Johnny Maudlin just put up a link to Muslim inventions. I don’t know if Wikipedia is accurate on this topic, but even giving it the benefit of the doubt, there was just one Islamic invention in the 20th century – a Muslim created a design now used in the new skyscrapers. One invention. ONE! That’s it. ONE! And the last one before that was in the 17th century!
My overall thesis holds, however. I did say – repeatedly – that Muslims did invent some things about a thousand years ago, but their inventions came to a trickle in the 16-17 centuries, and disappeared after that.
I may have overestimated Islamic inventions. Creating 3-5 marginal inventions per year in your “Golden Age” is pretty pathetic. It’s better than today, but there were more inventions in the United States alone in the last 10 years than in all of the Muslim world during the “Golden Age”.
And most of the Muslim inventions weren’t created by the Arabs, but by the more advanced Turks, Kurds, Persians and Indians.
Here a list of great Arab scientists and scholars. I couldn’t find a single one who lived in the last 500 years. Almost everyone listed lived sometime between the 8th and 12 centuries.
Anyway, if you don’t feel like reading through all the Muslim inventions, I did the job for you and have summarized it below:
Astrolabes: 9 inventions. The last one in the 12th century. Not 21, but 12!!!
Analog computers: 8 inventions, last one in the 15 century.
Globes: 3 inventions, last one in the 16 century.
Mural Instruments: 7 inventions, the last one is in the 11 or 12 century.
Other instruments: 6 inventions, the last one in the 11 century.
Aviation: 4 inventions, the last one in the 17 century. Two research projects were in the 20th century. Think about that one: of the tens of thousands of aviation research projects during the 20th century, they participated in only two and neither one is particularly notable.
Camera technology: 2 inventions, both many centuries ago.
Chemistry: 10 inventions, all during the 8 and 9 centuries.
Laboratory apparatus: 9 inventions, the last one in the 12th century.
Chemical industries: 21 inventions, the last one in the 9th century.
Industry: 27 inventions, the last one in the 12th century, except for shampoo in the 18th century.
Civil Engineering: 7 inventions, including one in the 16th century and, holy cow, one actually in the 20th century. We got one! Yes! There really IS an Islamic invention in the 20th century. Where’s the champaign?!
Clock technology: 16 inventions, including one in the 16th century and all the rest before the 12 century ended.
Industrial Milling: 14 inventions, all before the end of the 10th century.
Mechanical Technology: 18 inventions, and only one after the 12 century (it was in the 16 century).
Other Mechanical Devices: about 40, all invented centuries ago.
Medicine: 26 inventions, all centuries ago.
Military: 13 inventions, the last in the 16 century.
Navigation: 10 inventions (including such greats like “Mecca-centered map), the last one in the 17th century.
There are about a dozen other inventions listed, all of which are centuries ago.
That was enough to get Europe out of the dark ages. Where’s your gratitude, boy. The real question is: How many of those are still in use (on some level) – and to what extent have they been improved upon? In many respects, the inventions of the 19th and 20th centuries were only incremental improvements on ancient creations.
You wouldn’t want to list those Navigation or Military or Medicine inventions would you? Without listing some of the specific inventions, this is beginning to look a great deal like some of your other sloppy work.
For the record, it’s worth noting that while Islam is often linked with Arabs, they’ve rarely been the majority of “ethnic” adherents.
I provided links. If you want to read what those inventions are, click on the link. Why would I want to copy and paste the whole Wikipedia page here when a link will do?
It’s not true that their inventions got us out of the Dark Age. But even if that were true, it wouldn’t have any impact on my main point: today’s Muslims produce nothing.
If a Muslim created something 1,000 years ago that we still use, then he was a great man. But that doesn’t mean that a man born 40 generations later deserves any credit for it.
Also, remember my original post: today, any news about Muslims is bound to be bad. Things that happened 1,000 years ago are not “news”. News is what happens today.
If Muslims suddenly disappeared in the 17th century, our lives today would be no different, except we’d be able to board airplanes faster.
If Christians (or Jews) disappeared in the 17th century, our lives would’ve been radically different. Without Christian (and Jewish) inventions, our lives would’ve been centuries behind what they are today.
So what happened 500 years ago?
How can you invent anything, when you got the call to prayers interupting you?
“So what happened 500 years ago?”
The inventions stopped. We could discuss why… but the fact is that Muslims peaked in the 7-8 century and have been going down ever since.
You’re delusional. How do you think Europeans stopped all of their wonderful medicinal practices like leeching and trepanation? Don’t you know anything about the Moorish cities in Spain that were advanced centers of learning while Paris and London were basically disease infested slums?
I guess it’s a good thing that you were subjected to that “white” self-esteem curriculum in school. Otherwise, you’d be feeling just awful. You’re probably off not knowing the truth.
There’s nothing like getting lectured by a low-IQ affirmative action hire who graduated from a ghetto school where showing up in class got you a guaranteed 4.0 GPA, and who then went to college with an 800 SAT score and finally wound up working as an affirmative action hire for the government or as a “diversity specialist” for a corporation trying to buy-off Jesse Jackson.
Yes, I am aware of the contributions of Muslims 1000 years ago. I mentioned them many times. But compare how much the West contributed to how much Islam contributed.
In the last 10 years, there were more medical, scientific, etc contributions by the West than in all of history by Islam.
Do you realize that in an average decade, there are more books published in either English or Spanish than in Arabic in all of history?
But that’s not even the point. Your low IQ is beginning to show.
Read my original post: when we hear something about Muslims in the news, it’s always negative.
News. You know what that means? It means the stuff that happened today.
Why are you changing the topic of conversation to what happened at some point in history?
Let’s reverse things for a second: what if someone discussed the German invasion of Poland, and another person responded, “It’s not true that Germany invaded Poland because I just heard on TV today that Germans are now nice to Poles.”
Would that be a relevant? No.
Why? Because the fact that Germans are nice to Poles today does not have anything to do with 1939, and certainly does not disprove that Germany invaded Poland.
So the same thing here: The fact that Muslims may have contributed something 1,000 years ago, does not disprove that today we only hear negative things about Muslims.
But Guy, how about we move that thesis along a little. OK, when we hear about Muslims in the media it is most often within a negative context. Are you a believer that the media is operating in an objective fashion? Certainly since the attacks of 911 there has been a huge focus on radical Islam. But this, in and of itself, does not really prove anything with regard to the merits of the religion Islam. I would certainly concede that the fundementalist mullahs would continue to move Muslims backward in time.
Again, what is the point? I live in a building where the majority of the residents are Muslim. They mind their business, we mind ours. They are, best I can tell, moderate folks. What is your belief about their worth, generally speaking?
No, I do not believe the media is being objective.
- Much of it refuses to say that those who blow up school buses are terrorists, preferring the mild word “combat”.
- Even worse for them is the term “Islamic terrorist”.
I believe the media excuses Muslim behavior too much.
If the media is unfairly negative about Islam, please tell me what’s newsworthy that they’ve missed? Did Muslims invent a new airplane? A hybrid car?
Your “nice” neighbors are not exactly newsworthy.
But how do you know they are “moderate”? I’m sure most aren’t going to blow up themselves. But moderate? Do you consider a Christian who believes that “abortionist doctors” deserve to die but doesn’t kill himself to be “moderate”? Or do you think he’s an extremist who’s encouraging others to do his bidding?
So if a Muslim believes that Hezbollah was right to blow up our Marines in Lebanon, does that make him a moderate or just someone who believes in the cause but doesn’t have the guts to sacrifice himself?
I am not suggesting that you go around accusing regular people of being terror-supporters. Maybe many of them truly are moderate. I’ve met many Muslims who opposed suicide bombings against anyone, anywhere. But if they believe Hezbollah, Hamas or the Kosovo Liberation Army are legitimate political organizations, they are far from moderate. They are extremists who just won’t act on their beliefs.
I really like guywhite and his website, but these discussions about Islam are starting to irritate me, because things that are obvious to most true scholars aren’t being said here.
First of all, most of the inventions that Muslims came up with during their “Golden Age” are complete myths. Notice how these history books like to claim that Europe learned all of its science from arabs, yet when they start talking about what Europeans were doing during the Renaissance they are always refering to names of specific Greeks that the Europeans were expanding on as opposed to arab names. To me, this means that the arabs didn’t really do much with the science that they learned from the Greeks; instead they simply transmitted it along (BACK TO EUROPE) while adding some knowledge from other Indo-European groups such as the Persians and Hindus. When we have race realists who aren’t even recognizing this, I guess I am a little disturbed.
Second of all, Wikipedia is a horrible source to use. Use a real Encyclopedia. I have actually done a great deal of research on this topic by using different Encyclopedia sources. The more credible ones, such as Britannica attribute well over 75% of human achievements in math and science to Europeans just as Charles Murray does in “Human Accomplishment”. Wikipedia is quite unique in that its writers are constantly going out of their way to falsely expand on the achievements of nonwhites. I hope that after guywhite goes and looks at Wikipedia’s article on the history of science, he doesn’t actually believe that Indians, the Chinese and arabs actually did everything that they are given credit for there. Wikipedia is written by a bunch of online volunteers; please don’t reference it again.
Guywhite actually lost credibility for his own argument by using that article. Eight inventions in analog computers????? And all before the 15th century???? Why did guywhite even take this seriously??????
Also, guywhite continues to make the mistake of adding emphasis on the last two centuries when trying to prove how whites are more intelligent than arabs. If whites are more intelligent, then that must mean that they were always more intelligent ( if this isn’t just a cultural thing). Therefore, these long lists that guywhite keeps creating of arab/muslim inventions from way back when are only hurting his whole argument. Why doesn’t he examine the topic more closely and talk about all the things arabs learned from Greeks and Persians while not producing much themselves?????
I like this website, but I am really getting irritated by these discussions inparticular.
I never meant that Islam had any kind of a dominant impact on the West.
I did say that Muslim’s impact on the world in general was quite limited: in its glory day, Islam produced a few inventions per century, most of them marginal. But at least there was something. A few marginal inventions is better than nothing.
Most of these inventions were by Persians, Turks, Kurds and other non-Arabs.
But with every passing century, there were fewer and fewer inventions until they disappeared in the 17th century.
Looking at the list of inventions, it’s clear that Islam is behind the West, no matter what period we are talking about. Every major invention – the printing press, the concept of gravity, airplanes, cars, computers, nuclear bombs, etc – was invented in the West.
It’s clear that the West is ahead of Islam. There’s no doubt about that.
But it’s also clear that Islam has kept Muslims back in the 7th century when their most perfect human (Muhammad) died. The farther we got from the 7th century, the fewer inventions followed.
I don’t think we should be afraid to give them credit where it’s due. If they did contribute something a thousand years ago, we should acknowledge it so long as it’s true. And there were some inventions, just not as much as in Europe.
But when you list Islamic inventions next to Western inventions, it’s clear who wins. It’s also clear that while the West sped up in recent centuries, Islam has shut down shop and become completely useless.
[...] Guy links to, and distills, a list of notable Muslim inventions throughout history. What is telling, I think, is that most of the entries on the list all date back several hundred years: Astrolabes: 9 inventions. The last one in the 12th century. Not 21, but 12!!! [...]
Islam has always been a lot like what China is now — they are good at copying what more innovative minds are doing. When left to fend for themselves, without outside contribution, they live in caves and just blow eachother up — which they wouldn’t be able to do if someone else hadn’t invented Semtex!
Mohammed was the smartest Muslim ever — he managed to create an entire society built on ignorance and the sword. That takes one hell of a forked tongue.
What I find interesting … that old dry-out, Johnny Maudlin who is at least in mid life or beyond is pontificating his stupidity from a building full of Muslims in Burnaby.
How did it come to this Johnny? How is it that you are living like a recent immigrant in this country yet, you are so smart and know so much about, well, maybe, mmm, actually you don’t know much about anything.
You may have read through a lot of information, and copied it onto your idiotic website, but what’s left of your brains cannot decipher that information into logical terms. You are nothing but a Leftists Parrot drone and an annoyance to thinking people.
And … You should stop sucking up to your Muslim neighbors, they will hate you no matter how nice you are to them. You are infidel.
Being an apartment dweller in what sounds like a piece of the middle east, at your age, explains a lot about you. What kind of life can that be?
That Wiki article was quite the read….left me with a tear in my eye from the laughter. As an engineer I noticed 4 fabrications that I could confirm and there are some others that a re historically and archeologically refutable.
This Islamism propaganda has taken on the comical naivity of the fumbling nationalistic low brow propaganda of the Soviets during the cold war era where “mother Russia and her glorious hero workers” laid claim to inventing everything from ice cream to the automobile.
Gotta love that “WikiProject Islam” they must’ve understudied with Pravda’s cold war news editors.
Re: It’s sure been a long time since anything good has come out of the Islamic world.
It might be worth considering why all the inventions happened so long ago. Here Belloc provides us with the answer. When Islam took over the middle east, the vibrant Christian intellectual life and institutions of learning and discovery didn’t die overnight. It took many years of corruption to decay those institutions, and for a while, they continued to function as before: as vehicles of innovation.
The relentless decay into Islamic creative and cultural sclerosis eventually sucked the life out of that too.
What happened to stop the investions? The Christians and Jews got tire of dhimmification and moved out.
Wow, some of the comments here are pathetic and exactly what is motivating more hate in the world.
islam is the best religion unlike the bible that changes every day. Islam invented alot great stuff if you admit it or not the media plays your mind making you think that we are terriost One of the terms used by the Qur’an during the early Makkan period to describe Islam was ‘The Easy Way’. This is simply because Islam was, and is the natural way of life. Indeed, whatever is natural for human beings should be easy for them in every way, hence cause them to gravitate towards it easily, and consequently bring harmony, peace and tranquility to their lives. Since the Quran is the book upon which the Islamic way of life is built, then the Quran has to be easy to understand and follow-it is ‘The Easy Way’.
Not all of Islam is bad. Just like we highlight bad things in Islam to educate the public, there are also good things in Quran and hadith. This page will summarize good teachings of Islam. If all Islam contained was bad teachings, no one would have followed it[citation needed]. Muhammed included some good things in Islam to create and maintain a following from Muslims
Ikran,
Do the words “blah, blah, blah” mean anything to you?
You’ve stated a bunch of conclusions, but no reasons, no list of Islamic inventions, nothing useful to backup your claims.
Do not confuse Arab islam with persian
8 out of 10 books on sience is written 8in arabic) by persian
many many were apostates and were jailed !! not killed because they were usefull to islam
Ali sina, Razi , khayyam …. were apostates persian
islam produced Tafsir interpretation of quran
although quran itself asserts is revealed in Arabi Mobeen
clear arabic no one ( only 20% of muslims are arabs) could understand
so read the quran and believe that islam is a cult of hate and kill non muslims
even if this non muslim is the person discovered what saved millions of human beings or a jew who received Nobel Prize (they are 178 persons) a nobel prize is Arafat