A failure to modernise, to assimilate, to adapt, to progress.

this is where your backward looking comes from abu.
read it and weep , then look forward to the 21st century

in a nutshell, this says islam is full of arrogant stiffnecked repressive backward poor people.




Quote:

At the height of the Islamic Empire, the Muslim community was a world leader in both economic status and military strength. However, the Islamic world’s failure to modernize its cultural, political, and economic systems has resulted in widespread financial ruin. The inability of the Muslim world to compete in the globalized economy has resulted in chronic poverty and illiteracy, creating conditions in which frustrated youth are willing to embrace new and radical ideologies with the goal of instituting significant change in their societies......... ........However, because Muslim scientists were slow to acknowledge European innovations and continued to focus upon discoveries already made by previous generations, they have been significantly outpaced by their European counterparts, and continue to trail other cultures in scientific research and medicine to this day. The Islamic world’s perspective on issues of women’s rights also stands in sharp contrast to global trends......... ........Perhaps the most devastating and widespread failure in the Islamic world is the lack of free and open democracies. Successful democratic governments have been infrequent, particularly in the Arab World, as democracy faces both religious and social impediments in Muslim cultures...... ...........The consistent effort by the governments of many Muslim nations to limit democratic expression is the primary reason that the Middle East has one of the poorest ratings of political freedom in the world. Under Freedom House’s seven-point scale, with 1.0 being the most free and 7.0 the least free, the Middle East averages a rating of 5.53.28 Sixteen Arab states have no democracies, and these countries average a freedom level of 5.81, compared to the worldwide average of 3.16.29 More troubling is that the average level of freedom in the Middle East has over the years declined rather than increased. The result of the Islamic world’s hesitancy to undergo reform clearly impacts the economic health of Muslim countries. In 1999, the combined GDP of all Arab countries equaled $531.2 billion, which is smaller than that of Spain, and the World Bank estimates that in 2000 the average annual income in Muslim countries was half of the world’s average........ ...........Islamic fundamentalism has proven to be a tremendously resilient ideology, supported by the rampant poverty and hopelessness faced by the Muslim world. The inability of Islamic societies to counter the resurgence of Christian Europe following the Middle Ages was only the beginning of a history of economic and military domination, and many Muslim nations continue to struggle in the modern globalized economy. Religious fundamentalism is appealing to the disadvantaged specifically because it is based upon the triumphs of the Islamic empires before their demise.......

http://www.tcr.org/tcr/essays/eprize07_Ten%20Modern%20Islam%20163.pdf

There's no doubting Islamic civilisation fell and that it ceased to produce any significant scientific achievements in the past few centuries, you're not really telling us much there.

However these claims it just needs to emulate Western civilisation and all will be fine again are just ridiculous.

As are points like this:


Quote:

More troubling is that the average level of freedom in the Middle East has over the years declined rather than increased.

Not quite as troubling as the fact that as freedoms declined, the relationship with the West between the leaders of those countries became closer... co-incidence?

nice to see you accept some facts abu

Quote:

There's no doubting Islamic civilisation fell and that it ceased to produce any significant scientific achievements in the past few centuries, you're not really telling us much there.

It is significant that islam has not produced anything scientific for a few 1000 years.
well, maybe not for muslims, as they live in the past, but for those of us who drive cars, can read or write, have electric lights, penecillian etc etc etc it IS significant.


"You are now entering islam, please turn your watches back 1400 years."

Quote:

It is significant that islam has not produced anything scientific for a few 1000 years.

Interesting... even more signifcant is that Islam hasn't even existed for a few 1000 years..

my mistake, sorry.

It is significant that islam has not produced anything scientific for a few 100 years.


From well before cars, bicycles and electricity in streets islam has alternated between been navalgazing, beheading adulterators, blaming others for their own issues and chopping the hands off theives.

Quote:

It is significant that islam has not produced anything scientific for a few 100 years.

It is, but not surprising. When a society is economically and politically subservient to others, it will be so militarily and scientifically too, goes without saying.


Quote:

From well before cars, bicycles and electricity in streets islam has alternated between been navalgazing, beheading adulterators, blaming others for their own issues and chopping the hands off theives.

Not quite sure what "navalgazing" is, but as for the others, mentioning them just indicates how removed you are from the reality of the situation. The Islamic civilisation carried out capital punishment when it was producing scientific works, and today the U.S and before the U.S.S.R both carry out capital punishment, yet it hasn't prevented them being behind most of the scientific innovation of the past century...

Your point is just drivel, that has no relevance to the discussion at all.

abu_rashid wrote on Aug 27^th, 2009 at 4:45pm:

Quote: It is significant that islam has not produced anything scientific for a few 100 years. It is, but not surprising. When a society is economically and politically subservient to others, it will be so militarily and scientifically too, goes without saying. [quote]From well before cars, bicycles and electricity in streets islam has alternated between been navalgazing, beheading adulterators, blaming others for their own issues and chopping the hands off theives.

Not quite sure what "navalgazing" is, but as for the others, mentioning them just indicates how removed you are from the reality of the situation. The Islamic civilisation carried out capital punishment when it was producing scientific works, and today the U.S and before the U.S.S.R both carry out capital punishment, yet it hasn't prevented them being behind most of the scientific innovation of the past century...

Your point is just drivel, that has no relevance to the discussion at all.[/quote]
Get away with you!! By your own reckoning the Islamic ummah endeed in 1924. So what happened to the lost centuried between, say, 1300 and 1924?

That's 624 years.

I am counting from  the date Dante says his deam happened - Easter of the year 1300. That is a comnvenient date. Europe is well and truly in full possessions of its true self. It markss the ascendance of the European ideal, after the bloodyy encounter with Islam, and Isla is sliding into its despotic stupor. The Turk is gathering and the Europeans have the measure of fvckers. The next 387 years will be spent with holding the Turk at bay and finally expelling him from Europe except for the balkans.
Dante shows the European confidence in the face of Islam when he says:

Even a cask with bottom or sides knocked out
         Never cracked so wide as one soul I saw
         Burst open from the chin to where one farts.
 
25       His guts were hanging out between his legs;
         His pluck gaped forth and that disgusting sack
         Which turns to poo what throats have gobbled down.
 
         While I was all agog with gazing at him,
         He stared at me and, as his two hands pulled
30       His chest apart, cried, "Look how I rip myself!
 
         "Look at how mangled is Mohammed here!
         In front of me, Ali treks onward, weeping,
         His face cleft from his chin to his forelock.
 
         "And all the others whom you see down here
35       Were sowers of scandal and schism while
         They lived, and for this they are rent in two.
 
         "A devil goes in back here who dresses us
         So cruelly by trimming each one of the pack
         With the fine cutting edge of his sharp sword
 
40       "Whenever we come round this forlorn road:
         Because by then our old wounds have closed up
         Before we pass once more for the next blow.
 
         "But who are you, moping upon that ridge
         Perhaps to put off facing the penalty
45       Pronounced on you by your own accusations?"
 
         "Death has not yet reached him, nor guilt led him
         To the torture here," — my master answered,
         "But, to offer him the full experience,
 
         "I who am dead am destined to guide him
50       From circle to circle down here into hell,
         And, as surely as I speak to you, it’s true."


That is the voice of confidence, daing to 1300 exactly. "sowers of scandal and schism" indeed.

Quote:

Get away with you!! By your own reckoning the Islamic ummah endeed in 1924.

The Islamic Ummah has not ended. Don't know where you got this one from.


Quote:

So what happened to the lost centuried between, say, 1300 and 1924?

Although the seeds of decline were sewn in the 13th century, with the Mongol invasion and subsequent trashing of almost all of the Islamic lands by their hordes, that was not the end of Islamic scientific, political and military dominance. The Ottoman rise hadn't even begun, and the Mameleek were just beginning to spring onto the scene, not to mention the fact that the Mongols would soon convert to Islam, and some of them would even become great scientists themselves, once the Islamic ideals began to open their hearts and minds.


Quote:

Easter of the year 1300. That is a comnvenient date. Europe is well and truly in full possessions of its true self. It markss the ascendance of the European ideal

Europe was still steeped in darkness at this time, and would remain so for another century or two to come. It wasn't until the reconquista got iinto full swing, and the fruits of Islamic civilisation were translated and transferred to Europe that the 'european ideal' would ascend. Stop being such a pathetic little denier of truth, and lying about the influence of Islam on Europe. Even many Europeans today are admitting this, and many Western made documentaries have clearly documented it. But imbeciles such as yourself remain in darkness and denial, refusing to give Islam even the slightest credit.


Quote:

The next 387 years will be spent with holding the Turk at bay and finally expelling him from Europe except for the balkans.

What a load of crap. The Europeans had absolutely no way of stopping the Turks, until they overstretched themselves and finally began to collapse from wiithin due to their decadance and straying from Islam. If they had remained steadfast on the path of Islam, we'd probably be conducting this conversation (or another most likely) in Arabic or perhaps even Ottoman Turkish.


Quote:

Dante shows the European confidence in the face of Islam when he says:

As for that filth you dare call poetry, about the only reason you have any interest in it, is the fact it speaks about Islam. If it didn't, you wouldn't even pay it the slightest attention. Much like Rushdie wouldn't have sold a single book of his filth if it didn't mention Islam.

Nonsense on every point, I am afraid.

Islam's influence is at the level of curio, not of teacher. There is nothing Islamic in the renaissance, for example. It is all about going back to the greek and roman sources from which europe was cut off from - by the Muslims. Fancy that.

Islam was a transmitter only in so far as it stopped being a blocker and and a robber.

Islamic decadence begins when it cannot conquer any more and feels in control. It is good at conquering and subjugating and enslaving (dhimmitude is enslavement, not tolerance).

Dante is not crap and I know him inside out. He got the meassure of Mahomet, just like he got the measure of all who appear in his Comedy.
I know, when the ummah comes, his books will be burnt. But then again - whose books won't be??

You guys are copiers, not original thinkers or creators. Even Arabic numbers are really Indian numbers. Even your chemistry and medicine is stuff you plundered from the people you conquered. That is impossible for you to think something new as you need to check with the bearded imams before you can have a thought of your own.
Attacking non-Islamic things is jihad and so you can do that without head office approval. But not creating and thinking something new. That needs a ruling firts from a pinhead whose only claim to authority is that he has memorised a disjointed and tedious 7th century arabic text.

Quote:

It is all about going back to the greek and roman sources from which europe was cut off from - by the Muslims. Fancy that.

Are you really that self-deluded? Europe was cut off from it's Greek & Roman history by your very own Christianity. I can't believe you have the audacity to blame that on Islam. Whilst Christianity was burning any book remotely related to Greek & Roman history, the Muslims were busy restoring, translating and then most importantly _SHARING_ that knowledge back out with the world (even though most Europeans shunned it, considering it evil knowledge).

It's quite ironic, because you have no problem identifying Muslim's denial of their own culpability for their own failures. Yet apparently when Europe detaches itself from it's history... it's all of a sudden the Muslim's fault.

Just to drive home how completely ridiculous your claims are, Rome, the centre of Roman civilisation (obviously) never ever came under the rule of Islam. Greece never came under Islamic rule until after the renaissance had begun. So how on earth you can claim Muslims "cut you off from" it is just completely beyond any logical thought process I can imagine.


Quote:

Islam was a transmitter only in so far as it stopped being a blocker and and a robber.

Right... whatever makes you feel happy. Remain in your petty state of denial, I couldn't care less about small minded cretins such as yourself.

so where in the bible does it say to burn books, shun education??

Nope, sorry, wrong again, abu

Well that's what the Christians did... not the Muslims. Soren in his little anti-Islamic delusional world though can't concede any merit to Islam, nor can he let any opportunity escape to try to heap some blame onto it. No matter how illogical or unhistorical it might obviously be.

Nobody said it was scripturally based. But it happened nonetheless.

Democracy and women's rights (aside from education) have nothing to do with economic modernization, which is the main issue for the Islamic world.  Why is the West so upset that Islam refuses to deracinate itself and adopt the same mealy-mouthed secular humanism we're destroying ourselves with?  Much as I loathe Islamic immigrants, it makes me happy to see at least one significant civilization refusing to accept liberalism.

abu - as we have been through many times.
yes, christians do do bad stuff.

repeated question, where does it say in the bible to burn books ?


"Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold,
for wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her."

proverbs 8:10,11

Since soren is the one who was talking about destroying/preventing the legacy of Rome/Greece being transferred, perhaps you'd better ask him? He may have misidentified the culprit, but he certainly made the accusation.

I was merely pointing out Muslims certainly didn't do it, in fact they did the complete opposite.

abu -
Quote:

Whilst Christianity was burning any book remotely related to Greek & Roman history.......... I was merely pointing out Muslims certainly didn't do it, in fact they did the complete opposite.

so, there is nothing in the bible that says to discredit learning and knowledge?
but you are too arrogant to admit that ?

that's ok, i forgive you.

abu_rashid wrote on Aug 27^th, 2009 at 10:58pm:

Quote: It is all about going back to the greek and roman sources from which europe was cut off from - by the Muslims. Fancy that. Are you really that self-deluded? Europe was cut off from it's Greek & Roman history by your very own Christianity. I can't believe you have the audacity to blame that on Islam. Whilst Christianity was burning any book remotely related to Greek & Roman history, the Muslims were busy restoring, translating and then most importantly _SHARING_ that knowledge back out with the world (even though most Europeans shunned it, considering it evil knowledge). It's quite ironic, because you have no problem identifying Muslim's denial of their own culpability for their own failures. Yet apparently when Europe detaches itself from it's history... it's all of a sudden the Muslim's fault. Just to drive home how completely ridiculous your claims are, Rome, the centre of Roman civilisation (obviously) never ever came under the rule of Islam. Greece never came under Islamic rule until after the renaissance had begun. So how on earth you can claim Muslims "cut you off from" it is just completely beyond any logical thought process I can imagine. [quote]Islam was a transmitter only in so far as it stopped being a blocker and and a robber.

Right... whatever makes you feel happy. Remain in your petty state of denial, I couldn't care less about small minded cretins such as yourself.
[/quote]

By signing up to Islam you have, by definition, surrendered reason at the tent-flap. So what you can and can't believe is no basis of deciding anything. For others, consider this:

With the rise of Islam, Europe was cut off from the Mediterranean, its main trade route to Christian North Africa and the Christian Levant. as well as Persia and beyond.
Within a 100 years of the rise of islam, all of North Africa and the Levant and Persia were overrun by Muslims. Trade with these huge areas of territory was lost to the west.
In 846 Muslims sacked Rome and carried off its treasures, resulting in the building of the walls of the Vatican (Helian and other igronamuses, wondering about the city status of the Vatican and sniffing religious conspiracy, please note).
Until the Americans kicked their arses, the Mohamedan pirates (the Barbary corsairs) menaced all trade and traffic on the Mediterranean, from the 8th century to the early 19th.  That's 1000 years.

So Islam was a bringer of strife and darkness and cultural throat-cutting.

The fact that dhimmis under Islam were allowed to translate ancient texts that were used to justify islam is no compensation. No ancient texts dealing with matters inrrelevant to Islamic self-justification were allowed to be translated by the Mohamedan overlords - they did not give us Aristotle's Poetics or any of the Greek tragedies or Geek or Roman poetry, for example. We know from the example of what hapened to the Afghan Buddhist statues that Islam is not remotely interested in anything that preceded it, whatsoever.

So the loud praise for Islam saving the heritage of antiquity for the west is utter, utter crap. Islam has not conserved anything that predated it if it could just as well destroy it. Its instict has always been for destruction of whatever did not serve its predatory interests. The pyramids stand because the Muslim overlord who tried to destroy them could not actually do it (did not have access to western technology, the prick).

The muslim contribution to western intellectual and cultural life was limited and UNINTENDED. It was not unintended only in the sense of wanting to help the west - of course it did not want to do that - but it was unintended in the sense of preserving any pre-Islamic civilisational traces. Whatever it transmitted, rather then destroyed, was unintended. The proof is that ir denounces everything that went before it.

Any attempt of making Islam to appear decisive for western cultural power must be dismissed as fantasy with no relation to facts or events. The west encoutered Islam not as a bridge to anything but as a barrier to be overcome. And it has succeeded in the overcoming.

The Renaissance coincides, roughly, with the influx of Byzantine refugees fleeing after the fall of Constantinople, bringing to the west their books and expertise.

That fall and that fleeing also marks the beginning of Islamic decline. Mohamedans no longer had access to brainy dhimmis as they all fled. The history of Islam in the last 400 years  is a history decline. Of those 400 years, western occupation accounts for between 60 and 160 years, at most. The sources of decline therefore must be located in Islam itself. It is closed-minded and despite its much longer history of being the menace of everything around it, today it plays the victim on account of a brief spell of western attempts to bring it the benefits of enlightenment and reason.

Quote:

With the rise of Islam, Europe was cut off from the Mediterranean

Not really cut off. The Islamic Caliphate was always very open and friendly towards other civilisations, the ignorant Europeans though never accepted this openness, and shunned it, preferring only open hostility. Besides, the mediterranean still didn't cut Europe off from Rome and Athens (or any other major Greek centre, except Alexandria).


Quote:

Within a 100 years of the rise of islam, all of North Africa and the Levant and Persia were overrun by Muslims. Trade with these huge areas of territory was lost to the west.

Actually trade increased under Islamic rule. The "Silk road" became a major highway of trade under Islam, when previously it was just small disjointed trade routes, under Islam it became a bustling trade network, which indeed did stretch into Europe. That's why plenty of stock food items borrow their word from Arabic, such as sugar, lemon, apricot, coffee and a host of others.


Quote:

In 846 Muslims sacked Rome and carried off its treasures

Actually I've never heard of this before. Unless I just missed it in amongst all the fellow Christians who sacked Rome during those times (ie. in 410, 455, 546, 1084, 1527). But wait... would Christians really do that? Ransack their own fellow Christian's capital??? No couldn't be, not in soren's little universe of delusion anyway. Christians were builders of civilisation, not sackers of it.... right?

Maybe they were Muslims in disguise? After all most were Arian Christians, who we both know were more Muslim-like, with their staunch adherence to monotheism and rejection of the trinity.


Quote:

Until the Americans kicked their arses, the Mohamedan pirates (the Barbary corsairs) menaced all trade and traffic on the Mediterranean, from the 8th century to the early 19th.  That's 1000 years.

What you really mean to say is  "They were dominant for that period (and we were losers), so we'lll try to invalidate their dominance by calling them pirates" People like Khyr'ad-deen Pasha (Barbarossa) were great naval leaders. The European claims they were pirates is about as substantial as the claim today that Muslim resistance movements are "terrorists", ie. it's a load of bollocks used to discredit your enemy, that's about it.


Quote:

The fact that dhimmis under Islam were allowed to translate ancient texts

Sure they were translating them? I thought they were just burning and destroying them?  ;D

You're a clown really soren, I don't know how you can keep a straight face whilst regurgitating this crap.


Quote:

The muslim contribution to western intellectual and cultural life was limited and UNINTENDED

Yeh it was all just by accident, we know.  ;D


Quote:

The Renaissance coincides, roughly, with the influx of Byzantine refugees fleeing after the fall of Constantinople, bringing to the west their books and expertise.

That was part of it (More happened in conquered Andalus though). Strange... weren't the Byzantines Christians? So now you admit Christians did indeed possess the ancient texts. When they fled their religious authorities (who remained in Constantinople under Muslim rule) they were finally free to translate and pass them on. Prior to that, they would've been burnt at the stake for doing so.


Quote:

That fall and that fleeing also marks the beginning of Islamic decline. Mohamedans no longer had access to brainy dhimmis as they all fled.

Actually the vast majority of Greeks remained under Islamic rule (until the British brokered population transfer after WWI). It was only a small minority who fled.


Quote:

The history of Islam in the last 400 years  is a history decline. Of those 400 years, western occupation accounts for between 60 and 160 years, at most

Actually colonisation of Muslim lands began aruond 400 years ago. In Africa, India, South-East Asia etc.


Quote:

The sources of decline therefore must be located in Islam itself.

The source of decline was in moving away from Islam, which then left them open to Western conquest. Islam cannot be the source, since the Muslims were so dominant and successful for so long, under the rule of Islam. Rather it is when they became lax in implementing Islam, and even began to mix Islam with foreign systems that the decline began to take hold. Such as the Mongol invasions, which began to replace Islamic law with Mongol laws, and later the Ottoman borrowing of European laws.

The Muslim invasion and menacing of the mediterreanen greatly contributed to the gravitation of European civilisation to the Atlantic. So we can thank the Muslims for the British Empire. One more great Islamic achievement.
The straightforward communication with the East, via Suez,  was only re-established when the muslims were finally subdued.

abu_rashid wrote on Aug 29^th, 2009 at 1:24am:

Quote: In 846 Muslims sacked Rome and carried off its treasures Actually I've never heard of this before.

The walls of the Vatican were built in response to the Saracen looting in 846.

Quote:

Until the Americans kicked their arses, the Mohamedan pirates (the Barbary corsairs) menaced all trade and traffic on the Mediterranean, from the 8th century to the early 19th.  That's 1000 years.

What you really mean to say is  "They were dominant for that period (and we were losers), so we'lll try to invalidate their dominance by calling them pirates" People like Khyr'ad-deen Pasha (Barbarossa) were great naval leaders. The European claims they were pirates is about as substantial as the claim today that Muslim resistance movements are "terrorists", ie. it's a load of bollocks used to discredit your enemy, that's about it.

[/quote]

They were looters and slave traders. Pirates. The saracens were beaten back from Italy in the 11th century by the Normans, the Moors from Iberia in the 15th and the Turk from the Balkans in the 17th, Greece th 19th. The Americans finally made the Mediterranean safe for internationakl shipping in the 19th. Suez could finally be built.

A steady decline of Muslim power. When it has to find vitality in its own mental and economic resources, ie when it has to work (dread concept for tribal looters), it shrivels.

And Muslim terrorists today are just that - terrorists. They are not heroic resistance fighters. Their ideals are abhorrent.

Quote:

A steady decline of Muslim power. When it has to find vitality in its own mental and economic resources, ie when it has to work (dread concept for tribal looters), it shrivels.

Compare countries like India under Islam to under the British. It's quite obvious who the looters were. What kind of an "empire" exports staple foods out of a region when millions of people are dying from famine?? Looters.

Or Africa. Under the centuries of Islamic rule, the people of eastern Africa were wealthy traders, who prospered. After only a century or two of European colonialism, they can't even feed themselves anymore, and have starved to death by the millions. Every land the British/West has touched, has been worse off for it, and most of them were previously under Islamic rule... and prospered under it.

As your own book states: "by their fruits you will know them"

Quote:

.......After only a century or two of European colonialism, they can't even feed themselves anymore, and have starved to death by the millions.......

hahahahhaahahah abu !!
it took a few centuries for england to ruin africa ?????????
surely such a bad influence would be MUCh quicker.
The african states under black rule are the lowest in the earth.
when under white rule they were the best !!!!

Quote:

it took a few centuries for england to ruin africa ?????????

Actually in most cases it was less than 1 century. But in some cases, Europeans have been there for about 200-300 years, so I used this figure as an upper limit.

Not just the British, the Portuguese, Italians, French and others were involved too. But seriously, look at the history of Africa prior to their arrival, and the bleak situation that has existed ever since...

They ran them into the ground. Ethiopia for instance, is perhaps the oldest Christian nation in existence. When Islam first began, Muslims travelled to Ethiopia as refugees, because it was a major centre of civilisation in that time. The Italians went in there less than a century ago, and were then followed by the Communists, and as we saw during the 80's, they just ended up starving to death and became one of the poorest nations on earth. Likewise for their neighbour Somalia, which was once a wealthy trade centre, today a backwater, completely ruined by a century of European 'Enlightenment'.

Another great example is Mali, once a bustling centre of civilisation, learning and culture. The Sankore university in Timbuktu (built in the 14th. century) was capable of housing over 25,000 students, and contained the largest library on the African continent since the Library of Alexandria, housing between 400,000-700,000 books and manuscripts. Today Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world. Only 50 odd years of French rule and it's gone to ruins. The once legendary city of Timbuktu has been reduced today to a beggers town. The city began to decline after explorers and slavers from Portugal and then other European countries landed in West Africa.


Quote:

The african states under black rule are the lowest in the earth.

A brief period of prosperity under white post-colonialist rule is fairly insignficant compared to the vast periods of time that Islam and then Europe ruled the region. Although it does tend to top up the naturally low self-esteem of white supremacists, who have a racial-deficiency complex.

300-500
Rise of Ghana due to trade; fall of Rome (A.D. 410); early Christian era.

610-700
Muhammad has first revelation; Qur’an written; spread of Islam, often through violent conflict. Arabian conquest of North Africa and Spain.

700
Ghana under the rule of Sisse clan. Europe in “Dark Ages.” Islam reaches the Sudan through trade and scholarship.

700-1000
Ghana dominant power in Western Sudan.

900-1000
Arab scholars write about Sudan.

1000
Al-Bakri writes history of Old Kingdom of Ghana based on reports from travelers, merchants, traders, etc.

1050
Almoravid (Islamics) invasion of Ghana; wide disruption of trade.

1087
Death of Abu Bakr, leader of Almoravids; movement declines; Muslim impact is widespread in the Western Sudan among kings but not in rural villages where traditional religions are practiced.

1100
City of Tombouctou founded as a small trading center along the Niger River.

1150
Susu clan dominates old Ghana.

1230
Sundiata, a Mandinka prince, defeats the Susu and founds the kingdom of Mali.

1255
Sundiata dies but leaves Mali securely in control of West-African gold and salt trade.

1307
Reign of Mansa Musa begins.

1320
Mansa Musa captures Tombouctou as part of Mali Empire, becomes center for scholarship, trade.

1324
Mansa Musa’s hajj (pilgrimage) to Egypt and Mecca. Al-Umari (1301-1349) records Mansa Musa’s visit in the Masalik al-Ahsad.

1325
Mali captures Gao.

1332
Mansa Musa dies.

1353
Ibn Battuta visits Mali, first person to write a first hand account of his travels in West Africa.

1359
Mali divided by civil war.

1433
Timbuktu captured and controlled by Berbers.

1450
Mali absorbed by Songhay; beginning of Renaissance in Europe.

1464
Reign of Sunni Ali Ber begins.

1468
Sunni Ali takes Timbuktu; sacks the city.

1473
Djenne surrenders after seven-year siege by Mali.

1492-1495
Songhay taken over by military leader named Askia Muhammad Toure. He makes hajj to Mecca in 1495.

1512
Leo Africanus, who visits Songhay in 1512, is first to write an account of sub-Saharan Africa (1562) that is translated into a language other than Arabic. Michelangelo completes his painting in the Sistine Chapel.

1590-1591
Mahmud al-Kati, Soninke writer, begins writing history of Sudan. No document survives, but his work is incorporated into the work Tarikh al-fettash, by Ibn Mukhtar. Leonardo da Vinci dies; Cortez enters Tenochtitlan, capital of Mexico, and meets the Aztec ruler Montezuma.

1528
Askia Muhammad exiled by son; dies in 1538.

1582
Songhay kingdom ruled by Askia Daoud.

1591
Songhay empire attacked by Morocco.

1618
Moroccan occupation of Songhay ends. Decline of Songhay complete by end of 17th century.

1670
Tuareg Berbers capture Gao.

1865
Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution ends slavery in the United States

1884
At Berlin Conference, Africa is divided by European countries, and the period of African colonization begins.

1889
French invasion and take over of Mali, the French Sudan becomes part of the Federation of French West Africa.

1958
French constitutional referendum, French Sudan voted to the French Community as the autonomous Sudanese republic.

1960
Sudanese Republic loses Senegal and becomes the fully independent Republic of Mali.
1968
Mousssa Traoré elected president (reelected in 1979)

1979
New constitution contained provision for elections to be held, democratic measures were implemented in spite of an unstable political climate.

1991
President Traoré is overthrown and the military takes control.

1992
Constitution approves multi-party democracy and Alpha Konaré is elected in the first democratic presidential election.

1997
President Konaré reelected





as per usual, a lot of the strife is from the muslim quarter, also the berbers.
mali generally democratically self governed.
aside from the usual tribal military style insurgency that is common in africa.

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as per usual, a lot of the strife is from the muslim quarter, also the berbers.

Are you kidding sprint?  ;D

Btw, you do realise Berbers are Muslims too, no?


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mali generally democratically self governed.

What a consolation. Going from being an international centre of learning, trade and culture, to being one of the poorest backwaters in the world, but at least you elect your own leader...