Ok lets just call hating people on the basis of religion sectarianism and ignore any history of colonisation and genocide....NOT RACIST NOT RACIST!!!! Blah blah blah

Unless the people.actually are racist, or should we just ignore that?

@N0DD yes - you should ignore that voice in your own head that makes you say such stupid things....and see a therapist about it.

@iThink i see where you're coming from!

@Daveclark5 The semitic people of the middle east are a linguistic group which included arabs jews and christians, its an obselete term without any racial validity. The idea of race is just that an idea not a fact, the promotion of the idea of race as a fact is racist.

Hello N0DD. I only know this much about "the idea of race" you talk of:

Race as a categorizing term referring to human beings was first used in the English language in the late 16th century. Until the 18th century it had a generalized meaning similar to other classifying terms such as type, sort, or kind. Occasional literature of Shakespeare’s time referred to a “race of saints” or “a race of bishops.” By the 18th century, race was widely used for sorting and ranking the peoples in the English colonies—Europeans who saw themselves as free people, Amerindians who had been conquered, and Africans who were being brought in as slave labour—and this usage continues today. - Britannica

Is there any articles online you can recommend? I would like to know more.

@Naomi Check out Frantz Fanon.

Thank you, N0DD!

@Naomi @N0DD
There are unlimited ways in which we can categorize each other.
Whether any of those distinctions are "real" or not is debatable and irrelevant.
The hate is real.
Indeed, the distinctions themselves are irrelevant to the power mongers who peddle them... any excuse will do. To pit one group against another, you must first group them.
How you group them doesn't matter.

Hitler sought to wipe out a certain genetic lineage, it had nothing to do with linguistics.
I'm pretty sure the naked families waiting their turn for a bullet at the edge of a mass grave didn't give much of a shit whether his theories of race as a biological construct were sound.

@rway does love conquer hate?

@N0DD not all by itself.
Light displaces darkness effortlessly... but you have to flick the switch.

Hello rway. I get your point. I'll be careful.

@rway or light a candle

@N0DD I was just thinking about that...
I like the candle analogy better, because it's extensible to the idea of propagating the flame to others around you...

@Naomi
Hi Naomi. I'm not trying to say we shouldn't understand how different meanings evolved, that's obviously useful information; especially for trying to understand people who are motivated by those ideas.

Well said. I spent too much time going into my rebuttal and, as it was already too long, didn’t cover the aspects you stated. Well done for covering it!

Without being trite there are at least two sides to any conflict but it is always more complex than that, even to simply consider that "western civilisation" would not exist without Islam (or vice versa). How much has Islam contributed to the development of "western civilisation" or "western civilisation to the corruption of Islam?

@N0DD What has Islam contributed to Western civilization?

@N0DD, @rway Lots?
[en.wikipedia.org]

@Naomi
Muslims have done all kinds of different things throughout history.
How much of that is attributable to Islam itself?
The Greek, Arab and Persian cultures were quite advanced; especially before the region and the indigenous cultures were conquered and predominately subsumed by Islam.
Subsequently, some Muslims over the centuries have perpetuated and even expanded on some of those cultural accomplishments.

But, what positive influence has Islam, itself, had on the world... that you could reasonably argue would probably not have come to pass if it weren't for Islam, or some principle therein?

@rway Muslims are human beings no different from any other members of that class we call humanity. Just as capable of philosophy, atrocity, mysticism and dogma as any other. Art, philosophy and science were preserved by the Islamic world because all knowledge and beauty was evidence of the perfection of Allah (God). The Sufi was also known as the man of the cloth, carried and disseminated knowledge through language, alchemy and the search for truth (light). The European equivalents the Druids converted to Christianity and many became monks or early Christian saints bringing their illuminated manuscripts to the Early Church in Europe, the exchanges of knowledge and culture were destroyed by the religious wars of conquest known as the crusades.

@N0DD
Exactly. Muslims are just people.
Muslims and Islam are not the same thing.

What has Islam done for the world?

"religious wars of conquest" is a very biased, and very incorrect, phrase to use for the Crusades.
The first of which was launched after almost 500-years of Islam attacking/encroaching on Europe from the East and from the South... threatening the end of Western Civilization itself.

Art, philosophy and science were "preserved by the Islamic world" because they had ruined the once-great civilizations from which much of it emerged. In the 8th century, the Abassid caliphate established the "House of Wisdom" in Baghdad, where they forced Christian dhimmis to translate and curate the stuff that they didn't understand. The Islamic world became the center of knowledge by conquest, not by innovation.
Some enterprising young Muslims may have done something to advance some of that accumulated knowledge before it got translated into Latin and picked up by the West.
Are you actually citing that as a "contribution"?

@rway, @N0DD

"What has Islam done for the world?"

The question is so huge that I don't think anyone could give a precise answer to that.

However, I found this article which I read with interest.

[pbs.org]

It touches a history of positive relationships between the West and the Muslim world. The following is an excerpt from the article:

Has there been a history of positive relationships between Western civilization and the Muslim world?

As in most other interactions between civilizations, there are always both positive and negative dimensions. And if one looks at some of the positive aspects of this relationship, one could argue that the way in which centers of learning in the West absorbed knowledge from Islamic civilization in the earlier period through the Iberian peninsula, in Sicily and even via the Crusades. The Crusades had a certain dimension to it which is not often emphasized. It was not just the wars. There was also the exchange of ideas by conquest and trade. You find that ideas pertaining to science and technology and navigation, all those ideas crossed borders and boundaries. So that was positive.

@rway everybody has a point of view and its probably best to be dispassionate as possible to be truthful. I can only recall an experience I had many years ago standing in the room of the Alhambra Palace in Granada, built in Muslim Andalusia where Queen Isabella gave Columbus her blessing to explore the New World. Of course the Portugese had already "discovered" the Americas using the Islamic science of navigation preserved from the Ancient Greeks. St Brendan of course had already been over as had the Norse, there's a ancient Celtic land out in the Atlantic called Brasil.

@rway The first Crusade was launched against Christian heretics called the Albigensians who lived in Northern Italy, the Languedoc in France and Northern Spain, also known as Cathari, it was a genocidal warr launched by the King of France with the Popes blessing. The heresy of these Christians was such that they neededto be exterminated, subsequent Crusades extended this approach to the Muslim infidel.

@N0DD ...and what were the Muslims doing in Spain? That's right, trying to continue North and conquer Europe and the West, after having made their way all across North Africa, as well as Eastern Europe on another front.
The first Crusade to the "Holy Land" was in the 1090's.
If you're going to compare Islamic Theocracy to Medieval Catholic Theocracy you won't find much difference. Theocracy always ends in tears, and is 100% antithetical to the defining premise of Western Civilization; the notion of Individual Sovereignty.

lol... "the Islamic science of navigation preserved from the Ancient Greeks."
A more accurate way to say that is: "the Ancient Greek science of navigation." ...for which the Greeks probably owe at least some thanks to the Phoenicians.

@rway What were the Muslims doing in Spain? Building Universities, libraries, inviting scholars and philosophers from across the world to increase knowledge and civilisation. Introducing irrigation and production of citrus fruits, olives dates etc. Production of silk, wine, alcohol. Ceramics, glazes and dyeing techniques, introducing freetrade eg the use of cheques opening the Silk Road to China, spices and preserves etc. Musical instruments like the oud and the lute, lyric poetry and literature....no wonder the ignorant impoverished Northerners wanted to take all that...

@N0DD you forgot the part about trying to conquer Western civilization.
They could have just stayed home to grow olives and read books.

@rway your question was what has Islam contributed....? Maybe you could read a book.

@N0DD no... that question was "what were they doing in Spain?" And the answer is: jihad. i.e., Trying to conquer Europe and Western Civilization; which they are still doing.
The original question... what has Islam contributed to the West, you've yet to answer.

You're not really distinguishing between Muslims and Islam, are you?
Or between appropriation and achievement.

Muslims come from many cultures, and those distinct cultures survive to some extent under the common blanket of Islam.
Greek culture is arguably foundational to the West in some ways. They also deeply influenced cultures in Egypt, across the Middle East and into South West Asia for centuries; as did the Romans after them.
Arab cultures, especially Egyptian, have brought the world many interesting and useful things.
Persian culture has done the same... as have the sub-Saharan, Indonesian, and Central Asian cultures; all of which have been subsumed under the pall of Islam.

Those cultural influences persist, to whatever extent they are allowed by the whims and evolving interpretations of their Islamic masters.
But, to restate the original question: What principle, philosophy, technology, or art form has Western Civilization acquired from Islam itself, that has contributed positively in any way, to the evolution of the West?

Or, how about just a single example of how Islam, or for that matter the existence of Muhammad ʿalayhi as-salām, has made the world a better place?

@rway are you being deliberately dense? The Mughal invasion of India (just to switch continents) produced the great palaces of North India, the Red Fort in Delhi and the Taj Mahal in Agra, the Yellow Fort in Jaipur to name a few off the top of my head, the art and craftsmanship is incredible and was imported to the Royal Houses of Europe and Venice and Northern Italy in particular laying the foundation for the Renaissance, Ok I know you're going to say there they go again conquering somewhere, but why did the Islamic civilisation flourish? One thing Islam does insist on is equality of all men in the eyes of God, alms for the poor as a duty and justice under the law, all of which is a huge advance on feudal serfdom or the appalling caste system of Hinduism.In relation to your idea of Islam invading or conquering any country today could you give an example that hasn't been tied to some proxy war or destabilisation engineered by the dominant powers of Russia, America or Europe?

@N0DD ok, I give up. You refuse to differentiate between Islam and Muslims... but I'm being dense.
Shah Jahan made an obsessively big mausoleum out of grief for his dead wife.
Being a Muslim was not a prerequisite. Jahan did that. Islam didn't do that.

@rwayQ. What is a Muslim? A. A follower of the religion of Islam.

@rway, @N0DD Wow, thank you both! You're both so knowledgeable and intelligent. And this is how a debate is supposed to be done. I enjoyed that!

@N0DD A Muslim is a follower of Islam... yes; but that's not all that they are. A Muslim is also a person.
Different Muslim people throughout history have all manner of accomplishments, across the spectrum of human achievement.
Of course they do. Islamic Caliphates/Sultanates/Empires seized control of much of humanity's accumulated contemporary knowledge, and subjugated the people who understood it.
Most of those indigenous people became Muslims themselves, and just carried on with their work and their lives; to whatever extent the were able under their new masters.
They did not do so because of Islam. If anything, they did so in spite of Islam; although it was helpful to have the forced participation of infidel dhimmis, and the vast resources that were the spoils of Empire-building.
Really big, pretty buildings is not a defining tenet of the religion of Islam; and they're not unique to the Islamic world in the first place.

Islam brought nothing beneficial to the world; just the same old historical norm of conquest and subjugation, cloaked in the pretense of divine authority and enforced with the sword.
The one tenet that uniquely defines Islam, is the idea that it is their duty to actively pursue subjugating YOU next... by any means available. This is a mandate from Allah, and is therefore not subject to any earthly negotiation, treaties, reasoning, etc., etc.

That is what Islam has contributed to the West, and to the rest of the world: an existential threat.
Nothing more.

@rway If your core belief is that Islam is an existential threat then there can be no argument, this belief seems almost Islamic if that is your understanding of Islam. As a religion I would not consider Islam to be much different to Christianity or Judaism insofar as any religion has validity beyond being a human construct (an undeniably powerful one at that).
All of the sons of Adam are part of
one single body,
They are of the same essence.
When time afflicts us with pain
In one part of that body
All the other parts feel it too.
If you fail to feel the pain of others
You do not deserve the name of man. (Saadi Shirazi)

@N0DD It's not a belief, it's an observation. There can be no argument if you fail to present one.

Feel the pain of all those who've been subjugated under the thumb of Islam over the centuries.
Whether you consider any religion "valid" or not is beside the point. Whether their religion is "valid" is none of my business. How it affects others... especially me and my culture, is my business.

Christianity and Islam are exact, polar opposites; and that's not a coincidence.

@rway this conversation does not have to be a manichean contest, consider rewinding slightly to the Christian conquest of the Americas if you need a comparitor to the ambitions of Islam.

@N0DD "Christian conquest"... that's an interesting claim; one that... again... confuses the people who claim to be adherents, with the religion itself.
How many people did Jesus Christ forcefully convert, or kill to acquire their gold or land?
And now... Muhammad?

Faith has always been used by those in power to control people.
Whether it be priests, Imams, Shamans, or lately: "scientists"; all that is required is that their claims be unassailable on the grounds that they have some exclusive access to knowledge that you just "wouldn't understand."
Those claims are, necessarily, accepted on faith. That's pure power.
The actions of those who abuse such power reveal much about human nature, and nothing at all about whatever religion or discipline they've cloaked themselves in.

I don't know how much Catholic or Megachurch baggage you associate with the term "Christianity", but the unadulterated core is this:
Christianity is the attempt, by the individual, to emulate the persona of Jesus Christ.
Participation is voluntary, and is entirely between you and God; nobody else's business.
This is the source of the entire notion of Individual Sovereignty, the defining premise of Western Civilization.

Islam is the attempt, by the individual, to emulate the persona of Muhammad.
Participation is compulsory, at the discretion of the Theocracy.
As a theocracy it also entails the attempt, by the State, to interpret the literal Word of Allah to manifest the proper organization of society and all of its institutions; both public and private.
The individual's role is to comply. You don't argue with Allah, you'll lose that argument.

@rway ah now that would be an ecumenical matter as Father Jack might say. There is one God Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. I had a conversation with a guy in Morrocco years ago over a beer who took the view that Islam is the most recent development of the Abrahamic religion, the first being Judaism, then Christianity and finally Islam. Jesus is revered as a prophet in Islam but not attributed with divinity as the " Son of God" as in Christianity. When the crusaders came to the Holy Land Saladins troops taunted them with the claim that you have the cross but we have the man!
Funnily enough the Albigensian Christian heresy was that Jesus did not die on the cross but survived and went on to live with Mary Magdelene, of course the Cathari were wiped out by the first crusade. This may sound very Dan Brown but if you think about it the absolutely logical and scientific explanation for the risen Christ is that he did not die!
As an aside I asked my Muslim acquaintance how come he was drinking alcohol his answer was that you don't have to be perfect to be a Muslim and God is merciful even if man is not.

Yes, they claim a common Judeo-Christian heritage... but you tell a tree by its fruit, not by what it tells you.

@rway Jesus wept!

@rway Conquistador

@N0DD what did the European quest for gold have to do with Christianity? You already tried the fallacy of "Christian conquest" of the Americas...

Also, if European expansionism was "wrong"... then claiming equivalence with Islamic expansionism, is simply a concession that it is also wrong; so we seem to be in agreement.

@rway always in agreement that the interpretation of history, reality or the world is multifaceted, multi dimensional, and partial according to ones own perspective, but.....? What exist now of the Taino except the words Cuba, hurricane and canoe.

@N0DD The Taino are a good example. Civilizations that fail to recognize, and to successfully counter, existential threats... don't last long.

Ok this is my berserker, he gaurds my home in the Scottish Borders against the invasions of the Romans and the Sassenachs.....but he's a viking mercenary, a pawn of carved scots pine, a Lewis chessman.

it is a political system disguised as a "religion"

absolutely true but there is no point engaging someone who begins their argument with "racist racist racist"

Blah, Blah, Blah!!!

Exactly...

Hello. The history of the idea of race sounds interesting, though... I want to learn more about it.

@Naomi
A problem with the idea of a "history of the idea of race" is that it begins with the presupposition of race as a social construct right from the get go. If one looks at it through some sort of evolutionary lens it would seem obvious that human populations spread across the continents would adapt to the differing environments into differentiated populations. As societies form, among differing populations, those societies would further select for still further differentiation. Over tens of thousands of years--given environmental differences--social and cultural differences arising from environmental necessity; multilevel selection of differing physical, sociological, and psychological traits being socially and environmentally favored for sexual selection; something very much LIKE the actuality of race became real and present long before any idea of race could ever have been constructed in the first place.

Any effort to examine the history of the idea MUST begin with an acceptance that the FACTS existed PRIOR to the attempt to express the idea. The present conversational environment disallows the very notions of evolutionary population differences arising prior to the social construct, and any modern study is therefore dishonest.

@govols There is a postmodern ring to it...? OK, I will be careful. Thank you.

@Naomi, I don't want to go all post-modern on it, but if I were trying to learn about the history of the idea of race I'd try to start in antiquity, looking toward as early examples as possible from the Chinese, Indian, Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian textual fragments for descriptions among them of outside peoples and cultures. Find the early ideas of how peoples differ before applying modern criticisms of how the observations extended into politics and policy. In other words, find the ideas first, and then survey their deconstructions in the modern age.

@govols Got it. Thanks ever so much for the advice.