...
Post A Reply
my profile
|
directory
login
|
register
|
search
|
faq
|
forum home
»
EgyptSearch Forums
»
Egyptology
»
The African Foundation of Modern Spain (The Berbers)
» Post A Reply
Post A Reply
Login Name:
Password:
Message Icon:
Message:
HTML is not enabled.
UBB Code™ is enabled.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Supercar: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by King_Scorpion: [QUOTE]Whenever trolls are given easy access to wiggle their way out of facts pointed out, using terms like "rediscovered", "revived", "dark age", and intentionally focusing on supposed translations of "Aristotle", or "Moors didn't rule Spanish culture," "Moors got displaced by Arabs" and so forth, it is time for somebody to bring the discussion back to the real point of the topic, which again was...[/QUOTE]Well, the Moors did translate Aristotle...to be more precise, it was a Moor named Ibn Rushd ( also called Averroes).[/QUOTE]And...? Read what you are responding to carefully, before you respond. [QUOTE]King_Scorpion: The problem is when Horemheb says things like it was solely the rediscovering of Aristotle's work that brought about the Rennassiance...[b]while totally ignoring everything the Moors did that ALSO revolutionized Europe forever (things I've mentioned ad nauseum already).[/b][/QUOTE]Bingo! I wasn't sure when that point would be taken home. [QUOTE]King_Scorpion: The Moors had just as much to do with the Rennassiance as Aristotle...and if it weren't for the Moors there may have never been a translation anyway. Where do you think the Christians and Jews went to school at? Cordova and Toledo most likely[/QUOTE]The last question should be posed to trolls in denial, not those who already know better, but I believe Dr Salah Zaimeche put it best; though redundancy of repetition can be annoying, it is something I found to be necessary on discussion boards: [b][i]Dr. Salah Zaimeche BA, MA, PhD; [/i][/b] [i]Research Assistant, UMIST, Manchester, UK and Researcher at FSTC[/i] First and foremost, the [b]learning recovered, or found, or available, at that Renaissance of 16th-17th ([i]another illogically based notion of western history[/i]) bears no resemblance to anything left by the Greeks. The mathematics, the medicine, the optics, the chemistry, the astronomy, geography, mechanics etc, of the 16th is centuries ahead of that left by the Greeks. Any person with the faintest knowledge of any such subjects can check this by looking at what was left by the Greeks and compare it with what was available in the 16th century, and even with what was available centuries up to the 14th. Anyone can thus question this notion of Greek learning recovered during the Renaissance.[/b] **Furthermore, even supposing the Greeks had made some contribution in some of the sciences cited, [b]what is the Greek contribution to the invention of paper, printing, farming techniques, irrigation, windmills, the compass, industrial production, glass making, cotton production, the system of numerals, trade mechanisms, paper money, the cheque? Modern finance as a whole, gardens, flowers, art of living, urban design, personal hygiene, and many more manifestations that compose our modern civilization?[/b]** As for the notion that [b]Greek learning had disappeared, this is another preposterous point repeatedly made by western ‘historians’.[/b] [b]Greek learning was available throughout the so-called Dark Ages in Byzantium and even in the ‘west’. Western historians never fail to insist that Muslims sought that Greek learning from Byzantine sources, and yet say that it has disappeared, which is impossible to square.[/b] Now, if such learning was available all along, [b]why did ‘western scholars’ have to wait until they conquered Islamic lands in Sicily (11th), Toledo (Spain) (in the 11th) and in the east during the Crusades (11th -12th) before they started acquiring such ‘Greek’ learning? Why wait?[/b] And above all, why did Western translators of the 12th century, to whom we will return further on, chose to translate such sources? This is never explained by those historians who select miniscule or fragmentary pieces of evidence, often concoctions of their own, to build extensive theories [b](i.e. the Pirenne theory, the burning of the Alexandria library)[/b] [b]The Evidence[/b] [b]The real evidence from history shows that where the Greeks had left off, the Muslims had continued thus setting up the foundations of modern science and civilization[/b]. Before looking, albeit briefly, at some aspects of Muslim decisive influences, this author, like other Muslim historians, first and foremost, never ceases to acknowledge that, although the Muslims had made such contributions, the Islamic mind and soul that science and civilization are God given gifts to all people of equal abilities. The reason why the Muslims excelled at the time they did, and played the part they did is not due to any special status (as others appear to recognize as their own), but simply to circumstances current then, i.e., spur of Islamic values, which were very strong; driven by faith, Muslims were able to accomplish what they could never achieve under other circumstances as history has shown. Moreover, the Muslims had their own contributions but never denied their inheritance from other civilizations; particularly from the Chinese with whom they always had excellent relations… [i][b]…amongst the Muslims, only a number of such scientists were Arabs; most were instead Turks, Iranians, Spanish Muslims, Berbers, Kurds...thus a myriad of people and origins brought under the mantel of Islam, a religion open to all who sought to, and excelled in learning. And that was the first, and by far, the most multienthnic culture and civilisation that had ever existed, and not equalled in many respects, even today, not even in countires and institutions which keep adverstising their equal opportunity status. ..[/b][/i] Such observations are not conjured up by the present author to pursue his own agenda. They can be found amidst some of the best but often inaccessible and thus obscure ‘western historians’, or men of renown. Thus, Glubb states: [i][b] “ The indebtedness of Western Christendom to Arab civilization was systematically played down, if not completely denied. A tradition was built up, by censorhip and propaganda, that the Muslim imperialists had been mere barbarians and that the rebirth of learning in the West was derived directly from Roman and Greek sources alone, without any Arab intervention.”[/b][/i]… To go through Islamic impact on modern science and civilization in detail demands so vast a book that nobody has written yet, and it is much beyond the capability of this author to address this issue as extensively as he would wish. Notwithstanding, just some overall observations and points are raised here. In order to highlight the true scale of Islamic impact, its crucial to look, however briefly, at the condition of western Christendom during those so-called Dark Ages, when, such were the contrasts, and such was the envy of western Christians of life in the Muslim world, that for Europeans, as Menocal puts it, [i]‘It must have at times appeared that wealth and comfort went hand in hand with the ability to read Arabic.’[/i] Whilst universality of learning was a fundamental element in Islamic civilization, science was the [i]‘hobby of the masses, with paupers and kings competing to obtain knowledge…’[/i] Whereas in western Christendom, as Haskins observes, [i]‘….relatively few could read and write, these being chiefly ecclesiastics and, save for the very moderate attainments of an individual parish priest, men of education were concentrated in certain definite groups separated from one another by wide stretches or rural ignorance. ‘ [/i] As Draper puts it, [b]‘Europe was hardly more enlightened than Caffraria is now, the Saracens were cultivating and even creating science. Their triumphs in philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, proved to be more glorious, more durable and therefore more important than their military actions had been.’ [/b] Draper goes on to say that whilst ‘the Christian peasant, fever stricken or overtaken by accident, journeyed to the nearest saint’s shrine and expected a miracle; a knife of his surgeon.’ ‘The spurious medicine of ignorant and mercenary ecclesiastical charlatans. These operated by means of chants, relics, and incense; and their enormous gains were one of the chief sources of revenue to the parish and the monastery, and a corresponding burden on the people.’ [b]Urbanity and wealth also belonged to the Muslims, at that time. [/b] In tenth century Cordova, there were 200,000 houses, 600 mosques, 900 public baths, the streets were paved with stones, and were cleaned, policed, and illuminated at night, water was brought to the public squares and to many of the houses by conduits, Islamic cities, as a whole with their mosque and madrassas, their churches, synagogues, and schools, their bathhouses, and other amenities, contained all that was needed for leading a religious and cultured life. Such Islamic cities boasted huge expanses of gardens. Basra in Iraq was described by the early geographers as a veritable Venice, with mile after mile of canals criss-crossing the garden and orchards; Damascus with its 110,000 gardens, and in Turkey, Ettinghausen says flowers were a ‘devotion, if not mania.’ Whilst in Islamic towns and cities, trade flourished in all directions, and the wealth of its land were the objective of the preying and attacks of Christian pirates, the view from Western Christendom was hardly flattering. So big was the contrast, as Scott puts it, that the magnificent architectural works of ‘Arab genius were attributed to an infernal agency, as beyond the efforts of unaided human power,’ an opinion still enlightened by the Spanish peasantry, who firmly believe that the Muslim palaces ‘were constructed by evil spirits.’ This account by Draper tells that: [i] “As late as 16th century England, there were highwaymen on the roads, pirates on the rivers, vermin in abundance in the clothing and beds…The population, sparse as it was, was perpetually thinned by pestilence and want…”[/i] - Draper As similar state of wretchedness prevailed everywhere else. Scott tells how: [i] “ In Paris there were no pavements until the thirteenth century; in London none until the fourteenth; the streets of both capitals were receptacles of filth, and often impassable; at night shrouded with inky darkness; at all times dominated by outlaws; the haunt of the footpad, the nursery of the pestilence, the source of every disease, the scene of every crime” [/i] - Scott In the Spanish Asturias at the time of the Muslim arrival (early 8th century), Scott states that, [i] “The dwellings were rude hovels constructed of stones and unhewn timber, thatched with straw floored with rushes and provided with a hole in the roof to enable the smoke to escape; their walls and ceilings were smeared with soot and grease, and every corner reeked with filth and with vermin. The owners of these habitations were, in appearance and intelligence, scarcely removed from the condition of savages. They dressed in sheepskins and the hides of wild beasts, which unchanged, remained in one family for many generations. The salutary habit of ablution was never practiced by them. Their garments were never cleansed, and were worn as long as their tattered fragments held together.”[/i] - Scott From this alone, it seems extremely odd how, instead of gratitude, western historians, including Albornoz and Spanish historians of his ilk, deny the Islamic influence. - --- Of note, Dr Salah Zaimeche says: [i]learning recovered, or found, or available, at that Renaissance of 16th-17th ([b]another illogically based notion of western history[/b]) bears [b]no resemblance to anything left by the Greeks.[/b] The mathematics, the medicine, the optics, the chemistry, the astronomy, geography, mechanics etc, of the 16th is [b]centuries ahead of that left by the Greeks.[/b][/i] Joseph Hell provides an example of this in his publication: [i]"A [b]new school of thought emerged in the late 13th century that in itself constitutes a revolution.[/b] It is referred to as the Maragha Revolution, and it has been described as "an essential link to Copernican astronomy without which Copernican astronomy will be hard to explain" [Anon.]. The Maragha Revolution was, to put it simply, a [b]rejection of many of Ptolemy's statements, and a sudden surge of new ideas and theories to replace incorrect Ptolemaic assertions.[/b] Thus, it turns out that the Arabs had come to many of the [b]same conclusions as Copernicus well before Copernicus' time[/b], although the astronomers of the Arabic Maragha school were still working within the confines of a geocentric model. Nonetheless, these astronomers were the ones who [b]corrected many of Ptolemy's mistakes and made the first real moves towards the final realization of the true workings of the solar system.[/b] It is for this reason that many have firmly declared that Copernicus was influenced by the Arabic Maragha school."[/i] Ps - I for one, think it is misleading to equate "Moor" with "Arab", though the Moorish rule in Spain is directly linked to the expansion of Islam in North Africa. I tend to use "Moor" within its original context, i.e. corresponding to North Africans, particularly west Africans. [/QB][/QUOTE]
Instant Graemlins
Instant UBB Code™
What is UBB Code™?
Options
Disable Graemlins in this post.
*** Click here to review this topic. ***
Contact Us
|
EgyptSearch!
(c) 2015 EgyptSearch.com
Powered by UBB.classic™ 6.7.3