Islamic Science Quotes
This quote is significant for several reasons. First, it illustrates the theological dimension of the Saudi Arabian kingdom where the Royal Family maintains its position by always accommodating and financing the Wahabi fundamentalist version of Islam. Second, it shows how difficult it is for modern science to be taught and understood in fundamentalist Islamic societies. Third, it illustrates a historically classic repressive logic: He who disagrees with the current religious orthodoxy is disagreeing with the espousers of that religion. And if the espousers are wrong, they are lying. Therefore the dissenter is accusing God and his prophets of being liars. That is blasphemy and an insult to all believers. Last, it illustrates the parallel between Islam and Christianity in development. The latter is 700 years older than Islam, and about that long ago, the Roman Catholic Church repressed Galileo for claiming that the Earth was not the center of the universe.
Ibn Firnas was an Islamic Moor who first invented the glider and flew. Eilmer’s—see {588974}–achievement came afterward and may have been influenced by Crusader stories brought back about Ibn Firnas’s achievement.
In the Dark and Middle Ages, it was the Muslim scientists who were the most advanced and they also preserved and improved upon Western science and other knowledge when Christianity was so intolerant that science was made virtually impossible to carry out. Then the Islamic world started closing and became more intolerant of new thought and the Christian West began loosening up. Serageldin does not feel humiliated at the current weak scientific status of Islam and urges reform to again have Islam involved in world class science. Islamic modernists like Serageldin are many among educated Muslims but their views are often drowned out by the violence and extremist statements of the fundamentalists.
The Iranian religious theocrat of Iran sees the issue as one where the United States is trying to keep nuclear technology from Iran and other Islamic countries. He seems to discount his own often uttered calls for “death to America” and the statements of intended war with the United States by the leading military officer of Iran. See {624408}.
