I mean no offense to you in this, but you are making assumptions on my thinking and understanding if you are under the impression that I do not find "lessons" in history, but only facts. Sometimes it may be the case that a "lesson" might be drawn that is not, in fact, based on real situations or facts.
A case in point: as a Muslim you esteem the Quran and claimed that "the original" has been preserved in totality but that this is not the case for either the Jewish or Christian scriptures. This seemed to have the meaning, or lesson if you will, that there is something superior to Islam because of this preservation. However, the reality and fact of the manuscript and its history from what I found is that 1) there is only about 1/3 of it left and 2) there is more than one as Uthmar had five copies made and then burned all of the versions that had variations which, it was noted with a reference, were usually minor. So there is no exisiting complete "original copy" of the Quran either.
If I misunderstood the lesson that you were trying to get across I apologize. I am also aware of the left/right brain theories and the human brain has different areas of functioning in the different halves. But was there a particular person's/group's ideas that you are thinking of, please?
First of all, as I mentioned in my other post... the lesson you can learn from early islam is that..
once the general population started to care about human rights (thanks to the prophet to convince them to not kill their daughters, to free slaves, to not implement usury, ...etc)
then the population became productive, and expanded the field of science and technology.
This is how societies always work...
human rights -> allows economic freedom -> which allows technological and scientific progress
If you want to argue and debate against this theory, then there is no point. Because this is what I believed, based on my research.
About the original Quran. Will Uthman's quran is one of them that some say 1/3 of it exist. First of all, how do you know that? Have you seen it yourself?
Secondly, his quran isn't only 'original' one around. There are many others... there are many very old qurans still residing in mosques Medina, Saudi Arabia- where the prophet
was living.
The most important thing to see is that there is uniformity in the text. A Muslim in Indonesia is reading the same Qur'an as a Muslim in morocco.
From your view as a Shia Muslim, those who slaughtered Hussein and his followers (I am familiar with the history of the early years of Islam) were hypocritical and evil. From the Sunni side they were rebelling against the right way and were dealt with albeit with violence. My point is that there is more than one "side" or view of events.
Yes there are different point of views in history. Remember what history is... HIS story.
But the truth will come out eventually. Do you think it's morally right thing for a leader to use force and even kill an individual that doesn't want to pledge allegiance to you?
If you think that the other side was justified in killing Hussein, then there is no point debating. We'll just have to wait until the truth comes out....... that is when Imam Mahdi reveals the truth for all sects.
Just to understand, when you refer to a particular "region" you mean the area of Persia/Iran? There was a vast area beyond that which was conquered by forces under the banner of Islam beyond that land and the Arabian Peninsula.
I'm talking about the regions where human rights are accepted. In those vast areas where forces were carrying the banner of 'Islam'... did they accept human rights? If not, then by definition they're not Muslims, and it's incorrect to associate them with real Muslims.
Would you please give some more specific information about the times and events that you are thinking of here? What political changes in the Middle East and who wasn't taking the religion seriously? Thank you.
Around the time when the siege of Baghdad happened and the big library (house of Wisdom was burnt down).
This is something I'll have to study more to give you exact details of political changes. But in general, when the mongols took over, it's obviously a different political system that disregarded human rights.
Well, one question is: Is it the function of the book to refer to everyone who may have been historically involved in a subject or is it focused on a narrower field? Why should any book on optics have a few sentences on Al-Hazen? What about references to the ancient Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans who did things with Optics? From my point should I expect that the English Bishop Robert Grosseteste or Roger Bacon be mentioned in optics texts because they did work in that area? If the purpose of a text is to instruct on a particular subject technically, the writer(s) may not think that historical background is necessary.
Those who truly want to develop an intuition for a scientific subject, like optical physics....... it's very important to study the history of the subject. To understand where these formulas originated. You don't really learn by just memorizing a few equations and not making the effort to find out where they come from.
Al-Hazen is widely believed to be the father of optics.. because he most likely made the most non-trivial contributions to the field. Sure, scientist from ancient civilizations made theories on the subject... but Al-Hazen discredit most of those ideas with simple arguments and revolutionaries the subject with different way of thinking.
Again, historical background is very necessary to develop an intuition for the subject.
If you don't mind me asking, but did you study science, math, engineering, ...etc?
If you did, do you remember studying complex numbers.... like i = sqrt(-1) . You know, most people just accept that sqrt(-1) is ok and just use it. But for a professional mathematicians who're doing research at the front line, will need to rationalize the meaning of sqrt(-1)..... and so they'll have to study the history of the subject, to see where the idea came from and how it was widely accepted. Btw, complex numbers means that the number is 2-dimentional, where the real part is a vector on the x-axis, and the imagenary part is a vector on the y-axis, and the resultant vector is the complex number.
I would not give Al-Jazari the title of "father of Robotics" when there were automata of various kinds in many places and times that pre-date him. There are accounts of them from ancient China, Egypt, Greece and Rome. Technology is more of a continuum with people building on what came before. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automata
A lot of experts disagree... because he invented the first programmable humanoid robot.
Sure other individuals outside of Europe needs to be credited as well. The overall point that I'm making, is as a whole, the Muslim scholars are not getting the recognition they deserve in western textbooks-- it would help today's scientist a lot when they're trying to develop an intuition for the subject.
