polite_gandalf wrote on Jul 6^th, 2013 at 10:28pm:


You are not saying anything concrete, just silly puffery and nervous preening.
And every time you do that I know I have nailed you.  Here's the concrete stuff you should address, but are avoiding:

They ordered some translations which were carried out by non-Muslims or recent converts. They restricted it all to works that excused or justified Islam - no poetry, no drama, no comedy, no histories. Once the apologetics stuff was done, the whole intellectual enterprise was shut down and has stayed shut down ever since.


Show us what Greek poetry or drama or political tract an Arab translated -  and I will show you the exception that proves my rule.

You are not addressing any of the points I have made. Instead, you carp and nag and sneer.

Soren wrote on Jul 8^th, 2013 at 9:59pm:


And this, coming from the Alan Jones of sneer.

Karnal wrote on Jul 8^th, 2013 at 10:07pm:




So now it's about their liberal democratic choice as to what to read?!?
Who, apart from you, Gandy and SOB, would credit your stupid attempt to make it a matter of choice?

Soren wrote on Jul 8^th, 2013 at 9:39pm:


Your earlier post showed nothing of the sort - unless you think plucking out 4 or 5 of the many hundreds of translators and pointing out they were not arab somehow proves something. Many people would consider Al-Kindi or the Banu-Musa brothers to be the greatest translators, and they were arab.

But what does it matter? We're talking about the supposed anti-intellectual spirit of islam, not the arabs. And I feel like I need to point out the obvious - that when the arab-muslims conquered great swathes of territory in the middle and near east, they instantly became a racial minority of the empire. There were now Persians, Syrians, jews etc, many of whom joined the new translation/intellectual movement. Wouldn't it be expected that most of them would be non-arab? The relevant point though is that it was absolutely an arab-muslim inspired movement, and without question the majority of translators were muslim - not 100% jewish/christian or other non-muslim as you and adamant so foolishly claimed earlier.

Soren wrote on Jul 8^th, 2013 at 9:39pm:


I have acknowledged repeatedly that islamic intellectual pursuits basically died after the 13th century. The overrunning and destruction of the greatest cultural and intellectual hub of the world - plus the once largest city of the world - Baghdad, by the Mongols, being a major contributing factor. But this decline doesn't render 500 years of intellectual flowering before that suddenly untrue.

Soren wrote on Jul 8^th, 2013 at 9:51pm:


This is simply ignorance Soren. They translated the greatest Greek philosophies, most of which fundamentally disagreed with islamic doctrine. Anyone who knows anything about the golden age knows that one of the defining characteristics was the remarkable tolerance for the disseminating of philosophical ideas that directly opposed the quran and/or the teachings of the prophet.

Soren wrote on Jul 9^th, 2013 at 9:20pm:


Never ever. Ever.

The old boy’s never happier than when he’s fantasizing about a nice bit of repression. Marvellous stuff.

Makes the world go round, dunnit.

Karnal wrote on Jul 9^th, 2013 at 9:35pm:


Look who's talking -  a Paki homo with Nam vetaran pretension and a Bradford Poly Cert III in Foucauldian post-colonial identity studies.
Talk about having all the fvckn mental diseases and disorders.