THE ISLAMIC “GOLDEN AGE”

Apologists for Islam often speak of a “Golden Age” in mediaeval times when the Islamic world was allegedly more civilized than the Christian world. But that is mostly hype. The Muslim Arabs got most of their civilization when they took over Zoroastrian Persia and most of their ancient Greek texts direct from the Greeks themselves.

Yes. The Greeks did not fade away after the death of Alexander the Great. They continued on in the Eastern Mediterranean just as before. And when they were conquered by Rome, Rome simply took over their culture. The teachers for educated Roman youth were generally Greek. Far from suppressing Greek learning. Rome admired and promoted it. And anybody who knows his Bible knows how strong Greek culture still was in the time of St Paul. St Paul spoke Greek and wrote his letters in Greek to congregations in Greek cities such as Ephesus, Corinth etc.

And St Paul did not labour in vain. Christianity flourished in Greek lands. So 300 years later when the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire was set up it was both Greek and Christian from the beginning. Its headquarters was what we now call Turkey but it extended far and wide at various times. It was founded as a Christian empire by Constantine the Great and continued on as a fervently Christian empire for nearly 1000 years. But its culture was Greek and all the old Greek learning was preserved there. Although the Byzantines called themselves Romans, they spoke Greek -- mainly because they were Greek. And Byzantium coexisted with Islam for 500 years -- plenty of time for Greek culture to percolate across the borders -- which it did.

So the idea that the Muslims preserved ancient Greek learning is a laugh. The Greeks themselves preserved Greek learning and had a great Christian Greek civilization flourishing right alongside the Arab world for 500 years. The Christians taught the Arabs, not vice versa.

So the acclaimed civilization of Moorish (Islamic) Spain in the middle ages was little more than a projection of Byzantine culture and that was theological rather than philosophical and certainly not liberal in any sense. So Islam has not regressed. It has stood still. It was never innovative and is now just about as good or bad as ever it was. If you want to see what it was in the past look at what it is now.

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THE ABSURDITY OF FEARING AMERICA

Between the Leftist peaceniks and the Conservative isolationists in the U.S. electorate, the idea that any American President could do anything remotely imperialistic is laughable. Americans want to keep their boys at home and need a hell of a lot of persuading to do otherwise.

One Good Turn also has a succinct post on the European idea that American power needs “counterbalancing”.

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R.I.P. NATO

Ranting Screeds thinks that the NATO alliance is dead now that France and Germany have blocked moves to have NATO defend member-country Turkey. I think he is right. I think that this refusal should cause GWB to announce at some time of his own choosing that he now regards NATO as dead and start up negotiations for a new alliance of freedom-loving nations -- which would probably include most of the rest of Europe and could well be based in Poland.

The amusing thing is that the present alliance of France and Germany will probably prove to be very temporary. The average Frenchman hates Germans.

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ELSEWHERE

What a beauty! It took Tim Blair to come up with this one: NASA actually sent up an Arab on the space shuttle long before they sent up an Israeli! No nation tries harder to be fair than the USA.

Arlene Peck says that the Muslim Arabs have cost us an incalculable amount in their quest to force their religion on the rest of the world and that we should seize their oil to pay the cost of that. The USA easily could, but will it?

Ombudsgod reports that Leftist book banning is still going on in American universities. I think a lot of the universities should be renamed as “Madrassas” -- after the Islamic version.

Bigmouth has a fun idea about another rogue nuclear power: South Africa gave up its nuclear weapons. It's time that France did too. We cannot tolerate a power hungry regime in Paris that has nuclear weapons.

There is an interesting article here that compares the globalizing world of today with the globalizing world at the beginning of the 20th century. War and nationalism disrupted the peaceful globalization of 100 years ago so it is well to be cautious that the same factors do not derail it again. If globalization were stopped it would be as impoverishing as it was last time. (Article needs registration)

Detainees in Australian detention centres are the target of religious hatred. From Muslims

Chris Brand thinks Michael Jackson is not so bad.

Michael Darby has an interesting article on Shaka Zulu and what we could learn from him today.

The Wicked one does not like the French very much. Disliking the French is an old British tradition that Americans are taking over with gusto these days

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