Sometimes, one comes across an article in the mainstream media that’s so completely wrong, so absolutely misleading, that it’s difficult to determine where to start critiquing it. Such is the case with the AP’s latest press release in its self-appointed role as the official PR agency for the Muslim world. The article, titled “1001 Inventions: Science in Muslim Lands,” is a glowing homage to Muslim “advances in engineering, medicine and architecture” that “laid (the) groundwork for Western progress from the Renaissance until modern times.”
Did you get that? The progress of the Western world, from the Renaissance to modern times, is due to the genius of Muslims.
The AP article covers a traveling exhibit which seeks to promote that very notion. The exhibit is aimed at Muslims who “thirst for cultural pride,” and non-Muslims who are, well, just damned ignorant (as evidenced by this introductory video from the exhibit, in which British actor Ben Kingsley schools a bunch of bigoted, ignorant British children).
According to Kingsley’s patronizing spiel, Muslims were responsible for the still-picture camera, the motion-picture camera, the airplane, space travel, satellite navigation, modern surgery, watches, compasses, trains, cars, and the entire industrial revolution.
Out of respect for Al Gore, Muslims were not credited with having invented the Internet.
But all joking aside, let’s examine what’s wrong with the article. Yes, there was indeed a Muslim “Golden Age,” around the tenth century. The intellectual and artistic heart of that era was Cordoba, the capital of Muslim-occupied Spain. As I wrote in an article last week, for a period during the tenth century the Muslim occupiers of Cordoba ruled with tolerance toward the conquered Christians and Jews…until those Muslim rulers were replaced in the eleventh century by barbarous Muslim tribes that plunged the region into an era of persecution and terror.
If the name “Cordoba” rings a bell, it might be because the organization behind the “Ground Zero Mosque” is called the “Cordoba Initiative” (and the mosque itself was called “Cordoba House”). The mosque’s Imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, has publicly stated that he chose the name “Cordoba” to celebrate the “tolerant” period of the Islamic occupation of Spain during which Muslims, Christians, and Jews worked side-by-side in peace (albeit under Muslim rule).
In the AP article, most of the “Muslim geniuses” whose works are cited hailed from Cordoba during its “tolerant” years: “The exhibit has interactive features designed to attract children, and details research in optics, music and algebra from Muslim civilizations that once encompassed parts of Europe.”
Note that it says “encompassed,” not “occupied.” This is disingenuous journalism at its worst.
So we see a pattern here. The “Ground Zero Mosque” Imam invokes Cordoba to curry favor with the West, and now the “1001 Inventions” exhibit invokes Cordoba as the hub of the Muslim “Golden Age” of invention. But, in fact, we’re also seeing a contradiction. Imam Rauf invokes Cordoba in order to create an image of the three Abrahamic faiths working together – a collaborative civilization that resulted in a “Golden Age.” Yet the “1001 Inventions” exhibit attempts to present the fruits of that era as strictly Muslim accomplishments.
Here are a few historical facts: When the Muslims conquered Spain, they didn’t per se colonize it by importing their own women and families. They mated with native Spaniards. They forced Christians and Jews to convert (or, during the “tolerant occupation” phase, they made it necessary to convert for anyone who desired to rise in his or her social standing).
Hence, by the tenth century, many of Cordoba’s “Muslims” were in fact Christians (and, to a lesser extent, Jews) who had converted, yet who, in many cases, were still secretly practicing their original faith.
Thus, to label Cordoban “Golden Age” innovations as solely “Muslim” is misleading.
Moreover, Cordoba’s enlightened period ended because the Muslim rulers of Spain disapproved of the “laid back” attitude of the Cordoban Muslims. So they imported savage, violent, and primitive Berber tribes to assume power. In other words, the Muslim “Golden Age” was ended by the Muslim “Dark Age.”
But you wouldn’t know that from reading the AP article, which squarely blames the end of the Muslim “Enlightenment” on (what else) the West:
Ehsan Masoud, author of “Science and Islam: A History” and editor of a research policy newsletter in Britain, said scientific innovation in Muslim lands began to decline as Islamic empires grew weak and poor, and Western colonial powers expanded. “It’s fair to say that history is written by the victors,” Masoud said. “Quite understandably, Western nations are hardly going to start crediting the people they’ve defeated.”
But back in reality-land, the AP misses three inconvenient truths:
1. (As already pointed out) The “Golden Age” of Islamic Spain was ended by backwards Muslim tribes, not by Westerners;
2. By the time the West began colonizing certain Muslim nations, that “Golden Age” was long over;
3. Some of the most pivotal Muslim nations, Saudi Arabia in particular, were never colonized or occupied by the West. These countries have promoted ignorance, oppression, and ‘Dark Ages” thinking all on their own.
And in the end, that’s the AP article’s greatest sin. By blaming the end of the Muslim “Enlightenment” on the West, rather than on the Muslim world’s self-induced free-fall into fanaticism, tyranny, and superstition, the AP manages to deftly avoid the key issue in any study of the era during which innovation did indeed emanate from Muslim society: The moment that Muslim nations began preventing women (over 50% of the population) from getting an education and joining the workforce, the moment that Muslim nations began oppressing or expelling people of other faiths, and the moment that Muslim nations began persecuting their own people for “thought crimes” against the teachings of the Koran, the idea that the Muslim world could be a source of enlightenment and inventiveness became the stuff of ancient history.