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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: Neocon who wrote (142328)8/2/2004 3:16:04 PM
From: Sun Tzu  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
The concept of "Arab World" is one of those silly constructs designed to make the people more manageable (kind of like "middle class" in the US). As Ibn Khaldun noted about 600 years ago, "It is strange that most of the learned among the Muslims who have excelled in the religious or intellectual sciences are non-Arabs with rare exceptions; and even those savants who claimed Arabian descent spoke a foreign language, grew up in foreign lands, and studied under foreign masters". In fact he went on to say that Arabs have not be in charge for a long time (of course the Arabs will be happy to claim credit for anyone who published a paper in Arabic <g>).

But if by "Arab world" you mean the Islamic kingdoms (roughtly from China to Greece), then I disagree that science did not "take" amongst them. They were by far better established and more educated and advance than the Europe. The problem was that without the printing press and better communication systems the cost of education was out of most people's reach. It is only in the last 200 years or so that the tide between East and West has shifted; for the rest of the history the advantage was theirs.

I suspect that the Internet, distance learning, and remote medical procedures will reduce the gap again by the end of the 21st century.
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