The following piece is an excellent roundup of Islam's supposed achievments. The author forgot one contribution of Middle East non-Muslims, however; Greek fire.
Cuts through the BS.. Great read; a response to an American diplomat's speech to a Muslim organisation just after 911
It is a lie that Arabs invented algebrae. The zero and decimals were invented by Assyrian Christians.
What Arab Civilization?
May 8th, 2006
By Peter BetBasoo
EDITOR'S NOTE: There is great need for setting the record straight on the history of the Middle East. The revisionism of the last few years will lead Western Civilization into bondage. The following letter by Assyrian scholar Peter BetBasoo is a very important step in the right direction. It was sent by Assyrian scholar Peter BetBasoo to Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett Packard Corporation, in response to a speech she presented in Minneapolis on September 26, 2001. It is reprinted by permission. Please read and pass it on to others.
Dear Madame Fiorina:
It is with great interest that I read your speech delivered on September 26, 2001, titled "Technology, Business and Our way of Life: What's Next" [sic]. I was particularly interested in the story you told at the end of your speech, about the Arab/Muslim civilization. As an Assyrian, a non-Arab, Christian native of the Middle East, whose ancestors reach back to 5000 B.C., I wish to clarify some points you made in this little story, and to alert you to the dangers of unwittingly being drawn into the Arabist/Islamist ideology, which seeks to assimilate all cultures and religions into the Arab/Islamic fold.
I know you are a very busy woman, but please find ten minutes to read what follows, as it is a perspective that you will not likely get from anywhere else. I will answer some of the specific points you made in your speech, then conclude with a brief perspective on this Arabist/Islamist ideology.
Arabs and Muslims appeared on the world scene in 630 A.D., when the armies of Muhammad began their conquest of the Middle East. We should be very clear that this was a military conquest, not a missionary enterprise, and through the use of force, authorized by a declaration of a Jihad against infidels, Arabs/Muslims were able to forcibly convert and assimilate non-Arabs and non-Muslims into their fold. Very few indigenous communities of the Middle East survived this -- primarily Assyrians, Jews, Armenians and Coptics (of Egypt).
Having conquered the Middle East, Arabs placed these communities under a Dhimmi (see the book DHIMMI, by Bat Ye'Or) system of governance, where the communities were allowed to rule themselves as religious minorities (Christians, Jews and Zoroastrian). These communities had to pay a tax (called a Jizzya in Arabic) that was, in effect, a penalty for being non-Muslim, and that was typically 80% in times of tolerance and up to 150% in times of oppression. This tax forced many of these communities to convert to Islam, as it was designed to do.
You state, "its architects designed buildings that defied gravity." I am not sure what you are referring to, but if you are referring to domes and arches, the fundamental architectural breakthrough of using a parabolic shape instead of a spherical shape for these structures was made by the Assyrians more than 1300 years earlier, as evidenced by their archaeological record.
You state, "its mathematicians created the algebra and algorithms that would enable the building of computers, and the creation of encryption." The fundamental basis of modern mathematics had been laid down not hundreds but thousands of years before by Assyrians and Babylonians, who already knew of the concept of zero, of the Pythagorean Theorem, and of many, many other developments expropriated by Arabs/Muslims (see HISTORY OF BABYLONIAN MATHEMATICS by Otto E. Neugebauer).
You state, "its doctors examined the human body, and found new cures for disease." The overwhelming majority of these doctors (99%) were Assyrians. In the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries Assyrians began a systematic translation of the Greek body of knowledge into Assyrian. At first, they concentrated on the religious works but then quickly moved to science, philosophy and medicine. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Galen, and many others were translated into Assyrian, and from Assyrian into Arabic. It is these Arabic translations which the Moors brought with them into Spain, and which the Spaniards translated into Latin and spread throughout Europe, thus igniting the European Renaissance.
By the sixth century A.D., Assyrians had begun exporting back to Byzantia their own works on science, philosophy and medicine. In the field of medicine, the Bakhteesho Assyrian family produced nine generations of physicians, and founded the great medical school at Gundeshapur (Iran). Also in the area of medicine, (the Assyrian) Hunayn ibn-Ishaq's textbook on ophthalmology, written in 950 A.D., remained the authoritative source on the subject until 1800 A.D.
In the area of philosophy, the Assyrian philosopher Job of Edessa developed a physical theory of the universe, in the Assyrian language, that rivaled Aristotle's theory, and that sought to replace matter with forces (a theory that anticipated some ideas in quantum mechanics, such as the spontaneous creation and destruction of matter that occurs in the quantum vacuum).
One of the greatest Assyrian achievements of the fourth century was the founding of the first university in the world, the School of Nisibis, which had three departments, theology, philosophy and medicine, and which became a magnet and center of intellectual development in the Middle East. The statutes of the School of Nisibis, which have been preserved, later became the model upon which the first Italian university was based (see THE STATUTES OF THE SCHOOL OF NISIBIS by Arthur Voobus).
When Arabs and Islam swept through the Middle East in 630 A.D., they encountered 600 years of Assyrian Christian civilization, with a rich heritage, a highly developed culture, and advanced learning institutions. It is this civilization that became the foundation of the Arab civilization.
You state, "Its astronomers looked into the heavens, named the stars, and paved the way for space travel and exploration." This is a bit melodramatic. In fact, the astronomers you refer to were not Arabs but Chaldeans and Babylonians (of present day south-Iraq), who for millennia were known as astronomers and astrologers, and who were forcibly Arabized and Islamized -- so rapidly that by 750 A.D. they had disappeared completely.
You state, "its writers created thousands of stories. Stories of courage, romance and magic. Its poets wrote of love, when others before them were too steeped in fear to think of such things." There is very little literature in the Arabic language that comes from this period you are referring to (the Koran is the only significant piece of literature), whereas the literary output of the Assyrians and Jews was vast. The third largest corpus of Christian writing, after Latin and Greek, is by the Assyrians in the Assyrian language (also called Syriac).
You state, "when other nations were afraid of ideas, this civilization thrived on them, and kept them alive. When censors threatened to wipe out knowledge from past civilizations, this civilization kept the knowledge alive, and passed it on to others." This is a very important issue you raise, and it goes to the heart of the matter of what Arab/Islamic civilization represents. I reviewed a book titled HOW GREEK SCIENCE PASSED TO THE ARABS, in which author De Lacy O'Leary lists the significant translators and interpreters of Greek science. Of the 22 scholars listed, 20 were Assyrians, one was Persian and one an Arab. I state at the end of my review: "The salient conclusion which can be drawn from O'Leary's book is that Assyrians played a significant role in the shaping of the Islamic world via the Greek corpus of knowledge. If this is so, one must then ask the question, what happened to the Christian communities which made them lose this great intellectual enterprise they had established? One can ask this same question of the Arabs. Sadly, O'Leary's book does not answer this question, and we must look elsewhere for the answer." I did not answer this question I posed in the review because it was not the place to answer it, but the answer is very clear, the Christian Assyrian community was drained of its population through forced conversion to Islam (by the Jizzya), and once the community had dwindled below a critical threshold, it ceased producing the scholars that were the intellectual driving force of the Islamic civilization, and that is when the so called "Golden Age of Islam" came to an end (about 850 A.D.).
Islam the religion itself was significantly molded by Assyrians and Jews (see NESTORIAN INFLUENCE ON ISLAM and HAGARISM: THE MAKING OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD).
Arab/Islamic civilization is not a progressive force, it is a regressive force; it does not give impetus, it retards. The great civilization you describe was not an Arab/Muslim accomplishment, it was an Assyrian accomplishment that Arabs expropriated and subsequently lost when they drained, through the forced conversion of Assyrians to Islam, the source of the intellectual vitality that propelled it. What other Arab/Muslim civilization has risen since? What other Arab/Muslim successes can we cite?
You state, "and perhaps we can learn a lesson from his [Suleiman] example: It was leadership based on meritocracy, not inheritance. It was leadership that harnessed the full capabilities of a very diverse population that included Christianity, Islamic, and Jewish traditions." In fact, the Ottomans were extremely oppressive to non-Muslims. For example, young Christian boys were forcefully taken from their families, usually at the age of 8-10, and inducted into the Janissaries, (yeniceri in Turkish) where they were Islamized and made to fight for the Ottoman state. What literary, artistic or scientific achievements of the Ottomans can we point to? We can, on the other hand, point to the genocide of 750,000 Assyrians, 1.5 million Armenians and 400,000 Greeks in World War One by the Kemalist "Young Turk" government. This is the true face of Islam.
Arabs/Muslims are engaged in an explicit campaign of destruction and expropriation of cultures and communities, identities and ideas. Wherever Arab/Muslim civilization encounters a non-Arab/Muslim one, it attempts to destroy it (as the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan were destroyed, as Persepolis was destroyed by the Ayotollah Khomeini). This is a pattern that has been recurring since the advent of Islam, 1400 years ago, and is amply substantiated by the historical record. If the "foreign" culture cannot be destroyed, then it is expropriated, and revisionist historians claim that it is and was Arab, as is the case of most of the Arab "accomplishments" you cited in your speech. For example, Arab history texts in the Middle East teach that Assyrians were Arabs, a fact that no reputable scholar would assert, and that no living Assyrian would accept. Assyrians first settled Nineveh, one of the major Assyrian cities, in 5000 B.C., which is 5630 years before Arabs came into that area. Even the word 'Arab' is an Assyrian word, meaning "Westerner" (the first written reference to Arabs was by the Assyrian King Sennacherib, 800 B.C., in which he tells of conquering the "ma'rabayeh" -- Westerners. See THE MIGHT THAT WAS ASSYRIA by H. W. F. Saggs).
Even in America this Arabization policy continues. On October 27th a coalition of seven Assyrian and Maronite organizations sent an official letter to the Arab American Institute asking it to stop identifying Assyrians and Maronites as Arabs, which it had been deliberately doing.
There are minorities and nations struggling for survival in the Arab/Muslim ocean of the Middle East and Africa (Assyrians, Armenians, Coptics, Jews, southern Sudanese, Ethiopians, Nigerians...), and we must be very sensitive not to unwittingly and inadvertently support Islamic fascism and Arab Imperialism, with their attempts to wipe out all other cultures, religions and civilizations. It is incumbent upon each one of us to do our homework and research when making statements and speeches about these sensitive matters.
I hope you found this information enlightening. You may contact me at keepa@ninevehsoft.com for further questions.
Thank you for your consideration.
Peter BetBasoo
Mr. BetBasoo's writing is both informative and illuminating, not unlike one of my favourite TV programmes some years ago called Connections. To know is to understand. Thank you Peter.
j_m
The concept of ZERO was invented independently only TWICE in human civilization. The first was by the Malayalam people of southern India about 2000 years ago. It is interesting that while Western peoples talk about our numeral system as "arabic", Arabs call it "Indian". The other invention of zero was by the Olmec/Mayan civilization of Central America about 1500 years ago. The Assyrians had nothing to do with it.
Second, the development of Algebra was developed in various locales, beginning in Babylon in the ancient period. Developments advanced from Greece to India, but the "seminal" work was "al-Kitāb al-muhtasar fī hisāb al-ğabr wa-l-muqābala" by Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Kwārizmī (a Persian living in Baghdad in 820). This book gives us the word Algebra (al-ğabr). The author's name gives us the word Algorithm (al-Kwārizmī). So while you may like to say the Muslim society had limited input into the advancement of knowledge, you would be wrong.
John P.
Carly Fiorina wasn’t a diplomat but the CEO of Hewlett Packard – probably thought she was a diplomat though. I’ve always liked this letter, so much so that I’ve saved it as a Word file for future reference.
Regarding the concept of Zero, I always thought that mathematical idea originated in India among Hindu mathematicians. It also was discovered independently by the Mayans who were very advanced in mathematics and may have had the most advanced calendar in the world. I always like the Mayan number system based upon 20 and not 10. Apparently the ancients counted both toes and fingers.
You're right, John B. I'd seen this letter some years ago, but had lost track of it.
I'd been under the impression she was a diplomat.
Just as an addition to the letter; were people here aware that Islams three greatest shrines; The Great Mosque of Cairo, The Blue Mosque of Istanbul and the Temple Mount Mosque were all designed and built by Christians?
Up until I'd discovered this I'd been searching, on and off, for several years to come up with something brilliant something that was intrinsically Islamic. I thought for a moment I'd found the holy grail, particularly as pertains to the Cairo Mosque, but was soon disappointed.
It was at that point that I just threw in the towel and realised that everything Islamic had either been borrowed (and never returned) or stolen.
No algebra, no science, no medecine, no mathemeatics, no astronomy, no visual arts (apart from Byzantine inspired mosaics) and very little music, song or dance.
In fact, all the capacities, urges and creative expression that differentiates us from animals are reduced to the bare minimum in the Islamic world because they constitute a direct threat to Allah's authority
Don't create, pray!
Via LGF about the Brit bust:
Following the anti-terror raids in London, Islamic web sites in Britain and other countries are seething with hatred for the kuffar: UK site: Can we help dying infidel?
SNIP
...A man who wrote in to say he was offended by posters put up by the group in east London was told in response: “The way to better British society is to remove all the British values and to teach the people the Islamic values. If it wasn’t for the man-made way of life in britain, we would never have seen such high levels of crime, rape, alcoholism, homosexuality, adultery, theft, burglary, exploitation and terrorism in the UK and the world today! Rather we must continue to struggle and change the British way of life and introduce and teach the Islamic values to all, so that all the people in Britain can flourish.”
---
I think that about covers it.
I've seen another piece written how everything ties into Islam.
Did you know Jesus' mother Mary could be considered muslim cos she covered her hair?
I pointed out she was 700 years before Mo and that wouldn't make her muslim, it makes muslims Jewish.
Sandy P.
Re: “I pointed out she was 700 years before Mo and that wouldn't make her muslim, it makes muslims Jewish.”
Ouch, that must hurt the true believers.
I like this quote from the Globe and Mail (via LGF):
“I had gotten to know Mr. Abdelhaleem last year, after he issued a controversial fatwa against too much innovation in Islam.”
This statement sums it all up neatly.
[External Link]
Sandy P. : The-Virgin-Mary-as-Muslim line dovetails perfectly with Islam's expropriation of the icons, the inventions and the intellectual property of other cultures.
Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mary were all *really* Muslim, but were just too stupid to realise it, you see.
It took Mohammed's "enlightenment" to rightly guide the whole clueless gang to the "true" god of Islam.
In fact, radical muslims have tired, most unsuccessfully, to expropriate Neil Armstrong, the first human begin to set foot on another celestial body, by claiming he'd embraced Islam.
So Islam, despite the heated denials of most Muslims does have its own holy trinity: Beg, Borrow and Steal!
There's at least one ME culture that hasn't been squashed (by Islam)...:)
..not for lack of trying, though.
John P.
Re: “..radical muslims have tired, most unsuccessfully, to expropriate Neil Armstrong, the first human begin to set foot on another celestial body, by claiming he'd embraced Islam.”
Similar to as seen here in an interview between Ali G and Buzz Aldrin. ;-)
You might piss your pants laughing at this one – it’s not what you would expect.
[External Link]
Gunter's column was excellent; also Christie Blatchford in the Globe!
Posted at 2006-06-05 14:16:37 [PermaLink]John Palubiski: "...to come up with something brilliant something that was intrinsically Islamic."
There are the Great Mosque of Tashkent
[External Link]
The Kalyan Mosque, Bukhara
[External Link]
and the Taj Mahal
[External Link]
and many others.
The Great Mosque of Cairo (Al-Azhar) was never a Christian church.
[External Link]
It, and any mosque in Istanbul, are not among the "greatest shrines of Islam". These are:
"The three holiest places of worship in the Islamic world are the Mosque of the Ka'ba in Mecca, the Mosque of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina, and the Masjid Aqsa, adjacent to the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem [that one you had]."
[External Link]
Mark
Ottawa
I remember reading some Egyptian historians questioning the significance of al-asqa, IIRC. Seems they think history is wrong, Mo couldn't have done it.
The article was significant in that it appeared in al-Watan and nothing really gets printed there w/o gov't approval.
Sandy P: Interesting point. On a theological basis, Islam and Judaism are the closest of siblings. So close, that Jews are potential competition... which may explain why Muslims are taught a particular hatred for (and lies about) Jews.
Posted at 2006-06-05 20:53:32 [PermaLink]Mark Collins: I'm not challenging the fact that the world's largest mosques aren't "Islamic". What I'm saying is that those Mosques ( the biggest and most beautiful) that one finds in places like the M.E., for example, and which people take to be examples of Islamic architectural genuis are often nothing of the sort; most were designed and buit by Christian architects and engineers and even a few Jews.
In other words, what we believe and take to be works of islamic brilliance are often the products of non-muslim ingenuity.
The desingers of the great mosque of Cairo were Christians. The structure, from the beginning, may have been meant as a Muslim place of worship, but because its builders, its architects and its designers were non-muslim you simply can't class it as a work of Islamic genius. It's not the use the stucture has been put to, but rather the identities of the builders that counts here.
More recently, Morocco built what is now the world's largest mosque (completed in 1996) It's a remarkable structure that appears, when observed from certain angles, to float on the waters of the Atlantic. However, after some investigation I was very disappointed to learn that the chief architect/engineer and designer was a French Catholic.
As for the mosques of Central Asia, I'd be careful there, as well. You see, when the one in Tashkent was built the vast majority of the inhabitants in the region were still non-Muslim and possessed technologies and techniques often far in advance of those of the Arab invaders. We tend to forget that pre-Islamic Central Asia was far from the civilisational backwater it has now become.
One thing is indisputable, however, and it's this; virtually all the Mosques, at least in the Arab world, are Hagia Sophia knock-offs.
Few serious historians or architects would dispute that.