To Hisham Re: Golden Period

Submitted by Bader S (United Arab Emirates), Mar 11, 2006 at 17:04

Mr. Hisham wrote,"these scholars were freethinkers, mainly from advanced nations captured by the arabs , and were muslims in name only"

May I ask how you know that these men were muslims in name only? Do autobiographies exist that point to this fact? Are there documents that prove this point that you are making? I ask these question so that I can learn actual documented facts and not regenerated generalizations.

You say that Islam has nothing to do with this enlightenment, but weren't these scholars living in an Islamic state? Were they not being supported by an Islamic Caliph? Was not the Abbasid Caliphate a Muslim Caliphate? Was not the environment in which these scholars lived and worked an Islamic environment?

If one is to follow your reasoning one can argue that any technology created today by an Indian national in the Silicon valley cannot be accredited to the US. Even if the Indian is a naturalized American citizen, he may have adopted an identity but he will always be an Indian.

Okay, so the Abbasid Kings were "open minded" Muslims, and later on the kings that followed were close minded Muslims, but both were Muslims which means that it was not Islam that produced a closed minded or an open minded king. What produced this difference was in fact the interpretation of Islam.

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