Last week I briefly summarized the differences between the Christian and Islamic worldview and their corresponding effects in society and culture. Suffice it to say that the Muslim response to my commentary was less than “agreeable.”
A more cordial Muslim reader from Turkey wrote:
No doubt, the Arabs and the Muslims in general are not living up to their religion and are suffering for it but your comparisons are self-serving to prove that only Christianity is responsible for Western progress. …The Mongol invasion, the colonial exploitation after the decline and defeat of the Ottoman Empire brought the Muslim world to its present state. Islam encourages literacy, frugality and the acquisition of knowledge from any source. Civilizations fall into decline and it was the Islamic culture that preserved knowledge when Europe was in the Dark Ages. Advances in science, mathematics, philosophy, sociology were characteristics of Islamic Civilization before it became stagnant for a number of reasons other than Islam.
This response reveals a number of increasingly popular myths that have resulted from a deliberate process by modern Muslims to “Islamize knowledge” in order to enlarge and elevate the place of Islam in history. Examples of this include claims that Muslims led the fields of science and medicine during the Middle Ages; Muslims founded the first hospitals; Muslim explorers reached America before Columbus, the Crusades were an unprovoked European assault on the peace-loving Muslims of the Holy Land, etc.
These themes are now being introduced into America’s public schools by means of various curriculums, including some, published by the Council on Islamic Education in conjunction with dawa, the Muslim doctrine of introducing “non-Muslims to accept the truth of Islam.” One website, DawaNet.com reminds Muslims that “Schools are fertile grounds where the seeds of Islam can be sowed inside the hearts of non-Muslim students.”
You may recall that following 9/11, schools in California began requiring students to attend classes on Islam in which they were subjected to Islamized representations of Islam. Course work required students to learn the tenets of Islam, study the important figures of the faith, and adopt a Muslim name, Additionally, students memorized verses in the Qur’an, were taught to pray “in the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful” concluding with the chant, “Praise to Allah, Lord of Creation.”
So how does the response from my Turkish reader reveal this “Islamized knowledge?”
First, the victimization assumed in the phrase “the colonial exploitation after the decline and defeat of the Ottoman Empire brought the Muslim world to its present state” is the basis for much of the Islamic world’s animosity toward the West. This is essentially the jihadist argument that Western “oppression” is the cause of all that ails the Islamic world. For the Muslim, this is certainly more palatable than the idea that Islam itself may be a false and therefore inadequate interpretation of reality or worldview.
To say that Western expansion is the reason for the Islamic world’s failures is to admit the inadequacy of the Islamic worldview. Dynamic and productive cultures are never overcome by less dynamic, less creative and less productive cultures. Islamic culture achieved the peak of its productivity and expansion after 750 AD and was already in decline by the middle of the 13th century—a decline from which it has never recovered. Conversely, Christian Europe had already experienced the 12th century Renaissance, which would be followed by the Italian Renaissance of the 14th-17th centuries, the 16th century Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment and so on.
All of these movements propelled Western civilization forward in many positive ways and the Christian ideological influence was a persistent reality despite what modern historical revisionists claim. Suffice it to say, the so-called “oppression” of the Islamic world by the West would be better described as a natural succession. The Western world simply passed the Islamic world by due to its inability to modernize. Continue >>
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Comments
To blame others for your failure to thrive is the excuse of a loser for sure.Jesus was
opposed more than any but is Lord of all , and will leave His throne in heaven and take it
on earth shortly. WW 2 Germany, an apostate nation had great advances in technology
but was detroyed because it was antichrist. If a country or any man wants to thrive Jesus is the Way, The Truth, and The Life.
I agree with you. Further, the Ottoman Empire was defeated in 1918. What was accomplished by the Muslim world hundreds of years prior to 1918. They remained stuck in a cultural time-warp. What about today. In New York City, there are Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish hospitals (i.e., they were founded by and funded by Catholics, Protestants, and Jews); however, their services are open to all races and religions. There are many great teaching hospitals. However, there is not one Muslim hospital to the best of my knowledge in all of New York City. They have a penchant for remembering their greatness in the Middle Ages, just as they still harbor live and bitter memories of the Crusades (actually they invaded Europe before Europe invaded them!). Yet, the last Crusades were at the beginning of the 12th Century!!! Sorry Mr. Muslim critic -- the facts just don't bear out your claims.
liked your artical agree some what have you ever considered that the time frame you use is also the time period when most of the conquering, forced indenturing,and gradual extinction of the christian and jews of the countries they conquered many of these people were forced to change thier religons and names to exsist could these of been the true source of the muslims shor span of encreased knowledge and social gains and the muslims never changed from their 7th centry warrior tribe mentality and society for the most part to put it simply could not there so called gains have come from their slaves (the infedel) christian and jews I have always wondered if the wisemen weren't really jews if you have time maybe you could research this and then let me know what you think
Thank you for your insightful and accurate comments. May the Lord cause you to prosper.