How about getting to know the site before posting?

Well I for one have no trouble giving credit where it's due. The Muslim world did indeed make considerable advances in the sciences in its heyday and these are the heritage of all mankind. There's always negative stuff we can find in any group but I'd personally rather focus on the positive.

bloomsby -
A Legacy is something that has been left behind - It is not too hard to see what Islam has left behind, and what will be recorded in History books.
Humans are not born evil, it is a learned behaviour.
Human Rights ? Women's Rights? Respect for Human Life?
I will not name specific incidents in regards to those Topics, and how they relate to Islam, but I think most Posters and Readers on this site know of what I speak,
Thank you for your attention

This is not a general thread on Islam.

It would seem, from a distance, that a significant legacy of medieval Islam is it's amazing lack of popularity in the countries that it once ruled.Much is made of the violence and vileness of the Christian crusades, and rightly so. However, it might be as well to remember, that before and after these crusades Muslim conquerors were laying waste to European kingdoms and nations even further afield in the name of their God. It was not for trade nor to bring enlightenment that they conquered and slaughtered. There are many nations that for centuries laboured beneath the yolk of Islam and yet, when the chance came they got rid of Islam just as quickly as they could.Perhaps one should ask, why?India, The Philipines, Spain and Portugal, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Thailand and others. All these rid themselves of Islam after centuries of religious domination. Bearing in mind that the Islamic empires were empires based on religious principles, one needs to look for an underlying cause for the failure of Islam. This cause might well be the flawed concepts of the Quran itself for, whereas Christianity was not born by the force of war or the sword, Islam most certainly was. The Quran demands that Muslims kill non-Muslims, irrespective of age, gender and race. It states "do not take orders from non-Muslims",  and  "Muslims are not to be the friends of non-Muslims"  "deceive and plot against non-Muslims",  and "slay the infidels",  the list goes on.And yet, according to the Quran in Sura 10:95, Muhammed is advised by Allah to seek out Christians and be advised by and read the scriptures that came before.With such glaring errors, inaccuracies and contradictions in this book, it is hardly surprising, in my humble view, that Islam has failed so badly and continues to do so. 

When Spain was under Muslim rule there was complete freedom of religion, the only condition being that non-Moslems paid an additional tax. The Muslim heritage of Spain in the beautiful architecture found in such cities as Cordoba says much about their civilisation. Contrast this with the religious intolerance, and extremism of Spain under Christian rule, and the horrors of the Inquisition.

The state of being a non Muslim in a Muslim state was called Dhimmi. The tax was called the Jizyah tax. Here's a lovely little piece how one medieval scholar said it should be collected.

"Al-Zamakhshari, a Mu'tazili author of one of the standard commentaries on the Qur'an, said that "the Jizyah shall be taken from them with belittlement and humiliation. The dhimmi shall come in person, walking not riding. When he pays, he shall stand, while the tax collector sits. The collector shall seize him by the scruff of the neck, shake him, and say "Pay the Jizyah!" and when he pays it he shall be slapped on the nape of the neck."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizya#Application

Well, I'm going to take a middle road between Trojan and Picqero. First of all, medieval muslims most certainly WERE interested in commerce! It could really be argued that good old-fashioned economics was the catalyst behind the Ottoman incursion into Europe. They certainly weren't driven by evangelism. With the exception of very select groups, which I address below, Christians weren't heavily pressured to convert; in fact, the Porte's* preferred system of organization was through the indigenous churches, a paradigm known as the millet system. As such, the Christian millet essentially managed its own affairs - you did not have anything rivaling the pogroms against the Jews that you saw in Christian Europe. Accordingly, when the Catholic Habsburgs won the Belgrade Pashalik from the Ottomans in 1718 and proceeded with an aggressive campaign of evangelism among the Orthodox Serbs, they were met with widespread resistance. A common slogan was: "Better the Sultan's turban than the Pope's crown," and Belgrade eventually went back to the Porte in 1739.**

What you did see under the Ottomans was an extremely decentralized and ultimately corruptible system of slavery and tax farming. The Porte had a system called the devshirme, where the most promising Christian children were culled from the population and sent to Constantinople (or thereabouts) for conversion and training. From this elite group (not unlike the elites in Plato’s Republic, though I’m not sure if there’s a direct influence) were drawn the Janissary military corps and the civil servants who would become kadis, viziers, and so forth. The Christians themselves could practice their faith, but their political power was always subordinate to their Muslim overlords.

There wasn’t a great mandate for education or infrastructure from the Porte, nor was the civil service well-regulated; the Sultan was primarily interested in tax revenue, and his local governor could keep whatever excess he collected above and beyond Constantinople’s mandate. As a result, the system was generally wide open for corruption, and without the fractious movements for reform and development that you saw in the West (i.e., the numerous skirmishes between neighbors that necessitated infrastructure and technological development, as well as the revenue-producing guilds that led to greater development in the trades), the sprawling, increasingly sedentary Ottoman Empire failed to keep up with the rest of Europe. The rot began in earnest in the late seventeenth century with the failed siege of Vienna, and by the 1800s, the increasingly kleptocratic Ottoman Empire was the “sick man of Europe” and the question of what to be done with its former possessions in the Southeast was a troubling quandary in drawing rooms across Britain and France. The end result was a severely underdeveloped imperial East as opposed to a bustling West.

This is the legacy I think of when I ponder Medieval Islam, the legacy of underdevelopment and a stunted civil society in the Balkans, the Middle East, and perhaps even in Iberia - you'll notice that Spain and Portugal didn't exactly dominate their neighbors after the Reconquista, even given their tremendous overseas holdings; I don't know enough about Spanish history to really say anything interesting about this. Not an uncommon story, really – sprawling empires with little interest in development don’t tend to leave great states in their wake. I’m leaving out a lot here – including a decadent, insular sultanate usually headed by a man who had lived his life in a gilded cage to shield him from assassination. That, and I really don’t know much about Medieval Islam outside of Europe – though it is arguable that the term “medieval” assumes a European context, so that’s where I’m coming from.





*Porte = a common term for the Ottoman sultanate
**This was a result of military reverses in a war between a Habsburg-Russian alliance and the Ottomans. Suffice to say the uneasily aligned Christian powers didn't do too well in the hostile territory under their control.

Picquero #619

Indeed. But by the same token Muslims carried an 8th century torch throughout India, destroying Hindu and Bhuddist places of worship and their way of life. The beautiful Bhuddist city of Maharata (emperor) Asoka, a city of temples, monasteries, Stupas, bathing areas, workshops and splendid parks, was razed to the ground. As late as 1876 came an episode that would become known as the 'Bulgarian Horrors' where hundreds of thousand of Bulgarians were slaughtered by Muslims.There has been mention of Muslim advances in art and science, as witnessed in Spain. The credit for this must surely go to the knowledge they gained during their earlier Indian incursions and the Candragupta Maharaja/s of India who first brought the knowledge of, Philosophy, medicine, mathematics, Astronomy, Literature and Indian numerals, which Europeans mistakenly thought to be an Arab invention, and is erroneously still called the Arab alphabet. Indians introduced and taught Astronomical method and theory, 'Sindhind', to the Muslims/Arabs; taught them symbols and higher mathematics such as Algebra and the decimal system. Such gaps as remained were filled up with Greek knowledge and former achievement. If anything, the Muslims were transmitters of knowledge, nothing more. But my hypothesis is that, in the end, the failure of Islam amongst those nations that it had dominated for so long was due to the 'Book' itself. As people, particularly Europeans, became better educated, they were able to spot the inaccuracies and various absurdities contained therein and drew away and decided that another equally absurd book, but with some degree of humour and historical accuracy, was a better bet.
The year is 2008...yet still we are struggling with 'Medieval Islam'.

Daboosh #639"
"I don't understand the point of those words. Romans, etc, were laying waste to European countries, etc".
The point is, daboosh, the topic is 'Medieval Islam'.
"Singling out Muslim conquerors like Saladin and insinuating that their only motive was bloodshed, etc".
I made no mention of Saladin, a defender against invading Christian armies, at any time. Do please concentrate and not make assumptions that suit such limited (middle eastern) views of history.
That, I feel, is sufficient response to such a lengthy post.

This topic is not about who's bad and who's good. It's about the legacies of medieval Islam. Please stay on topic.

I'm trying! I'm trying!

BTW, if you're looking for good references, I suggest Peter Sugar, The Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, 1354-1804

Stu: #670

Quite right Stu. However, they do not call themselves Muslims, they call themselves Bosniaks and in general do not, and have not for some time, practiced Islam. They account for some 37% of the population and are, dare I say, somewhat Europeanized. A little like the Anglican church, perhaps, lip service to religion.

I thought that this was called a "Discussion Forum"
Seems to be more of a joke than anything else, as we are not allowed to "DISCUSS" the topic.

You are more than welcome to discuss the topic. As long as you stay on topic and this doesn't become a question of which religion is better than the rest.

By the way, I didn't claim that the article was an unbiased source of information on Islam. I just thought you mind find it useful and informative.

I've been following this thread with a great deal of interest, but Daboosh lost me when he wrote "roflmao". Forgive my Old Testament-based ingnorance - perhaps someone more enlightened could explain this abbreviation to me.

We are not actually permitted to use that sort of thing , chatspeak etc in the forums.Many people will not understand it, especially from other countries. Janetgool I am sending you a Private Message.