<!--QuoteBegin-HareKrishna+Oct 11 2009, 06:42 PM-->QUOTE(HareKrishna @ Oct 11 2009, 06:42 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Mohamed is quoted to say:you should search science as far as China'and'the scientists are the best in front of God'or something like this[right][snapback]101887[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->There are online Korans I think, possibly even translations. Any link to the verse? I don't remember reading that (then again, IIRC I quit midway through reading the koran; it's only the babble that I read in full)
<b>ADDED:</b> Is the blue bit in the following related?
www.hraicjk.org/muslim_spain_and_islamic_science.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Muslim Spain and Islamic Science
(From "A Golden Era?" Chapter7, "The Wrath of Allah" plus new material)</b>
[...]
Islam and Knowledge
Muslim modernists have tried to argue that one verse out of eight in the Qur'an states that man must search for knowledge. However the Arabic word used is "ilm" which refers to "religious knowledge" rather than knowledge of the real world. Even today, a number of Western scientists compartmentalize the two types of knowledge - one compartment for rational knowledge from Monday to Friday and one for the supernatural on Sunday. Thus, Averroes (Ibn Rushd, 1126-1198) argued that "cultivation of science should be totally independent of the Muslim creed."'0
In the fourteenth century Islamic fundamentalists finally succeeded against secular knowledge. "But then the dark night of ignorance, ... the flood of misdirected scholarship [theology], enveloped the glimmer (of truth)." ~ Since that time science and technology have retrogressed in the Islamic world. Examples abound: for example, Ibn Rushd was tolerated in Muslim Spain by Kaliph Abu Yaqub but when the latter died in 1184, the new Kaliph, Abu Yusuf prohibited the study of science and logic. Ibn Rushd's "Commentaries on Aristotle" wherein he opposed "revealed" and unverifiable truths and supported rational truths proved by science were condemned by both Islam and the Christian Church. Ibn Rushd and other students of philosophy were exiled from Cordova and most of his books were burnt.
Omar Khayyam was a Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer. His works were considered skeptical, irreverent and sacrilegious by the ulama and had to be passed around covertly.
Another great Muslim thinker was Ibn Sina (Avicenna, 980-1037). He had a profound knowledge of many subjects, he had memorized the Qur'an at the age of ten and was a doctor at seventeen. His great work on medicine, "Al-Qanum" remained the textbook for many centuries. But he was an independent spirit: if he thought a glass of wine would prove to be a pick-me-up he would have one regardless of what was written in the Qur'an. On several occasions he had his books banned and had to flee persecution. A contemporary Islamic fundamentalist, Imam Al-Ghazzali 12 called him an infidel and even today fundamentalists attack him. Witness this quote from the Saudi- financed "Islamic World Review
"The story of famous Muslim scientists of the Middle Ages such as Al Kindi, AI-Farabi, Ibn-al-Haytham and Ibn Sina shows that, aside from being Muslims, there seems to have been nothing Islamic about them or their achievements. On the contrary, their lives were distinctly unIslamic. Their achievements in medicine, chemistry, physics, mathematics and philosophy were a natural and logical extension of Greek thought." 13
Al-Kindi was a rationalist who had his library confiscated and, at the age of sixty, was subjected to fifty lashes.
Al-Farabi "depended on pure reason, not Shariah, for discriminating between good and bad." 14By order of the Emir he was hit on the head with his book a number of times and consequently he lost his sight.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>ADDED:</b> Is the blue bit in the following related?
www.hraicjk.org/muslim_spain_and_islamic_science.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Muslim Spain and Islamic Science
(From "A Golden Era?" Chapter7, "The Wrath of Allah" plus new material)</b>
[...]
Islam and Knowledge
Muslim modernists have tried to argue that one verse out of eight in the Qur'an states that man must search for knowledge. However the Arabic word used is "ilm" which refers to "religious knowledge" rather than knowledge of the real world. Even today, a number of Western scientists compartmentalize the two types of knowledge - one compartment for rational knowledge from Monday to Friday and one for the supernatural on Sunday. Thus, Averroes (Ibn Rushd, 1126-1198) argued that "cultivation of science should be totally independent of the Muslim creed."'0
In the fourteenth century Islamic fundamentalists finally succeeded against secular knowledge. "But then the dark night of ignorance, ... the flood of misdirected scholarship [theology], enveloped the glimmer (of truth)." ~ Since that time science and technology have retrogressed in the Islamic world. Examples abound: for example, Ibn Rushd was tolerated in Muslim Spain by Kaliph Abu Yaqub but when the latter died in 1184, the new Kaliph, Abu Yusuf prohibited the study of science and logic. Ibn Rushd's "Commentaries on Aristotle" wherein he opposed "revealed" and unverifiable truths and supported rational truths proved by science were condemned by both Islam and the Christian Church. Ibn Rushd and other students of philosophy were exiled from Cordova and most of his books were burnt.
Omar Khayyam was a Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer. His works were considered skeptical, irreverent and sacrilegious by the ulama and had to be passed around covertly.
Another great Muslim thinker was Ibn Sina (Avicenna, 980-1037). He had a profound knowledge of many subjects, he had memorized the Qur'an at the age of ten and was a doctor at seventeen. His great work on medicine, "Al-Qanum" remained the textbook for many centuries. But he was an independent spirit: if he thought a glass of wine would prove to be a pick-me-up he would have one regardless of what was written in the Qur'an. On several occasions he had his books banned and had to flee persecution. A contemporary Islamic fundamentalist, Imam Al-Ghazzali 12 called him an infidel and even today fundamentalists attack him. Witness this quote from the Saudi- financed "Islamic World Review
"The story of famous Muslim scientists of the Middle Ages such as Al Kindi, AI-Farabi, Ibn-al-Haytham and Ibn Sina shows that, aside from being Muslims, there seems to have been nothing Islamic about them or their achievements. On the contrary, their lives were distinctly unIslamic. Their achievements in medicine, chemistry, physics, mathematics and philosophy were a natural and logical extension of Greek thought." 13
Al-Kindi was a rationalist who had his library confiscated and, at the age of sixty, was subjected to fifty lashes.
Al-Farabi "depended on pure reason, not Shariah, for discriminating between good and bad." 14By order of the Emir he was hit on the head with his book a number of times and consequently he lost his sight.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->