Israel vows to pursue Syria operations until Iran leaves

@Poohbear,
I found your attempt to dismiss the work of Tusi on the subject of evolution not surprising at all. It fits your chauvinist and xenophobic world view. But Tusi (like too many Persian scholars and philosophers you know nothing about) was a polymath: besides the fact that he did develop the basic contours of the theory of evolution, he is even more famous for his works in mathematics and astronomy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tusi_couple

The Tusi couple, in turn, was critical to work done by Coppernicus in the West, regardless of whether Coppernicus learned about the "Tusi couple" directly or indirectly.
https://sites.uwm.edu/nosonovs/2018/07/09/778/

 

There are too many other Persian scholars, poets, philosophers and polymaths whose works may not be familiar to the average chauvinist xenophobe in the West, but who had already charted the basic concepts that made their western parts quite famous in the history of western civilization. I can't go over all of them here. But whatever Descartes was able to establish about the limits of reason by his famous statement: "I think, therefore I am", was already suggested enough by a Persian philosopher and jurist, Ghazali, in his debates with other Persian philosophers like Avicenna and Farabi. To be sure, it was Avicenna and his more rationalist arguments for proof of a deity that won out in the Persian speaking world, while Ghazali's writings were misunderstood elsewhere in the Muslim world and spurned a tradition which became more oriented towards scriptural literalism. Nonetheless, it still remains the case that what Descartes wrote in some ways so closely mirrored Ghazali that some have accused Descrates of merely plagiarizing from the former. This piece HERE in the BBC should start you off on Ghazali and the debates about him.

Another one of these Persian scholars, a polymath who also contributed in many different fields, is Biruni:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/al-Biruni
Al-Bīrūnī

To say credit Biruni with the 'discovery of America 500 years before Columbus' is admittedly a stretch, but it was Biruni whose calculations showed that the "known world" was only two-fifths of our planet and that another 3/5ths of it remained undiscovered. And it was many thanks to works like his, and its influence which seeped into Europe, that you then had many Europeans set off on their journeys of discovery.

https://www.worldbulletin.net/histo...merica-500-years-before-columbus-h126242.html
Muslim scholar discovered America 500 years before Columbus

 

Yes but these people did not develop a complete theory of evolution - only two people did this,
Wallace and Darwin.
It's a bit like the argument over who first developed the airplane - it all comes down to defining
what you mean. There appears to have been a flowering of Islamic science - but it was cut short
by the rise of the fundamentalists who still rule Islam.

 

The growth of inward-looking fundamentalism in Islam was a reaction, inter alia, to external attack by the Mongols in the 13th century, with one of the chief cultural centres - Baghdad - destroyed in 1258, along with the capture of much of modern Iran.

 

You don't know anything about the history of either Islamic civilization or Iran, except for nonsense and drivel you have been exposed to, much of it formed from contact with other areas in the Islamic world outside of Iran.

First, unlike in the rest of the Islamic world, where scriptural literalism closed the doors of what is called "ijtihad" (learning through reasoning) by the 10th/11th century, nothing of the sort happened in Iran and the Persian speaking world. In fact, the works I am introducing you to are not part of the early medieval Islamic works which influenced the European renaissance (most of them by Persian scholars too). These and countless other, even more significant writings, belong to a later period and while the works of Persian scholars like Tusi and Biruni influenced what happened in the West subsequently, it was an influence that was different than the earlier Islamic scholars like Avicinnea and Rhazes (both Persian) whose works were translated in Europe and taught as standard texts in Europe. For instance, how the mathematical formulation of the "Tusi Couple" and subsequent Persian astronomers in the 14th century, reached Copernicus is not exactly known still. But that he copied those formulations is indisputable.

Second, and in the same vain, while I admit that the Western world began to outstrip Iran and the Persian speaking world beginning sometime from the 18th century, with this process manifesting itself more clearly by the 19th century, I totally reject this popularized (but unfounded, even from a true western scholarly perspective) notion that the West was ahead of the Islamic world intellectually or otherwise much earlier than that. The West simply sped ahead at first compared to the early medieval Islamic civilization whose works it was using directly in its universities. The Islamic world, in particular Irano-Islamic civilization, continued however to produce some of the greatest polymaths and minds the world has known well into the 16th century, while also producing great literature, culture and architectural achievement at the same time.

Finally, there is no doubt that Darwin (like many others in West) have helped develop many great scientific ideas on their own and made what were revolutionary contributions to learning in the West (they would have been more evolutionary if their teachings were immediately followed in places like Iran and built upon concurrently, as opposed to letting it build up and then copied by westernized scholars in Iran wholesale). To suggest otherwise and deny the many great scientists and minds from the western world, both the ancient Greeks or those in post medieval Europe, their due would be equally chauvinistic of me as the kind of things you often write.

 

What you say is partly true of the wider Islamic world, especially its center, namely Baghdad. While Iran was conquered and devastated by the Mongol invasions, it is a curious fact that despite those invasions, some of the greatest minds of Irano-Islamic civilization actually arose afterwards. This is clearly true in literature and poetry, but also in the sciences. Often, these were figures in fact who were much more original and compelling than even the greatest Muslim (including many who were Persian) scholars of the early medieval Islamic period, but lesser known in the West comparatively. Less known mainly because while the works of people like the Persian Muslim mathematician Khawrizmi's were translated in the West (and introduced the West to numeral system developed first in India, which became misnamed the "Arabic numeral" in the West, and gave such subjects as Algebra and such things as Algorithm their names), or the works by the Persian Muslim philosophers and medical scientists such as Rhazes and Avicenna (the latter quite original nonetheless) were standard texts for teaching these subjects in the West, the works from the later medieval period in Irano-Islamic civilization were not directly being used and translated as widely. But some of them (such as Tusi and Biruni from the Persian world, or Ibn Khaldun from outside the Persian world) nonetheless left huge influences indirectly on the development of western sciences and learning.

 

Ah... the joys of "free speech"....trouble is, lack of knowledge of the subject...

"Listen to the words of the Lord" (said the prophet Samuel, speaking to Saul)

"Commit genocide (inc women with sucklings), put them to the sword without mercy....and kill all the animals also"....

Saul made the mistake of not being a literalist, so he saved some of the animals for his own use... and paid the ultimate price for his 'disobedience' to 'God'.

Even today, scripture such as this is responsible for controversy in the UN (eg is Judaism a race or a religion) ...and explains your hatred of the UN...

 

Interesting post regarding the special case of Islam in Iran. Thank you.

It think it interesting to consider how the "golden age of Islam" (700-1200) came to an end.

Time line:
1. Cordoba, the world-leading Muslim cultural capital in the West (Spain) fell in 1236 ( in the Christian Reconquista).
2. Baghdad, the leading Muslim cultural centre in the ME, fell in 1258.

But the Mongols eventually adopted Islam in the former Kwarezam (Persian) empire, facilitating a second flowering of Islam in Persia, as outlined by you.

Later on:

3. Constantinople fell to Islam in 1453, continuing a resurgence of Islam in the East, and the beginning of the Ottoman conquests in Europe., ….but

4. Valencia fell to the Christians in 1496, completing the almost 3-century Reconquista in Spain; and this newly energised Spanish state had already launched the Columbus expedition just 4 years earlier.....enabling the eventual global triumph of European civilisation. (The story continues, with new developments in the East, neither Christian or Islamic....)

In our time Islamic fundamentalism is being crushed by superior western technology, resulting in much pain for people everywhere (aka 'terrorism')

Hopefully a new generations of young Iranians will be able to free themselves from the shackles of the Mullahs.

(But the US must also accept the inevitability of China's rise to the status of largest economy in the world, likely to be a rocky ride for all of us, considering the allegiances to blind ideologies on all sides..)

Meantime: "Don't cry for me, Syria"....

 

I would like to see Iranians free themselves of the 'shackles' of dogma, regardless of source and label.

In the meantime, intellectual activity has not been shackled by the mullahs in Iran. But the reverse. I have posted videos to show this, charting the academic medals Iranian students have begun to earn in all sorts of disciplines (math, physics, chemistry etc), doing much better than any of the 'westernized" or "secular" states in the region or beyond. If you have not noticed them, I can post them again and review them for you, but you can watch how Iranian kids have jumped among the top students in math, physics and chemistry olympiads HERE, HERE, and HERE. Similarly, it is the same story with scientific articles and scientific growth: that too has seen an exponential rise in Iran, putting Iran now among the top 15 in the world (see HERE). This again under the "mullahs".

In some ways, the case of the late Maryam Mirzakhani is instructive. She was born, raised, educated in Iran (up to the masters level, she got her PhD from Harvard but hard already made a name for herself). She was the first women of any nationality to win the equivalent of the Nobel prize in Mathematics. She remains the only women to have won the award. She and a fellow student, from the years when Maryam Mirzakhani was scoring a perfect score at the Math Olympiad and winning gold while her friend and colleague, another Iranian women, was winning silver, thousands of Iranian students (of both genders) have been following her path and literally hundreds of them have been winning medals in academic competitions.

Iran is a work in progress and there is much about the "mullahs" I don't like. But Iran's main problem right now comes from other quarters.

 

I liked your post overall but disagree with some things you mention. One of them I mentioned. And there are still a few others. But thanks for your input and comments since your heart and mind is basically on the side of good against evil

 

So you agree on what "better world" wrote - "Hopefully a new generations of young Iranians will be able to free themselves from the shackles of the Mullahs"

 

But bear in mind: while Muslim fundamentalism is being crushed by the fact of superior western technology, with disastrous effects for the Islamic world (and blow back in the form of 'terrorism"), Christian fundamentalism supported by the US is not subject to a similar counteracting force.

Hence Israel (reborn in modern times) feels confident to push aside all objections of the UN including EU nations, and simply claim the entire "Promised Land" once again....after 2000 years!

 

First of all - there is No such thing as Christian fundamentalism... and if it existed it's far better than Jihad and Muslim Shariah.
2nd - If 8 or so Million Israelis ( include 20% Israeli Muslim and Christian Arabs + 4% or so Druze) sorrounded by 250 Million Arabs will lay down their weapons there will be No more Israel.
If Arabs and Palestinian Bedouins lay down their weapons - we will see peace.

 

Christian fundamentalism: Jesus (son) is Jehovah (father), via the Trinity dogma; and Jewish fundamentalism "you are the chosen people" destined for the "Promised Land", as per the OT prophets.

Better than Jihad and Muslim Shariah? Maybe, but still highly problematic when the US is no longer an impartial actor in the UN.

The Arab League, forced to face reality, has for more than a decade formally recognised Israel's right to exist.

How can Palestinians have peace, when Israel - unilaterally with Trump's backing - takes possession of the West Bank?

 

Thank you Arab League ... Really .. for recognise Israel's right to exist ... Thank you sooo much
The West Bank never belonged to the Bedouins .. Israel won it by war with Jordan.
Israel offered Land replace but Abu Adolf Mazen refused.