Our attitude concerning mockery of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon

[S.A.M.]

"Cultures, once tampered with, are nearly impossible to reclaim. "

Identity is a very powerful social barometer. Most Indians are conditioned to seeing themselves as the British saw them.

 

[CptBork]

I see a lot of complaints about insults to the Quran. I think the ancient Greeks should be complaining about all the muslims plagiarizing their works without due credit. The Greeks knew the Earth was round because they could observe the sails of tall ships disappearing over the horizon, they made crude measurements of the Earth's curvature (and hence size), and they knew it was the simplest explanation for why the Earth always casts a round shadow on the moon no matter what the angle between Earth, moon and sun.

Muslims love to credit the Quran with all kinds of scientific insights, and it's insulting to all those who came up with the discoveries in the first place, often hundreds or even thousands of years before the Quran was ever put to ink. Not to mention that most of the supposed "modern science" in the Quran is based on specific, horrendously stretched, unconventional translations of the text. Anyone can mistranslate "the universe is vast/expansive" to mean "the universe is expanding, the fabric of spacetime is stretching and has been stretching from a pointlike source for ~15 billion years at a speed possibly faster than light, the spacetime geometry of the universe is homogeneous, isotropic and can best be described with a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetime metric,..."

 

[S.A.M.]

How do you know the Muslims "plagiarized" the work if they did not give due credit?

Muslims invented the isnad or method of citation. They gave clear and complete sources for all their works, unlike the likes of Bacon, who pretended it was all his own invention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isnad

 

[CptBork]

Where in the Quran does it talk about Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetime metrics? Why are so many muslims pretending the Big Bang is discussed in their book?

 

[S.A.M.]

Where in the Quran does it talk about Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetime metrics? Why are so many muslims pretending the Big Bang is discussed in their book?

Who cares? Muslims can interpret their book as they like, the Quran itself says not to consider the Quran as anything but a guide.

[20:114] Do not be in haste with the Qur'an before its revelation to you is completed, but say, "O my Sustainer! Increase my knowledge."

But they did come up with the scientific method, because of the Quranic emphasis on empricism.

“You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them.”[Qur'an 17:36]

"According to the majority of the historians al-Haytham was the pioneer of the modern scientific method. With his book he changed the meaning of the term optics and established experiments as the norm of proof in the field. His investigations are based not on abstract theories, but on experimental evidences and his experiments were systematic and repeatable."

 

[CptBork]

Who cares? Muslims can interpret their book as they like, the Quran itself says not to consider the Quran as anything but a guide.

Yeah well then people can go trash Mohammed in any way they please, why should muslims care? Why this thread to complain about it?

[20:114] Do not be in haste with the Qur'an before its revelation to you is completed, but say, "O my Sustainer! Increase my knowledge."

But they did come up with the scientific method, because of the Quranic emphasis on empricism.

“You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them.”[Qur'an 17:36]

The Greeks beat them to the punch by over a millenium. If the muslims figured this stuff out independently, then I congratulate them on their ability to apply basic logic.

 

[S.A.M.]

The greeks were pre-scientists.

Muslim scientists placed a greater emphasis on experimentation than previous ancient civilizations (for example, Greek philosophy placed a greater emphasis on rationality rather than empiricism),[6][7] which was due to the emphasis on empirical observation found in the Qur'an and Sunnah,[20][21][22][23] and the rigorous historical methods established in the science of hadith.[20] Muslim scientists thus combined precise observation, controlled experiment and careful records[7] with a new[6] approach to scientific inquiry which led to the development of the scientific method.[24] In particular, the empirical observations and experiments of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) in his Book of Optics (1021) is seen as the beginning of the modern scientific method

Other early experimental methods were developed by Geber (for chemistry), Muhammad al-Bukhari (for history and the science of hadith),[20] al-Kindi (for the Earth sciences),[26] Avicenna (for medicine), Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (for astronomy and mechanics),[27] Ibn Zuhr (for surgery)[28] and Ibn Khaldun (for the social sciences).[29] The most important development of the scientific method, the use of experimentation and quantification to distinguish between competing scientific theories set within a generally empirical orientation, was introduced by Muslim scientists.

Ibn al-Haytham, a pioneer of modern optics,[30] used the scientific method to obtain the results in his Book of Optics. In particular, he combined observations, experiments and rational arguments to show that his modern intromission theory of vision, where rays of light are emitted from objects rather than from the eyes, is scientifically correct, and that the ancient emission theory of vision supported by Ptolemy and Euclid (where the eyes emit rays of light), and the ancient intromission theory supported by Aristotle (where objects emit physical particles to the eyes), were both wrong.[31] It is known that Roger Bacon was familiar with Ibn al-Haytham's work.

Ibn al-Haytham developed rigorous experimental methods of controlled scientific testing in order to verify theoretical hypotheses and substantiate inductive conjectures.[32] Ibn al-Haytham's scientific method was similar to the modern scientific method in that it consisted of the following procedures:[33]

1. Observation
2. Statement of problem
3. Formulation of hypothesis
4. Testing of hypothesis using experimentation
5. Analysis of experimental results
6. Interpretation of data and formulation of conclusion
7. Publication of findings

The development of the scientific method is considered to be fundamental to modern science and some — especially philosophers of science and practicing scientists — consider earlier inquiries into nature to be pre-scientific. Some consider Ibn al-Haytham to be the "first scientist" for this reason

wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_science

 

[CptBork]

Quote at the very top of the article you just posted:

The factual accuracy of this article is disputed.

 

[S.A.M.]

You can look it up, there are many sources.

The science of isnad was developed for the hadith and the science of ijtehad, which developed into the scientific method, was developed for the tafsir of the Quran. There is no evidence of the use of the scientific method as it was used by Ibn Haytham and his followers before that. Besides, even the system of present day universities, with graduate studies and scholarships, is based on the system of the Muslims.

 

[CptBork]

The muslims made many valuable contributions to science as we know it, that's indisputable. Those contributions were built directly on the earlier achievements of the Greeks.

 

[CptBork]

The scientific method goes far beyond listing 7 steps for approaching a problem. Richard Feynman wrote down his method of problem solving:

1) Write down the problem
2) Solve the problem
3) Write down the solution

Would we credit Feynman with the profound invention of problem solving if he was the first to write this?

 

[CptBork]

If muslims followed a strictly scientific method, they would demand to see a mountain move or some direct evidence to this effect before even thinking that it might have happened in the past. All they have to support this idea is a story.

 

[S.A.M.]

Not really. The Greeks had no system of citing narrations. The chain of narrations began with the Hadith. And ijtehad [which means to exert and is from the same root as jiihad] was initially developed in the evolution of Fiqh or Islamic jurisprudence. People just realised it had other applications as well, in philosophy and science. Strangely enough, when Fiqh was codified in the 10th century, it reduced ijtehad in other spheres as well and led to the stagnation of their culture.

 

[CptBork]

Citing narrations or not, the Greeks were the first to show the world is round, and they did so using hard physical evidence. Any muslim seeking credit for this discovery is plagiarizing from the Greeks, or else ignorant of their earlier arrival at the same conclusion using actual physical arguments.

 

[S.A.M.]

The Indians had already done it ages ago. And we know that because the Arabs spread the Indian science [with proper and due credit] ages before the Europeans stumbled out of their dark ages.

 

[CptBork]

Indeed, the article you cited fails to credit the earlier Indian advances in the field of optics. The arabs had access to the discoveries of ancient India and Greece, and to claim that the Quran is the first to make any of these discoveries is to mock these ancient cultures. As far as muslim contributions to western science, where do you think the narrative starts when historians talk about the Renaissance? All honest historians know the Renaissance started when ideas from the Middle East were imported into Europe, and the muslim advances were in turn built on the scientific discoveries of more ancient cultures. Again, none of it originates in the Quran.

 

[S.A.M.]

??? The Indian optics explain what Ibn Haytham explained?

Do you know what tamarind is? tamar hindi, or the indian date. Named by the Arabs.

You won't find anything unsourced in the Arab works. Just compare the Arab history of India to the British "history"

 

[CptBork]

??? The Indian optics explain what Ibn Haytham explained?

I am referring to the optics described here, 1000 years before the advent of Islam:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_ancient_India

Do you know what tamarind is? tamar hindi, or the indian date. Named by the Arabs.

You won't find anything unsourced in the Arab works. Just compare the Arab history of India to the British "history"

What the Quran itself says about sourcing other peoples' works is irrelevant to me. The fact that many muslims seek to claim the Quran as the source for numerous scientific discoveries that had already been made is what I consider to be insulting.

 

[Arsalan]

Now, on the other side, Arsalan mentioned that Universalism is the central message in Islam. I was wondering why such a Universal Religion legally divides people in those of the book and those not of the book? If polytheists are founded on true Prophets then why attack the polytheists of Arabia?

Maybe you should go back to my earlier post and read it again. And exatly who consideres Bush to be the 2nd coming? The same people that worship actors and actresses?

Yeah well then people can go trash Mohammed in any way they please, why should muslims care? Why this thread to complain about it?

Who is complaining? The Muslims responded to this thread when people asked why Muslims do not like the Prophet, or any other Prophet for that matter, mocked. But we understand that some people will always act like kids: tell them that something is wrong and hurtful and they will keep doing it, under the guise of so called freedom fo speech

The Greeks beat them to the punch by over a millenium. If the muslims figured this stuff out independently, then I congratulate them on their ability to apply basic logic.

Ofcourse, the Greeks did a lot. But the Muslims started a lot as well, without help from the Greeks.

Quote at the very top of the article you just posted:

Just go to the page about Ibn-Haytham then

The muslims made many valuable contributions to science as we know it, that's indisputable. Those contributions were built directly on the earlier achievements of the Greeks.

Some, not the vast majority.

The scientific method goes far beyond listing 7 steps for approaching a problem. Richard Feynman wrote down his method of problem solving:

1) Write down the problem
2) Solve the problem
3) Write down the solution

Would we credit Feynman with the profound invention of problem solving if he was the first to write this?

Just as much as we would attribute e=mc2 to anyone except Einstein. Did anyone even bother to read my previous post?

If muslims followed a strictly scientific method, they would demand to see a mountain move or some direct evidence to this effect before even thinking that it might have happened in the past. All they have to support this idea is a story.

Mountain of evidence for what? That Muslims started and continued science when the rest of the world was hunting witches? That people from all over the world came to learn from Muslims? Have you ever read what academics have to say on this subject? There is a mountain of evidence, but I fear simpletons wont get to see it because it is academic material. Shame really

The fact that many muslims seek to claim the Quran as the source for numerous scientific discoveries that had already been made is what I consider to be insulting.

We are only quoting what the scientists who developed new ways and started stuff that wasnt there before said. I know it may be annoying to you, but thats the reality of it

 

[John99]

Yet Arsalan lives in a westernised country. Imagine that, with the stupid Westerners.