I see you interpret exaggeratedly biased some points of your interlocutor. I did not claim “Islam simply interested colonial powers”, I said “colonial powers were interested in any means, including Islam, to consolidate their plundering in the Muslim colonies.

According to historians, a great number of Iranian clergy was protégé of the British. Many royal houses in the Middle East cannot be uprooted from their colonial terrain.

This is a by the way a futile terrain for sowing democracy and progress in this region.

Why are you making this debate one about Arab vs. Persian roots/contributions? How is this at all relevant? We are talking about Muslim contributions, in general.

Ahmed ibn Yusuf Al Misri, Sinan ibn Thabit, Ibn Al Banna, Al Uqlidisi, Aqi Al Din, Muhammed Targai, Ibn Sina, Ahmed ibn Majid, Al-Razi, the list is endless. All of these people made endless and crucial contributions to philosophy, astronomy, math and science. Throughout history, the Indians, Arabs, Greeks, and Persians worked hand in hand to develop each other’s theories, unlike the racist bullshit we are met with today where people racially compete. Arabs studied in East India building upon their numerical systems, the Greeks and Arabs translated each other’s works, while Persians wrote in Arabic they were able to teach and also learn from their Arab brethren, fellow scholars. These contributions came hand in hand. No one should resort to racial superiority and claim all great achievements as their own, it is the source of much of the racism that we are trying so hard to get rid of today. This website is specifically here to make us all aware of the fact that we can only progress as a region if we work and network together, which is how all these past achievements were made possible.

These diverse populations taught each other, learned from each other, and stood together like one progressive and consistent civilization instead of hatefully claiming each other’s works and isolating themselves in superiority. Arabs refer to their numbering systems as “Indian Numbers” giving credit where due. All Arab students of math and history know the Indian contributions very well. And we’ve been taught in school about Persian and Greek achievements in terms of math, physics, and philosophy. We acknowledge and embrace these developments, instead of claiming it as “me, mine, ours.” When one race/group feels superior and insists that other groups (or members of a certain faith) are incapable of producing anything of intellect, that is the one mentality that stops us all, as humans, from progressing. It inspires and incites a lot of hatred and it furthers a gap that wasn’t there to begin with. It’s natural to compete, but never when you do it while undermining the worth of others.

At any rate, All religions are myth and fairytales.

That doesn’t make its followers people with no history, culture, reputation, intellect, and rights. This is a matter of personal opinion, nothing more. And it’s fine for you to think that, it’s not however fine for you to insist that Muslims didn’t and are incapable of contributing anything of worth to this world. It has hateful and racist implications that aren’t backed with historical facts, since history disagrees with you completely. Muslims – either Persian or Arabs – contributed more than you can ever dream of. Don’t judge Islam merely by what you see today, which mostly has to do with politics, not religion (i.e, most Muslims don’t live in the Middle East or Arab world.) In fact, there are millions in India, China, the USA, France, all of which are homes to growing economies, and all of them house some of the wealthiest Muslims. Like I said before, I don’t see anyone explaining the struggles of countries within Africa that are way more poorer and less politically stable yet have Christianity as their official religions. It wouldn’t make sense to blame their ills on Jesus or Christianity, and thus it wouldn’t make sense to blame any of our issues on our faith either. It’s simply irrelevant, and a lazy, inaccurate conclusion.

It is a sad day when hundreds if not thousands of amazing scholars are reduced to a mere footnote, simply because people feel that it is their duty to constantly discredit the religion they represent. I wish you would just learn to treat everybody as humans, the way we all deserve to be treated, instead of allowing your insipid bias to cloud your vision of any achievements, whether be it those done by Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, or Baha’is, we are all contributing to humanity in the end, to which you are a part of, and should thus understand and support.

This “golden” period in question largely coincides with the second dynasty of the Caliphate or Islamic Empire, that of the Abbasids, named after Muhammad’s uncle Abbas, who succeeded the Umayyads and ascended to the Caliphate in 750 AD. They moved the capital city to Baghdad, absorbed much of the Syrian and Persian culture as well as Persian methods of government, and ushered in the “golden age.” ( Engineering an Empire; 5 parts)

Many of the scholars, scientiest, writers that muslim think were Arab, were in fact, Persian and since they were forbidden to write in Persian, they had to publish their work in Arabic, however, many of them managed to save the language by writing in Persian as well calendestinly (Hafiz, Sa’di, Ferdowsi and so on). For example, the founder of algebra was Kharazmi who was a Persian but since history is written by victors (Read 350 years of Arab/islam Occuaption of Iran) , he is considered an Arab by many Arabs. I was shocked to find out when talking to Arab friends that many of the Prominent Persians who contributed so much to the civilization are considered Arabs. I recently heard that in some books they are mentioning Ahmad Shamloo as an Arab, which is unbelievable since he only died a few years ago in Iran and all of his poems are in Persian.

At any rate, All religions are myth and fairytales.

It’s is Islam which has hijacked the brain of all muslims; hence the socio-economic status.

I’ll have you know that some of the richest people in the world are Muslims, as well as some of this world’s richest achievements.

You don’t look at the poorest African nations and blame Christianity. Countries whose life expectancy is as low as 32, and whose main religion is Christianity, don’t have to suffer the inconvenience of people saying “Jesus made you broke!”

You don’t look at the poorest Christians within countries like India and Pakistan and blame Christianity. So why do it with Islam, it is merely a lack of knowledge on political history. Much of the responsibility lies in the leadership. It was during Islamic cultures that the Arab world was once the educational center, especially Iraq. Muslim scholars contributed a lot in developing many scientific and mathematical theories. It’s due to today’s context that their brilliance is forgotten and discredited. This phobia, also the source of hatred and harsh stereotypes, is nothing short of sickening. Blame the people themselves, and their own incompetence, which often doesn’t have anything to do with the faith. It makes no sense to blame the religion.

Islam takes away one’s ability to think and develop independent thoughts thus rendering individual decision making capacities for their fate irrelevant. Islam is an instruction manual on how to leave your brain at the hands of clergies and when you do that you’re relieved of exploring and making hard choices in your life.

It’s not an obvious fact at all, it’s rather a matter of opinion. Just because many generations mechanically spread such ideas doesn’t mean it would necessarily be true.

Islam simply did not interest colonial powers to the extent you’re implying. The British did not interfere in its practise (the way, say, Spaniards interfered in the religions of the New World), and went to unusual lengths to curtail Christian missionaries in their colonial holdings.

This idea is simply another attempt to paint Muslims as some kinds of victims of the west. It is a means of avoiding facing the fact that Muslims themselves are responsible for their own underdeveloped socio-economic status.

I have not invented the thisis about use or abuse of Islam by the colonial powers. This is an obvious fact, even so obvious that through generations is mechanically spread in the popular thoughts. Many names of Iranian clergy can be mentioned who had dubious relation with the colonial power of British Empire.Such names exist in other colonised countries too.

The colonial powers used any tool to consolidate their plundering policies, including Islam, and perhaps this is a traditional reason that they understimate the uncompromised Islam of today’s Islamists.

Once again, whichever side we originate from, we should not blame Muslims (because it worsen the situation), but condemn the political Islam for the sake of all sides.

I definitely agree with this statement. Blaming and attacking Muslims really does feed the violence and extremism. You should target the real, actual causes instead of inciting hatred by bitterly stereotyping Muslims everywhere.

The insidiousness you mentioned is gradually damaging the whole adaptive faculties of the Muslim world to get along with the social evolution of modernisation.

Once again, whichever side we originate from, we should not blame Muslims (because it worsen the situation), but condemn the political Islam for the sake of all sides.

I must take exception. I tend to think that your thesis, – that western powers used Islam on a conscious basis to subjugate Muslims – is rather absurd.

During the colonial period, western powers did not know enough about Islam to use it as a power source (and they still don’t). In fact, most evidence points to the fact that western colonialism was always marked with the greatest circumspect respect for Islam.

What westerners knew then, though, as they know today, is that Islam is simply deficient in preparing people for a modernism that advances exponentially.

The problem is not how westerners treated Muslim lands; the problem is wholly how Muslims reacted to the technologically superiority of the west.

Japan stands as a shining example of what choices underdeveloped societies had. Islam wasn’t necessarily the problem, but there is something in mideast Muslim societies today that certainly is: the lack of introspection.

That kind of introspection is very well alive in far eastern societies, as well as western societies. Why doesn’t it exist in the mideast?