On Jul 2, 4:11=A0am, "534@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
" <rtte4...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> The tiling in medieval Islamic architecture turns out to embody a
> mathematical insight that Westerners thought they had discovered only 30
> years ago.
>
> http://www.newsweek.com/id/36281
"534@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
" <rtte4353@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:g4eh3u$o09$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> The tiling in medieval Islamic architecture turns out to embody a
> mathematical insight that Westerners thought they had discovered only 30
> years ago.
>
> http://www.newsweek.com/id/36281
The following message was posted recently
by Robert Houghton in soc.religion.islam under the title
"The Persian contribution to Islamic culture".
I have claimed that the culture which the Muslims brought to medieval
Spain
(claimed to be the source of the enlightenment of Western Christendom
by
Muslim polemicists) was derived from the culture of the Roman
Christian
Empire and from that of Persia. The Arabs contributed only the Arabic
language (which they forced upon the conquered people) and the Koranic
religion to what is thought of as Islamic culture.
I have found a tribute by none other than Ibn Khaldun to the extent
and
power of the Persian contribution to Islamic culture. He incidentally
remarks upon the lack of an Arab contribution:
"Ibn Khaldun narrates in his Muqaddimah
It is a remarkable fact that, with few exceptions, most Muslim
scholars.in
the intellectual sciences have been non-Arabs, thus the founders of
grammar
were Sibawaih and after him, al-Farsi and Az-Zajjaj. All of them were
of
Persian descent they invented rules of (Arabic) grammar. Great jurists
were
Persians. Only the Persians engaged in the task of preserving
knowledge and
writing systematic scholarly works. Thus the truth of the statement of
the
prophet (Muhammad) becomes apparent, 'If learning were suspended in
the
highest parts of heaven the Persians would attain it".The intellectual
sciences were also the preserve of the Persians, left alone by the
Arabs,
who did not cultivate them.as was the case with all crafts.This
situation
continued in the cities as long as the Persians and Persian countries,
Iraq,
Khorasan and Transoxiana (modern Central Asia), retained their
sedentary
culture. "
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