I remember learning all about Al Jazari (and all of the other Muslim scientists, philosophers and doctors at that time) back in primary school. As an Arab I can't help but feel both proud, of such achievements, and yet so sad, because of the state of decline the Islamic contribution to the scientific advancement has known.
I was reading Why Nations Fail, recently, and came across a similar sentiment:
> While the Egyptians were building the great pyramids of Giza around 2500 BC, the English constructed their most famous ancient monument, the stone circle at Stonehenge. Not bad by English standards, but not even large enough to have housed one of the ceremonial boats buried at the foot of King Khufu’s pyramid. England continued to lag behind and to borrow from the Middle East and the rest of Europe up to and including the Roman period.
Now it's completely different. The Middle East (largely), is far behind western civilization. What's happened since then? It's hard to comprehend how quickly nations and cultures can fall, as well how quickly they can rise.
The y-intercept generally doesn't matter. The slope does.
This reminds me of pg's Black Swan Farming: http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html. Black swans (e.g. Gutenburg's printing press) are the driving force for advancement in society. Since black swans beget more black swans (since one black swan in a certain society -> society supporting more of them), the effect is cumulative, and societies can rise and fall quickly. What does that mean today? Will Africa have their own black swans? Will South America?
You can only connect the dots looking backward. How do we know that our society won't be viewed 500 years from now the same way we view the Roman empire or Egyptian kingdom?
I don't think it's entirely true that you can only connect the dots looking backward... certainly it is an order of magnitude more difficult to be objective about ones own time, but it can be done if approached correctly. For instance, we can look back at the past and realize that choices were made in certain situations that were flat out in opposition to reality, and in such a way that the people of the time KNEW (or had the tools to know) that it was the wrong choice. Looking at present society through this kind of lens, ignoring social convention and analyzing things objectively, is, I think, helpful. For instance, it would not surprise me if within 100 years our current culture is looked down upon for being extremely oppressive and prejudiced against adolescents, harming them tremendously by denigrating them during a very formative period of their lives. It follows the pattern of every form of prejudice we have overthrown in the past. We view ourselves as superior, construct very poor scientific arguments for that superiority, and go about enacting great oppression, controlling the group 'for their own good' while expecting the worst of them (humans react poorly to oppression, so this expectation will be met).
Similarly, it is very likely that we will find many of the general ideas we have about sexuality will be shown to be very destructive and unhealthy. Our research already shows that increasing sexual activity by any amount results in real measurable health benefits. And history can show us that we exist in the most non-sexually-active period in human history. We'll certainly correct that at some point, history pretty much guarantees it. Wherever our society is a freakish unique outlier on something as basic as that, I think it's safe to expect it to be shown to be folly later.
Would that be a bad thing? Unless you're referring to the current 'golden age' ending, wouldn't it be a good thing if modern day achievements are still that well regarded 5 centuries from now?
(I suppose you could say that the current phase of western civilization falling, eventually, would be a bad thing. But isn't it inevitable that any single civilization will end, eventually?)
This isn't a very fair or accurate statement given that many of the greatest scholars of Islam weren't Arab (a large number were Persian for example). There were multiple centres of scientific endeavor throughout Islamic history including (but not limited to) Baghdad, Damascus, Al-Andalus (i.e. Islamic Spain) and Africa.
Much of the Islamic scholarship at the time revolved around gaining a greater understanding of the creation of God as a means to draw nearer to God.
In addition a lot of scholars in the major Islamic centres weren't even Muslim. For example, the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (welcomed by the local Jewish population) ushered in a Jewish Golden Age which produced Maimonides, one of the greatest Jewish scholars of the time.
Right, a Muslim scholar in Persia could be seen as a Persian scholar or a Muslim scholar. However, Arabs often end up looking at their contributions as Islamic Contributions, or rather Arab-Islamic dismissing non-Muslim Arabs. To your point, there were many non-Muslim Arab scholars.
My point isn't that there are many non-Muslim Arab scholars, it's that a lot of the greatest Muslim scholars at the time weren't actually of Arab origin. e.g. Ibn Sina and Al-Ghazali were both of Persian origin (although the lingua franca was Arabic).
Islam was the catalyst of change in the 7th century, I don't see how that could be denied. Yes, it was predominately Arabs that brought it outside the Peninsula but the scholarly achievements weren't Arab achievements, because, again, many of the scholars weren't Arabs. Heck, the most important book in Sunni Islam after the Qur'an was compiled by al-Bukhari, a non-Arab from Bukhara in modern-day Afghanistan.
If you look into it, Islamic scholarship didn't really kick off until the Abbasid Dynasty was established. Non-Arabs played a large role in allowing the Abbasids to come into power in the first place.
The jizya (tax on non-Muslims) was a higher fee than the zakat (religious tax on Muslims). As more and more non-Arabs started to embrace Islam, the Umayyads were getting less and less tax revenue because the new Muslims were playing zakat instead of jizya.
As such, they stated (against the laws of Islam) that non-Arab converts to Islam still need to pay the same amount as they were paying before they embraced Islam. Naturally, this led to a lot of resentment amongst the new non-Arab Muslims who would later support the Abbasid rebellion against the Umayyads.
The Abbasids would go on to employ many non-Arabs, especially Persians, into high positions in government.
"As such, they stated (against the laws of Islam) that non-Arab converts to Islam still need to pay the same amount as they were paying before they embraced Islam. Naturally, this led to a lot of resentment amongst the new non-Arab Muslims who would later support the Abbasid rebellion against the Umayyads."
First the Jizya was not a Tax payed because they weren't Muslims. It was payed for everyone who didn't participate in Islamic military. Think of it like a Latino living in the US and paying a fee (passport fees, green card fees..etc) for not participating in US military. Non-Muslim benefited from the same as Muslims in terms of public social help.
Secondly, Zakat can be sometimes higher than the Tax paid by non-Muslims. Depending on how much you own.
The jizya was payable by non-Muslims dhimmis living in an Islamic state. I don't know of any requirements that had to do with participating in the military, as there were non-Muslims citizens who fought alongside the Muslims (e.g. Christians battling in the Ottoman armies). The only thing I've heard is that the jizya is to refunded if the Muslims fail to defend the non-Muslims paying jizya if they're attacked. Not sure how accurate that is though.
Any of the ones living in pre-islamic Egypt/Babylon/Sumeria/Persia? Unless you don't believe the Egyptians/Babylonians/Sumerians/Persians were scientists and their innovations required no science or mathematics.
Arab can be a very generic and overly used term in many conversations. Please define who you think are Arabs.
Also the link this whole thread is about on wikipedia is about a Scientist from Turkey, not Arabia.
> "Badi'al-Zaman Abū al-'Izz ibn Ismā'īl ibn al-Razāz al-Jazarī (1136–1206) (Arabic: بديع الزمان أَبُو اَلْعِزِ بْنُ إسْماعِيلِ بْنُ الرِّزاز الجزري) was a Muslim polymath: a scholar, inventor, mechanical engineer, craftsman, artist, and mathematician from Jazirat ibn Umar (current Cizre, Turkey), who lived during the Islamic Golden Age (Middle Ages)."
Arab is not really generic. It is an ethnicity. An Arab does to have to be living in Arabia. Cizre at that time, was inhabited by Arabs. Al Jazari was an Arab, living in Cizre (Jazeera Ibn Amr in Arabic). It happens that this city today is a Turkish city.
Cizre is in modern-day Turkey very close to the current borders of both Iraq and Syria. A person born at that time and in that region could be from a multitude of different races.
I'm pretty sure we still find plenty of use in the ideas much older than that... Do we not still teach the ideas of Pythagoras et al?
I'm pretty sure what you're trying to say is religion has no place in the 21st century.
Also fun fact, the early days of Islam saw huge steps forward for women's rights, more so than pretty much any other culture at the time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_feminism#Early_reforms_...). I'm curious why you Mohammed was a misogynist and what that has to do with Islam?
What a hateful comment. How can one judge a man who lived in the 7th century by today's standards?! Objectively speaking, a warlord he might have been but a misogynist and a pedophile surely he wasn't.
my brother, that is a bit out of context. Don't be sad about it. Success passes on to those, who work hard for the greater cause. One should have rivals, but no enemies ;)
