… that developed the order of algebra, our magnetic compass and tools of navigation, our mastery of pens and printing, our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires, timeless poetry and cherished music, elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.”*
Related:
The Cairo disaster
The great Cairo grovel
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, or kiss any ass to assure the survival and the success of my Presidency.”
“Mr. Obama’s revelation of his ‘inner Muslim’ in Cairo reveals much about who he is. He is our first president without an instinctive appreciation of the culture, history, tradition, common law and literature whence America sprang.”
In other words, it’s a fresh start!
“demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.”
Oh, sweet Jesus, how does one even comment on this stupidity? Is he lying? Is he that ignorant? The first black – sort of – president of the United States slavering about the racial equality of islam is just too dumb for words.
Ich bin ein Muslimer
Um, the compass was discovered in China around 200 BC – nearly 1,000 years before Mohammed defiled the earth.
And Muslim navigators? Is he on crack? I can think of plenty of Portugese, Spanish, Italian, and English navigators, but not one freakin’ Muslim.
36 months to go.. hope we survive it.
“Is he on crack? ”
More like he is “in” crack.
He’s got his head stuck up his arse so far he thinks his tonsils are large brain cells.
It will be decades before america ever elects another black president. With that stmt about algebra a lot of students might never vote democratic or have good thought about islam.
Hussein Obama isn’t going to let a little thing like the truth get in the way of his destruction of America.
It appears the great Hope is grovel ready, if he fails we’re all in deep trouble.
Brilliant Canadian (no sarc this time!) Northrop Frye once wrote “I must read Malcolm X to see why the hell a black revolutionary would turn to the religion of the Arab slave-traders.”
It sickens me that an American President, Black or otherwise, would suck up to the Islamic world. It is dishonest, unnecessary, mereticious, and it will be perceived as weakness.
This sort of thing is not unusual in hard-left academic circles. I remember reading about nitwit professors teaching their victims/students that a lot of modern society can be traced back to Africa. Obama shows his leftism every time he opens his mouth. It will be interesting to see how long the media can hide his true nature from the public.
I weep for America and indeed, this world.
Curiously he didn’t call attention to the commercial successes his ancestors enjoyed on the “trade routes” from Africa to Arabia. Did he and the missus find time to tour any of the Coptic districts and churches in Cairo?
That’s the stuff, Louie, don’t refute, don’t engage, don’t argue, just call names.
Mike,
Sadly this happens. And in an odd sense it is true. Without the first African figuring out how to make fire we wouldnt have…oh name anything. All this demonstartes is that Humanity’s ability to transmit knowldge means you dont have to rediscover everything your forebears did.
It is an old reaction to the triumphalism that existed in our society in the 50’s and early 60’s. So fine, we beat ourselves up a bit to open our minds a litle bit more but now it has turned the opposite direction. If it used to be about denial of non western cultures (I wonder, it was more about Western triumphalism) it is now about either flase elevation of others or denigration of Western values, traditions and accomplishments.
So maybe we will have to “rediscover” some old lessons, painful though they may be to refind.
My one hope, this is the apex of it all. I see enough signs of a rebalancing at the grassroots level. I just hope it isnt too late.
So pointing out the fact that the magnetic compass was discovered by the Chinese is racist?
Thanks for let us all know that Louie.
Is it racist to say that ten years ago Louie had two clues. One became lost and the other went looking for it. Neither have ever been heard from again.
“That’s the stuff, Louie, don’t refute, don’t engage, don’t argue, just call names.” Mamba
Facts really are an inconvenience for some.
Stephen: It’s likely that the first homonid to “make” fire was Homo Erectus, and that probably happened ouside of Africa. This is OT and reflects nothing on present Homo Sapiens Sapiens populations (that’s us); I’m just pedantic about some things.
Obama, his speech writer, and his teleprompter are ignorant morons. Saying that Islam gave us algebra and the magnetic compass is like saying the Catholic church gave us the printing press and the sextant. Arab culture and scholars expanded upon ancient Babylonian mathematics to develop algebra. Islam had nothing to do with it. All Islam ever gave the world was centuries of conquest, oppression, and terrorism.
How demeaning it is to hear a US president licking the asses of muslims clean since, in all their advanced science, they never developed toilet paper.
All of these historic accomplishments cited by Obama preceded Muslim communities and Islam, which was established by Mohammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure.
I’m a musician and music graduate but I have never heard of any Islamic music.
Herman
You forgot that wailing over loudspeakers they torture their faithful with daily.
And a handsome threesome those guys are! They match quite nicely with women in burquas.
The trend seems well established …. Bama goes to court some group and praises their accomplishments … doesn’t matter what accomplishments or even if there ever were any accomplishments.
Its the ACT of praise giving that matters.
If he has to make up something to praise … no problem … that’ll be taken care of.
What was the name of that little dance performed by the slick lawyer in “Chicago” …?? Oh yeah! Razzle Dazzle … the old hocus pokus …. a Chicago Two Step .. with a twist of … “How can they hear the truth above the roar?”
On historical matters … Bama has been wrong or said something completely asinine on every occasion.
Not that the MSMers would notice … they’re still in love with all the hopey dopey changey stuff.
“Islamic culture has given us majestic arches”
Is Obama trying to tell us Muslims created McDonald”s This guy really confuses me.
One word of advice to him though. Your father was a Muslim under Islamic law you are a Muslim. You have proclaimed your self a Christian. Also under Islamic law you are an apostate. The penalty for that is death. Don’t turn your back when you are over there my man.
Largs – right, since Obama’s father was a Muslim then that means that Obama is a Muslim. Or an apostate. But notice how in his speech, Obama slips around this problem by suggesting it was his father’s relatives who were, ah..Muslim.
As for the list of Islamic accomplishments, as most have pointed out, the list is a sham. Algebra was a Hindu development, printing was of course, Chinese. The magnetic compass was also originally Chinese. The understanding of disease as due to germs? Well, there is some evidence that this was a theory of Avicenna or Ibn Sina, a Persian Muslim. Nothing much happened until Pasteur.
As for that magnificent last sentence, of assuring us that Islam has demonstrated peace and tolerance – heh.
Remember, Obama doesn’t write his own speeches and is a total ignoramus about history, societies, culture etc.
I maintain that this speech was written for one audience only, the brainwashed youth of the Middle East. It is a propaganda or campaign speech, to lure the youth away from the dead end of fundamentalist Islam and into the modern world of collaborative action.
The fact that there is almost no factual truth in the speech is therefore, not relevant.
Louie – how about some debate, argument, analysis. Or is it the case that all you can do is name-calling and blog-bashing?
Actually prior to Islam the middle east made quite a number of scientific advancements particularly in Astronomy. You will note a great number of stars in our sky still contain Arabic names. However after the introduction of Islam inventiveness and creativity seems to have come to a grinding halt even to this day, sad really.
Surely a few of you remember the old Star Trek series when Chekov claimed virtually everything was a Russian invention (as Krushchev did)? That was done for laughs. We laughed.
This….not so.
“the brainwashed youth of the Middle East”
I’ve heard this comment several times and I think it does nothing to bring about a solution. The youth of the Middle East are ‘educated’ just as we all are ‘educated’ in societal norms relevant to our respective societies. I don’t like their societal norms but then again they don’t like mine and I’m quite certain that should I ask the local Imam in the nearest Saudi mosque I would be told that I had been ‘brain washed’ into the belief systems I hold.
Joe says
“If ask the local Imam in the nearest Saudi mosque I would be told that I had been ‘brain washed’ into the belief systems I hold.”
So what Joe! Is his belief system preferable? If so, then declare your bias. If not then shut up!
KevB.
Beat me to it.
Revisionist Socialist History. Coming to a teleprompter near you.
As I understand it, there actually were some significant discoveries in Muslim lands during the early years (maybe centuries). Europe was quite backward during those times. Unfortunately for the Muslims, the two civilizations managed to switch places over a period of time.
Nothing is guaranteed. If western politicians continue to follow false left-wing philosophies and tax-and-spend finances, we’ll be ready to switch back again. Our standard of living was rolling along until the ’70s when government intervention really started taking off. Since then, all you hear is “school leavers getting lower entry-level starting wages”, “pensions may not be paid until 67” and so on, resulting from the depredations of Big Government.
“I’m a musician and music graduate but I have never heard of any Islamic music.”
It’s all over the radio where I live and it sounds lie a non stop belly ache.
Habibi Habibi
Habibi ooooh Habibi
Habibi ooooh ooooh
oh Habibi Habibi
ooooh Habibi ooooooh oooooh oooooh
Habibi ooooh ooooh
ooooh ooooh HabibiHabibi ooooh HabibiHabibi ooooh Habibi Habibi ooooh Habibi Habibi ooooh Habibi Habibi ooooh Habibi
Habibi ooooh oooohHabibi ooooh Habibi
Hoarfrost you missed my point. I am stating here that the Islamic idea is a sustainable world view. I don’t believe it is a correct world view any more than I believe that the secular humanist view is correct but neither are the result of ‘brainwashing’. As is our human nature, few of us ever debate our world view preferring to simply accept what we have been told. Should somehow a miracle happen and all the Muslim indoctrination cease the Muslim world view would persist and, no. our ‘Bread and Circuses’ approach to inveigling recruits to our side will not be effective long term as our secular humanist world view doesn’t answer any truly important questions.
I hope the Chinese didn’t follow Obama’s speech as that was the opening theme in their wonderful Olympic games opening ceremony. Two of their greatest inventions were the wet compass and printing!
What a maroon.
That’s the stuff, Louie, don’t refute, don’t engage, don’t argue, just call names.
OK, I’ll play.
Muslim navigators? Lessee. Columbus had one of those in 1492. Then there was Ibn Battuta–look him up.
Geographers? Leo Africanus comes to mind. Philosophers? Ibn al-Haitham,and of course Ibn Rushd. I’m partial to Ibn Khaldun, myself.
You can trace algebra back to the Babylonians–but one doesn’t want to get into a “who invented this or that” contest, because much of this stuff is either lost in the mists of time, or borrowed, or simultaneously invented in may places, or evolved from earlier forms. Clearly algebra flourished in the heyday of Islam, as did astronomy and other sciences and arts.
Too bad about the ossification/decadence, but it’s pointless and silly to claim that no great achievements ever took place under Islamic civilizations.
Um, the compass was discovered in China around 200 BC – nearly 1,000 years before Mohammed defiled the earth.
Dead right about that.
I fail to find anything on the web about Muslim contributions to the development of printing. I know that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but I’ll believe that printing was a European invention until I see evidence to the contrary.
simultaneously invented
Read: “independently invented.”
As for printing–not printing-press printing, but block printing, known as “tarsh.”
Verses from poems by Abu Dulaf al-KhazrajT (10th cent.) and Safi ad-Din al-Hilli (14th cent.) suggest that unethical amulet peddlers printed amulets from wooden blocks and cast tin plates to sell to naive buyers who thought they were getting handwritten charms. This is the likely origin of the printed amulets that have been identified in various collections since the 1890s. If the tarsh described by the poets were indeed printblocks, the verses would serve to date medieval Arabic printing and show its geographical extent. The hitherto unsuspected casting of printblocks from tin, if confirmed by technical examination, would enhance appreciation of medieval Islamic technology. The locus of printing technology among the Banu Sasan “underworld” possibly explains the lack of broader influence and eventual disappearance of printing.
[Ref. Richard W. Bulliet (1987), “Medieval Arabic Tarsh: A Forgotten Chapter in the History of Printing”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 107 (3), p. 427-438.]
Ms Mew – changing the definition of printing from a moveable type to block copying is disinformation. And even woodblock printing is a Chinese invention dating from the 3rd century, before the Arab examples of the 4th c, and the tarsh of the 9th c.
As for your single individuals in science, such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna) of the 10th c, and a few others – these are not a collective but a few. The reality is that as a collective, the Islamic world turned its back on Reason, logic, empiricial evidence, practical analysis – and turned to a rejection of life and a repression of reality.
And I certainly disagree with Khaldun’s decaying vegetable theory of civilizations. And his binarism of civilication and barbarians is illogical.
Joe- no, brainwashing is not the same as socialization or education. The latter leaves intact the use of individual reason, logic, critical thinking and questioning. The former forbids all such individual actions.
What Arab Civilization?
Exploding the myth of Arab accomplishment:
http://www.ninevehsoft.com/fiorina.htm
Read it and grow wise, on ye champions of the Muslim myth.
ET:
You’re playing with words. Printing means printing. Obama didn’t say anything about printing presses. You folks jumped to that conclusion, because it was so easy to disprove–a new strawman tactic.
There’s a lot more to Khaldun than what you state, btw. Maybe another thread.
There are always a “few” who make the big contributions. I have no difficulty agreeing that the climate is hardly right for innovation on the Arab Peninsula at the moment, but this was not always the case, and it’s plain stupid, with respect, to argue otherwise.
It is obvious that Islam and it’s main enforcers, the arabs, is barbarism and it’s adherants barbarians.
What culture exists in the ME, exists inspite of Islam rather than because of Islam.
The phenominum of the Barbary Pirates, recent history BTW, is a clear example of this barbarism which extends into the modern era…..piracy, slavery and international extortion…
I have no difficulty agreeing that the climate is hardly right for innovation on the Arab Peninsula at the moment, but this was not always the case, and it’s plain stupid, with respect, to argue otherwise.
~MsMew at June 8, 2009 12:07 PM
It was always the case and it’s a damned LIE to argue otherwise.
The Arabs destroyed the cultures who really created the innovations that Obama and other liars claim Arabs invented, and then co-opted those innovations falsely claiming to be the inventors..
See my link from above:
http://www.ninevehsoft.com/fiorina.htm
slightly OT, but here is a reaction to the speech by some young American jews in Jerusalem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxt9HwfPwPo
glad to see these are the future soldiers of the IDF.
Oz, yes, Fiorina overstated the case. But, there’s one problem with the article you cite. While the author’s claims regarding Assyrian achievements have been exaggerated to some extent, particularly with respect to literacy, much of which occurred in the Hellenic period, the real problem the author has is in confusing Arabs with Turks. The Arabs were never capable of establishing and maintaining an efficient central government of any kind. The only one that came close was the Ummayad dynasty in Spain. Large, relatively efficient government (by the standards of the day) only came with the Ottoman Turks, a regime that most Arabs hated and despised. To pretend that the Muslim world was a monolith, as this author seems to imply, is a serious mistake.
For all the author’s protesting, for much of its existence the Ottoman Empire in its heyday was considerably more enlightened in religious tolerance than the barbaric kingdoms in Europe. Remember, it was the Ottoman Empire to which the Jews fled from European persecution in the 13th-16th centuries. The problem for the Ottoman Empire was that it did not evolve and develop, as did Europe, largely as a function of economic decline in the 18th century.
Sasquatch, your comment about the Barbary Pirates is simply stupid, unless you will concede that the savage behaviour of the Tortuga or Dunquerque pirates says anything about us. Does Maleus Maleficarum mean that all Christianity is irredeemably evil?
That islam is or isn’t the originator of various important contributions to society isn’t the issue here. The fact that mainstream islam has remained in a primitive, narrow-minded, restrictive tribal mindset for the past 600 or so years is the issue. Bill Clinton told us that in the ME, muslims were still p*ssed about the end of the Moorish rule of Andalusia in 1492. Hmm… well, there are no grudges like old grudges, I guess. If it wasn’t for the fact that a few lucky saudis struck oil early in the 20th century while digging for water, the ME would likely look far different today, and would be relegated to much more global irrelevance than they now enjoy.
So… algebra? Maybe. Compass? I dunno. What has islam perfected or brought forth to the world in the last 100 years, apart from the suicide bomb?
mhb23re
at gmail d0t calm
The issue here, mhb, is that far from contributing to human civilization, that Muslims and Arabs are parasites on it.
That Obama flatters them with these lies isn’t going to help them become contributors nor is it proper to dishonor the contributing cultures that created the things that Obama falsely attributes to Islam and Arabs.
Obama really is the Deceiver in Chief.
The guy is a knave of the first order.
Remember, it was the Ottoman Empire to which the Jews fled from European persecution in the 13th-16th centuries.
`cgh at June 8, 2009 3:23 PM
And why were they persecuted?
Because they were collaborators with the Muslims and helped to stamp out Christianity in the lands that Islam had conquered.
As you said, “The Arabs were never capable of establishing and maintaining an efficient central government of any kind.”
True.
The Muslims put Jews in the administrative positions and that is why the Jews were persecuted after the Reconquista.
no, ms mew, it isn’t stupid to argue that the ‘climate’ for innovation existed in the past in the Arab world. It didn’t; the ‘climate’ existed only for following others, not innovation.
Islam rejects reason, dissent, questions. It rejects the real world and focuses only on the abstract non-material world. It rejects individualism and only individuals think and reason and question.
And no, I’m not playing with words regarding printing. You are. It was perfectly clear that printing, as a strategy to spread information and knowledge, is related to the press, not woodblocks of patterns on parchment or cloth. You are the one who is playing games of disinformation.
The intellectual ‘climate’ in the current Arab states of the ME is as it was 1,000 plus years ago. That’s the problem. Islam rejects reason and science.
“brainwashing is not the same as socialization or education. The latter leaves intact the use of individual reason, logic, critical thinking and questioning. The former forbids all such individual actions.”
You talking about Islam or the average Canadian Grade School/University? Most of my middle eastern Muslim acquaintances (Iraq, Iran, Lebanon) are much freer thinkers than the Canadian school graduates I am familiar with.