Chopin Cusachs wrote: > > Would add a snippet on the Muslim Empires and knowledge. The Muslim > general who conquered Alexandria > in 616 burned the fabled library, saying that if it wasn't in the Koran, > it wasn't worth keeping.
It was actually thought to be 640AD. Islam was just getting started in 616, as it was only 610 that Mohammed had his first relevation in the cave at Mount Hira. And it was the Caliph Omar who is alleged to have said: "they will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous." and the fact that Muslims burned the library at all is disputed: http://www.ehistory.com/world/articles/ArticleView.cfm?AID=9 Gibbons blamed the Christians, for example. What are your sources, Choppy? John Hebert > There was a tendency for Muslim conquerors to be unsympathetic to > secular learning and to libraries, but over > a few generations a dynasty would mellow and scholars become accepted > again, particularly if they were also > useful, for instance, as physicians. Then another group of fanatics > would crack down on laxity, and the cycle > would begin again. One of the more respected Muslim philosophers in > Spain, Averroes, was exiled for heresy, > though he was physician to the caliph. The Taliban behaves just like > one of those reform movements in Islam. > > Rather than holding public trials and executions of heretics, the Muslim > rulers spared the accused the > unpleasantness of being present at, or even being aware of their trials, > and quietly dispatched executioners to > the homes of those convicted to garrote them in their beds. It spared > them the bad press the Inquisition got. > > All this is getting ahead of the Dark Ages; it wasn't until the High > Middle Ages that there was much new in either > the Christian West or the Muslim East. Thomas Aquinas (died 1274) was > asked to write his Summa against the > Gentiles to answer Muslims using the philosophy of Plato and of > Aristotle in polemic. In the later Middle Ages > there were accomplishments now only to be found in obscure works on the > history of philosophy, like the > monk Jordanus who explained that Aristotle was wrong about the universe > being eternal and stated what we > know as Newton's law of inertial motion in words as part of his proof. > However his age did not have the > mathematical methods to make further use of the observation. > > When I worked on a software engineering contract in Hockley, Texas, a > few of us who used to go at least once a > week to Bruno's BBQ for lunch and conversation, and called ourselves the > Giordano Bruno Society of Greater > Houston. The late former Dominican taught the doctrine of the two > truths, that the same statement could be true > in one field and false in another. He skipped out of his Order after > being censured for heresy in 1576 and spent > some time in Protestant areas before being so careless as to return to > Italy. He was arrested in Venice in 1592 > and burned at the stake in 1600. Later a hero to anti-clericals in the > movement for Italian nationalism, Bruno > taught an extreme form of pantheistic immanentism, hardly popular with > his fellow Dominicans who operated > the Inquisition. > > Choppy > > At 09:47 AM 1/2/03 -0800, you wrote: > >> Again, sorry about the delay. I opted to spend the time with family >> over the holidays instead of the computer, I still haven't reloaded >> it. I guess I'll do that tonight. I was sort of hoping Santa would >> bring me a CD-burner. He brought me a DVD player instead, so now I >> need a new TV. [sigh] But I digress. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = >> "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> >> >> I was talking about this with my brother-in-law. Stephen is a >> historian (he is an out of work historian in school to get his >> teaching credentials to be a history teacher). > > > > _______________________________________________ > General mailing list > [email protected] > http://oxygen.nocdirect.com/mailman/listinfo/general_brlug.net -- John Hebert: [EMAIL PROTECTED] System Engineer: I T Group, Inc. http://www.it-group.com 225.922.4535
