Thursday, June 19, 2008

The Truth About Islam in Europe

The following is the conclusion of "Truth About Islam In Europe," a lengthy and excellent article from the Brussels Journal.

The article refutes many of the claims of how the ignorant Europeans received much of their knowledge from the Muslim countries from the south, and provides an answer as to why those countries went into a deep and centuries long decline despite the lack of any significant invasions from the Christian world.

The article is worth opening and reading. It should be required reading by every high school senior and college freshman. Especially those in the liberal arts/poly sci programs.

I've recently been re-reading some of the books of American evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond, including Guns, Germs, and Steel. What strikes me is how Diamond, with his emphasis on historical materialism, fails to explain the rise of the West and especially why English, not Arabic, Chinese, Sanskrit or Mayan, became the global lingua franca. His most important flaw is his complete failure to explain how the Greater Middle East went from being a center of civilization to being a center of anti-civilization. This was not caused by smallpox or because zebras are more difficult to domesticate than water buffaloes. It was caused by Islam. Yet is striking to notice how Diamond totally ignores the influence of Islam. This demonstrates clearly that any historical explanation that places too much emphasis on material issues and too little on the impact of human ideas is bound to end up with false or misleading conclusions.






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