[wtbob]

People always point to that, but the Islamic Golden Age was no more Islamic than Bonnie & Clyde's benders were financed by Bonnie & Clyde (rather than the folks whose money they'd stolen from banks). The fruits of the so-called Islamic Golden Age were planted by Classical civilisation, watered and tended by Zoroastrians, Jews & Christians — and harvested by Islam. Indeed, even during the 'Golden Age' many of the great lights were not of Islamic extraction (e.g. al-Khwarizmi, who was from a Zoroastrian family and may have converted out of economic or political expediency).

That's not to belittle the contributions of actual Mohammedans (e.g. Avicenna, who really did do more than just repeat his Classical forebears), but on the whole the Islamic Golden Age was what one would expect when a supremely wealthy but weak empire (the Eastern Romans) is conquered by poor but strong barbarians: the conquerors are rich & happy for decades, living off of the wealth they have taken. Like Anglo-Saxons building their mead-halls over Roman mosaics, they enjoyed the products of a higher civilisation but were unable to match them (the Umma being rather larger than the Heptarchy, they had a much bigger base from which to decline, and a correspondingly-longer period of relative comfort).

[mustaflex]

"many of the great lights were not of Islamic extraction"

... really? many of them ? can you please write "many" more from "non Islamic extraction"

"El-Khwarizmi, who was from a Zoroastrian family and may have converted out of economic or political expediency"

...So one particular scholar is not really a "muslim", soo it must that everything else worthy must be from non-muslim people

"but on the whole the Islamic Golden Age was what one would expect when a supremely wealthy but weak empire (the Eastern Romans) is conquered by poor but strong barbarians: the conquerors are rich & happy for decades, living off of the wealth they have taken."

...So they were just plunderers?

This is textbook western self-propaganda.

[John23832]

Don't pin this on western's. There are definitely those of us who have a grasp on history. This guy/gal has a readily apparent bias.

[mustaflex]

fortunately they are. This phenomena is just saddening, its the same thing on the other side and dialog become impossible.

[tmptmp]

>>and dialog become impossible.

The dialog becomes impossible because of many other important reasons, too, including,

a. the opposition by liberals/leftists/Islamists to bring forward any critical review of some extremely troubling vicious aspects of Islam and Islamic scriptures (Quran and Hadiths) under the phony reasons of islamophobia

b. the reluctance of Islamists to accept the notion of freedom of expression even if it means some of the expression offends the Muslims (e.g. discussion regarding pedophilia of Muhammad or someone drawing cartoons of Muhammad)

These views by Bill Maher and Sam Harris may help understand this point in a better way. [1], [2], [3]

In fact, the freedom of opinion is under attack because of Islam, even in the free western world to a large extent.

The freedom lovers, liberals and humanists must understand this threat posed by the vicious ideology of mainstream Islam. The USA and the west now must also invest similar (if not more) efforts and resources to fight this vicious ideology as those that they invested to fight another vicious ideology called communism.

It should however be noted that there are many people who have been Muslims just by birth and they do not necessarily follow the vicious ideology to its core.

So the fight must be against Islam and not against all Muslims, per se.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E1u9lQeAsY

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL8rZTuGfZo

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46nh8_BK7ok

[John23832]

No, comments and thinking like yours are the reason there is no progress.

In conflict between group X and group Y, if you ask X it's because Y does (insert list of offenses here). The same from the opposing side. Nobody wants to acknowledge that both sides have issues, and if they work towards fixing said issues the world will be a better place.

Your whole diatribe about "liberals/leftist/Islamist" is the exact same crap that extremist on the other side preach, just projected through your (the way I view it) conservative lense.

The biggest problem is that nobody is willing to step outside of their comfort zone, to see how the other half lives, in order to move forward. That goes for both the "liberals/leftist/Islamist" left and the "conservative/anti-pc/nobody-deserves-to-be-comfortable-except-me" right

> So the fight must be against Islam and not against all Muslims, per se.

If you understand what Islam is, and what a muslim is, this statement makes no sense.

[tmptmp]

>>If you understand what Islam is, and what a muslim is, this statement makes no sense.

If you mean to say that "Islam and Muslims are the same" I beg to differ. Islam is a religion not person and Muslims are persons.

Let me clarify, Islam is a religion/ideology whereas Muslim is a person who is either practicing Islam (religion/ideology) or who is labeled as Muslim because he/she is born within a family who practices Islam.

By "the fight must be against Islam and not against all Muslims, per se", I mean the fight must against the ideology/religion and must not necessarily against all Muslim population.

So it was a big mistake by USA to attack Iraq as a reaction to the 9/11 attacks on USA, instead the military attack (only small surgical level) should have been restricted to Taliban/Osama in Afghanistan and then along with that small military surgical attack, the USA should have actually opened a war against the vicious ideology of Islam.

The Iraq was not a big threat to USA. Millions of innocent lives could have been saved in Iraq and elsewhere, if the USA had realized that this is an ideological war and must be fought on the ideological war-front. This can and must be done by supporting liberal minded humanists (like, Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins) who are exposing the viciousness of the ideology of Islam and upholding the modern humanist values like freedom of expression and separation of 'mosque and state'.

[curiousgal]

Civilisations built upon each others achievement ever since the dawn of history, it seems rather hypocritical to start cherry-picking the merits of a particular one.

Regardless, OP said Muslims couldn't thrive praying 5 times a day, the Islamic Golden Age (as big or as small as you think it was) still proves otherwise.