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1001 Islamic Inventions
pev writes "There's a new traveling exhibition in the UK entitled 1001 inventions. It contains some of the most interesting inventions from the past few thousand years. The common theme, however, is that they all came from the Islamic world and not the west. In some cases [the list is] quite surprising. For the lazy, the Independent newspaper in the UK printed their top 20 from the exhibition."
Nothing on the list came from after 1300 CE/AD. What does that tell you?
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
Those inventions were created by people, not by Islam. Islam is merely a religion, and hence useless and incapable of anything at except stroking peoples emotions (for good or bad).
Those are human inventions.
I don't know why the word "Islamic" is attached to this article.
Just like terrorism isn't "Islamic", these inventions aren't necessarily Islamic either.
The religion of the inventor had nothing to do with these inventions.
I looked over the sites, and i find something intresting: The complete lack of any modern innovations. This project has completely backfired, instead of trying to promote Islamic society, it has proven the harsh reality that the middle-east is centeries behind the developed world.
Not Arabic because lots of these inventions are Persian, Indian, Chinese etc.
These inventions were created by intelligent, open minded people who happened to be Muslim and weren't living under oppresion of crazed power hungry lunatics who consider technology to be the tool of satan.
I lived in Pakistan for a few years and all the so called "muslim scholars" of today are uneducated trash who happened to brain-wash enough poverty stricken people in order to get power. These morons are the face of Islam these days and that's sad.
Hopefully, the few remaining educated sane muslims will be able to over turn this growing trend.
"The truth, of course, is that the vast majority of all historical accomplishments were achieved by straight, white, Christian males"
The vast majority of all historical accomplishments? You even use terms like "the truth" and "of course", making it sound ridiculously assumptious.
If I was to believe such a claim, I would require proof. European and American history is Eurocentric, so we know far more about European history than we do of Chinese, Arabian, Japanese, Indian, African or native american history. The Chinese and Japanese have for instance an extremely rich history full of accomplisments, lots of which are not well known by westeners. The same goes for most other civilisations.
Also, just because the white, christian male conquered large parts of the world, does not mean we were culturally superiour. We just happened to better at killing than them.
At #18, the Guardian notes that by the 9th century Muslim astronomers knew the Earth was round and had measured the circumference. The writer conveniently omits to mention that more than a thousand years before, the greek philosopher Eratosthenese has already done that. Certainly Muslim astronomy of the 9th century was far more advanced than European astronomy of the same time, but this article smacks to me of an attempt to say "everything was invented by a Islam". This is strengthed by #14 where they say "the zero was invented in India, but we use arabic numerals". I submit that the shape of the numerals is not very important, while the decimal notation and especially the concept of zero are the major invention here.
For one it is yet another misleading headline, briefly checking in TFA those inventions came later than Mahomet.
... to some religion, especially as these articles do not seem to cover other culture and civilization aspects and influences at all.
However it doesn't make sense to me to associate those inventions from Arabs, Persians, Ottomans,
It's just about a book with fancy colours illustrating inventions from parts of the world where Islam is the main religion now.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
but I wonder if I'll live to see the day when it's considered "acceptable" to be proud of straight, male, caucasian heritage. That's not to say I think there's anything to be proud of, but rather that it's interesting how we have all these parades, celebrations, "history" months, and special exhibits for the accomplishments of all the various configurations of gender, race, and religion, except straight, white, Christian male.
Did I wake up in some parallel universe today where there's a stigma attached to being straight or Christian? Last time I looked, there was still stigma attached to homosexuality, and bisexuality is mostly ignored or assumed not to exist. Atheists are often thought of as immoral, and given none of the protections and exceptions that religious people - yes, including Christians - get.
There may be no "parades" and so on, but that's because your types are celebrated, or even forced upon us, all the time anyway. In the UK, even though I went to a state school, we had to celebrate your religion every morning. In most countries, same sex couples are not permitted to have legal recognition for their relationship. Perhaps there'd be less parades if they were allowed to celebrate in the same way that heterosexuals can?
The truth, of course, is that the vast majority of all historical accomplishments were achieved by straight, white, Christian males.
Emphasis on the word historical. The number of Christian scientific developments is far less in the last century.
Having said that - I agree that it's silly to start rating which-group-of-people-did-what (although you yourself fall into this trap with the above paragraph). But for the most part, things like "parades" are not about this anyway, they're about raising awareness against discrimination. I disagree with your claim that it's not acceptable to be proud of straight, male, caucasion or Christian heritage.
while straight white males stand at the sidelines with their mouths shut, lest they be considered racist, sexist, homophobic, or just generally discriminatory.
No one is stopping you from celebrating achievments of straight white males. The problem is that you seem to want to also say "...and we're better than all the rest".
And unfortunately I think the fallout of this is becoming all too appearent. The Koran records Mohammad as stating:
Only argue with the People of the Book in the kindest way - except in the case of those of them who do wrong - saying, 'We have Faith in what has been sent down to us and what was sent down to you. Our God and your God are one and we submit to Him. (Surat al-`Ankabut; 29:46).
Islam at various points in history was actually much more tolerant than Christianity during its day. Mohammad did indeed show tolerance to Christians and Jews, and for a while even Jews were shown acceptance, reversing a long conflict that began over land before Islam existed. Saladin during the Crusades was not only a brilliant commander, but a very reasonable and tolerant guy, and those kind of values actually spurred the rise of chivalry in Europe.
Unfortunately it seems the "people of the book" are still a long ways off from following it, but the British have done good work here and it is exactly these type of things that can help reverse the dehumanization of our fellow man that has taken place lately. Hopefully as Islam ages, they will abandon many of the precepts created by man as was the case during the great schism in Christianity, but it is a two-way street, and more Christians will also have to think more like Jesus and Tom Fox than we have been. I think that within each religion of the "people of the book" lies a path to peace, the question is how many more deaths it will take before we can all find it.