Oh yes, after mastering the rudiments of fire Omar and his band of Moslem scholars burned the library down as an act of piety; or perhaps to fuel the bath houses for six months and enjoy some baser luxuries that they couldn’t make for themselves or even fully comprehend.

The ideal that these dolts preserved classical learning is ludicrous.

First you write: In any case, your recent posts suggest an aggressive rampant petty antiIslamic agenda thus I would be very sceptical about anything you selectively present as "evidence"

Then: Valid crticism of Islam is vital. Not your subjective BS which you
repeat constantly to make yourself feel good about your insidious
beliefs.

Please come back when you have real content to provide.

When you have no more arguments, and in particular as you only want to demonize anybody that you think doesn't agree with you, you start to write yourself the nicest BS I have ever seen.  Your approach is typical dictatorial, whether islamist or stalinist.

I don't see what Wilders has to do with Islam & Science. Are you sometimes depressed or so when the truth gets to the surface?

And I see that you are nevertheless invaded by some hate as any kind of correct critisism of Islamist extremists is in your mind a critique of Islam itself. Or is this then the absolute proof you provide yourself that there is only 1 islam=islamist extremism?

First of all, it's "Azhar", not 'aznar'; and secondly it's not really an "university" because it's only a religious centre for studying islam. In the first european universities you could also study theology, but also mathematics, prosody, physics, and so on. From the moment that al-Azhar & Al-Karraouine was founded they produced jihad, sharia and veiled women, our universities produced people that enhanced the possibilities and knowledge of mankind.

For those of you that understand Dutch, I recommend this

article

If someone has the time to translate it into English, be my guest and I can check it afterwards.

"The Arabic world can be proud of the preservation and translation of the old Greek works when Europe was going through its Dark Ages."

I often hear that, and I wonder what it means. Once the Roman empire had disappeared in Western Europe (good riddance!), the Greek culture continued to thrive in the Byzantine Empire, throughout the Middle Ages, until Byzantium was destroyed by the Turks. Maybe the Arabs did not destroy every library when they invaded North Africa, but it is doubtful they would have been interested in Greek philosophy.

The Arabic world can be proud of the preservation and translation of the old Greek works when Europe was going through its Dark Ages. They should be lauded for that. But to say that much original thought was developed through that time is certainly too much. Yes there were some great Arabic scientists, like Alhazen, who was also Muslim. That should be acknowledged. But to call that an achievement of Islam?

Watched a documentary on the history of Islam on PBS.  The one thing that struck me is their continual reference to comparing itself, in its heyday, to the Christians.  Also, their history on a personal level is skewed.  A Bulgarian friend told me of the history of her country that the Muslim hordes came and converted people by the sword.  A Muslim overheard and interjected that that wasn't true.  He said they were converted because of the culture they brought.

Keep shining it on these ridiculous myths; very happy to see someone letting the air out of such propaganda.

While you're at it, please do find time to debunk the general Islamist claims of scientific progress and societal advancement.

The fact that they essentially conquered and saddled the brilliant Assyrian peoples, appropriated their achievements and inventions, and then proceeded to ride them to ruin and persecute them as they are now doing to the Jews, has not yet slowed the advance of these propagandistic claims of "Islamic science and medicine".

Iqbal, don't make me laugh: always worried about islamophobia, but never on sharia & jihadism & veiled women. You are just perfidious, like all moslims/lefties (don't know what you are but you will be one of the two).

"The West is thus regressing and abandoning the scientific process as well."

It might be worth reading the robust comments from the al-Guardianistas following Ms Ghannoushi's article before deciding that all is lost.  

An islamic bitch with a veil is writing this kind of nonsense in an european newspaper: did you see the picture ???! This makes me sick, just look at that picture, I can't understand why they allow such a person to write in an european newspaper.

The veil is the symbol of sharia, and 'radical islam'. Why not ask Hamas or Hezbollah to have a weekly column ??

"That is why the Scientific Revolution happened in Christian Europe, and not in the Islamic Middle East."

Yeah right.  They are both anti-science.  The Scientific Revolution happened DESPITE Christian europe and then after the Catholic Church crushed it again it only resurfaced in Protestant europe.  If not for Martin Luther and the Reformation giving science some breathing room we would be at the same barbaric state as most muslims are today.

The Guardian's writer S. Ghannoushi should explain why Islamic countries are now so far behind, since they had such a splendid head start.

A quibble: Leibnitz is best known as the co-inventor of calculus (along with Newton). The Chinese didn't invent calculus, and neither did the Muslims.

My local newspaper as usual had a reportage on muslim women's lifestyle as told by 3 muslim women - the usual lies & propaganda.  So I emailed the reporter and told him so, asking him to check out facts about Islam.  He then suggested I learn more about Islam via a  Wikipedia link, which is of course PC and misleading (I edited that Wiki article once but it got reverted and no more editing allowed in those sensitive areas.)  Thus most Americans and Europeans seem to prefer PC lies to truths about Islam, or at least Islam's propagada is working well.

But let's face it.  Even christendom prefers lies to truth.  "Christian" churches' doctrines and practices are full of lies too - one of many reasons why Europe is becoming more secular and European churches emptier.  Rational people do discern lies and hypocrisy.  May all use their power of reasoning and do so toward religions as they do toward sciences.  I know that is difficult at times, as many rational people become irrational when the subject is religion and faith.