Dubai Forums Dubai Discussions Dubai Politics Talk Philosophy and Religion Forums

Bethany should bone up on modern history more often. Historians of today no longer use the term dark age, in part, because it is simply historically inaccurate.

Also the reference to Justinian closing down the Athenian schools of philosophy - that's accurate too (and she cites this as an example only).

Did she mention that the school was closed down at times by the Romans when emperors were still Pagans? Too bad she didn't mention that Pagans were still employed by Justinian after the closure. The closing of the school only affected the people who taught and were students there. It was not a universal decree as she implies.

Pretty precise and accurate, and describes a specific time.

And what period would that be? Who was affected, etc, etc?

Aristotle and the majority of Greek works were already preserved and translated to Aramaic/Syriac by Christians before and after the Islamic conquests. And yes, there was of course annotations to Aristotle et al by Christian thinkers during the period and after. What is accurate to say, is that Muslims piggy-backed on the works of Christian translators.

At 20min she contrasts the Muslim embrace of all knowledge with 'Northern European' Christian suspicion of Greek pagan texts and says initially that these had 'all been but ignored for centuries' in Europe (i.e. not completely ignored, but almost completely). Again factual.

So you claim. The research I've read shows differently.

I've done a bit more reading on the guy who runs the forum - James Hannam. Given his views, its hardly surprising that the small community on his site also share his view about the Medieval period. However, it is strange that you quote a reviewer that praises the documentary for overturning misconceptions about Muslims/Islam in Spain, whilst Hannam's claim to (small) fame is that he's challenging historical views about Christian Europe.

As I said, Hughes was accurate and precise when she used the term Dark Ages in the documentary - not a lie, not a disputed fact. I suggest you re-read her exact words which I typed out.

It appears you enjoy to tilt at windmills and build strawmen and go around trouserless..

Hannam is also apparently challenging historical accounts (by Europeans) of the middle/later middle ages - from around the 11th century. There seems pretty much no challenge to the achievements of Islamic Spain, Baghdad etc in terms of all the achievements listed here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_co ... #Education


You make some weird claims in your post above, however Hughes IS a historian, has evidence and even showed us in the documentary the proof of her claims. The Aristotle translation with commentary by Averoes was shown to you - and the route of transfer from Greek texts in Alexandria to Fez to Spain is explicit and unassailable - your isolated examples of isolated monasteries carrying out translations into Latin just lead into intellectual cul-de-sacs, and only represent isolated works compared to the body of material in Arabic that was then translated into Latin.

But hey, it's always good to hear alternative views - some of my views are iconoclastic as well.

At least I agree with the reviewer you quoted that the treatment of the Islamic parts of the documentary overturn previous wrong stereotypes and, like the reviewer, recommend the documentary.

Cheers,
Shafique

As I said, Hughes was accurate and precise when she used the term Dark Ages in the documentary - not a lie, not a disputed fact. I suggest you re-read her exact words which I typed out.

I suggest you do more reading before you embarrass yourself any further.

You make some weird claims in your post above, however Hughes IS a historian

So is Hughe Kennedy when you embarrassed yourself and claimed that he was wrong to say that non-Muslims payed more in taxes than Muslims did.

But really, is that supposed to be some kind of rebuttal?

The only facts Hughes offered were a selected presentation of facts, as mentioned by the other posters I pasted here - the 'trope' about the conflict thesis, school in Athens being closed down, learning being non-existent, etc etc.

The latter could be shown that your historian was clearly misinformed.

But hey, you can show that I am badly mistaken on something I had said - beyond merely saying that what I wrote was unusual.

Oh, and btw, what period are you claiming the dark ages to have taken place? We can ignore that the term 'dark ages' is no longer used by historians today in part because of historians' previous beliefs are no longer regarded as accurate concerning the medieval period.

I'll give you more time to google.

event horizon wrote:

As I said, Hughes was accurate and precise when she used the term Dark Ages in the documentary - not a lie, not a disputed fact. I suggest you re-read her exact words which I typed out.

I suggest you do more reading before you embarrass yourself any further.

You didn't follow my advice and read/check what she actually said, did you?



Hey, let me be fair to you. Perhaps this time you are right.

Can you give me some exact quotes, or time references in the documentary, where Ms Hughes says something that is factually incorrect or even where what she says is misleading (which is a bit more subjective).

I've looked at the commentary between 18 and 22min and as I stated above, I couldn't find anything there that was not a historical fact.

Can't be fairer than that.

I just want to check that you're not going all psycho on her because she doesn't portray Mooslims as you imagine them to be. As the reviewer you quoted says, she is only overturning some wrong stereotypes - perhaps that is what is causing your bile to rise?

Anyway, give us some specific quotes/references and let's see whether your 'impressions' are based on what is actually said/shown and not based on some imagined slight to your view of orientalist mooslims.

cheers,
Shafique

While the subject is around the Moors chaps..Have you actually seen or had a virtual tour of the Alhambra palace and it's splendid work of fine art in geometrical and floural patterns engraved on marbles with the beauty of arabic/quranic texts embroidering.. Very sophisticated, absolutely fasinating and I don't know or think if there is anything as such anywhere around the world?..

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/2 ... efault.htm

Impressive virtual tour Berrin -thanks for the link.

The documentary shows how there's a lot of maths behind the proportions in the buildings, and makes the point that under Muslim rule the place was draped with silks etc - and would have been even more impressive.

Cheers,
Shafique