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A subterranean world of water offers a glimpse of Ramla’s past

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Re: A subterranean world of water offers a glimpse of Ramla’s past

#31

In 1258, after the Siege of Baghdad by the mongols, the golden age of Islam ended. Scholars were killed, buildings were sacked, infrastructure was destroyed. Islamic Spain (Al-Andalus) survived temporarily. In Spain, the city of Cordoba in Andalusia was objectively the most advanced in all of Europe. After Al-Andalus was lost to Europeans, the Latin translations of the 12th century occurred. Those Latin translations,…

Why is this person being downvoted? Let's face it, the West in general does a great job of not giving credit to Muslims as it should. Chemistry, Algebra, Algorithms, Astronomy, the Scientific Method, etc.

Yes, we should be more grateful Muslims attacked and conquered Spain, taking it from those evil colonialist Europeans.

Re: A subterranean world of water offers a glimpse of Ramla’s past

#32

In 1258, after the Siege of Baghdad by the mongols, the golden age of Islam ended. Scholars were killed, buildings were sacked, infrastructure was destroyed. Islamic Spain (Al-Andalus) survived temporarily. In Spain, the city of Cordoba in Andalusia was objectively the most advanced in all of Europe. After Al-Andalus was lost to Europeans, the Latin translations of the 12th century occurred. Those Latin translations,…

Why is this person being downvoted? Let's face it, the West in general does a great job of not giving credit to Muslims as it should. Chemistry, Algebra, Algorithms, Astronomy, the Scientific Method, etc.

The Math genealogy project makes it very evident. Start following the tree:

https://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=204293

Students of his students include: Copernicus, Leibniz, many of the Bernoullis, Euler, Lagrange, Fourier, Poisson, Dirichlet.. and the list goes on and on...

Re: A subterranean world of water offers a glimpse of Ramla’s past

#33

In 1258, after the Siege of Baghdad by the mongols, the golden age of Islam ended. Scholars were killed, buildings were sacked, infrastructure was destroyed. Islamic Spain (Al-Andalus) survived temporarily. In Spain, the city of Cordoba in Andalusia was objectively the most advanced in all of Europe. After Al-Andalus was lost to Europeans, the Latin translations of the 12th century occurred. Those Latin translations,…

Why is this person being downvoted? Let's face it, the West in general does a great job of not giving credit to Muslims as it should. Chemistry, Algebra, Algorithms, Astronomy, the Scientific Method, etc.

..and they too in turn should credit the Greeks and Indian cultures whose knowledge they transcribed!

Re: A subterranean world of water offers a glimpse of Ramla’s past

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this person being downvoted? Let's face it, the West in general does a great job of not giving credit to Muslims as it should. Chemistry, Algebra, Algorithms, Astronomy, the Scientific Method, etc.

..and they too in turn should credit the Greeks and Indian cultures whose knowledge they transcribed!

They did. They preserved authorship in all their works. Their additions were in the form of footnotes, comments and original works.

They translated works of Ptolomy, Euclid, Archimedes, Aristotle, Galen for us.

They also produced very important works in Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, etc.

I challenge you to find translators for those languages in Medieval Europe when literacy rate was less than 1%. Their contributions were objectively important and critical.

Re: A subterranean world of water offers a glimpse of Ramla’s past

#35
post #28

There was no "golden age" in Islam, unless you think that an age of slaughter, murder and enslavement can be called "golden". Sam Harris on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I2WyY_R_hA Bill Warner on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwXtTwNvWXc

I'll think for myself rather than slurp down the filthy slop you're a fan of.

Re: A subterranean world of water offers a glimpse of Ramla’s past

#36

> The Pool of the Arches allows visitors to relive the city’s glorious past. Caliph Harun al Rashid, who commissioned the pool, ruled during the Golden Age of Islam, when economics, science and culture flourished from the western edge of the empire in Spain all the way into Asia. The significance and accomplishments of this period became clear as our boat glided through the dark water under the tall arches, still sta…

Compare, for example, the Basilica Cistern. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_Cistern It was built in Constantinople maybe 2 centuries earlier, and one would think that the technology persisted.

My favorite historical place in Istanbul.

Re: A subterranean world of water offers a glimpse of Ramla’s past

#37

The title should say "Arabic golden age" the secular attributes alone of the Arab culture created that golden age. In fact the golden age ENDED for religious reasons (just like the Catholic church did with Galileo for example) before the Mongols invaded. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwXtTwNvWXc and http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marginoferr/2014/06/05/lets-sto...

Objectively, it's not a "Global golden age", it's a "Islamic golden age". That's very different.

This guy does some heavy time travelling in order to justify his revisionism.

He moves from circa 900-1200 AD (Golden age of Islam), to 1800-2000 AD (Nobel Prize counting). After losing to the Mongols and being razed to the ground, then came the Ottomans, and then the Triple Entente backstabbed them with the Sykes-Picot agreement after World War I. They never came back from losing to the Mongols.

His point is so nonsensical, that is equivalent to saying that the Roman empire was weak because Italy did not win the World War 2, or that Ancient Greece is not worthy of recognition because modern Greece doesn't win Nobel prizes. He is comparing different millenia.

Then he changes subjects to the militaristic side of things. He mentions how they invaded Europe many times. However European nations constantly invaded each other all the time anyways. And that trend only ended in the early 20th century when Americans ended wars of aggression through NATO and the UN.

Follow better authors.

Re: A subterranean world of water offers a glimpse of Ramla’s past

#38

The title should say "Arabic golden age" the secular attributes alone of the Arab culture created that golden age. In fact the golden age ENDED for religious reasons (just like the Catholic church did with Galileo for example) before the Mongols invaded. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwXtTwNvWXc and http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marginoferr/2014/06/05/lets-sto...

Israeli Jew here. And I think that's a bit unfair. There's a critical difference between Islam and Christianity, and it bears nothing, because without grasping this detail you can't really give Islam a fair understanding.

Secularism in the Christian World is the result of peacemaking after the Wars of Religion. It's 1648, you want Christians to stop killing each other. Since this involves a religion whose followers engaged in near-genocidal wars over the inclusion of the word "filiouque" in one creed, you agree on a peace deal where the two sides agree to avoid all God-talk altogether.

Voila, secularism.

Meanwhile, you have several chapters in Muslim history where Sunni and Shia decide to have peace, for the sake of a prosperous humane existence. You get a lot of the same things: a flowering of art and scholarship. An improvement of daily life. Pluralism. A golden age, if you will. However, Sunni and Shia (and others) have a lot of God-talk in common that has never provoked any dispute. The wording of the daily prayer and so much more. So you get all the benefits that European history associated with secularism, as above, but everyone keeps on with putting inshallah, alhamdullillah, astagfirullah, et cetera in every sentence. That's why there's not really a secular strain in Arabic culture.

Re: A subterranean world of water offers a glimpse of Ramla’s past

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this person being downvoted? Let's face it, the West in general does a great job of not giving credit to Muslims as it should. Chemistry, Algebra, Algorithms, Astronomy, the Scientific Method, etc.

Yes, we should be more grateful Muslims attacked and conquered Spain, taking it from those evil colonialist Europeans.

You are mixing politics with cultural/scientific advancements.

What you say is equivalent to saying that Germans and Soviets do not deserve recognition because they were our adversaries.

Re: A subterranean world of water offers a glimpse of Ramla’s past

#40

The title should say "Arabic golden age" the secular attributes alone of the Arab culture created that golden age. In fact the golden age ENDED for religious reasons (just like the Catholic church did with Galileo for example) before the Mongols invaded. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwXtTwNvWXc and http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marginoferr/2014/06/05/lets-sto...

Note: I'm not taking sides, but just trying to be factual. This is very misleading. It was, in fact, Islam that was the cause of the 'golden age'. The Arabs existed for centuries with ~nil progress. If you notice, almost 99% of the inventors were Muslims, and based on their writings, dedicated ones.

I think it's fairer to say that the conquest of developed (Byzantine) Romans & Farsis by the newly-Islamic Arabs enabled the conquerors to reap the fruits of antiquity.
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