims for their historical scientific and intellectual contributions to civilization, had no problem working with dictators who are the main reason for the decline of scientific study in the region. And also had no problem supporting Al Sisi coup after the Egyptian revolution. Edit: Adding that the Obama administration didn't want to admit it is a coup to be able to keep giving aid to the Egyptian military, which is prevented by the American constitution in case of a coup. Professor Chomsky always said that the US won't allow true democracy in the middle east. He even had a lecture in 2011 just after the revolution started predicting exactly what happened. So the US uses its power to keep the situation as it is, then the very much honest westerners come and say that we are backward in scientific study. Thanks guys. You are very wise and honest.

pvaldes 6y ago
You don't need to have a democracy to do science. Many great scientists in Europe or Asia were able to work in the context of absolute monarchies, terrible dictators or a context of patronage. None of those were "democratic" at all. Having a true democracy would be a bless for sure, but don't think that will magically produce scientists, or revolutionary new points of view. You need to seed, nurture, care for and harvest decades later. And this is one of the causes of decline of science. Everybody is now planned, arranged and forced to fit in chunks of 4 years, so the people now in power can take all the credit. As bad as dictators are, a stable dictatorship could ironically lead to a much more comfortable environment for scientists than a democracy. The first thing that many politicians do after stepping in power is to fire the scientists identified with the previous government (or discredit their work, or remove their funds...).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
throwaway413 6y ago
You already know when you read “Arabic world” vs Arab world...
AlexSW 6y ago
It goes on to talk about its usage of "Arabic science" at the beginning of the second section. "A preliminary caution must be taken about both parts of the term “Arabic science.” This is, first, because the scientists discussed here were not all Arab Muslims. Indeed, most of the greatest thinkers of the era were not ethnically Arab. This is not surprising considering that, for several centuries throughout the Middle East, Muslims were a minority (a trend that only began to change at the end of the tenth century). The second caution about “Arabic science” is that it was not science as we are familiar with it today.[...]"
- mrwnmonm 6y ago
  So why did they use Islam in the beginning?
  - mleonhard 6y ago
    USA's foreign interference is certainly important to talk about. But I would really like to hear your opinion on the meat of the article. Its main point is that Islam's rules apply to public and personal life so universities and government budgets get controlled by religion. Fundamentalism retards scientific discovery. (I was taught fundamentalism as a child and I confirm this is true.) So when fundamentalism spread through the Islamic world, they stopped discovering new science. A second point is that Arab culture doesn't value science. The Abbasid empire was controlled by Arabs. The empire translated scientific literature into Arabic for political reasons, not for the pursuit of knowledge. The existence of the large body of accessible scientific literature enabled highly intelligent folks to make scientific progress. The translation was not done in enduring institutions like universities. So the Golden Age of Arabic Science happened by accident, not because Arab culture or the empire valued scientific progress.
    - mrwnmonm 6y ago
      I believe that religion should not enforce any rules on scientific study. That being said, it would require (for me at least) some study to prove some of the claims you made. Egypt, while has a majority of muslims, is a secular country. Not in the sense that they have some worldview and understanding in political systems, they just don't rule with religion. So, I wasn't taught much about religion in my studying years. So, claims like "Arab culture doesn't value science" and "translated scientific literature into Arabic for political reasons, not for the pursuit of knowledge", would require me to read a lot in history to make a judgement. For example, I know that the chemistry that existed in their days was actually alchemy, so I think it was reasonable for them to reject it. The part of "Translations were for political reasons" needs a lot of research, or maybe I just don't know about it. I also think that those boundaries between cultures are almost gone by now. While there are some extreme groups (which I believe it does exist everywhere), young people here worship Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, and old people have their version of Fox News. It is the same shit everywhere. They don't have a 'culture' or some philosophy to reject science using it as you might think. They know nothing about Islam, and they know nothing about science. That is the majority of people, not all of them of course. I will exclude from that most of the young people who were active during the revolution. While the revolution changed us and made us more open to the world, it was a huge shock. [You might find this interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tTdlSzIANo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tTdlSzIANo] I realize that the situation was fucked up before the US gets into the picture. But a lot of people realized now that we need a real change and they will accept a lot of western ideas more than you think. But we saw the people getting killed in the streets, and the US supported the killer happily. So I don't really know where the situation goes from here.
abdullahkhalids 6y ago
Israel has good universities and has research output comparable to European/NA countries. The author is also including in Contemporary Islam, SEA countries like Malaysia. He also discusses Pakistan and ancient Indian civilizations as separate entities, which have geographical overlap, because Pakistan (and Bangladesh) is far behind India in terms of research productivity.
- mrwnmonm 6y ago
  Israel has that because the US accepts and supports that development. They won't allow that in the islamic countries.
  - simonh 6y ago
    If the Arab nations decided to embrace science education and to industrialise their economies there's nothing the USA or Europe could, or would want to do to stop it. In fact the West would gleefully sell them the technical know how and equipment needed to do it. After all, they even did the same for Communist China.
    - pvaldes 6y ago
      > If the Arab nations decided to embrace science education and to industrialise their economies there's nothing the USA or Europe could, or would want to do to stop it. Agree. But to be fair, not all is rosy. Israel has been signaled as the responsible of serial killings of scientists "of interest" in other countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Iranian_nuclear_scientists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Iranian_nucle... This means that we have less people in the planet able to find a solution for the problem of managing nuclear residues, for example. Something that would have greatly benefited Israel itself. And there are more than 300 cases of teachers being kidnapped, tortured and/or assasinated by US army (or other agents). http://www.iraqsolidaridad.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/List-of-Iraqi-academics-assassinated-November-2013.pdf http://www.iraqsolidaridad.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/... The idea of a country systematically killing 320 academics in Occident would be clearly seen as something atrocious. This should be treated exactly the same by international organisms.
diegoholiveira 6y ago
I would guess that Islam have no issues with good science, right? In my opinion, blaming religion for any decline of science is completely accepted even if there's no direct correlation between both, which is very bad because it's creates a false believe that religious people aren't educated.
- yamrzou 6y ago
  Islam has no issues with good science. On the contrary, the Quran has some verses which encourage enquiry, such as: "Say: 'Travel through the earth, and reflect on how he [god] started the creation." - 20 Al-'Ankabut.
  - pvaldes 6y ago
    > Islam has no issues with good science As long as it does not come in form of satiric cartoons, it seems... Free speech without blasphemy laws, and being able to express new ideas or discuss new points of view without fearing to lose your life by that, is -absolutely- essential for having good science.
    - throwaway413 6y ago
      Tell me, what do cartoons have to do with good science? The whole point of Islam being against people in artwork, is to reduce egoism and superficiality. To not put anyone on a pedestal. Sure, it’s quite an extreme take, however... Would you disagree that this is an issue in modern society? Selfies and social media perception above real life? Not saying I agree in any absolute fashion with “no people in art” etc, but to argue in bad faith against Islam’s scientific position is just obtuse and argumentative. There is merit there. And of course, this should go without saying but sadly cannot: extremist Muslims who commit violence in the name of these beliefs are horrible and wrong and guess what - not actually considered to be “good Muslims” by any true good Muslims out there, who value their fellow humans as also prescribed by their faith.
- rob74 6y ago
  There's nothing inherently wrong with being religious, I think the major problem is fundamentalism: if you consider your Holy Book (be it the Koran, the Bible or whatever else), or even more commonly a narrow interpretation of it, as the single source of truth and condemn all who deviate from it, that's a recipe for stagnation. That happened in Europe in the Middle Ages, and it's happening in the Arabic world now.
sumedh 6y ago
> had no problem working with dictators who are the main reason for the decline of scientific study in the region. If you get rid of the dictator you end up like Iraq and Libya after Saddam and Gaddafi were removed. Its better to deal with the devil you know.
- mrwnmonm 6y ago
  Nonsense, Egypt had a democratic elected president (which I didn't support), who won in a fair elections. And it is very funny that you mentioned two countries which the US were responsible for their destruction.
  - sumedh 6y ago
    Not sure what do you mean by Nonsense, are you saying current state of Iraq and Libya is ok. This is what Australian Traveller Govt site says about Egypt Kidnapping is a risk for travellers in Egypt. Violent crime can happen. Take extra care if you're a women and alone. Terrorists have attacked places popular with tourists in recent years. https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/africa/egypt https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/africa/egypt
    - mrwnmonm 6y ago
      So I was saying that the US is responsible for their destruction, and you thought that I think it is ok?
      - sumedh 6y ago
        Gaddafi was not a friend of the US, Saddam was but then he changed. Why do you think US wont do anything? and you conveniently ignored my point about Egypt
    - Slightofhand 6y ago
      You implied that the west keeping the devil dictator is better than having a revolution and for people to chose their own destiny. Even if it looks like a warzone now, assuming those people are left alone to decide their future, they will go back to peace and prosperity instead of having someone millions miles away decide what they eat, think and see.
chewz 6y ago
> I am an Arab and I am pretty sure the article is full of misinformation before even reading it... Yeh, that sums up the the article pretty well
- mrwnmonm 6y ago
  You cutting the last part of the sentence sums up a lot too.
DSingularity 6y ago
Even in the comments here people will bring up countries like japan as a contrast. Why did the Japanese, unlike the Arabs, rise again after their fall? Could the centuries of direct colonial rule by the Ottomans and Europeans played a role? The Ottomans were by no measure gentle but the Europeans were nothing short of barbaric. Take Palestine. To solidify their hold the British simply rounded up and executed fighting age men the moment rebellion started brewing. The stakes are high and the Europeans knew this. The Arabs sat on oil. Lots of it. Colonialism is doomed to fail because the uncivilized eventually rise up (imagine that). Enter Sykes-Picot and neo-colonialism. Give them the illusion of being free, back brutal dictators over the people, and divide and conquer along sectarian lines. Finally enter Israel. To really support for Israel Herzl, the founder of Zionism, wrote that Israel would “form part of a wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism.”. And they played their part. They are the wildcard ready to bomb any middle eastern country should they rise up and crawl towards independence. See all the nuclear power plants they bombed while they were still being built.
- acituan 6y ago
  > Why did the Japanese, unlike the Arabs, rise again after their fall? Because the ways Japan and Middle East were neo-colonized was different. After the bombs Japan wasn’t allowed to hold any army of significance and was enforced to have democratic institutions, which makes it very difficult for any dictatorial player to emerge, whereas in the middle east dictatorial regimes were not only embraced but even sometimes installed in the hopes that they could be easily controlled. Authoritarianism wreaks havoc on meritocratic processes such as scientific knowledge production, intellectual property rights and other institutions democracies take for granted to flourish.
- watwut 6y ago
  Japan had democracy imposed on them and so did Germany, both had them imposed by winning forces. The comment you are responding to complains about demoracy in Arab world being subverted by west.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago

pvaldes 6y ago

You don't need to have a democracy to do science. Many great scientists in Europe or Asia were able to work in the context of absolute monarchies, terrible dictators or a context of patronage. None of those were "democratic" at all. Having a true democracy would be a bless for sure, but don't think that will magically produce scientists, or revolutionary new points of view. You need to seed, nurture, care for and harvest decades later. And this is one of the causes of decline of science. Everybody is now planned, arranged and forced to fit in chunks of 4 years, so the people now in power can take all the credit. As bad as dictators are, a stable dictatorship could ironically lead to a much more comfortable environment for scientists than a democracy. The first thing that many politicians do after stepping in power is to fire the scientists identified with the previous government (or discredit their work, or remove their funds...).

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

throwaway413 6y ago

You already know when you read “Arabic world” vs Arab world...

AlexSW 6y ago

It goes on to talk about its usage of "Arabic science" at the beginning of the second section. "A preliminary caution must be taken about both parts of the term “Arabic science.” This is, first, because the scientists discussed here were not all Arab Muslims. Indeed, most of the greatest thinkers of the era were not ethnically Arab. This is not surprising considering that, for several centuries throughout the Middle East, Muslims were a minority (a trend that only began to change at the end of the tenth century). The second caution about “Arabic science” is that it was not science as we are familiar with it today.[...]"

mrwnmonm 6y ago
So why did they use Islam in the beginning?
- mleonhard 6y ago
  USA's foreign interference is certainly important to talk about. But I would really like to hear your opinion on the meat of the article. Its main point is that Islam's rules apply to public and personal life so universities and government budgets get controlled by religion. Fundamentalism retards scientific discovery. (I was taught fundamentalism as a child and I confirm this is true.) So when fundamentalism spread through the Islamic world, they stopped discovering new science. A second point is that Arab culture doesn't value science. The Abbasid empire was controlled by Arabs. The empire translated scientific literature into Arabic for political reasons, not for the pursuit of knowledge. The existence of the large body of accessible scientific literature enabled highly intelligent folks to make scientific progress. The translation was not done in enduring institutions like universities. So the Golden Age of Arabic Science happened by accident, not because Arab culture or the empire valued scientific progress.
  - mrwnmonm 6y ago
    I believe that religion should not enforce any rules on scientific study. That being said, it would require (for me at least) some study to prove some of the claims you made. Egypt, while has a majority of muslims, is a secular country. Not in the sense that they have some worldview and understanding in political systems, they just don't rule with religion. So, I wasn't taught much about religion in my studying years. So, claims like "Arab culture doesn't value science" and "translated scientific literature into Arabic for political reasons, not for the pursuit of knowledge", would require me to read a lot in history to make a judgement. For example, I know that the chemistry that existed in their days was actually alchemy, so I think it was reasonable for them to reject it. The part of "Translations were for political reasons" needs a lot of research, or maybe I just don't know about it. I also think that those boundaries between cultures are almost gone by now. While there are some extreme groups (which I believe it does exist everywhere), young people here worship Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, and old people have their version of Fox News. It is the same shit everywhere. They don't have a 'culture' or some philosophy to reject science using it as you might think. They know nothing about Islam, and they know nothing about science. That is the majority of people, not all of them of course. I will exclude from that most of the young people who were active during the revolution. While the revolution changed us and made us more open to the world, it was a huge shock. [You might find this interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tTdlSzIANo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tTdlSzIANo] I realize that the situation was fucked up before the US gets into the picture. But a lot of people realized now that we need a real change and they will accept a lot of western ideas more than you think. But we saw the people getting killed in the streets, and the US supported the killer happily. So I don't really know where the situation goes from here.

abdullahkhalids 6y ago

Israel has good universities and has research output comparable to European/NA countries. The author is also including in Contemporary Islam, SEA countries like Malaysia. He also discusses Pakistan and ancient Indian civilizations as separate entities, which have geographical overlap, because Pakistan (and Bangladesh) is far behind India in terms of research productivity.

mrwnmonm 6y ago
Israel has that because the US accepts and supports that development. They won't allow that in the islamic countries.
- simonh 6y ago
  If the Arab nations decided to embrace science education and to industrialise their economies there's nothing the USA or Europe could, or would want to do to stop it. In fact the West would gleefully sell them the technical know how and equipment needed to do it. After all, they even did the same for Communist China.
  - pvaldes 6y ago
    > If the Arab nations decided to embrace science education and to industrialise their economies there's nothing the USA or Europe could, or would want to do to stop it. Agree. But to be fair, not all is rosy. Israel has been signaled as the responsible of serial killings of scientists "of interest" in other countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Iranian_nuclear_scientists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Iranian_nucle... This means that we have less people in the planet able to find a solution for the problem of managing nuclear residues, for example. Something that would have greatly benefited Israel itself. And there are more than 300 cases of teachers being kidnapped, tortured and/or assasinated by US army (or other agents). http://www.iraqsolidaridad.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/List-of-Iraqi-academics-assassinated-November-2013.pdf http://www.iraqsolidaridad.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/... The idea of a country systematically killing 320 academics in Occident would be clearly seen as something atrocious. This should be treated exactly the same by international organisms.

diegoholiveira 6y ago

I would guess that Islam have no issues with good science, right? In my opinion, blaming religion for any decline of science is completely accepted even if there's no direct correlation between both, which is very bad because it's creates a false believe that religious people aren't educated.

yamrzou 6y ago
Islam has no issues with good science. On the contrary, the Quran has some verses which encourage enquiry, such as: "Say: 'Travel through the earth, and reflect on how he [god] started the creation." - 20 Al-'Ankabut.
- pvaldes 6y ago
  > Islam has no issues with good science As long as it does not come in form of satiric cartoons, it seems... Free speech without blasphemy laws, and being able to express new ideas or discuss new points of view without fearing to lose your life by that, is -absolutely- essential for having good science.
  - throwaway413 6y ago
    Tell me, what do cartoons have to do with good science? The whole point of Islam being against people in artwork, is to reduce egoism and superficiality. To not put anyone on a pedestal. Sure, it’s quite an extreme take, however... Would you disagree that this is an issue in modern society? Selfies and social media perception above real life? Not saying I agree in any absolute fashion with “no people in art” etc, but to argue in bad faith against Islam’s scientific position is just obtuse and argumentative. There is merit there. And of course, this should go without saying but sadly cannot: extremist Muslims who commit violence in the name of these beliefs are horrible and wrong and guess what - not actually considered to be “good Muslims” by any true good Muslims out there, who value their fellow humans as also prescribed by their faith.
rob74 6y ago
There's nothing inherently wrong with being religious, I think the major problem is fundamentalism: if you consider your Holy Book (be it the Koran, the Bible or whatever else), or even more commonly a narrow interpretation of it, as the single source of truth and condemn all who deviate from it, that's a recipe for stagnation. That happened in Europe in the Middle Ages, and it's happening in the Arabic world now.

sumedh 6y ago

> had no problem working with dictators who are the main reason for the decline of scientific study in the region. If you get rid of the dictator you end up like Iraq and Libya after Saddam and Gaddafi were removed. Its better to deal with the devil you know.

mrwnmonm 6y ago
Nonsense, Egypt had a democratic elected president (which I didn't support), who won in a fair elections. And it is very funny that you mentioned two countries which the US were responsible for their destruction.
- sumedh 6y ago
  Not sure what do you mean by Nonsense, are you saying current state of Iraq and Libya is ok. This is what Australian Traveller Govt site says about Egypt Kidnapping is a risk for travellers in Egypt. Violent crime can happen. Take extra care if you're a women and alone. Terrorists have attacked places popular with tourists in recent years. https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/africa/egypt https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/africa/egypt
  - mrwnmonm 6y ago
    So I was saying that the US is responsible for their destruction, and you thought that I think it is ok?
    - sumedh 6y ago
      Gaddafi was not a friend of the US, Saddam was but then he changed. Why do you think US wont do anything? and you conveniently ignored my point about Egypt
  - Slightofhand 6y ago
    You implied that the west keeping the devil dictator is better than having a revolution and for people to chose their own destiny. Even if it looks like a warzone now, assuming those people are left alone to decide their future, they will go back to peace and prosperity instead of having someone millions miles away decide what they eat, think and see.

chewz 6y ago

> I am an Arab and I am pretty sure the article is full of misinformation before even reading it... Yeh, that sums up the the article pretty well

mrwnmonm 6y ago
You cutting the last part of the sentence sums up a lot too.

DSingularity 6y ago

Even in the comments here people will bring up countries like japan as a contrast. Why did the Japanese, unlike the Arabs, rise again after their fall? Could the centuries of direct colonial rule by the Ottomans and Europeans played a role? The Ottomans were by no measure gentle but the Europeans were nothing short of barbaric. Take Palestine. To solidify their hold the British simply rounded up and executed fighting age men the moment rebellion started brewing. The stakes are high and the Europeans knew this. The Arabs sat on oil. Lots of it. Colonialism is doomed to fail because the uncivilized eventually rise up (imagine that). Enter Sykes-Picot and neo-colonialism. Give them the illusion of being free, back brutal dictators over the people, and divide and conquer along sectarian lines. Finally enter Israel. To really support for Israel Herzl, the founder of Zionism, wrote that Israel would “form part of a wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism.”. And they played their part. They are the wildcard ready to bomb any middle eastern country should they rise up and crawl towards independence. See all the nuclear power plants they bombed while they were still being built.

acituan 6y ago
> Why did the Japanese, unlike the Arabs, rise again after their fall? Because the ways Japan and Middle East were neo-colonized was different. After the bombs Japan wasn’t allowed to hold any army of significance and was enforced to have democratic institutions, which makes it very difficult for any dictatorial player to emerge, whereas in the middle east dictatorial regimes were not only embraced but even sometimes installed in the hopes that they could be easily controlled. Authoritarianism wreaks havoc on meritocratic processes such as scientific knowledge production, intellectual property rights and other institutions democracies take for granted to flourish.
watwut 6y ago
Japan had democracy imposed on them and so did Germany, both had them imposed by winning forces. The comment you are responding to complains about demoracy in Arab world being subverted by west.
- 082349872349872 6y ago