How the heck did they keep it cold?
Well, this was before Velikovsky’s comet came by, so Egypt was like Siberia. Or something.
Until recent times, people would gather ice on mountains, for instance, or IIRC would just keep ice gathered during winter as long as possible (they would keep it underground, where the temperature is quite low and stable). Then, they would sell the ice to whoever needed it. That would include people making sorbets.
jillgat - firstly, as pointed out, the “male-in-charge” stuff is pervasive in many religions, including Christianity.
Secondly, even if you do subscribe to that belief, it does not necessarily mean the woman cannot work, be educated, run a business, etc.
Even in Saudi there are many powerful and important businesswomen. Yes - there are many subjugated women too. But it’s both inaccurate and unfair to use Saudi as the yardstick for Islam. Saudi is extreme, it is an aberration.
Here in the UAE, the only thing holding women back is social and family culture. Not the government. The goverment actively wants women to be educated AND work. It is individual families (some, not all of them) that prevent women from working.
istara: And the situation you describe is different in each of the Emirates of the UAE.
JillGat, how about a response to the rather provocative statement I made that I’m surprised nobody has responded to?
The Saudi government is not what the people of Saudi Arabia would have chosen, therefore you cannot count what they do to their people as Muslim self-oppression. It’s plain old regular oppression, because an unpopular government needs to oppress its people to remain in power. And who supports/funds/backs this? The United States of America. Our military bases weren’t there for nothing.
If you want to say that it is in the nature of Muslims to oppress women because of their religion, then find me a group of Muslims who have chosen their own government that oppresses women. There goes the Taliban and Saudi Arabia, which are(were) the two most widely regarded as the worst offenders. I’ll still disaqree with you that the cause of the oppression is not religion (treatment of Arab women improved greatly in Arab culture when the Arabs with Islam), but at least your argument will make sense.
A number of responses have come to my mind re. the point about the Bible and Christianity, about governments vs cultures, etc., but as others have pointed out, that is not the point of this thread in GQ. So I will resist the temptation to keep the debate going about whether Muslims/followers of the Koran instigate worse treatment of women and commit more human rights violations than other religions/cultures do. I have a feeling it would never end, anyway.
I guess everybody will recognize these symbols: 1 2 3 4 5 … yes, this notation fo numbers was invented by the muslims.
Oh, and Pakistan! I wanted to talk about Pakistan (since Saudi Arabia isn’t an acceptable example, apparently). Someone pointed out that there is a woman leader in Pakistan as “proof” of how enlightened they are about gender issues there. Oh man… Pakistan with the honor killings and all the rest… Stop me before I post again! Please! C’mon, people, find more examples of modern contributions made by Muslims.
Those two things aren’t really related. Pakistan is ass-backward in any number of ways, but they still elected a female leader, which the United States has yet to do, and will probably not do for quite some time. The nation’s other failings don’t mean Pakistan, or Muslims in general, have made no contributions to the modern world.
I realize this, Marley. I am trying to help stop the highjack debate I started about women’s rights in the Middle East and get back to the topic at hand, Muslim contributions to the US and the world.
You must have missed the posts above where this was refuted.
Advice about using the Straight Dope Message Board: it’s considered advisable to read all the other posts first, before you add a post.
JillGat, everyone here will agree with you that there are serious problems with women’s rights in certain parts of the Muslim world. It was your sarcastic remark that women’s contributions to Islamic civilization are “illegal” that brought on a reaction, just because it’s demonstrably counterfactual and this is GQ, after all. GQ, to my understanding, is for “just the facts, ma’am.” Or, in Arabic, “al-waqâ’i‘ faqat, yâ sayyidah.” OK, you’re right, this hijack has outlived its purpose. We would welcome a thread of its own in GD.
Without the astronomers of Islam we would be without the beautiful names which they gave to the stars;
Algol, Aldebaran, Alnitak, Alniram, Arkab, Altair, Betelguese, Caph, Deneb, Denebola, Dubhe, Fomalhaut, Mizar, Rigel, Sadelmelik, Saiph, Zubenelgenubi…
The rest of the world was in a dark age while only the Muslim scientists, mathematicians and astronomers carried the torch of science and investigation on from the Greeks.
SF worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
I seem to recall an Islamic prohibition on lending money for profit. (Would someone please provide a cite on this?)
If this is indeed so, then there would be a strong case for the Muslim countries falling victim to the same issues that retarded Southern Europe’s industrial and scientific progress. England’s Protestant acceptance of capital investment enabled Lloyd’s of London and many other group venture houses to reap gigantic profits from the spice and tea trades. Catholic edicts against usury heavily restrained this sort of financial resource development.
Additionally, lack of religious objection to human vivisection (is there an Islamic ban on this as well?) accelerated Northern European medical advances in ways that more conservative Southern Europe would not see until the restraining yoke of Papal bans on these two practices was thrown off. In view of Islam’s prohibition on portrayal of human figures in art, it stands to reason that vivisection could also be taboo. Perhaps Tamerlane or another SDMB Muslim scholar could clarify on this topic.
I suspect that Theocratic rule in the Middle East tended to inhibit both venture capitalism and some avenues of scientific inquiry in ways that obstructed technological and industrial development. This may serve to explain the more recent dearth of scientific and technical contributions from the region.
Somewhat pedantic point, but I should point out that regretably the man on the street isn’t generally aware that both sets of numbers are of Indian origin. Some even bizarrely think the set the West adopted are our own invention and are sadly surprised when I tell them otherwise.
Re Zenster’s q: yes there was a generalize prohibition on lending for profit. While many mainstream people now accept that really should be interpreted as usury, a large body of Muslims don’t like interest.
I am unaware of any Islamic ban on vivesection, never read anything to that point. Perhaps something of a barrier was an aversion to pictorial portayals in written works. That broke down over time, but it might have been something of a barrier. In any case, Islamic medicine was for a very long time rather more advanced than anything in Europe, and rather more rational (although perhaps this is damning with faint praise considering the standards.
Let me once more correct the aprehension that the Muslim world was characterized by theocracy. Historically it was not. I posted a long excerpt from Lapidus on this in the pit, I refer you to that. Search Lapidus in the Pit.
In large part I see the stagnation of the Islamic world as deriving from twin issues of environment, bad luck in Euros finding a way to bleed their main economic routes, a certain arrogance and blindness towards the end of its ‘Golden Age’ as well as perhaps certain institutional issues.
The forms of Arabic numerals used in Europe originated in Maghribi script. In Morocco they’re still used wherever Maghribi script survives (unfortunately this beautiful old script is dying out except as decoration). I have seen handwritten books from Morocco using the same forms of Arabic numerals that Europeans use. That’s because they were used in Morocco before the Europeans ever heard of them.
Coll, the proverbial man in the street may imagine all sorts of bizarre errors—a majority of Americans polled thought that Saddam was involved in 9/11—but the educated Arabs are quite aware that their numerals are from al-Hind.
Quite right, and I have been driven into… one of my typical outbursts against ignorance replying to Moroccans who believe that the French imposed the numbers. Frankly that irritated me to no end.
Of note, and you may know this, Maghrebi style script is also used in West Africa.
Very true, I was merely interjected that pedantic aside for the average reader who might then speak to your avg. Mohammed and hear a contradictory story.
Naguib Mahfouz from Cairo won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1988. The Pakistan-born author Salman Rushdie has wavered in his faith, but is highly acclaimed. There is a long tradition of poetry in the Islamic nations. Even Walt Disney owes them a great debt: the stories of the Arabian Nights were collected and written down by Muslims, although some originated in India (source: the introduction to my Oxford World’s Classics Arabian Nights).
Other notable Muslims include many American sportsmen, such as Muhammad Ali. And Malcolm X and other black Muslims made a sizeable (if not always welcome) contribution to the American Civil Rights movement.
(On the other hand, it is true that science and learning declined in the Middle East following around 1500 AD, due partly to new trade routes from Europe round the Cape of Good Hope which bypassed the region, partly because of the stultifying rule of the Ottoman Empire, and later the absence of the natural resources - coal, water, iron ore - which brought about the Industrial Revolution in northern Europe.)
Zaha Hadid is a Baghdad-born architect (now based in London) who has won all sorts of awards. Her biographies don’t mention religion, though one would presume that at least she was born into a Muslim family.
Capt. Amazing:
A search of laureates (http://www.almaz.com/nobel/)
turned up Zewail ('99) who was Egyptian-born, but apparently did his work and education in the states. Granted, the cite does not list the religion of the winners, so I had to go with last names. To whom were you referring to?