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1001 Islamic Inventions
Posted by
Roblimo
on Mon Mar 13, 2006 10:20 AM
from the innovations-come-from-everywhere dept.
from the innovations-come-from-everywhere dept.
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."
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But... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:But... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:But... (Score:5, Funny)
Come on! A thousand years from now, Islam will clearly be more than 1.5 thousand years old ;^)
[I'm actually surprised no one beat me to it.]
Parent
Re:But... (Score:5, Informative)
No, Mohammed didn't create the religion, he's just the last prophet.
Similarly, Jesus didn't really create Christianity, he was Jewish. The Jews that became Christians decided that Jesus was the son of God as foretold in the old Testament, while the rest of the Jews decided that he was just another prophet and the true son of God hadn't come yet.
Christianity traces its roots to before Christ, just as Islam traces its roots to a time before Mohammed.
Parent
Noticed also. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Okay, I'll bite (Score:5, Funny)
Computer Science 101 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Computer Science 101 (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Nothing after 1300 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nothing after 1300 (Score:5, Interesting)
so minor that a german/roman emperor could lease the holy land for a lifetime (and having a clash with the pope over this back then)
The main problem for the downfall of the arabic civilization might be the in islamic wars, which mainly was triggered by the turkish people slowly but surely taking over the islamic empire and in islamic wars between various countries.
The impact on the eastern roman empire was severe however, they sped up its downfall which was more or less unavoidable anyway.
In the end the islamic civilisation basically was fruitful due to knowledge inheritance of the occupied eastern roman empire parts, and being hilghly tolerant to christians and jews in the occupied areas. Culture could only thrive in this tolerant area.
Parent
Re:Nothing after 1300 (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that they won the crusades, don't you? It is inconvenient for the "blame the West for everything" worldview, but my ancestors got their asses kicked.
The total failure of the Islamic world to produce any worthwhile contribution to human civilzation in the last 500 years is mostly a case of relative decline: what happens in Europe and America after 1500 is nothing short of amazing. Even if they didn't actually slow down their rate of cultural/technological production, they got blown out of the water by the competition. Still, it is striking how little that part of the world has been able to come up with in the last half-millenium.
You can't read an Arab magazine without seeing a list like this once a week. The fact that the British press is now getting into the act of praising 1000 year old inventions and ignoring the last thousand years of stagnation is telling.
Parent
Those inventions aren't Islamic (Score:5, Insightful)
Those are human inventions.
#'s 1002 and #1003 (Score:5, Funny)
Magic Lamp
(rimshot)
Islamic? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Lots of innovation (a long time ago) (Score:5, Interesting)
For reasons that I don't understand, the Christian and Muslim worlds seem to have flip-flopped regarding the dominance of religion vs. rational thought somewhere in the past 200-500 years. Of course this is a great over-simplification, but it's worth remembering that there was a time when the Arab world was the center of learning and enlightenment in the non-eastern-Asian world (I phrase it like that b/c I don't want to flamebait the Indians or Chinese).
Anything in the last 30 years??? (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA (Score:5, Informative)
The moslems only attacked Persia in 638. It seems to me that at least one of these inventions have nothing to do with Islam.
Not very well researched either... (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA: By the 9th century, many Muslim scholars took it for granted that the Earth was a sphere. The proof, said astronomer Ibn Hazm, "is that the Sun is always vertical to a particular spot on Earth". It was 500 years before that realisation dawned on Galileo.
The fact that the Earth was round (contrary to popular belief) was not big news in the 9th century. The ancient Greeks knew very well that the Earth was a sphere, and they too had calculated the circumference with surprising accuracy several centuries B.C. (not to mention before Mohammed). Also Galileo wasn't controversial because he claimed the Earth was round - it was because he claimed that the Earth revolved around the sun, and not vice versa. Sigh.
The earth is round! (and the greeks knew it) (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not an Islamic discovery (Score:5, Insightful)
18) By the 9th century, many Muslim scholars took it for granted that the Earth was a sphere. The proof, said astronomer Ibn Hazm, "is that the Sun is always vertical to a particular spot on Earth". It was 500 years before that realisation dawned on Galileo. The calculations of Muslim astronomers were so accurate that in the 9th century they reckoned the Earth's circumference to be 40,253.4km - less than 200km out. The scholar al-Idrisi took a globe depicting the world to the court of King Roger of Sicily in 1139.
But as I understand it, the Egyptian Eratosthenes had discovered this same thing 11 centuries earlier:
http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/marykay/assignments
Galileo was responsible for many great discoveries, but I've never seen anyone claim that he discovered the Earth was round. Many argue that a round world was common knowledge in Europe, despite what their maps might make us believe.
Re:Yeah yeah yeah (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Quote (Score:5, Informative)
Numbers is a poor example.
Credit where credit is due.
Parent
Re:Shouldn't these be called... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Shouldn't these be called... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Discrimination (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent