re: King defends controversial tweet: 'I meant exactly what I said'

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More along the lines of the accomplishments of other cultures being co opted by Arabs

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They are more co-opted by Arabs because people don't care to be precise. The Islamic Golden Age in science was mostly built on Persian scholars commenting on early Greek and Indian discoveries.

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Islamists who then claimed them as their accomplishments.

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I don't know what Islamists you are reading, but the Salafis want to return to a world that predates this era.

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I dispute this passage in particular. The Islamic Golden Age did not come to an end at 850 A.D.,

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I agree. I do dispute the Islamic Golden Age being the product of Islam.

After the pushing back of the warlike forces of Islam..what happened to their brilliance...their embrace of knowledge, their respect for new information. Where did it go? What are some of the Islamic contributions to the modern world?

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No way the Indians knew numbers. That's why when we taught them English they used general terms like "Many Buffalo" and "Many horse soldiers come."

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"Heap Big" is actually an algebraic term..so theres that.

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frick you HubbaBubba. Its clear you have no sense of humor.

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I agree. I do dispute the Islamic Golden Age being the product of Islam.

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I don't think it was a necessary function of Islam itself. Rather it is a function of time. As I stated earlier, Arabic was codified as a written script in 743. Many of these translations took place infancy of the Arabic language, as this was the essential reason these translations were commissioned. As Arabic became the lingua franca of the ME, it allowed other groups of people to trade in a singular language, which eased the pace of discovery and commentary. Some of the discoveries were a function of Islamic polity, which stressed a heavily decentralized structure up until contemporary times. Another was a function of wealth, as at this point the Islamic empires controlled valuable trade routes. As the wealth dissipated for various reasons, so did the Golden Age. But I'm simplyfiying a complicated process.

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After the pushing back of the warlike forces of Islam..what happened to their brilliance...their embrace of knowledge, their respect for new information. Where did it go? What are some of the Islamic contributions to the modern world?

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Well lots of things happened. I've written about it elsewhere if you want to look through my post history. Essentially the Crusades made clear to the Europeans that a land route to India and China would be difficult (massive oversimplification here) which spurred the Age of Exploration. The wealth from this exploration then ushered in the modern era of banking, upon which industrialization and real growth could be achieved. The structure of Islamic banking makes it difficult to achieve this sort of growth, and a study of Ottoman finances (I forget the exact book) points out that the structure of Islamic finance remained unchanged for centuries. It's only begun to modernize, but they still have to work around riba, which is the prohibition of usury in Islam. One of the best contributions of Muslim thinkers, such as Akhtar Khan and Muhammed Yunus, was microcredit, which enabled the lending of money without violating Islamic principles.

I'd argue that the Islamic psyche was damaged, maybe irreversibly by colonialism, as it destroyed the belief held by Muslims of their superiority. Bernard Lewis has an article in The American Scholar which points out that the history of antisemitism in the Islamic World is characterized by the belief in the superiority over Jews, which he contends was different from European antisemitism, which has now been exported at large to the Islamic world. I'd argue that their whole notion of superiority was destroyed. Orhan Pamuk, in his novel Snow, has this beautiful passage about this.

As far as the modern world, I don't know, although I think the Islamic revival is the most important movement of the 20th and 21st century. If you ever read Milestones by Qutb, you will see he concedes the superiority of European civilization in terms of science and creativity, even saying the Islamic world is 3 or 4 centuries behind, but what they have in bulk is spirit and self-belief, which I think is an aspect underrated by the West.

I could argue that the greatest contribution at this point has been through literature, as there has been some stellar work produced by MENA writers recently. But I don't think that would be convincing. I do think the Islamic world is very far behind, and I think they misused their oil wealth, which could have modernized their countries three or four times over.

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The mindset that has any ties to the Salafis sensibilities is exactly what I'm referring to. Also, the only context to modern times, is my questioning of what their contributions to modern life have been since The fall of their dominance.

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I don't think you will find contributions from the Islamic world to the modern world in terms of invention. The only place might be in literature, and that is a subjective argument.

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We're all that and a bag of chips

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you dont want to go down this road.

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you dont want to go down this road.

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What road is that?

Why do white people need saving? This is biology's way of making up for all the Indians, blacks and Asians the white men slaughtered in order to build America. This is sweet revenge. Shhh just take it white people. That's what you've said to multiple cultures and minorities as you destroyed their heritage. The shoes on the other foot now.

Thats just dumb.