Soren wrote on Apr 20
th, 2012 at 5:40pm:
The truth of it, of course, is that the Muslims cut off the West from its Greco-Roman heritage when they overrun the Eastern Roman Empire.
This is nonsense. Muslim leaders sent massive delegations to the West to try and convince them not to destroy their books, and in fact many of the books that were kept in the great Islamic libraries were rescued from the Western nations that were destroying them. How could Muslims have deprived the West of their knowledge, if it was in fact in currency amongst them? The fact is it wasn't, the only place it existed was locked away in a few archives. During the Christian era, the serfs were forbidden from attaining any kind of knowledge that might liberate them. That's why the Bible wasn't even allowed to be translated into their vernaculars until after the Christian decline was well in motion, lest they learn the truth of what was in it and abandon it.
Soren wrote on Apr 20
th, 2012 at 5:40pm:
The reality is that the Muslim rank with the Goths, the Huns and the other assorted barbarians who hastened the destruction of the civilisational inheritance from antiquity. They most certainly didn't 'pass on' anything.
This is just absolute garbage. Islamic civilisation bore the greatest brunt of the barbaric incursions. People like Sultan Sayf ud-Deen Qutuz literally saved the entire Western world from having to endure the full force of the Mongol hordes. And what thanks does he get? The site of the battleground (Ain Jaloot) at which he defeated that greatest of menaces is now an occupied rubbish dump, that no Muslim is allowed to enter. Defiled by the filthy boots of Zionist scum.
Soren wrote on Apr 20
th, 2012 at 5:40pm:
Very recently we saw in Afghanistan, with the destruction of the giant Buddha statues, what the Muslim attitude is to any preceding non-Muslim civilisation.
Yeh because the knowledge of civilisations is intrinsically linked to their statues/idols. Good one. You're really running out of things to say aren't you?
Soren wrote on Apr 20
th, 2012 at 5:40pm:
The truth about the Islamic interest in Greek and Roman books and knowledge is that they were interested only in technical knowledge.
What else is there? Certainly not all that crap about men molesting little boys?? This is what you call knowledge? Figures. You dirty mongrel.
Soren wrote on Apr 20
th, 2012 at 5:40pm:
You will not find any ancient poetry or political treatise or picaresque novel translated into Arabic during that supposed great Arab flowering.
The poetry part you might be right... given that most of it was just disgusting tales of faggotry against little boys as I mentioned above. The political works of the Greeks and even many of the philosophical works were indeed translated into Arabic. The fact you don't know this just casts more aspersions on the legitimacy of your claims.
Soren wrote on Apr 20
th, 2012 at 5:40pm:
In any case, all the translations - all - were done by converts, Jews and Christians who learned Arabic.
The translations were done by people who spoke both the source and target languages... duh.
Not too bright are you?
Also given the growth rate of Islam in the early days, just by pure statistics alone this is a given.
That's really irrelevant though. Muhammad (pbuh) himself had several of his close companions learn foreign languages for the purposes of translation. Clearly a skill that was valued by the early Muslims, and even today.
Soren wrote on Apr 20
th, 2012 at 5:40pm:
The real recovery of antiquity occurred when the refugees from the East arrived in the West, following the final conquest of Byzantium in 1453, and brought with them books and knowledge. That marks the beginning of what we call the Renaissance, the western recovery of the civilisational heritage of antiquity.
The fact is most of it came from further West, yes around the same time, during the "reconquista".
Soren wrote on Apr 20
th, 2012 at 5:40pm:
Not coincidentally, it also marks the irreversible intellectual, artistic, political, economic and every other kind decline of Islam. SO whatever they passed on to the west, they certainly did not make use of it themselves.
More delusional fantasies.
Islamic decline is quite obviously linked to the events of 1258, not 1453.