For Harraq poor Muslim education and the transmission of the Greek learning!

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Nov 25, 2006 at 08:39

My dear Harrak, I will disregard your ranting but I will not disregard the following:

They (Christians) envy Muslims for they (Muslims) had transmitted and did footnotes for the Greek Philo and Mytho to them."

This very sentence betrays your poor Muslim education.

Philo was a Jew who lived in Alexandria and wrote in Greek, but Muslims had no interest in what Philo wrote not back then and not now, and do you knopw why? Because Philo's writings were a blend of Judaism and Platonism and you would agree with me that muslims had no intrest in either subject. It was the jews that preserved and transmitted the work of Philo. Your claim so far is bogus.

And while we are at it the Muslims were not interested in translating Greek Drama or Myth and as a matter of fact the first translation of Homer's work (Iliad and the Odyssey) to Arabic was done by a Copt in Egypt in the early 20th century! The Muslims were only interested in the Greek works in medicine, science and math and that is it.

Now you need to read some history books and I will give you here the outlines of what really happened in the subject of the transmission of the Greek learning to Arabic:

Go down to your nearest "Barnes and Noble" or "Borders" book store and check for their collection of the Loeb classical library and pick up let us say: "Ptolemy Tetrabiblos" and check page xiv and I quote:

"translations of the Tetrabiblos have been more numerous than texts. the oldest of them is the Arabian version, by Ishaq ben Hunein made in the 9th century."

So we know for sure who really translated the Greek learning and it was not done by Muslims, it was done by the great Hunein who was a Nestorain and he was for sure not a Muslim (other great translators were the Bukhtisho family who were also Nestorians) We also know that Hunein translated the Greek work first to Syriac and then to Arabic.

And to add insult to injury Hunein changed the Arabic language beyond recognition. He had to _invent_ words (based on Sibawayhe's F3L) that did not already exist in the defective Arabic (eg: Tuhal, safra, balgham etc...) These words would have had no meaning to Abul Qasim aka Muhammad and his generation. So much for the Arabic language and the myth that it was fully fledged in 632 CE!!!

Hunein more likely than not is the one who introduced the short vowels (fatha, damma, kasra) to the defective Arabic script.

And you know who really sponsored all this? al-Khalifa al-Ma'moon who was more of an educated Persian than an Arab!! And we also know that such translations took place at Dar al-Hikma in Baghdad in the 9th century.

So what did the Arabs do in the meantime when the likes of Ishaq ben Hunein was translating the Greek learning? The Arabs did what they always did best and that was to invade, rape, enslave, destroy civilizations and collect the mafia tax known as the Jizya and claim that this is all done in the name of the God of the universe.

Your knowledge is defective as well as your logic and your claims are just as bogus.

And please spare me your bogus falsafa!

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