Piltdown Man

[carrust]

If the world was Muslim,would we still be living in the stone age?

[jake-the-peg]

The muslim world was a great centre of civilisation and learning whilst Europe was scrathing it's boils in mud huts and wondering what a bath was for.

In fact the only reason that we have great literature and books from the ancient world is due to scholars and scientists in the Islamic world.

It is a long time since the heyday of the Islamic world in our medieval period but Ahmed Zewail (Egypt) won the Nobel prize for Chemistry in 1999, and Abdus Salem (Pakistan) for physics in 1979.

Perhaps a more perceptive question might have been why has there been such an apparent decline in muslim science from such a high point

[geo0939]

Well said JTP!

[NikkiB]

Islamic societies started out as great centres for learning and innovation and I understand was a fountain of tolerance too. I don't know what happened to change all that but it's a tragedy for Islam and for the world in general. One can only hope that the current brand of violent extremism will soon blow itself out.

[Playbill]

If you watched BBC 1 tonight you would have seen that they are now training for a return to the stone age. Teaching school children to be Muslim fundamentalists, fighters, bombers and martyrs. And they wish to extend their teachings to Europe.

[jno]

as jake says, if it wasn't for Muslims we'd all be living in the stone age. They preserved and built on much ancient learning while Angles and Saxons were chopping each other up. It's hard to say what led them to fall behind western European civilisation; but the renaissance and the growth of intellectual curiosity that prompted voyages of exploration were probably linked in part to the decline of the Christian church's conservative hold over western society. It was religion - Christian and Muslim - that kept learning alive; but perhaps a heavily religious society is not an ambitious and inquisitive one?

[jonnythebosh]

Arranged marriages, honour killings, beheadings, trains, planes,people and aeroplanes being blown up. The Muslim world of old no doubt contributed to civilisation but i'm afraid that was a long, long time ago. Ask most people what they associate with Islam today and it won't be their what they did centuries ago, but the way that it's followers behave today. Like it or not the perception of Islam today is that it is regressing into a primitive and savage religion and it can only blame itself.

[jake-the-peg]

I don't think it's necessarily to do with religous societies but rather authoritarian ones.

The great Islamic civilisation was under the Abbasidian Caliphate it all went when the turkish Ottomans took over.

[jno]

there are more than a billion Muslims in the world johnny - you seriously think they're all blowing up trains? If that's people's perception (and I suspect you're right), people are well wrong.

As for beheadings, I believe the countries that carry out the most executions are China and the USA. (China is possibly the country with the second largest number of Muslims, but that doesn't have anything to do with the executions.)

[brionon]

jno---All Muslims aren't suicide bombers but all suicide bombers are Muslim. It's the 95% of Muslims who spoil things for the rest.

[dyli795]

I've just heared on the lunch time news that the teaching of the differance between right and wrong in UK schools is to stop. Is anything going to mater any more? Is argument and reason becoming a thing of the past? Why?

[jno]

uh, so it's only 95% of Muslims - that's 950 million, say - who are suicide bombers, brionon? Hmmmm, good statistic.

[maxximus]

pull out of it my friend, so by your standard the fact that there are k.k.k. and other white supremists in the u.s. the whole country must be tarred with same brush. do you know any muslims, do you really know what a muslim is. i suggest you brush up on your history! you and johny!

[keyvan]

It's only when you start generalising and say things like 95% of muslims are suicide bombers that the alarms start ringing. Isn't that what hitler did to the jews!???

[jake-the-peg]

Isn't all this a bit like referring to the IRA as Catholic terrorists?

[jonnythebosh]

My opinions are based on what has and has been happening Maxximus and like it or not Muslims have attaqcked this country once and they will do it again. What about that bit of history? And i do know and have lived with Muslims.I look back on the days when they used to tell me that this country wasn't England anymore it was Pakistan with particular fondness. All Muslims aren't our enemy but there is a large proportion that are, check the figures for the number who agreed with 7/7 and think that Britain is a legitimate target. That's why Muslims are tarred with the same brush.

[NikkiB]

The Mediterranean and nearby Arabia have always been seats of learning. Before Islam existed, it was the Romans, the Greeks, the Persians and the Egyptians who were the light in a dark world. I reckons it's as likely as not that the Golden Age of Islam merely basked in the civilisations that preceded it in that area.

[JSK]

Q; if the whole world were muslim, would terrorism stop?? - i dont think so personally, i dont think its muslims, hindu's catholics or christians... its just individuals. extremists. sad huh?

[jno]

why would killing yourself with a bomb be more cowardly than planting a bomb and running away, or dropping a bomb from a plane on people you can't even see? To me, only the first one requires any courage at all.

Anyway, those who think 'only Muslims are bombers' should look up the news from Sri Lanka and Colombia for the last 24 hours or so.