I’m impressed that the Pope refused to cancel his visit to Lebanon. I’m even more impressed by the powerful words he spoke to Christians and Muslims:
He is a quiet, scholarly man. He is not blessed with the charisma or the flair for dramatic gestures that we saw in his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. He does not light up the sky or attract vast throngs. He had no ambition to be Pope. But he does his job. He speaks simple truths—truths that the entire world needs to hear. This is precisely what he did when he met with Christian and Muslim young people in Lebanon. Let them—and all of us—heed his message.
September 22nd, 2012 | 5:39 pm
He spoke the truth when he quoted the Emperor. But nothing hurts like truth.
September 22nd, 2012 | 9:49 pm
Prof. Robert George is absolutely right that Muslims and Christians should unite against violence. I have no doubt that the vast majority of Muslims are decent, nonviolent people, who want to live happy lives, like the rest of us. Their religion can be entirely compatible with democracy, and a commitment to civil liberties. Muslims have, like Christians and Jews, contributed immensely to our civilization, and can make even greater contributions, when Islam exists within a democratic republic.
September 23rd, 2012 | 10:32 am
Bret: Prof. Robert George is absolutely right that Muslims and Christians should unite against violence.
That would be really great. Christians can continue to extol Jesus and the great example he set, and Muslims can begin condemning and repudiating Muhammad and the rather bad example he set.
Bret: I have no doubt that the vast majority of Muslims are decent, nonviolent people, who want to live happy lives, like the rest of us.
That may very well be. See these statistics: http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=1184
Bret: Muslims have, like Christians and Jews, contributed immensely to our civilization
I am very pleased to hear that. Can you give me examples of how Muslims have contributed to our civilization, other than the extensive remodeling of lower Manhattan, so I can use these in debates with opponents of Islam?
September 23rd, 2012 | 8:09 pm
Maximilian Can you give me examples of how Muslims have contributed to our civilization, other than the extensive remodeling of lower Manhattan, so I can use these in debates with opponents of Islam?
At a time when Europeans were in the thrall of one invasion after another, the invention of algebra & navigational tools in Muslim lands spring to mind. The effect was so powerful that the words algebra and algorithm, two pervasive features of modern science, derive from Arab words.
This is just off the top of my head, though I can find more if I were to sit down with any serious work on the history of science.
September 24th, 2012 | 12:10 am
Hi Maximilian, I would certainly echo Jack Perry’s excellent comments, and add that, in the middle ages, excellent philosophers, such as Avicenna and later, Averroes, incorporated Platonism and Aristolianism into their philosophy, thereby helping make Plato and Aristotle, two of the most important philosophers to exist, in general, and to Christianity in particular. Thomas Aquinas, as great as he was, utilized these two great Muslims in his own enormous thoughts.
September 24th, 2012 | 12:21 am
Let me add that, Christianity, would be very different, without Aristotle’s influence on it. And Islam helped make Aristotle accessible to medieval Christian thinkers, such as Albertus Magnus (Aquinas’s mentor) and Aquinas.
And Avicenna, who lived in the tenth/eleventh centuries, was a great physician who made remarkable contributions to medicine, and the theoretical understanding of vision, among many other things.
September 24th, 2012 | 8:52 am
Jack Perry: At a time when Europeans were in the thrall of one invasion after another,
You forgot to mention that the religion of peace and love was one of the invading forces.
Jack Perry: the invention of algebra & navigational tools in Muslim lands spring to mind.
Algebra was not an original invention. Like so many other things Muslims are given credit for, it originated elsewhere – in Greece. A lot of things reached Europe through the part of the world conquered by Muslims, like the number zero, while it originated elsewhere, in this case in India.
I actually thought that Bret was talking about American civilization. And while there may be some debate about contributions by Muslims in the period before 1000, I cannot think of a single Islamic contribution to civilization over the past 500 years. Like Manuel Paleologus said (very rough quote from memory): “Show me what Muhammad brought that was new, and you’ll find things only evil and inhuman – like his command to spread his religion by the sword. Faith ought to spring from reason and not force.” Truer words were never spoken, and the Emperor knew better than anyone what he was talking about – he toured Europe for several years to get aid to stave off the Turkish jihad against what little remained of the Byzantine Empire. In our time, we can afford to be politically correct and accept the fiction that Islam is a religion of peace, because Islamic lands are no longer a military threat.
Jack Perry: This is just off the top of my head, though I can find more if I were to sit down with any serious work on the history of science.
I’d love for you to give me examples from the past 500 years. There’s a reason why Muslims are greatly under-represented in Nobel prize winners, and one of the few Muslim winners is not even recognized in his native Pakistan, because he is an Ahmadi.
September 24th, 2012 | 11:08 am
Maximilian You forgot to mention that the religion of peace and love was one of the invading forces.
The real problem Western civilization had up to that point was the large number of tribes that overran first Rome, then Byzantium: Goths, Ostrogoths, Huns, Franks, Lombards, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, Bulgars, etc.
These tribes had reduced most of the Western World to little more than territories of organized crime by the time the Johnny-come-lately Arabs came around.
Algebra was not an original invention.
I had meant to say “contributions to algebra”, since inventions in mathematics are always based on other people’s work, as Newton himself was glad to say, and I am well aware of the contributions of Diophantus, of the Indians, and of the Chinese, especially to what we now call linear algebra.
Nevertheless, you should sit down sometime and study how the inventions of Al-Khowarizmi, Omar Khayyam, and others are of a very different character from that earlier work. Diophantus’ contributions to what we now think of as algebra, for example, was essentially the invention of symbols (hence his name as the “Father of Algebra”), and not of the techniques used to solve general, purely algebraic equations. But no one took that idea up again until the later middle ages.
Nor did Diophantus or, for that matter, the Indians and Chinese, look upon algebra as a topic worthy of its own study. Diophantus, being a typical Hellenic mathematician, looked at mathematics as geometry, and that was all.
The standard in the field, Boyer and Mertzbach’s “A History of Mathematics”, writes that “the Al-jabr comes closer to the elementary algebra of today than do the works of either Diophantus or Brahmagupta, for the book is not concerned with difficult problems in indeterminate analysis but with a straightforward and elementary exposition of the solution of equations, especially of the second degree.”
A lot of things reached Europe through the part of the world conquered by Muslims, like the number zero, while it originated elsewhere, in this case in India.
Even if all the Muslims had accomplished was to communicate the accomplishments of Chinese and Indian mathematicians, it would nevertheless be a contribution. That said, that is not at all what they did.
September 24th, 2012 | 11:21 am
Whoops, missed something.
And while there may be some debate about contributions by Muslims in the period before 1000, I cannot think of a single Islamic contribution to civilization over the past 500 years.
There is no serious debate about contributions made by Muslims even beyond 1000, up until the time the Mongols and Turks came and smashed both them and the developing European civilization.
As for the past 500 years: I can name some mathematicians in my own field whose backgrounds are Islamic backgrounds, and while I haven’t inquired as to their own levels of piety, I remember from one conference that the wife of one who now lives in the US wears the veil. However, it would be indecent to do so in a discussion of this nature; besides, you can pull up any indexing service, look through the Journal of Symbolic Computation, the Journal of Algebra, and other respectable journals and see for yourself that Arab and Persian names appear. They are quite competent and make serious contributions. Lack of disclaimer: I have not collaborated with any of them on a paper, nor do I foresee doing so, so I do not say this out of self-interest.
September 24th, 2012 | 5:33 pm
Jack Perry: The real problem Western civilization had up to that point was the large number of tribes that overran first Rome, then Byzantium: Goths, Ostrogoths, Huns, Franks, Lombards, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, Bulgars, etc.
Well, there were no Vikings around in the period we are discussing, Viking raids began in the late eighth century. Also, most of Byzantium was overrun by the religion of peace – Syria, Palestine, North Africa, some of Asia Minor, not by Germanic barbarians.
Jack Perry: These tribes had reduced most of the Western World to little more than territories of organized crime by the time the Johnny-come-lately Arabs came around.
This is a rather outdated historical view. The Germanic barbarians did not want to destroy Roman civilization, it endured under most of them, particularly the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths. Certainly, if you lived in Spain or Italy, you wouldn’t have noticed much of a difference between 320 and 520, despite the disappearance of Roman imperial rule.
Jack Perry: Nevertheless, you should sit down sometime and study how the inventions of Al-Khowarizmi, Omar Khayyam, and others are of a very different character from that earlier work.
Unfortunately, I am less at home in your field of expertise than you are in mine, so I do need to study these things. However, from what I know of Khayyam, he was anything but an orthodox Muslim.
Jack Perry: There is no serious debate about contributions made by Muslims even beyond 1000, up until the time the Mongols and Turks came and smashed both them and the developing European civilization.
An alternative explanation is the emergence of the figure known as Al-Ghazali, who hated philosophy. The destruction wrought by the Seljuks and Mongols should have been only a temporary setback. The Persians burned Athens to the ground, and only a short while later, the philosophers were at it again. But it appears that the Islamic world never recovered from Al-Ghazali.
Jack Perry: As for the past 500 years: I can name some mathematicians in my own field whose backgrounds are Islamic backgrounds (…) However, it would be indecent to do so in a discussion of this nature; besides, you can pull up any indexing service, look through the Journal of Symbolic Computation, the Journal of Algebra, and other respectable journals and see for yourself that Arab and Persian names appear.
Well, I didn’t deny that there are any Muslim scientists – I named the Pakistani Nobel prize winner, after all. But considering that there are 1.5 billion Muslims around the world, the number of significant contributions to science are very, very few. They are easily outdone by the 15 million Jews. I believe this is because Muslims take their religion seriously, while Jews don’t – and the ones who do are mired in poverty, see the Haredim in Israel.
Incidentally, expat Persians tend to be rather irreligious. When I see a Persian name, I do not immediately assume that the person is a Muslim. The same assumption is safer for a person with a religious Arabic name – Arab Christians tend to have more neutral Arabic names (like Malik), and sometimes even Western names like Robert. Think Edward Said.
September 25th, 2012 | 1:29 am
Well, there were no Vikings around in the period we are discussing, Viking raids began in the late eighth century.
I don’t know what time period you’re restricting yourself to, but I was talking about the end of the Roman empire and the centuries of violence that prevented resurgence.
The Germanic barbarians did not want to destroy Roman civilization, it endured under most of them, particularly the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths.
Not only did Roman civilization not endure, many scholars consider the end of Roman civilization to coincide with their rule. The death of Boethius is widely viewed as a good landmark for the end of Roman civilization, and he was killed by an Ostrogoth king of Italy.
There is no contradiction at all between the Germans wanting to replace their Roman masters and/or carve themselves out a little pseudo-Roman fiefdom, and nevertheless reducing the empire to little more than territories of organized crime. Not everyone who destroys a civilization sets out to do so.
As for the Byzantines, they were indeed hard-pressed on all sides by the time the Arabs came round. I do not understand your insistence to reduce it to the Arabs, who were just one in a long stream of assaults.
Certainly, if you lived in Spain or Italy, you wouldn’t have noticed much of a difference between 320 and 520, despite the disappearance of Roman imperial rule.
I’m talking about both that period and the centuries after. Not just one invasion, but repeated invasions. Repeated instability.
However, from what I know of Khayyam, he was anything but an orthodox Muslim.
From what I know of him, you are too hasty in your judgment. In any case, it is immaterial: did he live in a Muslim culture, or not? After all, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were anything but orthodox Greeks, yet no one I know hesitates to number their accomplishments among the contributions of Hellenic culture.
The destruction wrought by the Seljuks and Mongols should have been only a temporary setback.
Ask a Russian sometime what s/he thinks of that theory.
As with most political disruptions, the destruction left by Turks and Mongols was hardly temporary. It’s like the dilemma of taking out a Mafia boss: once you destroy the center of power, all the people who were once happy to salute him suddenly find within themselves deep objections to saluting a former fellow lieutenant.
An alternative explanation is the emergence of the figure known as Al-Ghazali, who hated philosophy.
Even if true, it need not be either-or. Nevertheless, I would argue that political instability is much more problematic.
But considering that there are 1.5 billion Muslims around the world, the number of significant contributions to science are very, very few.
Rather than relying on crude population counts, you should compare proportions with sufficient time and luxury to spend on what the vast majority of the population considers pointless pencil-pushing. This proportion is much harder to determine, let alone compare. Rich Muslim countries tend to be sparsely populated, and with reason: they’re rich because of their oil, and their geography tends to be arid and barren. It’s harder to raise up the number of people odd enough to find pure scientific study interesting. But…
I believe this is because Muslims take their religion seriously, while Jews don’t – and the ones who do are mired in poverty, see the Haredim in Israel.
A much better comparison is what the secular culture values, or (as in early medieval times) what it is forced to value. For example, look at Western culture today. Both industry and academia bemoan a supposed lack in United States and Europe of home-grown scientists and mathematicians.* This is likely due in no small part to current secular fashions that reward low-attention, low-effort work with high payoffs in ways that were simply impossible in the past. Whatever the cause, it is certainly not due to our culture’s thrall to religion.
*Personally, I think this is not entirely true, but that’s beyond the scope of this discussion.
September 26th, 2012 | 2:27 pm
I cannot get my response approved, but let me thank you, Jack Perry, for making worthy points and generally having a more pleasant encounter than was the case previously.
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